Diana Rowland - Fury of the Demon

The pencil jerked across the pad in shaky, short movements. I remained quiet, pygahing for him and supporting. My eyes dropped to the pad. Little more than scribble marks on it.

Sweat dripped from his face to splop onto the paper. “New . . . page,” he said, voice intense and strained. I quickly turned to a clean sheet, and he began to draw again.

We repeated this process half a dozen more times, each sketch gradually improving on the one before, all while his other hand maintained a hard, ice cold grip on mine. Finally he began to move more fluidly, and he created a sketch of the ring far far better than my horrible rendition.

“Again,” he croaked. I flipped the page, though I took more care with this one to avoid smearing it. He drew a deep breath. “Pygah. Please,” he whispered in desperate determination.

Focusing, I mentally traced the calming, centering sigil, consciously facilitated the flow of potency to him. He sketched the ring one more time, then dropped the pencil. “All . . . I can do.”

I pulled the pad to me and let out a delighted laugh. “Hot damn! Thank you! That’s ten billion times better than mine.”

Szerain jerked, and his head lolled for an instant before Ryan straightened and blinked. I quickly closed the pad to hide the drawing of the ring.

“Did it work?” he asked with a puzzled frown, completely Ryan in voice and manner. “Felt like I went out for a while.”

“You did,” I said and gave a low laugh. “You fell asleep.”

He flexed his hands, puzzlement flickering in his eyes. “I’m freezing. In Louisiana. And sweating. Weird.” He shook them out. “What did you do?”

“Oh, I tried to call up your past lives,” I said with a casual wave of my hand.

Ryan laughed. “You are such a liar.” He started to say more, but his face abruptly took on an I’m gonna barf look. I let out a curse as he rolled from cross-legged to hands and knees, and I shifted away barely in time to avoid the splatter of lasagna and who knew what else.

“Shit, Ryan.” I moved to his side—avoiding the barf—as he subsided into dry heaves. I rubbed his back as he barfed again, though it was little more than bile at this point.

After about a minute he shakily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then grimaced and scrubbed the hand on the tarp before shifting away from the splatters to sit again. “Well,” he croaked, “I’m not a fan of whatever you did.”

“Sorry.” I winced. “It was, um, an aversion, but it wasn’t supposed to do that.”

A streak of blue caught my eye, and a heartbeat later Jekki zipped up to Ryan with a tumbler of tunjen in his hand.

“You’re the best, Jekki,” I said fervently. “Drink that, Ryan. It’ll help.”

He took the tumbler and gave the contents a dubious sniff. “What is it? And yes, before you give me a smartass answer, I know it’s fruit juice.” He gave me a crooked grin. “Something exotic?”

“It’s a demon realm version of the ultimate sports drink,” I told him.

He took a careful sip, blinked. “That’s good.” He quickly drained the glass.

“Told you.” I smiled, relieved to see his color return. “Better?”

“I feel fine now,” he said, getting to his feet. “But you get to hose down the tarp.”

“Only fair,” I admitted. “It was my fault, after all.”

“Glad my puke could be of service,” he said, then gave me a weak grin and returned inside.

After I hosed down the tarp and set it out to dry, I took the sketch pad, went in search of Paul, and found him dozing on the couch with his tablet on his chest. Nearby, Bryce sat in the comfy chair and fervently vaporized aliens with the sound muted.

Paul looked so damn adorable it seemed a crime to wake him. “Hey, Bryce?” I said quietly. “You think Paul will be awake soon?”

Bryce paused the game. “Only to stumble to his futon.” At my questioning look, he continued, “He keeps weird hours. Usually sleeps from about five or six in the morning until afternoon. He says that’s what feels normal to him, and makes it easy for him to connect with his contacts on the other side of the world.”

I controlled my disappointment with effort. A few more hours wouldn’t make a difference, right?

Bryce saw right through it, and his eyes dropped to the pad. “If you have something for him, he’d want you to wake him up.”

Well, Bryce knew him better than anyone, and I didn’t need any more encouragement. “Hey, Paul?” I touched him on the shoulder.

He startled enough to send a wisp of guilt through me, then gave me a sleepy smile and stretched like a waking kitten. “Hey, Kara. You need the couch?”

Somehow I managed to control the D’awwwwww, you’re so darn cute sappy smile. “No, but I do have something for the Idris hunt,” I said. “Sorry to wake you, but Bryce said you’d want to see it.”

Paul pushed himself up to sit, curiosity winning out over a desire for more sleep. “Yeah? Whatcha got?”

I opened the pad up to the final drawing of the ring, carefully tore out the page and handed it to him. “What about this? Can you do something with this?”

He set his tablet aside and took the sheet, eyes widening in surprise at the quality of the drawing. “Wow. I can totally work with this.” He looked up at me, incredulous. “You did this?”

I laughed. “Are you kidding? No, someone else did, but it’s best not to ask too many questions about that.”

“That’s cool,” he said with a grin. “I’m used to not asking questions.” He stood and started toward the office with page and tablet in hand. “I’ll see what I can come up with.”

“You’re wonderful,” I said fervently, then flopped down in the place he’d vacated. Jekki whooshed in and put a plate of mini-pancakes and bacon on the coffee table.

Bryce thanked him and tossed the second controller to me. “Bet you a dollar Paul will have something in ten minutes.”

I took the controller, raised an eyebrow at him. “I’ll take that bet. No one’s that good.”

Bryce opened his mouth for a comeback, but Jekki beat him too it. “No doubting the Paul-dude!” he exclaimed then zoomed back to the kitchen.

Bryce and I burst out laughing. He lifted his controller. “You heard Jekki. We only have ten minutes. Let’s do this thing.”

And we did. I sucked at video games in general, but even with my crappy skills, I still found something deeply satisfying in a recreation where I knew exactly who my enemies were and could then blast them into messy bits.

“Hey, Kara?” Paul shouted from the office a little later.

“What?” I hollered back, eyes still glued to the screen. These aliens weren’t going to kill themselves.

“I think I have something on the ring!”

Bryce laughed and put out his hand. “Pay up!”

I paused the game, then gave a mock-scowl and made a show of looking at my watch. “Damn. That took him a whole six minutes,” I muttered. “Freakin’ geniuses.”

“Never doubt the Paul-dude,” Bryce said with a sage nod.

My brain and experience told me there was no way Paul had found anything of significance so quickly, but I unfolded my legs, stood, and proceeded to the office. Bryce followed and leaned against the doorframe.

“Show me,” I said.

“I don’t know if it’s the same one,” Paul said as he beckoned me over to where he sat at the desk, laptop with mouse in front of him, and my old monitor to the side displaying a screen full of rapidly changing numbers. “But it looks pretty close to the drawing.”

Every possible doubt I had of his skill evaporated as I peered at the picture on his laptop screen. A faded color close-up photo of a woman in her early thirties or so seated at a picnic table and flanked by a smiling boy and girl about five or six years old. Twins perhaps? All appeared to be of middle-Eastern descent and each held up a paper cup as though for a toast. The trunk of a humongous redwood tree dominated the background. But the detail that drew my eye was the woman’s right hand and the ring on her middle finger, clearly visible against the white of the cup.