“As you wish, Lady Vanador.”
Little Gray protested being put back down, but Kari would have none of it. She much preferred he get his rest and be his normal, jubilant self when he got up and spent the rest of the day with her. After a minute of fussing, he lay back down, and Kari pulled the blankets up over him. She gave him a kiss, but she straightened out and spun, startled, at the sound of a sword being drawn behind her.
When she turned around, she wasn’t sure what Irressa was doing. The shakna-rir girl’s sword was hanging limply in her dangling hand, and she was hunched over strangely. It was only then that Kari saw there was some shadowy blade protruding from her chest, and the shakna-rir girl was quite dead. Kari drew her scimitars and moved between Little Gray and whatever ghost or other entity had just killed Irressa. After a few seconds that stretched out like an eternity, the shadowy blade turned to the side, and the corpse slid to the floor, where it began to form a pool of red blood. Then the shadowy blade disappeared.
Kari’s mind whirled, and she cursed herself for not doing more to ensure that her home—and more importantly, her child’s bedroom—was safe from whatever entity had just killed the young initiate. While Kyrie had said she’d used every divination she knew to detect hostile spirits or demons, Kari had never been satisfied with that. Something in her primal core had known something was there, and that it was not friendly. Now a young demonhunter lay dead in Little Gray’s bedroom, murdered right in front of Kari because she had let her guard down.
She did no such thing now. Her guard was fully up, and she hushed Little Gray and told him to stay put as she tried to detect any trace of movement or sound around her. Unlike the first time she thought she’d encountered the spirit, this time she heard a barely audible snort. It had come from directly in front of her, and Kari got into a defensive stance with her scimitars up before her. Her eyes strained with the desire to see whatever was in front of her, but still she saw only the hallway stretching out toward the stairs. And then her heart nearly stopped when the spirit creature took physical form and became visible, for it was not a ghost at all…
…it was an elestram.
The jackal demon was almost as tall as Sonja, standing nearly six-foot-seven, was well-groomed, and even while standing only a few feet away from him, Kari couldn’t detect any sort of musky scent that usually betrayed the presence of a furry demon. He wore a leather outfit that may have qualified as armor, but it seemed more stylish than practical, with a vest, bracers, half-trousers, and shin guards. His fur was a dark brown, but there were black patches in the proper places to accent his form, and there were a few grey patches that betrayed his age to some degree. While his body was nearly as tall as Sonja’s, his long, pointed black ears made him even taller, rising well above his head.
Most curious of all, though, were his eyes. Kari couldn’t actually see them, for they were covered by some sort of goggles. She had seen alchemists use similar eyewear to protect them from splashes and other hazards of their trade, but she doubted the demon wore them either for alchemical protection or style. Little Gray had told her the Fuzzy Man had funny eyes, and Kari knew then what she was looking at.
This elestram had, by some trick of magic or malevolent, evil power, managed to hide himself right under Kari’s nose, and put her son in danger for months. And whatever power that was, it was strong enough that even Kyrie’s divinations had not detected him. Kari’s nerves didn’t ease up in the slightest even after the demon’s shadowy blades retracted into his bracers, which were clearly not large enough to house such weapons.
“Fuzzy Man!” Little Gray exclaimed from behind Kari, and he jumped up to his feet on the bed. “Look Mama, the Fuzzy Man!”
The elestram started to move toward Little Gray, but Kari stopped him with a scimitar held toward his chest. “Stay away from my son,” she warned in a low voice, her scowl offering no room for debate or argument. She told her son over her shoulder, “Lie down and stay put, Little Gray.”
The elestram cocked his head and regarded Kari, and after a moment, he reached up and set his goggles on his forehead. His eyes were a deep orange shade, not unlike Emma’s, but there was a coldness in their depths that even the mallasti girl hadn’t possessed. His eyes were what Kari might have described as dead or lifeless, but there was a canniness in his expression that she couldn’t dismiss or figure out. He stared at Kari without moving or saying a word, a furry statue in the middle of Little Gray’s room, its stare fixed on the demonhunter.
His leg moved, and Kari brought her other scimitar before her and low to ward off any potential kicks. She realized that was not his intent when he shoved Irressa’s corpse with his foot. Kari glanced at Irressa’s body lying in a pool of red blood but fixed her scowl back on the elestram. Was he hoping Irressa’s death might shake her or cause her to lose her nerve?
His intention occurred to Kari after a moment. She looked back down at the pool of red blood and realized what was wrong with it. She gasped when he turned the corpse over.
Irressa was a syrinthian. How she had changed her form, crossed Kyrie’s protective ward, or gotten so close to Kari without anyone discovering her, were mysteries Kari couldn’t wrap her head around, and hardly had the time to. Intentionally or not, the elestram had just saved Kari’s life. She met his gaze again, but still the demon hardly moved, and spoke not a word. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Kari hesitated when holding a demon at sword point. She wasn’t sure what to do, and even when the elestram took a step forward, still she hesitated, frozen with indecision.
The demon lightly turned Kari’s swords aside, making an obvious effort to not threaten her, and he took the three additional steps to reach the end of Little Gray’s bed. The little boy jumped back up to his feet against his mother’s wishes and held his arms out. The demon picked the child up and held him over his head, and then lowered the boy enough to rub his nose against Little Gray’s, just as Kari usually did.
Kari’s swords dropped impotently from her hands as she witnessed the display. There were questions of alarm from downstairs when Kari’s blades bounced on the wooden floor, but she didn’t have the presence of mind to answer the curious calls of her mate and friends.
The elestram put Little Gray back down and said something to him in a language Kari had never heard before. Kari was astonished as Little Gray responded in what seemed like that same language and lay down to go back to sleep. The demon pulled the blankets up over Kari’s son, and then he walked over, moved the reading chair so it was slightly in front of the door, and sat down upon it.
It’s been him all this time, she realized. He moves the chair so he can see who’s coming down the hall when he hears someone approaching.
Her thoughts were confirmed when Eli, Danilynn, and Grakin came up the stairs. Like with Emma, the elestram’s expression was impassive as he rocked lightly back and forth, his eyes unblinking, holding Kari’s stare.
Eli started to draw his hammer and he gestured for Grakin to stay back, but Kari held her hand up to keep her half-corlyps friend from provoking the demon. “Who’s this?” he asked. He started to slip past the demon and into the room but thought better of it when he fell under the elestram’s orange-eyed scrutiny. Kari was afraid Eli might try to take revenge for the burn scars on his arm on this elestram, but he followed her gestured direction and held his ground.