“Cut it out, Roman,” Tracy snapped. “She needs to be alive and conscious.”

Roman grabbed my arm and jerked me to my feet, frog-marched me to the center of the diagram and then dumped me in the middle. “I financed this whole thing because with this gate I can be a summoner as well. Then I won’t need those fuckers at ESPN or anyone else.” He backed out of the diagram and folded his arms across his chest.

I gave a dry laugh and shifted my attention to Tracy. “Is that what you told him? That’s hysterical.”

Roman’s eyes narrowed but Tracy just shook his head. “Don’t listen to her, Roman. You’ll see for yourself in just a few minutes.” He holstered his gun and then lifted his hands, eyes unfocusing briefly. Queasiness hit me, and I had no doubt he was activating the diagram. I couldn’t see the energies, but I was quite sure that he was getting things started.

Roman smiled. “I’m not a summoner, Kara. But I do have sensitivity to the arcane—enough to allow me to work the gate. That sensitivity is one of the reasons I was drawn to you, though I didn’t realize it at the time. It wasn’t until I met Tracy, and we became friends, that I figured it out. He’s the one who told me I didn’t have to sit on the sidelines. And after the Symbol Man murders he knew you were a summoner.” He gave an ugly laugh. “You were an obvious choice.”

The queasiness grew a fraction, and Tracy’s forehead furrowed in concentration. Clearly he was expecting something to happen, and it wasn’t. “But he was wrong, Roman,” I said, shrugging. “I’m not a summoner.” I gestured around me at the diagram. “The gate would be open if I was, right?”

“Don’t listen to her!” Tracy snarled. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face despite the chill in the building. “She is a summoner. You know she is! It’s just taking longer to open than I expected.” His eyes snapped to mine. “The focus. You destroyed the focus.” His lip curled. “Doesn’t matter. I can still do this without it.”

“But you still need a summoner,” I said, acting a hell of a lot more casual than I felt.

Roman shifted, frowned. “Are you sure about this, Tracy?”

“She’s a goddamn summoner!” he shouted, fury suffusing his face. “Now shut the fuck up and let me do this!”

I took a deep breath. This was going to suck. Hard. “If I was a summoner, I wouldn’t be able to walk out of this diagram.”

Tracy’s eyes widened. “You’re bluffing,” he said. Then he sneered. “Badly, too. You’d be torn apart. You wouldn’t risk that.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I wouldn’t.” Come on cuff, don’t fail me now, I thought as I walked out of the circle.

Okay, the first step was walking, the second and third were stumbling as the nausea slammed into me. It was gone as soon as I was past the outer perimeter, but I fell to my hands and knees in front of Tracy and puked on his shoes anyway.

He gave a shout of horror and dismay as he leaped back, then he looked to the diagram. “I don’t understand,” he said, utterly flabbergasted. “I know you’re a summoner.” He shook his head as if trying to get his thoughts to fall properly into place. “And even if you’re not, the wards should have dropped you.”

Shakily, I wiped my mouth and got back to my feet. “Yeah, well, I’m clever that way. Now why don’t you be a good boy and shut this thing down before someone gets hurt.” As if to underscore my point the sound of gunshots came to us from the foyer.

“This is bullshit!” Roman seethed, rounding on Tracy. “You promised me!”

Tracy held up a hand, still staring at me. “It’s impossible. I had you assessed. There’s no way you can simply stop being a summoner.” He shook his head. “We don’t have a choice. They make sure we become summoners.”

A weird chill ran down my spine. “What are you talking about? Who’s ‘they?’ ”

He gave a dry and tortured laugh. “The lords. Come on, now. You haven’t figured this out? If your dad hadn’t died, do you think you’d have ever become a summoner? You wouldn’t have been mentored by your aunt—who conveniently left Japan and returned here in order to raise poor, orphaned you.”

The breath froze in my chest. “My dad was killed by a drunk driver.”

Tracy snorted. He was beginning to recover his composure now. “Right. Have you ever looked at the accident report? I have. He shouldn’t have died in that wreck.”

I swallowed hard. Of course I’d never read the report. Why the hell would I torture myself like that? “Why…why would they do that?”

His eyes grew dark with unshielded agony. I suddenly wondered if the death of his mother had truly been a suicide. “Because without us they have no way to return.”

“Return? What—”

“Fuck this!” Roman snarled, cutting me off. “Show me how to work the goddamn gate, and then these lords can have one more summoner on their payroll.”

