Touch of the Demon

With that he turned and ran for the door.

Chapter 7

“Wait! Idris!” I yelled. Had he considered that the tower wouldn’t be safe for him either? I ran after him, then let out a squawk of surprise as Safar grabbed me around the waist and leaped into the air. I yelped and clutched at his arms as we cleared the tower and gained altitude. “Shiiiiiit!”

“The tower is not safe until they seal the anomaly,” Safar said, with a rumble I felt in my bones. “It will not take long.”

“Will Idris be all right?” I tightened my grip on his arms as he climbed higher.

“He goes to the summoning chamber to support the syraza,” he replied, deep voice calm. “There is a small anomaly within the wall of the tower. They will seal it before anything untoward happens.”

A bright flash from above followed closely by a crack like thunder pulled my attention. But there isn’t a cloud in the sky. “Safar? What was that?”

“Another anomaly. Above.” He snorted and beat his wings harder, gaining altitude quickly. “And a syraza falls.”

I risked a peek down, biting down on a very un-brave whimper upon seeing how really fucking high up we were. I looked back up just in time to see Ilana streak by and up.

“Kara Gillian, turn around and hold tightly,” Safar said as he continued to climb. With his help, I complied, clinging to the trust that he wouldn’t let me slip out of his grasp. As soon as I was fully turned, I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, then hung on for dear life while my heart threatened to pound out of my chest.

Safar abruptly stalled in flight, then did a stomach-churning wingover and began to free fall. “Hold tightly,” he repeated. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. I was pretty darn solid on that point. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a syraza falling. Ilana and Safar paced him in the fall as they both eased closer.

Safar reached a hand out to the syraza, then jerked as he made contact. His hand dropped away, and a weird dizzying shock passed through me, as if he’d touched a live wire. I nearly lost my grip before recovering and clinging hard again. The reyza shuddered, then went limp, beginning to fall in a very different way.

My gut clenched. “Safar?” I called. I looked up to see him staring and dazed. “Oh, shit. SAFAR!” I gripped as hard as I could with my left arm and my legs, took my right knuckle and twisted it viciously into his sternum. I’d used sternal rubs to wake up drunks before, but it barely made the massive reyza twitch. I reached up and grabbed an ear, twisting hard. “Safar!” I screamed. “Fly, damn it!”

At the ear twist he shuddered and came back to himself, then thrashed to get his wings out to slow our descent and stop the tumbling. He bellowed in pain as his right wing wrenched back, though he managed to get us straightened out. I felt our descent slowing, but a quick glance told me it wasn’t going to be enough to keep us from crashing into the trees…and not just any trees. The splash of viridian and amethyst identified the grove. At this point the best we could hope for was a crash at slower speed, ending up merely mangled instead of a grease spot. I tucked my head into his neck and wondered if there was any chance I’d make it through the void a second time. Either way, this was going to really suck ass.

We plowed into the densely woven canopy with a shriek of snapping vines and breaking branches. I lost my grip on Safar almost immediately, crashing down through the upper branches, instinctively flailing to check my descent somehow. I remembered how tall these trees were. The ground was a long way down. Not that I had much time to think about that. A hundred smaller limbs and vines whipped past me, and a branch smacked me hard on my shoulder. Something caught at my right leg, and I screamed as the twisting snap shot through me. I felt a punch of pain in my left side, then came to a hard stop.

Silence descended, strange after the cacophony of the fall. It took me a few seconds to catch my breath, but when I did, stabbing pain accompanied each inhalation. I was wedged in a tangle of branches and vines, at least twenty feet above the ground. A few yards to my right I could see the open space of a clearing—the center of the ring of grove trees.

I tried to shift, then let out a breathless scream as pain from my side and leg shot through me. The agony from the leg was simple to figure out. Legs weren’t supposed to twist that way, and jagged ends of bone weren’t normally visible through the skin. It took me a few more seconds to process the source of the pain in my side. It didn’t make sense that the branch would protrude from my body that way. The rivulets of blood tickling my abdomen finally got the message to my screwed up head. Ah, hell, I thought dropping my head back against the cluster of vines. This is bad.

I heard a bellow and snapping of branches, then a crash of something heavy falling to the ground nearby. Two faas streaked through the clearing and into the trees in the direction of the crash. A moment later they reappeared, supporting a limping Safar. His right wing drooped, and his normally rich bronze skin had a sickly green tinge.

A shudder went through the tangle of branches holding me. Dizzy, I grasped weakly at the mess of vines, fear slicing through me that I’d fall the rest of the way. As badly injured as I was now, I didn’t think I’d survive a fall of another twenty feet.

A vine by my hand twitched as a low purring vibration filled the forest. The trees around me gave another shudder, and a heartbeat later vines shifted and slid against me. Okay. Freaky. A deep groaning of movement permeated the grove as leaves and twigs broken by my passage fell from above. A vine as thick as my wrist snaked around my torso just above where the branch had skewered me.

I heard running footsteps in the clearing. Turning my head, I saw Mzatal come to a stop near the treeline, eyes on me, assessing. More vines wrapped around me. I struggled out of panicked instinct, stopping as agony knifed through my side and leg. My eyes met Mzatal’s. I tried to call for help, but I could barely get enough breath to breathe, much less speak or shout.

Mzatal’s eyes narrowed. He stepped forward, then stopped as if he’d run into a wall. I watched as he raised a hand, testing an unseen barrier. What the hell? I wondered in barely controlled panic. Had I managed to fall into some sort of carnivorous plant? Yeah, bleed on the man-eating plant. Always a good plan.

Yet even as I fretted about being eaten, a soft ease stole through me, and my panic faded. I felt oddly relaxed…and safe. It occurred to me that if it really was a man-eating plant, it might have released chemicals or pheromones or something to make its prey nice and docile, but I decided it was more comforting to think it was simply a Nice Plant.

Vines continued to shift and move around me. The white trunks and limbs shimmered with heat-wave ripples, though the grove felt cooler than before. The green and violet of the leaves awoke with a luminescent glitter of emerald and amethyst. Mzatal stepped back as the barrier before him took on a barely visible pulsing glow. A wind whispered through the leaves, or maybe the leaves just whispered to me. Mesmerized, I stared up at the shifting beauty.

A leafy tendril touched my face, and the last vestiges of my panic ebbed away. It wasn’t going to let me fall. Everything shuddered again and the vines that had wrapped around me began to lift me off the impaling branch. I stared at the leaves above, mind screaming distantly to expect fresh agony, but it was wrong. Only a little tingle. My new Plant Friend wouldn’t hurt me. Smiling, I watched the pretty dancing lights.

I relaxed into the cradling hold. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mzatal pacing along the perimeter, eyes never leaving me. He placed a hand on the barrier and tried to push through, then staggered back a step as it repelled him. His eyes snapped to me as he stood, hands clenched at his sides. Way too tense. He needed a Plant Friend.

Whisper whisper whisper. Sparkly. Everything sparkly.

“Kara, can you hear me?”

Whisper whisper whisper.

Shimmery. Sparkly. Shimmery.

Whisper whisper whisper.

“Kara!”