Touch of the Demon

I stood out of the way then did my own stupid pygah and extended to the grove, drawing energy to shield and trying to get a sense of what I could do to help.

Mzatal moved fluidly within the circles. “Once I have the shikvihr set, stay behind me. It will give you additional protection.”

My stomach tightened as I nodded. “Mzatal, if this goes bad, don’t let him take me.”

He paused in his movement, looked over to me. “I will not.” He shook his head. “Kara, I will not.”

“You do what you have to do,” I said with no compromise in my tone despite the knot of cold in my gut. “If it looks like he’ll win, you fucking kill me. I mean it.”

“I will do what I must,” he replied quietly, then resumed his flowing dance of the rings. “He will not have you.”

Exhaling, I returned my focus to the grove and delved into the power, expanding my awareness and exploring the energies as I got a feel for its properties. I cursed under my breath as I felt the grove activate. There was no mistaking who was coming through.

“He’s coming!” I said. “But I think I can seal the tunnel to stall him.”

“If the grove will respond to you thus, do it,” he said, words clipped by his intense focus on the dance. “With my reserves tapped and my blade inaccessible, I need the augmentation of the shikvihr, and any time you gain for me will be invaluable.”

I concentrated on the grove, asked it to guide me even as I guided it to shape its power into a means to slow or stop Rhyzkahl. I felt the grove’s assent, its desire to assist, yet even with its touch my efforts felt clumsy and fumbling, like playing on a cathedral organ after barely learning “Chopsticks” on a piano.

Movement near the grove caught my attention. Vahl edged his way to the treeline then crouched, facing us, about ten paces from the tunnel. Crap. I sure as hell hoped Mzatal was right about him not interfering.

Through the grove sense, I felt Rhyzkahl’s full arrival. My heart gave a sick double-beat. Not just Rhyzkahl. “Mzatal!” I called out. “Amkir’s here too!”

Without pausing in his tracings, Mzatal gave me a nod as he began the tenth of the eleven rings. “He will not engage,” he said with a surety I didn’t feel.

Shit. We sure as hell needed every bit of time I could buy. With a blend of intuition and the arcane principles I’d learned so far, I awkwardly shaped an energy barricade over the exit of the tree tunnel. It sparkled there, a convex film of transparent purple and green iridescence reminiscent of a soap bubble but far more capable of stopping Rhyzkahl. At least I sure as hell hoped so.

Rhyzkahl stalked down the tunnel, a glowing mass of azure potency already prepared in his right hand. He stopped a pace beyond my barrier, his eyes first on Mzatal, then on me.

Shit shit shit. My heart pounded as I saw him, felt him again. Terrible memory whispered to me, the icy mask of his expression as he touched the blade to my flesh. I forced the images down, gritted my teeth, and called upon the grove for more energy to reinforce the seal.

Amkir stopped a few feet behind Rhyzkahl and folded his arms across his chest, looking as hard and angry as ever. Just stay there, asshole.

Rhyzkahl lifted his left hand to the barrier and began to work at unweaving it. For all its flimsy appearance, I knew the damn thing held a lot of power, and, to my relief, he wasn’t able to push straight through it. Yet I also knew it wouldn’t stop him for long. Sweat dripped down my sides with the struggle to maintain hold as he picked away at it. I continued to assess and reinforce my construct, but I realized my inexperience left inherent weaknesses in the shield, like a steel door hinged with duct tape.

Rhyzkahl lowered his head, gaze penetrating me. “You are mine,” he said, his voice clear and resonant.

“The fuck I am!” I called out as I braced myself to hold the seal. “I belong to myself, asshole.”

“This is a new trick for a summoner,” he said, working his hand into the barrier, his aura radiating angry, focused confidence. “Mzatal has trained you well for me.” His eyes narrowed as he sneered. “Do you spread your legs as readily for him as you did for me, chikdah?”

