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Dekkak drew her lips back, revealing fangs that gleamed in the moonlight like ivory tusks. “Interfere, and you doom Krawkor and Makonite.” An ominous growl backed her words.
I stared at her, utterly taken aback. She was talking about Corey Crawford and Marco Knight. What the ever-living fuck? “And those two demons are going to do what exactly?”
“Tend their brood,” she said without further explanation. Still, it was the most direct response she’d made to me yet, so I decided to count it as a win.
“If by ‘tend’ you mean anything except ‘care for,’ call them back.” I pretended to ignore her hiss and continued, “It’s obvious you want something that only I can give, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this nice little chat. I’ll be a whole lot less likely to agree if, er, Krawkor and Makonite are harmed.”
To my everlasting relief, Dekkak settled her wings and eased back. “Untended, they will never hatch.” She tucked her first three fingers under her thumb, leaving only her wickedly clawed little finger extended, like giving me the bird except with her pinky. “On my honor, Kara Gillian.”
Her eyes, her stance, and her very aura told me she would never say that frivolously. She definitely wanted something. And wanted it badly. A faint flicker of hope stirred from deep beneath the ol’ fear of dying. If we were about to negotiate a trade, maybe I could shove the rescue of Elinor back onto the bargaining table?
I had no idea if I was supposed to throw any demon gang signs in response to Dekkak’s pinky swear, so I opted for neutral territory and sought something vaguely flattering. “Your honor is . . . impeccable, imperator.” I winced mentally at the unintended echo, then again as my stupid stressed brain tried to make a rap out of it. Impeccable imperator, insides indigestible . . .
I gave my brain a mental kick in the ass and focused on the impeccable imperator.
Dekkak withdrew her hand, but when she made no move to kill me, I decided I must have made an acceptable response. “Seretis,” she said in demon. “To me.”
Seretis staggered to his feet and approached, the leash of potency still trailing into the rift. Behind him, said rift flared magenta then belched a nightmare creature that looked like an elephant-sized slug with several monster octopuses fused together where a head might be. Its hide and tentacles shifted colors in lazy splodges of midnight blue and neon pink, while in the midst of the tentacles, eerie blue light issued from its cavernous maw illuminating pale shapes of—
I recoiled as my eyes resolved the pale shapes into the human skulls that they were. Mouth dry, I forced myself to confirm that the creature was indeed wearing at least a dozen human skulls and severed heads on its smaller tentacles like ornaments. A few were fresh, as if either newly killed or arcanely preserved, and I suddenly found myself looking into the dead eyes of Sergeant Ted Palmer of the Dirty Thirty.
Cold sweat broke out beneath my shirt. I wrenched my gaze away, silently screaming at myself to hold it together, to swallow back the puke, set aside the horror, and keep a goddamn brave face on because too much was riding on me not fucking this up.
Seretis collapsed to his knees beside Dekkak, but my gaze went to his leash. Only now did it register that Slugthing held the other end within a wrap of tentacle. His keeper.
A deep and dark calm descended upon me. I wouldn’t lose focus. Not now. This was it. Whatever it was.
Chapter 38
With a deft twitch of her claws, Dekkak shaped rakkuhr into a knot-like sigil and set it spinning overhead. I didn’t need to understand rakkuhr to know the ward was for privacy, especially when my earpiece crackled and went dead.
In a foreboding gesture, Slugthing shot a tentacle around my blood bowl and knife and pulled them to a spot between Dekkak and me. A slurred, wet voice issued from its maw, saying in demon, “This frail hu-beast female has not the wit nor resources to procure the trinity.”
What the hell was the trinity? And why did it need procuring? I had to assume this was part of the mysterious bargain, but I was already sick of the games and shows of dominance. Time to cut the crap.
I locked eyes with the imperator and—also in demon—said, “Your underling doubts your decision to negotiate with this hu-beast. Is such insolence rife in your domain?”
Dekkak shot an I’ll-deal-with-you-later glance at Slugthing then huffed out a breath between her teeth. “Gurgaz merely echoes what I have already voiced,” she replied, sticking to her own language since it was clear I understood it. “Doubt yet lingers within me regarding the merit of the defiler’s claim.” She gestured toward Seretis. “Though, as you have mastered our tongue, I concede you are more than a witless hu-beast.”
Hey, I’d made it past Witless. Achievement unlocked. Or rather, achievement faked. The nexus gave me the demon tongue, but I wasn’t about to let her in on the secret.
I inclined my head a bare inch. “I await your proposal, honored imperator.”
“You sought to summon and bind me to your will,” she growled. “Such will never come to pass, but listen well. The kiraknikahl Xharbek expects me to return with your severed head and the Elinor essence.”
Bonus points to her for calling Xharbek an oathbreaker. And points to me as well for having guessed correctly that the asshole had engaged her to do his dirty work and get me dead. The essence thing was a surprise, though. And she’d so far failed to make a proclamation in the vein of, “Oh, and I decided not to kill you because fuck Xharbek.” So that threat was still on the table.
But so was what she wanted. “Yet you haven’t taken my head or the essence,” I pointed out. “What did Xharbek offer in return?”
“Earth,” she said, as if bartering planets was an everyday occurrence.
“Ah.” I gave a knowing nod, as if I possessed vast experience in trade negotiations involving planetary real estate. Meanwhile, Inside-My-Head Kara was running in circles with her hands in her hair while shrieking are you shitting me!?
However, Slugthing’s insulting comment had contained a nugget of useful info. Whatever the trinity was, it needed procuring. “But you want the trinity more than you want Earth,” I said serenely. No way was I going to reveal that I knew nothing about this trinity. However, an unpleasant suspicion was beginning to form.
“And you want the shell of Elinor Bayliss,” Dekkak said with an accompanying hiss.
I acknowledged her statement with a nod. “It seems we have the foundation of a mutually beneficial agreement.”
