Demon Master (Demonsense series Book 2) (24 page)

Almost immediately, she sensed something was off. It was the oddest sensation. She felt like her probe was sliding off somehow, like it couldn’t get a purchase on Leander’s energy. She tried again, harder, in spite of the pain. It wasn’t a ward, not that. That would have had an energy signature of it’s own. Nor was there a total absence of energy. As she pushed it, the pain increased, and she had to stop for a break. Leander raised his eyebrows in a questioning look. “Well?” he prompted.
 

“Give me a minute,” she replied. Okay, so he was hard to read somehow on the energy level, at least without physical touch. Maybe she’d have more luck with tells. “Start talking about something. I know, tell me some more about your work, something about one of your favorite or least favorite projects lately.”
 

Leander nodded and launched into a description of editing an article on, of all things, killer bees, and she focused on his tells, looking to get a sense of how much he enjoyed his work, what his true feelings were about it. She could catch individual tells, a quirk of the lips here, a tilt of the head there, but somehow, it wouldn’t form up for her, wouldn’t coalesce into a pattern. It took her awhile to accept it, that she was literally not able to make any sense whatsoever of his tells. She persisted until Leander stopped his killer bee lecture suddenly and said, with concern, “Are you all right?”

Bree shut down her Reader sense and rubbed hard at her forehead, then dropped her hand on the table between them and regarded him with a mixture of awe and unease. “I can’t read you, not at all. Not energy, not even tells. That’s never happened to me before.”

“I’ve never yet found anyone who could,” Leander told her. There was an odd tone to his voice. She almost thought he might be disappointed. “I think it’s some sort of rare talent, but it’s not anything I’m trying to do. I’ve just always been like that.”

“That’s weird,” Bree blurted out.

“Yeah, rub it in, rub it in. I’m just a freak of nature.”

“Oh, sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that. Or at all. Oh, damn! See what I meant about putting my foot in my mouth?”

“You really are so easy to tease,” Leander said lightly with a dazzling smile. “I like that in a woman. Keeps things entertaining.”

“So glad I can keep you amused,” Bree countered sarcastically. She was still reeling a little from the failure of the read, but at the same time, she felt drawn in by what felt very much like flirtation on Leander’s part. She got the sense he’d been holding back before, but he wasn’t now.
 

“I suspect you could keep me amused endlessly,” Leander countered, grin turning wicked. Bree’s heart rate picked up a little. A man like Leander probably flirted on reflex. She’d seen that in him at the party. But the way he was looking at her seemed to hold real appreciation. It occurred to her that Daniel would be pissed if she started seeing Leander. She knew that shouldn’t please her, but it did.
 

“It amuses you that I can’t read you?” she said with an answering smile. “That’s hardly fair, since you can probably read me.”

“I’m sure the humility in that equation will do you some good. High power Readers should all get a dose of their own medicine sometimes.”

“And you’re oh-so-kind to give it to me.” Bree answered him.

“At your service, madam,” he said with a little bow.

They went on like that for some little while. Bree was enjoying herself. It was nice to be having a little harmless fun. And if something came of it, well, she was a free woman. Leander just might be the kind of guy she could have a no strings attached fling with. Not that she’d ever had such a thing. She’d met and fallen in love with Seth so young that she had almost no dating experience of any kind. And she had to admit, she’d lately been looking forward to seeing what it would be like to explore a bit sexually. She’d finally been coming out of her fog of grief in the last few months. Her attraction to Daniel was proof of that. She was having enough fun that she considered asking Leander if he wanted to go out to dinner with her. A thoroughly reckless part of her wondered if something more might happen afterwards.
 

But just as she was ready to ask him, Leander looked at his watch and made a surprised noise. “Yikes, I’ve got a Skype conference to get to, a client in New Zealand, it’s tomorrow there.” He glanced out the window. “It’s starting to get dark out. I really should walk you to your car.”

“No, you get to your conference call. It’s not really dark yet, and I only have a couple of blocks to go.”
 

“If you’re sure,” he said reluctantly as they moved toward the door and he held it open for her.

