Fury of the Demon (Kara Gillian) (23 page)

“You’re off again as soon as he gets here?” she asked gamely.

“We’ll be working in the basement,” Zack told her. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “It will probably only be an hour or two, sweetie. You’ll still be here?”

Her shoulders lifted in a too casual shrug. “I don’t know. It’s getting late, and I have some stuff I need to do at my house.”

I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. “For fuck’s sake.” I glanced at Bryce. “You’ll have to excuse me, but there’s something I need to take care of.” I strode over to where Zack and Jill sat on the couch, removed the bowl of pretzel things from Jill’s lap and set them aside, reached down and grabbed her hand, then Zack’s. “You two are coming with me right now,” I said with my expression and manner fiercely conveying, Do Not Even Think of Resisting Because OMG, You Two!

Jill looked suddenly terrified. “I have some things I need to do.” Zack didn’t resist, but he didn’t stand either.

“No you don’t.” My fierce look grew fiercer. “We’re doing this
now.”

Zack sighed, stood. “I think she might be serious, sweetie.”

“Damn straight,” I said. I tugged Jill to her feet, waited for Zack to steady her, then hauled both of them into the guest room and kicked the door shut behind me.

I released their hands and pointed at the bed. “Sit.”

Jill scowled at me, but obeyed. Zack simply shifted from foot to foot. I leveled a glare at him.

“You too, demon boy.”

His eyes narrowed, but he went ahead and sat beside Jill. “Man. Demon
man
,” he muttered.

“Then you need to start acting like one.” I narrowed my eyes right back at him. “Zack, you’ve been keeping secrets from your beloved.” I swung my attention to Jill. “And you’ve been too much of a weenie to ask Zack about his demon-ness.”

“She doesn’t want to know,” he said, expression serious.

“Yeah?” I planted my hands on my hips. “And you’ve never even tried to push the issue a teensy bit? Never tried to gently introduce aspects of your not-human-ness to her, to gradually get her more interested and maybe not so scared to death of this
really big deal
that she found out only after you knocked her up?” I returned my glare to Jill. “And you! Get over it already! You’re about to have a
kid
together.”

Her scowl deepened, but I saw the chagrin in her eyes. She knew I was right. “I don’t even know where to start,” she said, with an almost apologetic look to Zack. “I don’t know
what
to ask.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, then I’ll start. First thing then,” I stepped back, “Zack, I think it’s time for you to show the mother of your child, your best beloved, your demon form.”

He winced. “I’m not certain that’s the best
starting
place.”

“Possibly not,” I said with a shrug, “but at this point I think we need to dive right on into this. So, have at it.”

Jill made a low noise and set a hand on her belly. “The bean just started kicking like crazy,” she said, then glanced at Zack, worry tinged with panic in her eyes. I had a good idea I knew what she was thinking, what she was afraid of. The only demons she’d ever met were Kehlirik and Jekki. Would Zack be big and scary? Or small and furry?

Zack gave Jill a long look before glancing my way. “Under protest,” he stated with the faintest of glowers. But he stood and removed his suit jacket, dropped it on the bed. His tie followed, then the shirt. His movements remained very deliberate, and for the first time I saw the lines of strain on his face.

Shit. Now I felt guilty. The grim face by the car had reflected his true state. He’d put on the smiles and congeniality for our benefit. Zack was already under a ton of stress, and my pushing the issue wasn’t helping. But it was too late to turn back now. And hell, who knew how much longer Jill could have handled not knowing? The baby was only a month away, and these two were so stubborn the kid would be graduating from high school before they finally got around to talking this shit out.

Still, it behooved me to try and make it easier, if possible. “If there’s anything I can do to support you,” I told Zack quietly, “let me know.”

He paused his movements. “A
jinig
and reverse
natulik
,” he replied. “Trace and simply feed for a moment.”

Hot damn, those were two I actually knew. Like wards, these didn’t require the use of chalk, simply a surface on which to set them and weave the potency strands. I crouched and began to trace them on the floor, then realized he’d no doubt intentionally picked sigils I’d already learned.

Jill sucked in a breath and covered her belly with both hands. Her brow furrowed as she looked at Zack. “I think maybe she’s excited?”

Zack toed his shoes off, unzipped his pants and dropped trou. He smiled. “Yes, she is.”

