Diana Rowland - Fury of the Demon

I winced, exhaled. “All right, but the invitation is always out there.” Jill tended to be practical, not stubborn, which told me that more lurked behind her aversion to living in a community than she chose to share. A traumatic event? Family drama? Zack and I would need some insight on the real issue and a sweeter offer than an RV if we wanted her to agree to move here. I’d have another chat with Zack later. “Let’s forget about it for now. You okay with that?”

“Totally. I am so done with it,” she said then flashed me a smile to signal we were complete.

Complete for now . But I went ahead and changed the subject. “I told you about Paul, right? I think you’ll like him. He’s a sweet kid.” I shook my head. “No, not a kid. Twenty-ish, but he comes across with that youthful exuberance.”

Jill laughed. “A kid to you. You are over thirty you know.”

I held back a sigh. “I know. I sure missed spending that milestone with my best friends.” It had passed unnoticed in the demon realm, with Mzatal holed up in the plexus for the days before, during, and after. By the time he came out it seemed silly to even mention it since I knew his focus had been on finding Idris. I couldn’t even blame Mzatal for not making any sort of deal over it. What was thirty years to someone who’d seen thousands of them?

“Yeah, that kind of sucks. Maybe we can make up for it later,” she said with a wink. “You told me Paul and the other guy are super close. Are they a couple?”

“Y’know, I get the feeling Paul is gay, but I’m pretty sure it’s more like a big brother kind of thing between those two.”

“That’s cool,” she said with approval. “With what he’s been through with the kidnapping and everything, sounds like he could use that kind of support.”

“Thatcher was pretty much unconscious the whole time he was here, so I don’t know yet if he’s a dick. However, I do know he took a bullet for Paul without hesitation.” I replayed the scene in my mind. “Dude has some awesome reflexes. He jumped in front of Paul before that stupid security guard even squeezed the trigger.”

“Could be he has Paul dependent on him,” she said. Worry swept over her face. “Same thing that gets me worried about you and Mzatal, and yeah, I know—it’s not like that.”

I winced and shook my head as we headed across the lawn to the house. “Trust me, I’ve thought about it a lot. Stockholm syndrome, all of that.” We walked a moment in silence. “But, I’m not dependent on Mzatal, and he does want the best for me. He dissolved our agreement because he said if we can’t simply trust one another, the whole thing was pointless.” I smiled a bit. “He loves me,” I said, then smiled more. “And yeah, I love him too.”

Jill put on her best fake-tough-girl face. “He hasn’t earned the Jill seal of approval yet. When do I get to check out this so-called loverboy? I missed him last time he was here.”

I laughed. “Come over this afternoon, and you can check him out all you want.”

“I’ll do that,” she said. “I have to go to birthing class this morning, because y’know, she’ll never come out if I don’t have proper training.” Her face fell.

“What’s wrong, chick?” I asked.

“Zack’s only made it to one of them,” she said and sighed. “I told him I would change to evening classes, but he still didn’t say, ‘Oh yes dear, that will be wonderful! I can make it then.’”

“Sheesh. Men.” I snorted “ Demon men.” I tilted my head. “Maybe it’s simply that he already knows all the stuff and doesn’t realize it’s more for your support? I’ll slap him and inform him, if you think it’ll help.”

Jill narrowed her eyes at me. “How would a demon know all about human childbirth?”

“I’m sure he’s been around plenty of humans. There used to be a lot of back and forth between the two worlds up until sometime in the sixteen-hundreds.”

She considered that. “So he’s read a book or whatever. It’s not the same thing—” She turned and stared at me. “Wait. Wait. You’re telling me that Zack was around in the seventeenth century?”

Whoa. He hadn’t told her news as big as that yet? “Umm, well . . . yeah,” I said, shifting my weight a couple of times as if preparing to flee her impending wrath. “Plus a couple thousand years earlier, most likely.”

Jill went super-calm scary. “I’m going to kill him.”

The urge to flee grew. “I honestly thought he’d have told you this stuff by now.”

She added narrowed eyes to her scariness. “What other ‘stuff’ is there?”

Where would I even start with something like that? “Let’s back up.” I summoned up a glare of my own. “Have you ever asked him to tell you about his demon-ness.”

“Sure I have,” she insisted. “But he didn’t say he was around to witness the fall of Troy!”

“What did you ask him?”

She fidgeted and looked away “I don’t remember!” she exclaimed. “Something about what it was like being a demon.”

I knew Jill. She would never hesitate to ask all sorts of embarrassing questions if she wanted to know the answer. She’d been with Zack for a good while now, and she might have asked him a vague question about being a demon? Nope. That didn’t cut it.

“It’s scary, isn’t it,” I said gently.

“Scary? Zack?” She tried to laugh it off, shook her head.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s pretty scary. All really weird and different. It’s hard to think of Zack as a demon too, which probably doesn’t help.” Zack played his human role well. He blended, a surfer dude. Nice guy and tough fed. No one would have a clue he was anything but human. The only reason I did was because he’d shown superhuman strength and speed when picking me up to race me away from an attempted summoning. “Have you ever seen his demon form?”

Jill sobered and went a bit pale. “No.”

I sighed. What the hell was Zack thinking keeping her in the dark like this? “Jill, you should. The demahnk are beautiful. You still care about him, right?”

“Yes. Sure I do,” she said, but the look in her eyes reminded me of a rabbit ready to run.

Worry rose in me for both Jill and Zack. “Look, please, for your sake and your daughter’s, please talk to him about this. Ask him about him .”

“Okay. Yeah. Sure.” She glanced at her watch. “I gotta go! Time to learn how to squirt this kid out.”

Run rabbit run. “Okay.” I gave her a hug along with the best smile I could manage. “You’ll come by later, right?”

“Yep. After lunch and errands.”

“Sounds good. Happy squirting!” I frowned. “That came out wrong.”

Jill laughed. “It sure did! See you later. Make sure your honey is all spruced up for his inspection.”

I grinned. “I think you’ll like what you see.”

After Jill left, I took care of my morning ablutions, got myself all prettified again, then texted Zack an update.

J still says no. Find out real root issue why. Also RV too small. Mobile home instead?

That task completed, I headed down to the basement. There wasn’t much to be done to prepare. Zack’s assistance, with clearing the area and again topping off the storage diagram, had been invaluable. Yet another point in his favor.

An odd rhythm in the flows caught me briefly off balance as I began the summoning, like waves on a white-capped lake. Breathing deeply, I waited and watched for lulls, found as much of a pattern as I could, then made the call during a calmer period, like waiting for a pause in the rain to dash to one’s car.

The arcane wind picked up and whipped my hair into my eyes. I added power to the flows and stabilized the perimeter of the portal, once again grateful to Zack for the additional power in the diagram. It would be poor form to lose any of the four I was bringing through, to say the least.