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“No,” he said as though pronouncing a death warrant. “He did that. On his own. With Vsuhl, he freed himself, and is using it to give him a measure of stability.” He made a sound like a half-sob. “But he isn’t ready.”
My worry spiked. “Zack? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this,” he said in a broken voice. “Szerain is in danger, and he’s dangerous. I can’t protect him or others. I can’t deal with it.”
“I’m not sure you have to,” I said carefully. “Not the way you did before. He may not be ready, but there’s nothing we can do about that now, and I know he’s not going to abandon you. Neither will the rest of us. Once in the posse, always in the posse.” I wanted to reach through the phone and give him a hug. “It’s going to be all right.”
“I can’t see it,” he said weakly. “But I’ll believe you.”
“You’d better,” I told him.
I heard him clear his throat softly, take a breath, release it, then take another. “Kara, have you ever killed anyone in the line of duty before?”
The abrupt change of subject had m
e blinking in confusion. “No, I’ve never even been in a position to . . .” I suddenly understood where he was going with this: Pyrenth. That night, when I found Zack and brought him to Jill’s house, he had no doubt sensed my pain over the reyza’s death.
“Pyrenth was the first,” I said, throat tight. “No, wait.” An uncomfortable realization struck me. “He’s the first I knew for sure. I Earth-killed a kehza and a graa, but, at the time, I assumed any demon killed on Earth made it back through the void to the demon realm.” Now I knew that, while there was a good chance a demon could return, it was by no means a certainty.
“And if they’d died before on Earth and returned—”
“Then the good chance drops to crappy,” I finished for him. A second death on Earth for a demon usually meant death for real. Eilahn had died on Earth once already, and so I worried doubly for her.
“Pyrenth had traversed the void once before.”
The implications of that simple statement left me mentally scrambling and ripped a new wound in my pain over his death. I took a moment to put it all together. Zack waited in patient silence on the other end of the line.
“When I made the decision to use deadly force to stop Pyrenth from taking Idris,” I finally said, “I was playing the odds that he’d make it through the void and back to the demon realm. My intention was to stop him, to kill him if that’s what it took, with a secondary consideration that he’d have a chance of making it home. But it was a gamble.” I closed my eyes and let out a long slow breath. “I thought his odds were better than they were, but it was always a gamble.” Explaining it, actually speaking the words out loud, helped. My respect and gratitude for Zack climbed even higher. He was going through ten tons of shit and yet he still took the time and thought and energy to help me get through this.
“I chose the blade over a bullet because it had a better chance of taking him out of the game,” I went on. “I didn’t know there were no ‘odds’ with Vsuhl, that a kill was final.”
“Pyrenth gambled too,” Zack said gently. “Rhyzkahl couldn’t force him to come to Earth. Pyrenth knew the danger and chose to come. You killed him in the line of duty, and he died in the line of duty.”
Tears pricked my eyes. Those were hard terms though ones I could understand. It still gnawed that Mzatal hadn’t warned me that dead by the blade meant Really Dead, but the heavy guilt around Pyrenth’s death abated somewhat.
“Thanks, Zack,” I said.
“Sihn,” he replied, and I heard a whisper of smile in his voice.
“You doing okay with Sonny?” I asked, ready for a change in subject.
“He’s a blessing. I’m not sure I’d have made it this far without him.”
At least that much was working out well. “I figured it’d be good for both of you. He needed to help someone.”
“I read him,” he said. “He’s a mess. Good pairing.”
I laughed softly. “My whole posse is fucked up. It’s perfect.”
• • •
After reassuring Zack that Jill was doing well and Steeev was taking good care of her, I hung up, found some shorts, and then followed the smell of coffee. Ryan leaned against the kitchen counter, arms folded across his chest, and eyes unfocused as though lost in thought. I continued toward the coffee pot as it made its last gurgles.
“Morning, sunshine,” I said with a bright smile. Yeah, let’s just keep pretending everything’s nice and normal.
He startled a bit, then smiled. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
“It’s not that late,” I pointed out. “You’re not exactly an early bird yourself today unless this is the second pot of coffee.” I retrieved two mugs from the cabinet, filled them.
