Demonsense (Demonsense series Book 1) (39 page)

"Stay alert, and stay together." Javier glanced around. "It looks like the Keltoi have bolted, but you never know. And don't leave until you check back in with me.”
 

Bree and Daniel made their way through the remaining crowd. They located Keeper Chen sitting on one of the Troll's fingers. She was clutching her forearm to her chest.

"Is it broken?" Daniel asked, squatting down in front of her.

Chen grimaced. "I'm pretty sure it is. One of those ghost bastards got me." She glanced up at Bree. "Did we get the little boy?"

Bree shook her head.
 

"God damn it." Chen hissed in pain as Daniel gently ran his hands over her injured arm.

“It’s broken all right,” Daniel said. "Do you think you can stand if Bree and I help you up?"

"As long as we take it slow."
 

He and Bree got Chen to her feet. The Keeper dressed as a wood elf came up to them just as they got free of the crowd. Both of her knees were bleeding, but she didn't seem to notice. She motioned Bree aside and got herself under Chen's uninjured arm. "I've got her."
 

"I can walk on my own," Chen groused.
 

"Yeah, you're so tough you chew nails for breakfast, we all know," the other Keeper rejoined with what seemed to Bree a bizarre amount of cheerfulness. Bree was seething as she glanced around, looking for more injured. So many people had paid a steep price for Franchesca's insistence at meeting in such a crowded, public place.
 

The rest of the Keepers were quickly accounted for. Javier reappeared and he and Lane walked Daniel and Bree all the way uphill to where she had parked, on the outside chance there was a second attempt at Daniel, but none occurred.
 

The whole walk Bree's thoughts and feelings spun around a core of distress. They didn't get Hunter, didn't know when or if another attempt at an exchange would take place. And what if one of the injured Keepers had seen Daniel master those demons, seen her attempts to do the same? Maybe they were too distracted or injured right now to say anything. Maybe it would all come out later. Mostly, her thoughts kept returning to that video of Franchesca putting a demon into Hunter. She felt shaky and sick. Whatever it was that she'd done with those demons, it had drained her, drained her badly. And the way Daniel was walking, head down, a hitch in his step, he looked in even worse shape than her.

 
“I want you back at the safe house,” Javier informed them when they arrived at her Subaru. “Unfortunately, this action has left us in a stalemate. We'll continue to search for Hunter. If we can get a locate, we can get him on our terms, not theirs. And Thorvaldson.” Javier's voice hardened, and his eyes narrowed. “There is either a very big personal vendetta going on here, or you haven’t been honest with me about why they want you.”

“Trust me, it's very personal," Bree cut in, frantically searching for words that would be, strictly speaking, true. “Did you see any of Franchesca’s interaction with Daniel?”
 

“I wasn’t close enough to read the situation,” Javier admitted.

“Well I was, and I can tell you that woman has a very weird, major, twisted thing about Daniel going on,” she forged on. “She must have some pull in the organization, or must have called in some favors to have this big a go at him.”

Javier regarded her searchingly. “You always were a good Reader." He turned back to Daniel. “But Thorvaldson, I want you thinking long and hard about whether there might be some other reason the Keltoi are putting this much effort into getting you.”

Daniel nodded, then said, rather hesitantly, “This is the second time Franchesca indicated she has a desire to get out of the Keltoi.”

Bree broke in impatiently. “She’s just telling you that to confuse you. I was there, Daniel, both times. I grant you she may have some desire to get out, but what she really wants is control of you, for her own reasons, and that’s the bottom line.”
 

Javier rubbed at his neck. “All I can say is she'll have to communicate more directly if she truly wants our help. She has to offer some kind of terms.”

“But what if she’s being too closely monitored and can’t communicate?” Daniel asked, sounding strained, like he was working at appearing reasonable and cooperative.

“That, I’m afraid, is not our problem,” Javier answered.
 

Bree leaned tiredly against her car. "Look, none of that is as important as getting Hunter. What's our next move?"
 

Javier shook his head. "On our end, all we can do is continue to monitor known Keltoi locations, press whatever Keltoi we can lay hands on for information, and wait for her to offer another meet."

