The Turn Read online

  Trisk felt her expression go blank. He’d become the image of Kal, dressed in a business suit with a vibrant red tie that matched the demon’s eyes. Only the glasses remained.

  “I like the hippie better,” she suggested, and he laughed, low and long, running a hand suggestively down his new lanky height.

  “No, this is nice,” he said. “Who is this, little bird, and why are you afraid of him?” The demon smiled at her with Kal’s face. “Nasty dark elf shouldn’t be afraid of the light. He’s pretty, though.” He posed, shifting his hips suggestively. “He’d fetch a fair price on the block. You’d probably bring more, despite your dark hair, having dared to summon me. Tell me now. Would you like me to make it fair for you? I’d only ask for one year of service. This pretty man would die for you. I promise.”

  Trisk grimaced, wishing he wouldn’t prattle so. “His name is Kal,” she said impatiently. “He’s trying to steal my research. That’s why I summoned you. And I’m not afraid of him.”

  Glancing at the humming power over his head, Algaliarept sat back down, his smaller guise of Kal looking odd on the floor in his suit and tie. “You are, or I wouldn’t be here. He wants your research? Is it that good?”

  A flash of affront quashed her nervousness. “I found a way to fix the damage you inflicted on us before we left the ever-after,” she said, and the demon cocked his head, a mocking slant to his eyebrows. He looked so much like Kal—apart from the red eyes and blue-tinted glasses—that it scared her. “A donor virus. With it, I can insert healthy code into somatic cells to repair existing damage, or possibly the germ cells to improve the next generation even before they’re born.”

  “Why would I help you with this, love?” the demon said, the image of Kal making talking-hand motions. “I would just as soon see you all dead. I am curious, though. Why did you let him do that to you? You are a dark elf. You are a warrior.”

  “I’m not letting him,” she said, offended. “Did you not hear me say he was going to steal it? Did I not just summon you to be my sword and shield?”

  He beamed at her show of anger. “I make a better mirror,” he said slyly, then sighed. “You want me to help make you famous. I thought you were special, granddaughter of Felecia Ann Barren, spawn of Cambri, but you want the same boring thing everyone who calls me does.”

  “I want to keep what I earned,” she said, then louder when his shape became misty at the edges, “I have not dismissed you!”

  His form solidified. “No, you haven’t,” he said calmly. “But you should.”

  Trisk pushed away from the desk, and Algaliarept’s evil smile, looking odd on Kal’s face, widened. “Will you do it?” she asked, pulse hammering.

  “To ensure you get credit for your research? Mmmm. I could kill him,” the demon suggested, eyes on his manicured fingernails.

  “I don’t want Kal dead. I want to stop him from claiming my research.”

  He looked up. “It would be easier to kill him. I’d enjoy it. You’d enjoy it. I’d let you watch. No?” Algaliarept sighed as if in regret. “Well, if I can’t kill him, I need something in return for my services. Your soul, perhaps?”

  Trisk shook her head. If he had her soul, he had her body.

  “Why not? You’re not using it,” the demon coaxed. “Take a bare moment. You think you have nice computers? I’ve got the entire power of your basement mainframe in the palm of my hand. I’d let you play with it in your downtime.”

  “If you don’t take me seriously, I’m going to send you back,” she threatened, knowing he was bored out of his mind, and the demon predictably stiffened.

  “Tell me his name. His full name,” he asked.

  Trisk’s eyes widened. “You’d make sure my name is on my work for Kal’s given name?” she asked, shocked, but the demon shook his head, eyeing her over his glasses.

  “Names are power, Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri, and you should swallow that stone you found my name on before someone else sees it. It won’t leave you. I promise that. Curiosity prompts me to know the name of this man you hate with so much of your heart. Call it a retainer to continue to entertain your dismally small aspirations until you’re ready to sacrifice your soul to retain your life’s work.” He smiled. “I give you a week.”

  A frown pinched her brow, and she clasped her arms around her middle. She hated Kal, but giving a demon his name went against her morals. Algaliarept gestured from the floor with a Well? motion, and she licked her lips. “Trent Kalamack,” she said softly.

