My eyelids drifted downward, too far gone to even be horrified by the gruesome means of Cerise’s death. My breath flowed out of me, and I had no need or desire to take another. It’s all right, Ryan. It’s all right.
“Come home with me, Kara.” Rhyzkahl reached down with a blood-covered hand and grasped mine. A flash of white light surrounded us, and then we were elsewhere.
I was lying on what appeared to be a dais, in front of a throne of white and gold stone carved in a familiar pattern. I was dimly aware of a sharp, tangy, and not entirely unpleasant smell and an unfamiliar language being spoken above me. I could see white marble walls beyond the dais, graced by vast open archways surrounded by intricate burnished gold ornamentation. Through one archway was a broad balcony and a distant turquoise sea set aglow by the rays of a rising or setting sun. Above the sea were figures in flight, and I realized with awe that I was seeing zhurn and graa and syraza wheeling above the sea in an intricate dance of wings and air, claws and teeth.
Just past the throne was what looked like a nude woman with hair that flowed to the floor, but the segmented wings like a beetle’s on her back and the mass of twining strands where a tongue should be told me this was a mehnta. To her right was a coiling of smoke and teeth and shifting colors, a demon I recognized as an ilius.
I was dying, but this almost made it all worth it, to see the demons, to see their realm, their home. This wasn’t how I had pictured the demon realm at all, and I realized with chagrin that I had fallen into the same trap as those who assumed all demons were evil. I’d pictured the demon realm to be a dark place of fire and rock, but this was beauty and elegance, more like a vision of what heaven might be. How many humans have ever seen this?
I barely had strength to keep my eyes open any longer, but I could sense as much as see Rhyzkahl crouch before me.
“Ah, dear one. I cannot restore you. You are too far gone for that, and even I have limits to my power.”
It’s all right, I thought, dimly seeing sparkles of light at the edge of my vision. So this is really the demon realm?
“Yes, dearest, this is my demesne. Would that I could keep you here as mine, but even here you are dying.”
Too bad I can’t see more of the place. Oh, well. The sparkles of light grew brighter and more insistent.
“There will be another time for that. I cannot restore you, but I will give you a chance. More chance than you had. I have taken the payment I wish for this already.”
Confusion muddled through me even as the light grew brighter, obscuring all else. Chance? Payment? No, not Ryan!
I heard a melodious laugh just before a ripping crack obscured all else.
CHAPTER 30
The void was nothingness. Not light or dark, but the absence of all reference. No color, no sound, no touch. I drifted for a time, seconds stretching to eternity, aware of the void and feeling the expectation, the anticipation of something more, something beyond the void.
But the nothingness swallowed sensation and thought alike, and I gradually ceased to wonder.
Come on, Sweets.You can’t stay. You don’t belong here. You need to keep going.
Going?
Yes, keep going through. Go on through, sweetling. You’re doing just fine.
I am?
You always have. I’m so proud of you.
Where am I going?
Through. Go on through.
Through?
He’s calling you. Just follow his call.
Too easy to lose the way.
Too hard to keep from unraveling when there’s nothing to remind you of who you are and where you should be.
Another eternity passes in the flick of an eyelash.
Kara. Kara, you need to come back.
A feathery touch on the edge of my essence.
Come on, Kara. Find your way back. You’ve been gone long enough.
A flickering awareness of self. Curiosity. Emotions and awareness creeping back in gradually.
Kara. Kara. Come back. You can do it. Come back to me.
The presence. A rich familiarity.
Kara. It’s time. Come back.
Come back? Where? Oh. Right. Through.
I felt cold in the nothingness, the icy tendrils wrapped around me noticeable only because I actually felt the cold. Then pain seared through me, staggering in the abrupt shift from nothing to razor-sharp coils of agony twisting around me. I screamed into the nothingness as the pain increased past the point where I was certain that I should cease to feel anything. No, I’m dying. I’m dead. It’s not supposed to hurt anymore! Molten lava swept through my veins, my bones twisted and shattered, only to be flung back together. A demon clawed and tugged at my belly, tearing me apart. I heard a ripping crack.
And then it was gone.
I took a dragging wretched breath in, lungs searing as if they’d never drawn breath before. I smelled ozone and felt a dull throb of pain in my right shoulder and cold floor against my cheek and hip. I heard shouts and voices around me and then felt hands on me. I fought to open my eyes, struggling to blink away the fuzziness that filled my vision.
Snatches of speech came through the haze.
“… call EMS!”
“Holy shit … thought she was dead …”
I felt a sheet or blanket being wrapped around me. The pain in my shoulder receded, and I realized that it had been from my arm being twisted awkwardly up behind me. Had I fallen? Nothing made sense. What happened to being dead?
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I heard a vaguely familiar voice. “It’s her. Holy shit, it’s Kara. Someone call Agent Kristoff!”
“Where …” I tried to say, but nothing seemed to come out. “What’s going on?” I tried again.
“She’s awake! Kara! Come on, Kara. Open your eyes so you can tell us what the hell happened to you!”
I groaned and struggled to lift the obscene weight of my eyelids. Vague blurs coalesced in front of me, and in the distance I could hear someone shouting something about an ambulance.
“I thought I was dead,” I croaked out, successfully this time. Or so I hoped.
A weak laugh. “So did everyone else, chick.” It was Jill. That was Jill’s voice. “Can’t wait to hear you explain this one. We found your blood on the scene. Lots of it.”
“I was dead,” I repeated. My vision slowly began to clear. The blur above me took on vague facial features.
Jill patted my shoulder. “You’ve been gone, that’s for sure.”
I could hear sirens approaching. “Gone? Just a coupla minutes. I died for just a little while.”
Jill gave me a shaky smile. “Girlfriend, there was enough of your blood on the scene for you to be dead three times over. But no body. No one knew what happened to you. But we knew that you were … that you couldn’t have survived.”
I made a valiant attempt to sit up, which was phenomenally unsuccessful. I might have managed to tremble slightly. “I don’t understand. I came right back.”
“Darlin’, you’ve been gone for a couple of weeks. We had your funeral and everything.”
I decided that was as good a time as any to go back to being unconscious.
CHAPTER 31