Demonsense (Demonsense series Book 1) (41 page)

“Ah, you lack the strength!” the demon replied, face morphing again toward red and horned, though his body stayed human.

“No, I lack the temperament,” Daniel responded. “It’s not my nature to be cruel, or to seek excitement in power over others. You know I don’t command you unless I have to.”

The demon's visage slowly went back to human. “You commanded me to find the child,” it said.

“Did you find him?” Daniel asked, face intent.

“I did not.”
   

Daniel visibly wilted, and Bree felt herself do the same.
 

“I did hear of the child,” Gelsenim continued with what sounded strangely like the desire to please. “He is with the strongest one, the Keltoi leader, Carson. There is talk of you, Daniel. Of how you will be forced to teach us to hide as you do.”

“I thought you had already taught other demons Daniel’s trick,” Bree challenged.

The demon began pacing again, but kept his human form. “Only that which I could divine, that which could be transported? Realized? And is it not only fair,” Gelsenim continued, voice rising, deepening. “You take from us our food, our form, at every chance! You deny us at every turn! How could I not take this when I found it, some chance for my kind? Ah, perhaps I should let them have you!” the demon growled.

“This Carson,” Daniel pursued. “Can you locate him?”

“There is warding on that one, and possessed who will not speak of him. There was a place he was known, but he moved that place. All that is known of the new place is that it is near the water, in this city, the part you call downtown.”

“The lake or the Sound?” Bree questioned urgently.

“The larger, the salt water. And there is another thing related to Carson,” the demon continued, “an action, a job. The Keltoi are planning something large. Many demons have been called, some to possess Keltoi, some to provide distraction. Many are being fed, and few exorcised. I think perhaps I would rather one of theirs mastered me.” His eyes flashed into a deeper orange.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you with the hunger,” Daniel said with all evidence of sincerity. “But I’m willing to try to help, to try to better understand your kind.”

“Only to exterminate us!” the demon hissed, turning on him.

Daniel didn't flinch, and Gelsenim stopped just short of touching him. “It’s not that I want to exterminate you so much as banish you. If that’s the only option to prevent your kind from hurting and killing my kind, then I'll do it. But can’t we seek another option? It sounds as if you once co-existed with these Seldenai…”

“You are not Seldenai,” the demon said, almost sadly, and his form wavered again, breaking up first around the edges.

“Gelsenim, I command you!” Daniel said more strongly. He raised one fisted hand. “I command you only to protect our safety. But you will not speak of this conversation to any being, human, demon or other. You will not convey my location, or Bree's location. I will call you again, and we will talk more of this. If you find any other evidence of the child, come to me in the same way, and do not cause pain
or
discomfort when you touch the rock bound to my wrist. Now, be gone.”

The demon did not answer, and there was more a waft than a rush of moist heat on its exit. Then there was quiet, ruffled only by the gentle chatter of the creek. There was so much to consider and speculate about in what Gelsenim had said, but those parts concerning Hunter were by far uppermost in Bree’s mind. “So Franchesca has taken Hunter to this Carson, who I take it is head of the Keltoi clan around here.”

“I think all this urgency about getting my hiding spell has something to do with the big action planned, something tied to the increase in possessions. And they're headquartered near downtown, by the Sound. That's got to mean downtown Seattle.” Daniel’s clenched fist tapped lightly against his thigh as he considered, and he frowned in concentration. Then his expression cleared, and he said, “Enough. Enough of doing it by the book on this one. I’m not a Keeper any more.” He took off back up the trail they had come down, moving fast.
 

“What are you thinking?” Bree asked, hurrying along behind him, trying to keep up with her shorter legs.

He glanced over his shoulder and said, “The finder spell. Now that I know Hunter is being held somewhere near downtown, the spell doesn't have to be spread out over too much territory. And with the location being near the water, I have something to work with, a specific element. It could make a difference, even with the spells against finding they must have up.” He turned and kept moving up the trail.

“Didn’t you say you had to get some things at your place to do the finder spell? What if the Keltoi have it staked out?”

