Demon Master (Demonsense series Book 2) (36 page)

“My neighborhood is pretty walkable as well,” she told him with a glance up at him. “But it’s awfully quiet compared to downtown.”

“Oh, I like the excitement of living downtown, at least for now. Have you ever thought you might like that?”

She set aside her menu. She was apparently a quick decider. “Sure, I’ve thought of it, especially when I first came to live in Seattle. I like downtown. I like the busy vibe. That’s why I wanted to come to your ‘hood again.”

“I would have thought you’d have sworn off after what happened to you last time.” Leander did actually wonder about that. He’d been surprised at her suggestion about where they meet.

“I have to admit, I went with the valet parking,” she told him with a nervous little smile.

“You can be sure I’ll see you settled and locked into your car this time,” Leander answered seriously, catching her eye. “I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t do that last time.”

Bree reached out and put her hand lightly on his wrist as she answered. “You have absolutely nothing to blame yourself for. I’m the one who insisted. And besides, the people to blame are the ones who attacked me.” She seemed to suddenly notice what she’d done, and took her hand away quick enough to give away that she hadn’t meant to be so warm and personal. Not a good sign.

The waiter chose that moment to appear again. Bree ordered a glass of red wine, and Leander did the same. Anything to move along the more romantic atmosphere at this point. He’d just have to drink slowly, and hope she drank fast. He suspected getting a buzz on would mellow her. She was definitely not comfortable. He would have to make her so.
 

He steered them away from more intimate talk at first, to give her time to relax. It was less emotionally charged, and while he wanted to foster intimacy, her skittishness decided him on moving slower than he would have liked. Once he got her on the subject of politics, she became more animated, more spunky and opinionated, in short, more the person he’d met before.
 

He started to enjoy himself a bit, and risked a little more in the way of flirtatious repartee. By the time they were halfway through the meal, he thought he was finally making headway. He saw Bree making longer eye contact, and her body was canted more towards his. He had already planned to invite her to go out to hear some music at a smaller restaurant nearby that was featuring Latin music tonight. If he was lucky, he could get her to dance. He remembered from the party that she was a good dancer. If that failed to please, he had found out where they played some Irish music. It would be less intimate, but at least he already knew she liked that kind of music.
 

He was looking for his opening to make the invite when her phone went off in her purse. Bree reached for it, digging inside frantically, and finally got hold of and turned off the ringer. She glanced down at the number, then gave him a frankly apologetic look. “I’m so, so sorry, but I have to check this message. I know it’s terribly rude, and I wouldn’t normally, but this might be important.”

Leander waited with impatience. This had better not be something that interrupted their date. He absolutely had to make serious headway with her tonight, get her into bed if at all possible. Her face became tense and serious as he watched, and his mind raced as he tried to think how he might salvage things if she truly had to go.
 

“I’m afraid there’s an emergency. I’m going to need to leave,” she told him as she tucked her cell back in her purse.

“Is it anything I might help with? I don’t have other plans for the evening, and I have cash, we can just throw some down and leave now if we have to.” He tried to sound concerned, and in reality, he was. He might not get another date for a week or more if something serious was happening. She looked more like she was thinking how to tell him ‘no’ than she was thinking about taking him along. He had a sudden hunch, and he went with it, leaning forward and saying in lowered voice, “Is it powered business?”

She gave him a penetrating look. There, he’d reminded her successfully he was powered too, part of the in crowd, to be trusted. She answered in a similarly quiet voice. “It is. You know those conflicts that have been happening? Those riots? Apparently there’s one starting right now, not far from here, more over towards your place, in one of those music clubs. I’m needed to help out.”

“Bree, there is no way I’m going to let you go alone, not after last time,” Leander said hotly, working to keep his voice down.
 

“There will be people I know there, some Keepers,” she told him doubtfully, but clearly she was wavering.

