Blood of the Demon (8 page)

I scrubbed at my face, disturbed on innumerable levels. “All right, can you get in?”

He was silent for several heartbeats, then gave a grave nod. “It will not be swift. It will take me until tomorrow night.” Then his gaze locked on mine, and his lips curled back from his wickedly sharp teeth. “Usually I would request renegotiation of terms or demand an admission of debt, but as you are the favored one of Rhyzkahl, I will grant this service as my gift to you.”

I quickly controlled the shocked expression that was surely on my face and produced a weak smile instead, thinking furiously. I didn’t know which lord Kehlirik served. I assumed he served one, since that was one of the best and easiest ways for demons to gain status—to serve a high-standing lord. And from what I knew of the demon realm, and from what my aunt had told me, Rhyzkahl was one of the highest of the lot.

But did Kehlirik serve Rhyzkahl, or was he trying to curry favor with him? Either way, I had no idea how risky it could be to accept such a gift. Few things were truly
gifts
among the demonkind. On the other hand, refusing a gift could definitely be construed as a major insult.

Shit. I
needed
that library available to me. I looked back at the
reyza
. “Honored Kehlirik, your gift is precious to me, and it will not be forgotten.” He inclined his head gravely as I controlled the urge to sigh. I had no idea if I’d just screwed up colossally by accepting it, but rejecting it seemed like a quick ticket to an insulted retaliation.

Whatever. I didn’t feel like worrying about it at that moment. I had plenty to worry about already. And normally I would have loved to stay and watch the demon work and perhaps learn some new techniques and skills, but, despite my earlier nap, fatigue dragged at me. Summonings of
reyza
were exhausting affairs. “Kehlirik, do you need me to stay here with you while you work?”

The demon shook his head, already beginning to tease layers of arcane energy apart. “No, summoner. But you will need to adjust the anchors holding me in this realm to permit me to stay through the day.”

Now I felt like an idiot. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that the task I’d set him might take more than a few hours. I’d summoned him and bound him to this sphere with lunar potency. When day came, those bindings would unravel and he’d be drawn back to his own sphere. Moreover, since being drawn back like that wasn’t a proper dismissal, it was supposedly quite painful for the demon.

I had only one problem. I’d never had any need to adjust anchors and had absolutely zero clue how to do it—and I highly doubted that he was going to teach me for free. I cleared my throat. “Honored one, I do not know this skill. I will be in your debt if you would teach me.”

Kehlirik peered down at me, silent for long enough that
I had to fight the urge to hang my head in shame. Then he turned to me fully, spreading his wings, or at least as far as he could spread them in the width of the hallway. He folded his heavily muscled arms across his chest. “I accept your admission of debt, Kara Gillian. We will negotiate the terms on your next summoning of me.”

My neck was getting a crick in it from looking up at him. “Yes, honored one.”

“I would also speak with you at length”—his gaze flicked to Ryan and then back to me—“in private, before you dismiss me back to my own world.”

Hunh. Did he want to tell me something about Ryan? Or did he just not want Ryan hearing whatever it was he had to tell me? Either way, the comment left an unpleasant churning in my gut. “Agreed,” I said, doing my best not to show how much the request unnerved me.

Kehlirik rumbled, looking again at Ryan. I thought the demon was going to hiss and growl, since the expression on his face was certainly malevolent enough, but he did neither. He snorted, nostrils flaring, then unfolded his arms and returned his attention to me. I saw Ryan roll his eyes and flip the demon off behind his back—something that would have made me laugh out loud a few minutes ago, but now I had too much uncertainty roiling through me. For a brief instant I hated the demon for stealing away the companionable ease I’d felt with Ryan, but I knew I couldn’t put all that on Kehlirik. Rhyzkahl had seeded doubts already with his insinuations that I didn’t know all there was to know about Ryan. Kehlirik had merely brought all of that out into the open with his obvious antipathy.
And why the fuck would any of the demons know who Ryan is anyway?

“Abide closely, then,” the demon said, yanking me out
of my tortured musings, “and I will show you how to re-anchor.”

The lesson was a quick one, though it still left me sweating. It wasn’t a difficult procedure, but it was oddly complex. Still, Kehlirik seemed pleased enough with my grasp of it and carefully walked me through the procedure.

I stepped back when I finished and looked at the revised bindings. Now when the night turned to day and the potencies shifted from lunar to solar, the anchors would re-form around us both. It was an interesting piece of work, and I thought I could see something else about it, but, again, I was tired and on edge and didn’t have the energy to delve too deeply into it.

But another thought occurred to me during the lesson. If it
had
been my
ilius
that had consumed Brian’s essence, then I was looking at an isolated event, since the demon would have been drawn back to its own sphere at sunrise. I despised the thought that I could be at fault, but it was better than thinking that there was some other essence-eating creature on the loose.

The demon gave an approving nod. “You grasp the concepts quickly. Very well, I will remain here and work.”

“I’ll secure the house and close all the curtains and stuff,” I said. “If anyone comes to the house … just stay away from the door.”

The
reyza
rumbled again. I figured this time it was the demon version of
No shit, Sherlock
. “I will place an aversion on the door after you depart,” he said instead. “And I should be able to sense anyone approaching in sufficient time to hide my presence.”