“No, shut up, Roman!” I said, eyes on Tracy. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t tell me to shut up, bitch!” Roman shouted. “Tracy, hurry up and make me a goddamn summoner!”

Tracy leveled a glare at him. “Don’t be stupid. You can’t be a summoner.” His hand dropped to his gun, and I had zero doubt that Roman was about to die.

But I’d forgotten that Roman was strong and fast as hell. Before any of us could blink he’d knocked the gun aside and tackled Tracy. Roman wrenched the gun from Tracy’s hand with the accompanying sound of breaking bones, wrenching a scream of pain from Tracy. “Doesn’t matter,” Roman said through gritted teeth. “You are a summoner, and I’m going to get my fucking gate no matter what!” With that he stood, holding Tracy in a bear hug from behind and headed to the diagram.

“No!” I shouted, leaping toward Roman to yank him back from the circle. “It’s active!” I grabbed onto his arm to try to stop him, but I might as well have been a mosquito on an elephant.

Tracy kicked and twisted, but Roman was still one strong son of a bitch. He flung Tracy into the diagram just as the doors burst open behind us. I turned away and ducked as Tracy let out a spiraling scream of horror and agony. The scream abruptly cut off, and I quickly covered my head to shield myself from the spatter of gore as the energies of the gate shredded Tracy as effectively as if Roman had thrown him into a jet engine intake.

A silence fell, broken only by my ragged breathing and the sick, wet plop of stuff I didn’t want to look at. I cautiously looked up as Ryan and Zack ran forward, then got back to my feet, and reluctantly turned to look back at the carnage. The diagram itself looked untouched, but surrounding it was a corona of blood and flesh, no piece bigger than a fingernail. I fought back a surge of nausea, abruptly thankful that there was nothing left in my stomach to throw up. I’d seen grisly scenes before, but this was beyond horrific. I’d never quite grasped just how much gore one human body could make.

Seeking to distract myself, I grimaced down at my coat—now covered with blood and bits of Tracy. Shuddering, I yanked the zipper down and shrugged it off. Not sure if I could bear to wear it again, even if I could get the gore cleaned off. I resisted the urge to run my fingers through my hair. I wasn’t ready to face Tracy-parts mingled with my split ends.

“Take him into custody,” I told Ryan, jerking my chin toward Roman. “I’ll find a way to pin these murders on him if it’s the last fucking thing I do.”

Roman didn’t resist. He too was spattered in gore, and he seemed to be frozen in shock. “You might want to hose him off first,” I added. And me as well. Though a brief assessment seemed to indicate that my coat had taken the worst of it. My poor, beautiful coat. Yes, I’m worrying about my coat. Better than thinking about what just happened.

I started to inspect the coat to see if it was salvageable, but I froze as a tremor shook the floor.

“Kara,” Zack said, standing a few feet from the diagram. “We have a problem.”

“The gate,” I breathed, cold clenching my gut. I couldn’t see the energies of the portal, but I could imagine what they looked like. Under normal circumstances the gate could have held steady until a summoner closed it down properly, but when Roman threw Tracy into it, the whole structure had unbalanced. Like an uneven load of laundry in a washing machine. “How bad is it?” I asked. “Won’t it just collapse in on itself?”

Zack shook his head, face stricken as he turned back to me. “No. I mean, yes, but the backlash of the power.…” He swallowed visibly. “Kara, it could wipe out everything in a mile radius.”

My mouth went dry. There was a school only a couple of blocks away. Subdivisions, businesses. “A summoner needs to shut it down,” I said, barely hearing myself over the pounding of my heart. “How long do we have?”

“Only a few minutes,” he replied, voice cracking.

I nodded. Not enough time to get Tessa here.

“Wait,” Ryan demanded. “Zack, how can you be sure? Kara, I know what you’re thinking. If you take the cuff off, you’ll be summoned! Have you forgotten that someone in the demon realm is still after you?”

“I haven’t forgotten. But would that stop you?” I challenged.

“Fuck.” He closed his eyes, shook his head. “No.”

“If I work quickly, I might be able to get this shut down before a summoning gets a lock on me.” I moved to the edge of the diagram, glanced back at the two agents. “Here goes.”

I slipped off the cuff and dropped it behind me, then nearly staggered at the force of the energies raging around the diagram. Damn good thing I’d destroyed the focus. I didn’t even want to think how bad it would be if I hadn’t. But as bad as it was, this was—first and foremost—a portal, and all I needed to do was ground it and release the power safely. And that was one of the first things I’d had Rhyzkahl teach me.