Jill met his eyes, the fear in them beginning to fade. She even managed a small smile as she stroked her belly. Meanwhile, I did my best to be totally blasé about naked Zack’s human-form junk right at my eye level.

Zack pulled off his socks, stood with his eyes closed and began to draw through the sigils I’d traced. I remained crouched and carefully fed power to the sigils as needed.

For almost a minute nothing happened. I remained perfectly still as I felt him draw power. Jill watched him with wide eyes. Even the bean went still, or at least I assumed so, since Jill had stopped making little noises of discomfort.

And then his form abruptly broke into a billion pieces that dissolved into amorphous sparkly multicolored light, so beautiful as to be nearly incomprehensible.

He remained thus for what felt like millennia though it was probably more like half a minute, then I felt the draw on my support sigils. In the span of a single heartbeat, the billion pieces coalesced into the form of a demahnk, half a head taller than any other I’d seen. I blinked, as if waking up from a dream, only now realizing how very different this had been from the transformation I witnessed with Eilahn or the smooth shift of Helori.

Jill’s eyes filled with tears, and she gave Zack a weepy smile. “You’re
gorgeous
.”

Chiming softly, he stretched his delicate, iridescent white wings wide, then settled them close to his body. “Demahnk, sweetie.”

Jill wiped at her eyes. “Okay, wow.” She let out a weak laugh. “Wow.”

I sat on the floor, relieved as all hell, while Jill stood and moved to him. Almost a foot taller in this form, he towered over her. She hesitated, then touched his chest—tentatively at first, then with her whole hand upon his pec. He caressed her cheek with two fingers of a three fingered hand, then lowered his head and touched his forehead to hers.

“You’re still you,” she breathed. She closed her eyes and slid her arms around him, belly bumping into him as he enfolded her in his wings.

“Yes, only a different form,” he said, voice still very much Zack’s but infinitely richer, and imbued with the chimey birdsong qualities of the demahnk. “All else is the same.”

I climbed to my feet, insanely pleased that my intervention was working. So far, at least. “Perhaps you should go back to human for the rest of this,” I suggested to Zack. “There’s still some more explainin’ that needs to happen.”

He shook his head, chiming low. “I am yet unable.”

“Sorry.” I winced. “I don’t know how all that works.” I gestured to the wings and all of him to indicate the shape-change. “But I do think it’s time you told her why you’re here. With Ryan.” I met his violet eyes. “She’ll understand and accept that you need to spend so much time with him if she knows
why
.”

Zack dipped his head slightly. “
I
cannot.”

“Crap, that’s right.” Zack was still oathbound to not speak of Szerain’s crime or his fate to any who didn’t already know. “Will you be forced to intervene if
I
tell her?”

His lips parted in a small demahnk-smile. “No.”

A frown began to tighten Jill’s mouth. “Someone had better spill whatever this big secret is.”

I debated telling her she should sit down, but then I realized that would only piss her off again. “Ryan is actually the exiled demonic lord, Szerain. Zack is his guardian, and he’s pretty much been busting ass for the last fifteen or so years to make sure that Szerain remains sane in what’s a truly brutal imprisonment. All those long periods of needing to do shit with Ryan? Most of those are spent helping Szerain.”

To my private amusement, she sank to sit on the bed and stared at me in astonishment. Zack lowered himself into a sit-kneel.

“And your sweetie’s demon name is Zakaar,” I said, unable to resist adding one more level of
weird
to the whole thing.

She blinked, shook her head like a dog shedding water. “Wait. Ryan . . .
Ryan
is a demonic lord? Ryan?!”

“Weeelll, it’s complicated.” I grimaced and rubbed the back of my neck. “Ryan Kristoff is . . .” I had to swallow back a sudden wave of sadness. “He doesn’t actually exist. There was a real Ryan Kristoff and, as far as I can tell, he died and his, um, life was taken over as a cover for the exile of Szerain.” The grief clogged my throat briefly, and it was a few seconds before I could speak properly. “He’s an overlay, basically. An identity with a real person’s background, but he’s an
aspect
of Szerain. He’s not real.”

“Ryan Kristoff died in my arms,” Zack said.

I stared at him, unable to form any possible reply to that statement. I’d thought about it, rationally accepted the truth that the Ryan I knew and, yes, loved wasn’t a real person. But hearing it like that—from someone who
knew
—seemed to wrench my whole world off its axis. “What happened?” My voice cracked. Since I already knew the basics, I hoped that Zack had enough freedom around his oaths to fill in the details I so desperately needed.

