Demonsense (Demonsense series Book 1) (44 page)

Gelsenim’s eyes burned in his pale, ill looking face. He licked his lips, hesitating, and Daniel raised his other fist. “No, Master,” he answered, “that was not required. They were different from you, but it is required of you, of all humans we possess, or we persist in the hunger. I do not remember anything but the world of the Seldenai and this world. I know of no alternative.”

“Any news of Hunter?” Daniel asked shortly.

“None,” the demon replied.

“Then go!” Daniel ordered. A truculent frown twisted Gelsenim's lips. His form wavered, then stabilized. A line of sweat snaked down the side of Daniel's face, and he raised both fists and squeezed. "Depart!"
 

The demon's frown morphed into a smile. "Funny, I don't feel like going. This bash is just getting started." He took a few swaggering steps towards Bree. "What's wrong, my sweet? You were so deliciously hot just a moment ago. Did Daniel leave you unsatisfied? I think I'll possess him. We'll be able to take care of you then."

Terror didn't leave her, but rage roared up inside her, nearly drowning it out. "You know, I've just about had it with you. I am sick to death of your threats," she snarled. "I've had it with all you fucking demons." She raised her fists as well. "Gelsenim, I command you, depart!"

The demon misted out around the edges, and his expression flew from menace, to confusion, to dismay, then to satisfaction as his form solidified again. He gave her a nasty smile. "Well now, isn't that interesting. The wench is fighting back. This is going to be even more fun than I thought."

Oh shit
, Bree thought just as Daniel snapped, "Oh no it's not. I
command
you to depart."

"I do believe you're a wee bit tired, Daniel. Or maybe you want me to stay." His orange eyes narrowed. "You do, don't you? You want me to possess you so you can take her, and keep taking her. You want to fuck her until she burns up, until there's nothing left of her, nothing to hurt you, to make you weak."
 

"Nice try," Daniel allowed, voice brittle, "but I'm not that tired." He slammed his fists together. "Gelsenim, I command you! I am your master! Depart!" Gelsenim's form flared with light and heat. He morphed back to his demon form, teeth bared, eyes blazing, but then he faded entirely and vanished in a wash of steam.

Daniel swayed a moment, then sat down hard on the bed, hunched over with his arms wrapped protectively around his middle. “That was very, very close,” he whispered. After a long moment, he straightened a bit and looked up at her, face strained. “You have to get out of here. I’m not in control of myself, and I’m pouring so much into the finder spell that I’m not sure I can control Gelsenim any more either. He was inches from breaking away just now. It’s not safe for you here.”

Bree couldn't frame a reply. Her fury was evaporating, leaving behind jittery irritation and a sense of teetering on the brink of overwhelm.
 

When she didn't respond, he continued. “I don’t know if what’s wrong with me is permanent, but I can tell you it’s not a good sign that I inadvertently called Gelsenim. And it sure as hell's not a good sign that I almost bound you. It’s time for you to go.”

The confusion in her head cleared. “Not until we find Hunter.”
 

“There’s really no way you can help.”
 

“That’s where you’re wrong.” She walked over and stood in front of him, tried to get him to look at her. “I triggered a loss of control by doing body work on you, but I also helped you reel it back in. And that means the monitoring thing is working."

"Okay, fine, but..."

"And if I wasn't here, you would have kept pushing it. You're just as freaked out as I am about what they might be doing to Hunter." Tears welled up, and she impatiently wiped at them with the backs of her hands. "With your arrogance and your damned obsessive streak, you'd worked yourself to death. Literally."
 

His lips compressed, but he didn't deny it so she pushed on. “I’m getting enough of a feel for your patterns now that it doesn’t take a deep read to know when you're getting out of balance. That'll help keep things from getting too crazy again."
 

"Too crazy? That's what you call it? Jesus Christ Bree, I completely snapped, then I gave in to something, did something that I promised myself I wouldn't do. I'm not someone you should be in an intimate relationship with, not with Demon Master instability hanging over my head. And then I called Gelsenim, and he nearly possessed me. I guarantee you would have ended up raped and murdered if that had happened," he finished harshly.
 