  The demon’s eyes widened. He looked down at himself, then back to her. With a whoosh and thump of moving air, he vanished to reappear as the Victorian dandy. “Kal-l-l-l-amak,” he drawled, as if tasting the word. “Goes by Kal, you say?” the demon mused aloud, tugging his white gloves tighter onto his hands. “The little bastard is proud of his family name and insecure about his place among his kin. A man-child eager to make his mark.” Eyes fixed on hers, he leaned in until her circle hummed a warning. “Full name,” he demanded, and she blanched at the anger behind it.

  “Trenton Kalamack,” she said softly.

  “The boy has a middle name, does he not?” Algaliarept inspected his pocket watch.

  “I don’t know—” she started, jumping when Algaliarept hit the wall of her circle with an angry fist. Stress lines rippled out, threatening to fray. “Trenton Lee Kalamack,” she said loudly, pulse fast.

  “There. Isn’t that better,” the demon purred. And then he looked to the door and laughed, white-gloved hands clapping. “I do so love working with the novice. You forgot to lock your door.”

  6

  “I locked that!” Trisk exclaimed as the door to the hall was pushed open, spilling a bright light in and across the demon sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Daniel?” she gasped as he staggered over the threshold, a bottle in one hand, a master bypass key in the other.

  “Oh, this is beyond brilliant,” Algaliarept said merrily. “Hello, little man.” He saucily winked one goat-slitted red eye. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Trisk?” Daniel slurred, and she bolted to get between them. Daniel seeing a demon was a major breach of the silence, and right before Kal showed up. “What are you doing in my office?” Daniel said, trying to look past her. “That’s not my lab. That’s your lab. Trisk, why is Angie’s office empty?” He blinked, looking over her shoulder at the leafy green field. “Who is that? Does he have clearance?”

  “Daniel . . .” She rushed to say, and then spun, horrified, when Algaliarept stood and shoved his fist into her circle.

  He was trying to get out.

  Smoke billowed behind the barrier, curving up the sides until it slithered its way through the membrane and up to the ceiling. Algaliarept ground his teeth in pain as his skin peeled and fell away. Just the smallest gap, and he’d be through. Her soul was apparently worth the pain.

  “Finire!” Trisk exclaimed, shoving both hands at Daniel. Whooping, Daniel backpedaled into the hallway as if pushed, his head slamming into the far wall. Groaning, he slid to the floor.

  Trisk spun back to Algaliarept, her hand pulsing in pain. She’d hit Daniel with the full force of what was still coursing through her circle, and with a panic-born strength, she yanked more energy into her from the ley line. “You will stay!” she shouted, vertigo swamping her, pulling her down to a knee as she became a conduit for more energy than she’d ever dared channel before. Her hand, already burned from knocking Daniel out, flamed.

  With a cry of frustration, Algaliarept pulled his fist back. His red eyes glared with a frustrated wrath, and the circle holding him crackled with energy. It dripped from the sides, hissing as it met the tile floor and magnetic chalk outline. Shaking, Trisk rose from her knee, her burned hand cradled to her middle. “You will . . . stay,” she panted, panicked but steady.

  “For now—little bird,” Algaliarept snarled.

  Only now did Trisk turn to see Daniel out cold and slumped against the hallway’s wall. A ribbon of alcohol from the drop
ped bottle was running a slow path to her circle, and with a frightened quickness, Trisk took off her lab coat and dropped it on the rivulet, stopping its advance. From behind the barrier, Algaliarept made an angry noise of frustration.

  Flustered, Trisk looked up and down the otherwise empty hall before grabbing Daniel’s foot with her good hand and awkwardly pulling him into the room. Still hunched, she went back for the master bypass key.

  “You will be mine, someday,” the demon intoned. “And then you will pay for this, in ten times the agony you put me through.”

  Trisk eyed Daniel, hoping he was okay. “I didn’t make you push your hand into a focused barrier,” she said. “Leave.”

