Demon Cursed

by Karilyn Bentley

  My gaze meets David’s. His eyes narrow.

  “You don’t know?”

  Another wave of compulsion washes over me, but I repeat the counterspell in my mind, and the inclination lessens. The ache in my chest isn’t as great this time.

  “No. I wanted to stop the minions, so I acted on impulse. The red light just happened.” That much was true. When you yank upon power you possess, something usually happens.

  “And you have no idea how you were able to shoot red energy?”

  I want to tell him the truth. The compulsion beats against my mind, but another round of the counterspell lessens it.

  I look David in the eyes. “No.”

  “She has to know.” Chuck glares at me. “Justitians can’t do that.”

  Maybe I’m different, sits on my lips, but I don’t give voice to the thought. Am I allowed to speak without being spoken to while under compulsion? I can’t remember. Even if I can, I doubt I should be able to sass the Big Boss. Silence is the way to go.

  For the moment at least.

  “That’s nothing new with her. She came with extra abilities. Keeps my son on his toes.”

  I love it when David talks about me as if I’m not there. If it weren’t for needing to play along with his damn spell, I’d set him straight.

  “So you’ve said.” Chuck’s cold gaze leaves a trail of ice as it sweeps my body. “What about her bloodline?”

  David shakes his head. “Our search hasn’t narrowed down any leads. Aidan says her mother was adopted, but the records disappeared, so he hasn’t been able to track down the birth mother.”

  According to the Agency, my justitia’s ancestral line died out around World War II. So who gave birth to Mom? Perhaps I should show more interest in my genealogy, but who wants to discover their ancestry contains wife-beaters, alcoholics, and other crazies. Some things are better left unknown.

  Clearly I need to rethink my tune. Only women of a certain ancestry can wear a justitia. Anyone else would not be able to access the bracelets’ powers. And not only does each of the thirteen justitias possess its own bloodline, but only the women in a justitia’s bloodline can access the power of that particular bracelet. So George couldn’t wear my justitia and expect it to work.

  Which means my history is more important than I want to believe.

  And I need to pay attention.

  “What about from our side? We keep records.”

  Another head shake from David. “Already tried that. No unexplained children.”

  “What about the secondary lines?”

  “Same thing.”

  “I doubt you’ve had time to check all the lines. Think of how many there are.”

  “They were all checked when the primary line died out during World War II. Nothing. The entire line, primary and secondary, died. Then she”—David gestures to me—“appeared wearing the missing justitia.”

  Chuck opens his mouth, then shuts it as if he decided against speaking his thought. He glances at me. “We shouldn’t be discussing this in front of her.”

  “She’s spelled.”

  “Did you spell her not to remember?”

  David grabs my arm, looks into my eyes, and I start reciting the counterspell as fast as my brain can trip over the words. He speaks, and my mind fuzzes, my consciousness focused on a recitation of ancient words. I refuse to forget, I refuse to forget, I refuse to forget.

  My vision clears. I sit beside Smythe, watching as blue light coats his body in a healing spell. How did I get here? What happened between my counterspell and now?

  Did I rat out Zagan?

  At least I didn’t forget the conversation between David and Chuck. But what happened next?

  I yank out my phone and check the time. Only about thirty minutes since I came back to the infirmary from the conference room. Taking into account the conversation David tried to compel me to forget along with a couple of minutes before he found me, I conclude not much time lapsed from then until now.

  Thank God.

  I jump out of the chair and yank open the curtain between the beds. The bed next to Smythe lies empty, white sheet sans Chuck’s butt print. So, I was out long enough for Chuck and David to remove all signs they were here. Damn it.

  Wiping my sweaty hands on the curtain while closing it, I watch Smythe breathe. What happened in the few minutes between talking to David and now? Did I leak the secret source of my red power? I focus on taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm my racing heart.

  If I had squealed, I’m pretty damn sure I wouldn’t be sitting here. Nope. David would have hauled my ass to whatever jail the Agency possesses, not plopped me beside his son.

  The logic sends a wave of relief through me. Along with a dose of pride. I thwarted David’s compulsion spell. Go me.

  What to do now? Track down David? Question Eloise? My thoughts circle around to David. I might want to track him down, but what would I say? I was supposed to be compelled into not knowing they talked to me. He might try another round of get-Gin-to-talk, pressing my luck at repeating the counterspell.

  Eloise then. She can answer questions on how she disappeared without George noticing her and possibly put me to work while serving as an idea-bouncing board for all things David and Chuck.

  Sounds like a winner.

  Giving Smythe one last glance, I pull the curtain shut. The infirmary continues to bustle, but the franticness seems to have calmed a degree. Of course, Eloise is nowhere to be seen.

  Closed curtains line the row of beds, hiding the occupants from view. I walk the row, peeking into each curtain, finding plenty of injured, but no Eloise. No one asks what I’m doing or recommends me leaving. Lucky for me.

  Except for when it comes to finding the healer.

  Other healers and medics carrying medical supplies dart in and out of curtains, dodging around me as if I’m not there. By the second row of beds, I begin to wonder if finding Eloise ranks in the same category as finding a yeti. I might have better luck with the yeti.

