Touch of the Demon

Safar finally entered a chamber that wasn’t my cell. A big window draped in dust-free emerald silk dominated the far wall of a room about the size of my bedroom at home. In other words, not very big. A comfy looking chair of golden velvety stuff nestled by the window. A larger table and matching chair of heavy oak or similar wood dominated the center of the room. Déjà vu reigned supreme in here, and I knew without doubt that a bedchamber was beyond the closed door on the wall to the right.



Safar guided me into the chair at the table and then released me. I sat gratefully, rested my elbows on the table and rubbed at my head, grimacing. He stepped back into the corridor for a brief moment then returned with a mug that he placed before me. “From Gestamar,” he stated.



I took the mug and peered briefly at the contents. Couldn’t tell a damn thing about it except that it was liquid and it had a weird and tangy scent. Fuck it. It wasn’t as if this day could get any worse if the stuff turned out to be foul.



I slugged it down with only a slight grimace. It wasn’t vile, though I doubted I’d be asking for seconds.



“Your chambers are here,” Safar said as I placed the empty mug on the table. “Bed and bath there.” He gestured toward the door with a claw.



“My chambers?” I said. “You’re not taking me back to that other room?” My spirits dared to rise a few millimeters.



He crouched and shook his head. “Dahn.”



I peered at him. “How hard is it to learn y’all’s language?” I asked, pretty sure it was hard as hell given the gutturals, stops, and sounds that were just plain weird. Kri meant “yes” and dahn meant “no.” I’d picked that up from my dealings with demons through the years but not a lot else, since the demons I summoned all spoke or at least understood some English.



Safar spread his wings in a bone-popping stretch then settled them again. “Difficult for humans. Most who spend time here learn some words and phrases. Few become conversant. Only three have gained fluency.”



Most Who Spend Time Here. Well, let’s just hope I’m not here long enough to learn more than a few phrases. I grimaced and amended my mental statement. And not because some asshole lord decides to kill me because he thinks I’m a threat to his world.



“So, what do I do now?” I asked.



He peered at me. “Eat, bathe, rest, whatever you choose short of killing yourself or leaving the grounds.”



“Eat?” I asked as my stomach gave an accompanying growl. “Real food?”



He bared his teeth. “Kri…yes. It will be here soon.”



I eyed him dubiously. “Not that broth stuff, right? Real, solid food?”



Safar rumbled in what might have been amusement. “Real, solid food.”



My spirits rose a couple of inches this time. “Any chance I can get clothing? Underwear? Nifty shit like that?”



“In the bedchamber, awaiting.”



Now for the money question. I pursed my lips. “What about a toothbrush?”



“You will find the basics in either the bedchamber or the bath chamber.”



Hot damn. I pushed up from the table and headed for the bedroom, along the way realizing that my headache had vanished in the past couple of minutes.



Relief wound through me when I found my own clothing and shoes on the bed, obviously clean. I checked out the bath chamber next and stopped dead in my tracks, eyes fixed on the graceful gold-stone bath tastefully adorned with a pattern of leaves.



“You carved this for me?” I hear myself say, barely able to contain my delight.



Szerain sits on the edge of the tub, fingers idly tracing patterns of light on the surface of the water. He looks over at me, smiles. “Finished only yesterday. You will abide for some time to come. Rhyzkahl and I came to agreement.”



“And what of Giovanni?” I ask, barely daring to breathe or hope. He looks away, and my heart sinks. “My Lord?”



And there I was alone in the bath chamber staring at a tub already full of steaming water and no clue what happened to Giovanni. Like a fucking cliffhanger. Gah! I tried to get the image back but no luck.



Well, there was no doubt that Elinor had a thing for this Giovanni. How did all that turn out? I wondered. Elinor died. I knew that much. Murdered? Was that it? I couldn’t shake the utter certainty that there was something more to her death than simply being consumed in a gate. Not that there was anything simple about that, but still. And then the biggest mystery of them all: How had a slip of a girl with only adequate summoning skills come so close to destroying the world? There was a missing piece to all of this. I knew that. Even if no one else knew what had really happened, surely I could figure it out, right? After all, I had the best eyewitness camped out in my head.



And then there was Szerain. I took a step forward and touched the carvings on the lip of the bath where the memory-vision had been. He didn’t look anything like Ryan in the face, but his build, green gold eyes and hair were right. Well, Szerain’s hair was longer than Ryan’s FBI-regulation cut, but the color and texture were a match. What else about him was different? Elinor hadn’t been afraid of him. That was some consolation at least.



