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Come back? Where? Oh. Right. Through.
I felt cold in the nothingness, the icy tendrils wrapped around me noticeable only because I actually felt the cold. Then pain seared through me, staggering in the abrupt shift from nothing to razor-sharp coils of agony twisting around me. I screamed into the nothingness as the pain increased past the point where I was certain that I should cease to feel anything. No, I’m dying. I’m dead. It’s not supposed to hurt anymore! Molten lava swept through my veins, my bones twisted and shattered, only to be flung back together. A demon clawed and tugged at my belly, tearing me apart. I heard a ripping crack.
And then it was gone.
I took a dragging wretched breath in, lungs searing as if they’d never drawn breath before. I smelled ozone and felt a dull throb of pain in my right shoulder and cold floor against my cheek and hip. I heard shouts and voices around me and then felt hands on me. I fought to open my eyes, struggling to blink away the fuzziness that filled my vision.
Snatches of speech came through the haze.
“… call EMS!”
“Holy shit … thought she was dead …”
I felt a sheet or blanket being wrapped around me. The pain in my shoulder receded, and I realized that it had been from my arm being twisted awkwardly up behind me. Had I fallen? Nothing made sense. What happened to being dead?
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I heard a vaguely familiar voice. “It’s her. Holy shit, it’s Kara. Someone call Agent Kristoff!”
“Where …” I tried to say, but nothing seemed to come out. “What’s going on?” I tried again.
“She’s awake! Kara! Come on, Kara. Open your eyes so you can tell us what the hell happened to you!”
I groaned and struggled to lift the obscene weight of my eyelids. Vague blurs coalesced in front of me, and in the distance I could hear someone shouting something about an ambulance.
“I thought I was dead,” I croaked out, successfully this time. Or so I hoped.
A weak laugh. “So did everyone else, chick.” It was Jill. That was Jill’s voice. “Can’t wait to hear you explain this one. We found your blood on the scene. Lots of it.”
“I was dead,” I repeated. My vision slowly began to clear. The blur above me took on vague facial features.
Jill patted my shoulder. “You’ve been gone, that’s for sure.”
I could hear sirens approaching. “Gone? Just a coupla minutes. I died for just a little while.”>Many were going to die no matter what. Time to decide was rapidly running out. Cerise was shouting the chants now and getting close to the point where he would name the demon. I pushed onto my elbow and struggled up to my knees, fighting the increasing weakness. Cerise paid no attention to me. His full focus was on the summoning.
But the demon was paying attention. His eyes snapped to me as I opened my mouth. He shrieked in rage, bounding across the distance to me as I put the full force of my will into the call. You have to mean it, I remembered my aunt saying.
“RHYZKAHL!” I screamed through the chants.
And time stood still for a heartbeat.
The demon gave an enraged scream, leaping at me and slicing at me with clawed hands. He knows. He knows what I’ve done. I struggled to twist away from him, but his speed was beyond belief. I felt a sharp tug across my chest and on my belly, then a surreal sensation of lightness. There was no pain. It was only the slow-motion vision of the blood spraying and my belly emptying itself before me onto the tile that told me what had happened.
The demon screamed again, spreading his wings as the brilliant runes suddenly went dark.
There was no pain. I collapsed onto my side, seeing the coiled mounds of my bowels beyond my body amid the spreading stain of blood. I’m not dead. But I would be soon. Had I called him in time? Sounds echoed strangely. I thought I heard Ryan shouting. I knew I heard Cerise.
“What have you done?” he screamed. He spun to face me, enraged. “You fucking bitch! What have you done? Where is he? What did you do?”
I turned my head lazily and smiled up at him. “I’ve got your Demonic Lord right here,” I rasped. “Bitch.”
Chapter 29
Light flared again, but not from the runes surrounding the circle. I knew I had only a couple of minutes to live, but I wasn’t going to miss this for the world.
Rhyzkahl stepped forward, dressed in dazzling white robes, eerie blue and gold light shimmering around him. I had a supreme vantage point and could see the expression on Cerise’s face as he registered the fact that the Demonic Lord was here but was most assuredly not within the circle or contained by any of his bindings.
Rhyzkahl gave a low growl that crawled through the floor and echoed off the walls. I could feel the strangling aura of power and fury streaming off him, but it barely seemed to affect me. I’m dying, that’s why, I decided, with remarkable calm. My innards are on the floor in front of me. Nothing can scare me now.
Cerise was not so fortunate. He could feel the full effect of Rhyzkahl, and I knew it wasn’t the first time he had felt it. He gibbered in terror, stumbling back and scrabbling until he came to the wall where he huddled, head down, whimpering.