“I can do some basic warding and defensive spells. I can help. And besides, I’m just not letting you go into that by yourself.” Leander's heart was pounding. In a way, he meant it. He didn’t like the idea of her being hurt again. But he really didn’t like the idea of him getting hurt either. He wasn’t keen to walk into a riot, but this was his chance, a better chance really than dinner and dancing, to gain her trust, to get her to like him. Bonding through danger and all that. The catch was, if he had to save his own ass over protecting her, it was all over. She'd never trust him again.

She finally decided. “Okay, you can come along. We can talk more as we walk. It’s happening in a club down on the square. I think that’s eight or nine blocks from here. I’m sure it’ll be faster to walk because we’re not likely to get parking down there.”

“I agree.” He got into his wallet and tossed some money down on the table. Bree was digging in her purse to contribute, but he told her, “I’ve got it. You can treat next time.”

They left the restaurant and walked quickly south. The buildings got older and more ornamented as they went. There was low cloud cover, and it was starting to get misty, the streetlights each sporting a halo. The Saturday night crowd seeking restaurants and bars seemed thin to Leander, but there were enough people to make it necessary to try to converse in low voices to maintain some privacy.
 

“So here’s the deal,” Bree told him as they went. “I’ve been practicing my casting, and I can do quite a few offensive spells now, even a telekinetic spell, though that one’s new. I can cast dizziness, muscle weakness, muscle freeze, re-direction of attention, and blindness. I’ve figured out how to read crowd flow, so I might be able to spot where trouble is happening. I've got some warding spells down, but only the kind that stop magic, nothing that can stop physical contact. I’ve got Demonsense, and I’m an Exorcist. I’ve been carrying an abbreviated Exorcist kit around with me, so I’m prepared. There will be possessed, though if this is anything like last time, there mostly won’t be time to do exorcisms. What have you got?”

Leander was honestly impressed with her recital. He hadn’t known she had quite so many battle spells. Perhaps more than that, he was impressed with her focus. He could see she was tense, but she was thinking ahead, strategizing. He had to make a quick decision about how much to tell her about his abilities. “I’m good at re-direction wards and general re-direction spells. I’m a high power Warder, though I admit I don’t have that much call to use it. I can put up a physical ward for short periods of time, but I’m better with wards that deflect spells.”
 

“That will be useful,” Bree replied. “Any offensive spells?”

“Again, not much call to use them, but I know how to do dizziness and muscle weakness. No telekinesis though. And I’m not an Exorcist.”

“There will be at least one other Exorcist there that I know of. He’s a Keeper, a friend of my husband’s named Javier Ortiz. And there will probably be others. If we’re going to work together on this, I’d suggest you focus on warding us and deflecting any spells, not to mention keeping people off us physically. You are bigger than I am.” She sounded chagrined, as if she didn’t want to have to admit that, to rely on him for protection.
 

Absurdly, Leander found his male ego swelling up at that. He wanted to protest that he was quite capable of preventing harm from coming to her, but the reality was, he couldn’t be sure of that. Who knew what they were about to get in to? And besides, it sounded like she was at least as good a Caster as he was. He was underplaying his abilities some, as he didn’t want her to see him as having a lot of battle experience. That didn’t go with his cover. If he kept to that, chances were that at some point, she’d be protecting him.

“One thing Kevin and I found the last time we did this was that at a certain point, the best tactic was just to try to clear the kids out, basically bully them right out of the situation.”

“I’m not sure these will necessarily be kids, Bree. I heard that’s what went down at that riot on Alki Beach, but I’m guessing we might be dealing with an older crowd. For one thing, unless they have fake IDs, they’re at least twenty-one, since it's going to be the bar crowd on the square on a Saturday night.”

“Well, we can hope that means some of them have some sense.”

