Rise of the Demon, page 1
Raves for Diana Rowland’s Kara Gillian Novels:
“A nifty combination of police procedural and urban fantasy. Not too many detectives summon demons in their basement for the fun of it, but Kara Gillian is not your average law enforcement officer.”
—Charlaine Harris, New York Times–bestselling author
“Rowland’s world of arcane magic and demons is fresh and original . . . [and her] characters are well-developed and distinct. . . . Dark, fast-paced, and gripping.”
—SciFiChick
“A fascinating mixture of a hard-boiled police procedural and gritty yet other-worldly urban fantasy. Diana Rowland’s professional background as both a street cop and forensic assistant not only shows through but gives the book a realism sadly lacking in all too many urban fantasy ‘crime’ novels.”
—L. E. Modesitt, Jr., author of the Saga of Recluse
“I was awestruck at the twists and turns and the, ‘Oh man, why didn’t I see that before!’ . . . This series is top-notch in the genre.”
—Felicia Day, author of You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)
“Rowland once again writes the perfect blend of police procedural and paranormal fantasy.”
—Night Owl Paranormal
“Phenomenal world building, a tough yet vulnerable heroine, a captivating love triangle, and an increasingly compelling metanarrative that just gets juicier with each book. . . . Blows most other urban fantasies out of the park.”
—All Things Urban Fantasy
“I would say [the series] just keeps getting better—but it was already so good that I’m not sure that’s even possible.”
—Fangs for the Fantasy
“Mark of the Demon crosses police procedure with weird magic. Diana Rowland’s background makes her an expert in the former, and her writing convinces me she’s also an expert in the latter in this fast-paced story that ends with a bang.”
—Carrie Vaughn, New York Times–bestselling author
Also by Diana Rowland:
MARK OF THE DEMON†
BLOOD OF THE DEMON†
SECRETS OF THE DEMON
SINS OF THE DEMON
TOUCH OF THE DEMON
FURY OF THE DEMON
VENGEANCE OF THE DEMON
LEGACY OF THE DEMON
RISE OF THE DEMON
* * *
MY LIFE AS A WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE
EVEN WHITE TRASH ZOMBIES GET THE BLUES
WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE
HOW THE WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE GOT HER GROOVE BACK
WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE GONE WILD
WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE UNCHAINED
† Available from Bantam
Copyright © 2022 by Diana Rowland.
All Rights Reserved.
Cover illustration by Kieran Yanner.
Cover design by Adam Auerbach.
Edited by Betsy Wollheim.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1934.
DAW Books
An Imprint of Astra Publishing House
www.dawbooks.com
DAW Books and its logo are registered
trademarks of Astra Publishing House.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Nearly all the designs and trade names in this book are registered trademarks. All that are still in commercial use are protected by United States and international trademark law.
ISBN 9780756408282 (mass market) | ISBN 9781101608913 (ebook)
First Printing, November 2022
Contents
Praise for Diana Rowland
Also by Diana Rowland
Title Page
Copyright Page
Recap of The Demon
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Epilogue
Glossary
RECAP OF THE DEMON
THE BEGINNING: EKIRI
Twelve thousand years ago, a non-corporeal, immortal race of telepathic beings—the Ekiri collective—arrived on a planet that came to be known as the demon realm. Their overarching goal and drive was to “enlighten” emerging species then move on to a new destination. To that end, they observed for centuries before most took on demon forms and fully immersed in the cultures and ambience of the world. After a few millennia, some shifted to an Ekiri corporeal form and openly became mentors of the native demons—Jontari.
Xhan, Khatur, and Vsuhl emerged as the Ekiri’s most promising students and mastered the ways of the arcane.
Unbeknownst to all, an interdimensional conduit connected the demon realm to Earth, and the Ekiri presence drew potency, gradually depleting Earth while engorging the demon realm.
EKIRI AND EARTH
After the discovery of the conduit and Earth, a handful of Ekiri, led by Zakaar, traveled there and took human form to integrate with and guide the natives. For two thousand years, their offspring were fully human, as expected. Then, for the first time in their existence, the Ekiri produced true hybrids. Eleven of them.
The hybrids lacked the experience and skill to control their arcane and mental abilities. This caused instability on Earth, and so the Ekiri parents (demahnk) abruptly abducted their offspring—ranging in age from still-in-the-womb to mid-twenties—and moved them to the demon realm.
To control the hybrids, the demahnk formed mental “ptarl” bonds and stripped their memories of Earth and the parental relationships. When the bonds proved insufficient, they implanted mental strictures to curb many of the hybrids’ natural abilities, which included shape-changing and telepathy with one another.
RAKKUHR, EXODUS, AND THE LORDS
However, the demon realm soon reached critical mass with potency drawn from Earth. Core potency—rakkuhr—erupted to the surface and proved toxic to the Ekiri. In desperation, they severed the conduit to Earth, but that only served to trap the potency on the demon realm side with no chance to equalize.
