Fury of the Demon (Kara Gillian 6)

His voice cleared as though right by my ear. “You don’t want to start a fire you can’t put out.”

You don’t want to start a fire you can’t put out.

The room was cold. Achingly so. I needed a fire to counter the chill that knifed straight to my core. Shouldn’t be so cold this time of year. I could go turn up the heat, I thought dimly, but when I got out of bed to do so the room was pitch dark and the floor ice cold glass.

I wandered barefoot through darkness on an endless plain of smooth glass. Cold and black. Nothing. Forever. Step after frigid step.

“Dear one.” A voice. His voice. “Do not fret. It does not become you.”

“Lord Rhyzkahl?” I whispered, felt the darkness swallow the words. “Where are you?”

“I am here. I am always here.”

I looked down as a pale amber glow pierced the darkness. A beautiful filigree design of intricate fine lines glimmered on my upper chest with soft, breathtaking radiance. My throat tightened. “My lord? I do not understand.”

“Do you not, precious one?”

The glassy plain began to tilt. A voice like the hiss of sand flowing over stones whispered in my ear.

Rowan.

I cried out in shock as I lost my footing. “My lord!” Heart pounding, I flattened myself on the glass, braced with hands and feet to keep from sliding.

“Elinor. Elinor!” A different voice. Distant and desperate.

“Giovanni!” I called into the darkness. “I am lost! Help me!”

“Count, Elinor. Uno. Due. Tre. Quattro. Count.”

Rowan.

“Uno,” I said, then shrieked as the glass tilted more. Terror gripped me as I began to slide toward oblivion.

“Elinor!” he called. “Kara!”

Giovanni’s face swam in the darkness. Square jaw set with worry. Teasing smile gone. “Kara. Count.” His image distorted. Twisted. “Kara.”

“Due. Tre,” I said through gritted teeth. The glass leveled enough to stop my descent. “I’m here. Kara. Quattro. Cinque.”

Giovanni slipped away but other faces rose from the darkness to take his place.

Tessa. Jill. Zack. Mzatal. Ryan. Jekki. Eilahn.

People. My people.

My family.

I woke with a start, pulse stuttering as the fragments of the dream scattered. “People,” I gasped. “Family.” I scrabbled for the recorder, scanned through it, seeking the sentence. Found it, listened, then listened again.

“I care about you, and I don’t want to see you or Lord Mzatal hurt. But you find me, and the shit’s going to hit the fan

and people will get hurt.”

“Fucking shit.” I played it one more time to hear the slight emphasis on “people.” I threw the covers off and ran down the hall, yanked the basement door open and flew halfway down the stairs before realizing I couldn’t see a goddamn thing. “Ryan!” I shouted as I ran back up the steps, flicked the switch at the top of the stairs then scrambled back down as fluorescent light filled the basement. “Ryan! Wake up!”

He jerked upright. “What? Shit!” He threw an arm over his eyes to shield them from the glare. “What’s wrong?”

“I need you to look something up.” I snatched his laptop from the end table and thrust it at him. “Idris said he didn’t want to see me or Mzatal hurt. Then he said if we looked for him, the shit would hit the fan and people would get hurt. People. Not just Mzatal and me. The first people who come to mind are his family.” I continued to hold the laptop out for him while I shifted impatiently from foot to foot like a pee-pee dance. “I need you to find out what you can about his family. Close members first. Then you need to do your FBI shit and get them into a safe house until this blows over.” I made a frustrated noise. “Damn it! Why didn’t I think of this earlier?”