Bryce sat crosslegged in the middle of the nexus, eyes closed and mouth tight in concentration as he reached between the worlds to Seretis. I sat in a similar pose a couple of feet away and watched him. Sammy lounged in the grass, his eyes on us as if to be sure he wouldn’t miss it if one of us threw a stick for him. Eilahn lay curled in her nest like a cat, recharging. Fuzzykins slept draped over her hip, and I unobtrusively slipped my phone from my pocket and took a picture of them. They were too damn cute.
After several minutes Bryce’s face relaxed, and a smile touched his mouth. “The connection is stronger.”
I ignored the dull ache of my lost link to Mzatal. “That’s awesome,” I said, tone chipper. “Strong enough to talk to him?”
“Working on it,” Bryce replied. “He knows I want to.”
The concrete slab leeched the warmth from my butt, and I tried without success to keep from fidgeting. It felt like several minutes to my impatient internal clock before Bryce spoke again, though it was probably closer to thirty seconds. “He’s in Rhyzkahl’s realm.”
“Why the hell is he there?” I asked in surprise.
Another few seconds of silence and then, “There was an anomaly. It’s settled now.”
“Oh, crap.” I winced. “Yeah, Rhyzkahl can’t fix those in his current condition.” Anomalies were rifts in the dimensional fabric, remnants from the cataclysm that had nearly destroyed the demon realm. They couldn’t be ignored since they caused a lot of damage and destabilization if not dealt with promptly.
“All the lords and demahnk were there,” Bryce continued, frowning. “It was bad.”
“Does that mean you’re talking to Seretis?” I asked, leaning forward.
He gave a shrug and nod. “It’s not like thinking words to each other, but yeah.”
I knew what he meant from my own experience with Mzatal. It was an exchange of concepts and thoughts that made for a far deeper communication and understanding than mere words could manage. “Can he help me?” I asked.
His face abruptly scrunched, and he jerked his hands up to grip his head. “Shit,” he gasped. Eilahn sat up, displacing the cat.
Worry spiked through me. “What is it?” I demanded. An attack? I swept my gaze around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then again, that didn’t mean shit since I had no way to detect arcane use. “Bryce, tell me what’s wrong!”
He dropped to his back. “Ver . . . tigo,” he groaned, still gripping his head.
I crouched and put my hand on his shoulder, at a loss for how to help. “Eilahn? Do you sense anything?”
“I sense no attack,” she said, but her eyes remained narrowed as she scanned around us. She staggered to her feet, swayed.
“Sit down,” I ordered, surprised when she did so without protest, though her frustration with her weakened state showed in the droop of her shoulders.
Bryce cursed and slapped his hands onto the concrete as if to keep from sliding off a tilting earth. Sammy leaped up and began to bark, but I ignored the excitable dog and held onto Bryce’s shoulder in the hopes of giving him a sense of stability. Sammy bounded toward the woods, barking with increased intensity.
“Shit shit,” Bryce hissed through clenched teeth. “Valve.”
My heart skipped a beat. “It’s gone bad?” Shit. There was no one home to stabilize it. Sammy charged into the woods and down the trail toward the pond, continuing to bark his damn head off. “Oh, no,” I breathed. If that stupid dog got himself hurt or killed by an unstable valve, Pellini would lose it.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Bryce then took off after the dog. “Sammy! Here boy!”
The dog paid me zero heed and raced on ahead without a single break in the barking, quickly disappearing from sight. “Sammy!” I yelled, running as fast as I dared along the trail without risking smacking into a tree. “Stop! Heel! Sit, dammit!”
A pain-filled yelp cut off the barking, followed by an ominous silence. My gut turned to ice. “Sammy!”
An unearthly screech ripped through the woods, chilling me further. I didn’t need arcane skills to know that was no hawk or owl. I slapped at my hip for a gun that wasn’t there. I’ll see what I’m up against, I told myself as I slowed. With a shred of luck maybe I’d be able to grab the dog and run the hell away.