Fury of the Demon

Chapter 37

Plans and preparations for the infiltration and raid on the plantation could have easily turned into pure chaos and been doomed to failure from the start, but Bryce took firm charge with an uncompromising hand. Even Mzatal deferred to his judgment, to my surprise and relief. Within two hours of leaving the Nature Center, and with the help of Paul, Ryan, and Zack, we had maps and satellite imagery, a communication system, and all sorts of other gear that I never would have thought we’d need but suddenly realized that yes, we most certainly did.

And, most of all, we had a plan. Sonny and I: infiltrate and get me to the server room for the dongle-thing. Paul: take down comms and security. Mzatal: strip the wards and burn through the fence. Sonny and Bryce: Rescue Angela Palatino and get her through the fence and off the property. Zack and Ryan: watch our backs. Everyone: Do whatever is needed to Acquire Idris.

At about seven p.m. Zack arrived at the house bearing a wig, dress, shoes, and appropriate padding for my role as Amaryllis. I immediately fell in love with the dress, and silently promised myself that after all of this was over I’d have it tailored to fit my normal not-as-curvy figure. Alluring without being slutty, it had a gathered bodice and a side-slit skirt—both of which would allow me plenty of freedom of movement. Most importantly, it came with a sheer and clinging black lace top that slipped over the dress and covered every inch of the sigil scars without reducing the allure level one bit. I didn’t even mind that the sleeves of the lace top were a bit too small. Muscles, I thought with a grin. I gots ’em.

It took me damn near a half an hour to get the dress and my pseudo-curves adjusted properly to accommodate and hide my little Keltec .32 in a slim thigh holster, but I eventually achieved concealment, along with a voluptuous look I doubted I’d ever be able to achieve by natural means. That accomplished, Paul, Zack, and Eilahn continued to load me up with other necessary equipment. My watch doubled as a GPS tracker, I had a backup tracker shoved somewhere around my right boob, and beneath the left was Paul’s dongle. And yes, I giggled every time I thought about Paul’s dongle. Finally, Eilahn and Zack double-teamed me to get the wig and makeup just right, then stepped back so I could see the result in the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door.

“Wow,” I said. Then said it again. “Wow.”

I didn’t look anything like me. The woman in the mirror was sweet and curvy and harmless, with an almost-shy smile on rosebud lips, and honey-blond hair that somehow gave her grey eyes an interesting hazel tinge.

“Kara,” Eilahn said, eyes on me. I jerked my gaze away from the reflection and stepped away so I couldn’t see it anymore.

“Yes.” I’m Kara. It was a reflection. Black dress and lace sleeves, wig and shoes and all. The woman in the mirror wore a ring with a cracked stone—

I shook my head sharply. No, Kara wore that ring. I wore that ring. I looked down at it on my hand. Amaryllis would never wear a ring like this. Too bold, too unique. But Kara would. Cracked stone and all, because the ring and the stone and the crack held a meaning that couldn’t possibly be conveyed in mere words.

I looked back up at them. “I’m ready.”

Eilahn exchanged a quick glance with Zack, then returned her attention to me. “No, you are not,” she said firmly, gripped my upper arm, and walked me to the back of the house.

“What the hell?” I asked, baffled.

Mzatal stepped onto the porch as Eilahn escorted me through the back door. “The containment,” she stated, which was apparently all the information Mzatal required.

“Oh,” I said, voice small. Shit. I hadn’t even realized.

“Zharkat,” he murmured as he lifted a hand to my cheek. I felt the conflict within him, felt him waver in his willingness to risk me for the sake of Idris.

“Boss.” I squared my shoulders and shoved aside the gnawing worry. “It’s my choice to go do this. Idris is my family.” Whether by blood or not, the truth of it remained. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t even try. You can reinforce the containment, right?”

He exhaled. “I can.” His thumb stroked across my cheek. “And now I have.”

I smiled, took his hand and laid a kiss in his palm. “Then we’re all good. As soon as we have Idris, we’ll take our asses back to the demon realm, and you and Elofir can fix this shit right up.”

“So we shall.” He kissed me, eyes remaining warm on mine for a moment more. Finally, he gave a nod to Eilahn, then turned and strode to the mini-nexus, hands clasped behind his back.

I returned to my bedroom with Eilahn and allowed her to fuss over my wig and makeup one more time, and after a few minutes she nodded, satisfied. “It is time to depart,” she said and took my hands. “Is there aught else you require?”

I gave her a reassuring smile. “Can’t think of a thing.”

