Diana Rowland - Fury of the Demon

Jekki ran up beside me, chittering in distress. Keeping a hand on Mzatal’s arm, I shifted to crouch before him. “Mzatal? Boss? How can I help you? What do you need?”

Mzatal kept his eyes squeezed closed in a rictus of agony. “Ilana,” he managed to choke out.

Shit. Couldn’t ask for something simple, like Percocet. “She’s not here,” I said. “I can try to summon her.” Could one of the demahnk even be summoned? I turned to the faas. “Jekki, is Zack here?”

“Dahn dahn dahn.” His tail twisted in worry.

Yeah, that would have been too easy. “Can you get tunjen for Mzatal, please?”

The faas darted off, and I returned my attention to the lord. “Boss, talk to me,” I urged. “What’s going on?”

His breath hissed between his teeth, and a sheen of sweat covered his face. He gave a sudden cry that sounded more like frustration than pain. A shudder wracked his body, and a heartbeat later the rictus of agony faded from his expression. He opened his eyes, wiped an unsteady hand over his face.

“I do not know,” he said, voice thready. Jekki ran up with the glass of tunjen and gently pressed it into his hand. Mzatal murmured a low thanks and sipped, color slowly returning to his face.

“It started when you connected with the baby. Was something wrong with her?”

He started to say No—I felt it—but then the pain spiked through him again, as if caused by the mere thought of extending to touch the baby. He drew a breath and remained quiet, and the tension in his face diminished.

My worry for his immediate well-being began to ease a bit now that he didn’t look as if his head was going to explode, though I had plenty of concern beyond that. “Has this ever happened before?”

He drank more tunjen, then set the glass aside and reached for my hand. “Yes, many times,” he said, fingers tightening on mine. “Not for almost a year though.”

I moved to sit beside him on the step. “What triggered these other times?”

He took a long breath and released it. “No single trigger that I have found,” he said. “It has happened when working deep in the plexus. Once when simply talking with Helori. Many times with . . . nightmares.”

I brought his hand up to kiss his fingers. “I’ll try to summon Ilana,” I told him. “Maybe she can help.”

But he shook his head. “The demahnk rarely answer a summons,” he said. “I am unsettled, but the pain has receded. Do not worry, beloved.”

“Yeah, like that’s going to happen,” I said with a roll of my eyes, then kissed him gently. Rarely answer. Did that mean they could resist at will? “You should go lie down.”

“Yes, it would be wise,” he agreed. “Yaghir tahn.”

“No need for apology, love.” I gave him a warm smile.

He finished the glass of tunjen, then stood, swaying slightly. “I will be by the pond.”

I rose with him and slipped an arm around his waist. “How about I walk you there.”

His arm encircled me as we started for the path. “I much prefer it that way.”

We made it to his pavilion without incident. I got him onto the bed and made sure Jekki would monitor him. It was clear that Mzatal remained very unsettled, even if the pain had gone.

He rested a hand on the faas’s head, his eyes on me. “Thank you, zharkat.”

“I’ll be back to check on you,” I told him. I leaned over to kiss him. “I love you.”

Mzatal laid his other hand against my cheek, the simple gesture like a caress of my essence. “I love you,” he replied, then took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

I stayed a few more minutes to watch over him, then gave Jekki’s head a scratch and returned to the house.

Jill sat at the kitchen table distractedly flipping through an old Forensic Times magazine. She snapped her gaze to me as I came in. “What the hell was that all about?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “And I don’t think Mzatal does either.” I slumped into a chair. “I felt him connect with the baby and then felt him wracked with blinding pain. No clue why though,” I saw the worry in her eyes, and I hurried to reassure her, “but I honestly don’t believe it was because something might be wrong with you or the bean.”

“Okay. Good.” She let out a breath and relaxed. “I want you to know, your boyfriend is seriously hot and seriously freaky.”

“Yeah,” I said, then grinned. “I think I like the freaky.”

She snorted, laughed. “You have pine needles in your hair from whatever freaky things you two were doing in the woods.” I opened my mouth to respond, and she jerked a hand up. “Do not tell me what they were.” She paused, appeared to consider. “Not right now, at least.”

“I’ll save the sordid details for the next girls’ night out.”

“Make notes so you don’t forget anything.”

I laughed and headed off to my room.

A quick shower and a change of clothing did a lot to restore my overall equilibrium. As I came into the living room, Bryce glanced up and paused the game he played, leaving a purple and green alien frozen in mid-splatter on the screen.

I flopped onto an empty space on the couch. “Is this day over yet?”

“Still a few hours until midnight,” Bryce said as he set the controller aside. “A little lightning wear you out?”

“What, that?” I gave an exaggerated snort. “Pshaw. I have lightning strike through me all the time. Old hat!” I twisted my face into a comically freaked out expression.

“I’m not going to lie,” Bryce said with a shake of his head. “That was unbelievable.”

“Mzatal says it will help him remain here longer.” I mentally crossed fingers for that. Even three or four days at a stretch would be nice. With Idris on Earth, there wasn’t much Mzatal could do from the demon realm.

Bryce nodded. “He said as much back at his place.” He let out a low whistle. “He worked with the lightning there, too—while standing on the balcony rail about a billion feet above the rocks. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I eyed him. “He was standing on the railing of the balcony?”

“Yep, barefooted and shirtless and calling in a storm,” he said. “On the railing .”

“I’ll kill him,” I said with a sweet smile.

Bryce’s face abruptly twisted into the expression of a man who suddenly realized he’d told his buddy’s girlfriend that said buddy had been at the strip club all night. “Uh, he didn’t fall or anything,” Bryce fumbled out as he struggled to retract his earlier statement. “I mean, he seemed to be in complete control of what he was doing.”

I snorted. “I’m sure he knew what he was doing.” Then again, it wasn’t as if I could call Mzatal on it. He’d simply give me an implacable look and tell me he was always in control. Dating a demigod sure carried its own set of unique issues. “I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it, though.”

“I’m glad I was ,” Bryce said. “I’d only talked to him once, briefly, before witnessing the lightning-on-the-railing thing. I’m not likely to forget it.” He shrugged. “And today’s was impressive too, but something about there being nothing but sky beyond him, and the whole different world thing, it was beyond surreal.”

Jill came into the room with a large bowl of something weird and gloppy half-resting on her belly. “Jekki made pickle peanut butter pretzels for me,” she announced. “Anyone want some?”

“Oh, wow, gee, Jill.” I made an exaggerated wince. “Y’know, I just had that for lunch, so I guess I’ll have to pass.” I shuddered.

“I’m not even going to pretend I want any,” Bryce said, giving Jill the warmest smile I’d ever seen on the man. He nodded toward the bowl in her grasp. “That looks and sounds disgusting.”