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“Rasha Hassan Jalal al-Khouri,” I said as I stepped forward. “I am Kara Gillian, and this is Lord Mzatal.” I didn’t bother to specify which of the three men behind me was the lord since it was fucking obvious. “We must speak with you.”
Her lips silently formed my name as she backed into the counter. “I didn’t know,” she said, shaking voice holding a mere whisper of accent. “I . . . I couldn’t stop it. I should have warned you.”
Wait, what? I had a demonic lord at my back and it was my name she triggered on? I knew Mzatal delved for the reason even now, but I didn’t have that nifty advantage. I had zero clue what she “couldn’t stop,” but there was no need to let her know that.
“How could you not know?” I asked, keeping my question nice and vague.
“They didn’t bring the poor child in until after we summoned Isumo.” Grief clouded with anger touched her voice. “I agreed to assist Aaron and the others with the summoning, not with what they did after.”
Something I needed to be warned about? An act related to me she wanted to stop, but couldn’t? The poor child . . . Isumo . . . I stared in numb shock as the disjointed fragments lit a spark to illuminate a hideous picture. The rakkuhr trap in the semi-trailer. Isumo Katashi. And Idris’s murdered sister, Amber. It had to be.
Mzatal’s already-heavy aura rose in a choking wave, backed by an ominous growl unlike anything I’d ever heard from him before. Rasha paled and clutched weakly at the counter as she swayed. I caught her arm, then shot Mzatal a warning glare. Stop! She’s about to fucking drop dead!
With seething anger barely contained, Mzatal turned and strode away down the hall. I felt his deep turmoil and knew he distanced himself from her now for her benefit as well as his own. Extending, I touched him with what little reassurance I could offer. He’d read something terrible from her, but I’d find out soon enough what that was. For now I returned my attention to the shaking woman beside me.
She inhaled, and her trembling eased. I felt the flicker of calm like a soothing touch and realized she’d pygahed.
“Rasha, tell me who Aaron is.”
Her fear evaporated into anger. “Aaron Asher.” She spoke his name with such contempt that I half-expected her to spit on the floor. “An arrogant, disrespectful son of a bitch. Once a colleague and student of mine.”
My eyes narrowed. “Brown hair pulled back in a ponytail? Dresses in stupid flowy poet shirts?”
At her nod, more of the terrible picture lit up. Aaron Asher was Mystery Man Twenty-two, who at times brought Rasha’s granddaughter, Jade, along with him to Farouche’s plantation. Moreover, we’d seen him with Idris in the video clip from the airport near Amarillo.
I reviewed Rasha’s words and filled in the gaps. Rasha had assisted Asher and “others” with the summoning of Katashi, after which Amber had been brutalized and murdered and rigged with the rakkuhr trap. Which meant Katashi had to have brought the rakkuhr with him, direct from the Mraztur, prepped and ready to place on the young woman as a trap for me.
“When did Asher come here?” I asked. “When did you help him summon Katashi?”
“Almost a week ago,” she told me. “Monday. Yes, it was Monday, mid-afternoon.”
Only a few hours before I arrived on Earth, and within the same time frame as the disruption in the flows that Mzatal had pinpointed—a disruption based in Austin and with hints of Idris’s signature. “Who else was with Asher?” I asked, well aware that my voice had gone hard. “Who else helped you summon Katashi?”
Fear shone in her eyes again, but it wasn’t the perfectly natural fear of imminent destruction by a demonic lord. This was a more subtle, more insidious fear, and one with which I was all too familiar.
Son of a bitch. Farouche. Like a “getting warmer” clue in the game of Hot or Cold, the fear in her eyes told me my question prodded uncomfortably at Farouche’s interests.
I leaned close. “Was the other summoner a young man with curly blond hair?”
She trembled in my grasp and swayed again. Hot, blazing hot! Nailed it first try. She opened her mouth and fought to answer, but her trembling only increased.
“It’s all right,” I said, voice softening. “You don’t have to tell me.” Her reaction told me all I needed to know. Idris had indeed been here with the others.
Her shaking subsided, but cold sweat dotted her upper lip. I glanced back at the two silent and watchful men.
“Could y’all please take Rasha to the living room so she can get off her feet?” I asked, then gave the woman a smile as Bryce and Paul came forward and gently took her in hand. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I told her. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
It wasn’t until they left the kitchen with Rasha that I allowed myself to look upon the full horror of all that happened here.
My chest tightened, and I had to remind myself to breathe. Amber Palatino Gavin had been murdered here in this house, with her brother, Idris, present.
Chapter 33
I went in search of Mzatal and found him in the room at the end of the hall—Rasha’s summoning chamber. A permanent base diagram had been beautifully etched in the clay tile of the floor, and Mzatal stood atop it now, head lowered, hands in fists at his sides, and black fury roiling through his aura.
“Did he see it?” I asked, had to ask, though my voice quavered. “Did Idris have to watch his sister’s rape and murder?”
Teeth clenched, Mzatal lifted his head. His eyes met mine, and within the rage and pain and guilt that burned in them lay my answer.
