Diana Rowland - Fury of the Demon

He paused, turned and backtracked, then shifted toward the right, shoulders tense with focus. Finally, he stopped, brought his hands to his sides, lowered his head and went still.

Goosebumps prickled over my skin as memory seared through me. Rhyzkahl had come out to the backyard and stood in precisely that spot, and for a bizarre instant the image of him overlaid that of Mzatal. Exact spot, exact stance. One light, one dark.

Vaguely unsettled, I walked out into the yard. He lifted his head as I reached him, and he inhaled deeply. “This will serve well,” he said.

“What is this place?” I asked. “Rhyzkahl also seemed drawn to it. Stood right here.”

He held his hand out to me, drew me to stand with my back to his chest. His hands slid down over mine, and he interlaced our fingers.

“Feel,” he murmured.

I forced myself to relax, leaned my head back against him as I extended my senses. For a while there was nothing but the sturdy beat of his heart, the warmth and security of his hands on mine. Cicadas and crickets rasped and chirruped from the trees and brush. An owl hooted, answered a few seconds later by another farther away. A soft breeze carried the crisp scent of pines, much more subtle than the evergreens of Mzatal’s realm, though perhaps still a vaguely familiar comfort for him.

And then I noted a warmth below me. No, that wasn’t the right description. A subtle glow of power like the potency I worked with, but more concentrated than I was used to on Earth. “What is it?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper, as if certain the sensation would shatter if I spoke too loudly.

Keeping our fingers entwined, he wrapped his arms around me. “It is . . . ” He paused, as if searching for a suitable English word. “It is a confluence, a convergence point of power flows, albeit different and of much lower intensity than in my own world. Such is the foundation of a nexus.”

I processed that. “A mini-nexus.”

“In a manner of speaking,” he said. “It is raw now but with development, yes, potentially a . . . mini-nexus.” I heard the smile in his voice.

“That’s pretty darn nice,” I said. “Why is it in my backyard?”

He gave me a light squeeze before releasing me. “The question is, why is your backyard here?”

I turned and gave him a puzzled look, but an instant later it hit me. “My grandparents had this house built here. And my grandmother was a summoner.”

“She no doubt sensed it, even if subconsciously.”

I looked down at the unassuming bit of grass. “Having this here should help, right?”

“It will help much in accessing and deciphering the flows,” he agreed.

“And now it’s OURS!” I threw my head back and did my best Evil Laugh. Mzatal gave me an indulgent look, though amusement flashed in his eyes.

“Indeed, quite useful,” he replied with deliberate understatement.

I laughed more normally, then gave him a quick kiss. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.” I ran to the porch, grabbed a battery-powered lantern, then returned and took his hand again. “I have to finish the tour. There’s one more thing I want to show you.”

He didn’t resist as I led the way across the yard and down the hill. At the edge of the tree line was a path I’d attacked with the weed-whacker and pruning shears earlier in the day. The light from the lantern cast long shadows before us as we worked our way through the trees.

The path finally opened into a broad clearing. A pond took up most of the area, about sixty feet across at its widest point, with a perimeter of grassy bank that extended another twenty feet or so. I led him to the left, then lifted my lantern high to show him the rough pavilion I’d set up for him—a rug over a waterproof tarp on the ground, covered by a wide canopy tent with its walls rolled up despite the likelihood of rain. Mzatal loved open spaces and could easily ward for environmental control to suit his mood. A decent air mattress, simple chair, and a folding table completed the lavish furnishings.

“It’s not much, I know,” I said, suddenly nervous. Compared to anything in the demon realm, this was a lame, tacky ensemble. “But I didn’t think you’d enjoy staying in the house all the time, and I know it’s not an ocean view, but I’ve always liked the place.” I clamped my lips shut as I realized I was babbling.

He gave my hand a squeeze, then pulled me close. “I deeply appreciate the consideration,” he said, gratitude in his voice. “I would not care to abide the confines of the dwelling for extended periods.”

Relieved, I put my arms around him. “There’s a lot we can do to improve on this, too. I had to make do with what I could scrounge in limited time,” I told him. “I sort of threw this together in about an hour after I looked around the house this afternoon and realized it wouldn’t do at all.”

“It is more than sufficient for my needs, beloved,” he said as he lowered his head to kiss me.

I slid my arms around his neck, returned the kiss, and proceeded to welcome him to Earth in the best way I knew how.

A raucous squawk from a blue jay woke me, and it took me several seconds of Why the hell is a bird in my bedroom? before I remembered where I was.

Sunlight filtered through leaves and pine needles to create shifting patterns on the tent canopy above me. A squirrel chattered in annoyance not far away, and a dragonfly buzzed near the canopy and then zipped past. Subtle wards designed to keep insects away shimmered by the tent poles. “Afterglow” had consisted of my polite and loving demand that Mzatal teach me that particular arcane protection.

I sat up and found Mzatal standing naked a few feet from the edge of the pond. With his back to me and his unbound hair pulled forward over one shoulder, I had a lovely view of his back, where well-formed lats swept down to a narrow waist above a perfectly muscled ass. Though he was the eldest of the demonic lords, I couldn’t help but think that sort of thing was irrelevant considering they were all several millennia old. All had an ageless look about them of men in their prime, though I now knew that most trained diligently to maintain peak physical condition—Mzatal included.

Mzatal’s hands worked potency strands in rhythmic patterns, but I had no idea what he was doing. I felt the caress of his mental touch as he turned his head to give me a smile. I returned both smile and mental caress, then scooped up my clothing. It would be lovely to while away the day watching him work in the nude, but the pile of stuff from Tracy Gordon’s house awaited my attention.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I dressed.

“There is much potential in the confluence behind your house,” he told me. “I am using this valve as an anchor point to stabilize the flows between here and there.”

Frowning, I tugged shoes on. “Wait, there’s a valve here? ”

“Yes. I will adjust the concealments.” He made a peculiar little twist of his hands. “Are you able to sense it now?”

I moved toward him, then felt it—a ripple in the arcane flows, as if a layer of thin silk waved over my skin. I’d experienced it before with the valve in my aunt’s library and the one in the parking lot of the Beaulac PD. I hadn’t understood the sensation at the time, but now I had some hard-core training under my belt, along with the seventh ring of the shikvihr.

“Oh wow,” I breathed. “When I was a kid I came out here all the time, and I’d sit right where you are and read or do homework or just daydream.” A smile spread across my face at the memory. “It always felt so . . .” I groped for a word to describe it, then shrugged. “Right. It felt right. ”