Blood of the Demon

By the time Zhergalet had finished replacing the first layer of protections on the portal and the house and had been dismissed back to its own sphere, it was three a.m. and I was fighting to stay awake. I had the unerring feeling that the demon wasn’t pleased to be redoing its work, and I was also more than a bit dismayed to discover just how much work it had been. My aunt had summoned the demon four times to get what were considered adequate protections in place. That had been near the end of last year. However, Zhergalet revealed that she had summoned it again a few months ago—shortly after my first encounter with Rhyzkahl—and had asked it to beef up the protections considerably.

I sighed. I didn’t have the energy to get upset about any of that right now.

I looked around the library. The current wards weren’t much more effective than what I’d placed, though they were a damn sight higher quality. However, I’d learned that these were the arcane version of a base coat and were vitally necessary for creating strong protections, or so Zhergalet had stated. Repeatedly. Tomorrow—er, tonight I would summon the demon again and it could start building decent protections.

I’d also received a rambling and difficult-to-follow lecture in security, which was a sharp scolding at times, one that made me think hard about the security—or complete lack thereof—at my own house. Okay, so I’ve been doing the equivalent of going shopping while leaving my bags on the front seat and my car unlocked. Tessa had spoken of the need for security, but I’d never really taken it seriously. After all, I lived way out in the middle of nowhere and I was a cop.

In other words, after Zhergalet finishes Tessa’s house, I have to get the demon to do mine.

But first, sleep.

My cell phone rang a few seconds after I curled up on the couch. At least it felt that way. But somehow, when I was able to blearily focus on the screen, it insisted that the time was one p.m.

“Kara Gillian here.”

“You’re not at the station. You’re not at your house. You’re not resting. You’re pushing yourself too hard—”

“Shut up, Ryan,” I growled. “You just woke me up, so piss off.”

He chuckled. “Well, since you’re not at your house, you must be at your aunt’s.”

“You really are too smart to be a fed. By the way, when were you going to tell me that I was on an FBI task force?”

“As soon as I got word that it had been approved. I’m assuming it’s been approved since you’re telling me about it.”

“I guess so. My captain doesn’t seem real happy about it, but he can kiss my ass.”

He laughed. “Ah, I see you’re in a pleasant mood today. Can I buy you lunch? Or, in your case, I suppose it would be breakfast?”

“I changed my mind. If you have to ask that, you’re definitely not too smart to be a fed.”

“Smart-ass. Meet me at the Lake o’ Butter in half an hour?”

“Pick me up. My car’s a piece of total shit.”

“Your own damn fault for driving your other one into a river.”

I growled something rude and hung up, but I was smiling.

I jumped into the shower and allowed the hot water to blast me for a blissful two minutes before I reluctantly shut it off. I toweled dry quickly and was just pulling on clean clothes when I heard Ryan’s car in the driveway. Running my fingers through my wet hair, I headed to the door and opened it to see Ryan standing at the edge of the driveway with a slight frown creasing his forehead. “Is something different?”

“Yeah. Come on in while I find my shoes. I had the wards redone. At least partially.”

He nodded, frown disappearing as he climbed the stairs. “Had them done? You summoned?”

“Yep.” I shut the door behind him and headed to the bedroom. “Same demon my aunt used. They’re not finished, though. It’s gonna take a few go-rounds to get it done right, but it’s still better than the crap I’d put up.” I fished my shoes out from beneath the bed. “So please tell me that this task force is not really a white-collar-crimes task force, because I like you, but that financial shit bores me senseless.”

Ryan laughed. “Well, I’m glad that the name of the task force is boring, because that’s the point. Yes, we do our share of mundane investigations, but we also get called to anything ‘not quite right.’ I will admit that your background in White Collar did help with the approval on our end. Anyway, it’s not a full-time gig, but now that we’ve pushed the various approvals through, it’ll be easier to bring you on board for some of our unusual cases.”

“All right, I can deal with that. Being on a task force sounded cool, but I didn’t want to be pulled out of Violent Crimes entirely.”

His eyes crinkled in amusement. “I’m so glad we could accommodate you. Now, hurry up and get your shoes on. Zack’s holding a table for us.”

Zack was in fact holding a table for us, but at nearly one-thirty in the afternoon it didn’t much matter, since he was the only person in the place. “I hear that Ryan’s convinced you to come to the dark side,” he said with a teasing grin as I sat.

“Only occasionally,” I corrected. “I’m not sure that y’all could handle my darkness full-time.”

Zack snorted. “Some things are best left to the unknown. So, anything new going on?”

“Actually, yes.” I leaned forward and lowered my voice, even though there wasn’t anyone else nearby. “I summoned last night to get the wards at my aunt’s house redone and found out some things in the process about that portal.”

The two agents leaned forward in unison. “Spill,” Ryan commanded.

“Well, first off, it looks like the reyza that I summoned to remove all the wards knew darn good and well that the portal was there. He would have realized it the second he made it into the library.”