  “You just told me to stay,” Algaliarept said, giving his tortured hand a shake. It wreathed itself in a gray mist, dissipating to show untouched skin and unblemished lace. “Now you tell me to go,” he muttered, examining his ruddy hand for signs of damage. “I want to see you explain me to him. You looked adorable together in your matching lab coats.” The demon’s eyes widened, and his form went misty until he reappeared looking like Kal. “Well, well, little bird. Your passions are showing. We are alike, are we not? Trenton Lee Kalamack and your human?”

  She shuddered as Kal’s full name fell from the demon’s lips. Maybe it had been a mistake to give it to him. Trisk looked up from Daniel to Algaliarept, the demon posing coyly within his circle of confinement. “Apart from the eyes, of course,” the demon added, having apparently forgotten his attempt to escape. Trisk knew it would haunt her nightmares.

  “You look nothing alike,” she lied, testing the strength of her singed hand and wincing. Daniel would be fine, spelled into unconsciousness until she woke him. Flustered, she took her purple ribbon off and dropped it back into the dusty box before going to peek out into the silent hall, close the door, and lean back against it. Algaliarept stood, beaming at her.

  “Demon, I banish you directly to the ever-after,” she said, and Algaliarept pouted.

  “No. I want to stay,” he said petulantly. “I promise I’ll be good. Quiet as a mouse. Hell, I’d even be a mouse if you wanted.” His gaze dropped to Daniel. “Did you intentionally find a boyfriend who looks like an elf, or was it purely subconscious?”

  She said nothing, embarrassed, and Algaliarept’s smile widened. “You envy Trenton Lee Kalamack?” he said, and her jaw clenched. “You hate him, but envy him as well. Of course you do!” His face lit up, scaring her. “I have an idea . . . growing in my brain,” he said. “It will solve all your problems, but you won’t like it.”

  Daniel doesn’t look like an elf. Bothered at the thought, she edged closer, knowing he did, apart from the glasses. “Algaliarept,” she said forcefully. “I banish you directly to the ever-after. Go now.”

  But Algaliarept pressed closer to the circle, his excitement obvious. “Why call me if you don’t listen to my counsel?”

  “Go!” she shouted, and his expression clouded.

  “Good God. You don’t have to be so bitchy,” he said, and with an inward-rushing pop of air, he vanished.

  The candle went out. Not trusting he was gone, Trisk leaned forward. But the ash had vanished, and knowing it meant he was no longer there, she let her circle drop. The energy flowing through her left with a scintillating feeling of ice sparkles against her burned hand, and she exhaled. At the ceiling, a faint residue of burned fat remained. She’d leave it for Kal to find. He’d know she’d been summoning demons, and the little dipstick might give her some respect lest she set the demon on him. Not that she ever would. Summoning demons wasn’t illegal, but setting them to kill people was.

  Edging past Daniel, she wiped the chalk lines to nothing and swept up the salt, her motions awkward with her burned hand. She grimaced at her whiskey-soaked lab coat, putting it and everything else into the dusty box to take home. Finished, she crouched beside Daniel. “Ita prorsus,” she whispered to undo the charm she’d knocked him out with, and Daniel took a quick breath. Eyes still shut, he straightened his legs, grimacing.

  “Something is burning,” he slurred, then blinked his eyes open. “Trisk?”

  She smiled thinly, wishing she could turn on the exhaust fan, but the stench might bring someone investigating. “You passed out,” she said. “Why are you drinking whiskey?”

  Struggling, he sat up against the desk. “That’s not whiskey. It’s regret, with an ‘I’m screwed’ chaser.” He felt the back of his head, wincing. “Ow. You heard, right? The government is sending someone to look over my work before they buy it. You weren’t at the meeting. How come you never go to meetings? Everyone else has to.”

  “It’s in my contract,” she said, glad he wasn’t talking about demons and candles and circles. With some luck, the episode would be lost in his drunken stupor. Thank God. If he remembered, Daniel would be killed to keep the silence. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” Hand on the wall, he got to his unsteady feet. “Colonel Wolfe doesn’t have a degree in anything scientific. Rales says it’s a formality, but I’ve seen this before. Wolfe is going to slap ‘top secret’ on it and shut me out. Give my work to those bastards in Florida. NASA doesn’t give anyone credit but their own staff. My name won’t be on it anywhere. Worse, once they have it, they can do anything they want. I made this to save lives, not end them.”

