by Sara DeHaven
The air turned thick with Daniel’s anger. Bree saw he was trying to contain it, saw it in the tension in his back, in his breathing. As usual, her Reader sense had snapped on as soon as she perceived his anger. He read dark to her. He turned and walked back over to her. She took at involuntary step back when he paused in front of her.
“I’ll find those little jerks and teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget,” he growled.
“Daniel, you know that’s the wrong approach,” Bree replied, voice shakier than she’d hoped. She wanted to sound sure, confident, but he was unnerving her.
“How is it the wrong approach? I’m not going to beat them up, not that they don’t deserve it. But I can take away their demons and give them a taste of what it’s like to be afraid.”
“The Keltoi have been leaving us both alone since what happened last fall. We need to stay off their radar, you yourself have said it.” She tried to make her voice more soothing. She couldn’t help but think about what Gelsenim had said, about how Daniel could snap at any time. But she hadn't seriously thought it would happen without more demon contact.
He ran a restless hand through his hair. “If this is a demon war, we’re not going to be able to avoid the Keltoi. We’re going to have to fight, or more people are going to get hurt. We’re both going to be called on again, probably many times, before this is all over. Staying under the radar isn’t an option anymore.”
“Look, it’s not that I don’t like the idea of those guys getting a taste of their own medicine. How could I not? But how does that really fix anything?”
A series of expressions chased across Daniel’s face, from anger, to worry, to anguish. He turned away from her and said, voice full of gravel, “I can’t stand the thought of you being hurt like that. It makes me want to kill someone.”
His fists clenched, and Bree could see he was trembling with suppressed emotion. His energy was a jagged whirl of white hot anger and despair, and she winced at the power of it.
“My god,” he whispered, “I really do want to kill someone.”
Bree’s fear skyrocketed. She heard the truth in his voice, felt it in his energy, in the air around them. If those boys who’d attacked her were in the room right now, Bree thought Daniel might be capable of killing them in anger. Maybe she ought to be enjoying that on some level, but it just made her feel sick. “I don’t think you really mean that,” she offered weakly. She knew it wasn’t true, but she had to say something calming. She glanced towards the door, calculating how quickly she could make it there in case things started to spin out of control.
He turned and faced her. “Oh, I do mean it. That’s the hell of it, because it makes me no better than they are.” His voice was shaky now, but the anger hadn’t decreased. He closed his eyes for a moment, in what appeared an effort to gather himself, but they quickly snapped open again, dark coals in his pale face. “What I’m really feeling right now,” he told her, “is the urge to call a demon. I want to call it and let it fill me, and ride the rage right out of here and go after those little Keltoi bastards. It feels so, so…. right.”
“It’s not right. It’s not,” Bree told him, making herself move toward him and look right into his eyes. She had to reach him, because if he was talking about calling a demon, something was most definitely wrong.
“Then why does it feel so right?” Daniel asked her. He sounded genuinely puzzled, almost like a child. It was a bizarre shift in tone, and she found that almost more frightening than the anger that had come before.
“It feels right because you’re not yourself right now,” she told him. She put a hand on his shoulder, hoping the connection would calm him. There was a spike of intense discomfort, much like she felt when her Demonsense encountered a demon.
“You know, I’m always trying to convince you to trust me, but I don’t really trust myself. How do you or I know that this isn’t the real me?” Daniel said, almost conversationally.
She would have thought he was calming if she wasn’t touching him and reading his energy. It seemed to be moving faster and faster, going darker and darker. “Maybe it’s some part of you, Daniel, but we all have a dark side, don’t we? We all get angry, we all get upset if someone we care about is hurt.”
“But we all don’t want to kill someone, do we?” he asked. “Did you want to kill Jim Scanlon?”
