Demonsense (Demonsense series Book 1) (53 page)

Sophie’s face crumpled in sympathy, and she reached out to take Bree's hand. “Oh honey, how awful! That must have been terrible for you!”

Bree felt the ghost of comfort descend on her, but it wasn’t enough to provide any real relief, or to trigger the cry she probably needed to have.
 

"I think if you talk about it, you might feel better," Sophie urged.
 

Bree went deeper inside herself. She couldn't stand the kindness. She didn't deserve it. Didn't deserve to feel better. "I'm not ready to talk about it yet."
 

Sophie sighed and some emotion more complicated then sympathy came and went across her face. Bree's Reader sense stirred, and she pressed it back down. After a moment, Sophie let go of her hand. “You have that headachy look about you. It’s time for some more Percocet.” Sophie got her the painkiller and some water. Just as Bree was handing back the glass, the doorbell rang.

"That'll be Bruce," Sophie said, sounding relieved. She went downstairs, and Bree heard them talking. She heard Daniel's name, and Javier's, but everything else was just a murmur. They both came upstairs, and Sophie made her goodbyes as she had to go to work.
 

"Bruce, I really don't need you to stay," Bree tried half heartedly after Sophie had left.

"Just for tonight, just to be on the safe, side" he replied. "You know Sophie isn't going to let me off the hook for this. So just give it up and go back to sleep."

"I wasn't sleepy." Bree felt annoyance stir. She wanted to be alone, but she didn't have the energy to fight about it.
 

"Well then, just go back to brooding." Bruce smiled to take the sting out of his words.
 

"So I just left Daniel's," Bruce said as he settled his big frame back in the chair Sophie had vacated. He regarded her closely as he continued. "Javier gave the green light for him to go home. He was able to confirm that Franchesca got on a plane for Las Vegas yesterday evening. The Keltoi are in disarray with their chief dead. It looks like they're not likely to come after Daniel right away."

She attention sharpened, then she felt a spurt of panic that she might be coming out of her numbness.

"He's nearly recovered from the power loss," Bruce continued. "He said he'd stop by later tonight."

And that sent Bree's panic through the roof. "No, he can't! He can't come over!"

Bruce’s eyebrows rose in question. “Hey babe, it’s your deal, but did he do something to upset you? Something I should know about?”

Bree shook her head, then regretted it, grimacing at the pain the movement caused. “It’s nothing like that, really, it’s just that, well, I need out of the demon research project. And I’m not strong enough right now to explain why, to tell him…” She sputtered to a halt.
 

Bruce looked more and more concerned as she spoke, and she was having a hard time putting into words what she wanted, how she felt. “It’s because of what happened with the Keltoi, seeing that man die. It just broke something in me. I feel broken. And you know how persuasive Daniel can be. I don’t trust myself with him, I don’t know if I can, if he, and I don't know how I feel about him because…” she stammered.
 

Bruce leaned over and put a hand briefly on her arm in reassurance. “You don’t have to explain right now. I’ll take care of it.”

 
The agitation fell out of her, leaving behind an illogical sense of disappointment that Bruce hadn't fought her on it. She felt hollowed out. She thought whimsically that her head felt stuffed full of that fake spider web stuff you saw everywhere at Halloween. Her thoughts moved slowly, and her emotions went back to nearly non-existent. She didn’t care why she felt numb. She didn’t care if she ever felt anything again.
 

It took more than a week for Bree's head to stop hurting, and when she finally got a clean bill of health, she returned to work, lost herself in it, in the sense of normalcy it brought.

Day followed day, and the numbness and apathy never really lifted. A few times, she tried to work out what had happened with Gelsenim, but her mind shied away from the subject after very little real effort.
 

It took more effort not to think about Daniel. She knew it was wildly inconsistent to risk her life for him, then avoid him. But the one thing that was clear was that she was afraid to see him. Sophie told her that avoiding Daniel was obviously the same as avoiding the whole trauma of what had happened to her, and Kevin played on her sympathy for Daniel. “He’s crazy with worry about you, Bree. Put him out of his misery before he drives
me
crazy,” he pleaded.
 