  Stopping where George was, I pull the curtain back an inch, but my fellow Justitian no longer lays in bed. Good for her. Wonder if her guardian made it out too? I hope so.

  After closing the curtain, I walk down the last row of beds. No Eloise.

  Damn it.

  Now what? I can’t go home. I don’t have the key to Smythe’s apartment. I refuse to ask David for a place to stay. No telling where he’d stick me.

  A healer darts out of the nearest curtain, and I step back to avoid running into him, only to hit a body.

  “I’m sorry.” I turn, my eyes widening.

  Eloise smiles. “Are you looking for me?”

  “How did you know?”

  “What did you want? In case you were wondering, tonight's planned poison detection training will need to wait.” A small smile plays upon her serene features.

  Poison detection training? My mind trips over that one for a second before remembering her promise to teach me how to detect poison in my drink. “Sorry, had forgotten all about that. What I want now is answers.”

  Her smile disappears. “In that case, here is not the place to find them. Come. We’ll go someplace more private.”

  “Are you sure you can leave?” I gesture at a medic scurrying behind a curtain. “Don’t they need you?”

  “My work here is done.”

  I give her a slow blink, refusing to voice my thoughts. Since her blindness prohibits her from reading the healing ward is much too busy for your work to be done for the day expression smeared on my face, I hope she takes my pause for agreement.

  One side of her lips twitches, a conspiratorial smirk. She grabs my upper arm, avoiding skin-on-skin contact. “Is there an empty bed?”

  An empty bed? “Yes. Why?”

  “Take me there.”

  I lead her to where George had lain, escorting her into the area, pulling the curtain closed behind us. “We’re here.”

  “Can anyone see us?”

  “Nop
e. I closed the curtain.”

  Her grip tightens as she circles her other hand above her head, forming a portal. The icy in-between swallows us whole in a breath-stealing gulp, then spits us out a second later in the living room of Smythe’s apartment. While I stand mouth agape, Eloise drops my arm and walks to the kitchen as if she can see. Or maybe she’s just that familiar with his place.

  A stab of jealousy erases the shock of the portal. But only for a second.

  “How the hell did you portal us from inside the Agency? I thought the building was warded against portals except for the landing room.” Not that the wards have stopped her before. One time she portaled straight into the infirmary. Maybe the wards don’t apply to healers.

  Back to me, she shrugs. “There is much you don’t know.”

  A pause permeates the room as I wait for her to finish her sentence. After a couple of seconds, I realize she is finished. Which tells me nothing useful. If I knew everything about the Agency, I wouldn’t be standing here asking questions.

  “Do you care to enlighten me?”

  “Where to start?”

  Another pause as she grabs a glass from the cabinet, filling it with water.

  “Okay, I’ll start first? With my questions?”

  She turns, nods, raises the glass to me, and takes a drink.

  Where to start, where to start? With the improbable portal or George? The vanishing act wins.

  “Why did George not see you?”

  “George?” Her brow furrows then relaxes. “You mean Wu Cong?”

  “Yeah, the Justitian you wanted me to see. When I walked into her alcove, she said she’d never seen you, but you stood right there and told me to come in. How’s that work?”

  “She was distraught. Worried about her guardian. I did not perform her healing, so perhaps she did not notice me standing there.”

  “You’re a little hard to miss.” I cross my arms.

  “Would you rather me say I erased her memory?”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “This is all?”

  “Not even started.”

  “Then I should sit. Do you care for a drink?”

  “Water, please.”

  She grabs another glass out of the cabinet, fills it with water, walks to me, and hands me the glass.

  “Are you sure you’re blind?”

  Eloise laughs as she sits on the couch. She gestures for me to sit beside her, but I flop into the recliner.

  “Yes, I’m blind. But if I know a person well enough I can almost see through their eyes. Not enough to see clearly, but enough to avoid obstacles. And this apartment is familiar to me. I know where the glasses are.”

  “How? I mean, I know how you know where the glasses are.” She and Smythe are such good friends she’s probably over here all the time. Or at least she was until Smythe starting spending most nights at my place. “What I’m trying to ask is, how do you see through another’s eyes?”

  She shakes her head. “That’s my secret.”

  Oh well, it never hurts to ask. I give her a lopsided shrug. “Okay. Tell me why David’s such a jackwagon.”

  “A personality defect?”

  “So he was born that way?”

  A distant look crosses her face. “Not exactly.”

  I circle my hand, encouraging her to talk. She takes a drink of water instead. Her eyes close as she speaks.

  “His wife drank herself into a coma. She’s currently in a nursing home. Didn’t Aidan tell you?”

  My breath catches. What a horrible thing to happen to his mother. “No. He didn’t.”

  “Hmm. I couldn’t get there in time, and David has held it against me all these years.” Her jaw tenses.

  “But Smythe didn’t?”

  “No. He didn’t.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “I consider myself lucky Aidan did not hold me responsible.”

  “No, not that. I mean, that’s good, but I was referring to the whole situation with his mother.”

  She nods. “If he has not told you, I spoke out of turn. Do not mention I told you. He is easily upset by his mother’s condition.”

