by Sara DeHaven
"Too crazy? That's what you call it? Jesus Christ Bree, I completely snapped, then I gave in to something, did something that I promised myself I wouldn't do. I'm not someone you should be in an intimate relationship with, not with Demon Master instability hanging over my head. And then I called Gelsenim, and he nearly possessed me. I guarantee you would have ended up raped and murdered if that had happened," he finished harshly.
And she couldn't deny that. It really had been that close. For whatever reason, the demon's recent near reasonableness had vanished, and he was back to being bent on violence and mayhem. She nearly gave up then. God knew she wanted to give up, but that strange certainty that she was right, that she shouldn't leave him at this point just wouldn't go away. "Well, it didn't happen. Nothing bad actually happened. Both of us had a scare, and we made out, and then you had the strength to banish Gelsenim."
He clenched his fists in frustration. "God, you're stubborn! What part of 'I'm losing it' don't you understand? Because that's what's happening here, and I don't know why! There are Demon Masters who have regular contact with demons for years before going crazy. Even Franchesca has some remnants of sanity, and she’s been at it for fifteen years!”
Bree froze in concentration at that. He was right. “How long does it usually take for a Demon Master to become seriously unbalanced?”
Her question appeared to catch him off guard. Either that, or his exhaustion was finally catching up to him. Some of the frustration left his face, and he slanted her a considering look. "It depends on how much contact they have with demons, what level of demons, and how often they let the demons possess them. And even all that isn’t a clear predictor. Some go down within a couple of years, some last as long as twenty."
"Shouldn't having such strong Demon Master talent make it likely for you to last longer?”
“I suppose it should, but it doesn’t seem to be working that way. Maybe I’m particularly vulnerable for some other reason.”
“Wait, wait a minute,” Bree said as a murky idea took more solid shape. “What Gelsenim said before, about how there was, what did he call it? A ‘close compatibility of energy.’ Maybe it’s this particular demon that’s getting to you. He seems to think you're like those Seldenai he was talking about. Maybe he’s wanting some kind of symbiosis with you, and that makes him interact with you differently, affect you differently.”
Daniel closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It looked to Bree like he was fighting down anger. “That does make a certain kind of sense," he finally conceded in measured tones. "But there’s no real way to know why this is happening. What I do know is that I have never, ever, lost it like that before.”
She crossed her arms and rubbed at them briskly. Her body temperature was dropping in an after reaction to stress. “Look, it's my choice. I'm choosing to take the risk of staying here. I'm doing it more for Hunter than for you. You might not be the only one with a chance to find him, but I think you have a better than even chance of pulling it off. And it couldn't be more clear that you need someone here to keep you out of trouble." She pushed painfully up to her feet. "Any danger to either of us is going to be a hell of a lot less if you get some sleep."
He pushed his hands through his hair. “God knows I'm beyond exhausted."
Bree felt a tired satisfaction. She could tell she'd won. He wouldn't fight her any more, at least not right now.
"Just promise me this." He looked up at her, and steel sparked in his dark eyes. "If I start to get moody again, you call me on it, and I'll rest and meditate."
"That's what you should have been doing all along." It was a dig, but she was too tired to resist the impulse.
“Fair enough. If my energy starts to go dark like that again, you run. If Gelsenim shows up again without my calling him, you run. Swear it."
"If your energy goes dark again, I'll leave. But I can't promise to leave if Gelsenim shows up again. If he succeeds in possessing you, the damage you could do would be, well, very bad," she finished inadequately.
"You can't master him, and I could bind you to keep from trying to exorcise him. So what good would it do for you to stay?"
There was an edge to his voice that told her his control was slipping again. She almost backed down then. But then a good argument came to her. "Back at my office, when Gelsenim possessed you, I helped you fight him. And since then, it seems I'm sprouting some kind of Demon Master talent. You saw what happened a minute ago. Gelsenim came close to following my command to leave."
