Hollywood Demon (The Collegium Book 6) (15 page)

For the first time in seven years, Mark had been going to move on with his life. Now, here was Gilda, bringing back all the horror, guilt and confusion of the situation with Faust and Phoebe. He wanted to bar the gate, lock the door, and keep her out.

He wanted to follow Clancy up to his room, strip her naked and find the fierce joy of being one with her. She was real and vibrant, and he wanted to be inside her so badly that his bones ached with it.

Instead, he opened the front door and invited Gilda and all his troubles into his home. “Coffee? Tea?” The offer of refreshments was automatic.

“Nothing, thank you.”

Gilda landed on a chair at the table. Her gaze went around and settled on the two mugs. “I’m interrupting?”

He didn’t mistake her question for one of courtesy. She wanted to know who was in the house with him. “Clancy and I had an early dinner.”

Clancy, herself, entered the room. “Hi.” She sat down and curled her hands around her mug of tea.

The urge to go to her and stand behind her chair, his hands on her shoulders, being with her, was so strong that he put the counter between them. He couldn’t forget that Gilda was the Collegium’s chief demonologist and she’d already dismissed him and his lack of magic as worthless. He didn’t need to show her further weakness.

Although, needing another person wasn’t weakness, was it?

Gilda sighed. “I don’t want to ask this of you, Mark, but Rivera’s psychological state is fragile.”

His brain helpfully presented a memory of Rivera wearing Phoebe’s appearance and torturously demanding that he love her. “I deduced that,” he said drily.

Clancy’s gaze was locked on Gilda. The older woman looked exhausted but determined. Clancy clearly saw her as a threat. So did he.

And Gilda wasn’t blind to their wary antagonism. “You, neither of you, have the best relationship with the Collegium, but we are the strongest option for permanently banishing this demon from Earth.”

“But first you have to summon Faust,” Mark said. It was what Rivera had tried to do. To banish a demon from this realm, it had first to be present.

“If we knew its name, we wouldn’t have to,” Gilda said, surprising him. “However, we can’t break the wards it has placed around divining its true name. So we’ll need to summon it through its most recent manifestation or tie to Earth.”

“Which would be Rivera,” Clancy said. “Except you might damage her irrevocably if you involve her in a demon summoning at this point. How are you going to reverse her transformation? Is it even possible?”

“We’re looking into it.” Gilda closed her mouth tightly. She stared at Mark.

He understood. Whatever the reason—possibly Clancy was right and Faust used Mark’s old tie to Phoebe’s soul—the demon kept manifesting around him. Which made him the Collegium’s best chance at divining Faust’s signature and summoning him.

Mark gripped the counter’s edge. He’d happily go the rest of his life without seeing another demon, most especially Faust. But he didn’t have that choice. “If you banish Faust, that won’t stop his plans.”

“It should slow them down, though.” Gilda straightened as his agreement became apparent. “We need to win some time to look into things, to consider your counterspell.” And that was an obvious bribe, a crude one.

He shrugged it off. “You can’t summon Faust, here. The estate is warded.”

“I realize that. I’d like you to travel to the Collegium tomorrow morning. I’m going back, now. We’ll have everything ready by ten, tomorrow. Ten o’clock, New York time.” She was pressing for an early start.

He had no problem with the early hour. It was the activity he didn’t want to agree to.

“I’m coming with him,” Clancy said.

Gilda stared at her, then put her hands flat on the table and pushed herself up. “If you like.” Her tone of voice said,
whatever for?

So that he wouldn’t be alone was reason enough. “We’ll be there for ten o’clock,” he said, and showed Gilda out. He closed the door behind her and turned to find Clancy just behind him.

“Do you think they can banish Faust?” She had her arms hugged around herself. They’d both been there when Rivera had dramatically failed.

“Yes.” He leaned back against the door, head thunking against it. “What I hadn’t considered before I asked Rivera to try is, will that trap Phoebe’s soul in Hell forever?”

A man being tortured on the rack might look as Mark did now. Clancy wasn’t sure if he’d welcome or repulse her touch. She wanted to go to him, but uncertainty kept her feet glued to the marbled floor. Gilda had brought trouble to the house, shattering the sensual mood into shards of brittle glass.

“You can ask Gilda,” she suggested.

Mark closed his eyes. “No one believes Phoebe sold her soul.”

“I think there’ll be a few people at the Collegium re-evaluating your evidence.” Clancy decided to risk his rebuff. She walked up to him and hugged him. Her heart sighed in relief when he hugged her back.

“Even if they do.” He opened his eyes and the bleakness in them hurt her. “You know how the Collegium thinks. They’ll weigh the risk to the world against the loss of one soul that chose to bargain with a demon.”

They’d sacrifice the chance of rescuing Phoebe in an instant.

Mark groaned. “And what’s worse, is that I have to agree with them. If Faust went on a rampage…we’ve already seen what he did in Bryce’s body, and what he did to Rivera’s. We can’t risk him being free to operate on Earth.”

