My hand shot up and everything in her house lifted off the ground, including her TV console. Her eyes widened. I wiggled my finger and tiny bolts of lightning zipped between the bobbing things.
“You see, my friends here are pure Guardians. I, on the other hand, have demon blood in my veins and a massive headache that’s refused to go away, so you do not want to mess with me. Those three children Izzy healed can easily become ill again like that.” I snapped my fingers. Everything came back down with thuds, a few missing their places and crashing to the floor. “Then I can do things to your head that you’ll beg me to kill you.”
Mrs. Watts swallowed, his gaze swinging from me to my friends. “Can she…?”
“Oh yes,” Sykes said, grinning.
“Don’t encourage her,” Kim snapped. “She’s not herself.”
I glanced at Kim and chuckled. “Actually, Kim, I am.” Turning, I studied Mrs. Watts. “So what is it going to be, Mrs. Watts? One sick child or four?”
She swallowed.
“You’re wasting our time, Mrs. Watts,” I snapped.
“That’s enough, Lil,” Bran said.
Mrs. Watts looked at him with relief.
“Don’t look at him. He’s not going to help you.”
“Lil!”
I glared at Bran and for one brief moment, my sight blurred until all I saw was a shadow where his face had been. Dizziness washed over me again. His thoughts, along with the others’, crashed into my psyche, but they were jumbled and didn’t make sense. My knees gave away.
I’ve got you, Bran telepathed me just as he pulled me against his chest. You are okay.
Calmness settled on my mind as his psi energy blended with mine. Cool hands touched my forehead and voices echoed in my head as though filtered by a mist.
“She’s burning up,” someone said in a distorted voice.
“We’ll finish here, then take her home,” another added.
My vision and hearing cleared. The headache was slow to react.
“She’ll be fine,” Bran reassured them.
“She fainted, Bran,” Kim insisted.
“And her eyes glowed just like they did on the island,” Izzy added.
“I’m fine,” I finally spoke, but my eyes stayed locked with Bran’s. I tried to disengage our energies but he wouldn’t let me. I could have pushed him out of my head, but I might have ended up hurting him. I wiggled, hoping physical distance would do the trick, but he refused to let me go. You can’t do this.
Says who?
You’re sharing a burden that’s not yours, I insisted. You’ll get my headache and mess up your powers.
So what? You and I are mated/or better and for worse.
I frowned. We are?
Yes, so sit back and let me take care of you.
Reasoning with him was getting me nowhere. It was time to lay on the guilt. You are draining my energy, something you swore you’d never do.
He grinned. Nice try. When we are done here, I’m taking you home, where you’ll stay until your powers stabilize. He severed the link. Can you take care of Mrs. Watts ‘memories without turning her into Mrs. Hyde again?
I rolled my eyes, but at the back of my mind I kept hearing “Mated.” When? Another lost memory? Leaving that for later, I turned to see the contract burst into flame. Mrs. Watts let out a screech.
Amazed at how much better I felt, I approached her. “One last thing, Mrs. Watts.”
She cringed, “Stay away from me.”
Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. I could feel the others’ stares, knew they worried about me dealing with Mrs. Watts fairly. Don’t worry, guys. I won’t blow up her head.
“That’s not funny,” Izzy said then added softly, “Are you sure she should do this?”
“She can handle this,” Bran answered.
“What did you do to her? Kim asked.
“I drained some of her energy.”
Silence followed. I shook my head. He really shouldn’t blurt out things like that. Only demons drained energies, and it was usually to enhance theirs.
“Dude, that’s messed up,” Sykes said.
“And demonic,” Izzy asked tentatively.
Bran shrugged. “So? She’s stable now.”
From the smile on his face, he was getting a kick out of shocking the others. Cupping Mrs. Watts’ face, I stared into her eyes and meshed our minds. Snapshots of her fake memories zipped past, most of them of her children, women friends. The most recent showed her eating dinner with her children, then waking up and finding her children sick.
