He had no reaction to my outburst, unless, perhaps, an even more scary depth to his calm, like a serpent coiled motionless, able to strike in an instant with deadly speed and accuracy.
The lord locked his eyes on mine and spoke a single word.
“Elinor.”
I jerked as the name hit me like a spear through my essence. My knees buckled for an instant, and I grabbed for the wall, bizarre and unexpected terror rising through me.
And then it was gone, leaving me gasping raggedly and clutching at the wall. “I don’t understand,” I said in a hoarse voice, staring at the dark-haired lord.
Did he reach to steady me or anything like that? Hell, no. His eyes remained hard upon mine. “No. I can clearly see that you do not. Rhyzkahl has not told you why he values you.”
My balance slowly returned, though I kept my hand on the wall. “I suppose you intend to enlighten me?” I asked, voice still unsteady, to my annoyance.
“No. You bear his mark.” His eyes dropped to my left forearm where Rhyzkahl had marked me as his sworn summoner. A slight smile touched his mouth. “I simply hold you from him.”
I went cold, wondering how far he’d go to keep me from Rhyzkahl. “Then why all this?” I said, gesturing to the room and the landscape. “If your whole intent is to keep me from Rhyzkahl, then why the theatrics and the grand reveal of—” I didn’t want to say the name. “—whatever that was?”
He inclined his head toward me, smile increasing a touch, though it only served to make his expression colder. “Because I gleaned precisely what I wanted from it.” He turned and moved toward the stairs in long smooth strides. “And now, we purify you.”
Chapter 2
The reyza shepherded me down the stairs and along the corridor away from the summoning chamber, then down yet more stairs and corridors, and finally into a small bedchamber. From what little I saw in that hurried trek, the place was gorgeous. Neglected for sure, but nothing a little cleanup couldn’t fix. Glass crunched underfoot near broken windows which had either been patched with a ward or left open to the elements. Dust reigned supreme and minor debris littered most areas. But beyond all that, the absolute beauty of the architecture left me in awe. Spacious and sweeping, stone and wood wound together to form something that felt more like a rugged yet graceful entity than a building. Paintings and statuary lined walls and rested in niches everywhere, and I fretted that I wasn’t given the time to stop and look at them.
The reyza continued through the bedchamber and into a room that held a broad stone tub. I would’ve said it was white marble, but there was a dragonfly-wing iridescence to it that I’d never seen in Earth marble. Demon-marble? Water half-filled the tub and was likely the source of a faint rotten egg smell.
“Time is of the essence,” the demon growled. “You must be cleaned and prepared.” He reached for me, and I backpedaled to the wall, eyes widening.
“I can do it!” I gasped. “I can wash myself.”
His lip curled in a snarl. “You have three hundred heartbeats,” he said, flexing clawed hands. He settled into a crouch by the door, eyes never leaving me. “I am counting.”
I shucked my nasty clothes off, kicked them aside and slid into the tepid water. Yep. Sulphur. Much of the well water where I lived had the same odor. I kept a running count while I ducked under and scrubbed at my hair with my fingers. I didn’t see anything resembling soap, so I figured that the standard for how clean I needed to be was mostly Without Bits of Body Parts Clinging to Me.
I clambered out of the tub when my own count reached two-sixty and stood, naked, dripping and shivering, before the reyza. My own clothes and possessions were nowhere to be seen, and even though I had no desire to put any of them back on, it still bugged me.
The demon tossed me a towel. “Dry yourself.” I quickly complied. “And don this.” He passed me a garment—a black knee-length shift that turned out to be little more than a sack with neck and arm holes. No bra, no underwear. To say I felt exposed was an enormous understatement.
The demon snorted, rose from the crouch, gestured to the door. We headed back toward the summoning chamber. Scowling, I picked my way through the glass and debris in the corridors. It had been part of the ambience when I had shoes on, but now, barefoot, it was an up close and personal threat. I had no desire to entertain these motherfuckers with bloody feet and, miraculously, managed the walk without incident.
He opened a door in the corridor near the summoning chamber and waited for me to enter.
I paused in the doorway as an odd feeling of déjà vu swam over me. I’d been in that room before, it told me, dozens of times. In ghostly fragments, I smelled the clean ozone scent of a freshly activated portal, heard snatches of conversation both in demon and what sounded like Italian, felt shivers of excitement, trepidation, and wonder.
A shove in the center of my back dispelled the sensation and reminded me to move.
It wasn’t a large room. Maybe five feet by eight, with another door opposite the one I’d stepped through and a single stone bench along one wall. Maybe the purification involved a massage? Hey, a girl could dream.