  “I won’t say a word.” My poor mentor. I can’t imagine how it would feel to know your mother was technically alive but not be able to talk to her or have her aware of your presence. I hope I can keep the secret.

  “Is that the only reason you wanted to talk?” Eloise raises a brow. “To ask why David is, how did you say, a jackwagon?”

  I shift, leaning forward. “No. I had a run-in with him in the infirmary. He pulled me into the curtained alcove next to Smythe and spelled me to tell him why I fired red light into the minion ’copter. Chuck was there too. My justitia doesn’t like either of them.”

  “You can fire red energy?” Her eyes widen. “That’s—”

  “Impossible. I know.” One side of my lip curls.

  “I am not the only one with secrets, I see.”

  “I’m just full of them.” My grin falls short of crinkling my eyes.

  “Yes. I am aware.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Surely she doesn’t know Zagan gave me red energy?

  “Darkness weaves through you. Some would care to exploit it. Or maybe they helped cause it.” She taps two fingers against her lips. I raise mental barriers against my innermost thoughts as her not-so-sightless gaze turns to me. “Interesting. Very interesting. No wonder David tried to compel you. What do you think would happen if he learned your secret?”

  I swallow. “He’d kill me.”

  “Ah, yes. Yes, he’d try. But not for the reason you think.”

  I’m pretty damn sure David would fry my ass, if he knew Zagan filled me with demonic red energy. No matter how I used the demon’s gift. But since I’m not convinced Eloise wouldn’t fry me either, I raise a brow and attempt innocence. Or stupidity.

  “Whatcha mean?”

  She taps her fingers against the glass. “You think he’d be mad at your perceived betrayal. But David possesses secrets I’m not yet ready to speak about.”

  “Then they aren’t secrets if you know them. Which means you might as well tell me.” I smile, encouraging her to spill her stash of knowledge.

  A grin curves her lips as she peers at me from over the rim of her glass while playing the quiet game.

  In-freaking-furiating.

  “Are you going to enlighten me?”

  “No. I already said that.”

  “What about Smythe? I mean Aidan. What does he know about all these secrets of his father’s?”

  “Aidan does not know many things about his father. We thought it would be better this way.”

  “Who’s we?”

  She sighs. “Gin, I want to tell you, really, I do, but I can’t. Not yet anyway. But I will tell you much has been hidden at the Agency.”

  “No offense, but I already knew that. Figured it out my first day on the job. Tell me something I don’t know.” Tell me what else David is hiding.

  “Okay. You are part of those secrets, that hidden information. Your being here frightens those who want to hide, those who seek to destroy. It’s not just your newfound ability to shoot red energy that frightens them. It’s the fact you exist at all.”

  My shocked gaze snaps from the glass in my hands to her glowing red eyes. Before I can ask her anything else, a wave crashes into me, and I’m floating on a gentle current, blue sky filling my horizon. Thoughts run through my mind, drift away in the warm salt water.

  Eloise spelled me. Annoyance slams into me, only to float away. Like me, she protects her secrets. I can’t blame her for spelling me into a dream state.

  I guess she forgot there’s always another day, another time we’ll meet. Perhaps then she’ll know how to answer, what lies to offer as truth. For I’ll ask again. And again. Until she trusts me enough to tell the truth. One day she’ll trust me. One day I’ll learn all the secrets of the Agency. One day soon I’ll disco
ver what David hides.

  But one truth I already know. Vipers fill the Agency, and David is the biggest one of all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Gin?” Warm hands touch my arm, give a little shake.

  My eyes drift open, blink once, and again for good measure. Where am I? Memories sneak past a wall of sleepiness, filling in the gaps of my overly relaxed mind. Right. Smythe’s apartment. Conversation with Eloise. A lack of resolution regarding David. Definite need for finding the healer for another round of twenty questions.

  And something else. Something about Smythe. The memory floats out of reach before disappearing. If I was meant to remember it, it’ll return eventually.

  “Gin?” The fact Smythe stands next to me, warm hands giving my arm a little shake, hits with a shot of adrenaline, propelling me upright in the recliner.

  A wave of dizziness rolls over me as I push to a sit. Sitting upright too quickly after sleeping is a bitch.

  “Smythe! What are you doing here? You’re supposed to sleep for a day.”

  “I did.” His lips twitch. “It’s Sunday mid-afternoon.”

  “Seriously?” Eloise magicked me into sleeping for eighteen hours? What the hell?

  The lip twitch morphs into a full-fledged grin complete with eye crinkles as if he debates whether or not to laugh. “Yep.”

  I run my hands through my hair. No wonder I was so dizzy when sitting up. Eighteen hours of naptime will do that to a person.

  “How are you?” I run a hand over the bare skin of his forearm, hoping for a reading, receiving only the cool darkness of a guarded mind. “You look much better.”

  “I feel much better. I’m lucky Eloise was there.” He grabs my hand, runs his thumb across my knuckles.

  A shot of desire sinks low in my belly. I squelch it and try to focus on the conversation instead of the fantasy playing in my mind. Bad Gin.

  “Why wouldn’t she be there? She’s a healer. It’s an infirmary.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated?” How complicated could reporting for work be?