And she couldn't deny
that.
It really had been that close. For whatever reason, the demon's recent near reasonableness had vanished, and he was back to being bent on violence and mayhem. She nearly gave up then. God knew she wanted to give up, but that strange certainty that she was right, that she shouldn't leave him at this point just wouldn't go away. "Well, it didn't happen. Nothing bad actually happened. Both of us had a scare, and we made out, and then you had the strength to banish Gelsenim."

He clenched his fists in frustration. "God, you're stubborn! What part of 'I'm losing it' don't you understand? Because that's what's happening here, and I don't know why! There are Demon Masters who have regular contact with demons for years before going crazy. Even Franchesca has some remnants of sanity, and she’s been at it for fifteen years!”
 

Bree froze in concentration at that. He was right. “How long does it usually take for a Demon Master to become seriously unbalanced?”

Her question appeared to catch him off guard. Either that, or his exhaustion was finally catching up to him. Some of the frustration left his face, and he slanted her a considering look. "It depends on how much contact they have with demons, what level of demons, and how often they let the demons possess them. And even all that isn’t a clear predictor. Some go down within a couple of years, some last as long as twenty."
 

"Shouldn't having such strong Demon Master talent make it likely for you to last longer?”

“I suppose it should, but it doesn’t seem to be working that way. Maybe I’m particularly vulnerable for some other reason.”

“Wait, wait a minute,” Bree said as a murky idea took more solid shape. “What Gelsenim said before, about how there was, what did he call it? A ‘close compatibility of energy.’ Maybe it’s this particular demon that’s getting to you. He seems to think you're like those Seldenai he was talking about. Maybe he’s wanting some kind of symbiosis with you, and that makes him interact with you differently, affect you differently.”

Daniel closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It looked to Bree like he was fighting down anger. “That does make a certain kind of sense," he finally conceded in measured tones. "But there’s no real way to know why this is happening. What I do know is that I have never, ever, lost it like that before.”
 

She crossed her arms and rubbed at them briskly. Her body temperature was dropping in an after reaction to stress. “Look, it's my choice. I'm choosing to take the risk of staying here. I'm doing it more for Hunter than for you. You might not be the only one with a chance to find him, but I think you have a better than even chance of pulling it off. And it couldn't be more clear that you need someone here to keep you out of trouble." She pushed painfully up to her feet. "Any danger to either of us is going to be a hell of a lot less if you get some sleep."

He pushed his hands through his hair. “God knows I'm beyond exhausted."
 

Bree felt a tired satisfaction. She could tell she'd won. He wouldn't fight her any more, at least not right now.

"Just promise me this." He looked up at her, and steel sparked in his dark eyes. "If I start to get moody again, you call me on it, and I'll rest and meditate."

"That's what you should have been doing all along." It was a dig, but she was too tired to resist the impulse.
 

“Fair enough. If my energy starts to go dark like that again, you run. If Gelsenim shows up again without my calling him, you run. Swear it."
 

"If your energy goes dark again, I'll leave. But I can't promise to leave if Gelsenim shows up again. If he succeeds in possessing you, the damage you could do would be, well, very bad," she finished inadequately.
 

"You can't master him, and I could bind you to keep from trying to exorcise him. So what good would it do for you to stay?"

There was an edge to his voice that told her his control was slipping again. She almost backed down then. But then a good argument came to her. "Back at my office, when Gelsenim possessed you, I helped you fight him. And since then, it seems I'm sprouting some kind of Demon Master talent. You saw what happened a minute ago. Gelsenim came close to following my command to leave."

Daniel gave her a sharp look, and she felt a grim stab of satisfaction. He wasn't going to be able to argue that one.
 

"I told you I'd leave if you seem like you're about to snap again. That's all you're going to get."

He straightened up, and a speculative look passed quickly across his face. Bree got the distinct sense that he'd just considered then discarded the idea of binding her and ordering her to leave. Then he sighed and rolled over onto his side, pulling the bedspread over him. "Don't let me sleep for long.”

