Touch of the Demon (11 page)

Vines continued to shift and move around me. The white trunks and limbs shimmered with heat-wave ripples, though the grove felt cooler than before. The green and violet of the leaves awoke with a luminescent glitter of emerald and amethyst. Mzatal stepped back as the barrier before him took on a barely visible pulsing glow. A wind whispered through the leaves, or maybe the leaves just whispered to me. Mesmerized, I stared up at the shifting beauty.

A leafy tendril touched my face, and the last vestiges of my panic ebbed away. It wasn’t going to let me fall. Everything shuddered again and the vines that had wrapped around me began to lift me off the impaling branch. I stared at the leaves above, mind screaming distantly to expect fresh agony, but it was wrong. Only a little tingle. My new Plant Friend wouldn’t hurt me. Smiling, I watched the pretty dancing lights.

I relaxed into the cradling hold. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mzatal pacing along the perimeter, eyes never leaving me. He placed a hand on the barrier and tried to push through, then staggered back a step as it repelled him. His eyes snapped to me as he stood, hands clenched at his sides. Way too tense. He needed a Plant Friend.

Whisper whisper whisper. Sparkly. Everything sparkly.

“Kara, can you hear me?”

Whisper whisper whisper.

Shimmery. Sparkly. Shimmery.

Whisper whisper whisper.

“Kara!”

“No need. To. Shout,” I managed, my voice sounding loud and unnatural to me. Vines unwound, pulling away.
The pain returned, and I shuddered and whimpered low. Awareness seeped in: not in the tree anymore, on the ground. “How’d I get here?”

Mzatal crouched at my side, carefully looking me over without touching me. “The grove moved you. It was unprecedented, Kara Gillian,” he murmured, gaze flicking from the wound in my side to the mangled mess of my leg. Sudden fear gripped me. Would he even bother trying to heal me?

He looked past me at the retreating vines, then laid a hand in the center of my chest. His jaw clenched and he shook his head, then stripped the collar from me, passed it to Gestamar, and set his hand on my chest again.

“You are badly injured,” he said, in what I thought was a keen grasp of the fucking obvious. He looked up and around, expression contemplative. “The grove has stopped the bleeding.” Shaking his head, he returned his attention to me. “We will stabilize your leg here, then move you.” He pointed to a spot in the center of his forehead. “Focus here,” he said, then sketched a quick sigil in the air between us.

I did my best to focus where he indicated, though my vision kept wanting to fuzz in and out. The sigil rotated in a subtly mesmerizing pattern, and gradually it became oddly simple to focus on that and little else. Mzatal set a hand on my thigh, and I felt Gestamar pulling and twisting my leg into a more acceptable configuration, but the agony seemed to be behind a glass wall. Mzatal traced tethers of potency around my leg, then caught the sigil and placed it on my chest. A soothing warmth emanated from it, like a magic pain patch.

“Gestamar will move you now,” he told me, speaking in a calm, imperturbable voice. I barely managed a nod, feeling strangely distant from my body.

The reyza lifted me with amazing gentleness. Around me the grove shimmered, and I smiled, feeling its touch like a caress.

I must have drifted off for a few minutes, because the next thing I knew, Gestamar was gently setting me on my bed. Mzatal entered, removing his suit jacket and draping it over the chair before rolling up the sleeves of his pristine white shirt. He moved to my side and ran his hands lightly over my torso.

“How…bad?” I asked, the effort of those two words exhausting.

Before Mzatal could respond, Idris entered. He stopped and gave a gasp of shock—inadvertently answering my question of how bad—then flinched at the reproving look from Mzatal. I wanted to laugh, but I knew it would hurt too much.

Mzatal returned his attention to me. “Your right leg is broken. You were impaled through and through on your left side and there is damage within. If you are not healed, you will die.”

“Oh…okay.” Well, he didn’t pull any punches. But at least, at this point, I was pretty sure he was going to do what he could to keep me from dying.

Idris audibly gulped and proceeded to edge around the room and out of Mzatal’s direct line of sight.

A faas hopped in, and Mzatal took the mug that was offered. In a smooth motion, the lord slid his arm under my shoulders and lifted me to a partial sitting position, supporting me fully. Pain flared behind the shielding wall of the sigil.

“Drink, Kara,” he said as he held the mug to my lips.