“Name-calling and slut-shaming?” I asked. “Is that the best you can do?” I struggled to keep the power flowing despite the growing fatigue from the effort. “Would it bother you if I’d slept with him?” I knew that it would, and right then anything that might distract him from unweaving my barrier seemed like a good idea. “Would it piss you off if I told you he sucked on my tits then bent me over the table in his chamber and fucked me?”

Rhyzkahl’s aura flared, striking me like wind off the desert. Oh, shit. Baiting him had refocused rather than distracted him. Bad move.

“Kara!” Mzatal called out in a warning, but it was too late for me to take the words back. Rhyzkahl bared his teeth, gave a sharp cry of anger, and tore at the barrier.

I backed hurriedly. Damn it. “Boss!” I called out. “No time left!”

“Ten heartbeats,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Don’t have it!” I swallowed heavily and took another step back.

“Channel everything you can into the barrier,” Mzatal said. “Then move behind me.” In a furious swirl of his hands, he slurred the last three sigils together and called for the union of the rings.

“It’s going. Shit!” I felt as well as saw my barrier disintegrate as Rhyzkahl ripped through it. I scrambled to move fully behind Mzatal.

Rhyzkahl lifted his hand the instant the barrier cleared and made a vicious cast at the shikvihr. Mzatal swept his arm to ignite the pattern even as the attack struck it.

The shikvihr flared blindingly, then collapsed on itself with an earsplitting crack and a concussive jolt that threw me to my hands and knees. I gasped in pain and shock, watched a drop of blood from my nose splat on the stone beneath me as if in slow motion. Mzatal staggered back in the aftershocks, clearly off balance and at a disadvantage. I lifted my head and saw Rhyzkahl look from Mzatal to me, then…hesitate. My gut told me he didn’t want to hurt me. Not that I had any illusions about it being because he gave a shit about me personally, but because he didn’t want to damage his “tool.” Cop-mode set in, looking for the advantage and finding it. Maybe.

I scrambled to my feet and staggered to Mzatal. Rhyzkahl stepped forward as he called potency to his hand again, beautiful features hardened to ugliness by what could only be hatred.

“Kara,” Mzatal said, his breath coming heavily, but his voice strong. “Get behind me.”

“The hell I will,” I said. “I don’t stand a chance without you, and he needs me alive.” I only shook a little as I pulled Mzatal’s left arm over my shoulder and across my chest in the same way he’d held me when I faced Vahl. Except that now I was a human shield. And though I sure as hell wasn’t ready to die, it also positioned me such that Mzatal could easily kill me if things got even worse. Going to Rhyzkahl was not an option.

Dissonance abruptly flooded me, as though every cell in my body suddenly awoke and vibrated at an uncomfortable frequency. I nearly gave in to the impulse to pull away from Mzatal, then stopped as a strange familiarity wound through the discomfort. “What the hell?” I said through gritted teeth, eyes locked on Rhyzkahl as he stood statue-still. Hopefully the human shield bit was causing him to reconsider his strike tactics. “Mzatal?” My hands gripped his arm. “Why does this feel so weird?”

Mzatal tightened his arm across me. “I do not know,” he said, his breath hissing as though in pain. “But I… feel the grove.”

Even as he said it I could almost, almost, see the interplay of my grove energy and Mzatal’s aura, like trying to see something through a fogged window. Rhyzkahl lowered his head and pulled more potency to him. He’d obviously figured out some way to get around my oh-so-noble defense and didn’t plan on giving us leisure time to figure out this dissonance.

The familiarity abruptly clicked into place. The sigil series on the beach, the discordance I’d experienced there. “Boss,” I gasped. “It’s like a series out of alignment.”

He inhaled sharply, and in the next instant I felt him mentally shift, even as I reached through the fog to him, as if tuning a ring of sigils and clasping Mzatal’s mental hand all at once. The dissonance faded, and though I felt that more harmony waited just beyond my perception, I couldn’t reach for it right then. Adjustment to the overlap of my grove-fueled power with Mzatal’s potency required all my focus. “We