Daniel gave her a sharp look, and she felt a grim stab of satisfaction. He wasn't going to be able to argue that one.
"I told you I'd leave if you seem like you're about to snap again. That's all you're going to get."
He straightened up, and a speculative look passed quickly across his face. Bree got the distinct sense that he'd just considered then discarded the idea of binding her and ordering her to leave. Then he sighed and rolled over onto his side, pulling the bedspread over him. "Don't let me sleep for long.”
Bree carefully let out the breath she'd been holding. “I’ll wake you in a couple of hours.”
She turned to go to the bathroom without further comment. When she came out, Daniel was already asleep. She was going to have to lie down next to him as the finder spell elements were spread out on the other bed. Carefully, trying not to disturb him, she crawled under the covers and settled down facing away from him. She tried to pretend he wasn't lying less than a foot away. She saw that it was after midnight as she reached for the bedside clock to set the alarm for five a.m. She knew Daniel would be pissed that she let him sleep that long, but she knew even that much sleep wasn't nearly enough. Even the fucking Keltoi had to sleep, right? With a weary sigh, she closed her eyes.
Bree woke up in muddled confusion, hand groping on the bedside table, trying to find and quell the insistent beeping of the alarm. Finally, she connected and the miserable thing stopped. She felt the bed move as Daniel got up, and he disappeared into the bathroom. She lay back and mustered up her Reader sense, and then her Demonsense to scan the area for Keltoi or possessed, and found nothing.
After a few more precious moments under the covers, Bree got it together enough to order breakfast from room service.
They exchanged nothing more than brief “good mornings” as Daniel came out of the bathroom and she went in to take her turn. When she finished cleaning up and got out, breakfast had arrived. Daniel ate steadily, in silence, and Bree didn't press him to talk as she filled a plate for herself. There was an inward, meditative look about him. She felt like he wasn't really registering her presence, and thought that was probably deliberate. He glanced at her only briefly as he finished eating and stood up. "I'm focusing on the work," he said quietly.
"I know," she responded.
After breakfast, she tried again to read her book. It infuriated her that her eyes kept being drawn to Daniel, and not just in concern over his energy readings. She felt ridiculous as she once again vowed to keep her distance from him. Yeah, that'd worked out real well so far. After she'd read the same page for about the tenth time, she tossed the book aside, did another scan, then sat down to meditate.
She could feel periodic swells of magic as Daniel worked on the finder spell. After about an hour, he got up to stretch, and that brought her out of the relatively calm state she'd finally achieved. Bree approached him and said, "I'd like to do a deeper read on you."
"Go ahead," he replied, eyes averted.
She felt a flutter of nerves, then centered and started the read. She stood close, but didn't touch him. His base energy was better than she expected, and a little stronger than his will energy. There was still that layer of dark energy, but it seemed quiet and was down a few levels, at least that's how she conceptualized it. "I think you should stop a minute and eat some more, even if you don't feel hungry," Bree told him, though she would have like nothing better than to be able to tell him he was fine and could continue.
"But I'm close to..
." He stopped and shook his head. "Right. Monitoring."
He sat down and finished up the last of the sausage and pancakes, then got back to work.
He completed two more parts of the spell over the next two hours, though he seemed to be struggling several times like he had last night. She told him to take another break, and he did, stopping for a twenty-minute nap. When he awoke, he went straight back to work, and after another forty minutes, he stopped and told her he was getting close to being done. "Why don't you check in with Kevin, see if there's any more news?"
Bree nodded and took her phone into the bathroom to avoid disturbing Daniel as he got back down to work.
"The Keltoi finally sent out terms for another exchange," Kevin told her. "Javier's pretty pissed that Daniel's gone AWOL. He had to act like Daniel had agreed. It's a good thing we were speaking by phone. I think if he'd been here to read me, he'd know I was lying when I told him I didn't know where Daniel was."
"Does he know Daniel's working on a finder spell?"