“I will never be far from you,” she stated with such fierce loyalty that I felt tears come to my eyes. “Dahn!” She pulled her hands from mine and snatched a tissue from a box on the dresser to dab at my eyes. “You will smear your cosmetics if you weep!” She wore such a look of asperity on her face that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Okay, okay! I won’t mess up the makeup.”

Eilahn finished dabbing, stepped back and eyed me critically before giving me a satisfied nod. “Kara Gillian, you will indeed kick all the ass.”

“Damn straight,” I said fervently. “I was taught by the best.”

This is not ass-kicking. This is hell.

“Who the hell knew telecommunications analysts could be so rowdy?” I muttered as I narrowly dodged a slosh of wine from the giggling woman beside me. I edged away from her, turned down yet another slurred offer that I assumed was sexual in nature, and finally found a place to put my back against the wall. I’d been “mingling” in the crowded bar area for the past thirty minutes while I waited for everyone to get into position, and had fended off more passes in that time than I’d received in my entire life. I was damn near ready to trace an aversion ward on my ass.

“It’s considered one of the most boring jobs to have, Kara,” Paul told me in an amused voice through the tiny receiver tucked into my ear. “Can you blame them for letting loose when they have the chance?”

“Yeah, well, the guy whose hand ‘let loose’ up my skirt is sporting some cracked metatarsals now,” I said. My stomp reaction had been swift and instinctive, and I’d slipped away through the press of the crowd while the assailant whined in pain. He probably never even realized the sweet blond thing had a bite. Okay, maybe there was a little ass-kicking.

Luckily I didn’t have to worry about breaking character until I got outside. Nobody in here would ever think I was pretending to be Amaryllis Castlebrook—if any of them even knew her in the first place. To them I was simply another partying teleco-whatever on the first night of what was probably a deathly dull training seminar.

“Serves the jerk right, Kara,” Paul said, then added, “It’s the dress. Even I think you look smokin’ hot. And you look really good with blond hair.”

I hid a grin and pretended to take a sip of my drink. Paul was right—the dress rocked, even if I did have to pad the curves a bit. “Maybe I’ll try blond highlights once all this is done,” I said, carefully avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone, since I’d learned it was interpreted as an invitation to come annoy me. “I’m ready to ditch the wig, though. It itches. And I think one of the bobby pins has worked its way through my skull.”

Paul chuckled. “I’ll get you a purple heart, Kara.”

“Hey, Paul? What’s with the sudden obsession with my name?”

He cleared his throat. “Orders from above,” he said a bit sheepishly. “Eilahn and Zack and Mzatal want me to keep, er, reminding you who you are.”

A warm fuzzy glow started somewhere in my middle, and I felt a silly grin spread across my face. “Y’all are so fucking awesome it’s stupid.”

“It’s a posse thing, Kara,” he said with a laugh. I heard some soft beeps in the background, and when he spoke again he was all business. “Got the ping from Ryan. Amaryllis is safe and away, and all’s clear.” Earlier the two FBI agents had gently scooped up Ms. Castlebrook as she stepped out of her hotel room, leaving me to be her doppelganger at the cocktail party.

“And now I have Sonny’s signal,” he continued. “He’s on the corner half a block down, waiting for you.” He paused. “Good luck, Kara.”

“Thanks, Paul,” I murmured. I glanced at my watch. Nine p.m. Amaryllis was going to make an early night of it. “Here goes everything.” I set my drink on a side table and slipped through the crowd to the door, my little Keltec a comforting weight in the thigh holster. Having Paul in my ear was another major comfort. He was coordinating the entire operation from his tablet for portability, and he’d rigged up everyone with nifty communicators like mine. All except for Mzatal, since he received annoying bursts of static any time he manipulated potency. The plan was for Paul to stay pretty much glued to Mzatal’s side for this thing, so it hopefully wouldn’t make any difference that the Boss wasn’t wired up.

Exiting the restaurant, I faked a slight stumble on the bottom step as if I was a little intoxicated—after first making sure no one nearby was looking my way. Last thing I wanted was for someone to offer to walk me back to the hotel, either out of kindness or with more insidious intent in mind. Either way, they’d no doubt end up hurt. My performance was for the two men waiting down the street. They were watching, I knew, even if I couldn’t see them yet.

The hotel was around the corner and half a block down. I looped my purse over my shoulder, headed down the sidewalk, and did my best to act relaxed and oblivious.

“Sonny’s ahead and to your right, Kara,” Paul told me, no doubt watching my progress through hacked security and traffic cameras in addition to monitoring my location via my GPS trackers.

“Got it,” I murmured. I stepped off the curb to cross a well-lit corner parking lot, bordered by manicured bushes and colorful flower beds. Just the sort of place a naïve girl would let her guard down. Moreover, it made perfect sense for a woman wearing heels to cut through the lot. Sonny sure as hell knew his business.