I suddenly realized how thirsty I was and did my best to drink. It tasted pleasantly sweet and refreshing and felt as if it permeated beyond the physical. It took some doing, but I drained the mug. “What was that?” I managed to whisper.

Mzatal set the mug aside and eased me down to the pillow again. “Tunjen juice. Replenishing both for the physical and the arcane.”

The demon realm version of a super sports drink
, I thought with detached amusement.

I watched Mzatal as much as I was able, though between the pain and the sigils he was using to dampen it, I tended to drift in and out. He looked seriously fucking intense as he readied himself to work on me.

“What do you know of the groves?” he asked, placing a hand next to the wound in my side.

I frowned. He was going to get blood on a really nice shirt. And how the hell did he get tailored for a suit that nice in the demon realm? And what sort of cuff links did a demonic lord wear? And had he washed his hands?

“Kara,” Mzatal said with an undercurrent of command
in his voice, reminding me of the tone cops used when trying to get and keep attention.

Oh, right. He’d asked me a question. “Trees. Lords travel…” Muzzily, I realized he wanted me to stay awake and interacting. Likely for my own good or something. Damn it.

Mzatal said a few words in demon to Gestamar. The reyza grunted and bounded out.

He looked back down at me. “You have never been in a grove before.” It was a statement, not a question, so I didn’t waste energy trying to answer it. He lifted my shirt above the site of the impalement. “Idris, lay support.”

The young man jumped at the sound of his name. “Y-yes, my lord,” he said, flicking a worried glance my way before beginning to sketch a complex pattern using nothing but shimmering threads of potency. I watched, fascinated, in a dreamy sort of way. This was the first chance I’d had to really see things happening without the collar on.

Idris finished and ignited the pattern. Instantly, I saw it dim as Mzatal drew upon it. A low warmth spread through my side. Now I understood Idris’s worried look. If the demonic lord needed a support pattern for additional potency, that meant I was well and truly fucked up. Then again, it wasn’t news to me at this point.

I pulled my unsteady attention back to Mzatal. His hair was braided in a complex weave that looked like it needed at least seven or eight strands. Did he do that himself? Or did he have a demon valet do it for him? And where did he get the tie that was currently tucked partially in his shirt to keep it clear of his work? And for that matter, where was I going to get new clothes? Especially bras. I knew the one I had on was pretty well soaked in blood.

“The
zrila
Anak fashioned the tie, and the faas Jekki braids my hair,” Mzatal said as he slid a hand beneath me to reach the entry wound. Pain flared at the movement, and I hissed a breath. “When we return to my realm on the morrow,” he continued, “the zrila circle will create what garb you require. They are quite skilled.”

I managed a slight scowl. “You’re reading…me.”

Mzatal looked from the wound to my face. “Yes, of course.”

“Rude.” I swallowed, breathing shallowly. “Stop.”

“That I cannot do,” he replied. “It is as impossible as stopping the taste of wine upon my tongue, or the feel of your skin beneath my hands.” In the next instant heat flooded the wound, and I gasped, hands tightening in the sheet. Gradually, it subsided into a warm pulse, spreading in gentle flows from the wound to the rest of my body. I exhaled in relief as the pain faded, noticing that it was already far easier to breathe.

“The sigils fascinate you,” Mzatal said almost conversationally, “but it is clear you do not know many of them. What training have you had?”

“My aunt,” I replied. It was a lot easier to talk and breathe now, but I was as tired as if I’d run a marathon uphill. Not that I had any intention of ever finding out how tiring a marathon was. “She taught me protocols…rituals. I summon demons…to learn…ask questions.” I caught myself drifting and dragged my focus back to him. I didn’t want to sleep. Too much chance I might never wake up. “I’m…getting better?”

Mzatal drew in a deep breath. He looked damn near as tired as I was. He shifted and placed a hand on my solar plexus. “Yes, better,” he said. “Gestamar will splint your leg. I have done much work with the impalement and the internal damage.” He gave me the barest ghost of an actual smile. “You will not die this day, Kara Gillian.”

I smiled weakly, then slid my hand over his. “Thanks,” I mumbled as I allowed my eyes to drift closed.

I came awake abruptly. “Eilahn?” I called groggily, before realizing where I was and what had happened to her.

“Eilahn is not here, little one,” came a rumbled response. I blinked to focus and saw Gestamar crouched beside my bed, carefully knotting a splint around my injured leg.