Bree didn’t like to think about that night, the night she’d killed the Keltoi who was Hunter’s biological father. “No,” she answered truthfully, “I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“Maybe Gelsenim is right. Maybe I am going divided like the Seldenai he talked about. Because I've never truly wanted to kill someone before, not even when I’ve had to. But right now, I want to. I mean it Bree, I want to.” He raised a hand and it came to rest on her shoulder, gripping hard. Bree had the immediate conviction that she needed to get out, now. And that's when his energy shifted completely to the dark.
“Gelsenim, I call you! Gelsenim, I command you!” he shouted.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bree twisted and pushed against Daniel. He wouldn’t let go. The air around them heated intensely with the arrival of the demon. He emerged in his smaller devil form, all sharp angles and fiery eyes.
“Well what have we here? A lover’s quarrel? I see that Daniel is very, very angry.”
Before Bree could say anything, Daniel commanded, “Gelsenim, possess me!”
The demon smiled and devolved into orange smoke that formed into a column and entered Daniel’s body at the top of his head. The orange light of blatant possession came into Daniel’s eyes. That rapidly, Gelsenim took control. And that would only have happened if Daniel didn't resist. Daniel’s expression became speculative, and cruelly amused.
“He’s not angry at me,” Bree said hastily. She was still in Daniel’s grip, and the nausea of having such close contact with Gelsenim when he wasn’t muting his energy was nearly overwhelming. She put her free hand over her mouth to stop herself from throwing up.
“Oh, but I think he is!" Daniel's use of the third person was an indication of how quickly Gelsenim had taken total control. "In fact, I feel a very interesting sensation in him right now. I think he would like to put his hands around your neck, right where those so lovely bruises are.” Daniel’s moved his hands until they were resting firmly, but not painfully, around her neck. “I think he would like to place his own mark on you, right here, to rub out the mark of those other males” Daniel’s hands tightened around her throat.
“This isn't Daniel, it’s you, Gelsenim,” Bree insisted desperately. “You’re the one who wants to take me over.” She had no idea if she was right. She was too busy being scared out of her tiny little mind. She rapidly ran through the offensive spells she knew, but Daniel's hands tightening around her neck was not conducive to the focus she needed. What crossed her mind, absurdly, was, Why does everyone want to strangle me?
“I can feel the beat of your heart, here in my hands,” Gelsenim purred.
“You don’t want to kill me. You said I was your perfect host,” Bree got out. It was hard to force the air to speak past the constriction. Daniel’s hands loosened, and for just a split second, she thought she saw Daniel’s consciousness come forward. She seized the moment, spurred on by her own last comment, and said, forcing power into her words, “Gelsenim, I command you! Possess me!”
For a minute, she thought it hadn’t worked. But then she felt the warmth of the demon flow out of Daniel's hands and enter her, felt the swelling of her power. She swung her forearms, hard as she could, against Daniel’s, breaking his grip on her throat. It probably wouldn’t have worked if he weren’t already going down. The strength went out of him, and he fell down onto his knees in front of her.
A red tide of anger swamped her. Her foot swung out and she kicked him in the face. He tumbled sideways, landing in a heap. Bree felt a distant sense of horror at what she’d done, but the anger was still uppermost. She wanted to hurt
him more, make him afraid of her.
And then it hit her. This was the influence of the demon. God knew she had a right to be angry, but not to be violent with it. She wanted to go to Daniel, make sure he was all right, but at the same time, but she was afraid to touch him. She felt uncomfortably full of energy, a jangly sort of energy that urged her on to action. Violent action. In protest, she made herself be still, even though she knew she should probably make a run for it while she could.
Somehow, Gelsenim didn’t quite have the upper hand, because her body obeyed the impulse to stand and breathe. Daniel was still laid out on the floor, and she kept cautious eyes on him as she sent to the demon, Just back off and let me think a minute, Gelsenim.
But he deserves to die! He is fully divided now. You would do him a favor to kill him, Gelsenim returned.
What do you mean, he’s fully divided?
That which I spoke of before, the two sides have split, and always the dark side takes over.