Sonny, appearing utterly harmless and seeming to pay absolutely no attention to me, stood near the exit to the street, looking at nothing in particular as he spoke on his phone. As I made my way across the mostly empty lot, I noted his approach in my peripheral vision, but only because I was totally expecting it.

“Hey, hon’?” he said in a voice pitched with concern. I feigned a startle and an appropriately wary look, but the gentle smile he turned on me would have disarmed a Navy SEAL. “You’d better be careful. Looks like you’ve had too much to drink.” He took a step closer. “Where’s your car? I’ll help you.”

In the shadows by the building a lanky man in a dark suit leaned against a white Lexus SUV, and I only noticed him because I knew he’d be there. Jerry Steiner, the man who’d brutally raped Amber before Katashi murdered her.

I kept my gaze away from him though, and stayed in my role. “Um, I’m fine thanks,” I said, adding in a shy little bite of my lower lip. “My hotel’s right down the street.” I let out a girlish titter, then had to clamp down on a scowl as Paul snorted in laughter. I turned away and continued walking through the lot, more than a little curious about how Sonny expected to pull off a quiet abduction in a place that was still somewhat public.

“You sure you’re okay to walk that far?” Sonny fell into step beside me and touched my arm, and not in a skeevy way. In fact, a sensation of calm flowed over me. I felt relaxed, not at all nervous or worried or feeling any need to be cautious. Ohhhhh, now, that’s damn interesting.

“I only had one glass of wine,” I told Sonny, utterly fascinated by his effect. The dude was like a walking pygah. It wasn’t something that lulled me into somnolence or fogged my thinking, either. I still had no problem assessing my situation and locating threats. If anything, my focus was sharper, simply because I was so calm.

But I knew exactly what was going on here. Turn that pygah-mojo on an unsuspecting mark, and they wouldn’t stand a chance. And Farouche’s merchandise arrives in good condition and not completely freaked out.

Sonny caught my elbow. “I think you had more than one,” he said, maintaining the same calm tone. He too was playing a role. He had to follow the typical mode of operation to the letter to keep Jerry from getting suspicious. In other words, I thought, this is exactly how he grabbed all of those other women.

He leaned close and lowered his voice, though I knew there was a chance his partner could still hear. “Listen to me,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you unless you give me trouble. Even think about making a sound, and I’ll drop you.” He shifted his other hand to show the stun gun in it. “You’re going to get in the backseat of my car, nice and quiet.”

You stun gun me and I will kick your ASS, I thought, but I widened my eyes in shock and got into the role. “Wh-what? No . . . no!”

The calm flowed over me. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, and with the words came a sense that he truly meant it. He didn’t want to hurt me. Everything would be alllll right if I simply did as he asked. “But I will if I have to,” he continued, and I beliieeeeved that as well.

Utterly amazed and truly impressed, I didn’t resist as he walked me quickly to the car. Jerry pulled the back door open, and when Sonny told me to slide on in, I complied. Beige leather seats and side windows tinted to near black. They didn’t want anyone seeing what happened in the back of this vehicle. That explains the choice of an SUV, the ex-cop part of me considered. Legally, back side windows of a sedan were required to allow twenty-five percent light in. No such law for vans and SUVs.

Not that it mattered at this point.

Jerry got behind the wheel, looked back at me with hard hazel eyes in a craggy face beneath receding brown hair. His gaze traveled to my chest and stopped there in a brazen leer, and I didn’t have to fake my slight recoil.

Sonny slid in beside me and made sure I was buckled, then nodded to Jerry, who gave me a nasty smirk before he turned to face front again. As soon as the car moved out, Sonny zip-tied my wrists together in front of me then tapped my wrist twice, face impassive. I dropped a quick glance down, relieved to see the notch he’d made in the plastic. If things went to shit I could snap it without too much injury to myself.

“Where are you taking me?” I remembered to ask in a quavering voice, carefully balancing how calm I felt with what I figured a normal kidnapped woman would feel in this situation.

“To a place you’re going to stay a while.” Pain and guilt flashed in his eyes for a sliver of an instant before he shuttered it. If I hadn’t been looking right at him—and known what it was—I’d have missed it. He hated this. Hated who he’d become.

A place I’m going to stay a while. I twisted my face into an I-might-cry expression to mask the fury that swept through me. All of those girls, yanked out of their lives to be sold to the lords. I hadn’t thought it was possible to hate Rhyzkahl any more, but that hatred flared supernova hot now. And Farouche. I fully intended to make absolutely sure that motherfucker went down in flames.