“You know Eilahn?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“She was killed on Earth.” My brow furrowed. “Yesterday, I think. Is today the same day as when we fell?”

“Yes, it is the same day,” he replied. “You have been asleep for several hours. And yes, she has returned.”

“She has?” I exhaled in relief, smiling weakly. “I was so worried.”

Gestamar tightened another binding, then shifted and touched my cheek with the back of a claw. “Yes, though Ilana says that she will be in stasis for a time, to recover herself.”

“Good…good. What about Safar?”

“Mzatal tends Safar’s damaged wing now,” he replied calmly.

Pain shot through me as Gestamar shifted my leg. And Safar was messed up, too. Wow. Today was turning out to be an even shittier day than the one before. I hadn’t thought that was possible. And damn it, the fucking collar was back on. It’d been such a relief to have it off during the healing.

“You roused him,” Gestamar said, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize he was referring to Safar. “Neither of you would have survived had you not.” He shifted and returned to knotting bindings.

“Good thing he didn’t like having his ear twisted,” I said with an unsteady smile. The pain was beginning to make its presence known again, pulsing in waves like radio signals from my leg.

Gestamar snorted. “Our ears are quite sensitive. You chose well.”

“And what about the syraza?”

“Olihr. Recovered enough to return to Rhyzkahl by midday,” Gestamar said casually.

That got my attention. What was one of Rhyzkahl’s sy raza doing at Szerain’s palace? Hope rose. Did Rhyzkahl know I was here?

“What happened?” I asked Gestamar. “I mean, why did we fall?”

“Olihr is young and eager.” The reyza gave a low snort. “He sought to close the anomaly above on his own and became incapacitated by the backlash energies,” he explained. “When Safar touched Olihr, he received a jolt of it.”

Like touching a live wire
, I mused.

A scrape of boot on stone gave me enough warning to be prepared as Idris entered and hurried to the side of the bed. It was obvious he was trying hard to not flutter, but the poor kid was clearly way out of his comfort zone. His eyes kept flicking to the swollen mess of my leg and skittering away, face pale and worried.

“Kara, do you need anything?” he asked, practically wringing his hands. “Water? I have water. Or tunjen? Tunjen might be better.” His gaze shifted to my leg and away as he gulped. “I’ll get you some juice.” He wiped his hands on his trousers, scanning the table for anything that resembled juice.

“Painkiller might be better,” I said, biting back the urge to tell him to find a Xanax for himself. My voice had an annoying rasp to it, and I grimaced. “Any sort of painkiller. That’d be good.”

He stopped fluttering and blinked at me. “Ibuprofen! I have ibuprofen. Be right back!” He turned and headed for the door at a near run, coming to an awkward sliding stop about six inches before barreling into Mzatal.

The lord stood still in the doorway, hands behind his back, as usual, as he gave Idris a hard look. Idris managed to straighten and get fully upright with some semblance of
decorum, though the wild mane of his hair ruined the effect a bit. “Sorry, my lord,” he said and hurriedly stepped back out of the way.

Mzatal kept his eyes on Idris for another few heartbeats before continuing into the room and allowing the young man to flee. He moved to the other side of the bed from Gestamar, face expressionless and gaze intense as he took in my overall condition. Even through the collar I had the sense he was probing, likely assessing my mental outlook as well as how mangled my physical body was.

I bit back a cry of pain, hands clenching in the sheets as the reyza shifted my leg. Yeah, my mental outlook was just peachy right now.

Mzatal’s eyes narrowed a hair. He shifted his attention to Gestamar, said something in demon, and received a deep-voiced answer. Neither’s face or manner betrayed the subject, to my deep annoyance.

Mzatal shook his head, spoke again in a slightly more commanding tone. Sick fear pierced through me as the reyza seemed to hesitate. Were they talking about amputating my leg or something extreme like that?

Gestamar gave a huffing snort, replied in demon, then turned and exited the room.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I worked on unclenching my hands from the sheet. “Can y’all fix my leg?”

Mzatal slid his gaze to my face. “I have sent Gestamar to create a particular medicinal blend for you.”

“Please tell me it’s a painkiller,” I said, swallowing. “Or at least an antibiotic.” I risked another look at my leg. I didn’t see any dirt anywhere, so apparently it was cleaned while I slept. “Can’t you do one of those sigil things again?”