“Show me,” I whispered hoarsely. He looked away, and I moved to him, seized his hand. “Boss, show me. I need to know what you read from her.”
He didn’t move for another several heartbeats, then finally laid his fingers against my temple.
Images and impressions from Rasha’s memories tumbled through my mind, and I fought the urge to pull back from the disorienting wave. A heartbeat later I felt him focus, and the influx eased and resolved.
My hand remained clenched on his as I processed the flood of visions and sounds and emotions, slipped into the flow of the woman’s memories.
Idris leads us in the summoning ritual. Tsuneo and Aaron assist while I anchor. It is kind of the boy to leave that aspect to me. So very difficult to work the potency strands with hands stiff with pain. Talented and adept as well as kind. The summoning is smooth and perfect . . .
Isumo arrives, his face contorted in agony. He carries a sigil like nothing I’ve ever seen. Red and chaotic and twisted. It feels wrong, but my questions and protests are ignored. Isumo calls for “the girl,” and my confusion rises as two men enter with a bound and gagged young woman . . .
Idris is horrified. Amber, he shouts, and while Isumo and Aaron place the girl within the diagram, Idris struggles wildly against the men who brought her. Now I learn it is a death ritual, to be used to entrap one called Kara Gillian. I protest and refuse to assist, beg Isumo to reconsider. I do not understand why he would follow such a terrible path, yet he orders me removed from the chamber—my chamber. Tsuneo and Aaron take me out, and I see one of the other men look toward the girl with an ugly smile. He straightens and unfastens his belt . . .
I sit in the living room. Isumo calls for the sigil to be placed in her. Rakkuhr, he calls it, and even the word feels unclean. I hear her weep and Idris beg mercy for her. Then cries and screams punctuated by sadistic grunts of pleasure. Then there are only screams and whimpers. For hours I listen and despise myself for not interfering, for doing nothing while they abuse her . . .
Finally, silence, save for a low murmur of voices. After a few minutes the door to my chamber opens, and Tsuneo and the one with the ugly smile come out carrying a black body bag . . .
What can I do? Terror fills me at the mere thought of calling the police. I am a foolish and useless old woman, and the girl’s blood lies on my hands as heavily as any of them. The men leave through the garage with the body bag and do not return . . .
Idris is led out, shoved forward to sit on the couch. He does so, numbly, as if he has no fight left. “We were following node emissions,” he murmurs, stricken. “I was cooperating. They didn’t have to do that.” His voice is so hollow and lost, yet I think perhaps he has much fight yet within him, more than they can imagine. Isumo and Aaron finish in my summoning chamber, and then they all leave . . .
The wave of memories receded, and I found myself with my forehead resting on Mzatal’s chest and his arms around me. Rasha didn’t have a name for the man with the ugly smile, the one who’d raped Amber, but I did: Jerry Steiner. He’d taken her from the plantation, brought her here, and helped ensure her end was not an easy one. Shuddering, I held Mzatal close as we shared the pain and found balance within each other.
“They don’t know him,” I murmured and lifted my head to look into Mzatal’s face. “They don’t know Idris, and they made a huge mistake.” The Mraztur and their Earth accomplices could have ensured themselves a long-term and highly useful tool, simply with a touch of Farouche’s disturbing fear-influence and members of Idris’s family held as hostages. But instead they chose to defile and murder his sister before his eyes, when an unrelated person would have served as well for their gruesome death ritual. And certainly no need for Idris to witness it. I’d seen Idris’s face through Rasha’s eyes. They’d destroyed their tool along with his innocence and forged a true enemy.
“They have indeed erred, to our advantage,” Mzatal said, though his voice still held a growl.
“Idris told Rasha they were following node emissions. Like the geyser effect at the warehouse? Why?”
“There is potency to be harnessed through the emissions, as Tracy Gordon attempted with the gate at the warehouse node.” He shook his head. “Though I do not know the Mraztur’s plan, that it involves the nodes is both enlightening and disturbing. It is unwise to tamper with such, and it disturbs me that Idris is involved.”
“We’re going to bring him home.”
“Soon,” he replied with utter conviction, and in the ancient depths of his eyes lay grim resolve and the promise of vengeance.
“Then let’s get started,” I said. “Rasha is under Farouche’s influence. Probably best to take care of that first.” The teakettle began a plaintive wail from the kitchen. “I’ll make some tea for her. She could probably use it.”
Mzatal gave a slight nod, then exited the chamber to tend to Rasha while I returned to the kitchen. Paul was there, in the process of removing the kettle from the heat. A broom leaned against the counter, and I saw the shards of china in a neat pile.
He gave me a tentative smile. “I figured I’d make myself useful.”
“Like that’s ever a problem with you,” I said. “How’s Rasha?”
“Freaked out.” He plucked a cup from the cabinet, dropped a tea bag into it. “Bryce is doing pretty good keeping her calm though.”
“She has the Farouche juju on her,” I told him. “Mzatal’s clearing that right now.”
He poured the hot water into the cup, then retreated to his laptop on the table. “You’ll want to see this,” he said as he typed. “Check this out.” He turned the screen toward me to reveal a photo of a lovely dark-haired woman in an evening dress, in her fifties or so and with a Middle Eastern look about her, posing with the governor of Louisiana. “I recognized her from photos in the living room and pulled this up for you. It’s Big Mack’s first wife,” he told me. “Rasha’s daughter, Aria Farouche.”
“Fucking shit,” I breathed. “This is one hell of a tangled mess.” Farouche had divorced this woman seventeen years ago, a couple of years after their five year old daughter—who I now knew to be Rasha’s granddaughter—had been abducted. “Where is she now?”
“Living happily in New Orleans with plenty of cash from B.M.,” he said. “They apparently still get along pretty well. She came to the plantation several times last year for holidays and stuff.”
“How cozy,” I said. “Is she Jade’s mother?”
He shook his head. “Her aunt. Jade’s parents died in a house fire when she was eight. Jade survived but had some bad burns on her legs.”
I let all that sink in as I took the teabag from the cup and set it aside. “Anything else?”