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The palm it was then.
I adjusted my grip on the knife, casually shifting a few inches to my left to keep Seretis within my line of sight. I had faith that he’d give me a sign if it looked as if I was about to make a fatal faux pas.
Dekkak snapped her wings in the universal demon sign of impatience. Pretending to ignore her, I placed the edge of the knife against the meat of my palm then closed my hand around the blade like I’d seen Mzatal do.
Then again, the lords don’t have to worry about permanently severing tendons, I thought sourly. I steeled myself and silently counted to three then pulled the knife through my grip as if drawing it from a sheath.
Fuckingshitgoddamn ow that hurt! Breathing through clenched teeth, I opened my hand to reveal the long gash then looked up at Dekkak expectantly.
She drew a claw across her own palm, opening a wound that dripped blood in a steady stream onto the black slab and its silvery inlay.
Without any warning, the nexus vortex reversed, sucking the arcane downward. My legs nearly buckled as my body abruptly felt impossibly heavy, as if gravity had quadrupled in strength.
Dekkak bellowed as her wings drooped under the arcane pressure, but quickly recovered from her surprise and peered intently down, making no move to stop the flow of blood. Her eyes narrowed with avid curiosity, as if trying to discern the reason for the shift in the vortex.
Crap! I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t want her to break my nexus by continuing to bleed all over it and gum up the works. Nor did I want to give away any nexus-y secrets to an imperator.
“Dekkak! Off my nexus with the blood. Now!” I spoke with as much force as I could muster while weighing five hundred pounds.
She utterly ignored me and spattered more blood, scrutinizing the slab.
The bindings and protections around the nexus dimmed briefly, like a brownout. Whatever this reaction to her blood was, it sucked a shitload of power. Power I needed. If I couldn’t find a way to make her stop—
The sigil from the notebook. The one Szerain had told me to memorize.
Use it if—when—you want Dekkak to pay close attention to what you’re saying.
I certainly needed that superpower now. Fighting against the steady downdraft, I traced the little sigil before me then spoke into it.
“Imperator Dekkak. Stop bleeding onto my nexus, or I will withdraw agreement.” I could only hope that we weren’t already done with the oath-swearing.
Her gaze lifted from the black surface, and for the barest moment she seemed . . . confused. Then she growled low and wove rakkuhr over the wound as if she hadn’t been intentionally painting my slab red a moment earlier. The instant the blood stopped striking the nexus, the vortex returned to its normal updraft.
Hot damn. It worked.
“The agreement is made,” she said, giving zero indication that she remembered my ordering her around. “The oath is in the making.” She extended her wounded hand then waited, eyeing me.
Seretis turned his hand palm up, shifted it forward an inch then flicked his eyes at Dekkak.
Got it. I held out my injured hand.
“Now we seal our blood oath on this pact,” she rumbled then seized my arm and swiped her thick, rough tongue over the slice.
I choked back a squeak of surprise and did my best to look as if that hadn’t been really weird and kind of gross. Dekkak released me, still holding her own gashed hand out.
Oh. Eeeeeeew! She’d peeled off the rakkuhr bandaid, and the bleeding had pretty much stopped, but that didn’t change the fact that I was clearly expected to lick an open wound on a big demon hand with a palm the size of my torso.
But if I hesitated any longer, I’d look weak. Steeling myself, I grabbed her massive wrist with both hands then glommed my tongue right smack onto the squishy middle of the gash and gave it the kind of girl-on-girl action this deal deserved.
I released her wrist and stepped back, keeping a confident smile in place and an iron hold on the urge to scrub my face and mouth.
“Bound by blood and oath, it is done,” Dekkak proclaimed, dissipating the privacy ward. “I go for the shell of Elinor Bayliss.”
Before I could ask if she needed directions, she spread her wings and let out a roar that shook the air. Slugthing, moving faster than a creature that big or that ugly had a right to move, wrapped Seretis in tentacles and tossed him bodily into the rift. Dekkak bounded up and over, landing twenty feet beyond Rhyzkahl’s orbit. Slugthing followed.
The rift crackled with magenta flame, and a horde of creatures the size of large cats boiled forth. Flyers and walkers and slitherers. All colors and all forms. Moving in unison like a flock of birds, they converged to swarm around Dekkak. Potency coalesced around her as her deft hands bound and anchored rakkuhr.
Bryce’s orders to the security personnel crackled in my ear. Assemble by the nexus. Keep clear of the demons.
