“Yeah, sure.” I grinned. “Got that part down.”

Jill laughed. “Whew! Gotta run. Call me tomorrow.”

“Will do. Take care, babe.”

She gave me a quick hug, and I startled at the sudden jab in my midsection. I pulled back and stared at her belly.

“Holy shit,” I said. “No wonder you can’t sleep!”

Jill made a face. “She wants out. Now.” Her phone dinged. “Shit. They’re looking for me. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She snatched up her bag and dash-waddled to the door, leaving the house strangely quiet in her wake.

A long shower, real food, and a short nap worked wonders to recharge me and put some distance on the morning’s murder scene and the Ryan fiasco.

I looked at the basement door and sighed. It had been several hours. Hopefully, Zack had Ryan stabilized. Time to make the donuts.

I hesitated, then knocked twice.

Zack called out, “It’s open.”

Relieved, I quick-stepped down the stairs, a lot calmer than I’d been the last time. Ryan appeared to be asleep on the futon, and Zack still sat in the chair beside him. I had a feeling Zack been there the whole time I was gone.

Zack cleared his throat. “Sorry about earlier.”

“No problem,” I said. “Ryan needed you.” I quickly checked the storage diagram to verify it was full, then returned my attention to him. “It was a short but nasty fight.”

He exhaled softly. “He was pretty off balance.”

My shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I got sucked in to reacting to the stupid overlay.” Despite everything, it still grated at me that the “stupid overlay” constituted the majority of the Ryan I knew.

“I know it isn’t easy for you,” Zack said gently. “He’s stable now, and Szerain has a better handle on it. There shouldn’t be much fallout from Ryan on this, if any.”

I smiled weakly. “I get a do-over?”

“Something like that.”

“Thanks,” I said, relieved. “I’ll do my damndest not to let it happen again.”

With my guilt somewhat assuaged, I gathered several colors of chalk from the supply table and paced the summoning area, prepared to clear it of arcane residuals in preparation for the new diagram. Yet to my surprise, not only was the area already clear it was impossibly spotless, arcanely speaking. No way should it have been so squeaky clean after my summoning of Eilahn.

I slanted a look at Zack. “Did you do the clearing?”

He gave me a wry smile. “Least I could do for taking up your basement.”

“Thanks.” Clearing wasn’t hard, but it was a chore. I knelt and sketched out the central sigil then stopped and set the chalk down. My thoughts kept darting back and forth between the task at hand and the issues with Ryan, and only a foolish summoner laid a pattern with less than full focus.

Standing, I returned my gaze to Zack and gestured him over. Even with Ryan asleep, Szerain could hear everything. Zack stood and moved to me. I met his eyes and kept my voice low. “I fell in love with Ryan,” I told him flatly, “but I don’t even know if that person is real.” I grimaced. “No. That’s not true. I know he’s not the real Ryan Kristoff.” I struggled to find the words to express my persistent inner dread. “Is there anything of the Ryan I know in Szerain?”

“It isn’t ever fully one or the other,” Zack replied with gentle honesty. “It can’t be. Most of what you’ve seen is the Ryan-overlay in domination. Though even that is a diluted extension of Szerain.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “It’s complicated. So very complicated.”

I let out a sigh. “Yeah, I guess it is.” I crouched again, examined the sigil I’d drawn and made a correction. “No matter whether he’s Ryan or Szerain, I care about him, and I can’t simply write him off. The problem is, he keeps being Ryan to me, so I have trouble seeing and remembering that Szerain’s in there as well.” I blew out my breath, watched chalk dust swirl in the air. “I think I understand us both—maybe all of us—a little better now.”

“A benefit for everyone,” Zack agreed.

“And speaking of you and Ryan,” I said, “you haven’t explained to Jill why you spend so much time with him, have you?” At his pained grimace, I went on, “She’s hurting you know. Not badly enough for me to kick your ass, but enough that I think you should do something. She’s my friend, and so are you.”

His eyes grew distant, and for a fleeting moment it looked as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Being a 24/7 guard no doubt took its toll, demon or not.

“I’ll do better with Jill,” he said, then he flashed a smile and the crushing weariness was gone. No, not gone, I noted. Masked. “I promise,” he added.

I nodded and let the subject go. For now. “How will Szerain handle Mzatal being here?”

Zack shrugged helplessly. “Damned if I know. I’ve never had anything like this come up before. It will likely be a challenge, to say the least.”

“Move over, there’s a new lord in town.” I added a laugh to cover the flicker of worry.

He let out an answering chuckle. “Good grief. Did I sign up for this shit?”

“As much as any of us did.”

“So basically, someone forged our signatures.”

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

I spent the rest of the day readying the diagram and making some last minute non-arcane arrangements for Mzatal’s arrival. By eight in the evening, I had plenty of power stored up, Zack and Ryan were off somewhere else, Eilahn was either in the woods or on the roof, and the house was nice and quiet and empty.

Most of my summoning superstitions had disintegrated after close to six months of training with Mzatal. I didn’t have special summoning clothing any more, and I certainly no longer felt the need to strip in the hallway and then go down to my basement naked. I smothered a laugh at the thought of doing so with Ryan still here. “Surprise!”

I did, however, shower, shave my legs, and dress in a nice zrila-made shirt and soft pants in gorgeous shades of blue. Hey, I was having a torrid love affair with a hot and sexy demonic lord who I hadn’t seen in a whole twenty-four hours. We were in the middle of a crappy, stress-laden situation. No way was I going to be less than my awesomest best to welcome him to Earth.

The summoning itself went smoothly and, while not exactly effortless, I again appreciated the value of the shikvihr and the intensity of my recent training.

I made the call to Mzatal, felt the strands coalesce through the portal, and pulled. A moment later he knelt on one knee in the center of the diagram, and I smiled as I saw he was wearing the charcoal grey Armani suit. My dude was ready to kick some Earth butt. Beside him, Jekki lay curled atop a small trunk with his tail tightly wrapped around a foot-high keg.

“Hello, Jekki,” I said. The ball of blue fur unwound, and the faas burbled a greeting. Mzatal stood as I moved to him. “Hi, Boss.”

“Zharkat,” he murmured, face serious in his I’m assessing everything mode. But he wasn’t so preoccupied that he ignored me. He slipped a hand behind my head and kissed me, then frowned. “You are troubled.”

I slid my arms around him, rested my cheek on his chest. “Other than finally having you here, it’s been a pretty crappy day.” I proceeded to tell him about the murder victim and the trap on her body, and also the issues with Ryan and Zack.

He cradled me close as he listened. “I am deeply relieved you are safe and that Szerain intervened.” He kissed me again. “Have you any information on Idris?”

“Nothing yet,” I said, enjoying the lovely tingle left behind by the kiss. “But I’ve put out feelers.”

He hesitated a split second before nodding, no doubt reading the meaning of the phrase from me. “I will begin adaptation to the flows here so that I am not as . . . crippled.”

Crippled. That was how it felt to him. In the demon realm, he was connected to the arcane flows through his own lord-ability and time in his plexus, which allowed him to track and monitor damn near anything that touched or involved the arcane. Here, he had almost none of that. Like losing the sense of touch.