“I’ll talk to Jill,” I said with a sigh, then lifted the tray. “Lemme go feed our guest.”

“Thatcher still unconscious?”

“Yeah, and I think he’ll stay out until he gets to the demon realm with Mzatal,” I said. “He’s in pretty bad shape.”

Ryan winced. “Zack told me he took a .45 in the back that pretty much blew out his chest.”

I started to say something about how Thatcher would have been dead in minutes, but I clamped down on it in time. No way would I be able to explain how Mzatal got there so quickly without mentioning Zack’s teleport ability. Best to let him assume Mzatal had gone to the warehouse with me. “The bullet nicked Paul’s arm too,” I said, glossing over the details of how Thatcher survived. “Speaking of, I’d better go feed him!” I hurried off down the hall before Ryan could ask any more questions.

Paul was still sitting on the stool by the bed. He looked up as I entered, and a faint smile touched his mouth as he saw the loaded tray.

“Thanks. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.” He tried for a smile and failed. “I’d made a deal with Bryce. If he took me to the warehouse, I’d let him stop at Hamburger Haven for a double bacon combo.”

I set the tray on the dresser. “When y’all get back we’ll see if we can make a Hamburger Haven run.”

Desperate hope lit his eyes. “You think he’ll really be able to eat one by then?”

“He won’t come back until he’s good as new,” I promised. “And I know Mzatal will take excellent care of him.” I paused as I heard Ryan call my name from the kitchen. “Eat up,” I told Paul. “Holler if you need anything.”

He nodded, and I returned to the kitchen. Ryan stood in front of the window, looking out at the back yard.

“You bellowed?” I asked cheerfully.

“You should probably check on him,” he said, with a not-quite-Ryan undertone in his voice.

I didn’t waste time with questions. I ran out to the back and slid to a stop, dropped to my knees beside Mzatal where he lay prone on the confluence point. “Boss?” I placed a hand on his back. He felt cold, and his aura was so faint I could barely detect it. “Mzatal?”

He drew a deep slow breath. “Here . . . zharkat.”

“You doing all right?” I asked, even though I felt that he wasn’t.

“No,” he murmured. “The confluence is but slowing the drain. I am fading.”

Fading. The same word Ryan used. “You’re going back now,” I ordered in a don’t-you-even-think-about-arguing-with-me tone of voice. “I already talked to Paul, and he’s okay with going with you. Let me get Eilahn to carry Thatcher out here.”

Mzatal didn’t argue and instead simply pushed himself to his side and then sat up. Even that small effort seemed to drain him. I ran inside, found Eilahn and asked her to get Thatcher, then hurried to the guest room.

“Paul, it’s time to go,” I told him.

Surprise flickered across his face. “Now?” At my nod he set the bunch of grapes he’d been nibbling back on the tray and moved aside as Eilahn entered to get Thatcher.

“Sorry for the rush,” I said. “Come on out to the back yard, and we’ll get this show on the road.”

He grabbed his tablet, eyes bright with excitement and perhaps a bit of fear as he followed me. I thought briefly about telling him not to bother bringing the tablet since the demon realm had some majorly shitty broadband, but then realized the tablet was probably a comfort thing.

Mzatal had managed to stand and waited on the little worn patch of grass with a worried-looking Jekki leaning against his thigh. Paul’s eyes went to Jekki and widened in pure astonishment. Oh, right. Forgot to tell him we had a demon here with us. Eilahn gently placed Thatcher at Mzatal’s feet, and as soon as she stepped back, I moved to Mzatal and kissed him. “Two days,” I told him. “I’ll summon you in two days.”

He wrapped his arms around me, gave me a deep and lingering kiss, then reluctantly broke it. “Two days. We will be on the nexus.”

I stepped back, gave him a smile that did nothing to hide my worry. Mzatal gestured Paul to stand close to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. I gave the young hacker an encouraging wink and a thumbs-up.

And then they were gone.

Prickles of arcane energy flickered over my skin as they departed. I stood for a moment, watched the grass slowly struggle back upright where seconds earlier it had been crushed beneath them. My own life felt that way at times, pushed and changed by forces beyond my control.

But there are plenty of forces that are within my control, I sternly reminded myself. My life—and what I knew to be possible—had certainly shifted dramatically in the past couple of years, but I was still tough enough to roll with the punches. So far at least. It helped that I had an awesome posse of friends to back me up.

Smiling wryly, I returned inside. Voices carried from the hallway—Zack’s and Ryan’s—and cut off as the basement door closed with a dull thud. The two would likely be occupied for the evening while Zack tended Szerain.

The place felt crushingly empty with Mzatal gone and everyone else busy. I’d lived so many years alone, it seemed this should be the norm. But it wasn’t the norm. Not anymore. It was time for me to admit the truth: I liked living with others, both human and demon.

The bag with all of Bryce’s stuff sat in a lump in the hallway. After tugging on latex gloves, I hauled it to the laundry room, tossed bloody clothing straight into the washer and set his shoes aside, since they didn’t appear to have any blood on them. Also in the bag were his gear and weapons, all of it top quality. The nylon ankle holster and knife sheaths were unbloodied, but the leather shoulder holster that held his gun—a Glock 27, I noted with approval—had quite a bit on it. I carefully cleaned all traces of blood or other gunk from leather, gun, and knives, then tucked everything away in a cabinet and returned to the kitchen.

I scrounged in the fridge for a snack and laughed out loud when I found a plastic snap top container brimming with an Earth version of what I fondly called “cat turds”—Jekki’s demon realm delicacy that tasted anything but turd-like. I put half a dozen on a plate and headed for the living room. I figured I’d peruse Tracy’s journals for a bit then take a nice long hot bath, which I intended to follow with going the hell to bed.

It was tedious work, not at all helped by the fact that I didn’t really know what I was looking for, and could only hope I’d know it if/when I saw it. After half an hour of munching cat turds and poring through notebooks, folders, and binders, I decided the best analogy was a shopping trip to an utterly disorganized thrift shop. You had to search through mountains of useless shit in the thin hopes of stumbling upon a treasure. Except that in this case, Idris’s life depended on my finding that treasure.

I fought my way through a notebook with Farrah Fawcett on the cover that contained some excruciatingly bad poetry, and another plain yellow one with what looked like calculus homework interspersed with pages of basic summoning sigils. Tossing those aside in annoyance, I moved on to a journal with a faded blue leather cover.

My skin prickled as I paged through it. No lines of poetry or homework here. This one contained at least half a dozen date and time lists like the one I’d found for the warehouse node, except that these lists all began in handwriting far different from Tracy’s. Two different styles—one an elegant cursive, and the other a cramped print. His grandparents, I realized. Both had been summoners, killed by Rhyzkahl over thirty years ago during a failed attempt to summon Szerain.

Slowly and carefully, I deciphered the handwriting. At the top of every list was a series of numbers—most likely a coded way to ID the list, I decided. However, my tired brain refused to derive any meaning or pattern in the various series, so I mentally tabled that aspect for now. Each list also contained dates, written in the lovely cursive, from when both summoners were alive. Tracy had added more recent and upcoming dates, as well as at least a dozen of the seemingly random alliterative phrases. “Boss-boy breaks boss’s balls” and “Cowboy creek crevice creates confusion” and “Twin twilights twinkle,” but not a damn thing I could easily decipher to give me a location.