How the hell an eight-foot-tall demon with wings and horns and a tail would hide himself was beyond me, but I
decided it was best not to worry about it. I quickly went through the house and locked all the doors and windows, making sure the curtains were all drawn, then gave Kehlirik quick instructions on how to use the phone in the kitchen in case he needed to contact me. Again, he seemed utterly delighted, and I could see he was restraining himself from trying it out at that instant.

“All right, I’ll check on you during the day, then,” I said. The demon merely snorted softly, already engrossed in untangling the wards. I jerked my head at Ryan and headed toward the door to the garage. I half-expected him to give the demon the finger again, but he managed to control himself and followed me out.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, after we’d shut the garage door and were in the truck.

“About what?”

“That demon. I don’t think he’s my best bro anymore. He is
so
not getting an invite to my next Super Bowl party.”

I shook my head and started the truck. “And people say
I’m
weird.”

“YOU ARE WORRIED.”

I nestled against Rhyzkahl’s chest, the weight of his arm around me a comfort. The sun pierced the broad canopy of the tree we sat beneath, casting a shifting lace of light across us. I could feel the warmth of his breath on the top of my head and I closed my eyes, relishing the exquisite peace of the moment. I didn’t want to respond to him, and besides, it didn’t feel like a question
.

But he straightened, ignoring my little whine of protest as he pulled his arm away from me, and stood. I scowled up at him. “I was comfortable.”

“Comfort is a trap,” he responded
.

I stood and brushed leaves from my dress. It was a lovely creation of dark-blue brocaded silk, with a scattering of jewels sewn onto a plunging bodice. I felt as if it was a favorite, though there was a faint part of me that knew I’d never seen it before. “Of course I’m worried. I miss my aunt, and something’s eating essence.”

“And I would be pleased to give you such aid as to ease your worry.”

I gave him a sour look. “Give? You don’t just give anything. You’re a demon.”

“Not all prices are onerous.” As if to prove his point, he moved to me, pushing me back against the tree and capturing my mouth in a kiss. His hands braceleted my wrists over my head as his lips shifted from my mouth to my throat. I dropped my head back, groaning as heat flushed through me
.

“I do not ask for more than you can give, dear one,” he murmured against my skin. He continued to hold my wrists, tightening very slightly when I tried to shift his hold. His teeth grazed my neck, and a shiver raced through me. “I can show you what you are truly capable of.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Show me.”

He lifted his head, triumph flashing in his eyes, then abruptly released me and straightened. “The sun is rising,” he said, which made no sense, since the sun was high in the sky. He frowned. “This will not be comfortable for you, but it will get easier.”

I came awake with a shuddering gasp as nausea twisted through my body. I sucked in my breath, hands tightening in the sheets as a sensation like the worst hangover I’d ever had rolled over me, literally feeling as if it started at my head and rolled down throughout my body to my toes. Nausea and headache and weakness, and then it was gone, leaving me sweating and shaking, even though it had lasted perhaps only half a dozen heartbeats.

I took an uneasy breath and slowly sat up, images and sensations from the dream shimmering through my head and already beginning to fade like fog under a rising sun. Had that really been just a dream? He’d seemed to know that I was about to feel like shit. But, then again, I could
think of countless times when my alarm clock had been incorporated into my dream right before I’d woken, so maybe that was the same kind of thing.

Through my bedroom window I could see that dawn was turning the eastern sky orange and purple, and I abruptly realized what had happened. The potencies had shifted from lunar to solar, and my link with Kehlirik had to re-form. I took another deep breath, nausea all but gone now.
Okay, that sucked major ass. Did Kehlirik feel that too?

I glanced at my clock and sighed. It was barely past six a.m., which meant that I’d managed to get only about four hours of sleep.

Complete with a dream about Rhyzkahl.
I’m dreaming about him only because Kehlirik mentioned him. That’s all. He was just on my mind
.

Suuuure.

I thought about sticking my head under the pillow and trying for more sleep, but the beeping of the pager on my nightstand derailed that line of thought.

I sighed and scrolled through the message:
Signal 29, Ruby Est
. A death—but at least not a murder, since the signal for that was a 30. So it was someone who had died from either an accident or illness. Hopefully that meant it would be a nice and simple open-and-shut case, but even as I thought it, I knew I was probably jinxing myself.

THE ADDRESS WAS for a section of Beaulac that I very seldom had cause to go into. Ruby Estates was
the
elite neighborhood for people who had more money than they knew what to do with. It was a gated community with its own security service—though, like any other security
service, it was mostly staffed by the kind of people who could be hired for eight dollars an hour. All of the lots were on or near the lakefront, at least an acre in size, and the neighborhood in general was lovely, wooded, and quiet. I had no doubt that there was a fair measure of drug use and domestic violence within the walls in this subdivision, but it was kept quiet enough that we seldom got called out to deal with it.

The address wasn’t hard to find. It was the one with several police cars and an ambulance in front of it—far more attention than any regular person would ever get for a slip and fall. But this was the house of Parish Councilman Davis Sharp and a stunning example of what shit-loads of money could do for you. Davis Sharp had cleared the majority of the trees off his land so that everyone driving by could see his three-story mansion—complete with an absurdly broad staircase that swept up to the second level like some plantation gone mad. Personally, I thought it was a hideous waste of what was surely a few million dollars. But, then again, I lived in a house with peeling paint in the middle of nowhere, so who was I to judge?