"But that could take days!" Bree exclaimed. "What about her threat to continue to have Hunter possessed?"

Daniel crossed his arms. "She said she would do that if I didn't step forward and offer myself in exchange. I did that tonight. I agree with Javier, I think she'll offer another meet."

"How can you be so sure she won't possess Hunter again?"
 

"I can't be sure. But I don't see that there's anything else we can do right now. I'm completely wiped. I still want to try the finder spell, but there's no way I can do it until I have a chance to rest and get my power back up."
 

"But--" Bree began.

"Don't you think I would try tonight if I thought there was the slightest chance I would succeed?" Daniel asked impatiently.

Bree forced herself to stop panicking. She knew he was right, knew Javier was right as well. She took a breath for calm, then said, "I know you would, Daniel. I'm just so upset we didn't get him. Who's going to tell Kevin and Steve?"

"I will," Javier replied. He sounded weary, and Bree could see a bruise darkening on his jaw. "So if there's nothing else?"

"Call with an update in the morning, would you?" Daniel asked.

"I'll do that," Javier promised. He took a final, assessing look around, then let them go, hurrying off down hill with a bit of a limp, Lane by his side, cowboy hat at a jaunty angle.

Bree got into her car, pulled sharply at her seatbelt to fasten it, and got out of the tight, parallel parking space in impatient jerks while Daniel was still trying to find and fasten his own seatbelt. She was angry at Daniel for being so blind about Franchesca, angry that she couldn’t bring Hunter home to his poor, terrified parents, and most of all, furious at Franchesca for being the cause of all of this. On some level, she knew that she was fanning her own anger to avoid thinking too closely about what had just gone down with the demons, but that knowledge was drowned out by a growing rage she could barely control. She hadn't driven far before she burst out, "Are you actually stupid enough to believe that Franchesca really wants out of the Keltoi?"
 

"I can't be sure, but I think there's a chance."

"Oh, come on, you have got to be kidding me!" Bree exclaimed, clutching hard at the steering wheel. "You were just threatening to kill her if she hurt Hunter. And now you're defending her?”

"It's complicated. And just don't go there right now," Daniel cautioned tersely.
 

"If not now, when?"

"When we get back to Joe's, and have had something to eat. My base energy is down, and I don't feel in control of myself. So just don't." He looked straight ahead, one hand gripping the car's grab strap as if he'd like to kill it.

Grinding her teeth, Bree kept her mouth shut for the rest of the drive back to the safe house, apart from brief exchanges as Daniel assessed whether they were being followed. She couldn't seem to push her anger down. It just got worse and worse as the drive lagged on.
 

Bree got out of the car on arrival at Joe's, and stomped over to Daniel as he climbed slowly out of the passenger side. She couldn't wait any longer.

“Daniel, you cannot be serious about Franchesca really wanting out of the Keltoi!” Bree exclaimed in frustration, putting an urgent hand on his arm just as he shut the car door. “You said yourself, to her face, that there’s not much left of the Francesca you used to know. And anyway, how can you even want to help her, after what she's done to Hunter?”

Daniel swung his arm around and shook her off, backing away. “Because she's family to me! Closer than family!” He had apparently been nursing as much bottled up anger as she had on the ride home. “My God, Bree, you don't know what it was like growing up! She was the only one who knew what I was that didn’t see me as a freak who needed to be hidden away and controlled. I
have
to give her the benefit of the doubt. I have to believe there's still enough of her left that her sanity can be salvaged.”

“But that doesn’t mean—” Bree started.

“You don’t know how my mother looked at me,” Daniel barreled on. “How she stopped touching me when I came up Demon Master. And my father!” His voice became bitter. “He loved me, but he hated me too, hated me for not being his prize high power child, someone he could brag about and show off. Only Chesca didn’t care what I was!”
 