“I sought a candidate for Szerain, for his exile. Similar in body and face.” He tipped his head back, inhaled deeply. “I was carefully watching many possible choices. Ryan Kristoff was the one to succumb in a circumstance that proved suitable. He and a friend went hiking in the Adirondack mountains. Ryan lost his footing and tumbled a hundred feet down a steep rocky slope.” Zack lifted one long-fingered hand, tilted it to indicate a precipitous grade. “His friend went for help. I went to Ryan.”

Grief swallowed me as I listened. I pygahed in an effort to maintain any sort of control. I’d wanted to know this. As hideous and painful as it was, I wanted to know the truth.

“He was close to death,” Zack continued after a moment, voice a bit less rich. The memory affected him as well. “I eased him, removed the pain, held him, and spoke to him, in the moments he had remaining.”

Tears slid down my cheeks, but I didn’t wipe them away. I felt frozen in shock and sorrow, dimly aware that Jill also quietly wept, eyes on Zack as he spoke.

“What did you do with his body?” I finally asked.

“I incinerated him. Collected the ashes.” Zack lowered his head.

“And then you created the overlay?” A part of me marveled that I was able to continue to question him so calmly.

“The Demahnk Council sent Szerain through to me,” Zack said. “He had been submerged for some time already, but yes, I then formed the overlay, shifted his features, and—” He paused for a long moment, iridescence of his skin dulling. “And created injuries appropriate to such a fall, including head trauma to account for memory loss.” He shifted, settled his wings and lifted his head. “When Ryan’s friend returned, he found his hiking buddy injured but alive. The ultimate identity theft.”

I stood in numb shock, pulse ringing in my ears as the strange and horrific savagery of the entire thing rolled over me. And what must it have been like for Zack to brutalize Szerain for the sake of a stable prison? “What happened to the ashes?”

“I still have them,” he replied, words barely a ripple in the air.

Jill found her voice. “What happens now?”

Zack went still and pulled his wings in close. I felt a tug from the sigils and realized he’d recovered enough to make the shift back to human form. Carefully, I fed power into the sigils and observed his transformation. First the dissolution to sparkly-transparent, a pause, then finally to solid limbs and torso. The change from demahnk to human seemed easier for him, perhaps because he was so used to being in human form after all these years.

He drew a deep breath, then lifted his head and gave me a nod. “It is enough,” he said in reference to the sigils. “Thank you.” He gave Jill a weary smile. “Sorry, babe. I know it’s weird.”

I dispelled the sigils and sat on the floor. “You might want to tell her how old you are too.”

Zack shot me a disgruntled look before he spoke to Jill. “Millennia,” he told her.

I didn’t miss that he kept it nice and vague.

Jill gave a breathless laugh. “Wow.” She stroked a hand over her belly. Then she gulped, fear darkening her eyes again. “Will our baby look like, um, your winged form?” She’d seen a normal-looking ultrasound, but after witnessing Zack’s transformation into Zakaar, I didn’t blame her one bit for wanting more reassurance.

Zack laid a hand on the bed, used it to help him rise from the floor. “No,” he said as he sat beside her. “She will be beautiful like you.”

“God, you’re a slick talker,” Jill murmured as she leaned in for a kiss.

Zack returned the kiss. “You know it, sweetie.”

And that’s my cue to leave.
They could handle it from here. I quietly departed and closed the door behind me.

A lovely heady scent filled the hallway, chocolate but
more
, and a bit of sniffing told me it originated in the kitchen. Paul and Bryce were there, chatting and relaxed, while Bryce stirred the contents of a saucepan.

“What am I smelling?” I asked as I moved forward, nose twitching like a bloodhound’s.

“Bryce makes the
best
hot chocolate ever,” Paul announced, grinning. “He’s doing up a big batch.”

I nosed my way in to peer at—and inhale the scent of—the contents of the saucepan, then shifted my gaze to his face. “I’ve always liked you, Bryce. You know that, right?”

Smiling, he snagged a mug from the cabinet. “As much as you’ve done for me, I think you’re pretty much guaranteed a full serving.” He ladled the thick, creamy liquid into the mug and passed it to me. I wrapped my hands around it, sipped.