Secrets of the Demon

Rhyzkahl tonight?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know. I couldn’t store any more potency last night, and it’s still a few days from the full moon.”

He grimaced. “All right. I don’t mean to be a nag about this, but I can’t think of anyone else who could give you the help and protection you need.”

I thought about the amount of power in my storage diagram and sighed. But maybe there was another option . I could try calling him to my dreams. A chill walked down my back at the memory of the last time I tried that, during the search for the Symbol Man. In a desperate move to glean information about one of the murders, I’d made a conscious effort to call the demonic lord to my dreams—a reasonable enough move considering that he’d visited my dreams before. Or so I’d foolishly assumed. But Rhyzkahl had not been pleased to be called forth in such a manner. For several nightmarish minutes he’d manipulated the dream state, teaching me in unforgettable fashion that he was a creature of more power than I could fathom, and that he did not serve me.

But this would be different, I told myself. This wouldn’t be calling him to get him to serve me. Besides, I was fucking bound to him now.

I nodded morosely. “Yeah. I know. I promise, I will as soon as I possibly can.”

Zack gave me a reassuring smile. “Hey, don’t get bummed out. We’ll get through this.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t sound very convincing.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said firmly. “I’m gonna go chase Ryan down. I’ll check in with you later on.”

I mumbled something in the way of acknowledgment and watched him drive off, then returned inside and paid our bill. The most sensible thing for me to do now would be to go on home, hunker down with the financial information, and forget that this lunch ever happened.

But I found myself driving to my aunt’s shop instead. It had been a quaint little natural food store before her coma, and I’d been forced to close it during her time at the neuro center. As soon as she recovered she reopened it, but bigger and better than before. It still had a section for the organics and natural food store stuff, but now there was also a small café and a yoga studio. And her business had never been better.

A subtle floral scent surrounded me as I walked in, paired with soft and soothing music that sounded faintly oriental. Tessa was behind the counter, barefoot, wearing purple leggings paired with a billowing white silk blouse, topped with yards of red beads draped around her neck. She looked up at the sound of the bell over the door and gave me a bright smile that managed to lift my spirits a few millimeters. Sketching a wave to her, I headed over to the cooler and snagged an iced tea, then found an unoccupied table in the corner. A few minutes later she plopped down into the chair across from me.

“You look wrung out, sweets,” she said, eyeing me with worry.

“I feel wrung out,” I admitted. “I’m working a big case that has me pretty baffled.”

“You work too hard,” she said, “but I know it’s important to you.”

I rubbed at my temples, still knotted up from the blowup with Ryan. “Yeah. My personal life is a fucking mess too. Or at least it feels that way.”

She made a tsking noise. “You’re simply unused to having a personal life.”

“Well, this is true,” I said with a tired smile. “Being a social isolate was easier in a lot of ways.”

“I’m serious, Kara. Think about it. Six months ago you were practically a hermit, without a single person you could call friend.”

I fought the urge to scowl. “I wasn’t quite that pathetic.”

She gave me a dubious look. “You didn’t have any friends, and you know it. Now stop being so defensive. I’m more responsible for that than you. But my point is that now you do have friends. And you don’t know how much you can rely on them without scaring them off.”

I wanted to protest, but unfortunately she’d managed to nail down a hefty portion of my current angst. “Yeah,” I said slowly. “I guess so.”

“So, enough psychoanalysis,” she said brightly, as if she’d solved all of my ills in a few sentences. “You’re investigating the murder of Vic Kerry?”

“Among others.” I lowered my voice even though there was no one else in the café. “Someone has created a construct, like a golem, and is using it to kill.”

Her expression darkened. “That’s ugly stuff. I wish I could help you, but all I know about golems is in the library, and I think you already absconded with the pertinent books.” She gave me a narrow-eyed look that made me grin.

“Vic and I went to high school together,” she added in another wrenching change of subject.

“I didn’t know you knew him,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “Oh, I wasn’t friends with him or anything. I didn’t even realize I’d gone to school with him until last year. He was doing the taxes for the store and we happened to get into a conversation about how old we were. Turned out we were in the same graduating class, and even had the same senior English teacher. But I don’t think we ever spoke a single word to each other. You know how that goes.”

I gave a neutral shrug. I didn’t like to think about my high school days.

“But, you know ... He and Mike Moran were really tight,” she said, with a slight frown.

“Huh? Mike Moran, the keyboardist for Lida’s band?”

“Oh, no. He’s actually a Michael Junior. Mike Moran was his father.”

I straightened. “And he and Vic were good friends?”

“Best friends. Vic even stood in Mike’s wedding, if I recall correctly. Mike and Audrey got married right out of high school. Everyone thought they were insane to rush into marriage like that, but then eight months later Mike Junior was born.” She snorted. “Stupid reason to get married, but they seemed to be doing all right. Then Audrey got pregnant again.”

“She died in childbirth with Lida, right?”

“Eclampsia,” Tessa said with a nod. “Damn near lost the baby too. Hard to believe that happens anymore, but it does.”

“Do you know how Mike Senior died?”

“Accident at the house, from what I understand. The roof collapsed in the garage. Mike was killed, and the kids were hurt—Michael quite seriously.”

“Was it an old house?” I asked.

“Nope. New construction,” she said. “He and the kids had only moved into it a few months earlier. Big two- story house with a huge yard. Mike and Ben had a debris removal business that was really taking off, thanks to a couple of big hurricanes and the need to clean up demolished houses. Those two grew up dirt poor, and Mike wanted to give the kids the kind of house he’d always dreamed of living in.” She gave a sad little smile. “The builder was blamed for the collapse, but no one could ever prove fault.”

The bell rang over the door as a couple entered the shop, and Tessa patted my hand. “Lemme scoot and take care of them.”

“That’s all right, I need to run anyway.” I stood and gave her a quick hug. “Thanks, Aunt Tessa.”

She gave me a return squeeze, then turned to greet the customers. I watched her for a moment, smiling. No matter what else was fucked up in my life, Tessa was still the same person she used to be in all the ways that mattered.

Chapter 26

The pinch of my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten much of my lunch, and so, before driving home, I veered through the drive-thru of the coffee shop and ordered a muffin and a hot chocolate. There was a small part of me that both hoped and dreaded that Ryan would be at my house, waiting for me, but my driveway was silent and empty.

I pushed aside the desire to dissolve into angsty moping and headed inside, locking the door behind me. I dropped my bag by my desk, but paused after I did so, gaze lingering on my computer. Rhyzkahl had been on there.