Legacy of the Demon (Kara Gillian 8)

“The pods?” Pellini said, rising to his feet. “Could it be Corey and Knight hatching?”

“Maybe.” But hatching as what? My memory of the tentacle-handed monster at Fed Central was all too clear. I reached for a steak knife but paused at the sound of a feminine cry.

Thud thud thud thud thud thudthudthudthud

Szerain began to snicker.

Comprehension finally dawned. “Is that . . . ?”

Szerain nodded. “Elinor and Giovanni making up for three hundred years of lost time.”

thudthudthudTHUD THUD THUD

As one, we exploded into laughter.

Soon enough the thudding ceased, and I wiped away tears of mirth. “Wow. I’d better call in a structural engineer to make sure the house is still stable.”

“Yeah, that wall took a real pounding,” Szerain said, straight-faced.

“Let’s hope they didn’t break a stud,” Idris added with a smile.

Pellini guffawed and high-fived him while relief coursed through me. I couldn’t remember the last time Idris had cracked a joke. Certainly not since the death of his sister.

With the mystery of the thud-thuds solved, biscuit making resumed, and the conversation shifted to swapping DIRT-related tall tales. Idris recounted a hysterical story of villagers successfully fighting off a kzak with flaming cow manure and slingshots, and Pellini countered with the one where a pair of reyza hurled a porta-potty like a water balloon and all of us ended up stained blue and stinking. Unfortunately, that one was a hundred percent true.

The conversation flowed around me as I watched a spider build her web outside the window. Despite the laughter and jokes, the strange not-right feeling persisted. I sipped my coffee and maintained a serene exterior while I struggled to identify the source of the disquiet.

“You okay?” Szerain asked softly from beside me. At the table, Pellini and Idris launched into a spirited argument about firearms.

“Feeling a little off-balance,” I said, unsurprised that Szerain had noticed my distraction. No mind-reading needed. Just perception sharpened over millennia, couple

d with the intuition of a good friend. I shrugged. “It’s probably because I’m not worrying about dying in a summoning ritual.”

“I’m sure that’s part of it,” he said. “Another might be that you’re adjusting to having only your own essence.”

“Oh. Right. Duh.” I smiled ruefully. “That explains it.”

“You’ll be you in no time.” Szerain gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze then turned away to refill his coffee cup, giving me space to process it all.

My gaze drifted outside again in time to see a fly blunder into the web. That had to suck. Minding your own business then bam. Game changer.

Kind of like bam, the Elinor essence nugget I’d lived with for pretty much my entire life was gone. I contemplated the strangeness of the concept. What kind of person would I be now if her influence hadn’t been there?

Probably not all that different, I decided. Elinor seemed mild, sweet, and more than a little timid. I was not.

The loss of Elinor’s essence chunk certainly explained the something-isn’t-right sensation. Most of it, at least. A bit remained, a quiet nagging. I let my gaze drift to Rhyzkahl as he sketched graceful sigils for the shikvihr. I’d watched him dance it a hundred times, easily. It was the same sigils, the same rings, the same movements as when Mzatal danced it, yet infused with a completely different feel and energy.

“I spoke with Rhyzkahl while you slept,” Szerain said as he stirred a shake of cinnamon into black coffee. “He’ll need some time to adjust.”

“Huh? Adjust to—” My confusion vanished as Szerain’s meaning sunk in. I lowered my voice. “Rhyzkahl knows the truth about his parentage?”

“He needed to know. We all—all of the hybrids—need to know of our origins from human mothers and demahnk fathers.” His eyes flashed with the intensity of his conviction. “But not all are ready.”

“What made Rhyzkahl ready?” I asked. “Was it Zakaar breaking their ptarl bond?”

“That was the most critical factor,” Szerain said with a nod, “but this timeout here on Earth primed him for even more.” His expression grew somber. “I helped him remember his early life on Earth. His mother. His wife and twins. Our later . . . enslavement.”

I blew out a breath. “How’d he take it?”