A wave of calm and peace flowed through me and my desire to struggle faded. A small part of me tried to insist that this was part of the attack, but the flow of serenity pushed it down with barely a ripple. A soundless tone vibrated through me and for an instant I thought it would shake me apart, my molecules flying apart from the force of it. Suddenly I could feel the syraza as if I was inside its skin. I could see the shock on my face, taste the moisture on my breath, yet I was still looking up at the demon in a bizarre double-vision. But more unsettling were the shimmers of completely alien emotion that swept through me, too quickly for me to understand, and leaving behind only the awareness that I was somehow feeling what the demon felt.
And then it was gone, and my senses were my own. Eilahn slowly released me and stepped back, a smile on its delicate face. “Forgive me for using force. There was no way to fully prepare you, and it was vital that the process not be interrupted once begun.”
I blinked a few times as I tried to shake the sensation that I still wasn’t quite inside my head. “Um. Yeah. It’s cool.” I took a breath, slowly beginning to feel more normal. “Wow. That was ...”
“ ‘Intense’ is a word that is often used to describe the experience,” the syraza offered, still smiling.
I gave a weak laugh. “Yeah, that about covers it.” I scrubbed my hands through my hair, the last vestiges of the not-in-my-body sensation finally fading. Seriously weird. I didn’t agree with Eilahn’s statement that there was no way to prepare me—a simple “This is going to make you feel way funky” would have been good. I had the niggling suspicion that the syraza had enjoyed weirding me out like that.
Great, there was a good chance that I was now bound to a demon with an evil streak.
“Okay, so ... how do I help you shift your form?”
In answer the syraza dropped down to a crouch, folding its wings tightly across its back as it wrapped its arms around its legs. I felt another soundless tone shimmer through me, though not even a hundredth as powerful as the first had been. But this time it didn’t fade away and continued to resonate. I could feel the demon again, could sense a slow shifting. It wasn’t a morphing like in the movies, but more as if the demon was being redrawn, a flickering of reality like falling rain. The resonance shifted to a series of alternating tones as the flickering increased and I found myself shaking from the effort of holding onto the resonance. Somehow I knew that if I didn’t keep it in check it would take over and shake us both apart from some sort of arcane vibration. I gritted my teeth as the flickering and resonance built to a shrieking crescendo.
And then it was gone.
Dizziness slammed into me, and I sagged and crumpled to the floor, barely catching myself from smacking my face on the stone. I took several deep breaths until the spots faded from my vision, then looked over at the demon.
Or rather, I looked at the naked woman shakily pressing herself up from the floor.
Chapter 31
My hands still had a bit of a tremble to them as I went through the motions of making coffee, even though it had been over half an hour since I’d come up from the basement with a hot chick in tow. I was definitely way too tired for this shit.
And Eilahn was a hot chick. There was no doubting that. Eilahn-the-demon might have appeared gender neutral, but Eilahn-the-human was quite female. Dark-skinned and tall, with sleek black hair that flowed past her shoulders, she still had a violet cast to her eyes, though nowhere near as deep and intense as when she’d been in her demon form. She looked like a perfect multiethnic mix of damn near every continent, with the build and muscle tone of one of the Cardio Barbies who haunted my gym, but without any of the artificial enhancements that so many of them employed. She didn’t need them.
Right now she was wrapped up in my bathrobe, sitting across from Ryan at my kitchen table. Glaring at him. Ryan merely looked baffled and amused, seeming to take the whole demon-in-human form thing in stride. He was certainly handling it a whole lot better than I. Here I was, the accomplished summoner, and I’d had no idea that syraza could shapeshift. Could other demons? And could the syraza shift to other forms besides human? Curiosity pounded at me, but I knew I’d have to wait until later to satisfy it.
I dumped the water into the top of the coffeemaker, then turned to face the two. “Eilahn, please stop giving Ryan nasty looks,” I said wearily. “He’s under my protection.” And, Ryan, you can stop looking at her at all, I thought with stupid, jealous annoyance.
The syraza slid her gaze to me, then gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. “Lord Rhyzkahl warned me of your association with the kiraknikahl. Forgive me. I should have guarded my reaction with more discretion. I assure you that I meant no insult to your judgment.”
Great. Now I was deemed a poor judge of character among the demonkind because I hung around with Ryan. This was getting better and better. “Well, you’d better get used to him and learn to get along with him, because he’s my friend.” I flicked a glance to Ryan and was surprised to see him looking at me with a pleased and grateful smile on his face. I found myself returning the smile. Yeah, I had his back.