A large bas-relief reminiscent of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man dominated the wall across from the bench. Around it, dozens of tassels, of what looked a lot like human hair, hung from silken cords looped over pegs along the wall. Sigils, only faintly visible to me due to the collar, flickered around the carving.
The reyza squeezed in, and his massive bulk shifted the feel of the room from small to damn near claustrophobic. When he closed the door, pitch black descended. I could still see the faint wards on the wall, but othersight didn’t do shit for real darkness, unless the sigils were ignited or specifically traced for light. My hands clenched into fists as I tried to keep from completely freaking out in the utter darkness. I sank to the bench, listening to the breathing of the reyza.
“Come here often?” I said, managing a cheeky grin in case the reyza could see in the dark. I had no idea.
To my utter surprise he spoke. “On rare occasions,” he said with a low snort.
I chuckled, relieved at getting a response. “I’m Kara Gillian,” I said, even though I knew perfectly well the demon knew who I was. Names held a lot of power since they were an integral part of summoning, so I figured it would be better to offer mine first than to ask for his.
“Greetings, Kara Gillian,” he replied. “I am Gestamar.”
Holy shit. I knew that name. Gestamar was mentioned in texts dating back hundreds of years, and was one of the more popular high-level demons to be summoned. I’d never summoned him myself, but only because I was fairly new at summoning reyza, and I tended to be more comfortable with Kehlirik, one of Rhyzkahl’s demons and the first twelfth-level demon I’d ever summoned on my own.
“I’m honored to meet you, Gestamar,” I said. “The lord who had me summoned, what’s his name?”
The demon shifted with a rustle of wings. “Mzatal.”
“Never heard of him.” Hell, right now my only weapons were Obnoxious and Snark, and I intended to use them whenever possible. Then again, it was true. The only lords I knew of were Rhyzkahl and Szerain. I had a feeling there were many gaps in my knowledge that would soon be filled, whether I wanted it or not.
I started to ask him what the whole damn purification thing was about, but a deep thrum from the direction of the other door interrupted me.
In the next instant Gestamar’s hands were around my throat, claws pressing into my skin but not piercing. I bit back a yelp of shock and clutched at his fingers instinctively, but a heartbeat later he pulled his hands away, taking the collar with him. I let out a shaking breath as the arcane leaped into focus around me. Sigils, like strands of intricately woven colored light, pulsed ever so slightly with the thrum from beyond the door. Gestamar lifted a claw and traced a sigil that hung in the air above us and lit the chamber with a golden glow. There’d been one of those in the summoning chamber when I arrived, and some in the room with the fissures, but with the collar on, I’d completely missed their beauty and radiant power. I stared, fascinated and grateful for the brief distraction from my circumstances. On Earth, I traced wards arcanely on surfaces like doors, floors, and walls for specific purposes: protection, aversion, warning, and such. With chalk and blood I crafted floor glyphs for summonings, but I’d never seen a sigil float like this in three dimensional vibrant, shifting color.
Gestamar saw the look on my face and snorted. “The sigils of our world. Humans call them floaters.”
I exhaled and nodded, sensing the thing as though my othersight had developed otherfeel. I finally dragged my eyes away from it to take in the rest of the room.
Now I could really see the bas-relief on the wall in front of me. Despite being totally braced for some weird shit to start, I was drawn to this in a more visceral way than to the floater. The stone looked much like the demon marble of the bath, except that it also had fine veins of gold running through it that picked up the sigil’s light and brought the surface to life. A life-sized naked man—human or lord, I couldn’t tell—faced me in a spread-eagle posture. The full perimeter of the disc writhed with entwined symbols that I couldn’t name, yet felt familiar. A bluish arcane glow ran from the top of his head to the edge of the disc in a widening pattern. The alien eyes were what got me though, sculpted into the background texture with such subtle strokes as to be almost overlooked. But once I saw them, I couldn’t not see them. They fixed me in their gaze, eyes shaped like slanted teardrops with eerie dual pupils and a haunting familiarity. What the hell?
I finally managed to drag my eyes away to the dozens and dozens of tassels. They were most definitely hair, and it sure as hell looked like human hair, at that. Was that part of this ritual? Would this lord cut my hair? Damn it, I just got it to a decent length! I thought with a grimace. But at the same time I steeled myself for just that possibility. My fate might very well depend on my ability to roll with weird or unpleasant shit like that. And I’d rather think that ending up with a bad haircut is the worst it could be.