Demonsense (Demonsense series Book 1)

by Sara DeHaven

  “Me too,” she responded. She sat down and poured some orange juice from a carton sitting on the table into a waiting glass. She was relieved Daniel seemed calm, especially given how dark his energy had been last night. She wasn't sure what to make of the change. Maybe he'd managed more sleep than she had. And maybe it wasn't demon burn making him so emotional and unpredictable.

  They both avoided eye contact, and an awkward silence fell. Bree found she had no desire to read him. And she literally couldn’t open up her mouth and speak of what had happened between them, although she’d imagined a hundred ways of doing so as she tossed and turned in bed last night.

  He broke the silence by saying, “It really sucks, being on the sidelines like this. I know I’m retired, but it’s hard not to be more in the information loop. The Keepers want to protect me because I used to be one of them, but they don’t know me, and they don’t quite trust me either.”

  “I know how you feel. It seems crazy to be hiding out in this house, waiting for someone else to find Hunter.” Bree forced herself to take another sip of juice. The idea of eggs made her stomach turn, and toast wasn’t looking that appetizing either. However, she knew she needed to eat to get her power back up, should have eaten last night. So she got up and pulled a piece of bread from the package on the counter, and began to pick at it.

  Daniel swilled down some coffee and said, “Yeah, well maybe we need to get out of this house. There’s been no sign the Keltoi have been able to do a locate on it, and I didn't find anything on the sweep I did when I got up. Joe said there are some trails in the park out back. Maybe we should go for a walk, work out the kinks.”

  And maybe we should talk, privately, was the meaning behind that little invitation. Bree was frantically making up excuses to avoid it even as her lips said “Good idea." She finished the bread quickly, and went upstairs to fetch her coat. Lord, she did not want to have this conversation. She couldn’t think of a way it could have a good outcome. Nevertheless, she followed Daniel outside, into what was a surprisingly still morning, because she knew that delaying it wouldn’t really help things either.

  He led the way onto a narrow trail Joe had pointed out to him. It went downhill into a forested ravine. Douglas firs rose tall on all sides, blocking out much of the cloudy grey morning light. There were vine maples and large sword ferns in the undergrowth, along with a good selection of mosses and lichens. Evidence of last night’s storm showed in the large number of fir branches downed along the trail. Droplets of water released randomly from the tree canopy, gentle leftovers from the rain. Neither of them spoke, concentrating instead on navigating the muddy slope.

  Finally, the trail leveled out at the bottom of the ravine. There seemed to be no one around. A little further on they came to the salmon stream that ran through the park. The clouds parted, and rays of sun came enchantingly down through the trees.

  Daniel paused beside the creek in a beam of sunlight, hands in jacket pockets, one foot up on a rock, and breathed in deeply. “This is beautiful,” he commented, looking around. “It’s hard to believe something that feels this wild is in the city. It looks somehow primeval compared to the woods I grew up in back home.” He turned to look at her and said softly, “I really don’t know the most basic things about you. Did you grow up around here?”

  “North of here, in a small city called Bellingham, about an hour and a half drive,” Bree answered. “These are definitely the kind of woods I grew up in.” She felt skittish and vulnerable under his attention, but at the same time, couldn't drag her eyes away from him, couldn't stop thinking about the wild heat of their kisses.

  “You look like you belong here,” he commented. He took his foot off the rock and walked the few steps it took to stand directly in front of her. He took a hand out of his pocket and ran his thumb along her cheek. “You have forest eyes,” he murmured. “Gold and brown lace over green.”

  Bree stilled. This was a far cry from the anguished, impulsive interchange of last night. Her eyes searched his, and she felt strangely humbled, as if all her perceptions, all her reading of him, meant nothing, told her nothing. In this light, his eyes weren’t as black as they looked indoors. They were a very, very dark brown, with layers and textures that granted them depth.

  Suddenly, he jerked his hand away and grabbed his wrist with his other hand. "Damn it, that hurt. It's Gelsenim. I told him to touch the rock on my bracelet if he had something to report about Hunter.” He looked at Bree apologetically. "It's bad timing, but I think I should call him on through."