The light over Joe’s garage cast enough illumination that Bree could see tears forming in Daniel’s eyes. But her frustration was only blunted, not eradicated by the sight. The wind whipped her hair around her face, and she pushed it impatiently aside as she replied, “I get it, Daniel, I get she was important to you. But she’s not the same person anymore! And maybe there’s a reason she wasn’t freaked out by the Demon Master and Binder shit. She wanted it for herself!" A few fat raindrops hit her and she wiped at her face. "Maybe she was mistreated as a kid, maybe abused, I don’t know what her story is, but that woman wants power above all things. It’s in every word she speaks, every gesture, every action. What’s worse, she wants power over you, and not just because of the hiding spell, whatever she’s telling you. She has some sick need to have power over you, in particular. And the way you’re acting, I’m not sure she couldn’t still wrap you around her finger and get you doing whatever she wants! You still see the little girl, and she’ll work that until you’ve done things you can’t turn back from, until you’re as bad as she is!”

Daniel backed away further, and said, voice shaky, “Don’t do this right now, Bree. I told you, I’m in no shape to have this out.”

“Yeah, and that’s another thing,” Bree continued recklessly, advancing on him. “You’re not in good shape. In fact, you’re in terrible shape. That dark thing is growing inside you, every time you call Gelsenim. In fact, I’d bet every cent I own it’s even worse right now, just from mastering those demons. You’re jumpy, you’re angry, and you’re starting to lose it. You’re obviously losing your judgment, or you wouldn’t even
think
of trying to help the
bitch
who took Hunter and is using him like a pawn in some demented chess game! Although, come to think of it, the kind of shape you’re in, it’s no wonder you’re attracted to another Demon Master!”

Daniel threw back his head, clutching it with his hands, eyes squeezed shut, then, alarmingly, began to laugh
. My God
, Bree thought, fear breaking through the anger a little,
he’s finally, really losing
it!
He paced away from her, then turned back and grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. “So I'm attracted to Demon Masters? What does that make you?” he said, voice breaking.
 

The half formed thought that she had been beating back leaped to the front of her mind. “No, I’m not a Demon Master” she said hoarsely. “I can’t be.” Daniel shook her a little and she looked up into his face, into black eyes half desperate, half delirious. The wild look of desire on his face finally registered with her and stopped her breath even as her heart went into overdrive. There was a long moment of silence, and Bree was caught by it. All her arguments, her fears, emptied from her head. There was only Daniel, and her racing heart.

 
Before she could even begin to react, he kissed her. His hands moved across her shoulders, up the sides of her neck and trapped her face, fingers strong and warm against her autumn cold skin. She felt a veritable earthquake of butterflies take flight inside of her as his tongue quested urgently for hers, and with a whimper of surrender, in spite of herself, all her confusion about him, she responded. Buffets of wind almost made them lose their balance, but they clung to each other, kissing passionately, frantically, even as rain started to come down. Some part of Bree’s mind protested that there was something very wrong with this scene, but that part had the power of a twittering sparrow compared to the turbulent, blood burning storm of hunger and need that was running riot through her. God, how she wanted him, she couldn’t hide from that now.
 

She ran her hands along his waist under his coat, clawed up the bottom of his sweater and dug for the t-shirt underneath, pulling it up so she could run her hands along his skin. His kiss was interrupted by a gasp as her wet hands went up his sides, only to resume so powerfully, so hungrily that she stumbled backwards several steps until she landed against the trunk of one of the trees closely lining the driveway.
 

He followed her, holding her face again in his hands, looked searingly into her eyes, and kissed her again, more expertly, more carefully, until she reached out desperately for him, dragging him close to her body, pressing up against him.
 

He groaned and his kisses roughened again, and this time it was him pulling up her shirt until he had access to her skin. His hands were colder now, but the shock she felt wasn’t from the chill. All of the strain and terror and anger of the last days seemed to feed the conflagration between them. She had never before felt her whole being so taken with the frenzy of a moment as it was now, had never felt such a total loss of control. Every cell of her body desired every cell of his. She bitterly resented the clothes between them. As she ran her hands up his back, under his shirt, she felt that he was shaking. He was so much slighter than Seth, whose burliness had felt very manly and protective to Bree. Daniel was more like an electric wire, slender, strong, flexible, and highly charged. He was a whole different animal, and she had wanted him from the first time she saw him. She had been afraid of him, and for him, but more powerful by far was the compulsion to touch him, to connect with him. She felt herself falling into him, much like she had during that first deep read at Sophie and Bruce’s, like she had this morning, trying to get closer, trying to
know
him.