Demon Master (Demonsense series Book 2) (73 page)

He is far too powerful, and too experienced in casting,
Gelsenim said.
And you are damaged.
His voice in her mind was worried in a way she hadn't heard from him before.

Yeah, well, so is he. Hide your signature, as best you can,
Bree prompted Gelsenim.

I have already done so, my host.

Either Varga was more tapped out that he looked, or his Demonsense wasn't all that strong. She had to distract him while she worked out what to do. "Now you're not giving me a chance to talk. You're going to write me off based on the look on my face? I need a little more than you saying you're looking out for the powered's best interests before I come over to your side. Just exactly how do you plan to take down the Ecclesias? Because that's what it would take for the powered to come out."

How can I kill him?
she asked Gelsenim.

If you freeze him quickly enough, and can find a rock, you could perhaps break his skull.
The demon's voice had calmed. Maybe he thought she could get it done. The thought was horrifying, but it was her fault Daniel hadn't succeeded, and now it was up to her. She prepared the form of the freeze spell in her mind.

Varga opened his mouth to reply.
 

"Freeze!" Bree shouted, and cast the spell.
 

And it worked. Varga froze, mouth open in mid sentence. Bree glanced around frantically for a rock, but she didn't see one. She trotted through the trees in the direction the others had gone, scanning the ground, and looking ahead. Still no sign of them, and no sign of a rock either.
 

She ran back to Varga. His hands twitched and his eyes moved. Her spell was wearing off. Hesitating only a second, she barreled into him, sending him to the ground. She'd hit him at an angle, and he landed on his back, eyes staring straight up, past her. "Freeze!" she re-cast with a hand against his chest, and the effort made her dizzy and weak. Could she smother him somehow? Maybe with her coat?

A branch, my host, quickly.

That was it. Varga had already been injured by a falling branch. She ran back to the clearing, snatched up the first solid looking branch she found, and ran back to Varga. He was raising a hand to shield. "Freeze!" she re-cast frantically.
 

It worked, but her vision went black and she stumbled and went down on one knee. How did the man still have that much strength in him, after the duel? He really was as strong as Daniel. She had to hurry. If she had to cast freeze again, she might pass out.

She got back to her feet, braced the branch against the ground and kicked down on it, hard. It snapped, leaving a raggedly pointed end. Bree gripped it in both hands, moved next to Varga, and placed it on the left side of his chest, over where she thought his heart would be. She'd have to shove it in as hard as she could. But did she have the strength to get it into his body? And did she have the courage to even try?

His mouth twitched, just a little. It was now or never.
 

And then she made the mistake of looking at Varga's eyes. In the dim light, there was something to their shape, and their expression, that looked just like Daniel. She tried to think of the images from the bombing, of Kevin lying bleeding on the sidewalk, but she kept seeing Daniel in the angles of his face. Her sweat slicked hands gripped harder on the branch.

Do you wish me to take control of you, my host?
Gelsenim asked, voice reluctant. It was that very reluctance that made her pause. She thought of Gelsenim as he'd been when last she called him. He'd said he wasn't feeling any violent impulses. Now she was preparing to bring those old impulses to the surface. She was going to force him to corrupt himself further because she was too cowardly to kill Varga on her own.
 

I have done much harm. Is one more murder so important?

Murder. She was about to murder someone. She couldn't bring herself to have Gelsenim take control and do it. Hadn't she been fighting her whole adult life against just this kind of thing, demons possessing people and making them do terrible things? And if she murdered someone, in cold blood, how was she any better than Varga?

She couldn't do it. She couldn't kill the man lying helpless at her feet. She didn't have it in her.
 

I would do it for you, my host,
Gelsenim said softly.

And that decided her. She couldn't have Gelsenim do it either.

She bent over and said, right into Varga's face, "I beat you, Varga. If this were a formal challenge, I'd have the right to all your clan holdings. I want you to remember that. And remember what I said about Daniel. That hiding spell you're so excited over drove him insane."