But she refused. Predictably, it was Dion who took action. One Saturday morning in late November, he knocked at Bree’s front door shortly after she emerged from a shower. She had just pulled on some jeans that were getting too loose and the Irish sweater her mother had gotten her during her most recent visit to family in Ireland. She trotted down the stairs from the bedroom to answer the door.
 

Dion had on a long black coat over the uniform he wore for work. He loomed over her in the entryway as he wiped his feet, then put a hand on her shoulder. He looked at her with an unwontedly serious expression. “Look girl, I know you’re going to be pissed, but trust me on this, something’s got to give. I won’t watch you go downhill again. You need something to pull you out of this depression, and this is the best I could come up with.” He turned to open the door, and waved a hand in a beckoning gesture. He gave her one last look, half defiant, half uneasy, then backed out the door, making way on the stoop for Daniel Thorvaldson.

Bree's heart stuttered at the sight of him. The terror she felt was the most emotion she'd felt in weeks. Hard on its heels came anger at Dion, who had retreated from the field completely, leaving her facing Daniel alone.

“Can I come in?” Daniel asked diffidently.
 

She could see that he was uncomfortable and braced for her refusal, and somehow, now that he was here, she couldn’t send him away. She backed away from the door without a word, and he came in. She retreated to the couch, and he followed her into the living room. He took off his leather jacket and draped it on the back of one of the chairs, then moved to sit on the one across from her. He was wearing a black v-neck sweater and jeans. He looked freshly scrubbed and shaved, Bree registered as she took a fugitive look at him.
 

He put his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands in front of him as he leaned toward her. “I’ve been worried about you,” he said softly. "And I’ve been wondering what I’ve done to anger you so much that you've refused to see me.”

At that, Bree’s head jerked up, and she looked directly at him for the first time.
 
“I’m not angry at you,” she said, but as soon as the words left her mouth, she knew they were a lie. Anger filled her up, shocking in it's intensity.

Daniel seemed to know it too. His mouth twisted in a wry expression, and he replied, “I think you are."

"Why the hell did I let you talk me into all this?" Bree spat out past the tense knot in her throat. "Now I've got a fucking Erekim who thinks I'm his perfect match. There's no way I'm going to be able to keep him off me. I can't expect you to keep doing it. You'll probably go all dark side, then I'll have to keep you off me too." She was half horrified at what she was saying, but she couldn't seem to help herself now that her attempts to repress it all had failed.

 
Daniel's face flushed a little, but otherwise, he showed no outward reaction to her tirade. "I did get you into all this. Before I came along, you were just recovering from your husband’s death and taking your first steps towards reclaiming your power."
 

"Reclaiming my power, hah! I never should have agreed to go back to exorcisms in the first place, let alone agree to doing such colossally dangerous research."

"I know I pushed you too hard about that," Daniel continued evenly. "I was too focused on what I thought needed to be done. So maybe I deserve some of your anger. In my own way, I was being selfish.”

“Not for yourself,” Bree said, stung a little out of her fury into being fair. She paused, tried to think through the impulse that had made her defend him. And as she did, some of the anger faded. She couldn't dump all this on him, as much as that would be convenient for her aching conscience. “I know you can be obsessive, but you were trying to do something good. And I volunteered. All along the way, I volunteered.”

He regarded her quietly for a moment, and she wasn’t sure if he was taking in what she said or waiting for her to continue. She realized that in spite of the inherently awkward nature of their conversation, he looked calm. The intensity, the drive that was so often evident in him seemed absent, as was the demon contact induced edginess that had been growing in him for as long as she’d known him. The moment stretched on, and when she didn’t speak, Daniel continued.
 

“I know you volunteered. I know you pushed to be a part of going after Hunter. And the truth is, I wanted you with me. For one thing, I'm attracted to you. You were like cool, clean water after years of dust and thirst. I've rarely met someone who tries as hard to do the right thing, who is so loyal, so bright, and so brave. I trusted you almost from the first moment I met you, and that’s not something that's ever happened to me before.”
 

