He remained still and quiet for a moment. “Kara, this is the part where I’m supposed to strip from you everything that you’ve inferred, surmised, or heard.”
I took a moment to process that. Zack can do mind manipulation, I realized. I’d harbored some suspicions about that due to the nature of his work with Szerain, but the demahnk in general certainly didn’t advertise that they possessed that particular ability.
Has he been reading me, all of us, all this time? I suddenly wondered, then dismissed the worry. I didn’t want to open another can of worms after finally getting the lid on the first one.
More importantly, I knew that if he chose to, he could strip it all from me right now and I’d never know the difference. I hated—hated—that aspect of manipulation.
I shifted to look into his face. “You’re supposed to strip it, but you’re not going to, are you?” I gave a cheeky smile. “Maybe it’s because you know that if you do, I’ll keep on annoying the crap out of you by asking you to do shit you’re not allowed to do.” I pursed my lips, raised an eyebrow at him. “But I don’t think that’s the case. You don’t want others reading it from me, but you also don’t want to strip the information. And, being the self-proclaimed rebel and troublemaker that you are, you figure you can get away with leaving it, probably by shielding it.”
He regarded me soberly, though a hint of humor danced in his eyes. Finally. “You’re on to me.”
“I’m a smart bitch.”
He gave a sharp laugh, but didn’t argue. “Does this mean you agree to succumb to shielding?”
“I do.” My brow furrowed. “Shielding me doesn’t change the fact that you leapt across the line and shot the bird. How’s that going to work for you?”
“Probably about as well as boiling spaghetti in gasoline,” he said with trace of a smile and a resigned shrug.
I waited for him to lay his hand on my head, gave him an expectant look when he didn’t. “Aren’t you going to do the shielding now?”
“It’s already done.”
I blinked. Innnnnteresting. Faster than a lord and without touch. Zack was continuing to feed me subtle information without telling me a damn thing directly.
“Slick,” I said with a smile, though my worry remained. “What if Rhyzkahl reads it from you?”
He shook his head. “The qaztahl cannot read the demahnk.”
Even more innnnnteresting. “Is there anything else you need from me?”
“How about a big posse breakfast-for-dinner at Lake o’ Butter complete with bad jokes, bad table manners, and a crappy waitress?” He managed a comical facial expression filled with equal measures of hope and doubt.
I grinned and rolled my eyes, relieved that we’d moved beyond the tension. “That would go over great, except for the fact that we’d be sitting ducks for Farouche. But, damn it, now I want pancakes.” I considered the alternatives, smiled. “I bet Jekki could make some, and between you, me, Bryce, and Paul, we have the bad jokes and table manners covered.”
“Kara’s Kafé! Beats Lake o’ Butter by a carbohydrate landslide.” Zack scrambled to his feet and shuddered like a dog shedding water. In the space of a few seconds he seemed to cast off all of the heaviness of the last half hour and was back to cheerful, casual, relaxed Zack again.
Except now I knew it was an illusion. It wasn’t all fake, but there was a shitload more below the surface.
“Don’t you have files to work on?” I asked as we headed for the house.
He draped a companionable arm over my shoulders. “Some things are worth the price you have to pay.”
“Pancakes,” I said, though I doubted he meant either dinner or work. “Pancakes are always worth it.”
“Damn straight, Kara.”
Kara’s Kafé opened that night, with all eight of us crowded into the kitchen and none of us minding, not even Mzatal. Good company and bad jokes. Jekki’s hysterically failed attempts to be a crappy waitress. Pancakes, bacon, and syrup, then wine, conversation, laughter, and companionable fellowship into the night.
The Mraztur had their schemes of world domination, but they’d underestimated the ultra-sappy and mega-cheesy power of love, friendship, and family.
No two ways about it. My posse rocked.
Chapter 31
“More cofffeeeeee, Kara Gillian!” Jekki announced as he deftly topped off my mug.
It had turned into something of a game between us this morning, where he could only refill my mug when it got below half full, but if I drank it past the three-quarters mark then I apparently “scored.” Moreover, it was cheating if I chugged it, and if he was ready with the coffee pot I had to allow him to refill it. I wasn’t quite sure how he managed to score. Maybe he got a point every time I had to get up to pee? Either way, he seemed to be enjoying it tremendously.
I also didn’t mind being overdosed with coffee this morning. Weird dreams had awakened me a number of times during the night. Not exactly nightmares, but somehow worse, since they continued to hang around in jumbled bits and snatches. Idris was in them. And Tessa. And Tessa’s fruity tea. A swimming pool full of it. And the damn ring I’d glimpsed as Idris was sent to Earth, the ring I couldn’t sketch for shit—though, in the dream, it was more of a ring-shaped dirigible that hovered over my house.
The bizarre images floated through my head while I nursed the latest cup of coffee. Every ounce of intuition I possessed told me the ring was a key clue, a link to the specific person who had received Idris on Earth, which would then—hopefully—lead to a location.
Right now, however, we had it narrowed down to “someone working for Katashi and/or Farouche.” Yeah, that was useful.
I needed an artist. An artist who could draw it from my description. Like a police sketch artist, I thought, then immediately dismissed the idea. Dinky little Beaulac PD didn’t have one of those. For that matter, New Orleans was probably the closest place with a trained police sketch artist, and I’d have a hard time explaining why I needed their services to find a damn ring.
What about Ryan? Beneath the overlay of Ryan was Szerain—the sculptor, painter, and consummate artist, as demonstrated by the hundreds of works of his I saw while in the demon realm, all brilliant and evocative. I had yet to see Ryan show any sort of artistic ability, but I’d also never seen him try.
Frowning, I lowered my mug. There were two problems with asking Ryan to do it: The first was that I had no idea if Szerain’s talent was accessible to Ryan. Second, he’d have to read me to get what the ring looked like, and I wasn’t even certain he could read me as Ryan. I only knew he had the ability to shift memories around. And, if he could actually read me, it would be disastrous if he happened to pick up the whole, “Oh, by the way, you’re also an exiled demonic lord.” Of course, if Ryan could read that info, Zack never would have allowed him to do the memory-shift thing after my encounter with Farouche, which meant that, either way, Ryan was out of the running.
Jekki gave a delighted burble as he refilled my mug, then a trill of unparalleled glee as I took a quick break to “unget” coffee. One point for Jekki.
On my return to the kitchen, I took my musings on a different tack. What about Szerain? Perhaps he could sketch the ring from my memory if he was unsubmerged enough? He’d surfaced on the confluence before, so logically, he’d do even better on the mini-nexus—as long as I kept well away from any touchy subjects relating to ptarls or his essence blade.
“Jekki, have you seen Ryan?” I asked as I dug in the kitchen junk drawer for a pencil.
“Climb and run and jump,” he burbled with a flick of one hand toward the back of the house. The obstacle course.