All Ekiri abandoned the planet except for the eleven demahnk parents and a neutral caretaker, Xharbek—and these twelve were charged with stabilizing the planets and offspring. The Ekiri would return in the far future to judge their progress and decide then whether to allow the demahnk to rejoin the collective—or not.
The demahnk installed the hybrids as qaztahl (lords), each with their own realm, and tasked them with constant monitoring and stabilization of potency in the demon realm.
MITIGATION, DISASTER, AND CONSEQUENCES
The demahnk created Earthgates in each lord’s realm, both to allow excess potency to escape and to give humans access to the demon realm. Humans and lords mingled, but when women became pregnant by the lords, the demahnk returned them to Earth and erased their memories of the demon realm. The lords’ memories were then adjusted to exclude knowledge of the pregnancies.
After several centuries, the Earthgates collapsed. The demahnk Rho, parent of Szerain, merged with the planet’s core to stabilize it, and manifested as the sentient demon realm “groves.” Xharbek stepped in as Szerain’s ptarl—wiping Szerain’s memory of Rho in the process.
To help achieve arcane balance between the worlds, Zakaar developed an interdimensional valve system. During this time, Helori tracked the descendants of the lord-human hybrids on Earth and selected one to be the first summoner.
For reasons yet unknown, Mzatal imprisoned Khatur, Xhan, and Vsuhl, and split their essences and psyches between gimkrahs and blades. The gimkrahs were hidden away, and Mzatal, Rhyzkahl, and Szerain—the oldest and most powerful demonic lords—became the bearers of these essence blades.
A couple thousand years after the collapse of the Earthgates, Szerain, along with the summoner Elinor B
The failed ritual caused the collapse of the valve system, resulting in a century-long, planetwide cataclysm whose effects still linger. The ways between the worlds closed, and summoning became impossible. Rhyzkahl vowed vengeance on Szerain for endangering his beloved Elinor—even though Elinor’s heart belonged to another.
RESTITUTION, ROWAN, AND REOPENING
For over two hundred years, Szerain and Helori labored to stabilize and heal the interdimensional ruptures and distortions. During his research and experimentation, Szerain crafted an “arcane A.I.” dubbed Rowan, which was meant to exemplify the ultimate summoner. However, he intended it to be a learning and testing tool only, never an overlay for a human.
In 1908, Szerain and Helori managed to reopen an arcane valve, restoring a thread of connection between the worlds. Fifteen years later, Isumo Katashi, a gifted young summoner, performed the first summoning in centuries.
SUMMONERS AND MACHINATIONS
Katashi became the key mentor and trainer to summoners over the next decades, though the demahnk had their own agenda. The Ekiri collective would be returning sooner rather than later, and the demahnk were desperate to rejoin, as it had become tortuous to be bound in corporeal form and separated from their kind. But the balance between the worlds was still unstable, and they had the legitimate fear that, with the demon realm in its current state, the collective would deny them re-entry. A few of them, led by Xharbek, started hatching more drastic and desperate plans.
Xharbek worked through Katashi to ruthlessly acquire, control, and groom summoners, often via telepathic manipulation and murder.
Tessa Pazhel trained under Katashi, and also spent time in the demon realm in a relationship with Rhyzkahl. When she became pregnant, she was whisked back to Earth. Rhyzkahl’s memory of her was tweaked, and Xharbek altered Tessa’s memories to forget the demon realm and believe her pregnancy and stillborn baby was the result of a fling with a human. In truth, Xharbek stole the infant (Idris Palatino) to be fostered and groomed.
Shortly after Kara was born, Szerain surreptitiously transferred Elinor’s essence to her for safekeeping, as she was a good match. Kara lost her mother at an early age, and a few years later, Xharbek engineered her dad’s fatal “accident” to ensure Kara would become the ward of Tessa (her aunt.) He encouraged and manipulated Tessa to train Kara only in the rudiments of summoning, as he only needed a functional summoner, not a good summoner, for his schemes.
Szerain had a conflict with Xharbek (his ptarl) and managed to scatter him, breaking his essence into a billion pieces that would take time to recoalesce. As punishment and to contain him, Szerain was brutally submerged within the construct of FBI agent Ryan Kristoff and banished to Earth to live as a human. Zakaar, posing as Agent Zack Garner, acted as both his protector and jailer, and did his best to keep Szerain from going mad in submersion.
KARA, TREACHERY, AND MZATAL
Kara became a police officer and summoned demons in her basement summoning chamber. She accidentally summoned Rhyzkahl, who sensed the Elinor essence hidden within Kara. Wanting control of both, he seduced Kara and convinced her to become his sworn summoner.
She worked homicide cases with Ryan and Zack—and began to develop feelings for Ryan. She soon learned he was actually Szerain, though the Ryan consciousness didn’t know this. Meanwhile, her best friend, Jill Faciane, started dating Zack and became pregnant by him. Zack eventually confessed his true nature.
