Legacy of the Demon (Kara Gillian 8)

“I’m just following orders, Arcane Commander Gillian.”

I snorted. “Then I order you to do expert shit.”

“I’ll get right on it, ma’am!” he said with a smartass grin edged with tension. He splayed both hands on the crystal and closed his eyes in concentration. For a good thirty seconds nothing changed, then a throbbing hum rose from the Spires, so powerful it set me swaying.

I grabbed Giovanni’s shoulder with my free hand. “Stay close—”

/> The muggy parking lot disappeared, and we dropped into a sickening freefall through pitch black, bitterly cold nothingness. No air. No breath. Panic squeezed me. I’ll lose my Self again.

No! Not this time. Pellini’s words ghosted through my flailing thoughts. Believe it has already happened. That was it. Believe I’m already there. I floundered for an image of what “there” would be like, then remembered it wasn’t about thinking. Believe. The feel of solid ground beneath my feet. A breeze. A deep lungful of air. Gravity.

Nothingness gave way to blinding sun and arid heat. I staggered into Pellini and gasped a grateful breath. Giovanni lay sprawled at our feet, wide-eyed and hyperventilating. A pair of crystals towered over us, identical to the ones on Earth, just as Paul had said.

“Ow,” I said and took another deep breath, pulse still in sprint-from-imminent-death mode. “Somehow I don’t think it’s supposed to be that hard.”

Pellini shrugged, looking none the worse for wear. “Seemed okay to me.”

“That’s because you were driving,” I retorted, resisting the urge to sprawl in the sand beside Giovanni. “Wasn’t much fun in the back seat.”

“Sorry. No instruction manual.” Pellini gave Giovanni a hand up. “We made it, didn’t we?”

“Fair point.” I took stock of our surroundings, shading my eyes with a hand as I gazed out at what seemed an endless stretch of rolling dunes of white sand. “We’re in the middle of a friggin’ desert!” And on top of that, it felt as if my skin wanted to crawl right off my body. Ugh. Kadir’s realm was “out of phase” with the rest of the demon realm, like a radio tuned to a different frequency. It obviously suited him—and Paul as well now—but the other lords and most demons avoided the place.

Giovanni tapped my shoulder. “Oasis.”

I spun to see shimmering mirages and, beyond them, a sparkling pool of what appeared to be real water. Surrounding it, like broken and blackened teeth, were remnants of what might have once been trees. Beside the water crouched a simple whitewashed structure, no bigger than a middle class family home and with a flavor of adobe meets Mediterranean. It was austere yet appealing, and by far the least palace-like of any of the lord’s dwellings I’d seen.

Past it, emerald and amethyst shimmered. “There’s his grove,” I said with undisguised relief. The feel of it enveloped me, like sliding into a warm pool after being forced to wade in the shallows. The planetary network of groves were like teleport stations between the lords’ domains, and this one would be our transport to Szerain’s realm. “Let’s move.”

Only half a mile lay between the gate and the oasis, but the sand shifted and slid beneath us, and it took at least triple the usual time to cover the distance. The first few steps on solid ground felt as odd as if we’d been on a rocking boat, but we made better time once we found our gait again. Surrounding the pool were over a hundred charred, waist-high tree trunks, yet the ground was free of ash, as if wind and sand had scoured it clean. Sturdy tufts of grass struggled to make a comeback, but the water that had looked so inviting from a distance was a murky brown with an oily sheen on the surface.

“What happened here?” Pellini asked, brow furrowed.

“An anomaly with fire rain hit a couple of months ago,” I said, unsettled and saddened by the destruction. “Elofir helped Kadir, but I guess they couldn’t protect the oasis.” I had no trouble picturing what the area had looked like before. Lush and lovely. An oasis of calm for body and mind. For the first time, I found myself glad that Paul was with Kadir—a sentiment that took me by surprise. Paul certainly seemed content with the odd lord, and perhaps he helped Kadir find a measure of peace in the chaos of his internal world.

There was no sign of Kadir and Paul, which only added weight to my suspicion that they were still on Earth. However, the oasis was by no means deserted. A half dozen still and silent shapes crouched on the roof, watching us with gleaming eyes. One hulking shadow spread his wings and issued an ugly hissing growl.

Pellini cursed. “Wouldn’t mind having Sehkeril here as a little friendly backup.”

I had a very different feeling about that particular reyza, considering he’d ripped my bowels from my belly during the Symbol Man’s ritual. But the nasty fucker had been one of Pellini’s mentors, and so I kept my opinion of him to myself. “I think it’s best that we don’t stop to sightsee,” I said in a low voice, quickening my pace.

“Right,” Pellini muttered as he and Giovanni hurried along with me. “I keep telling myself that if we go straight to the grove we’ll be fine. I don’t want to find out what’ll happen if I’m wrong.”

Fortunately, it took only a few more minutes to reach the entrance to the grove. White trunks lined each side of a broad, grassy passage beneath the sheltering canopy of the trees. I sighed in relief as we stepped into the tree tunnel, feeling as if a blanket of menace had dropped away. Beside me, Giovanni breathed something in Italian that was probably on the order of “fucking glad that’s over.”

Sweet birdsong accompanied us down the avenue of trees and to a clearing ringed by white trunks. I stopped in the center of the heart of the grove and gazed up at the shimmering violet and green leaves.

Leaves that never fell.

Warmth spread over my sternum, and I pressed my hand over the leaf that rested there. The familiar grove-sentience embraced me even as the branches stirred and the leaves whispered. But there was no wind. There were no words.

We didn’t need words.

The warmth spread from my chest up through my head, along my arms, and down my legs. I closed my eyes, sank into the feel of the grove as I had so many times before, a delicious drifting meditation. Except this time awareness and understanding inundated me, a tidal wave of images and emotions and perceptions that saturated my entire being and rolled on. As it receded, I drifted.

Warmth prickled through me, and I slowly opened my eyes.

Pellini and Giovanni sat cross-legged with their backs against a tree, water bottles in hand.