Mzatal crouched and stroked Jekki’s head, spoke low in demon. Jekki’s incessantly moving tail went almost completely still as he listened.

The lord stood as I reached them, though his hand remained on Jekki’s head. “He will accompany us to the fence,” he informed me. He gave Jekki one more gentle caress before tucking his arm through mine and continuing to the path.

“He is distressed yet,” Mzatal continued softly as we reached the cool shade of the trees, “but I have asked him to tend Szerain, and he is better with that.”

I had a silent moment of hilarity as I pictured the faas trying to ply Ryan with sliced fruit and fix his hair. “Thanks,” I said, then gave his arm a squeeze. “I’ll do my best to take care of you as well as he would.”

The trip through the woods was utterly uneventful, which was totally okay with me. Jekki spoke with Mzatal again when we reached the fence, but remained on my property without protest as we all climbed over. I glanced back as we made a turn that would take us out of view in the dense trees and saw him, his little hands upon the sturdy wire fence, still as a statue and watching.

The silver Escalade was exactly where Paul had asked the agency to leave it, though we waited for Mzatal to assess the area before we exited the woods. Once we knew it was safe to proceed, Paul made himself comfortable in the back with his laptop and tablet, while Mzatal took the front passenger seat. I put the journals and notebooks in the middle of the backseat, on the off chance the mood struck me to continue grinding my way through the damn things.

“I’ll drive until we get out of the area,” I said to Bryce as we finished loading our stuff into the vehicle. “Once we’re sure we’re clear you and I can trade off.”

“I do know how to drive,” Paul piped up, though his eyes remained glued to his laptop.

“Do you want to take a turn driving?” Bryce asked Paul, eyebrow raised.

Paul looked up, frowned as he considered, then shook his head. “Nah. That would suck.”

Bryce rolled his eyes. “Which is why we didn’t ask you to drive. I know you pretty well by now.”

I bit back a laugh. Those two were as bad as siblings.

With that settled, we headed out.

We stopped about every ninety minutes, or whenever Mzatal started looking a bit peaked or antsy, though it was actually more of a feel than a look. The pressure of his aura would take on an uncomfortable edge, and everyone knew it was time to stop.

By the third hour of driving we developed a smooth routine: feel the aura, find a suitable spot to stop, let the demonic lord out to breathe and chill for a few, check in with Eilahn, get back in and change drivers, keep going.

“What’s the plan when we get to Austin? Go straight to this woman’s house?” Bryce asked as he settled into the driver’s seat for his turn at the wheel.

I winced. “Pretty much. Unfortunately we don’t have any intel on what to expect when we get there.”

“In other words, we’re winging it?” He glanced in the rear view mirror and gave me a wry smile.

“You got a better plan?”

Bryce chuckled. “Nope. Luckily I’m pretty good at making it up as I go.” He passed a slow-moving car then waited until he was clear and back in his lane before speaking again. “What about this woman? Is there anything personal about her that might help?”

I leaned forward. “Boss? You’re the one who actually knows her.”

Mzatal turned his head to look at me. “She is near eighty years of age. Other than the summoning of Faruk at Christmas, I have not known her to summon in recent years. I have not encountered her in person nor, to my knowledge, has she ever visited the demon realm. She is competent, having survived to this age.”

“Was she ever involved with Katashi?” I asked.

“I am unaware of any current association,” he said, “though she is one of his oldest living students.”

I chewed on that. Katashi had performed his miraculous first summoning in about 1926, so he’d probably been summoning for twenty-five or thirty years before she became his student.

Was she summoning while she was married? I wondered. What did the normal family life of a summoner look like? I sure as hell wasn’t an example, nor was Tessa. “I know you said she hasn’t summoned much in a decade. Was she pretty good at it when she summoned regularly?”

He regarded me, inclined his head. “For her time, she excelled.”

“I wonder why she summoned Faruk,” I mused aloud as I settled back in my seat.

“To play chess,” Mzatal replied.

I blinked. “Seriously? She went through all of that for a chess partner?”

“Faruk reported that Rasha was lonely,” he said. “There may be more, but it seemed Faruk told all she knew.” He exhaled. “And Faruk is a relatively simple summons.”

A wash of pity for the old woman temporarily eclipsed her place on the possible bad guy list. I’d spent my summoning life isolated from other summoners except for Tessa and the few I met during my brief stint with Katashi. Hell, I’d grown up socially isolated as well, and pretty much without friends. “Lonely” and I were old and bitter pals.

Pushing the unsettling thoughts away, I stuck my headphones on and started the playback of Idris’s call. I doubted that the two clues I’d found so far—StarFire hidden in start a fire, and the subtle implication of his family in his use of the word people—were the only ones he’d seeded into the conversation. Now I knew to listen for micro-pauses, inflections shifts, or emphasis, and during my second break from driving I finally got two more, one right after the other. Once I heard them, I couldn’t believe I’d missed them.

I smiled, played it again.

At first I thought they were trying to. Plant a. Seed of doubt, wanting me to. Shun. My old associations. But there’s FAR more shit going on than I ever dreamed of. You think you have everything figured out, then whOOSH! the game changes.

Micro-pauses around “plant a” and “shun.” Plantation. Then he blatantly emphasized “far” and the end of “whoosh.” Far oosh. Farouche. Clever dude to leave as many clues as possible. After another dozen listens without any more discoveries, I shut the recorder off and kicked back to watch the scenery for a while.

Even limiting the “breathe and chill” breaks to ten minutes, it was well after dark when we finally arrived in Austin.

Bryce followed the navigation commands of the GPS, focus sharpening as we neared the address. I remained silent until the nav system directed us to her street, then straightened and peered at house numbers. A retired summoner living in a nice middle-class subdivision in Austin. That was more than a little surreal.

“There’s her house,” I said. “The ranch style, second on the right. Bryce can you circle the block? Everyone else, keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks off or might be a threat.”

“Can do,” he said as we drove past. Normal protection wards flickered in my othersight, but a first glance didn’t reveal anything complex or serious. The area looked like a solid middle class neighborhood that had hit its prime a decade or two ago. Not shabby by a long shot, but in decline. Well-kept houses in a mix with those in varying states of disrepair. One of the three streetlights on the block was out, and pothole repair obviously wasn’t high on the municipality’s priority list.

Bryce drove around the block, then parked several houses away from Rasha’s while he kept up a constant scan. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “Though I could easily miss something in the dark.”

“What do you want me to do?” Paul asked.

“You’re coming with us,” I told him as I unbelted. “Bring your laptop.” I climbed out of the Escalade and looked around carefully as the others got out. Eilahn parked the motorcycle behind us, climbed off, then stretched. She carefully placed her helmet on the seat and gave me an I’ll-be-nearby look before she disappeared into the shadows to serve as our outside sentry. I took Mzatal’s hand, then gave Bryce a tilt of my head to indicate I needed to talk to the lord for a minute. He apparently understood, and beckoned to Paul.