Legacy of the Demon (Kara Gillian 8)

A half dozen yards away, red glowed from a rift barely a foot long. Tiny, but with unspeakable potential for havoc.

Rhyzkahl cursed in demon. “When it lengthens, it will bisect this one and destroy all hope of containment. Even now it destabilizes our efforts.”

“Why did Xharbek make the second rift so small?” I asked but immediately realized the answer. “Because he blew his wad on this big one.” We were in the middle of a sea of rakkuhr, the bane of the demahnk. That tiny rift was all he could manage after the energy drain of making the first—which was why he hadn’t made a dozen more.

Not to mention, the rakkuhr fountaining up from it would do the job for him. In barely half a minute, the new rift had already lengthened several inches—a rate that would only increase. How long did we have? Ten minutes?

Another six inches of asphalt split. Five minutes. If we were lucky.

I tore my gaze away, stomach churning. The shield strands nearly ripped from my grasp as the rakkuhr from our rift roared with augmented vigor. Ashava and Rhyzkahl would never be able to seal this in time. Xharbek would win, and Earth would be destroyed—for humans, demons, and demahnk. Insane.

But maybe I could buy our team the time they needed. I wasn’t a lord and thus couldn’t seal a rift on my own, but I had plenty of practice locking Jontari rifts to keep them from expanding. On the other hand, the mini-rift was demahnk-crafted, meaning I’d not only have to work at mega-record speed, but also adapt my techniques. Plus, I’d be a sitting duck for Xharbek and his various minions.

No doubt about it. If I attempted this, he’d squish me, constraints be damned. However, if I could manage to lock that rift before he turned me into Kara-flavored mincemeat, it would all be worth it.

Hell, at least I could put “Saved the world” on my heavenly resume.

A calm certainty filled me. “I’m going to go lock the little rift,” I stated. “Can y’all hold the shield without me?”

“We can hold it,” Idris said with grim determination, echoed by similar avowals from Elinor and Pellini. I hurried to distribute my shield strands to them then stepped back.

“Xharbek will not abide your interference,” Rhyzkahl said.

“I’m well aware of that,” I replied. As long as I could get the thing locked, he could not abide all he wanted.

Pellini suddenly jerked and let out a sharp cry as if stung. “Oh shit. Shit!” Wide-eyed, he shoved his strands at Idris, grabbed at his chest, then staggered back from the valve. “Kara! I’m—” He vanished.

Kadir just called in Pellini’s debt. Fuck!

Idris clung to the shield strands, white-faced with the effort of holding them. Heart pounding, I dove to seize mine back from Elinor before the force of the potency ripped both the shield and the patch seal away. That was some seriously shitty timing on Kadir’s part. I could only hope the weird lord was doing his own thing to save the worlds and not purposefully screwing us.

Except that it wouldn’t matter. With Pellini gone, I’d lost the chance to go lock the mini-rift. No way could Elinor and Idris hold this on their own.

“Give them to me, Kara,” Bryce said from beside me, holding a hand out.

“The hell?” I gave him a baffled look then saw a gold disk shining like a sun in his other hand.

Bryce offered me a Seretis smile. “Give me the strands. I will hold the shield secure while you attend the other rift.”

Bryce was channeling Seretis. Holy shit. I passed him the strands, easing as the non-arcane Bryce handled the arcane power with deft ease.

“Kara Gillian.” Rhyzkahl’s eyes met mine. “Pay close heed to your purpose.”

At least he wasn’t trying to talk me out of it. I gave him a sober nod then raced to the smaller rift, now nearly five feet long.

Rakkuhr swirled around me as I crouched beside the rift. Well, the purpose of rift-locking was simple enough: Lock the damn thing and keep it from fucking up the efforts of my team. Easy. I readied the potency then froze at the sight of a rakkuhr-free, two-foot circle of ground barely ten feet away. Crimson coils eddied around it, as if something within repelled the rakkuhr.

Or was shielded against it. Like, say, a certain invisible asshole demahnk.

My purpose abruptly crystallized. It wasn’t to lock the rift or save my friends or go out with a blaze of glory in heroic sacrifice. Those were merely components, sigils in a ring. No matter what else happen

ed, my purpose was to kick some motherfucking Xharbek ass.

Straightening, I lifted my hands out to either side in a fuck-yeah dramatic pose. Thanks to Xharbek, I was surrounded by a shitload of the very component I needed to make that ass-kicking a reality. I’d never learned how to handle the rakkuhr potency, but then again I’d never learned the sigils for the eighth ring or the ritual for summoning an imperator.

Beeeeeee the rakkuhr, I thought with a snicker as I brought it to me. It raced eagerly into my control, spilled over my hands and danced at my feet to wreathe me in crimson and night. With a whisper of will, I locked the rift and halted its growth. A second nudge sent the rakkuhr coursing toward the main rift to form a shield around everyone there, and another around Turek and Szerain. My rakkuhr shields weren’t as cool or pretty or sturdy as Szerain’s lace-spheres, but they’d keep Xharbek the hell away. After all, that was their purpose.

Xharbek had dropped the invisibility—or maybe had simply recovered enough to take on a corporeal form—and now the face of Carl the morgue tech seethed with anger before me.