Blood of the Demon

“Not as delightful as you remembered?”

I let out a shaking breath and scooted back a few inches on the table—far enough that the evidence of his arousal wasn’t pressed right up against the evidence of my arousal. “It was … delightful, Lord Rhyzkahl, I ca

“My knowledge, my power, my skills.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Do you deny that you desire greater knowledge of the arcane?”

Shit. I couldn’t deny that, not when I had a list of things that I needed to know more about upstairs on my kitchen table. “Okay, there is a lot I need to learn. But I’m not sure I’m ready to … er, commit to you like that.”

“Ah, so I must woo you.” His eyes glinted. “I have never had need to do so.” He leaned close to me, sliding fingers across my cheek. “I must remember how it is done.”

I snorted and lightly batted his fingers away. “Not like that.”

I felt a brief shimmer of potency, then he withdrew his hand and straightened, dark power smoldering in his eyes. “Yes,” he said softly. “Your brief sojourn in the demon realm did you well.”

Another sliver of fear began to spread through me, but before I could berate myself too harshly—I batted his hand away? Holy crap, what was I thinking? — he turned away, clasping his hands lightly behind his back. “Very well. I will woo you. I will answer three questions without debt.”

I blinked. “Are you serious? Three questions with no debt of honor incurred?” Then I cringed. Nice going, moron. That was two questions right there.

“Three questions. No debt. A courting gift, if you will.”

I hopped off the table, relieved that he wasn’t going to be a stickler about when the questioning would start. But if he was trying to “woo” me, then being a jerk about the questions certainly wouldn’t endear him to me. “I’ll be right back,” I said, as I took off up the basement stairs, then raced down the hall to the kitchen, bare feet slapping against the wood floor. I grabbed the paper off the table and spun to race back to the basement.

And careened right into him. I would have fallen back on my ass, but he seized me by the arms, steadying me, then continued to grip my arms. His body was firm and warm against mine, and I nearly expected him to lower his head to kiss me. I even tipped my head back without thinking, then felt slightly foolish when I realized that he wasn’t looking down at me at all.

Instead, his gaze slowly traveled around my small kitchen, and it abruptly occurred to me that he was looking around like someone who had never seen anything like a modern kitchen before. And most likely he hasn’t. Demonic lords were rarely if ever summoned. It was the others—the twelve levels of demon, reyza, syraza, zhurn, mehnta, and so forth—who were usually summoned and who had the opportunity to come to this sphere. But even they had little chance to “see the world,” so to speak. I knew that when I summoned, it was a stark rarity for any demon to leave the summoning chamber. Far too much risk of discovery by the outside world. Tessa occasionally brought demons down from her attic summoning chamber, but just to her library. I’d brought the ilius out only because it was practically invisible. And, of course, the lords were almost never summoned by anyone who wanted to continue living. No wonder Kehlirik had been so elated at the opportunity to ride in the back of a U-Haul truck.

“Have you been to this sphere before?” I asked, almost hesitantly. “I mean, other than the time I called you. And, um, the time that the Symbol Man called you. I mean, have you ever been outside a summoning chamber?”

He continued to take in his surroundings. “Centuries ago. It was quite different, as I recall.”

I gave a breathless laugh. “I would imagine so.” I pulled very lightly against his grip on my arms and he released me, almost as if he was barely aware of me anymore. I stepped back as he moved to the back door and opened it. It briefly flashed through me that I shouldn’t allow him outside in case anyone came over, but then I remembered that not only did he not look like a demon, no one ever visited my house anyway. And I would hardly be embarrassed to be seen in public with him.

He walked down the stairs and out into my backyard. He stopped about ten paces from my house, then looked up at the moon. He inhaled—not deeply or dramatically, just the deep breath of someone who wanted to take in the scent of his surroundings. I slowly followed him, stopping at the bottom of the steps. After several minutes he turned back to me, face inscrutable. He walked to me and stopped, looking down at me.

“Three questions.”

I gulped softly and nodded, remembering the crumpled paper in my hand. I peered down at it, but the light was too dim for me to read it well. “I … uh, need to go back inside.”

He gestured toward the house. I returned inside and he followed behind me, closing the door as I looked down at my list. Shit, just three questions? I ran my fingers through my hair as I tried to figure out which ones were the most important.

I gripped my hair, then released it and looked at the demonic lord, experiencing a brief moment of disorientation as the reality struck me that Lord Rhyzkahl was in my kitchen.

“Okay. Is it possible that an ilius has been summoned here and is consuming human essences?”

“No,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. I waited a beat, then silently cursed myself for phrasing the question so poorly. “An ilius would never consume human essence,” he continued after several seconds, apparently realizing that being too much of an asshole about the questions was not the best way to impress me. “Not only is it forbidden—for too much of such would upset the balance of potency in this sphere—but they have no taste for humans.” A slight smile played on his face.

I bit back my desire to blurt out something stupid like Really? They don’t? He’d been magnanimous about giving me a more thorough answer to my first question, and I didn’t want to push my luck. Okay, so it wasn’t an ilius. What the hell else could it be, then? But I needed to consider how to word it so that I would get an answer that was useful to me.

I thought for a minute, then decided to skip to a different question. This one was vitally important to me, and I wanted to be certain that it got asked. I carefully phrased the query in my head. “How can I restore to my aunt the essence that was stripped from her during the ritual to summon you by the Symbol Man?” It wasn’t the smoothest sentence structure in the world, but it asked the question I wanted answered.

He acted as if he hadn’t heard me as he slowly walked around my kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets, looking inside the fridge, face completely expressionless. I was about to repeat my question when he spoke.

“It is a series of rituals—each similar to a summoning, but you would be calling to her essence. Gather aspects of her—blood, hair, as well as items dear to her heart.” He went on to describe the ward structure as he walked toward the front of the house. I trailed in his wake, scrawling notes furiously on the back of the piece of paper. Then he paused and looked back at me. “But it is not a fast process. It may take some time, and you will need to take care with each step.”

I caught myself before asking, How much time? That could have counted as question number three. Instead, I nodded. “Thank you.”

He continued on through my house, stopping when he reached my living room. “I have seen this only through the touch I had in your dreams. It is quite fascinating to see and sense it in the flesh.” He brushed fingers across my desk and the computer, then moved to the fireplace, gazing at the photos on the mantel. There were only two pictures. One was of my aunt and me, which had been taken during Mardi Gras several years ago. We were both dressed in purple jumpsuits—the purple people from the “Purple People Eaters” song.