"Yeah, I said I got a message from Daniel about that. He told me not to get my hopes up too high, that finder spells fail a lot more often than they work. He seemed to think it would take two days at least to put together one with a hope of working."
"Daniel says he's nearly done," Bree replied, leaning against the bathroom counter.
"Then we're coming down."
"You mean here? To the hotel?"
"Yes, to the hotel," Kevin said firmly. "Steve and I are not going to wait on the sidelines anymore. If the spell works, we're going with you to get Hunter."
"I'm pretty sure Daniel means to call the Keepers in if he does get a locate," Bree said doubtfully. "I know Javier told you before they didn't want you there when they try to retrieve Hunter."
"That horseshit about how we'd be too emotional and do something stupid? I bought that at first, but Steve and I aren't idiots. There's no reason we can't be on hand, and maybe I can even help. I can ward, for Christ's sake. That's not worth nothing."
"How about this. How about you guys come here but stay downstairs, or nearby. Daniel doesn't need any distractions while he's finishing the spell. He's been..." She stopped, uncertain how much to say.
"He's been what?" Kevin prompted.
"Nothing," Bree replied. "It's not important now." She didn't want to worry him with what had happened last night. And she didn't want to tell him about her own doubts that the spell would work. There was a grim set to Daniel's expression the last time she'd asked him how it was going.
"I'll text when we get there," Kevin told her, then signed off.
Daniel continued to do better with taking breaks as he proceeded with the last phase of the spell, including a quick trip downstairs to get some water from the Sound. By a little after one, he said, “There’s only one part to go, the last piece of binding it all together. That will take the most energy by far, so I’m going to take one last break, then go for it.”
Knowing he was so close to being done, Bree broached the subject she’d been worrying about off and on but hadn’t quite had the guts to bring up before now.
“Look, Daniel, there’s something I need to ask, something I need to know.”
He looked at her enquiringly.
“So if this works, if the finder spell gives us a locate on Hunter and we can try to go get him, I need to know that he’ll come first.”
His brows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“I know you’re hoping there’s some way to get Franchesca free of the Keltoi. I know you believe that on some level, she’s serious about that. But I’ve seen how crazy things can get. I have to know that your first objective is to get Hunter out of there. He’s a child, and she’s an adult. She has to come second.”
Daniel’s expression had grown progressively more shuttered as she spoke, and when he replied, his voice was flat. “Of course Hunter comes first. That’s not a problem.”
“Okay, I just needed to know that.” Great, she had just offended him, probably messed with his concentration as well. And if she were honest with herself, she knew his assurance on the matter didn’t completely ease her concern. There was a way Franchesca got to him, a way she understood him and could manipulate him that scared her. He was already so close to the edge in terms of his control.
Although the plan was to call in the Keepers once they got a locate, she wasn’t sure she trusted Daniel to stay out of the action. While he was vulnerable to loss of control, he was the most high powered person she’d ever met or even heard of, and he might be needed.
After ten minutes spent lying down with his eyes closed, Daniel got up and sat down on the other bed, arranging all the objects he'd spelled. His nervousness showed in the way he kept making minute adjustments to their position. Finally, he seemed satisfied. He carefully placed a tourist map of Seattle that Bree had snatched from the lobby directly in front of him. He shifted until he was sitting more comfortably. Then he said, “Wish me luck,” and smiled at her for the first time in what felt like days.
“Good luck,” she replied, smiling back, then sent up a quick prayer to Mary for success, and one to St. Jude just for Daniel. She was praying a lot these days, which wasn't like her, but the situation seemed to call for it.
Daniel took a deep breath. “Bind together, seek together, find together,” he intoned, then repeated the phrase as he went around the circle, touching the objects in turn. Bree felt only a whisper of power in the air, like the faint whiff of floral smell on an early spring day. It built to more of a low hum she felt at the base of her spine, then to a sense of vibration in the air. She opened her Reader sense, taking care to keep it in receiving mode only, curious to see what the spell felt like on that level.
