Legacy of the Demon by Diana Rowland Page A

do with any of this mess I was in?
    Well, you sure as hell don’t give up
, I thought savagely. I’d take what I’d been given and use Rhyzkahl-the-battery for the good of humanity. I swiped at my damp eyes then straightened and meticulously cleared all stray potency from the slab. By the time I completed the process, my head was as clear as the nexus, and I felt ready to take on the Cory situation.

Chapter 7
    Not that it made a difference. With the help of two security guards, Pellini and I carried Cory out to the nexus where I was able to get a nice clear view of Timmy the Tumor with my borrowed lord-sight. A filament of potency finer than spider silk led from the tumor down into the ground. It moved with him, and every effort to track its end—or origin—was met with a potency resonance I couldn’t penetrate. After an exhaustive examination, I couldn’t find a single thing to explain Cory’s condition or hint at either a cause or solution.
    â€œHe’s still alive,” I said to Pellini. “That’s about all I’m sure of.” I sat back on my heels and rubbed my face with both hands. “Shit. He’s going to mutate, and I only know that much from seeing the victims at Fed Central.”
    â€œHe and the others must’ve been exposed to something at ground zero,” Pellini said. “If so, there’s no unexposing them at this point. We can’t stop it.”
    We fell silent, and I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know we had the same question rattling through our heads.
    â€œSo are we next in line to be slimed?” I finally said.
    Pellini blew out a heavy breath. “If it came out of the valve, we were exposed. Moreso than anyone else.” He turned his hands over and peered at them. “But no red slime yet.”
    â€œYet,” I murmured. But why not? Did our arcane ability protect us? Or Ashava’s shielding? Or did some other factor give us immunity. Or perhaps we
were
affected, but the slime was incubating.
    With that last joyous thought echoing through my skull, I called for the security dudes to help Pellini get Cory back inside.I remained on the nexus, feeling like a tiny fish in an unknown ocean full of sharks. Crouching, I placed my palm flat on the cool black surface, spread my fingers over my silvery sigils and let their potency tingle through me. Mzatal trusted me to not only swim with the sharks and avoid being eaten, but to beat them at their own deadly game. “I could’ve used a rule book,
zharkat
,” I murmured, “but I’m figuring it out bit by bit. Rakkuhr. Demahnk. Lords. Demons. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Earth from getting wrecked.” Deep resolve welled in me. “Whatever it takes.”
    Straightening, I released the potency lock on Rhyzkahl’s door then headed for the house, refocused, recentered, recommitted, and ready to tackle the next crisis.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    The basement door was ajar when I came in, which told me Jill was most likely working. Maybe it would be better not to disturb her?
    No, that was me being a chickenshit. She needed to know about Xharbek impersonating Zack, and with the Cory emergency in a lull, I had no valid reason to avoid it any longer.
    I helped settle Cory on the sofa bed then made my way downstairs. My basement had undergone darn near as much change as the rest of my property. All told it was about the size of the entire ground floor of my house, which had made it the perfect spot for a summoning chamber. Though the middle third of the basement remained clear for potential arcane work, Ryan had built out the south end months ago as an extra bedroom. Before the valve explosion, Idris Palatino had bunked down here, but he’d been gone for well over a month. When we began assigning arcane specialists to DIRT units, he’d requested Sector 5—South and Southeast Asia.
    Idris was an insanely