  "Yes, yes, do it,” Bree told him.

  He looked quickly in every direction, and Bree did the same. There was still no one to be seen. Then he turned slightly away from her and called, “Gelsenim I call you! Come forth!”

  The air in front of him shimmered, then a blast of heat hit Bree in the face as Gelsenim took shape, this time in his demon form, though a smaller version, more sinew and slinky strength than overwhelming, masculine mass. She wouldn’t have known him for the same demon, but Daniel didn’t miss a beat as he growled, “I thought I commanded you to cause me no pain when you touched the stone at my wrist.”

  “That was mere discomfort,” Gelsenim argued, pacing restlessly along the edge of the creek. “You have not known the true pain I could cause.”

  “Well, something certainly has you riled up,” Daniel said more thoughtfully, as he rubbed his wrist. "So, did you find out where Hunter is?"

  “I am not Eldeku,” the demon rumbled.

  Daniel backed a careful pace away from Gelsenim. “Has something, ah, upset you?” He glanced at Bree, and she nodded. The demon certainly looked agitated. They would have to proceed carefully if they were to get any information on Hunter.

  “And what exactly is an Eldeku?” Daniel asked.

  “I am not Eldeku!” the demon roared. Two crows took off cawing from the trees above at the noise, and Bree looked around nervously. All they needed, on top of an angry, unwarded demon was for a couple of normals to happen by on an early morning hike. Fortunately, there was still no one in sight.

  Daniel hesitated, then said, “Right, so you’re not Eldeku. Who’s saying you are?”

  Gelsenim turned whirling ember eyes on Daniel and said petulantly, “Tirakku says it. When next I have a host, I will crush that one!”

  Tirakku had been the demon she’d exorcised a couple of nights ago, the one who'd possessed Kevin, and that man Justice before that. Hope unfurled inside Bree. If Gelsenim had spoken to Tirakku, perhaps he knew where Hunter was! She opened her mouth to ask, but Daniel forestalled her.

  “Does Tirakku mistake you for another demon?” he asked.

  “Eldeku is not another one, it is a thing, a slave! I, who am among the eldest, I who remember being one with the Seldenai, when there was no hunger, when we were free!”

  “Tirakku was mastered by a Keltoi, just as you are, at times, mastered by me. So why does he call you a slave?” Daniel asked carefully.

  “That one is too young to remember!” Gelsenim raged on. “That one was made here, in this realm.”

  “Not in the realm you come from?”

  The demon seemed to calm a little. He stopped his pacing and his form wavered briefly before settling back to his current one. “He comes of what you call ‘taint.’ One formed from a piece, inside of a host, a human host. These ones can be strong, but they are not intelligent. They are a lesser species.”

  “What is Tirakku too young to remember?”

  “The Seldenai,” the demon repeated. “Those to whom we were not slaves, but equals. We the heart, they the mind.”

  Bree stepped up beside Daniel, who nodded at her to weigh in. “Is Daniel the mind to your heart?” she asked. Daniel shot her a surprised look. Clearly she had not followed the course of questioning he expected.

  The demon wavered again, then settled into his human form, blond head bowed, shoulders slumped. “He is close,” the demon whispered, “close to the Seldenai, but he will not let
me feed, so I hunger.”

  “When you feed, or when you possess Daniel, it harms him,” Bree said gently. It was hard not to respond to the despair evident in the demon’s voice and posture, too easy to forget, just for a moment, the horrors this demon had been responsible for.

  “It should not,” Gelsenim said more strongly, and looked up at her. “There is a close compatibility of energy. If he would but engage in certain activities, his energy would be strong enough to share permanently.”

  “If by certain activities, you mean those you encourage in your hosts, that won’t work, Gelsenim,” Daniel broke in. Though he was clearly still trying to sound patient and reasonable, Bree caught the undertone of fear in his voice. It had to be unnerving to be told he had some sort of compatibility with a demon.

  “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.