The Soul Healer (19 page)

“Absolutely. Normal people throw up, not act like they’re about to see their favorite celebrity,” he said.

“Okay, just making sure.”

We approached Nina, who said, “Finally!” Grabbing the edge of the gray sheet, she pulled it back with a flourish, like a magician about to reveal a magic trick. But there was no adorable white bunny sitting under the sheet. Oh no, hell no. I would have killed for a bunny under that sheet, instead of—

Argh. I was not the squeamish sort, not by a long shot, but the mangled, headless demon body resting on the table made even my iron stomach churn.
It was a thousand times worse than the demon anatomy book I had mistakenly picked up yesterday in the library. For a moment, I thought my nice breakfast was about to come back up, but once I started taking deep breaths through my mouth (the smell! The smell was so bad, ahhh!), it got slightly better.

Slightly.

“Uaragarsdf,” Philip said, covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve and turning away. “So disgusting. So, so disgusting. I’m so glad I didn’t eat breakfast. If you need me, I will be on the other side of the room, away from the horrible, nasty,
foul
demon.” He stomped off, pulling out his phone and checking it again.

With Philip gone, I was forced to turn
my attention back to Nina and…the headless demon.
Why did I say I wanted to see this again?

“Cool, right?” Nina asked.

Cool? I… I wouldn’t use that word to describe the thing in front of me, ever. The thing was—oh god, it was so gross. It was probably eight feet tall, with its feet—shaped like bird talons—hanging off the sides of the table. Instead of feathers (to match the talons), it had gray skin, a disgusting, sickly color that I assumed came from being dead, but who knew? Horn Boy’s skin had been red, so why couldn’t this thing be naturally gray?

Unless it
had once had feathers, but the hunters had plucked them all off during the experiments. For some reason, comparing this thing to a plucked chicken did
not
make the experience any more pleasant. Worse, in fact. Now I never wanted to see a chicken again—dead
or
alive.

The demon’s entire midsection was cut open, revealing lots of fun icky things inside. I peered in, then instantly wished I hadn’t. It looked like some of the organ
s had been cut out, but I sucked at science, so I had no idea what any of the lumpy things were.

“So they bring the demon carcass back here and cut it open and do all sorts of experiments,” Nina explained. “Weighing organs and fun things like that.”

Fun?

“And most of the time, they aren’t similar to humans at all, which leads to all sorts of crazy theories.” Nina paused. “You’ve seen more than one demon before, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen a few.” Unfortunately.

“And you’ve noticed how they’re all different?”

I nodded. “Actually, I wondered about that. Like, how do you train against something that’s different each and every time? I mean, one could have spikes on its skin, one could shoot poison at you…” Okay, I was totally making this crap up as I went, but I bet there were poison-shooting spikey demons out there. I just hoped I never had to meet one.

“Exactly!” Nina said. She pointed to a whiteboard at the end of the room. It was covered in scribbles, and I was too far away to make out what they said. “The hunters make notes on there, and then later transcribe them to
a computer. They’ve filled books and books and books on everything they’ve discovered. No two demons are ever exactly the same.”             

“Are there similar types, though? Rafe and I fought one that didn’t have any bones in its body. Have there been others like that?”

Nina scrunched up her face, thinking. “Yeah, but it could have had, I don’t know, a lion’s head. Did yours have a lion head?”

“No, it had four creepy eyes, and later on it split itself into two.”

“See what I mean?” Nina said. “They’re all different. I’m sure there are other demons that could split themselves into two, but they wouldn’t be boneless. They might walk on all fours or turn invisible—”

“Ohmygod,
what
?” I asked, my voice rising. “There are invisible demons?” As if the regular kind wasn’t bad enough.

“In the past, there have been. Not too often, thank goodness.” Nina’s face darkened; it was weird seeing her so serious for once. “I read about it in a book once. It was so bad, it nearly wiped out every hunter it faced. I think, like, only two hunters survived? This was hundreds of years ago, though, not anything recent.”

“Still, that’s awful.” I shuddered. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but thank god for Silver Moon.”

She shot me an amused look
. “We’re not bad, Gabi. Everything we do, we do to save people. Just remember that.”

Yes, but at what cost? I wanted to ask her, but
I decided to keep my mouth shut. Nina was brainwashed, but I couldn’t blame her. She’d been part of Silver Moon her whole life, while I had only just learned about them a few months ago. I could see things from both sides, while she was biased. I understood wanting to save lives, but you had to draw a line at some point.

Kidnapping teenage girls, for example. That’s bad. Hunting demons who prey on humans? That’s good.
See the difference, Mister Director?

“So, what happens after they finish dissecting it?” I asked, tired of talking (and thinking) about Silver Moon. It only made me angry and upset, and I was tired of being angry and upset.

“They burn it.” Nina hooked a thumb behind her, toward another door. “There are incinerators in there. It’s the only way Silver Moon does it. They don’t bury them.”

“Why, are they afraid the body will rise up and go looking for its head?” I joked.

But Nina didn’t laugh. “No. If the body is still intact, a sorcerer can reanimate it, give it a new soul, a new head, and bam, instant demon, without all the messy summoning.”

My mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”

“Gross, right?” she asked, gesturing to the doorway again. “If you burn the body, there’s no way they can be reanimated. They’re gone, body
and
soul, and they don’t go back to whatever dimension they originally came from. Because of that, the sorcerer will never be able to summon that demon again.”

“Do people actually summon the same demons over and over again?” I asked. “If they’re not killed by Silver Moon?”