Was that how my memories were? Hours of nothing mixed with a few treasured moments? Bran and I were mated. How could I forget that?
Focusing on Mrs. Watts, I let my thoughts flow into her head. When I let go of your face, turn around and walk out the door to your van. Wait there with your children until the ambulance arrives to take Michele to the hospital. Forget you saw us or that we were here. Forget your broken windows. Only your oldest daughter is ill. She was okay for a long time, but now she’s ill again.
When I let her go, she turned around and walked out the door without glancing left or right. She walked to the van with even, measured steps. When Remy held the door open for her, she got in without looking at him.
“What in Tartarus did you do to her?” Izzy asked.
“I just erased her memories and told her to wait outside for the ambulance.”
“But the people usually talk to us in confusion and ask who we are, what we’re doing in their home, office or wherever. They don’t walk away like zombies.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bran cut in. “What’s done is done.” He walked to my side and touched my forehead. “You’re still feverish and—”
“Nothing.” I didn’t want to hear another lecture about going back home. “I’m fine now. We should teleport to our next stop.”
Bran frowned. “I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do, but you cannot treat humans like you just did Mrs. Watts.”
“She was being impossible.”
“I know, but you must control your anger and frustrations or they’ll control you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not responsible for what’s happening to me. Are you forgetting the transfer of the dagger’s powers into me?”
“I’m not. But I know you, Sunshine. I know what you are capable of. You can control anything.” He studied me intently, love and utter belief in me shining in his emerald eyes. His hair, shorter on the sides, swung across his cheeks as he peered at me. “You can control them.”
Of course I could…would with time. I reached out, twirled the lock of his hair around my finger and smiled. “Yes, I can.”
He took my hand and pressed his lips into my palm. When he stepped back, my gaze met with the others. I’d completely forgotten their presence.
That was intense, Izzy telepathed me.
I just shrugged. My gaze met with Sykes and it was hard to describe the look in his eyes. Annoyance? Jealousy? A combination of both. I just couldn’t deal with him and his feelings.
“Okay, let’s do this.” Bran removed his clairvoyant stone and activated it. Light shot up from the core of the stone and projected a holographic image of a house. “This is Mr. Watts’ new place in Palos Verdes. The roof is flat, so let’s teleport there.”
“What happened?” Remy asked when he joined us and saw the mess on the floor. “I just cleaned this place up.”
Sykes pointed at me like a child tattling. “Lil did it.”
I laughed, happy to see him bounce back. I was also thrilled I could laugh without wincing. “But Mrs. Watts canceled the contract.”
Remy’s eyes narrowed. “You forced her?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I couldn’t see or hear a thing when she agreed to cancel it.”
Remy looked confused. “What?”
Sykes slapped Remy on the back. “Long story, dude, but the EMT is here. We need to disappear.”
&nbs
p; The ambulance pulled up outside Mrs. Watts’ van. We dematerialized before the EMT reached the house.
- 7 -
GAVYN’S AGENDA
A yellow police tape wound around Mr. Watts’ broken door and window like a bad bandage dressing. His neighbor eagerly informed us that Mr. Watts had been having a “noisy party last night and was cooking something in the early hours of the morning when an explosion blew out his windows.”
No one spoke after we thanked her. We headed to our next destination. After several more stops, we materialized on the roof of U.S. Bank Tower, the tallest building in California with a rooftop helipad. Lucky for us, it was empty, giving us enough space and privacy to vent.
“We’re so screwed,” Sykes said, pacing.
Shut up, I wanted to yell. He’d been saying that for the last thirty minutes and driving me nuts. My powers and headache were on the upswing again after leveling off at Mrs. Watts’ but I didn’t want to get catty with my teammates. The glances Bran threw my way told me he knew I was close to losing it again.
“So freaking screwed,” Sykes repeated.