“I’m sure,” she replied.

Leander turned to face her out on the sidewalk. “Well, Bree, thanks so much for coming to hang out with me. I really had a good time talking to you. I’m wondering if you might be willing to get together again sometime?”

“Sure, um yeah, I’d love to,” Bree stuttered. He was standing rather close to her, and for a fleeting moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. Then he did, on the cheek, lingeringly. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“Gotta run. I’ll give you a call soon,” Leander said, backing away a couple of steps, smiling all the while, then he turned and walked off down the street, red hair swinging against his shoulders. Bree couldn’t help but admire his quite nice ass from this angle. She sighed. That man could be a handful, she just knew it. She couldn’t tell if she were more intimidated or intrigued by the fact that she couldn’t read him.
 

As she started walking in the opposite direction towards her car, hands in pockets, she considered whether or not Leander had been telling the truth when he said he was born with some kind of talent that prevented others from reading him. After all, Daniel had a spell that was capable of completely hiding his Demon Master and Binder talents from even Ecclesias examination. It could be some kind of spell. But somehow, she didn’t think so.

She was so lost in thought that she failed to really register the group of young men coming toward her down the sidewalk. She had just turned up Jefferson Street, toward the light rail tunnel entrance.
 

Then it hit her. Her Demonsense flared to life. Three of the boys were possessed.
 

She concentrated on striding confidently, and reached into her purse for her keys. Most likely, the boys would pass her by, but she wanted something sharp to hand if they tried anything.

One of them wolf whistled at her. There were five of them, young men, maybe late teens or early twenties. She looked quickly around, and didn’t see anyone else on the street around them. Her Reader sense flared painfully into existence, prompted by the rush of adrenaline she felt when she registered that she was alone. It wasn’t so late that other people were unlikely to be on the streets nearby, she reassured herself. Unfortunately, that sense of reassurance faded fast as she picked up a powered energy signature from the young men. They were laughing as they approached her, one still whistling, another saying, “Hey, pretty lady, want some company?”
 

“No thanks,” she said shortly, putting her head down and trying to walk confidently as she passed them. One of them seized her by the arm as she went by. She’d never had anyone grab her on the street before, and although a part of her had been expecting it, given most of them were possessed, it still shocked her somehow.

She tried to jerk her arm out of the guy’s hold, glaring up at him as she did so. He was the biggest of the group, football player size. He had a round face, dyed black hair, and he was wearing a sloppy, mean smile that told her he was drunk. “Don’t be in such a hurry,” he told her, holding onto her harder. Another of the young men, this one a carrot top redhead with small blue eyes, slid up beside her and took her other arm. Her Demonsense howled in protest the instant he touched her. She quickly scanned the others, two nearly indistinguishable medium sized boys with long brown hair, and a tall thin sandy blonde haired one with a tattoo of a scorpion showing on his neck. The blonde and one of the twins were possessed as well. She dug in her feet and opened her mouth to scream when the big one shifted his grip and put a hand hard over her mouth. He and Carrot Top picked her up and dragged her into the alley she’d just passed, the other three following. She fought them all she could and got nowhere, nowhere at all. She was so scared now that her brain wasn’t working. All she could think was that she should have let Leander walk her to her car.
 

Leander was nearly home before he knew it, having walked the whole way lost in thought. He wasn’t sure if he’d played things right there at the end. On impulse, he scooped up one of the pigeons strutting along beside him, brought it up to his face and whispered a spell over its head. He turned and threw it up in the air, towards Bree’s retreating back. He just wanted a look at her face, wanted a better gauge of her reactions.
 