Bree carefully let out the breath she'd been holding. “I’ll wake you in a couple of hours.”
 

She turned to go to the bathroom without further comment. When she came out, Daniel was already asleep. She was going to have to lie down next to him as the finder spell elements were spread out on the other bed. Carefully, trying not to disturb him, she crawled under the covers and settled down facing away from him. She tried to pretend he wasn't lying less than a foot away. She saw that it was after midnight as she reached for the bedside clock to set the alarm for five a.m. She knew Daniel would be pissed that she let him sleep that long, but she knew even that much sleep wasn't nearly enough. Even the fucking Keltoi had to sleep, right? With a weary sigh, she closed her eyes.

Bree woke up in muddled confusion, hand groping on the bedside table, trying to find and quell the insistent beeping of the alarm. Finally, she connected and the miserable thing stopped. She felt the bed move as Daniel got up, and he disappeared into the bathroom. She lay back and mustered up her Reader sense, and then her Demonsense to scan the area for Keltoi or possessed, and found nothing.

After a few more precious moments under the covers, Bree got it together enough to order breakfast from room service.
 

They exchanged nothing more than brief “good mornings” as Daniel came out of the bathroom and she went in to take her turn. When she finished cleaning up and got out, breakfast had arrived. Daniel ate steadily, in silence, and Bree didn't press him to talk as she filled a plate for herself. There was an inward, meditative look about him. She felt like he wasn't really registering her presence, and thought that was probably deliberate. He glanced at her only briefly as he finished eating and stood up. "I'm focusing on the work," he said quietly.

"I know," she responded.
 

After breakfast, she tried again to read her book. It infuriated her that her eyes kept being drawn to Daniel, and not just in concern over his energy readings. She felt ridiculous as she once again vowed to keep her distance from him. Yeah, that'd worked out real well so far. After she'd read the same page for about the tenth time, she tossed the book aside, did another scan, then sat down to meditate.

She could feel periodic swells of magic as Daniel worked on the finder spell. After about an hour, he got up to stretch, and that brought her out of the relatively calm state she'd finally achieved. Bree approached him and said, "I'd like to do a deeper read on you."

"Go ahead," he replied, eyes averted.
 

She felt a flutter of nerves, then centered and started the read. She stood close, but didn't touch him. His base energy was better than she expected, and a little stronger than his will energy. There was still that layer of dark energy, but it seemed quiet and was down a few levels, at least that's how she conceptualized it. "I think you should stop a minute and eat some more, even if you don't feel hungry," Bree told him, though she would have like nothing better than to be able to tell him he was fine and could continue.

"But I'm close to..." He stopped and shook his head. "Right. Monitoring."

He sat down and finished up the last of the sausage and pancakes, then got back to work.

He completed two more parts of the spell over the next two hours, though he seemed to be struggling several times like he had last night. She told him to take another break, and he did, stopping for a twenty-minute nap. When he awoke, he went straight back to work, and after another forty minutes, he stopped and told her he was getting close to being done. "Why don't you check in with Kevin, see if there's any more news?"

Bree nodded and took her phone into the bathroom to avoid disturbing Daniel as he got back down to work.
 

"The Keltoi finally sent out terms for another exchange," Kevin told her. "Javier's pretty pissed that Daniel's gone AWOL. He had to act like Daniel had agreed. It's a good thing we were speaking by phone. I think if he'd been here to read me, he'd know I was lying when I told him I didn't know where Daniel was."

"Does he know Daniel's working on a finder spell?"

"Yeah, I said I got a message from Daniel about that. He told me not to get my hopes up too high, that finder spells fail a lot more often than they work. He seemed to think it would take two days at least to put together one with a hope of working."

"Daniel says he's nearly done," Bree replied, leaning against the bathroom counter.

 
"Then we're coming down."

"You mean here? To the hotel?"

"Yes, to the hotel," Kevin said firmly. "Steve and I are not going to wait on the sidelines anymore. If the spell works, we're going with you to get Hunter."