“You can say it a gazillion times, Sykes, it won’t make anything better,” Kim snapped. “And it’s not us who’re in trouble, the humans who made the deals and canceled are.”
“But we helped them,” Izzy said.
“No one forced them to sell their souls in the first place,” I cut in.
“Lil!” Izzy scolded me.
“She’s right, Izzy,” Kim said. “No one put a gun to their heads.”
It didn’t matter whether the humans had canceled their contracts or not. All the ones we visited had similar stories—they had no memory of what had happened, yet their homes had broken glass everywhere and an accident had occurred that had reversed their fortunes. Bran made sure I didn’t get anywhere near them.
A man whose daughter sold her soul after he was hit by a car and broke his spine was now brain-dead. He and the daughter were in a head-on collision with a truck yesterday. She was now the one with the broken spine while he was on life support.
A couple who couldn’t have children, and had twins after the husband gave up his soul, was in the hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning.
Their children didn’t make it and the husband, who had done the signing, was in the ICU.
A music mogul’s club caught on fire, killing several people and leaving most of his body with third-degree burns. Lawsuits were already piling up because the doors had been jammed for some reason. Not only was he ruined financially, he was being held liable. By the time the lawyers finished with him, he would be penniless.
“Not only are they losing their ill-gained wealth and fame, they are being punished.” I glanced at Bran. He hadn’t spoken since we left Mrs. Watts, except to choose our next location. He was frustrated and kept forking his fingers through his hair. Even now, he stood near the edge of the roof and stared down at the city, anger surging from him in giant waves.
“The weirdest thing is that these misfortunes started while we were stuck in the valley,” Izzy said.
“Let’s be honest here,” Remy cut in. “They started after we sighted the first lightning demon. Mancuso was right and Master Haziel was wrong.”
I shook my head. “Master Haziel is never wrong. Who is Mancuso?”
“David Lee’s manager,” Izzy said. “Mancuso said no one could get away with playing with their soul without consequences. Master Haziel had said nothing would happen.”
“And we haven’t heard anything about David Lee,” Sykes said. “We need to find an Internet café and see how he’s doing.”
Kim gave an unladylike snort. “Enough with the bromance, Sykes. I’m sure David Lee’s voice is gone. It is obvious the demons are targeting the humans to get their souls back. I’ll ask again, why now? Why not four months ago when we started canceling their contracts?”
“Maybe it takes a special kind of demon to harvest souls,” I said.
“Like Reapers?” Remy asked then glanced at Bran. “What do you think, Bran?”
“Reapers don’t hurt humans or exact retribution,” Bran said. “They are Neutrals. The Tribe is made up of something else, and they were summoned to do one thing—stop me from getting my freedom.”
“Why would you think that?” I asked, not liking the certainty in his voice.
“Because I know who is behind the summoning.”
We converge on him, every said asking, “Who?”
“Gavyn,” Bran said.
There was silence, then everyone started talking at once.
“Your brother?
“How do you know?”
“Why would he do this?”
Bran pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “He’s the only person who’d go to extreme lengths to stop me from canceling my contracts. He wants me to take my rightful place as the leader of the demons because I won the battle on Jarvis Island. He asked me about it during Darius’ party at the Brotherhood’s compound.”
“What did you tell him?” Remy asked.
“What do you think?” Bran snapped. “I wasn’t interested and I’m still not. He didn’t stop asking and pushing. The last time I saw him, we had a fight about it and he stormed off.”
That was the Gavyn I knew, throwing tantrums when he didn’t get his way. Every time I thought there was hope for him, he pulled some crap that made me hate him.
“I know how my brother thinks,” Bran continued. “Waiting until my freedom is within my grasp then pulling a fast one is straight out of our mother’s book.” He paused, his gaze locked with mine a moment longer before moving to the others. I knew everything about his past—or, at least, I had known it. “Our mother did exactly the same thing when our father tried to sneak us out of Coronis Island. She knew for months what he’d planned, but waited until the night we attempted an escape. We were in a cave on the way to collect the Kris Dagger when she and her Lazari warriors surrounded us.” He chuckled, though there was no humor on his face. “It’s actually a brilliant strategy if you want to punish someone.”
