“No no no, Zack!” I paced frantically in the living room while I tried to think of a way to intervene. “Don’t let him do this to you. He’s too unpredictable right now. Please, think of Jill. Think of the baby.”
“He is.” Szerain’s voice on the line now, clear and uncompromising. I stopped pacing, hand tight on my phone. “Keep your focus on Katashi,” he continued. “Do not seek us.” His voice held a lord’s strength, but behind it I felt the fear—a visceral terror I recognized from when he faced re-submersion in his nightmarish prison. Loose cannon? No, he was a loose high-yield nuke who would go to any length to remain free.
“If you hurt Zack,” I said, voice shaking, “I swear, demonic lord or not, I’ll—” The connection went dead. I let out a scream of frustration then derailed the urge to smash the phone against the wall by hurling a sofa pillow instead. Breathing hard, I struggled to find a glimmer of hope in the madness. Zack had saved Szerain from insanity during his imprisonment. That had to count for something, right?
Sure, with humans. But I wasn’t dealing with humans. Zack and Sonny were gone, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. On top of that, Pellini was coming over in a few hours. How on earth was I supposed to pretend to be sociable, with Tessa off with Katashi, and Zack and Ryan who knew where?
I threw the pillow against the wall a few more times, then dropped down in front of the TV and hauled out the game controller. Half an hour of blowing aliens to green bits improved my mood somewhat. As I put the game away the gate panel chimed, signaling the arrival of Bryce and Idris.
A couple of minutes later the guys came in, both heavily laden with grocery bags. “We hit the store for barbecue supplies after we left the PD,” Bryce said as the two dropped the bags onto the kitchen table.
I joined them in the kitchen. “Damn glad you did,” I replied, wincing. “This has been such a crazy day I totally forgot. So, is the PD valve all right?”
“It’s stable except for a few minor irregularities,” Idris said as he stuck packages of ribs, hamburger meat, and hot dogs into the refrigerator. “Hallsworth was most likely evaluating a recent emission. I’ll recheck that valve right before its next emission in five days.”
I sorted out immediate barbecue needs from general groceries. “Nice to have a little breathing room. Did you make it to any of the other valves before I called you?”
“A couple,” he said. He tossed a head of lettuce to Bryce who caught it one-handed and set it on the counter. “No problem with the swamp valve out by the Alligator Museum,” Idris continued. “Stable and quiet. But the valve node in the river was wonky as hell. I’ll have to go back and do another round on it.”
“In the river?” I asked then rescued a bag of tomatoes from the game of catch. “How’d you manage to deal with it?”
Bryce snorted. “It wasn’t easy,” he said. “I had him dangling by a rope from the bridge. We were lucky no cops drove by.”
The mental image had me grinning. “That would’ve been fun to explain,” I said. “Wouldn’t a boat have been smarter—I mean, easier?”
“Both.” Bryce chuckled. “Time constraints. When we go out there again, we’ll rent one.”
“Smart man,” I said. “Which river?”
“Kreeger.”
“The bridge out by the parish line?”
“That’s the one.”
I let out a low whistle. “I never knew that was a node. But it saved my ass.” At Bryce’s blank look, I continued. “Last year a perp ran my car off that bridge and into the river. I’d have drowned if I hadn’t tapped in to some wild nature potency and busted out of the car.” I shook my head. “I’d never felt anything like that before. I wonder if bleed-through grove potency made it possible?”
Idris glanced back at me. “That’s actually a sound theory. The groves are the trunk focal point of the valve system in each realm.”
“Now that’s damn cool information.” I shoved veggies into the fridge and closed the door. “On a less cheery note, Sonny called half an hour ago. Szerain showed up at the house and pretty much kidnapped him and Zack.” I filled them in on the rest of the sketchy information. “No idea where they went.”
Idris muttered a long string of expletives. Bryce leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “He’d better not screw with Sonny.”
“I’m with you on that,” I said. “Maybe Sonny’s talent for keeping people calm will work on Szerain.”
“It grew stronger over the years,” Bryce said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it worked on a demonic lord. Farouche had a lot of faults, but his talent for enhancing skills wasn’t one of them.”
“No,” Idris said. “That wasn’t Farouche’s talent. Angus McDunn’s the enhancer.”
I stared, as dumbfounded as if he’d said guns fire sausages instead of bullets. Idris had spent time with Farouche’s people, so I had no reason to doubt him. “Wonderful. That’s just what we need—Katashi and all his asshole minions getting a talent upgrade.”