How do I know you’re telling me the truth? Bree replied frantically. She didn’t want to believe it. It couldn't possibly happen that fast, Daniel had seemed so normal downstairs when they were talking. How do I know you’re not just urging me to kill him to feed you? You’re the one that wanted me to kick him, aren’t you?
I simply helped along your own urge to retaliate, Gelsenim told her, sounding smug.
Well, I’m not going to kill him, no matter what you say! Now leave me alone!
You do not ask me to depart, do you? I don’t think that would be safe, my host. When he regains himself after the de-possession effects wear off, he will likely just call another demon. His power makes him very rich food, the richest, and any of my kind would rejoice to possess him. I hesitated to leave him myself, and would not have if you had not been near.
Daniel was stirring. She needed more time to think what to do, but it looked like she wasn’t going to get it. There has to be a way to fix him, she snapped.
I know of no way. If he refuses to be whole, even the Seldenai could not fix him, and they were a wiser race than yours.
She watched as Daniel tried and failed to sit up. His hand went to the side of his face where she'd kicked him. If she was going to leave, she’d better do it now before he became fully conscious.
She had just reluctantly turned to go when the ghost of an idea came to her, a crazy, dangerous idea, but it was the only option she had besides abandoning him to a very dangerous insanity, so she acted on it. She went over to Daniel where he was sprawled on his back, knelt down, and put her hands on his chest, on top of his t-shirt. It would have been better to have skin to skin contact, but she was in a hurry. She gathered her Reader sense, focused it, and prepared to send it in to Daniel. As she tried to do so, she hit a wall.
You should not do this, my host. You should not touch minds with a divided of this power.
Is it you that’s stopping me, or him?
It is I. I cannot allow you to risk your mind and body in this fashion. You are not as strong as Daniel, and all his inhibitions will be gone. He could bind you in an instant.
It’s my mind, my choice! Bree sent furiously. She gathered all her will and pushed against the barrier Gelsenim had erected. Very much to her surprise, it yielded. She dove in before Gelsenim could react, dove deep. There was chaos inside Daniel. Chaos and a rising, wild anger. He wasn’t fully conscious, she could feel that too, and she took advantage of it. She sought further, to the deepest levels of consciousness, searching for something that was not this dark energy, this demon-tainted stuff that surrounded her. It was like trying to penetrate a hurricane. The resistance was intense, and she was buffeted about so much that she felt as if her mind might crack and dissolve. Gelsenim, help me! she pleaded.
I do not want to be torn apart along with you, my host. I am sorry. Bree could feel the sense of the demon fading.
Gelsenim, I truly need your help to survive. And if we’re ever to have a true partnership, this is the kind of work I want to do. I want to help people! If you can aide me in that, I will want you to stay!
In the midst of the hurricane, she felt a spot of stillness as Gelsenim paused. Then, to her immense relief, she felt his power pour back into her, boosting her Reader sense. She felt it stabilize, become focused, an arrow of thought and energy. And she sent it seeking, seeking for the Daniel she knew, the Daniel she loved. And deep inside, flattened under the weight of the violent energy that had been unleashed, she found an echo of him. She sent her consciousness into that space and tried to attune to it, much as she attuned to demonic energy during an exorcism. And she could feel the resonance building as she succeeded.
But it was a small thing compared to the storm around it. She had hoped to somehow bring it to the surface, get that part of him back in charge. She dug deep for more power, dangerously deep, and felt her focus waver as she became light headed with the energy drain. It wasn’t working. What now? she thought frantically.
It is too late, my host, as I told you. He is fully divided.
Then how do I put him back together? Give me something! Give me anything! At some distance, she felt the sensation of tears tracking down her face.
There was silence as Gelsenim seemed to truly consider. You are skilled at attunement, my host. Can you perhaps attune with both sides at once, and form a joining that way?