A blush rose on his face at what he was revealing, and he pushed a hand through his hair. “And I guess I thought at first that I could help you. I got the impression that you weren’t happy separating yourself from your power. I could see such incredible potential in you, and I thought if you had some meaningful work to do, something that could help others, it would pull you out of that, make you whole again. And now it looks like I’ve just set you back.”

As he spoke, Bree felt long dormant butterflies start up in her stomach. His admitting his attraction, his warm portrayal of her all conspired to bring up the powerful, nervous draw she’d felt toward him right from the beginning. And she couldn’t help but appreciate his fearless look at his own motives, his willingness to admit where he might have gone wrong. She had to respect him for that. But at the same time, she didn’t want to feel attracted to him again. Every time she’d given in to it before, it had overwhelmed her. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to be overwhelmed again.
 

The only thing that came clear in the whirl of her thoughts and emotions was that he was taking perhaps too much responsibility. “I made you take me with you when you went to work on the finder spell. I threatened you into it. And you didn’t make me go into that warehouse. You didn’t make me, you didn’t make me… kill that man,” she got out in a rush.
 

“I assume you mean Scanlon. Will you tell me what happened with him?”

A hot pressure crested inside her chest at his simple question, then broke, and it all poured out of her, the desperate attempt to protect him and Kevin, the quick and dirty attempt at some combination of exorcism and Demon Master power. How it burned Scanlon down to nothing.

“Bree,” he said seriously when she finished, then said her name again so she would look at him, so his eyes could catch and hold hers. “I've killed people in the line of duty before, in self defense or in defense of someone else. And sometimes, I had to wonder if I was doing it in anger, if it was always justified. It’s a terrible thing, and it’s natural and right that you feel terrible. God knows I always did."

She couldn't hold his gaze. She was trying too hard not to cry.

"But it’s clear to me, and should be clear to you, that you weren’t trying to kill Scanlon. It was an accident. Keep in mind that it was a madhouse in there. I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a more dangerous action, given how many demons were in the mix."
 

In a way, Bree knew he was right. She had thought about the self-defense angle, thought about how she hadn’t meant to kill Scanlon. But it was still ultimately she that had caused his death. “I don’t know what to say to Hunter,” she replied almost soundlessly. And, finally, she started to cry.

He leaned forward a little and put a hand on her knee. “Kevin and Steve already told Hunter that Scanlon was killed. Let them decide what more he's ready to hear and when he’s ready to hear it,” he said firmly.
 

The tears came faster at that. Daniel got up, went to the bathroom down the hall, and brought back a box of Kleenex that he put down on the couch next to her. Then he retreated again to the chair across from her.
 

After giving her a little time to get herself under control, he said, “There’s more, isn’t there? More about the possession, about Gelsenim.”

She gave her eyes a last wipe, tossed the Kleenex aside and looked up at him. Although causing Scanlon's death had bothered her most, she knew she'd been avoiding this conversation about Gelsenim as much as she'd been avoiding the one about Scanlon.
 

“Have you been having contact with him?” she asked. For the first time, she made a conscious effort to read him. Her quick stab at it told her that on the energy level, he was a lot less calm than he looked. She could even feel a tinge of the darkness.

“Just enough to keep him away from you. He isn’t happy about that, but so far my power over him is enough to hold him.”

“So you haven’t done any more, ah, experiments?”

For the first time in their conversation, he looked uneasy. He sat back in the chair, crossed his ankle over his knee, and looked out the window. The sun had come out, and it shone on his face, highlighting the top of his cheekbones and creating shadows in the hollow of his cheeks. “I’ve thought about it. I’ve had to admit to myself how unstable, how close to the edge I’ve been. I still don’t know why demon contact is affecting me so quickly and powerfully. It’s made me wonder if I’m really the right person for this kind of research.” He looked back her way again, and his look was penetrating.