“He is a very dangerous man,” Eilahn muttered.

I continued on home in complete agreement.

Chapter 28

Mzatal was still deeply involved on the mini-nexus when we returned home, and I decided to have Eilahn tell him about my encounter with Farouche while I summoned Steeev.

Paul and Bryce weren’t in the common areas when I returned to the house. I scrawled “do not disturb” on a sticky note and slapped it on the basement door, then poured a big glass of tunjen and headed down. It felt both weird and good to perform a summoning in the middle of the day with utter confidence. A year ago—hell, a few months ago—I would’ve balked at the mere idea due to the lack of lunar influence and the extra difficulty that posed. Training with Mzatal had stripped all that nonsense away, and I’d learned how to adapt and compensate for different summoning conditions.

I set the tunjen aside and got to work. The storage diagram was nicely topped off, and it took only about fifteen minutes to change the existing ritual diagram to the parameters for a syraza. I checked and rechecked the sigils, bindings, and power flows, tapped the storage diagram, and began.

I spoke the name “Steeev” as the invocation to call the syraza, confident and calm. I knew I had a successful summoning. It felt right. Only once did I encounter a shift in the currents of power as I formed the portal, but I smoothly adjusted the anchors and dealt with the shift with no further issues, and silently thanked the hundreds of hours of practice Mzatal had insisted I do.

The syraza arrived with a jolting pull in the potency flows. I grounded and anchored the power, then looked up to see him, kneeling and breathing hard, in the center of the diagram.

“Steeev,” I said, “I apologize for summoning you without warning.”

He lifted his head. “Is . . .” He paused as though testing his ability to speak. “Is there a problem with the qaztahl?”

“No!” I said quickly. “No, Mzatal is well.” Of course that would be his first assumption, especially since, according to Zack, Steeev had never been summoned before. “I need a favor from you,” I continued, “but I want to discuss it with you first since it’s a big one. Would you like tunjen?”

Steeev blinked several times, still trying to get his bearings. “Tunjen. Yes.” He attempted to rise then apparently thought better of it. “What favor, Kara Gillian?” he asked as he sank back into a kneel-sit. “When my body moves where my mind wills, perhaps I will be able to accommodate.” He chimed in laughter. “Unless I am forever in the swirling state.”

I retrieved the glass of tunjen I’d brought downstairs and pressed it into his hand. “It fades, I promise,” I assured him with a smile, then crouched before him. “Here’s the favor. I need protection for a dear friend of mine. She’s Zakaar’s lover too, and carries his child.”

Steeev drained the cup then looked at me, head angled slightly to one side. “Jill Faciane. Zakaar does not protect her?”

“He does as much as he can, but he also has a duty to Szerain.” I took a few minutes to explain our current situation, including the body dump and the threat to Jill. “I’d rather she be overprotected than have something happen to her.”

Steeev stretched his wings wide, then folded them and stood. “Mzatal has agreed to this?” He put on a syraza version of a scowl, tucked his hands behind his back and lifted his chin in a surprisingly excellent mimicry of Mzatal. “Or does he protest?”

I laughed. “He has agreed to this.”

The syraza let his Mzatal impression go, chimed softly. “For what span of time?” He took a deep breath, then stiffened and curled his lips back. “What is that smell?”

I let out a cough of laughter at his reaction. “The span of time would be at least until the baby is born. A month or two,” I said. “The unpleasant smell is likely hydrocarbons, and the savory smell is gumbo. Crawfish gumbo. It’s pretty good.”

“It has been long since I have seen a human babe.” He bared his teeth in a syraza smile, chiming with amusement. “Noisy and smelly and ear-pulling.”

“They do grow out of that—most of the time.” My amusement faded. Now came the tricky part. “Here’s the deal,” I said, all seriousness now. “I haven’t yet talked to Jill about you, or about having a guardian at all. First, because I know her, and if I asked before she met you, it’d be too easy for her to say No.” I paused, inclined my head to him. “And second, I didn’t want to bring it up with her until I knew your decision.”

“The decision cannot be made without her agreement,” he stated. “That said, I am not opposed and, in not being opposed, am indeed willing—if she is willing—to accept guardianship.” He tilted his head, peered at me. “On the condition that she is at least marginally pleasant.”

“I’ll let you be the judge of that,” I said, relieved. I gestured grandly to the raggedy basement stairs. “Come upstairs and see my demesne.”

“Lead on, Kara Gillian,” he announced with a teeth-baring smile. “I will wobble and teeter along behind.”

“You can lean on me if you wish,” I offered.

He gave a snort-chime. “The great guardian arrives, leaning heavily upon the summoner. It does not serve. No, no. Not at all.”

“Then you’d best stop your whining,” I advised with a grin as I led the way.

Steeev followed, chime-muttering. Once upstairs, I gave him a quick rundown of the layout of the house and property. “Jill likes her privacy, so she’s staying in a mobile home at the side of the house,” I explained as we entered the kitchen.

Bryce was at the table—papers and notes in front of him that I figured were probably stuff for his surveillance camera proposal. He glanced up as we entered, blinked in surprise at the sight of a syraza.

Steeev chimed. “Fair greetings, Bryyyce.”

Bryce’s expression cleared, and he chuckled. “Steeev. You’re the only one who drawls my name out like that. Good to see you again.”

“Steeev will be sticking around for a while as Jill’s guardian,” I told Bryce. “That is, if we can get it through her stubborn head that she needs one.”

Bryce looked from me to Steeev then back to me. “I get it. Like Eilahn.” He nodded. “Jill needs that, especially now.”

“We’re about to let her know she’s always wanted one,” I said, then continued out to the back porch.

I caught a streak of blue near the woods out of the corner of my eye, accompanied by a shrill chirrup-whistle. Jekki. Beside me, Steeev returned the greeting with a melodic trumpeting, and an instant later I heard a piercing whoop that I recognized as Eilahn’s. Good thing I didn’t have any close neighbors. They’d be wondering about the weird wildlife.

I glanced back at Steeev as I stepped off the porch and started toward Jill’s place. “Okay, here’s the plan. You’re going to be so charming, she can’t refuse.”

He bared his teeth. “I thought you said this would be a challenge.”

I laughed. “Forgive me. I forgot who I was dealing with.”

We crossed the grass and climbed the steps to the redwood deck. Zack had moved damn quickly to make the place as nice as possible. “Yo, chick!” I called out as I knocked on the door. “Got someone here I want you to meet.”

A few seconds later Jill opened the door. “Who?” she asked, then her eyes widened as she looked past me. “Oh. That’s who.”

I stepped aside to give her a better view. “Jill, this is Steeev. He’s a syraza, like Eilahn.” I turned my attention to the demon. “Steeev, I would like you to meet my very dear friend, Jill.”

Jill stepped out onto the deck. “Nice to meet you, Steve,” she said with a polite smile paired with a questioning look in her eyes.

“It’s Steeev,” I corrected.

She gave me a slightly perplexed look. “Right, Steve.”

I shook my head, thoroughly enjoying this. “No, y’gotta draw it out more. Steeev.”