Free Sins of the Demon by Diana Rowland Page B

poor widdle fuzzywuzzykins! Were you scared by that silly flying lady? You poor baby. Mommy will protect you and make it all better! Oh yes, she will!”
    After a few seconds of reassurance she set the catdown, then turned to gaze down the driveway, a mixture of unease and anger in her expression. “The danger to you grows. Yet I am not convinced this attempt is connected to the attack from earlier this morning.”
    “It’s fucked up, no matter what,” I said, leaning back against my house. This was the fourth time I’d barely escaped being summoned. Two weeks ago I’d been walking to my car after getting groceries when I’d felt that blast of icy wind. Eilahn had appeared out of nowhere, tossed me into the backseat of my car, and taken off like a bat out of hell—leaving behind a grocery cart filled with a week’s worth of food. “Am I wrong, or does it seem like whoever’s doing this is getting better at it? I used to be able to just run away from it. This one felt like it was right on top of me no matter what.”
    She turned to me, worry darkening her eyes. “You are not wrong. With each attempt they refine the summoning. I do not think it will be possible to simply run from them anymore. It would not have worked this time, save that I was able to quickly get you within strong wards. Soon it will take only seconds to lock onto you and bring you through.”
    The words were like a punch in the gut. “So, basically, if I step outside the safety of wards, I risk being summoned?” I heard the anger in my voice, and I hoped she knew it wasn’t directed at her.
    Eilahn shook her head. “No, they will not be able to attempt another summoning for a while. It is not a constant threat.”
    “Define ‘a while.’ ”
    “A dozen hours at least.”
    I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay, that’s not thecheery news it could have been. I was really hoping for several
days
at the very minimum. Or years.”
    Eilahn’s expression remained grave. “I truly wish I had more encouraging news for you. But it is not a completely hopeless situation. The house is warded, and I will complete the warding on your place of work tonight.” She reached down and helped me to my feet. I was glad of the assistance as I discovered all the places that were going to have impressive bruises by tomorrow. “There are also other…options,” she said.
    “Such as?”
    She released me as soon as she was certain I wasn’t going to topple right back over. “There may be certain physical artifacts that can aid in shielding you. Plus, you can continue to work on the mental exercises I showed you.”
    I made a face as I hobbled my way inside and down the hall to the kitchen. “Those are more unpleasant than your lessons in falling.” Eilahn had been trying to teach me a way to turn my
othersight
inward in order to cloak my arcane signature, but all I’d managed to do so far was give myself spectacular headaches. It was like the “imagine a white wall” trick to the nth degree, and I had a feeling it was something that came far more easily to demon minds than my own.
    “I will attempt to locate an artifact,” Eilahn said. “But the best hope is that Lord Rhyzkahl will be able to determine who is seeking to interfere.”
    Interfere
. That was a nice way of putting it. Someone in the demon realm was attempting to summon me—bring me through in the same way that I was able to summon the creatures native to that world. The scary part—for me at least—was that if I were to be successfullysummoned, the summoner would most assuredly be powerful enough to bind me to his will, make me a slave. If I wasn’t simply killed outright, that is.
    I really had no idea whether the ultimate goal was to kill me or not.
And why did the
graa
attack me? What was its goal?
    I sank into a chair at the kitchen table and clasped my hands together in my lap to hide the fact that they were shaking slightly. Not sure why I was bothering, since the
syraza
was