ANDRAS DIDN’T COME alone. Sytrius came with him.
“Come in,” I invited them into the room as soon as Ivarr opened the door. The heart-shaped amulet around my neck would not have let them enter otherwise. I had it in my pocket for the show last night, but put it back on shortly after.
“For you, Kitty.” With a friendly wink, Sytrius handed me a bag and a paper cup of coffee. “I wasn’t sure if Ivarr would have the time to get breakfast for you.”
“Thank you.” I accepted his offering with a quick glance at Ivarr, who just rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Would you like anything?” I felt obligated to ask, even as I had no idea what the suite’s kitchenette had to offer.
“Nothing for me, thank you.” Andras moved a chair from the table and gestured for me to sit down. Ivarr stepped to my right.
“I’ll just get some water.” Sytrius moved to the sink in the kitchenette and grabbed a glass from the cabinet.
“Sytrius and I were a team in the Army. Long ago,” Andras explained, taking a seat across from me.
I remembered Ivarr mentioning something about it once.
“Are all of you split in teams?”
“Most of us were back then. Ever since we came to Earth, Incubi moved in pairs whenever there was a chance of encountering humans.”
“Like the Retrieval Teams still do now?”
“Right.” Sytrius took a seat at the table, too, placing his glass of water in front of him. “For the simple reason to watch out for each other. If one of the team lost control, the other one could always intervene and possibly prevent a murder.”
“So, killing humans was not desirable back then?”
“It never has been.” Andras joined in. “We don’t know for sure how this rule and many others came to be, but I have my theories. Even though Incubi were created with a raging hunger for human energy, difficult to control, there seems to be a protective streak in all of us. Deep inside, no one wants humans dead. On the contrary, human fragility entreats us to protect them from harm. I believe this quality is left from the times we were angels, before we fell to become demons. Severe starvation deprives us of any rational thinking and even hinders our basic instincts. However, the more we remember, the stronger this trait becomes.”
“How about Raim, then? I understand he is responsible for most, if not for all the murders at the Western Council Base, isn’t he? He’s been the Grand Master forever.”
“This is what we’ve been trying to solve here.” Andras rubbed his forehead. “When starved, neither one of us were a match for Raim. Only now, we are able to attempt untangling his way of thinking to understand his actions.”
“Why is he not like the rest of you? What happened to his protective instincts?” I didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“He left before we had a chance to ask him any questions,” Sytrius replied, regret thick in his voice. “Andras had a chance to stop him—”
“Raim renounced his power, fair and square,” Andras argued. “His only request was to be left alone when he walked off the base. I had no right to detain him—we have no case against him.”
“He should have answered for his crimes,” Sytrius muttered under his breath. The way he said it led me believe that it must not be the first time they’d had this argument.
“Technically, Raim committed no crime,” Andras pointed out. “Whatever he did, he always strictly adhered to the rules—”
“Yes, to the ones that he himself created,” Sytrius interrupted.
“Not true. Every point of the treaty came from humans and was signed by them.”
“How can you know for sure?”
“I’ve talked to every single Incubus who served on the Council then. They all negotiated the terms of the treaty, together.”
“But they weren’t there when the treaty was signed. No one was, except for Raim.”
“Sytrius, it’s irrelevant. If the treaty was laid out already and every point of it agreed upon, what difference does it make who signed it?”
“Then why would he go in alone?”
With an exasperated sigh, Andras dropped his shoulders, as it became apparent the argument had come full circle.
An observation I made while watching them arguing prompted me to ask, “Has Raim ever fought in the Army? Who was his partner? The other part of the team I mean.”
There seemed to be a comfortable understanding between Andras and Sytrius. Despite them having an argument—or maybe the way they led it—it was obvious how easily they could read each other. I wondered if this camaraderie stemmed from all the time they had spent together, fighting side by side.
“If Raim had a partner, could you talk to him? He might be able to give you a better understanding of Raim’s past. Right?”
“Raim’s partner has been dead for over two centuries,” Andras replied grimly.
“Dead?” I frowned, for it made no sense. “An immortal demon?”
“His name was Gremory. And he was the first known Forgiven, Kitty.”
“What the hell?” The power in Ivarr’s exclamation startled me. “There was another Forgiven? Before him?” He tipped his chin Sytrius’s way. “And no one ever heard of him?”
“I have seen the records of him but only had a vague recollection of it and no name until very recently. With the return of my memories, I remembered his name and more of his story.”
“Did you know him in person, Andras?” I asked.
“Yes, I met him a few times. Gremory was his demon name. Back then not many of us took human ones. Only when more people learned how to summon us, we started to hide behind human monikers, keeping our true ones a secret. Some of us do a better job concealing it than others.” He shot a mocking glance at Sytrius, who leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest with a challenge in his expression.
Unexpectedly, Ivarr burst into hearty laughter, and I moved my curious gaze from one demon to another, feeling like I hadn’t been let in on some inside joke.
“Adding two letters to your name, hides nothing, you doofus,” Ivarr roared in laughter as Andras sat there with a wide smile on his face.