His lips twitched again, and Bree realized that if she wasn't going to kill him, she had better run.
 

It is dangerous to leave Varga alive. You should have let me kill him.

I couldn't do that to you,
Bree replied, hand pressed to her chest. Her heart was hurting again. She suspected it had never stopped, but she'd been too distracted there for a bit to notice it.
 

I'm not certain my virtue is worth protecting.
Gelsenim took human form and reached out, took the branch from her and tossed it aside. "But it is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.” He picked her up and Bree looked at Varga over his shoulder. His hands were twitching again.

"You better hurry, he's coming around," she said. She put her arms around Gelsenim’s neck and let her head fall against his chest. He carried her in the direction of her car, where she'd parked it in the neighborhood bordering on the park, and after a few strides, broke into a run.

"I don't know what's right anymore, Gelsenim," she said tiredly. Her chest seemed to be hurting more, not less, and she was more tired than her limited use of magic would explain. It had to be the results of the attack on her heart that were affecting her. She wondered, weakly, if she’d had a heart attack. She felt a powerful need to close her eyes, and she did. She gradually registered that she was crying, even though she'd thought she was numb. She dreaded what she would feel once she had the energy to really beat herself up over her choices.
 

She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, Gelsenim was lowering her into the passenger seat of her car. "Oh no you don't. You are not driving my car."

"It is a perfectly simple task. I have driven a car while in possession of a host many times. It cannot be much different." He pulled the seat belt across her, and she noticed for the first time that he'd manifested wearing black, presumably the better to blend into the shadows. He shut the car door, went around the back of the car, then got in on the driver's side and put the keys in the ignition.
 

"Put on your seatbelt," Bree prompted sleepily.
 

"I suspect I could reform this body into a non-injured form were we to get into an accident," Gelsenim replied, but he did as she asked. "I will take you to the home of your friend Sophie. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes, thank you." Bree fell asleep again, and then Sophie was there, pulling open the car door. She heard Gelsenim explain what Varga had done to her, the attack on her heart.

 
"We're taking you to the emergency room," Sophie told her as she stood up from where she had bent over Bree to examine her. "Bruce, how about you drive? I'm not sure, ah, Gelsenim should be driving."
 

"Oh God, do I really have to go to the hospital?" Bree asked weakly.

"When it comes to possible damage to your heart, yes, you have to," Sophie said firmly. She shut the door, and got in back, while Bruce got into the driver seat and started the car.
 

I have let go of my physical body,
Gelsenim said inside her head.
Your friends appear to find my physical presence alarming.

Thanks,
she sent back tiredly.

"So is what Gelsenim told us right? Daniel went divided?"

"Bruce, this isn't the time for questions," Sophie chided.

"Yes, he really went divided," Bree answered anyway. "Franchesca got in his head and did something to him to push him over the edge. But it's really my fault. It's all my fault."

"Shh, sweetie, enough," Sophie told her. "You've been through a lot. Just let us take care of you for now. We can talk about all this later."

Bree got quick service in the E.R. when Sophie announced she'd had a heart attack. Bree thought guiltily that it might not be true, and worried she might be jumping the line in front of someone who might be in more immediate need, but Sophie insisted. Her EKG was abnormal, that much Bree registered of what the doctor told her, but it wasn't quite consistent with a heart attack either. She was admitted for further testing, and both Sophie and Bruce stayed with her. Gelsenim left quite reluctantly once she was settled into a room and wanted to sleep again. She promised to call him again the next day.

The rest of the night was a blur. Bree slept between EKGs, blood tests, and visits from the nurse to check her vitals. Bruce left in the morning to go feed Hanroi for her, and Sophie went down to the cafeteria to get some breakfast. That was when Kevin showed up.
 

He was still in the hospital, and Steve wheeled him up to Bree's floor in a wheelchair. Kevin was looking more like himself. His color was much better, his glasses were back on, and while he looked thinner somehow, he also looked much more alert than the last time Bree had seen him.
 