“Yeah, if a sorcerer has a particular favorite, they will summon them, have them do their dirty work, and then send them back to their dimension to wait until they’re called again. It’s slightly easier to recall a favorite, then summon a new one.”

My mind was officially blown. I thought they were summoned, killed by Silver Moon, and that was the end of that. The sorcerer tried again with a different demon or just gave up. But to think of them evading the hunters and using a particular demon like a soldier or mercenary? The war between hunters and sorcerers was more involved than I had ever imagined.
I had stupidly assumed all sorcerers were crazy like Matthew Davenport, and all demons were drooling, stupid creatures. If Davenport had been a serious sorcerer, instead of a hunter-turned-demon, what sort of monsters would he have summoned?

I was glad he was dead. Really
freaking glad. And I didn’t care if that made me a monster. Davenport being dead equaled a lot of lives saved. Including my sister’s.

And me. And Rafe. And Evan. So yeah, we were definitely better off without Davenport around.

But I couldn’t help but wonder who else was out there, ready to face off against Silver Moon with intelligent demons.

Chapter Thirty

“So now you know all sorts of cool things,” Nina said, tugging the sheet over the dead demon once more. I heaved a sigh of relief once its nasty corpse was out of sight. Now if only she could get rid of the smell just as easily.

“Oh, wait.” I raised my hand like we were in class. “What about the demons Rafe kills? I’ve been to his apartment; he doesn’t have an incinerator in there.”

She laughed. “No, there are drop-off points for hunters that live away from HQ. Bodies are shipped there, usually by the hunters themselves, and then they’re properly disposed of. If the demon is highly unique, they’ll send them to HQ, but most of the time they’re just cremated. We have enough demons to deal with as it is.”

I thought of Manhattan, filled with millions of people. It was like a buffet for demons! If any sorcerer wanted to create chaos, all they had to do was come to the city, summon a demon, and sit back and watch the fun. The hunters must work overtime, trying to keep the demon numbers down. “It must have killed Charles and the others, to lose hunters like Rafe and Evan.”

“Most people expected it,” she said quietly. “With everything that happened, first with Rafe’s parents, and then Alex? No one was surprise
d when they left, in all honesty.”

“Did you know Rafe’s parents?” I bit my lip, wondering if I was overstepping. Was it weird, discussing my boyfriend’s life with other people? It wasn’t like he hadn’t been honest with me when I asked. But unless Rafe brought them up first, I had refrained from asking about them again. I had seen how much it hurt him to talk about them. They may have died a few years ago, but the wounds were still raw. Honestly, I doubted they would ever fully heal.

“Of course,” Nina answered. She started walking toward the door, her steps slow and deliberate, and I followed. Philip was all the way on the other side of the room, leaning against one of the empty operating tables as he stared at his phone. “Everyone knew his parents, especially his father, Liam. He was famous for being ruthless and untouchable in his fights. He loved the hunt and Silver Moon.” Nina pointed to Philip with chin. “Didn’t you know? Liam and Charles were very close, like brothers, almost.”

“No, I didn’t.” Rafe had kept quiet about Silver Moon; now that I was here, I knew he had done it to protect me.

“They hunted together and everything,” Nina said. “I can remember them coming back after fights, covered in green blood, laughing and joking like they had been out drinking.”

That
I couldn’t picture. Liam had been very stoic, from what Rafe had told me, and Charles? He was too evil to joke. Unless… “He must have taken Liam’s death pretty hard then, huh?” For him to turn into an evil, heartless bastard, I actually meant, but since Nina was all Team Charles, I didn’t think she’d appreciate that.

“Mmm.” She played with one of the pink and white striped bracelets on her arm. “Actually, they had a falling out before that.”

“What happened?”

“They were both up for the director position,” Nina said. “It was bad; they went from being friends to being bitter rivals as they
competed against one another. And then Rafe messed up and that demon killed his parents—”

“Rafe did
not
mess up,” I snapped.

She blinked, surprised at my sudden anger. “He didn’t See the demon—”

“He was twelve and not having the Sight is not his fault.” I pointed a finger at her. “He already blames himself for it, which is bad enough. Don’t you
dare
say he’s the reason his parents are dead.” My words hung in the air between us as I stared her down. I was coiled, tense and furious, ready to defend my boyfriend’s honor, or die trying.

But Nina smiled softly. “Of course. I don’t blame Rafe. Like you said, he was only twelve. And he’s one of the best hunters around, even without the Sight. What happened that day was a tragic accident, nothing more.”

I let out a slow, long breath, feeling my anger drain away as I mumbled an apology for lashing out at her.

“It’s fine,” she said with a wave of her hand.

“What happened, then, after they were killed?”

Nina cocked her head to the side, looking confused. “What happened with what?”

“The director position?”

“With Liam out of the running, it went to Charles, obviously,” she said. “He was so happy; that position was something he really wanted.”

Something he really wanted? Her words were like a bucket of ice dumped down the back of my shirt. I stilled, staring at her in shock. How badly had Charles wanted to be director? Bad enough to
kill
for it?

What had Davenport said, when he was trying to convince Rafe to turn against Silver Moon?

“That was a setup. No, it was more like a test. For you. They wanted to see if you could identify a demon without the Sight. There was no nest. Just that one demon who murdered your parents.”

We had all thought Davenport had been saying anything to get Rafe to join his side, but what if he had been on to something? What if they had
claimed
it was a test, but it had actually been a way to thin out Charles’s competition?

What if Charles had killed Liam?

“Oh my god,” I whispered. Suddenly, the room was too small, and I could have sworn the walls were closing in on me. Shaking so hard my teeth chattered together loudly, I placed a hand on a nearby operating table to steady myself.