Ryan grimaced. “And he took that info back and either used it or sold it, right?”

“Most likely.” I sighed. “I want to be pissed, but he didn’t betray me. I mean, that’s how their honor works. He did precisely what I asked him to do.” I was still pissed, but I knew it wasn’t going to do me any good, so I was trying to ignore it. “Anyway, that’s just the beginning. Apparently it’s some sort of connection between the spheres, but not one that large or higher-sentience creatures can get through. However, other creatures can be ‘pushed’ through from the other side.”

“Like the psycho pixies?”

“No, those are some sort of pest and can make their way through on their own if the portal is open. Which, of course, it was. I was referring to something bigger. With teeth. And claws.”

“The dog-thing,” Zack breathed, sitting back.

I met his eyes and nodded. “It’s called a kzak. And Zhergalet seemed to think that it had been pushed through when the wards were down.”

A series of expressions rippled over Zack’s face, too quickly for me to get any sense of what he was thinking. I glanced at Ryan, but his expression was nothing but stony, brow lowered in a frown. “So the question is,” Ryan finally said, “who or what pushed it through, and why.”

The waitress came up at that point, and we paused our conversation long enough to order ridiculous amounts of unhealthy food.

“It went from that portal to the Ice House,” I pointed out after the waitress had poured coffee and bustled off with our order. “Carl said that he’d fixed a broken window, so I’m guessing that it came through and busted out of the house. I think it’s safe to assume that it was specifically sent after one of us.” I paused, waiting to see if either of them would react or respond. Especially Ryan. Yet the baffled expression remained on his face. I looked at Zack. He didn’t look baffled, at least, just quietly thoughtful. “Unless you think that the busboy was somehow the target of an arcane attack?” I said. I could feel myself getting frustrated and snarky, and I fought to control it.

After a couple of seconds with neither of them saying anything, I took a deep breath and continued. “It’s … possible that it was after me. Rhyzkahl has asked me to be his summoner, which would increase his status and power. If an opposing lord wanted to thwart that, then the easiest way to do it would be to remove me.” I shrugged lightly, though I sure as hell didn’t feel in a light shrug kinda mood. I glanced at Ryan, nearly daring him to react negatively to the reminder that Rhyzkahl wanted me as his summoner, but he didn’t react at all.

“Or it could be after me,” Ryan said, voice low and rough. “For whatever reason …” He trailed off, then lifted his eyes to mine. “Kara, I swear I’m not holding anything back from you. I honestly don’t know.”

I gave a short nod. Oddly, I believed him. I turned to Zack. “What about you?”

Zack blinked. “I wasn’t there when it first attacked. It couldn’t have been after me.”

I narrowed my eyes. “No, but you sure as hell knew what Ryan was doing afterward.”

A pained expression flickered on his face as he shook his head. “Only because I’ve seen him do it before, after other … odd encounters. We’ve worked together for several years now. There’ve been quite a few of those.”

I sighed and slumped back in the chair. “Well, the portal should be sealed enough so that no more of them can be pushed through.”

The waitress came back, sliding pancake-laden plates in front of each of us. Once again the conversation was suspended, this time because we were all too busy stuffing our faces.

“What about the psycho pixies?” Zack asked after a moment. “Those came through on their own?”

“Apparently so. They’re called hriss, and I get the feeling they’re like psychic arcane mosquitoes. Make you tired. Just one won’t kill you, but a bunch of them could suck you pretty dry of potency.”

Ryan’s expression darkened. “Wait. Do they eat potency? Or life force?”

I opened my mouth, then shut it, mentally replaying Zhergalet’s difficult-to-follow explanation. “You know, I think the demon was referring to essence.”

“Maybe a herd of them is loose and sucking people dry?”

I pondered it, then shook my head. “No, that wouldn’t explain the … rending. Plus, the faas seemed to think they were more annoying than anything.” Then I frowned, an unpleasant thought occurring to me. “But I’ve learned that an essence-eater could become stronger by consuming another essence-eater …” I decided to leave out how I’d learned that.

“We were talking the other day about how the killer has changed,” Ryan said. “First he was killing them and then sucking their essence up, and now he can kill them by ripping the essence out. Something changed.”

My stomach spasmed painfully, and it wasn’t because of too many pancakes. “You think that the killer got into my aunt’s house, found the portal, and somehow got his soul-eating ability beefed up?”

He shrugged. “I’m just offering up a maybe.”

I shoved my fingers through my hair. “Shit. I’ll ask Zhergalet tonight.” I opened my bag and pulled out the scrawled page with names and lines and circles. “In the meantime, I keep looking at how these murders are connected.”

Zack peered at the page. “Looks like you have a lot of possibles and not a lot of probables.”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Tell me about it.” I was beginning a deep and morose pondering of the situation when my cell phone rang. “Detective Gillian.”

“Hi, Kara,” a perky voice chirped. “This is Annie at the lab in Slidell.”

It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what lab she was talking about. “Oh, oh, right, the DNA lab! Sorry. What’s up?”