So he’d go to the Collegium tomorrow, beating himself up the whole way that he was consigning Phoebe’s soul to eternal suffering.

Clancy squeezed him tight. “Then, tonight, we need to think again about what options we have to free Phoebe. I’m a new set of eyes. Let’s hit your books.”

A small smile started in his eyes. “Are you sure? I thought, tonight…”

She shook her head. “Gilda’s visit killed the mood.”

“Yeah.” He straightened as he ran his hands down her back.

Despite her statement about the mood being broken, she shivered.

He kissed her briefly. “Something to look forward to.”

“Mmm.” Yet, she tasted tears, imaginary ones, in their kiss.

Clancy woke in Mark’s bed. She was fully dressed and he wasn’t there. Memory crawled back of a late night, no ideas on how to help Phoebe, and her, finally, dragging Mark to bed. She’d fallen asleep instantly, but had he?

“Coffee.” He walked in; dressed, shaved and ready for the day. He looked as if he’d slept, some. All expression was locked away. He had his game face on.

“Good morning. Thanks.” She took the coffee.

“Doris made it. She’s here. I told her you spent the night helping me. She’s caught up on the Faust-related stuff.”

Unspoken was that it was Clancy’s decision how much and how to tell Doris of their new relationship.

Did they have one?

He hadn’t kissed her. True, she probably had morning breath. She drank some coffee, aware that he watched her.

“You don’t have to come to the Collegium with me.”

“I’m not letting you go alone.” And if he didn’t like that, too bad.

“So fierce.” He stroked a finger down her face, bent and kissed her. He took the coffee mug from her, set it aside, and followed her down against the pillows.

His kiss was desperate, as if he’d consume her.

Then, just as abruptly, he pulled away.

Before he averted his face, she saw naked emotion in his expression. “Mark?” She scrambled up.

He inhaled, his back shaking with the deep breath, and turned to her. “Your honesty, your loyalty undo me.”

She stood in front of him, so much shorter, not feeling smaller. She put a hand over his heart, feeling the cotton of his shirt crisp beneath her fingers. The heavy thud of it echoed in her. She had no words for him. She didn’t know any other way to be. Once she made a commitment—

Have I made a commitment to him?

As fast as the question occurred to her, she locked it away. It wasn’t a safe question to consider with his blue eyes searching her face, alert for every nuance. Today, he needed all of her support. If they couldn’t rescue Phoebe’s soul from Hell before cutting every link to her by banishing Faust from Earth—and they hadn’t found any method of reaching her soul during last night’s research—then Mark would be struggling with what he felt was his betrayal of his treacherous ex-fiancée. Clancy could sort out her emotions another day.

“I have to shower and change.” Prosaic words. Ordinary words to break the silence.

He nodded. “And tell Doris where you’re going.”

Clancy hid a wince, or not quite.

Mark’s eyes narrowed.

“No.” She forestalled his question. “It’s not me being there for you that Grandma will object to. It’s me visiting the Collegium that she’ll hate. She’s not a fan.”

“True.” The tense line of his mouth relaxed. “And that’s an understatement.”

“I’ll meet you back here.” Clancy checked the bedside clock. “In thirty minutes.”

“At the garage in forty will do.”

“Huh. I remember LA traffic.” She gulped some coffee, handed the mug back to him, and ran.

Shower. Dress. Shouted explanations to Doris. Clancy stumbled back down the cottage stairs wearing a warm sweater, jeans, her kickass boots and holding her leather jacket and a scarf. New York would be cold. Mark had been dressed for a business meeting, his white shirt and black trousers expensive, and his shoes shined. They were so different. The clothing she wore as armor against the world was practical rather than designed to overawe.

When she met him at the garage, he’d added the matching jacket for his suit, a subdued red tie, and carried an expensive cashmere coat.

“You look like a male model.”

A faint smile erased some of his remoteness. “I’m too old.”

She snorted.

He opened the passenger door of the warded SUV for her, and closed it firmly behind her, walking around to get in his side. “Today, I feel old.”

“I can understand that. But you’re doing the right thing.”

He nodded, put the car in gear and drove to the Los Angeles portal.

Portals were rare, scattered through the world, and enabled near-instantaneous travel between them. A porter handed a person into the in-between, and the porter at the site where the person was to emerge, hauled them out. The whole process took ten seconds, maximum. But those few seconds were completely disorienting.

Porters possessed a special magic talent. For them, the in-between made sense and they could navigate it. For everyone else, it had neither up nor down, vision kaleidoscoped, and sound had no meaning.

The Los Angeles porter was an artist in his late fifties, dark-skinned and gray-haired with an anxious frown. His artwork and three half-finished paintings filled the sunroom at the back of the house through which Clancy and Mark entered. He’d evidently been told to expect them. Otherwise his look-away spells and other protections would have had Clancy and Mark driving past the 1920s bungalow that covered the portal, unaware it was there.