Not dignifying either one of them with an answer, Sytrius turned to me.
“My demon name is Sytry. I trust you not to use it against me, Kitty.” His calm, friendly expression told me he didn’t consider me a threat in earnest, still I shook my head energetically.
“Of course not.”
“I added the two letters over a millennium ago, to make it sound more human,” he explained. “It’s a miracle I came up with anything at all, considering the foggy state of mind I was in back then.
“And now?” Ivarr tilted his head.
“Now, this is the name she calls me. And that’s the one I’ll keep,” Sytrius replied firmly, putting a stop to their teasing.
“To be fair, the use of human names has become rather unnecessary,” Andras conceded. “Hardly anyone knows the proper ritual to summon a demon nowadays. There hasn’t been any true attempts for over a hundred years.”
“Well, obviously, Raim hasn’t considered it a threat at all,” I pointed out. “Since he’s never changed his name, has he?”
“Another thing I’m working to understand,” Andras muttered.
“What happened to Gremory?” I reminded.
“Right.” He returned to his story. “Back in the tenth century, there was just one Incubi Council, in the territory of what is now called the Middle East. But the Incubi were spread much more than they are now. With all of us awake and with no treaty to restrict us, we moved around freely, spreading into Europe, Africa and Asia.
“Raim and Gremory left together, but months later only Raim returned, just in time for an election process for the position of the Grand Master. It was before I served on the Council. Back then I worked at the base, taking care of the archives. Raim had been a long-term Council member, but this was the first time he put in his candidacy for the Grand Master and won. When asked about
Gremory, he claimed they had been separated.
“A few months later, Raim left the base in search of Gremory. When he came back, we added to the archives what he told us about him. Raim said that Gremory lived in a relationship with a human woman. Even though it was still hundreds of years before the treaty, pairing up with humans in a long-term relationship was not allowed. It is always potentially dangerous for a human to be one on one with a hungry Incubus. Some women ended up being drained in the early times. That’s what set up our wars and prosecutions in the first place.
“Gremory was deemed to have broken the unwritten rules and ordered to be brought in for punishment. However, no one could find him. Over the centuries, Raim himself went searching for him several times, but always returned empty handed. He even moved the Council to Minsk, the place where he saw Gremory last, but no one saw or heard of him again.
“It was impossible for an Incubus to vanish without a trace like this. Normally, his impulsive feedings would cause a commotion in human settlements, leaving a path for a search party to follow. The stories of a demon with red eyes or reports of women having impure dreams would be the signs of an Incubus on the loose. But, as far as Gremory’s disappearance went, we had nothing.
“Until about two hundred years ago, when Raim returned from one of his solo expeditions with the news of Gremory’s death. Raim claimed to have witnessed his execution with his own eyes. Gremory and the woman he had lived with were burnt at the stake for sorcery by a group of overzealous humans. That’s when we knew that Gremory had been forgiven and lost his immortality.”
Andras leaned back in his chair.
“So, all reports about Gremory came from Raim. How do you know he was telling the truth?” I wondered out loud.
“We don’t,” Sytrius agreed. “Except that honesty would be the first impulse in any Incubus. I wouldn’t put it past Raim to lie if it were in his interests to do so. All we have to go by here are his words. However, judging by what we know now, what he told us about being a Forgiven turned out to be true.”
“Did he say anything about Gremory and his wife having any children?” I asked.
“No. We always knew that only mortals could father children. And Gremory was obviously a mortal. So, there may be some descendants out there.”
“You didn’t get a chance to question Raim about any of this before he left.” I couldn’t stop feeling regret about it. What Andras just told us only brought more questions, and with Raim gone, there didn’t seem to be any way to find the answers now.
“He did say something before he left, though.” Andras straightened up in his seat. “A warning.”
I lifted my gaze to him in question.
“Beware of the Priory. They are the ones with real power.”
“But they’re just humans,” I exclaimed. “What gives them all this power?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” Andras’ voice held a firm promise. “Sooner or later I swear I will figure it out. This leads me to my questions for you, Kitty. What happened the night you were taken from the base?”
“Ivarr and I have figured it out—it was humans who abducted me that time.” The seed of doubt about it planted by Delilah prompted me to add, “Although, I was later told that those might still be Incubi who’d wanted to frame humans. Confusing. I know.”
“Can you just tell me the order of events? The way you remember them, please?”
I paused for a moment, thinking back to that night to give him as detailed an answer as possible.
“I only got a glimpse of one of them when I got back to my cell, but there were others. At least one more, maybe two. One held me from behind. Someone gave the order to give me the shot.”
“The shot?”
“They drugged me.” Mechanically, I lifted my hand to my neck. The marks from the injections had long gone, just the memory of them lingered. “Repeatedly over time, to keep me under while they transported me, I believe. That’s why I figure they were humans. Demons would’ve just touched my skin, right?”
“You said they wore our uniforms.”
