Secrets of the Demon

I knew he was up to something.

I dug the instructions from Brad out of my bag, then fired up my computer. Finding the Internet history was shockingly easy, but unfortunately the results didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Six different searches in Google Earth for various locations in south Louisiana. One was in Leland Park. One was the Beaulac Police Department. Yet another was in Slidell in the middle of a subdivision.

I puzzled over the locations for several minutes, then sent it all to my printer. I knew that Rhyzkahl wanted more access to this sphere for a reason—not simply because he enjoyed my sparkling personality. As soon as things calmed down a bit, I needed to dig into the why a lot harder. And how did he know how to use a computer?

What if Rhyzkahl is behind this summoning thing, trying to make me feel threatened so that I’ll call him more often? A sour taste filled my mouth as I pondered that possibility. I wanted badly to believe that the demonic lord wouldn’t be that sneaky, but unfortunately I knew too well that the sense of honor that demons lived by was not one that prohibited devious shit like that.

I continued on down to my basement, oddly unsettled at the turn of my thoughts. Despite my knowledge of the deviousness of demons, I still had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that Rhyzkahl would try and manipulate me like that. As much as I tried not to, I was growing to really like the demonic lord. But I’ve been known to be colossally naive before.

I crouched by the storage diagram. Rhyzkahl knew perfectly well that I had the ability to summon him at any time of the month. Could he be counting on that? Give me a bit of a scare so that I’d call him to me, thus giving him more opportunity to do whatever it was he was up to?

I shook my head. Either way, I needed to have power at my disposal. Even though I couldn’t really measure the amount of potency the diagram contained, I could tell that it wasn’t quite enough for a summoning, and I had no driving urge to risk running out of juice in the middle of opening a portal. I liked my molecules in their current configuration, thank you very much.

For the next twenty minutes I gradually siphoned power into the diagram, only stopping when I began to feel shaky and nauseated. Still not enough to risk a summoning of a demonic lord, but it was getting there. After I ate something I might be able to do a bit more, but still I knew that I wouldn’t be doing any summonings tonight.

Tomorrow then. But even as I thought it I discarded it. No, I needed to try to call him to my dreams tonight. I could still ask him if he was involved in these attempted summonings, and even if I couldn’t be guaranteed a straight answer from him, I could at least let him know it was happening.

I returned upstairs, unsettled at my decision. Unfortunately there really wasn’t an easy answer. Calling him to my dreams was still risky because he had too much control over the setting and circumstance.

I dug something easy and microwaveable out of the freezer and set it to nuke as I pulled the envelope with Roger’s financial information out of my bag. I poured a glass of wine, then sat at the kitchen table as I painstakingly made my way through the account summaries. Seriously boring shit, but my time working in white collar crimes had me fairly used to it.

Roger clearly made a decent living as a trainer, though he wasn’t rich by any stretch. But he had modest savings and a fairly strong credit score.

Yeah, yeah. This wasn’t what I wanted to know. I flipped through until I found his investment portfolio. All one page of it. There was only one investment. Puzzled, I skimmed through the rest of the information in the envelope to be sure I hadn’t missed anything. But, no, there it was:

Fifteen thousand dollars worth of stock in Lake Pearl Bank.

What the hell? Why would Vic loan Roger money and then put it all into one investment? And had he done the same with the money he’d loaned Adam?

I relocated to my computer and stuck the CD with the info from Vic Kerry’s computer in. But I couldn’t find any reference to Roger or Adam or loans for fifteen thousand dollars. I did find information about vacation destinations and new cars, as well as a number of links to dating websites. Vic Kerry had definitely craved a better life for himself, and I was fairly sure he’d used Roger and Adam in his quest, but I couldn’t make the whole thing click together.

I could feel an answer tickling at the back of my head, but I couldn’t get it to behave and come out and play nice. Screw this. It was already late enough that I was going to be short on sleep. Too much had happened today for me to think straight.

I returned to the basement to pull a smidge more power into the diagram, then hauled my sorry, tired ass back up to my bedroom. Between the wine and the working with the arcane, I was asleep a heartbeat after my head hit the pillow, barely remembering as my eyes closed to dream of Rhyzkahl.

Chapter 27

I rested my hands on the stone of the battlement as I looked out over the deep canyon. A chill breeze teased my hair but I didn’t want to go back inside. Morning mist shrouded the bottom of the abyss and I knew it would be hours yet before the sun would clear the high ridge and burn it off. A waterfall tumbled down the cliffs, descending into the depths with a muted roar.

I know this place. I looked up, oddly certain that I would see winged demons cavorting in the morning air, but the sky was empty of anything but a few small birds.

I took a deep breath, the crisp air tasting of green and mountains and snow. I’m dreaming this, and ... I’m aware that I’m dreaming. That was a first.

Familiarity tickled at me. I’d been here before. Or rather, I’d dreamed this before, in sendings that Rhyzkahl had controlled. Is this part of the demon realm? I’d been to the demon realm once—albeit for only a couple of minutes—but even though my visit had been brief I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a different place. Maybe it was the light, or the air ...

Frowning, I turned, familiarity continuing to tug annoyingly at me. I was on one tower of a massive fortress or keep that looked as if it had been carved out of the mountain. A dozen feet behind me a brass door set in a low stone structure stood ajar a few inches. To my right and left the battlements curved around and out of sight behind the structure. Greg’s comic, I abruptly realized. It looked the same. Greg Cerise had been with my aunt when she’d first encountered Rhyzkahl—during the horrific slaughter of the summoners. He’d later gone on to create a rich and amazing graphic novel set in an amazing and fantastical setting. I’d read it from cover to cover, so surely this was simply my imagination creating an interesting dream-locale ...

No. It goes deeper than that. I knew this place. Beyond the brass door were wide stairs going down. At the base of the stairs was a hallway and if I turned right—

I startled and let out a squawk at a touch on my shoulder. Heart pounding, I spun to see Rhyzkahl holding a fur-lined cloak. He calmly draped it over my shoulders even as I tried to make sense of what was going on. I was wearing a dress, I abruptly realized. A floor-length gown with an empire waist, slit sleeves, and a deep neckline, in a dark purple fabric that felt a bit like silk but somehow more luxurious. I dress up in my dreams for Rhyzkahl, I thought with an illogical twist of guilt.

“This is a dream, right?” I said, pulling the cloak close around me.

“It is,” he replied. “You called to me.”

I gave an unsteady nod. “Right. It’s just ...” I looked around again. “You’ve brought me here before in dreams, but, I know this place. Why?”

He remained silent for several heartbeats, expression betraying nothing. “This place was a favorite of mine once,” he finally said. His face could have been carved from marble. “I prefer this locale to your bedroom.”

“But—”

“You called to me,” he repeated, cutting me off. “You have only done so once before, and thus I assume that this time your need is dire.”

I hugged the cloak closer around me. “Some strange things have been happening. I think that someone is trying to summon me.”

The rage that flashed through his eyes was unmistakable. So much for my theory that he was responsible.