“Is everything okay, Dr. Cambri?” the young woman asked, and Trisk took the clipboard.
“Saladan has a guest researcher coming in to facilitate the patent shift on the T4 Angel,” Trisk said stiffly as she scrawled her name across the bottom. “He needs your office and the terminal to the mainframe. I’m sorry about this.”
“That’s okay,” Angie said, the question of whether she’d seen Trisk and Rales arguing still ambiguous. “I’ve already got my desk emptied.”
Trisk frowned at the box of belongings by the door. “You’re taking this better than I am,” she said to try to explain away her anger. “Go on home. I’ll clear out the computer. There’re some sensitive files in there, and if there’s a problem, I don’t want it to fall back on you.”
Angie nodded, accepting that. “It’s going to be okay, isn’t it, Dr. Cambri?” she asked again, her expression pinched in worry, and Trisk managed a thin smile.
“Of course. He’ll only be here for a few weeks.” But she didn’t believe it. Her fingers began to twitch, and she hid them in her lab coat pockets.
“Okay,” Angie said, clearly not believing it, either. “I’m going to bug out then, unless there’s something else you need. See you Monday.”
“Monday,” Trisk echoed, her hands now in fists as Angie gathered her things and left.
Trisk didn’t move until she heard Angie’s cheerful good-night to George. Frowning, she locked the door to the hall, then strode to the adjoining office, yanking the door open and going into the spacious but nearly empty room. Immediately she pulled the blinds that looked out onto the hall, then locked the main door as well.
Wincing at the grinding squeak, she pushed the desk all the way to the wall to leave an open space half circled by built-in terminals that overlooked the tomato field. Kal might have been sent here to check her work, but he would try to steal it, change it enough that he would feel justified in relegating her to the footnotes. She’d be lucky to be listed as his assistant in the history books. But Trisk was a Cambri, damn it, and they never gave up.
In her flowed the blood of dark warriors who’d stood and killed demons when others fled. It was said that it had been a Cambri who learned how to travel the ley lines and escape the ever-after. Her kin had carried the survivors to safety, and because of that, she had one more card to play.
Nervous, she checked both doors again. It was after sundown. Demons couldn’t be summoned when the sun was up and the natural energy flow of the ley lines was contrary.
“Okay, let’s see how useful that minor in demon studies is,” she whispered as she took a key from her keychain and opened a locked cabinet. It was empty but for a cardboard box loosely closed by its interlocking flaps.
Her motions slowed as she took it out and set it on the displaced desk. With a methodical reverence, she pulled the flaps, stifling a sneeze at the dust. Peering inside, she exhaled in relief. Everything was still there. Gaining help from the same species who’d cursed the elves’ genetic code into a slow, cascading decay would be a chancy game of truth and misdirection. She had the basics, but even her professor didn’t have a demon name to summon one with. Demon summoning wasn’t illegal, just foolish, which was probably why the university hadn’t minded her minoring in the dead-end study.
Trisk’s fingers shook as she draped the purple satin ribbon around her neck, the tails brushing the top of her lab coat’s pocket. It was for show, but any form of protection was appreciated. Still inside was a jewelry box full of sea salt, a candle, a stick of magnetic chalk, and a small jar of cremation dust from her grandmother: all definitely not for show.
It was the cremation dust that was the most valuable, not so much for the cremains themselves, but for the small stone she’d found among the ashes when she’d accidentally broken the original container. Trisk was betting her grandmother had swallowed it before she’d died, a gift to whatever family member might find it. The river-worn stone was engraved with a long, complicated word Trisk hadn’t found in any dictionary or encyclopedia. It had to be the name of the demon her grandmother was rumored to have been able to summon.
“This is so stupid,” she whispered as the magnetic chalk rolled to the metal stapler sitting on the desktop and stuck. But her fear of what Kal would do was greater, and she pulled the chalk free and turned to the open floor.
Breath held, Trisk scribed a six-foot-diameter circle, practice making it absolutely perfect. Hesitating, she went over it again to make sure the holes were filled. Still not trusting it, she made a second, larger circle around the chalk line with the salt. Salt was cheap, her life was not, but if her grandmother was brave enough to summon a demon, she could be, too.
“Thank you, Grandma,” she said as she carefully shook a tablespoon of ash into the center to attract the demon. Stretching, Trisk set the candle beside it before rising to wash any hint of ash from herself. The candle was there to direct the demon to the pile of ash and not any residue on her hands, but why take chances?
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought as she stood before her double circle and shook out her hands. Exhaling, she stretched out her awareness for the strongest ley line. It wasn’t always the closest, and here on the coast, it was rarely the same one from day to day. Small quakes disturbed them, making the connection unreliable and chancy.
Settling on one outside Sacramento, she pulled the energy into her to fuel a hard-won, often-practiced series of mental gymnastics. Reaching out, she pinched the wick of the candle. “In fidem recipere,” she whispered as she released both the wick and the energy swirling through her. The candle flickered and steadied, the pure scent of wax rising unsullied by the hint of sulfur. It was set with her will, and would be stronger than one lit using a match or lighter.