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Comprehension flared in Rhyzkahl’s eyes. He pushed off the tree trunk, expression a mix of shock and naked hope. “Idris,” he choked out. “It is Idris, is it not?”
“Yeah,” I said, more than a little off-balance by this startlingly human reaction. “Idris is, um, your son.”
For the tiniest fraction of a second, Rhyzkahl’s aura blazed as if he burned with elation. Then the mask dropped back into place, his features smoothed, and his lordly bearing returned. Damn, he had impressive control.
“My son,” he said slowly, as if tasting the word. “He despises me.” His brow creased ever so slightly, as if he was trying to determine if that should matter to him.
“Well, you do have a bit of a reputation.”
He didn’t reply or react save to turn away from me and begin to slowly pace the perimeter of his prison. Processing this new paradigm, I figured, and the implications. Rhyzkahl now held the forbidden knowledge that the lords could father children—and from there he could surmise that they had likely done so many times over the last few millennia. No doubt he was considering how this new information affected various plots and plans. And, surely, wondering why the knowledge had been suppressed and the children hidden.
I thought of Rhyzkahl’s face shining oh-so-briefly after learning Idris was his son. I’d seen that look before, on fathers holding their newborn child for the first time.
Maybe that was why the demahnk didn’t want the lords to know.
Maybe it risked making them too human.
• • •
Jill returned mid-afternoon with a truckload of supplies and groceries. But no chickens.
“I bought chickens,” she assured me when I came out to help her unload. “They’re being delivered tomorrow.” Then she shrugged. “That is, assuming you haven’t been eaten.”
“Your faith in me warms the cockles of my heart. Admit it. You didn’t want to bring chickens home today for fear that Dekkak would eat them all.”
“It would be a terrible waste of money,” she said with a tragic air, then her breath caught as she pulled me into a hug. “Bryce wants me and the pets and the civilians out of here in the next ten minutes. Stay in one piece, damn it. Call me the instant you know anything.”
“I will, and I will,” I said and hugged her back just as hard.
I released her as furious yowling heralded the arrival of Lilith Cantrell with a cat carrier in each hand. Behind her, Sammy bounced eagerly on a leash held by the stocky Kellum, with Janice and Michael bringing up the rear.
“Jill,” Bryce roared from the door of the security outbuilding. “Get your shit packed and your ass out of here.”
Jill shot him an affectionate middle finger then leveled a fierce look at me. “Remember: Don’t die. I love you.”
“I love you, too. Now go away.”
She smiled and dashed to her trailer while I headed into the house to take the most important shower of my life.
Chapter 37
Okay, Kara, I told myself as I stepped onto the nexus, we’ve been busting our asses for two days, planning and preparing for this damn thing. I paused my silent lecture for a dramatic three heartbeats. Don’t. Fuck. Up.
I positioned myself with the grove tree behind me, a pace from the edge of the slab. I’d given up wearing formal summoning garb not long after I started training in the demon realm. In its place I’d usually opted for whatever felt comfortable. But today, everyone here had on the full kit usually reserved for incursion response—combat fatigues, boots, body armor, guns, knives, y
ou name it. For this summoning, I was happy to trade a bit of mobility for protection. Except for my feet, which were bare to allow me to better feel every shift and nuance of the nexus.
At those same feet, my blood bowl and ritual knife lay ready. Light from the full moon pierced the leaf canopy, patterning the area with misty color while, around me, woven strands of potency thrummed, ready for the summoning call. The super-shikvihr undulated in scintillating electric blue waves and, directly beyond it, the amber glow of over a hundred floating sigils marked the Dekkak binding zone—an oval-shaped area nearly twenty feet wide and extending all the way to the vinyl exterior of Rhyzkahl’s house.
Potency from both the prepared ritual and the nexus saturated me to the point that I no longer felt limited to flesh and bone and skin. My brain told me to use my eyes to confirm all my people were ready and in place, but my lord-sense knew before I looked. Each person shone with their own unique energy signature. Pellini, armed with the borrowed wizard staff, just off the nexus to my left. Rhyzkahl near the tree trunk behind me. Turek tucked in close to the house and, beside him, Giovanni within a circle of protective wards. Bryce and Suarez by the launcher, ready to deploy the graphene net upon Dekkak’s arrival. Roper and Tandon hunkered down half a dozen feet into the woods as a last resort backup, both with weapons loaded with shieldbuster rounds.
“Status,” I murmured, for the sake of everyone who didn’t have the nifty lord-sense. A series of crisp affirmatives came through my earpiece. “Ready here, too. Time to boogie.”
The moonlight abruptly brightened, and I looked up in surprise to see that the tree had withdrawn its branches from over the nexus. I grinned in gratitude and relief. Now I wouldn’t have to worry about either demon or net getting tangled up in it.
As I’d done hundreds of times before, I began the familiar chant that would unite the energies and open the interdimensional portal. Yet the words jangled off my tongue, and the ritual was sluggish to respond. It felt wrong. Too structured. Harsh rather than harmonious.
Be lordy. Be the summoning.