“A stake out I can deal with, since it won’t involve that many Keltoi. And at this point, I’m betting on a just stake out. They won't expect me to return someplace where security has been compromised. They know they have leverage on me with Hunter, so they may not be putting as much into finding me as before. And besides, if the Keltoi have something big brewing, which jibes with what Javier said, I may well be a sideshow to all that.”

“Man, Javier is not going to like this,” Bree mused, half worried, half gleeful.

“I don’t answer to Javier, or the local Keepers,” Daniel replied, a little out of breath. One hand was on his injured side, which he was clearly straining with his dash uphill. “I’ve let old habits of Keeper precedence get in the way of doing what needs to be done.”
 

“Okay, fine. We get your things, come back here, and work the finder spell. Say we get a locate. Then what?”

Daniel stopped again and turned to face her, a hand holding onto a slender tree by the side of the trail. “You’re not coming with me. And I’m not coming back to Joe’s.”

For a brief moment, Bree felt nothing but relief. She didn’t have to go with him, didn’t have to be involved further. She could let someone stronger, more experienced, handle things. And she wouldn’t have to deal with what had happened between them last night.
 

But looking up at Daniel, clutching his side and out of breath, eyes tired and shadowed, the stronger emotion was the desire to be near him, to touch him, to protect him. Which was really enough to make her laugh. Her, protect him? With her few, measly defensive spells, no offensive spells, and a general disinclination to use what magic she did have?
 

Still, she could help. She could use her Reader abilities and Demonsense to keep him safe while he worked on the spell. And besides, she didn’t want to wait around for news anymore. She wanted to be
doing
something.
 

“Like hell, you’re going without me. Look at you! You look like you’re about to pass out. If you’re still hurting that much, what are you doing out on a hike, for God’s sake?”

“Bree,” he responded seriously, “there’s really no need for you to come, and plenty of reasons for you to stay out of it. I’ve exposed you to too much danger already. And besides, we could encounter more demons, more possessed. It’s entirely possible that it’s all this recent contact with demons starting up some latent Demon Master talent in you. I know that’s not something you want.”

“It’s stupid for you to go alone,” she insisted stubbornly.
 

“I’ve done this kind of work alone before. I’ll be careful.”

“Not happening, Thorvaldson. Get over it.”

He regarded her with a mixture of annoyance and amusement. “You really are going to be a pain in the ass about this, aren’t you?”

“I seem to recall you don’t have a car,” she said sweetly.

“You could drop me off at your place so I could get mine.”

“Oh, yeah, using a stick shift days after a getting a knife wound. Great idea.”

“It’s not that bad.” He self-consciously removed his hand from his side.
 

“Yeah, and I’m Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile,” she replied sarcastically. She was starting to enjoy herself. She had a good bit of annoyed snarkiness to get out of her system.

He raised her one. “Seriously, you’d just be a distraction. I don’t need to be worried about protecting you, I need to be focused on finding Hunter.”

While there might be some truth in that, Bree wouldn’t budge. She wasn’t sure if it was sheer cussedness, or a total loss of objectivity, or a helpful intuition, but she felt more and more sure that she was not going to allow him to go without her. She saw his bet and raised him one. “I’m sure Javier would be interested to know that you’re going off all vigilante to handle this on your own.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me, Daniel.”

His lips parted for a retort, and there was an energy in the air between them, part angry tension, part attraction. For a moment, Bree thought he was going to kiss her again. Hell, she thought,
she
was going to kiss
him
.
 

Instead, he turned and said, “Fine!” He stalked on up the hill stiffly, Bree scrambling in his wake, perversely wondering, now that she had won, why she had fought to go with him.

Chapter 22

Fortunately,
Joe still wasn't up and around when Daniel and Bree got back from their walk in the woods, so they were able to get out of the house before he appeared.
 

“It all seems to fit with what Kevin calls your ‘other dimensional beings theory’ doesn’t it?” Bree commented as they started the drive to Daniel's place.