He waited a moment, then closed his eyes, triggered the spell, and was suddenly flying, seeing the world from the bird’s eye view. The pigeon flew on ahead of Bree, then settled onto a low window edge. Leander was able to focus in on Bree’s face through the bird’s eyes. He wasn’t thrilled with what he saw there. She looked serious, thoughtful. He was shooting for bemused and a little turned on. He’d thought he’d captured her interest more than that. In fact, he’d wondered if it might have played to take her back to his place. She had seemed keyed up, like she might be easy to talk into something fairly outrageous. But there was a rather serious essence to her, Leander had seen that at the party, read it again when she was talking about her husband, and about the riot last night. This wasn’t a woman prone to casual affairs, he was sure of it. He was going to have to work harder at gaining her trust if he couldn’t do it through sex. Not that he was willing yet to give up on sex with Bree. He actually found her rather attractive. Her eyes were remarkable, a gorgeous mix of brown, gold and green, framed by thick, dark lashes. And there was a certain elegance to her features, with her straight jaw line and long, straight nose. The light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks kept her from looking too severe. And she had a nice body. She clearly took care of herself. She was the kind of woman he would enjoy bringing out of herself. He knew he was good in bed. His Reader sense was a definite asset there. He could feel fire under all that serious earnestness in Bree, and it could be fun to make her burn.
 

She passed his pigeon, and he sent the bird on ahead again. His second look at her face was a little more reassuring. She was smiling softly. That was more like it. Leander was so involved in trying to see Bree’s expression that he didn’t see the gang of young men approaching her. It took only an instant for them to get hold of her and start dragging her off into the alley.
 

Leander froze in indecision. He had the impulse to go after Bree, to save her. But he hadn’t packed a gun. And while he was high power at Casting, he seldom had occasion to use offensive spells. Him against five were not good odds. He sent the pigeon after them into the alley, and focused his will more strongly on the bird, trying to see what he could of the situation. Were they just going to rob her? Or were they going to rape her?
 

What he read gave him serious pause. He could just barely pick it up, but there was a distortion to the movements of three of the young men that spoke strongly of demon possession. That settled it. He was not going in alone against three possessed. A number that high spoke to him of Keltoi. That meant at least some of the young men were powered as well.
 

Leander was surprised at how upset that made him. He would have liked to go to Bree’s rescue. It would have taken him miles towards his goal of gaining her trust. And he found that he didn’t really want her to be hurt. Which led him straight into another dilemma. He needed her for his mission. He wasn’t going to get to Thorvaldson without her. He couldn’t afford for her to be killed. “Shit!” he snarled under his breath, and took off at a run for his apartment, and the weapons he had stored there.

Bree was about to be raped, she knew it. She tried to remember what she’d heard about self defense in these situations and made a fruitless attempt to stomp on the instep of the big one. She got his toes and he only huffed in annoyance. She opened her mouth to try to bite his hand, but he felt her do it, and ground his hand harder against her, making it impossible to get a grip with her teeth. She had a feeling these boys were Keltoi, maybe the children of Keltoi, though maybe old enough to formally join the business side themselves.
 

“Just think how much you’re going to enjoy this, bitch,” the blonde said, leaning over her as the one of the twins took over from the big one in holding her arm. She felt the hand over her mouth loosen and drew breath to scream, but before she could get out a sound, a piece of cloth was shoved into her mouth. She tried to spit it out, but before she could make any headway, it was tied into place with a bandana. She’d never tried to raise power for an exorcism without invoking the prayers and spells out loud. And she didn’t have a ghost of a chance of exorcising three demons, even if she could speak. She’d managed to do an exorcism by force once, but it had killed the subject, something she still felt a great deal of shame about, although she hadn’t intended it
 

The blonde one was pulling at the button on her pants. She tried to kick him, but the other two had her up against the wall of the building now, and she couldn’t get her leg back far enough to get any force behind it. She connected, though, and the blonde paused in his assault on her pants long enough to slap her viciously across the face. “Stop it, bitch,” he growled.
 

It hurt like hell, but it also made her angry. God damn it, she was not going to let herself be raped by a herd of Keltoi boys. It finally, belatedly, occurred to her that she was not without offensive magic, thanks to Daniel’s teaching. He’d made her learn it without any verbal invocation. That was the upside. The downside was that she hadn’t yet managed any telekinetic spells, as least without Gelsenim’s help. Daniel was convinced she could do it, had told her at this point it was more that she didn’t believe she could do it.