I ran my hands through my hair. “Okay, so, I guess I need to get you something to wear.” There wasn’t a whole lot of my clothing that would fit her, except for sweats and stuff like that.
“Clothing would be appreciated,” Eilahn replied.
Shit. This would get expensive if I had to provide her with an entire wardrobe. And no doubt she’d be living with me, too. Fuck. I was so not ready for this. If Zack was a syraza as well, was he bonded to Ryan the way Eilahn was to me? I had to assume that, if he was, Ryan was completely unaware of it.
I looked at the clock above the sink. Almost five A.M. And me with about two hours of sleep in me. This was going to be a fun day. “Well we’re going to have to find a store that opens early, because we need to get moving on figuring out how to stop the golem before it’s sent after one of us again.” Or sent after someone close to us, I thought with a sudden rush of worry. Tessa’s wards wouldn’t keep the creature out any more than mine had.
“Hang on,” I said, grabbing my phone and going to the living room. I quickly dialed my aunt’s cell phone number, fidgeting as it continued to ring. She picked up on the fifth ring.
“Mmmph?”
“Aunt Tessa? I’m sorry I woke you up,” I said in a rush, “but I need you to go somewhere else for a little while. I’ll explain it all later.”
“Somewhere else? What are you talking about?”
So much for “I’ll explain it all later.” I should have known that Tessa wouldn’t blindly submit to my request. “The construct I told you about isn’t stopped by wards,” I told her. “It came after me at my house, walked right through the wards, but I managed to get away from it. We’re pretty sure we know who’s controlling it, but until we stop him and destroy the thing I don’t want to run the risk that you might be a target simply because you ... you matter to me.”
“Oh, sweetling, that’s such a nice thing to say,” Tessa said, voice still fuzzy from sleep. “But don’t you worry about me. I’m not at home anyway.”
Fear pierced through me as I flashed back to the hideous moment when I’d discovered that the Symbol Man had taken my aunt. “Where are you?” I asked, voice shaking despite my desire to remain calm. “Are you all right?”
She let out a low laugh. “I’m quite fine, Kara. I’m at Carl’s house.”
Relief mixed with embarrassment washed over me. “Oh. Oh, well that’s good.” I smiled weakly. “Okay, well, be careful anyway, all right?”
“We’ve been quite careful, sweetheart. You know I haven’t hit menopause yet, so I make sure Carl uses a condom—”
“AUNT TESSA!” I screeched as she burst into laughter. “You are a horrible evil woman, and you know perfectly well what I meant. Eww!”
“I know, I know,” she said, still laughing. “I couldn’t resist. You’ve been far too tense lately.”
I snorted. “Yeah, well, there’ve been a lot of things to make me tense.”
She was silent for a few heartbeats, and I expected her to say something reassuring such as, That’s all over now. It’s going to be all right now.
“You have a heavy load,” she said instead. She sounded tired but this time not because I’d woken her. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault in so many ways.”
“No, it’s not your fault. It’s going to be fine,” I said, a little off-balance that I was the one doing the reassuring now.
“The demons are not ...” she trailed off.
“Aunt Tessa? The demons aren’t what?”
“The demons are not demonic. You know that.”
I frowned. “Um, yeah. I know.” We’d had these conversations before about how the demons we summoned were not the evil demonic creatures of religious mythos.
“It applies in reverse as well.”
“Huh?” I scowled. I was too tired to sort through verbal games. “What are you talking about?”
“The demons are not demonic. The demonic are not demons.”
I bit back a whimper of frustration and slowly counted to five. “Aunt Tessa, I love you dearly, but you’re driving me batshit crazy at this moment.”
I heard her yawn. “I’m sorry. It’s not important right now. I’m going to go back to sleep, sweets. You’ll let me know when I can go back home?”
“Um, yeah,” I muttered, feeling off-balance again.
“You’re a good girl. I’m so proud of you. I’ll talk to you later.” And with that she disconnected.
I let my hand fall to my side and let out a low groan. She’s going to drive me absolutely crazy. Well, that much was back to normal.
I returned to the kitchen. At least Eilahn was no longer glaring at Ryan.
“Okay, I don’t have a car,” I said. “So, Ryan, you’re stuck driving me. Us.” I fought back a yawn. I wanted to go through the financial info again, but I knew that it wouldn’t help at this point. Showing that Vic had used Roger to participate in a little insider trading didn’t provide any proof that Ben Moran was responsible for the murders. I didn’t even have proof that he was the one who let slip the information about the sale of the bank. “But we need to relocate. I don’t know how safe it is to stay here.”