Daniel fumbled with the side of the passenger seat until he got it to recline more. “He certainly seemed to be implying they come from another realm, that this isn’t their native space. It also seems pretty clear that he’s describing some kind of symbiosis with these Seldenai, whatever they are.”

“‘We the heart, they the mind,’” Bree quoted. “There’s some pattern there, something in how Gelsenim seems to want to do work for you. I think that’s in some part what he means when he speaks of the Seldenai being the mind.”
 

“And yet he was very reactive to the other demon calling him a slave. It doesn’t make sense.”

“We’re missing a piece somewhere,” Bree reflected, stopping for a red light.
 

“Yes, but we’re gaining pieces as well,” Daniel replied. "You come at this from a different angle, and that's incredibly helpful.”

Bree was warmed by the praise, but also distracted by worry over possible conflict with the Keltoi at Daniel's house. “I wish we had more of a plan about getting your things than ‘I hope there’s not too many of them.’”
 

"We park a couple of blocks away, scan for Keltoi and possessed, neutralize any we find, and get in and out quick.”

“It’s the neutralizing that’s got me worried.”

“Look, if they’re at all tired or distracted, I can probably sneak up on them and hit them with a freeze spell.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to, you know, bind them?”

“Better in the sense of easier and safer,” he conceded, “but you know I don’t like to use my Binder abilities. It kind of freaks me out.”

You and me both,
Bree thought to herself.

They were soon in Daniel’s neighborhood, and he directed her to park the car two blocks away, on a side street. As they approached his house on foot, Daniel pointed out a silver BMW with two men in it parked about three houses down from his place.
 

"Not very subtle, are they?" Bree asked.

Daniel continued on past his street at a brisk pace. "It just confirms what I was thinking. The Keltoi didn't send their best on the stakeout because they don't expect me to come home at this point." He led her on a wide loop around his street until he felt confident they had spotted the only Keltoi around.
 

Bree felt lightheaded with nerves as they approached the BMW from behind. She readied her shield spell in her mind and gathered up her will energy to cast it. They were about two car lengths away when she saw one of the men turn around in his seat. Almost immediately, the man opened the car door. "Oh God, here we go," she whispered.

Daniel's hand shot out, and a cold wave of energy washed by her.
 

Both men slumped forward, and Daniel moved quickly to push the one who'd been getting out back into his seat. He gestured at the men again, then shut the car door firmly. "That should hold for about ten minutes. Let's go." He turned and headed for his house.
 

Bree felt a strange sense of anti-climax. Not that she’d wanted another battle. She’d just worked herself up to a fine edge of tension and she felt like it had nowhere to go.
 

They both did a quick energy read, and confirmed that no one was in Daniel’s house. After he shoved some extra clothes into a duffle, he went to his workroom and started pulling out drawers. He extracted several bags, bottles and objects, and put them in his bag so quickly that she couldn’t make out what they were, especially since her attention was primarily on scanning for anyone approaching. Finally, he brought out a plain, locked wood box. He waved a hand over it, muttered, “Release by my will,” and the lock dropped open. He pulled out an astonishingly large roll of hundred dollar bills.
 

“Emergency stash,” he said to her wide-eyed look.

“Kind of makes mine look pathetic,” she commented.

“Yeah, well, there’s some weird shit that goes with old family money, but it’s handy to have around sometimes,” he responded as he zipped up the bag and threw it over his shoulder. “That does it, let’s go.”
 

Daniel hit the still frozen Keltoi with another spell on their way out to make sure they wouldn't be followed, then led the way to her car.

“So,” she said as they got back in, “Where to now?”

“I want to get as close as possible to the water to work the finder spell. Gelsenim said Hunter was being kept near water, so where can we get a hotel room on the water, somewhere downtown?”

She started the car and drove off quickly, wanting to put distance between them and the Keltoi. “There’s a hotel that extends right over the Sound called the Edgewater. I went to a wedding there once. It’s on the waterfront below downtown. So it’s not going to be cheap.”