“Which might work if demons weren’t involved,” Leander said darkly. He did not care for demons. He'd been possessed before, at Marton’s tutelage, and while he’d experienced the rush everyone talked about, he hated the idea of something else being in even partial control of him. He'd gotten through life by making sure he was the one in control, wherever possible and in whatever way possible. Not to mention the fact that they were just plain creepy. He had Demonsense although it was, thank God, low level rather than high. He could feel them when they were close enough, but it didn’t flood his system like he heard it did for those with high power Demonsense. And he was quite sure that described Bree. He’d have to watch out for her with that. Although it appeared she was a seasoned Exorcist and had some battle experience, if there truly were a large number of demons, as Marton and his people had planned for, things might become very difficult for her.

They began to see and hear signs of trouble a block away. There was a club near the corner of the square where people were spilling out onto the sidewalk, and there were sounds of shouting. There was already some police presence as well. Two squad cars were pulled up, though their lights weren’t flashing.

“I’m supposed to look for Javier or one of the other Keepers I know,” Bree told him. She sounded much less self-assured than she had on the walk.
 

Leander took her hand and put it in the crook of his elbow. “Once more into the breach, dear friend,” he told her, producing a good approximation of confidence that he did not actually feel.
 

Bree slowed when they were half a block away. She leaned toward him and said into his ear, “I feel serious amounts of demons over there. I can’t begin to guess how many, but to feel this much at this distance does not bode well.” As they got close enough to see in more detail what was happening, they stopped to let her peruse the crowd for her Keeper friends. They were not the only onlookers. People couldn’t resist watching a fight, and a fight was definitely going on. There looked to be a number of brawls, small and large, in the crowd milling in front of the club. Leander saw that the metal tables and chairs out front that were probably used for summer outdoor seating were strewn about and causing problems as combatants tripped on them.
 

As he watched, one young man with the look of a college frat boy picked up a chair and brought it down on the back of another man, who collapsed onto the ground. The police were in evidence trying to break up the fights on the perimeter, with one officer attempting to direct the crowd of onlookers away, but they weren’t out in enough force to contain much of the mayhem. Leander couldn’t even begin to imagine how he was supposed to be of help in the situation. If he waded in and tried to use spells to divert the brawlers, wouldn’t they just get up again and go at each other? And it wasn’t like the crowd was big enough at this point for his efforts to go unnoticed. Bree, fortunately, seemed to have a better idea than he did what to do.

“I don’t see any of the Keepers, so I’m afraid we’re just going to have to make our best guess on how to help right now. Last time, we focused on seeking out the possessed ones and interfering with their actions as much as possible. That could mean dealing with possessed powered, so be prepared.”
 

She looked up at him, and there was an intensity to her look that told him she was trying to read him. Doubtless the proximity of danger had her Reader sense up and running. The uncertain look on her face didn’t tell him much about what she’d been able to read, if anything, but her words indicated she had good intuition if nothing else. “I know we may not be able to do much, but it’s better than nothing, don’t you think?”

Leander did not think. What he thought was that he liked his original plan better, the one involving drinks and dancing and sex. But he had to fake it, so he replied with a smile, “Definitely better than nothing.”

Bree turned and watched the crowd, perhaps using her Demonsense, or maybe just her Reader ability to see where the worst trouble was. After a brief moment, she tugged him towards the left. There was another bar down that way, and he could see that people were pouring out of it, coming their way. There were a whole slew of bars and clubs in this neighborhood, and if they all emptied out to check out the fight, the numbers were going to increase rapidly. That meant far more danger, but it also meant they would be lost in the crowd, and use of magic would be less obvious.
 

He saw the nexus of trouble Bree was heading for shortly before they got there. A group of people circled one of the fights, most egging the contestants on. They looked like college kids to him, their clothes too nice and teeth too straight to be a more low rent kind of crowd. Their faces were distorted with a wild, tribal aggression and an avid curiosity. He was close enough now that he felt the queasiness of his Demonsense reacting to the presence of demons. He couldn’t really pinpoint that to any particular person, but Bree could.

“The four guys fighting in the middle, every one of them is possessed,” Bree said, again trying to speak into his ear. “If we can work our way closer through these spectators, I’ll try some spells to break up the fight. You watch my back.”