Diana Rowland - Fury of the Demon

Puzzled, I slowly made my way around the pond. “What are you doing?” I asked quietly.

“Pulling some potency before I collapse,” he told me with a low sigh that I realized was born of exhaustion. After a moment he looked up. “I created this branch valve. It’s one of thirty-three off the valve trunk in the north of Rhyzkahl’s realm.” A sad, nostalgic smile touched his mouth. “The first full system in place after the cataclysm.”

Zack had to have been in a near-constant state of damage control since that catastrophic event centuries ago, I realized. And now he had the care of Szerain on top of that? No wonder fatigue seemed to permeate his every cell—far beyond any sort of normal tiredness.

He continued to work his hands over the valve. I sat cross-legged beside him, reminded of an orchestra conductor as I watched him move. After a time he brought his hands together, and the rippling potency breeze died away, as though he had closed the window.

He sighed softly, lifted his eyes to mine. “You asked what the line is,” he said. “It’s those ancient agreements, oaths, and decrees that frustrate the hell out of you.”

Decrees. That implied an enforcer. I filed that away. “That’s an understatement,” I said with a wry smile. “I’d like to move beyond that.”

He shifted from the crouch to a sit with one knee up. “You’re right.” He rested his forearm on his knee as he regarded me. “You’re not a child. Not anymore. You’ve grown so much, through betrayal as well as love.”

“I’m not the same person I was a year ago, that’s for sure.” My throat tightened. “Sometimes I’m not sure who I am anymore.” I shook my head, scowled. “And not because of Rhyzkahl’s stupid rakkuhr virus either.”

Zack plucked a long and heavy-headed piece of grass and rolled the stem between his fingers. “No. And I know it’s hard to find your footing.” He let out a soft snort. “My being a confusing pain in your ass doesn’t help.”

“You’re not.” I did my best to smile, but I had a feeling it ended up more like a rictus of pain. “I don’t understand what the rules are, so I feel like I’m trying to find the walls of the room with all the lights off, and I keep bumping into furniture and knocking shit over.”

A dragonfly zipped and hovered around Zack’s head like an iridescent green helicopter. Off to my right a frog croaked and entered the water with a plop. Further into the woods a squirrel chattered its displeasure at some other creature.

“I said earlier that any explanation crosses the line,” Zack said quietly.

My mouth drew down into a scowl. “Right, so my dark room has no light switch.”

To my surprise he shook his head. “The switch is there. But I keep moving it.” He dropped the piece of grass and lifted his hand. The dragonfly alighted on his index finger as though he’d called it to him. “I’ve spent most of my existence walking that line and others, sticking my toes over.” His eyes remained on the elegant insect. “In law enforcement terms, I’d have a rap sheet full of misdemeanors, a fistful of felonies, and be wanted by Interpol.” He gave a light shrug. “I’m a troublemaker.”

“No wonder I like you.” This time a faint smile curved my lips. “How about we back up one more step. Can you explain why there’s a line at all?”

“Explaining that would be like running across the line and shooting the bird at the ones who drew the line.” He raised his dragonfly-free hand with middle finger extended and others folded to clarify that he didn’t mean a sparrow. “I can’t go there. Not now.” He paused. “Not yet.”

“Ones? Not Rhyzkahl?”

“No, not Rhyzkahl. The Demahnk Council,” he paused, looked away. “And others.” The last two words came out as a near breathless whisper.

My frustration degraded to something closer to despair. I could barely comprehend the oaths he had with Rhyzkahl. How was I supposed to understand more beyond that, of the Council and of others he wouldn’t even name? “I don’t know what to do, Zack,” I said, brow furrowing. “Should I stop asking you for help?”

The dragonfly whirred away as Zack snapped his head toward me, gaze sharp. “No!” He drew in a breath. “No,” he repeated a bit more calmly. “Let me see how I can put this.” He closed his eyes, and I imagined him sifting through words to find the least incriminating ones. “It is so very complex. In the convoluted insanity of the agreements and decrees, some interventions—such as using the demahnk ability to travel—carry consequences in certain Earth situations.” True distress creased his forehead. “I know a woman’s life is at stake right now, but I must weigh the consequences against the benefits.”

“What kind of consequences do you mean?” I asked, determined to get some sort of useful info. “Are we talking volcanoes and locusts? Or, you get in trouble and get put in time out?”

“Volcanoes and locusts if I went too far,” he said, expression grave. “Extensive consequences. But every transgression carries personal consequences. Very personal.” He retrieved the dropped stem of grass. “If I extract Angela Palatino, we win the battle, but I cripple myself for the greater war.” He gripped his temples between his thumb and fingers, shook his head. “Kara, this is . . .”

I reached over, gently pulled his hand from his head, and wrapped my fingers around his. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I’m stressing you out. I don’t understand who has you boxed in like this, but I get that you are. That’s more than I knew before, and it’s enough for now.” I peered at him, smiled. “So tell me how I can help you , other than not asking you to blip out and pick up my dry cleaning.”

Relief eased his features. “You’re doing it right now,” he assured me, then tipped his head back “The other night you said that if a bond isn’t mutually shared, symbiotic, then one party is a parasite.” He cast the stem of grass away like a spear into the water, watched the ripples spread from it. “You’re right,” he continued. “The bond in question was never intended to be mutually beneficial. However the imbalance now is . . . intolerable.”

I felt myself frown. “Whenever I mention breaking the ptarl bond to Mzatal or Szerain they kind of freak.”

“Because it is inconceivable for them,” he stated.

“It’s inconceivable to them,” I said, “but not to you. Why?”

He regarded me, eyes unveiled and ancient. “Any inferences that you make from that are yours, but I can’t go there.” He lifted his hand, middle finger extended, but I didn’t take offense. This was his way to signal that the answer was too far over the line and into shooting-the-bird territory. “And in all fairness,” he added, “it’s almost inconceivable to me.”

I mulled over what little I’d learned so far. Okay, so the bond between a lord and his demahnk ptarl was never intended to be mutually beneficial, but the demahnk clearly weren’t at the beck and call of the lords. So what was the deal? “The demahnk initiated the bonds with the lords, not vice versa,” I said after a moment of thought.

Zack offered no verbal or physical cues of affirmation or denial, and that on its own spoke volumes. “I don’t know if I could do it, even if it is . . .” He trailed off, his voice thick with emotion.

“Even if it’s right?” I asked. I shuffled the bits and pieces of clues into what I hoped was a logical order. “I guess you’d have to weigh the long-term effects of doing it,” I assumed he meant breaking the bond with Rhyzkahl, “against the long-term effects of letting the parasite continue to feed.”