Indeed, within a tenth of a mile she and her bike slipped behind me. I cranked up the air, turned on the radio, and tried to pretend I was a normal person on a normal day.
That lasted less than five minutes. Mocking banter on the Terry & Kerry afternoon show riveted my attention, and I turned the AC down a notch in order to better hear. The traffic jam earlier had been the result of a fender bender, one caused by a black “devil dog” that had bounded over the hoods of several cars with animal control in hot pursuit. The hosts entertained themselves and listeners by baiting a caller who insisted the animal wasn’t a dog because it had double rows of teeth and spoke. Amidst gales of laughter, Kerry latched onto that one. “Speak, boy, speak!” and “Never heard a dog speak before. Woof!” That bit of fun complete, they cracked jokes about pink elephants and officers needing glasses since, not only did tranquilizers fail, but after cops shot the beast they couldn’t find a body. The consensus of the hosts and callers was that obviously the shots missed the dog and it remained at large.
I listened, palms sweating on the steering wheel. The “devil dog” nickname was very possibly closer to the truth than they knew. I was willing to bet Eilahn’s new bike that the “dog” was a kzak, a vicious demon species that could easily pass for a large dog at a distance. I’d had up close and personal experience with one that had been sent after either me or Ryan. Zack had brought it down with several well-placed shots, and it had discorporeated upon death, as did any demon killed on earth.
Fortunately, today’s unwelcome visitor hadn’t hurt anyone, but that didn’t put my mind at ease. It had been sent from the demon realm for a purpose, and I doubted it was to play fetch at the park. I added the incident to my long list of things to stress out over, switched the radio station to mindless music, and continued on home.
Chapter 3
Arcane protections rippled over me as I drove up the winding driveway toward my house, and the familiar pine woods soon blocked all view of the gate, road, and outside world. A not-unpleasant background tingle touched my senses from the arcane valve by my pond like a subtle welcome home. It was one outlet of the complex relief valve system between the demon realm and earth, except instead of water or gas the system regulated arcane power.
My spirits lifted more as my lovely blue, single-story Acadian came into sight. My grandparents had built the house, situating it over a confluence of Earth potency flows and atop a low hill. The elevation made it possible to have a basement—a rarity in south Louisiana due to the high water table, yet perfect for a demon summoning chamber. My grandmother had also been a summoner, which meant it had likely been intended as such from the beginning.
To my surprise, I spotted Ryan’s Crown Victoria in its usual place in the driveway as though he hadn’t been incommunicado since my return. After parking, I hurried up the steps and into the house, more than ready for long overdue answers. No sign of him in the living room or kitchen, but as I turned to check the basement I caught sight of Jill through the kitchen window. She stood in the backyard, arms akimbo and facing away from me while several yards beyond her, Ryan paced, head lowered.
The screen door creaked as I stepped out onto the porch, and the very pregnant Jill glanced my way. “I was about to call you,” she said. “He showed up a couple of minutes ago and went straight there.”
There was a circular concrete slab that I’d paid several nice rednecks to pour for me last week. More importantly, it was the mini-nexus. In the years since my grandparents built the house, the confluence had drifted from beneath the basement to my backyard—similar to the movement of tectonic plates. Several weeks ago, Mzatal and I spent the better part of a day refining and enhancing it to create an arcane focal point much like the nexus in each demonic lord’s realm. Without othersight or arcane talent, it looked like smooth concrete and nothing more. But to those who could see or feel, it pulsed as a broad circle of pale blue luminescence and radiated potency like heat from asphalt in July. It amped up any arcane rituals, patterns, or processes conducted upon it, and Mzatal had used it as a “potency recharging station” to counter the draining effects of being on Earth. Eilahn took advantage of that feature of our nexus as well, which was how she could remain here without Rhyzkahl’s support. She’d created a nest of pine boughs and leaves on the far side of the nexus, on the grass but flush against the concrete.