Zack forced his mouth into a mock frown. “She could have amended it to where she’d flay you alive if you left the property without her or me. I have some skills, y’know.”
“Yes you do,” I agreed. As a demahnk—an elder syraza—he had whatever innate skills Eilahn possessed, and more. “But you’re not as scary as she is.” I grinned. “I think it was really her way of making sure I got Fuzzykins back to Earth as soon as possible.” At his questioning look, I explained, “When Tessa summoned Eilahn a couple of months ago, Eilahn brought Fuzzykins along, and the horrid thing proceeded to get knocked up. So now Eilahn wants her to,” I rolled my eyes, “give birth on her home world.’”
Zack laughed. “Gotcha.”
“By the way,” I said, “Tessa sent me the newspaper article about Roman Hatch and how he confessed to the murder of Tracy Gordon and how he permanently disposed of the body.” My mouth twitched in a smile. “Nicely done.” Roman Hatch was an ex-boyfriend who’d teamed up with Tracy Gordon—a fellow cop who’d turned out to be a summoner—to create a gate between this world and the demon realm. Not so bad on the surface, except that they murdered several people in the process and intended to trap me in the gate to power it.
Amusement flashed in his eyes. “Well, Roman did murder Tracy when he threw him into the active gate,” he said. “And since the gate shredded Tracy into teeny bits, he did permanently dispose of the body, too.” Zack spread his hands and assumed an utterly innocent expression. “However, I suppose it’s possible that someone helped him remember a version where he shot Tracy and then dumped his body in the river.”
I snorted a laugh. Though it took a lot of effort, Ryan was able to shift memories—a mere shadow of true manipulation but still useful when circumstances were dire enough to require it.
Zack’s gaze swept over the basement. “You need anything for the summoning?”
“I think I’m good. Almost done with the diagram.” I mentally reviewed the preparation steps, then glanced at him. “Did Tessa charge my storage diagram? It was darn near full.”
“She hasn’t been here since you left.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve kept it topped up for you,” he said. “I didn’t know when you’d be back, but I thought you might need it.”
I angled my head and regarded him. Though he had great skills with wards, I’d never known he could do anything related to summoning diagrams. Eilahn had never indicated that she could do so. Maybe it had to do with his being an elder syraza? “That’s awesome. Thanks.” I crouched and sketched the final sigil. “I think that’s about it. I’m almost ready to summon.”
“You want me to stay or go?”
I looked up at him, smiled. “I don’t mind if you stay.”
“Sweet. I’ll be over here.” He moved to the wall, put his back to it and went demon still.
Smoothly drawing power from the storage diagram, I laid the foundation and created the anchor points for the strands that would form the portal. The arcane structures coalesced with smooth ease, and when the time came to make the call, the power slid through me in a continuous flow rather than coming in stops and starts—far easier than ever before. Apparently, having the seventh ring of the shikvihr and a buttload more knowledge from training with Mzatal made a real difference. I could get used to this.
“Eilahn!”
Through the woven potency of the summoning, I felt the ritual find and take hold of the syraza. Had she been unwilling, this would have turned into a battle, like trying to land a big and powerful fish. But with Eilahn eager and ready to come, she slipped through the portal with minimal exertion on my part.
Not as easy for her. Summonings hurt. I knew that from experience. Eilahn stood in the center of the diagram with her head bowed and eyes closed, with only her shuddering breath betraying the stress of the summons. She was in her human form, and I breathed thanks to Mzatal for saving me the hassle and facilitating her shift from syraza to human. Dark skinned and tall, with sleek black hair that flowed past her shoulders, Eilahn had a multi-ethnic look that managed to combine the best of every continent. Her figure was long sleek muscles and curves, feminine and tough. Smokin’ hot chick, no doubt about it.
An unearthly screeching yowl reverberated through the basement, and I almost fumbled the strands. I quickly recovered, grounded the power and dropped the protections, then scowled at the cat carrier that I now saw beside Eilahn’s feet.
“You couldn’t forget the cat in the demon realm?” I asked sourly.
Eilahn gave a lovely frown. “That is a silly notion,” she stated. “I do not forget.”
I turned my attention to the carrier. “Hello, Fuzzykins,” I said with a sugary smile. “Why haven’t you been playing with hungry reyza like I’ve asked you to do?”
Eilahn gave me a look, crouched, and murmured to the cat as she released her from the carrier. The evil feline dashed out as quickly as her turgid body allowed, then proceeded to rub up against Zack’s legs, purring loudly. In the next heartbeat she turned, hissed at me, then waddle-ran up the stairs as I returned the hiss.
Zack met Eilahn’s eyes, and I sensed the demon connection like a vibration on the farthest edge of hearing. She emitted an odd chirp-trill more suited to her demon form. He approached her fluidly, took both of her hands, interlaced their fingers and leaned in to touch his forehead to hers. The vibration shifted quality, intensified.
I busied myself to give them space to do their demony thing, closed out the summoning diagram, and directed residual potency into the storage diagram.
A moment later, they parted, and Eilahn turned a steely eye on me. “You have not left this property?”
“I haven’t,” I said as I held up my hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“Excellent! Flaying is so very messy,” she observed as she turned and sauntered up the steps. “I do prefer to avoid it, though I would perhaps make an exception in the case of Ryan.”
I smiled. It was good to be home.
Chapter 5
Some people had to deal with jet lag. Me, I got dimension lag. Four-thirty in the morning, and wide awake with zero hope of getting back to sleep. The house was quiet, which I was used to after living alone for so long. However, I felt obliged to creep about, since I figured Ryan probably didn’t want to hear me thumping around this early in the morning.
I doubted Eilahn and Zack were asleep since the demonkind seemed to need far less rest than puny humans, but I had no idea where they were. Eilahn’s favorite place on the property was the roof and her second favorite was the woods on my nearly-ten acres of property. The roof, most likely, I decided, with the pair of them perched like beautiful human-shaped gargoyles by my satellite dish.
After making my silent-ish way to the kitchen, I plunked my laptop and notepad on the table, started a pot of coffee, then scrounged in the fridge while I pondered what needed to go on my Hunt for Idris to-do list. Even though I knew he was still in the demon realm, Katashi was definitely right there at the top, so I went ahead and scrawled his name on my pad before prepping my first cup of coffee with the appropriately massive amounts of sugar and cream.
Like me, Zack had a list of the known Katashi people and would do some digging there. Katashi’s main base of operations was in Japan, but I wasn’t going to make the assumption that his people had Idris there. Master Isumo Katashi had too damn many connections.
Over eighty years ago, he’d performed the first summoning since the mid-seventeenth century. Self-taught, he’d called Gestamar, a challenging as all hell high-level demon. It still boggled my mind that he’d managed to do so and survive. I couldn’t stand the man, but I had to give him mad respect for that feat.