Suspecting treachery from Rhyzkahl, Mzatal and his summoner student Idris repeatedly tried to summon Kara to the demon realm, and eventually succeeded. Kara escaped to Rhyzkahl’s realm, discovering in the process that she had an affinity for and connection to the groves (Rho).
The Xharbek-aligned Mraztur—Rhyzkahl, Jesral, Amkir and, to a far lesser extent, Kadir—stole and perverted Szerain’s Rowan construct, with the intention of transforming Kara into a super-powerful thrall. During a horrific torture ritual, Rhyzkahl carved a sigil for each of the eleven lords—plus a twelfth “unifier” sigil—into her torso with his essence blade, Xhan. Mzatal managed to rescue her right before the ritual was finalized.
Mzatal trained her in the arcane, and they eventually developed a deep relationship. Kara learned that Elinor’s essence was attached to her own.
DESPERATE MEASURES
The Mraztur and Katashi captured Idris and took him to Earth, where they murdered his sister in a brutal ritual designed to subjugate him as well as activate Kara’s sigil scars to make her Rowan. They also attempted to use the valve system to travel between the planets but caused rampant instability.
To counter their machinations, Mzatal came to Earth with Kara and, while investigating valves, saved a young hacker (Paul Ortiz) and his bodyguard (Bryce Thatcher/Taggart) from associates of J.M. Farouche—a deeply crooked businessman and accomplice of the Mraztur.
Kara and her allies battled the Mraztur at the Farouche plantation. Unable to abide Rhyzkahl’s behavior any longer, Zakaar broke his ptarl bond with him—grievously shattering both while turning the tide of the battle in Kara’s favor. However, Idris was badly injured, and Mzatal released an arcane flare that nearly killed Paul. Kadir severed his already-loose ties with the Mraztur due to their utter disregard for interdimensional stability.
NO REST FOR THE WEARY
The battle was won, but the remaining Mraztur and Katashi continued their perversion of the valves in order to fulfill Xharbek’s drastic plan to rebalance potency levels regardless of the cost to Earth.
At the same time, the Mraztur’s ritual was gradually succeeding in activating Kara’s sigil scars. In a desperate and brilliant move, Szerain altered the twelfth “unifier” sigil—linking it to Jill and Zakaar’s unborn child—and allowed Kara to be briefly overtaken by the Rowan construct. He then stabbed her with his essence blade, withdrawing it just in time to remove Rowan but not kill Kara.
Kara learned that her aunt Tessa had lied to her and betrayed her in order to keep Kara under the control of Katashi and the Mraztur.
While trying to stop Katashi, Kara was attacked by Angus McDunn, who had the talent to enhance or diminish arcane abilities. He drained hers to near nothing but inexplicably (to Kara) left a fragment behind so she had a chance of recovering.
GROUND ZERO AND KATASHI’S DEFEAT
Katashi prepared to set off an arcane explosion in a valve in downtown Beaulac. Kara and her allies were trying—and failing—to stop them when Jill’s near-term baby (Ashava) teleported out of Jill in baby-dragon form and managed to keep the explosion localized rather than world-shattering, though mutagen from the ruptured valve still contaminated the area. Idris killed Katashi. Zakaar and Ryan/Szerain appeared and stole Ashava away to keep her safe from Xharbek. Jill was not pleased.
During the upheaval, Mzatal tethered Rhyzkahl to Kara’s nexus. This imprisonment allowed her to tap Rhyzkahl’s lord-powers, recover her own arcane abilities, and gain deep arcane insight—as well as come to terms with his ritual brutalization of her.
RIFTS AND COMPLICATIONS
When Jontari demons began forming rifts between the worlds and attacking Earth, Kara became the Arcane Commander of DIRT—Demonic Incursion Retaliation and Tactics.
Kara found out Xharbek held the living body of Elinor (sans essence) at a federal facility. Elinor’s lover, Giovanni, who was presumed killed along with her, also appeared on Earth and was brought to Kara. Meanwhile, some people who were exposed to the mutagen at ground zero began inexplicably sweating red goo before becoming encased in impenetrable pods.
During this time, Kara received upsetting and confusing intel that implied Tessa might have been manipulated and perhaps had not willingly betrayed Kara.
KARA’S DEMONIC PACT AND XHARBEK’S FURY
To rescue Elinor from Xharbek, Kara decided to summon Dekkak—a powerful Jontari Imperator demon. Xharbek tried to convince Dekkak to kill Kara, but Seretis offered himself to Dekkak as prisoner and slave in order to spare Kara’s life. Dekkak and Kara struck a deal: Dekkak would rescue Elinor and, in exchange, Kara had only a few months to recover the three essence blades and return them to the Jontari, or her life would be forfeit.
Kara made the pact. One of the compound guards, Bubba Suarez, volunteered to go with Dekkak as a hostage. After Elinor was rescued and her essence restored, Xharbek reacted with fury, intending to flood the Earth with rakkuhr. Kara and her allies managed to defeat Xharbek, and Mzatal, using two essence blades, scattered his essence, reducing him to a non-threat for the foreseeable future.