  Trisk’s jaw clenched, her hand on his elbow as she helped him to a rolling chair. “I don’t think they’ll turn it into a planet killer. They want a tactical weapon, too.”

  “NASA never did anything for anyone,” Daniel said, not listening as he collapsed into the chair, his eyes on the empty whiskey bottle. “Apart from curing diabetes. And childhood leukemia,” he added. “And Legionnaires’ disease. Malaria.” He frowned, passing a hand over his brow. “Never mind,” he said faintly. “Maybe they should check my work. Give the credit to someone else. What would I do with a Nobel Prize, anyway?” He looked up, blinking at her. “Why are you clearing out Angie’s office?”

  “Because I’ve got my own snot-nosed brat coming Monday to help with the patent transfer of the T4 Angel tomato to Saladan Industries and Farms. An old friend from my alma mater, if you can believe it. I probably won’t get my name on my product, either.”

  “Oh yeah. I heard about that,” he said, unknown thoughts passing through him. “We are so screwed,” he whispered, then met her eyes, clearly embarrassed. “Excuse me. That was uncalled for.”

  She drew back, a rising feeling of disquiet in her. Wolfe didn’t have any scientific credentials, but Kal did, and Rales had told her to give him access to everything. She wasn’t the only one Kal was screwing over. Two for the price of one. “No, it’s entirely appropriate,” she said, sympathy rising high. “You want to have dinner at my house?” she asked suddenly, not wanting him to hurt himself trying to get home. It was a mistake, but she didn’t care. Both their lives were being ripped apart by Kal.

  “Yes. That would be really nice. Thank you,” he blurted, falling back into the chair when he tried to stand. “Ah, I don’t know if I can drive.”

  A smile curled her lips up as she slipped her shoulder under his and lifted. “I’ll do it.”

  “That’s . . . probably a good idea,” he said, swaying as she tucked the dusty box under her other arm and they headed to the door. “You really went to school with him?”

  Trisk held the door with her foot as she eased him into the hallway. The charm paraphernalia was under her arm, and she resolved to bury it in a corner of the barn, never to call Algaliarept again. She didn’t like the demon’s opinion of what scared her. “Unfortunately, I did,” she said as she checked to see that the door locked behind them. “I’ll tell you how he cheated off my third grade spelling test over dessert.”

  “Sounds great.” Daniel hesitated. “You’ve known him since the third grade?”

  But she didn’t answer as all the ugliness returned: the hidden barbs, slights, indignities that were easier to swallow than do anything about. The question of what was going
to happen was still out there, but one thing was clear. She’d spent the last three years being treated as an equal. She couldn’t go back to living and working among her brethren, the better computers and working environments aside. She wouldn’t.

  7

  “I held my nose. I closed my eyes . . . I took a drink.”

  The peppy music wedged itself between Daniel’s disjointed dream and his awareness, pulling him awake. His head hurt, but that was nothing to his gut, threatening to rebel when he shifted and the afghan over him slipped to the floor. “Love potion number nine,” the soulful man sang, and Daniel groaned as he sat up, his elbows on his knees and head in his hand. Whiskey? What had he been thinking?

  With a click, the music cut off. It cracked through Daniel’s head like a shot, and he sent his gaze about the room, trying to remember having seen it last night. Nothing seemed familiar apart from the few aboriginal knickknacks on the mantel over the huge fireplace, which still held smoldering coals. Behind him was an entire wall of books—the hardcovers mingling with the paperbacks in a joyous chaos that set his teeth on edge. Wide floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto gently rolling hills, yellow with sunrise and a thin strip of fog glowing just over the earth.

  He was on a square-cornered, stiff-fabric couch. Two equally uncomfortable-looking chairs sat at either end of the coffee table pressing into his shins. A lighted globe sat on the tidy desk, which was angled to take advantage of the view. It felt more like the lobby of a resort than a private residence, but he hadn’t seen anyone, and most hotels frowned on their guests sleeping one off in the lobby. Still, he appreciated the earthy and subdued colors. Even the soft light coming in seemed dappled, though the only trees he saw past the huge windows were rows and rows of sapling sticks.