"Hon, why don't you go join Sophie for breakfast?" Kevin told Steve.
 

"I get it. Time for the powered pow wow," Steve replied. He kissed Bree on the forehead and gave a jaunty wave as he left the room.
 

"He keeps trying to be cheerful," Kevin told Bree apologetically. "He's looking to make up for all our doom and gloom." He wheeled forward a little so he could take her hand. "Bruce gave me the basics, but I'd like to hear from you what happened to Daniel, if you're up to telling me."

Bree released Kevin's hand and looked away. Meeting Kevin's eyes while confessing how badly her miscalculations had hurt Daniel was impossible. The feeling of shame was the only feeling to break through the numbness she’d felt since awakening that morning.
 

"It was almost exactly as Gelsenim predicted," she told him woodenly. "There was some sudden, major shift, and it was like he had no conscience. He killed a man without a thought. I'm pretty sure it was Jim Scanlon's father, so he would have been Hunter's biological grandfather. And his energy went dark, completely dark. The closest thing to that I know about is getting demon burned, but that takes time, and not everyone ends up completely dark powered with that. Crazy maybe, but not always evil. But this..." She shuddered. "Do you think he always had that in him? All along?"

Kevin took the time to consider it seriously, then shook his head. "Not like you mean, no. I don't think he had a side to him that was evil, or without a conscience, not more than there is in anyone. I think he has a lot of anger, a lot of hurt, and a lot of self-hatred. And let's face it, there is some innate darkness to Demon Master and Binder energies. Maybe there's been some negative effect on him of all the years of blocking just those abilities."
 

"That's what I've been thinking, that the hiding spell has had a bad effect on him. But to go so far wrong, so quickly, it's just bizarre."

"We're in new territory here. That's always been Daniel's genius, to come up with completely novel solutions. And there's always a risk in that."

"But Daniel told me not to come, he told me it could make him unstable. If only I hadn't been there..." Bree rejoined.

Kevin sighed and settled back tiredly in his chair. "There's been risk in every choice we've made in all of this. It was a risk for us to get involved in helping the Keepers with the riots. It was a risk for Daniel to take on Varga. All the demon research has been a risk. Daniel was never one to shy away from taking chances, and honestly, Bree, it's been good to see you more willing to take a few yourself. I don't think it's really in you to hide out the way you did after Seth's death. You're more of a take action person."
 
Bree crossed her arms over her stomach and looked away, but Kevin continued on. "I'm heartsick over Daniel, but you can't expect me to judge you for something I would have done myself if I'd been able. It was arrogant, and crazy, and just plain suicidal for Daniel to take on Varga without any back-up plan."

There was a span of silence while Bree took in what Kevin had said. "There was a moment at the end when I thought I saw him in there, saw the real Daniel," Bree finally said. "He looked right at me, and I could swear that, just for an instant, he was there."

"So maybe he's not completely lost," Kevin replied, voice a little choked. He'd clearly been working hard at sounding calm for Bree's sake, but his true emotions about the situation were leaking out now.

"I have to believe that, Kevin, I just have to," Bree said wearily.

"So you do care for him?"

"Care for him?" Bree let out a harsh, hopeless laugh. "I love him, Kevin. I've fought it, but I'm done fighting it. Ironic, isn't it? Now that there's no way I can have him, I admit that I love him. It's just my style to be that stupidly self defeating, isn't it?"

"It's not self defeating if it turns out Daniel is still salvageable. I know you had some ideas on how to heal the divide in him, and that he wouldn't let you try it. Maybe that's still possible."

"In one thing he was right," Bree admitted. "I don't really have much experience in using Reader talent in healing work."

"So consult an expert. I know a few I could send you to."

"And tell them what? I want to repair a Binder and Demon Master who's gone rogue?"

"You don't have to tell them anything you don't want to," Kevin said firmly. "All they'd have to know is that you want to further your studies."