I pygahed, since even Sonny’s talent couldn’t fully tamp down the spike of fury, and did my best to look scared and not like a fucking pissed off bitch. “I don’t understand. Who are you people?”

“My name’s Sonny and that’s Jerry,” he told me. “That’s pretty much all you need to know right now.” He reached to the front seat and retrieved a black cloth bag. “Time for you to wear this,” he said, holding it up. Not a bag. A hood. “You gotta trust me,” he added, with another touch of calm. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I’d been prepared for this, so I faked a tremble and allowed him to slip it over my head. Pygahing again, I extended all senses and listened as Paul murmured location updates in my ear, for which I was surprisingly grateful. Sure, Sonny was on our side now, and Mzatal would have detected any hesitation or duplicity on his part, but I was still going undercover into a snake’s den. Paul’s running commentary was a reminder that I had a significant safety net.

But more importantly, Paul’s periodic murmur of my name in my ear helped me maintain my Self against the role I played. I’m Kara, I repeated silently. No one else but Kara.

After about an hour I heard gravel crunching beneath the tires. A few more turns, and the car slowed to a stop, then I heard the hum of the driver’s window going down.

“Any problems?” A man’s gruff voice from outside the car.

“Smooth as silk.” That was Jerry.

“That’s the best way. Unit twenty-three is prepped.”

The window went back up, and the car started forward again. My skin prickled and arcane flickers abruptly appeared in my othersight. We’d gone through a security gate, I realized as I peered at the wards, smiling within the hood that I could do so without seeing. The warding was good, but even the quick glance was enough to tell me they weren’t demonic lord good.

Sonny placed a hand on my wrist, interrupting my musings about warding. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Amaryllis,” he said. “Once we park. I’m going to get out. You’re going to stay right here in the car with Jerry. I’ll be back in a few minutes, then I’ll open your door and walk you to the place where you’ll be staying. You understand?” He delivered it all in a smooth recitation that told me he’d said this many times before.

I did the scared gulp-thing. “And th-then what?”

“I’ll get you settled in for the night. You’ll be staying here for a while.”

“A while” being less than an hour, I thought grimly, but I made the sort of shocked-scared sound a different girl might make at the terrifying vagueness of his statement.

Jerry drove for a few more minutes before pulling to a stop. “Sit tight,” Sonny told me. “I’ll be back in a couple.” With that he opened the door and departed, taking the palpable sense of calm with him. Damn, that was a hell of a skill.

Jerry certainly didn’t exude calm of any sort. Out of curiosity, I let out a low whimper to see how the hard-faced man would respond.

I heard him shift in his seat. “You got it good, honey,” he said with a low snort of rude amusement.

Sucking in a sharp breath, I stiffened. “What do you mean?”

Fabric slid across leather and, judging from the sounds, I figured he’d turned and laid his arm across the back of the seat to look at me. “Because if you’d been my mark, I’d be having some fun pretty soon,” he said, ugly smile in his voice. “Can’t say the same for you though.”

Shrinking back, I took a few seconds to control the fury. Had he taunted Amber like this during the trip to Austin? “D-don’t you dare touch me!”

He let out a dry chuckle. “You get turned over to me, and I’ll touch you all right. You’ll be begging me to stop, but I won’t.”

Teeth clenched, I seethed but let out another whimper to stay in character. The rape of Amber had been part of his goddamn job. How many other women had he been allowed to use simply because they were available? Even one was too many, and I knew damn well the number was far higher.

“Oh, yeah,” he drawled. “I’ll have some fun with you when they’re done playing around.”

“Kara,” Paul murmured in my ear. “Please wait until after you do your thing in the server room to feed this asshole his balls.”

I smothered a laugh and had to quickly turn it into something that sounded like a frightened sob. But if Sonny doesn’t return soon I probably will blow my cover and commit violence against this worthless piece of shit.

As if my thoughts summoned him, the door beside me opened. “Come on out,” Sonny said. I did so, weirdly relieved as the calm descended again and hideously glad to get away from Jerry. Sonny took my arm, then paused. “Goddammit, Jerry,” he said, voice tight with anger. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Interesting, I thought as he led me away. He’d sensed that Jerry had fucked with me. Jaw tight, I moved where Sonny guided me: gravel and then a sidewalk beneath my feet. I actively sank into the ease he projected, using it to center myself.

He paused long enough to open a door, then led me inside, closed it behind us, then pulled my hood off. “No surveillance in here unless I turn it on,” he told me, fatigue and stress coloring his voice. He took a folding knife from his pocket and sliced the zip tie on my wrists.

“Jerry’s a real prince,” I said. “I intend to castrate him with a dull knife, first chance I have.”