Instantly, Bree grasped it. But she had no idea how to do it. She’d only ever attuned to read or in order to gather energy to force out a demon or taint out of a host’s body. An exorcism spell wouldn’t work here, she wasn’t trying to get anything out, she was trying to pull it back together. With no true idea of what she was doing, she formed an intention, a mental picture, of holding the positive part she was already attuned with in her right hand. When she had some sense that was firm, she opened herself to attuning with the dark energy. And it nearly blew her apart.
Desperately, she tried to gather her consciousness back into that one-pointed focus, that arrow of intention, she had managed before. But the energy was too big, she kept losing herself in it.
With an intuitive leap, it came to her that she had to get bigger too if she was going to attune with the dark energy. Bigger, more diffuse, rather than coming in focused and trying to attune from there. She imagined half of her consciousness growing, spreading out, a thin, delicate film all around the outside of storm. And she felt it happening, felt her mind envelope Daniel’s.
Yes, my host, that is a good way, Gelsenim whispered to her. She let the envelope begin to melt at the edges where it touched the dark energy, let it start to resonate to that frequency. Some part of her knew that Daniel was starting to move against her hands again, struggling to get up, but by now, she was so fully engaged in what she was doing, it didn’t make her panic. As the attunement slid into place, she imagined her left hand encompassing the dark energy. Then she imagined her right hand grasping the much smaller amount of light energy that remained of the good part of Daniel. She brought her mental image of the left hand against that of the right hand and then carefully relaxed her mental grip on the left, allowing some of that energy to feed into the positive part in her right hand. She divided her attention a third time, focusing on altering the energy signature of what was trickling into her right hand to match that light energy.
It is beginning to work. See there, the light side grows again. But you will have to move more quickly, my host. I am sending force into your hands to try to hold him still, but he is nearly conscious now. Already, I feel his energy begin to resist you.
Bree felt it too. And she didn’t have the energy to push back. Everything she had was focused inward, on the deep read, on the attunement. There was so much base energy work to this, and it was draining her, draining her life force. All she could do was to imagine opening her mental image of the left fist wider, encourage the energy to flow and transform more quickly.
At first, it did as she directed. The light side grew more quickly, and the energy on that side became more f
amiliar, more recognizably Daniel. It was becoming more ordered as well. But that didn't solve the puzzle of how to mend the rift entirely. She wasn’t really attuning the two energies to each other, she was just growing the light side back. And she was weakening, fast. Daniel’s usual state was for his normal consciousness to be brilliantly light with a dark layer. She wasn’t sure she could last long enough to get the light side that big, let alone weave the sides together somehow. Maybe if she could get him even close to his normal state, she’d be able to go in again later and experiment energetically on putting it all more firmly together.
You are dangerously draining yourself, Gelsenim told her. You risk your life if you continue much further.
With a last, wrenching effort, Bree opened the left fist even wider, shot a bolt of energy toward the right, through what she thought of as the energy converter in between. And then she was out. Her consciousness flew out of Daniel’s, and she wasn't sure if it was of her own volition, if Gelsenim had caused it, or whether it was something Daniel had done.
She spent a time in a sort of white haze, with a dim sense of Gelsenim’s presence a warm, orange glow inside of her. Only gradually was she able to feel her body again, and when she did, she realized she had collapsed onto Daniel’s chest, her legs at a slight angle from his, her face against his shoulder. Tremors were moving through his body. She felt like she should move, get off of him, see what kind of shape he was in, but she simply didn’t have the strength to do it.
Gelsenim? she sent tentatively. Can you help me move?
I’m afraid my energy is as low as yours, my host. I gave you all I could without ending myself.
Then I thank you, she sent back gratefully. She had no choice but to let herself rest, and gradually Daniel’s tremors subsided. She was worried that she might not have succeeded, that the dark side might still be in charge, and it couldn't be good for him to be touching her when she had Gelsenim on board, but she was so completely drained that there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.