“The one I saw in my cell did. The two who had me in the car wore suits. No masks, but I didn’t see their faces, only the back of their heads. And their suits . . . They were regular, every-day suits. Similar to the one worn by Keller—”
I cut myself short, thinking back to the voice hissing the order, ‘Give her the shot.’
“It was him, ordering the other person to drug me,” I said slowly as the certainty of this realization spread through my mind. “Steffen Keller.”
“The monk?” Andras frowned.
“He said he held an official position with The Priory. Is he a monk, too?”
“The organization has religious roots. All members of The Priory of Grimien used to be monks. Some still call themselves that. Are you sure Steffen Keller was in your cell on the night of your abduction?”
I nodded, as conviction settled firmly in my heart.
“Yes. He whispered, so it was hard for me to recognize him right away, but now that I think about it, the intonations and the accent were undeniably his.”
Andras leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.
“Was Keller one of the two men who were in the car with you when you came to?”
“No. I only saw them from the back, but I heard them clearly. Neither of them was Keller.”
“What did they say?”
“I don’t know. They spoke German and were of a smaller build than you guys.”
He nodded with an expression of concern and deep concentration.
“Delilah assured me I was in no danger from returning back home and living my life now. She told me The Priory would protect me.”
“Who told you that?”
“Delilah Neri. She was the one who drove me home after Raim and the others caught up with us. She said she doesn’t work for The Priory but she wanted to help them in their efforts to control the Incubi.”
“I’ve heard about her from Alyssa,” Sytrius interjected. “She’s been a part of the effort to help the freed women to recover.”
“Have you met her?”
“No. Alyssa hasn’t, either. Apparently, Delilah never came to the base.”
“She never would,” I said. “Delilah doesn’t trust Incubi. She shared some family history with me—she believes that Incubi abducted her baby brother years ago.”
“That makes no sense.” Sytrius shook his head, a frown of disbelief crossing his handsome features.
“In all of our history, Incubi have never preyed on children,” Andras stated firmly.
“Delilah thinks it was done to influence her father, who held a high-power position with The Priory before his death.”
“I have a hard time believing this.” Andras’s frown deepened. “In all my time at the Eastern Council Base I never saw or heard of children being held there. Have you?” He turned to Sytrius.
“No. Never,” he replied with conviction.
“My time at the base was rather brief whenever I happened to be there,” Ivarr added. “But I never heard of anything like that, either.”
“Delilah, um . . .” My hand still at my neck, I slid my finger along the silk cord of my pendant. “She has an amulet, made from the same stone like mine.”
“Soros stone?” Andras asked quickly.
“Are you sure?” Ivarr’s eyebrows lifted in obvious surprise.
I nodded.
“I saw it light up when she came close to Raim. She said her brother had one, too. They both got it from their father.”
“The one, who was the member of The Priory.” Sytrius exchanged a look with Andras.
“I’ll add it to my list of things to investigate,” Andras moved his gaze from me to Ivarr. “Meanwhile, I would advise you both to stay close to Vegas, whatever you do.”
“Um . . .” I stared at him. Ivarr and I never got a chance to discuss the future yet. “I have a job in Seattle.”
“We’ll talk about it, sweetheart.” Ivarr put his arm around my waist and drew me into his side, kissing my hair. “There is no reason why you can’t keep your job if that’s what you want.”
Well, not if he intended to continue his dancing career in Vegas. Did he want to continue with that? I had no idea.
He was right, we needed to talk.
Andras got up from his seat.
“Well, thank you for answering my questions, Kitty.” He shook my hand.
“I hope it helped. Sorry, it wasn’t much.” I then shook Sytrius’s hand, too. Thank you for breakfast.”
My phone buzzed at that moment.
Pam.
I quickly excused myself and walked into the bedroom to take her call, leaving the door slightly ajar.
“Ivarr.” I heard from the living room before I had a chance to accept Pam’s call. Something in Andras’s voice when he said Ivarr’s name made me pause and hit ‘decline’ on my phone instead.
“Don’t move out of Vegas yet.”
“Well that’s up to Katherine and I to decide, isn’t it?” Ivarr’s tone remained light, but the somberness in Andras’s voice made my heart skip.
“It wasn’t all Raim said when he left. His full statement was ‘Beware of The Priory. They are the ones with real power. No one with Incubi blood in them is safe.’ I want all of us to stay together for now. The European tour of Demon Army has been cancelled, and I’m meeting with Vadim to see if the Eastern Council can combine their base with ours until we find out everything there is about this.”
“Like I said. It’s up to Katherine and I to decide.” Ivarr’s voice was quiet, but the note of defiance still rang through it. “I’m not afraid of anything Raim had to say.”
“Don’t you understand? None of us would be that worried if the threat was meant for Incubi alone. The real concern here is what it means for our women. If Kitty gets pregnant, she’ll carry a baby of Incubi blood, which puts her in danger, too—not just you.”
The phone buzzed in my hand again, and I quickly typed a message for Pam that I’d call her later then sat on the bed, the phone clutched to my chest.
The Forgotten (Demons Book 2) Page 23