Every answer seemed to raise two more questions. I gave a mental shrug and dipped my hand in the water. Plush towels, basic toiletry items—including the much-desired toothbrush—and a full hot bath. Looked like just what I needed. Yeah, a nice long soak could make up for a lot.



I stuck my head out of the bedchamber. “I’m going to bathe, okay?”



Safar snorted and crouched, which I took for acknowledgment.



I returned to the bath, stripped quickly, and sank to my neck in the water. For a moment I wondered who the hell filled the damn thing since there was nothing resembling a faucet, but then decided I really didn’t care. It was completely awesome. Would’ve been better if I didn’t have a death-or-madness sentence coming up in two days, but what the hell. All the more reason to enjoy the shit while I could.



Chapter 4



After about twenty minutes I felt more human and more certain that I was well clean of any lingering Tracy-bits and my own puke-spatter. I dried and dressed but paused before returning to the main room, taking this chance to peer at the damn collar in the mirror. No seam that I could feel or see. My gaze swept the bathroom and finally rested on the edge of the stone table that held the basin. Crouching awkwardly, I scraped the edge of the collar against the table about half a dozen times then peered at it in the mirror.



Shit. The edge of the table had a long gouge on it, but the stupid collar was as pristine and whole as ever. Not even the slightest mar or scratch. What the hell was this stuff?



Sighing in annoyance and disappointment, I returned to the main room just as a pair of faas burst in, one carrying a mug and the other a tray of what I sure hoped was food.



“For you. For youuuuu!” one burbled as they placed tray and mug on the table. With a body about three feet long, a sinuous tail about twice that, and six legs, the faas reminded me of a sleek blue-furred lizard. It peered at me with near comic curiosity, its vertically-slitted bright golden eyes round and shining over a broad snout. Its tail coiled and undulated ceaselessly, and the demon itself vibrated all over as though it could barely contain itself. I’d summoned faas on several occasions to do arcane warding in my house, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen one be still. “Jekki! Jekki! I am,” it said, vibrating yet more, purple iridescence shimmering over its fur.



I smiled. Couldn’t help it. Faas had that effect on me. “Kara Gillian. I’m honored to meet you, Jekki.”



The second faas raised up so that it supported itself on the back four legs and had free use of the front two as hands. It traced a quick blue sigil in the air and coalesced it into what looked like a little azure gem which it promptly tossed to Jekki. “Faruk. I am Faruk. Kara Gill Ian,” it said, holding its fisted right hand out as though waiting for a fist bump. “Faas of Mzatal say greet to Kara.”



I found myself grinning despite the trauma of the past couple of days. I had no idea what the protocol was for this, so I just went with what I knew and gave the faas a fist bump. “Right back atcha, Faruk. Greetings and all that,” I said, hoping I hadn’t made a social blunder like eating with the wrong fork. Apparently it was okay, because Faruk bared its teeth in a smile and held its hand out toward Jekki, who returned not only the blue gem but two red ones it dug out of a belt pouch. “Eaaaaaaat! Drinnnnnnnnk!” Faruk said, and then both darted out without another word.



Still smiling, I looked over to Safar. “What was that all about?”



Safar rumbled in amusement. “They traded kek. Tokens,” he said scrunching a soft drawstring pouch that depended from his belt—his only article of clothing. It sounded like a bag of marbles, so I suspected it contained a bunch of these tokens. “Wagers,” he said as if that explained everything.



I was about to ask what sort of wager, but a savory scent demanded my attention, and I turned to the table, mouth watering. The faas had brought food—real, solid food—and that was the most important thing to me right now. I didn’t recognize much of the stuff, but I figured it was safe enough. If Mzatal wanted me dead, it wouldn’t be by poisoning.



I broke my liquid diet with gusto, though I stuck mainly to simple, vaguely recognizable things: grape-like fruit that tasted of lemon and melon, potato-y things that tasted like…potatoes, which they probably actually were. A creamy sweet cheese that would’ve gotten a five star rating except for its sickly grey-green color. I only tried it because, unbeknownst to me, some of it was stuck to the bottom of one of the relatively innocuous crackery things. It was so damn good even the color couldn’t put me off after that. The experience should have emboldened me to try some of the other questionable “delicacies,” but, um, no. That sort of experimentation would have to wait until I was either hungrier or not so stressed.



I finally wiped my face and hands, dropped the napkin on the table, then looked to Safar. “You said I could do anything as long as I don’t try to kill myself or leave the grounds,” I said. “Does that mean I’m allowed to explore?”