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“AUNT TESSA!” I screeched as she burst into laughter. “You are a horrible evil woman, and you know perfectly well what I meant. Eww!”
“I know, I know,” she said, still laughing. “I couldn’t resist. You’ve been far too tense lately.”
I snorted. “Yeah, well, there’ve been a lot of things to make me tense.”
She was silent for a few heartbeats, and I expected her to say something reassuring such as, That’s all over now. It’s going to be all right now.
“You have a heavy load,” she said instead. She sounded tired but this time not because I’d woken her. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault in so many ways.”
“No, it’s not your fault. It’s going to be fine,” I said, a little off-balance that I was the one doing the reassuring now.
“The demons are not ...” she trailed off.
“Aunt Tessa? The demons aren’t what?”
“The demons are not demonic. You know that.”
I frowned. “Um, yeah. I know.” We’d had these conversations before about how the demons we summoned were not the evil demonic creatures of religious mythos.
“It applies in reverse as well.”
“Huh?” I scowled. I was too tired to sort through verbal games. “What are you talking about?”
“The demons are not demonic. The demonic are not demons.”
I bit back a whimper of frustration and slowly counted to five. “Aunt Tessa, I love you dearly, but you’re driving me batshit crazy at this moment.”
I heard her yawn. “I’m sorry. It’s not important right now. I’m going to go back to sleep, sweets. You’ll let me know when I can go back home?”
“Um, yeah,” I muttered, feeling off-balance again.
“You’re a good girl. I’m so proud of you. I’ll talk to you later.” And with that she disconnected.
I let my hand fall to my side and let out a low groan. She’s going to drive me absolutely crazy. Well, that much was back to normal.
I returned to the kitchen. At least Eilahn was no longer glaring at Ryan.
“Okay, I don’t have a car,” I said. “So, Ryan, you’re stuck driving me. Us.” I fought back a yawn. I wanted to go through the financial info again, but I knew that it wouldn’t help at this point. Showing that Vic had used Roger to participate in a little insider trading didn’t provide any proof that Ben Moran was responsible for the murders. I didn’t even have proof that he was the one who let slip the information about the sale of the bank. “But we need to relocate. I don’t know how safe it is to stay here.”>A wave of calm and peace flowed through me and my desire to struggle faded. A small part of me tried to insist that this was part of the attack, but the flow of serenity pushed it down with barely a ripple. A soundless tone vibrated through me and for an instant I thought it would shake me apart, my molecules flying apart from the force of it. Suddenly I could feel the syraza as if I was inside its skin. I could see the shock on my face, taste the moisture on my breath, yet I was still looking up at the demon in a bizarre double-vision. But more unsettling were the shimmers of completely alien emotion that swept through me, too quickly for me to understand, and leaving behind only the awareness that I was somehow feeling what the demon felt.
And then it was gone, and my senses were my own. Eilahn slowly released me and stepped back, a smile on its delicate face. “Forgive me for using force. There was no way to fully prepare you, and it was vital that the process not be interrupted once begun.”
I blinked a few times as I tried to shake the sensation that I still wasn’t quite inside my head. “Um. Yeah. It’s cool.” I took a breath, slowly beginning to feel more normal. “Wow. That was ...”
“ ‘Intense’ is a word that is often used to describe the experience,” the syraza offered, still smiling.
I gave a weak laugh. “Yeah, that about covers it.” I scrubbed my hands through my hair, the last vestiges of the not-in-my-body sensation finally fading. Seriously weird. I didn’t agree with Eilahn’s statement that there was no way to prepare me—a simple “This is going to make you feel way funky” would have been good. I had the niggling suspicion that the syraza had enjoyed weirding me out like that.
Great, there was a good chance that I was now bound to a demon with an evil streak.
“Okay, so ... how do I help you shift your form?”
In answer the syraza dropped down to a crouch, folding its wings tightly across its back as it wrapped its arms around its legs. I felt another soundless tone shimmer through me, though not even a hundredth as powerful as the first had been. But this time it didn’t fade away and continued to resonate. I could feel the demon again, could sense a slow shifting. It wasn’t a morphing like in the movies, but more as if the demon was being redrawn, a flickering of reality like falling rain. The resonance shifted to a series of alternating tones as the flickering increased and I found myself shaking from the effort of holding onto the resonance. Somehow I knew that if I didn’t keep it in check it would take over and shake us both apart from some sort of arcane vibration. I gritted my teeth as the flickering and resonance built to a shrieking crescendo.
And then it was gone.
Dizziness slammed into me, and I sagged and crumpled to the floor, barely catching myself from smacking my face on the stone. I took several deep breaths until the spots faded from my vision, then looked over at the demon.
Or rather, I looked at the naked woman shakily pressing herself up from the floor.
