But I knew someone who did.
Idris Palatino. An undeniably brilliant summoner, a friend, and—unbeknownst to him—my cousin. He’d spent the last several months as a captive of the Mraztur, forced to work closely with my nemesis, Isumo Katashi, toward the Mraztur’s ultimate goal of establishing a permanent gateway between Earth and the demon realm. Our rescue of Idris had set our opponents back, but I wasn’t foolish enough to believe they’d given up. Maybe Idris had recovered enough for Mzatal to send him here? That would be ideal.
I closed my eyes and listened to the familiar sound of the breeze through the pine needles, the croak of frogs, and the chirp of sparrows. Mzatal. He had his hands full in the demon realm with the disastrous arcane disruptions triggered by the plantation explosion, and I’d planned to delay summoning him for a few more days in the hopes that he’d be less slammed. Unfortunately, the valve issue and Jill’s escapade required immediate attention.
I mentally reached for Mzatal. We shared a profound etheric connection beyond anything comparable on Earth—like a merging of essence beyond time, thought, and space. We still had plenty of disagreements, but we were good for each other.
Were. A familiar blanket of sadness settled over me as I reached for him and sensed only a wispy touch. He’d withdrawn mentally and emotionally in order to forestall another catastrophic flare of fury like the one that had occurred during the plantation raid. Only a tiny chink remained in his self-made walls, enough for a precious thread of lifeline between us. As I touched it, I sent the impression that I was ever here for him followed by the more practical message that I intended to summon him tonight. I doubted anything beyond a faint sense of my presence got through, but I tossed in, We need Idris on Earth, just in case. Couldn’t hurt to try.
An angry hiss beside my head startled me out of my relaxed state, and it took a second for my brain to catch up with the fight-or-flight pounding of my heart. Fuzzykins. She stood on the porch railing by my head with her back arched and fur on end and gave me another heartfelt hiss.
“Really?” I said after a quick scan to see if there was anything wrong besides my presence. “You came out here just to hiss at me?”
The stupid cat sat and groomed her tail as though I didn’t exist.
Muttering something about worthless, ungrateful beasts, I stood and stretched until my joints popped. Unless I wanted to trash the summoning of Mzatal tonight, I needed a nap.
I stumbled into the house but paused by the open door of the laundry room. A nest of soft blankets held a pile of sleeping kittens—and Mama Fuzzykins was still on the back porch. Smiling, I gently extracted Fillion from his siblings and snuggled him to my cheek. The kitten wasn’t old enough to know it was supposed to hate all summoners.
Fillion and I snuggled into my bed, and the next thing I knew the dubious harmony of ringing phone and mewing kitten hauled me out of a deep sleep. I fumbled for the phone, squinted at the too bright screen before hitting the answer button. “Hey, Pellini.” I croaked.
“It’s only seven thirty,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t think you’d be asleep yet.”
“Life of leisure and all that.” I sat up and put the kitten on my lap.
“How about one p.m. for the plantation?”
“How about you tell me why you need me to go out there with you?”
“I don’t need you,” he said, “but with the kidnapping, murder, and rape charges on Farouche’s people, I think there might be a connection to the Palatino-Gavin murder case.”
Idris’s sister. The body in the semi-trailer. Damn. Pellini was actually sniffing down the right trail—one that led straight to my doorstep. I needed to keep a sharp eye on that. “And since my task force is attached to both cases, you want my input.”
“I figure it’s worth checking out.”
“I can rearrange my schedule to make that work.” Might as well let him think I was doing him a big favor. The truth was, after the near-disaster with my valve, I needed to get out to the plantation ASAP to make sure the valve node there remained secured and relatively stable.
“Meet me at the police station,” he said. “I’ll drive.”
“Works for me. See you then.” I started to disconnect, but hesitated when I didn’t hear the expected “bye” or “see ya” from Pellini. “Is there something else?”
“Uh,” he said then cleared his throat awkwardly. Oh, crapsticks, I thought in sudden desperation. Please don’t let him ask me out for a beer again!
“Did you, uh, hear about the dog?” he said instead, as if we were making small talk over coffee at Grounds for Arrest. “The one animal control shot today?”