• • •
The basement door was ajar when I came in, which told me Jill was most likely working. Maybe it would be better not to disturb her?
No, that was me being a chickenshit. She needed to know about Xharbek impersonating Zack, and with the Cory emergency in a lull, I had no valid reason to avoid it any longer.
I helped settle Cory on the sofa bed then made my way downstairs. My basement had undergone darn near as much change as the rest of my property. All told it was about the size of the entire ground floor of my house, which had made it the perfect spot for a summoning chamber. Though the middle third of the basement remained clear for potential arcane work, Ryan had built out the south end months ago as an extra bedroom. Before the valve explosion, Idris Palatino had bunked down here, but he’d been gone for well over a month. When we began assigning arcane specialists to DIRT units, he’d requested Sector 5—South and Southeast Asia.
Idris was an insanely gifted arcane user and summoner, and I hated to see him go. But I also completely understood why he wanted to be far from here. Rhyzkahl was an ever-present reminder of the Mraztur—the demonic lords Rhyzkahl, Jesral, Amkir, and Kadir—whose atrocities included the brutal murder of his sister. Unbeknownst to Rhyzkahl, Idris was his son and despised the shared blood. If Idris stuck around, an ugly confrontation was inevitable. And while that kind of showdown had the potential to be highly entertaining in its own twisted way, none of us had the time or energy for it or the potential fallout. Besides, popcorn was hard to come by these days.
At the north end of the basement, bookshelves covered the walls, crammed with the entire contents of my Aunt Tessa’s arcane library. I’d taken every last scrap from her house, right after I learned that she’d been lying to me for years, deliberately sabotaging my education as a summoner, and even collaborating with Master Summoner Katashi to have my arcane abilities stripped. She wanted to fuck me over? Fine. I’d use her own resources against her.
Not only was Tessa without her library, but she didn’t have Katashi’s support anymore either. We’d captured him shortly after the valve exploded in the Beaulac PD parking lot, but unfortunately he was savvy enough to know that our demonic lord allies would strip his mind bare of every detail of the Mraztur’s plans. He goaded poor Idris into attacking him, and in a haze of fury, Idris slashed the old summoner’s throat.
And that’s when things got weird. Katashi did the expected bleed-choke-gurgle-die thing, but then he discorporeated, just like a demon. We eventually decided that he must have, in fact, been a demon—most likely a syraza, since they could shapechange. But of course that only left us with even more questions, such as who, when, why, and what-the-actual-fuck.
The library in Tessa’s house had been a nightmare of piles and clutter and complete lack of anything resembling organization, much less a filing system. But not here. Not after Jill took over. The library became another outlet for her, and now every book, scroll, tome, page, or scrap of parchment was neatly shelved, and steadily being catalogued with ruthless efficiency. Moreover, a couple of weeks earlier, Jill had put out a call through DIRT and civilian channels worldwide asking for scanned copies of any documents, ancient or modern, that might have bearing on the arcane, demons, rifts, or anything else related to our current situation. Even better, several mega-PhD librarian types stepped up to filter, sort, classify, and database every scrap of info that came in. It was no doubt a fraction of what existed—collectors might be loath to reveal that they owned missing or stolen manuscripts, and there were countries who hoarded their secrets in case it proved valuable later—but every little bit helped.
Jill sat at a long table in the middle of the library area, typing away on a laptop and occasionally glancing at a legal pad beside the computer. Her short red hair was damp from a shower and neatly combed, and she’d changed into jeans and a lace-edged, black tank top that showed the definition in her shoulders and arms.
She looked up when I reached the bottom of the steps. “Hey, chick. Find out what’s going on with Cory?”
“No.” I slumped into a chair at the head of the table. “I hate this. Even using the nexus, I found absolutely zip that could help me help him. The only thing I know is that Cory isn’t the only one.” I went on to tell her what I’d seen and learned about the “plague” at Fed Central.
Jill’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “I haven’t run across anything like that in what I’ve catalogued so far, but I’ve only scratched the surface. I’ll drop a note to the librarians to keep their eyes peeled.”
“Anything you can find will help us get a clearer picture.”
She scribbled a note on the legal pad beside her. “I’ll start focusing on references to red slime or cocoons or mutations.” A grimace twisted her mouth. “Unfortunately, only about a third of the materials are in English, but I’ll skim for drawings.”
“If it’s a language that’s still in use anywhere, I can absorb enough understanding via the nexus to read it.” I’d discovered by accident that tapping into the arcane flows for a particular area was like plugging into a database of the culture, language, and customs.
Jill smacked her forehead with an open palm. “I forgot about your nexus trick!” She smiled. “How many languages are you fluent in now?”
I grinned. “I’m not fluent in anything but English unless I’m still connected to the flows for that region. But apparently enough sticks to the walls of my brain after I unplug that I can almost make myself understood in Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Farsi, Punjabi, and Zulu.”
“Zulu? Seriously?”
“Yeah, though I have a tough time getting my tongue around the consonants.” I reluctantly dragged the subject back on track. “Jill, I ran into Xharbek at Fed Central.”
She drew a sharp breath . “I have every law enforcement agency on the lookout for Carl! Is he still there?”
“I don’t know. But he wasn’t using the Carl, er, shape.” Disguise? Outfit? Skin? Was there a correct terminology?
Her forehead creased. “Then how did you know it was him?”
“Because he was . . . Zack Garner.”
“Does that mean Xharbek found them?” Jill seized my hand in a painful grip. “Does he have my daughter?” She couldn’t bear to say it, but her eyes shrieked, Has he killed her?
“No, I’m positive he doesn’t have them.” Though not for lack of trying. “Xharbek is taking advantage of Zack’s absence, using his Special Agent Garner persona to infiltrate and commandeer the FBI’s arcane division and influence everyone at Fed Central.”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “I don’t understand. You were right in front of him and you didn’t do anything?” The chair skittered back as she pushed to her feet. “How could you just let him go? Are you too fucking high and mighty to get your hands dirty?”
I slowly stood, remaining silent while she continued to rage. She needed to get this out of her system.
“Goddammit, Kara! I got to hold my daughter for one whole fucking minute! You know what kind of hell I’m going through here, and you didn’t do shit!” She seized the legal pad and flung it away. No doubt she’d intended for it to smack impressively into a bookcase, but instead it coughed out a few papers during a short and wobbly course before flopping to the floor in a sad heap. A single piece of paper floated down in lovely back and forth swoops, finally settling gently to the table.
“Well, shit,” she said. “So much for my grand tantrum.”