The complexity of it was more obvious then. There were at least twenty different types of energy. She had the sensation of flavors and colors wildly swirling, then settling into intricate, interlocking layers. As each connection fell into place, the energy built exponentially. She forced herself to breathe slowly as all the hair on her body stood up. There was a flare of pressure against her eardrums, then the bed beneath her began to shake. She started to worry about what the normals in the rooms nearby were feeling.
Another surge in energy took Bree's breath away, and all the light bulbs in the room exploded. The window rattled in its frame, and the gas fire in the fireplace blazed up, sending out a fierce wave of heat. The pressure against her Reader sense was almost unbearable.
"Seek him, find him, seek him, find him," Daniel chanted, his voice rising with each repetition. "Seek him now, find him now, seek him now, find him now."
Another wave of pressure moved through the room, and Bree felt the structure of the spell slip and start to shake apart. She had the impulse to reach out energetically, try to stabilize it, but she knew it'd do more harm than good. Daniel's eyes narrowed, and his whole body tensed. The spell wobbled like a top losing its spin. He reached out and put his hand over the ring that he had worked first, then the water, the last of the spell elements, and it felt like reality itself was bending as he adjusted the magical energy of each to push against the flow of the spell towards chaos.
Her hair snapped to the left like a flag in a hard wind, and all the plates and utensils left over from lunch hurled through the air in the same direction and crashed against the wall. The spell seemed to go in a counter tilt, and the very air warped in response. Bree didn't see how Daniel could possibly keep the whole thing from flying apart at this point. His eyes met hers, his expression strained and desperate, and she didn't know how, but she knew what he was asking her to do. It was crazy dangerous, but she had to do it. She scrambled off her bed and onto his, and knelt next to him. He thrust a hand out, and she gripped it, hard, then opened herself up completely, let her base energy flow out of her and into him.
He pulled so hard that her vision went dark. Her Reader sense was still open, and she felt how he ran her energy through his body, not so much absorbing the energy as transfor
ming it. Then it flew out of him like a net of tiny, burning lines of force that settled over the top of the spell, sank into it, and pulled it into alignment in one swift motion.
Then Daniel's voice rang out. "Seek him now, find him now, Hunter Thomas Whitman-Vilchek!”
Chapter 24
Hunter flinched as Destry sat down on the other end of the couch. Jim was gone finding an apartment for them and Hunter was nervous with him gone. Destry didn't look at him, just pulled a laptop off the coffee table and put it on her lap. He'd asked earlier if he could play a game on it, but Destry said no.
The only other person in the room was Justice, the man that was in the car the night Jim and Franchesca took him. He looked like he might be sick. His skin was yellow and he fell asleep a bunch of times until Destry yelled at him. He thought that Destry and Justice were supposed to be watching him, or maybe guarding that man Carson, who was in his office. Hunter was mad at Jim for not letting him go home, but still, he was scared with Jim gone. He was getting hungry, and he wasn’t sure it was okay to ask for something to eat.
Finally, Jim came back, and he brought some McDonalds. He told Hunter he'd found a place, but he had to get permission from Carson to take Hunter there. Hunter didn’t really like the idea of going away with Jim, but he didn’t want to stay at the office either.
“How’re you doing, Justice?” Jim said to the sick guy. “It’s good to see you back.”
“Yeah, whatever. I’m fine,” Justice replied.
“So what’s the schedule? When can I get in to see Carson?”
Destry answered him. “He’s on the phone right now, and I think he’s due to have a meeting with Ms. Gambrini. She’s supposed to be here in about ten minutes.”
Hunter had figured out that Ms. Gambrini was that mean lady, Franchesca. He wasn’t happy to hear she was coming over.
She showed up a few minutes later, taking off her raincoat as she came in. She was wearing black pants, high heels, and a dark pink sweater. “Destry, Justice, Scanlon. Is Carson ready for me?” she asked.