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Two aleve and a hamburger and fries later, I was ready to deal with my aunt’s library again. The ache in my back had settled to merely sore, and I managed to make my way down the hall with only one or two muttered invectives.
I brushed my hands over the library door frame. It felt odd without any wards on it. As I stepped in, I felt a crawl of sensation—not the usual beaded-curtain sensation of going through wards but more the feeling of approaching a source of wrongness. I now knew exactly what Ryan was talking about when he said “wacky.” There was a section of the floor in front of the bookcase on the east wall, an area almost two feet across, that was wrong. I forced myself to step closer, certain that I had to be stepping near a diagram or circle, because every sense I had was screaming at me that this was a portal.
What I couldn’t tell was if it was open. I frowned as I crouched. It wasn’t open in the sense that I was familiar with—the slit of light making a doorway from one sphere to another—but it sure wasn’t closed either. It was … mushy was the best word I could come up with. Stuff could get through but not easily.
I looked sharply back at the doorway. Ryan and Jill stood just outside the door, watching me warily, but it wasn’t them I was interested in. “The wards,” I said, unintentionally hissing softly on the last s.
Ryan frowned. “What about them?”
“I think they were twofold.” Damn it.
“Why? What is that?”
“It’s … a portal. Sort of. A weak spot.”
“Oh, shit,” he breathed. “The wards kept stuff in as well as keeping things out.”
“Yeah,” I said with a groan. “There were wards all throughout the library, which I couldn’t understand. And when I had Kehlirik take down all the wards, that left that portal wide open, so to speak.”
Jill leaned against the wall, thumbs hooked into her jeans. “So why didn’t Kehlirik see that portal thingy?”
An unpleasant feeling settled in my stomach as I looked back at it. “I’m not sure. He was exhausted after clearing the wards, and with the books and other stuff piled all over, I guess he could have missed it.” I rubbed my arms. “Heck, it wasn’t until you moved all the stuff that we knew it was here.” But surely a demon of Kehlirik’s level would have been able to feel it. So why didn’t he say anything about it? Maybe because he had more reason not to? He’d wanted to speak to me—about Ryan. But after he cleared the library wards, suddenly it wasn’t as important. Because he’d found the portal? Now that I was close to it, I could feel a sickeningly familiar resonance about it. It’s probably big enough for that dog to have come through.
Could this portal also have something to do with the consumed essences? I considered it but then dismissed the idea. The portal had still been warded when Brian’s essence was eaten, so whatever was doing it couldn’t have come from this.
Ryan voiced the question that we were all thinking. “Can it be closed?”
I sighed. “I have no idea. I don’t even know if it should be closed.”
Ryan frowned, but Jill angled her head to the side. “Oh, like maybe this is a pressure valve or something?”
“Yeah. And that’s putting it a lot more clearly than I ever could have.” I eased my back into a more comfortable position. “I … have to see if my aunt comes back, and ask her.”
Jill shifted uncomfortably.
“And if she doesn’t come back,” I continued, throat tightening, “I’m going to have to ask, um, someone else.”
I swore I could hear Ryan’s teeth grind together. He muttered something under his breath and then spun away and strode down the hall. I clenched my hands and counted slowly to ten, then counted another ten for good measure.
Jill leaned her head out of the doorway to watch the retreating Ryan, then looked back at me, eyebrow raised questioningly.
“He and I had a bit of a discussion the other night wherein he stated that he was worried about me throwing myself at Rhyzkahl and falling for that pretty face and forgetting he’s a demon.”
She pursed her lips. “Hmm. And he doesn’t know that you and ole demon lord have already bumped uglies?”
“No, he does not,” I said. “And it’s going to stay that way, now that I know he considers it akin to selling my soul.”
A flicker of doubt passed over her face, and I sighed. “It’s not,” I assured her. “He’s not a ‘demon from hell’ kind of demon.”
“Then why are they called demons?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“The same reason that midwives were called witches a few centuries ago. Fear of what is not understood.” I could hear the defensive tone in my voice, and it made me take a mental step back. I did fear Rhyzkahl. And I sure as hell didn’t understand him.
She pondered this for several heartbeats, then shrugged and lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the floor. “Okay, so you can summon demons. And can work magic or whatever—”
“I can shape arcane energy,” I explained.
“Uh-huh. Magic to me,” she said, nose wrinkling as she smiled. “But then again, electricity is magic to me too. Flip switch, light comes on. So what about other supernatural stuff?”