“Evil and mean-spirited,” I said dismissively. “Gavyn is—”
“My brother,” Bran said and gave me a sad smile. “He’s not thinking straight.”
Oh, he was. Gavyn only ever thought about one person—Gavyn. He was conniving and power-hungry. To think I’d offered to heal him when a demon drained his powers. That was one memory I would have loved to forget.
“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Kim asked. “You know, after we visited the fourth or the tenth Damned Human?”
Bran shrugged. “I wasn’t sure. And part of me didn’t want to believe it.”
“Doesn’t what you want count for anything in his stupid plan?” I asked.
Don’t worry, his plan won’t work, Bran reassured me. “Gavyn doesn’t know that my psi energy is purified despite the Runners’ refusal to cancel. We should do something to help the humans. The Tribe got a head start on this, but we must catch up and stop them. Remember, we only canceled my contracts.”
There was silence, but we were all thinking the same thing—this might be bigger than we’d thought. When Bran won the battle on Jarvis Island, he’d gotten hundreds of thousands of contracts. While we’d focused on canceling his, the other junior and mid-level Cardinal Guardians from the other sectors around the globe had gotten the bulk of the other contracts. If the Tribe was punishing humans for canceling contracts and getting their souls back, their reach might extend beyond our sector.
“Sorry, dude, but your brother is a douchebag,” Sykes said.
“Please, don’t insult douchebags,” Kim said. “Now what?”
“We tell Darius to kick Gavyn out of the Brotherhood compound,” Izzy snarled. “He doesn’t deserve their hospitality if he’s back to his evil ways.”
Bran shook his head. “Gavyn left the Brotherhood the day after the party four months ago, but I know where he stays and works. I’m going to find him and have a long talk.”
<
br /> “We are all going,” Remy corrected him. “He’s going to tell us how to send the Tribe back to Tartarus or whatever hole they crawled from.”
Bran actually smiled. “He runs a private club at Ritz-Carlton, L.A. Live. Demons only. He also lives there. Follow me.”
The room we appeared in was done in white and black, and had floor to ceiling windows with an amazing view of the city, the mountains, and the ocean in the background. Gavyn wasn’t home, but it was obvious why he had left the Brotherhood, with their homey stucco houses, for his old life. He was living in a lap of luxury, the latest electronic gadgets beside clairvoyant crystals projecting holographic motion images of him, his sister Celeste, and Bran.
“How very domesticated,” Kim said with a sneer.
I wanted to rip the place apart.
“The restaurant is several floors below us.” Bran said and glanced at his watch. “He’s probably there.”
“Just a second. My powers are peaking and I need release.” I pulled out a knife from the sheath inside my boot, walked to the couch and stabbed the edge of the cushion. Slowly, I moved across the white upholstery, from one end to the other, the fiber filling spilling out. I did the same with the back and the arms.
The surprised expressions on the others’ faces when I looked up didn’t bother me. I grinned. “I’m starting to feel better already. Remy, could you change the white walls into green mixed with gray and whatever ugly color you can think of? Too much white makes my headache worse.”
Without batting an eyelid, Remy pressed his hand on the nearest wall and murky green color spread from the point of contact. It spread over the walls.
“Hmm, I’ve an idea,” Sykes said as energy balls appeared above his hands. He dribbled them on the white carpet as one would a basketball, leaving behind blotches of scorched surfaces. Smooth moves. He leaned back and smirked. “How’s that headache, Lil?”
“Getting better by the second.” I cocked my brow at Kim and Izzy.
Laughing, they joined in. Bran chuckled, but he didn’t try to stop us. Izzy helped me remove the down inside the pillows and cushioned stools, while Kim blew them around, along with other knick knacks off the tables and shelves.
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