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He moved with inhuman grace through the practice of the intricate potency-augmenting ritual. “It worries you that, each time you have made this demand, it has been more difficult to force it.” As if for emphasis, he ignited a sigil.
I managed to contain my jolt of surprise to a mere twitch. The glowing loops of the arcane symbol hung in the air, the first he’d been able to ignite since being placed in my tender, loving care. Stark evidence that he was regaining control and command of his abilities.
He’s still locked out of the flows, I reassured myself, yet a whisper of doubt clung close. No way would I admit it to this asshole, though. Fortunately, his prison prevented him from reading minds, plus I had the extra mental protections implanted by Zack and Helori.
“You think I’m worried?” I let out a soft chuckle and deliberately stepped onto the packed dirt of his orbit. “Your little rebellion is no match for what Mzatal has wrought here. If I feel anything, it’s disappointment that your best effort at defiance is little more than a tantrum.”
He finished the shikvihr, and the sigil dimmed as he drew on its weak augmentation to potency-evaporate his sweat. “It pleases me that I cause you to feel something.”
“Yeah, I feel like I’m dealing with a spoiled brat.” I marched across his orbit and stepped onto the nexus. Power embraced me and escalated to a deep thrum as I stopped at the center of the slab. Beneath my feet, a thousand silvery repetitions of a sigil—my sigil—formed the shape of a woman with her arms extended, much like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. A gift from Mzatal, and my focal point of power. Like Bryce and Seretis, Mzatal and I shared an essence bond. Yet ours had gone silent for a different reason than the closing of the ways between the worlds. At my urging, Mzatal had walled himself off, mentally and emotionally, and taken up his essence blade in order to maintain the undivided focus necessary to save his world.
I could no longer feel him, but I didn’t need to. I knew, and that was enough.
Tipping my head back, I inhaled deeply and let the power fill my entire being until every cell tingled. This was a lord’s power: Rhyzkahl’s. Mzatal had plugged him into the infrastructure of the nexus like a lordly battery. Here on the slab I was a demigod.
Or more like a semi-demigod since I didn’t know how to do most of what was surely possible. Though the nexus hadn’t come with an instruction manual, I’d puzzled out enough on my own to allow me to do my part to help both Earth and the demon realm. But, most importantly, the nexus gave me full access to the arcane and had become my therapy of choice to “rehab” my own damaged abilities.
Rhyzkahl continued to eye me from the middle of his swath, his arms folded and feet planted.
“Go into your house,” I snapped. “I don’t have time for this today.” To emphasize my point, I raised a strand of potency behind him and gave him a rat tail flick across the back of his legs.
Ignoring the swat, he lifted his chin in challenge. His scarred hand twitched hard at his side, but he lifted his other and gave me a bring-it-on gesture.
He might as well have given me the middle finger. Anger swelled as the mounting worries crashed down on me, as if summoned by that stupid gesture. Cory and the others who were mutating. Xharbek. The Feds. Everything. I was sick to death of this game, sick of having this hated creature in my back yard and in my personal space.
“I don’t have time for this shit!” Teeth bared, I flung my arms out, snaking a dozen bands of potency around Rhyzkahl to push-drag him to his stupid house. For a heartbeat he held firm against my efforts. Doubt flickered ever so briefly within me as he resisted. An invalid no longer, he was most assuredly regaining his strength.
But without Zakaar he couldn’t hold the focus. A cry of frustration burst from him as he staggered back and fell through the open door of his house. Right before I slammed the door closed with a burst of potency, I caught a glimpse of his liquid expression. In it was triumph for holding out at all underscored with bleak despair at his failure, along with a shimmer of fear that he might never regain the powerful focus necessary to manage the arcane flows of an entire world, might never truly be a lord again.
Shaken, I dropped to a crouch. I hated this. Hated Rhyzkahl. Hated everything about this entire situation. Hated that I knew the taste of that fear—the gut deep terror that I might never truly be a summoner again. And I especially hated that I’d lost my temper and given him an opportunity to defy me.
Why why why did Mzatal have to send him here? Having my tormentor as my prisoner sounded fine and dandy, but it sure could suck hard. Resentment rose in a choking wave—partly toward Rhyzkahl, but also toward Mzatal for placing this burden on me. Like I needed even more shit to worry about and deal with and be responsible for. Because I was responsible for Rhyzkahl. I was his warden and his caretaker, which fucking sucked. And what was I supposed to do when the day came that Rhyzkahl managed to scavenge or hoard enough potency from the trickle allowed to him that he could, in fact, fully defy me?
What was I supposed to do with any of this mess I was in?
Well, you sure as hell don’t give up, I thought savagely. I’d take what I’d been given and use Rhyzkahl-the-battery for the good of humanity. I swiped at my damp eyes then straightened and meticulously cleared all stray potency from the slab. By the time I completed the process, my head was as clear as the nexus, and I felt ready to take on the Cory situation.
Chapter 7
Not that it made a difference. With the help of two security guards, Pellini and I carried Cory out to the nexus where I was able to get a nice clear view of Timmy the Tumor with my borrowed lord-sight. A filament of potency finer than spider silk led from the tumor down into the ground. It moved with him, and every effort to track its end—or origin—was met with a potency resonance I couldn’t penetrate. After an exhaustive examination, I couldn’t find a single thing to explain Cory’s condition or hint at either a cause or solution.
“He’s still alive,” I said to Pellini. “That’s about all I’m sure of.” I sat back on my heels and rubbed my face with both hands. “Shit. He’s going to mutate, and I only know that much from seeing the victims at Fed Central.”
“He and the others must’ve been exposed to something at ground zero,” Pellini said. “If so, there’s no unexposing them at this point. We can’t stop it.”
We fell silent, and I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know we had the same question rattling through our heads.
“So are we next in line to be slimed?” I finally said.
Pellini blew out a heavy breath. “If it came out of the valve, we were exposed. Moreso than anyone else.” He turned his hands over and peered at them. “But no red slime yet.”
“Yet,” I murmured. But why not? Did our arcane ability protect us? Or Ashava’s shielding? Or did some other factor give us immunity. Or perhaps we were affected, but the slime was incubating.
With that last joyous thought echoing through my skull, I called for the security dudes to help Pellini get Cory back inside. I remained on the nexus, feeling like a tiny fish in an unknown ocean full of sharks. Crouching, I placed my palm flat on the cool black surface, spread my fingers over my silvery sigils and let their potency tingle through me. Mzatal trusted me to not only swim with the sharks and avoid being eaten, but to beat them at their own deadly game. “I could’ve used a rule book, zharkat,” I murmured, “but I’m figuring it out bit by bit. Rakkuhr. Demahnk. Lords. Demons. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Earth from getting wrecked.?
?? Deep resolve welled in me. “Whatever it takes.”
Straightening, I released the potency lock on Rhyzkahl’s door then headed for the house, refocused, recentered, recommitted, and ready to tackle the next crisis.