A muscle in his jaw leaped, and he nodded. “We need to wait about fifteen minutes before going to the house,” he told me. “It’ll be quieter then.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “I trust your judgment.” I looked around. We were in an open-plan room with kitchen area, table with two chairs, sofa, bookshelves, TV, bed, and a door to a bathroom. All nicely appointed, like one would find in a decent hotel. “How long do the women you bring in for Rhyzkahl usually stay here?”

“Anywhere from a few days to seven or eight weeks,” he said. “And not only women. Three men so far. Ones the boss said deserved harsh punishment.”

I was pretty sure that if the men were sent for punishment, they were going to Kadir. The men were dead or worse by now, but the women were far more likely to still be alive. “Are there any others being held here now for Rhyzkahl?”

He shook his head. “Amaryllis was to be the first of two,” he told me, then looked away. “The ones for him weren’t the only ones—not the only grabs I’ve done.”

The heart-wrenching despondency in his words took me aback. I’d focused exclusively on the handful of recent abductions related to Rhyzkahl. Yet Sonny had been at this for a dozen years. How many more had he taken for reasons other than to be given to the qaztahl? Men and women wanted by Farouche for any number of nefarious purposes. “Sonny. I’m so sorry. No more.”

He looked back to me, face and eyes haunted. “I couldn’t even kill myself to make it stop,” he said, voice thick. “I tried. I tried, but Mr. Farouche . . .” He shook his head.

Though I hadn’t thought it possible, my loathing of Farouche ratcheted up another notch. Sonny paid for his crimes with his soul every waking moment, and I was willing to bet his dreams weren’t full of rainbows and unicorns. Let’s hope suicide isn’t still on Sonny’s agenda, I thought grimly.

Sonny returned his focus to me. “What happened to the ones who went with Mega-Fabio?”

“Most likely used for sex,” I told him frankly, doing my best to keep my voice level even though the topic induced white-hot rage in me. I forced calm and sifted back through my memory of snippets of information and conversations that made more sense now. “They’d be traded to other lords for favors, I’d imagine.” I angled a look at him. “If it helps, I believe that most of the lords would treat a woman well.” I grimaced sourly. “Even Rhyzkahl would take good care of a woman he desired.” I highly doubted Amkir would, and I didn’t think Jesral would be the picture of loving kindness either. And Kadir seemed pretty damn asexual. He got those men, I thought. And not for sex.

Sonny looked relieved. “I pretty much knew sex would be the purpose. Rhyzkahl seemed to like Janice a lot. He said he’d chosen her to live with him. It’s good to hear they’ll be okay.”

I clamped down hard on the No, they won’t be okay! response that leapt to my lips. This was human trafficking, plain and simple. But saying that wouldn’t accomplish anything and would only distress Sonny more. He knew what he’d done, and right now he scrambled for any shred of comfort he could find. Now wasn’t the time to yank that away from him.

“What’s your usual routine with a new acquisition?” I asked in a sharp change of subject. “I don’t want anyone wondering what’s going on if you’re supposed to be somewhere else.”

He shook his head. “With the women, I usually spend some time to get them comfortable, anything up to an hour or so, depending on what they need.” Guilt clawed across his face again.

“You did your best for them,” I said gently. “You weren’t simply taking care of the merchandise. You did everything you could to make a horrible situation a little less horrible. And the very fact that you came back here to help us proves you’re a decent person and a fucking brave one at that.”

“It has to stop. Not only for me. For everyone.”

“We’ll stop it,” I promised, then bared my teeth in a hard smile. “It will rain fire, and we’ll kick all the ass.”

He let out a dry laugh, then glanced at his watch. “Let’s do this. Carter will be on the desk. I’ll walk you in as if I’m taking you to see the boss. I’ll get you inside, then I’ll get him away to give you time to get into the server room.”

“Got it.” I went to the mirror, adjusted the wig to make certain no stray brown hairs poked out, and dabbed away a bit of smeared makeup under my eyes. Amaryllis had pretty eyes. My reflection gave a shy smile—

I jerked my eyes from the mirror. “Paul,” I muttered.

Somehow he knew. “Kara,” he replied, firm and certain. “You’re Kara.”

Kara. I’m Kara. I moved to the kitchen area and filled a tumbler with water, gulped half of it down through a mouth dry as sand. Kara.

“Kara,” Paul echoed.

I focused on deep and regular breaths until I felt like myself again. “Thanks, Paul,” I said quietly. “Y’all ready?”

“Ready,” Paul replied.

I turned and gave Sonny a nod. “Let’s go.”

He took my elbow. “Last time I’ll ever lead a woman into that house.”

“Last time anyone will.”