“Sorry to rush you,” he said, having introduced himself as Oscar Tsonga and wiped his hands on a clean rag. “My niece is having her first baby and the whole family is rushing to the hospital.” He galloped down wide wooden stairs to the basement. The portal shimmered silver and faintly pink in the center of the floor. “Paul,” he shouted to the New York porter. “Handing through Mark and Clancy.”

“Go on, then.”

Oscar rolled his eyes, gripped Mark’s hand, and Mark stepped into the silvery pink pool and vanished.

“I hope your niece has a healthy, happy baby,” Clancy said.

“From your lips to God’s ears.” Oscar handed her through.

The New York porter was nowhere near as pleasant. Paul O’Halloran was a bit younger than Oscar, and a sleaze. Like most people, even those with magic, Clancy had seldom used a portal. Travelling that way was rare and expensive. However, the couple of times speed had been of an essence to get to Collegium headquarters, she’d been forced to deal with Paul. Even his hand felt slimy. She released it as soon as she was safely out of the portal and inside the basement beneath his short-stay hotel.

“Thanks.” Mark was equally brief. He caught Clancy’s elbow and had her moving up the cheap concrete steps while her head was still spinning from the chaos in-between.

She scrubbed her hand against her jeans, then paused in the main hallway by the front door to put on her jacket.

Mark shrugged on his coat but didn’t button it.

They had to walk a couple of blocks and they’d be at Collegium headquarters.

She wrapped her yak’s wool violet scarf around her neck, and he opened the front door. New York’s winter chill and smog engulfed them. They dodged around other pedestrians equally as morose and hurried. Once, Mark slipped and had to grab at a streetlight.

Her boots were sturdier than his shoes, but Clancy still watched how she walked. Her breath fogged on the air. “Who wouldn’t rather live in LA than here?” she asked with a half-laugh.

Mark showed no humor. “You made the right choice.”

She’d chosen to quit the Collegium and come home. Now, she was heading back to where she’d never been good enough. If Mark had serious doubts about the wisdom of his actions today, she had minor squaggles—regrets and apprehension mixed.

The Collegium suddenly loomed in front of them. To the mundane, non-magical world, it looked like any other modern building built of glass, steel and concrete. Slipping into mage sight, Clancy saw waveringly the magic woven into and warding it. Mundanes knew the Collegium as a think tank on international affairs. The cover story was a solid one and Collegium staff put effort into maintaining it, often hosting conferences and meetings on the premises. On the public floors, that is.

Walking beside Mark, she climbed the front steps and the automated glass door slid open, inviting them in. The air was warm and dry. Clancy glanced straight at the reception desk, but her friend Thomas wasn’t on it. She didn’t know if she was glad or sorry.

Mark shrugged off his coat, folding it over his arm as he walked to the desk.

The woman at it, late fifties and exceedingly well-groomed, assessed him and Clancy trailing behind him. “Good morning. May I help you?” Her name badge read, “Suleen”.

“Good morning, Suleen. My name is Mark Yarren. Ms. Gilda Ursu is expecting us.” He didn’t introduce Clancy and he didn’t mention Gilda’s title of chief demonologist. A wise move, the latter, given that mundanes might overhear him.

“Mr. Yarren. Yes, Gilda said to expect you. Ms. Ramirez?” Suleen looked beyond Mark to Clancy. Evidently she’d been briefed. “Gilda requested that Mr. Yarren meet with her alone.”

Clancy felt hot in her jacket, flushed with the change in temperature from the street and from what felt like a snub, even if her rational side suggested that Gilda simply wanted to keep the summoning spell simple. She loosened her scarf. “I’ll wait here.” She smiled at Mark who seemed inclined to protest.

He scanned the foyer, taking in the mix of chairs, tables and more comfortable lounges and armchairs, as well as a small, self-service coffee bar. “If you’re sure.”

“I expect I’ll find someone I know.” Not all her memories of the Collegium were bad ones. She had friends, here. “Good luck.”

He nodded, and walked off to the bank of elevators to press a call button.

Suleen watched him enter an elevator and the doors close. “Neville requested that I inform him of your arrival.” Some of the receptionist’s perfect manner eased. Clancy, in a sense, was one of the Collegium family, even if she’d attempted to divorce herself from it.

“Great,” she said sourly in response to Suleen’s news.

A glimmer of what might have been sympathy crossed the receptionist’s face as she reached for the phone.

Clancy wandered off a short distance. No point in sitting down. Neville would request her attendance via Suleen.

So she was surprised when Suleen replaced the phone and merely smiled at her. Two minutes later, Clancy had her answer. Neville, himself, emerged from an elevator.

Anger that she’d buried overnight rose up in her at the sight of his self-assured expression and shabby, comfortable clothes. How dare this smug man, so sure of his importance, discuss her with Jeremy. “Neville,” she said in lieu of a more congenial greeting.

“Good morning, Clancy. I’m glad to have this chance to talk with you. Shall we grab a coffee?”