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My phone buzzed beside me right after I hit send, with Sonny’s name on the display. Please let this be good news about Zack, I prayed as I picked it up. And if not that, I’ll settle for boring requests like a sudden need for toothpaste or toilet paper. “Hey, Sonny.”
“Got trouble,” he said in a strained whisper against raised voices in the background. “Ryan is here arguing with Zack. I think he’s trying to take him away.”
I shoved the laptop aside and shot to my feet. “Arguing about what? Where does he want to take him?”
“I don’t know!” he said. “They’re not speaking English.”
“Crap. I’m on my way. Do whatever you can to stall them!”
Szerain’s voice. Closer. Commanding. “Sonny. Put down the phone.”
“Let me talk to Ryan!” I shouted. The phone clunked. “Ryan! Szerain! Dammit. Talk to me!”
Son of a bitch. Szerain was doing a top-notch job of maintaining his position as Gigantic Fucking Loose Cannon. Holding my breath, I listened. Scuffling and a heavy thump. Szerain speaking in demon. Zack replying in kind. The rustle of the phone being picked up. Szerain speaking again in the background, my name followed by more demon. More jostling of the phone.
“Kara.” It was Zack, voice hoarse and stressed.
“Zack? Are you okay? What’s going on?”
He drew a shaky breath. “Leaving for a while.”
“Where to?” I jammed a hand through my hair in frustration. “For how long?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” He paused as Szerain spoke, clipped and urgent. “Out of time,” Zack continued. “I have to go. He’s taking Sonny as well. I’m sorry.”
“No no no, Zack!” I paced frantically in the living room while I tried to think of a way to intervene. “Don’t let him do this to you. He’s too unpredictable right now. Please, think of Jill. Think of the baby.”
“He is.” Szerain’s voice on th
e line now, clear and uncompromising. I stopped pacing, hand tight on my phone. “Keep your focus on Katashi,” he continued. “Do not seek us.” His voice held a lord’s strength, but behind it I felt the fear—a visceral terror I recognized from when he faced re-submersion in his nightmarish prison. Loose cannon? No, he was a loose high-yield nuke who would go to any length to remain free.
“If you hurt Zack,” I said, voice shaking, “I swear, demonic lord or not, I’ll—” The connection went dead. I let out a scream of frustration then derailed the urge to smash the phone against the wall by hurling a sofa pillow instead. Breathing hard, I struggled to find a glimmer of hope in the madness. Zack had saved Szerain from insanity during his imprisonment. That had to count for something, right?
Sure, with humans. But I wasn’t dealing with humans. Zack and Sonny were gone, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. On top of that, Pellini was coming over in a few hours. How on earth was I supposed to pretend to be sociable, with Tessa off with Katashi, and Zack and Ryan who knew where?
I threw the pillow against the wall a few more times, then dropped down in front of the TV and hauled out the game controller. Half an hour of blowing aliens to green bits improved my mood somewhat. As I put the game away the gate panel chimed, signaling the arrival of Bryce and Idris.
A couple of minutes later the guys came in, both heavily laden with grocery bags. “We hit the store for barbecue supplies after we left the PD,” Bryce said as the two dropped the bags onto the kitchen table.
I joined them in the kitchen. “Damn glad you did,” I replied, wincing. “This has been such a crazy day I totally forgot. So, is the PD valve all right?”
“It’s stable except for a few minor irregularities,” Idris said as he stuck packages of ribs, hamburger meat, and hot dogs into the refrigerator. “Hallsworth was most likely evaluating a recent emission. I’ll recheck that valve right before its next emission in five days.”
I sorted out immediate barbecue needs from general groceries. “Nice to have a little breathing room. Did you make it to any of the other valves before I called you?”
“A couple,” he said. He tossed a head of lettuce to Bryce who caught it one-handed and set it on the counter. “No problem with the swamp valve out by the Alligator Museum,” Idris continued. “Stable and quiet. But the valve node in the river was wonky as hell. I’ll have to go back and do another round on it.”
“In the river?” I asked then rescued a bag of tomatoes from the game of catch. “How’d you manage to deal with it?”
Bryce snorted. “It wasn’t easy,” he said. “I had him dangling by a rope from the bridge. We were lucky no cops drove by.”
The mental image had me grinning. “That would’ve been fun to explain,” I said. “Wouldn’t a boat have been smarter—I mean, easier?”
“Both.” Bryce chuckled. “Time constraints. When we go out there again, we’ll rent one.”
“Smart man,” I said. “Which river?”
“Kreeger.”
