Demon Master (Demonsense series Book 2)
Page 53
She turned her attention back to Leander, and saw he had raised a ward between them. He must have seen knowledge of it register on her face because he said, "No more freeze spells, Bree." He lowered his voice, almost to a whisper, and continued, "Just stay put and let Marton and Daniel play it out. I may still be able to get you out of this."
"How could you?" Bree exclaimed, although as soon as it spilled out of her mouth, she knew what it was a stupid thing to say.
"It's a job," Leander replied. He sounded hard, but the gun lowered infinitesimally.
"You don't want to do this," Bree responded, pleading.
"If it's you or me, I'm going to pick me, every time," Leander said harshly. He glanced over his shoulder, checking on the duel, and Bree took that opportunity to charge the ward. It was like running into a padded wall. She backed up a few paces and found out that the ward surrounded her, contained her in place. Of course, as long as the ward was up, Leander couldn't shoot her. If it was hard enough to stop her, it should stop a bullet too. She was effectively out of the action unless she could break the ward.
Daniel and Varga had moved even closer. Their movements were slower now, with longer pauses between casting. The demon light in Daniel's eyes had grown again. Bree was amazed that he was still on his feet, still fighting, even more amazed Varga was. His injury must not be as bad as it looked.
Every minute Daniel remained possessed increased the risk of his going divided. These were exactly the kinds of conditions that had led to it in the past: The demon contact, high emotion, a threat to her. She didn't know how he was hanging on.
Varga looked as tired as Daniel. He no longer clutched at his wound, but the pain and the blood loss had to be draining. Bree wondered why there’d been no further interference from Scanlon and his people. She supposed Varga had to defeat Daniel solo now that he had Keltoi witnesses to avoid losing face. Also, it might be that Scanlon would be happy enough to have Varga kill Daniel.
But Bree knew the Keltoi wanted Daniel's hiding spell. That could be why Varga had seemed to be holding back earlier. It didn't look like he was holding back now. He was clearly in a fight for his life.
Almost as if he had heard her thinking, Varga glanced her way. Her Demonsense clamored to life. It was a demon looking at her, as much as Varga himself. Varga shouted, "Leander, drop the ward!" and made a sharp throwing gesture in her direction. A bolt of energy slammed into her chest, hurling her backwards. She fell to the ground, clutching at her heart, which was stuttering in painful, arrhythmic jolts. Dear God, was she having a heart attack?
She heard Daniel call her name, and she heard the terror in his voice. Her vision blurred around the edges. There was more yelling, but all the sounds seemed distant. Her chest hurt, and tears from the pain leaked out of her eyes, down her temples and into her hair. She wanted to get up, to see what was happening, but she couldn't move. More time passed, and her heart settled its beat. She rolled onto her side, then pushed shakily up to her knees. That's when she felt Leander's grip on her arm. He hauled her to her feet, silently, less roughly than he could have, then pulled her, stumbling, into the center of the clearing.
Someone had cast an illumination spell and the scene was clearly revealed. Daniel was on his knees in front of Varga, head down. There was blood on the side of his face from a head wound, almost a mirror to that Varga had sustained earlier. Facing each other like that, they were mirror images in more ways than one. The family resemblance was greater now that Bree could see them right next to each other. Daniel's face was longer, and he had a good couple of inches on Varga, who looked more solidly built than Daniel. Their noses were different, and Varga's lips were thin compared to Daniel's. But the flare of their cheekbones, the angle of their jaws, and the shape of their eyes were all quite similar.
Franchesca stood next to Varga, staring down at Daniel with a hungry smile on her face. Leander hauled Bree forward and shoved her down onto her knees next to Varga. Varga didn't even spare her a glance. "As you see," he told Daniel, “I’ve spared her life thus far. You can earn her freedom as well if you give me the hiding spell."
Daniel raised his head and looked at Bree. He was breathing fast, almost panting. He looked desperate. Bree opened her Reader sense wide, and it hurt to do it. She was depleted from the attack on her heart.
And there it was, as she'd feared. The restraining structure was battered and buckling. All Daniel's will was focused on holding it up. Bree could sense Gelsenim as well. The demon's energy was extended in a fiery wall around the structure. Intuitively, Bree grasped that Gelsenim was thus far preventing Varga from binding Daniel. There went her plan to call Gelsenim to her and try to rescue Daniel that way. Not that she had a hope in hell of pulling it off with this many Keltoi surrounding them.
"All right," Daniel said hoarsely. "Let her leave, give me your word she won't be harmed, and the spell is yours."
"He's lying," Franchesca said instantly. Her attention was riveted on Daniel, a slight frown between her brows. Clearly, she was reading Daniel, and if that were the case, she was picking up on his instability. Hopefully, she didn't know what to make of it, didn't see how close he was to breaking.
"Are you lying, cousin?" Varga asked. "Let's see if this earns your cooperation." He turned to Bree, raised a hand in front of her, and clenched it in a fist. It felt like his hand was in her chest, squeezing her heart. She gasped and hunched over in an instinctive bid to protect herself. Distantly, she registered that Leander's hand, where it was holding her arm, was shaking.
"No!" Daniel roared, and this time, Gelsenim's voice was clear to be heard in overlay on Daniel's. Orange smoke poured out of Daniel, and Daniel swayed, the after reaction from the possession weakening him. Gelsenim quickly coalesced into his largest, most imposing demon form. He loomed over Varga. "You will not harm her!"
Varga took a step back. His face registered caution more than fear. "Why would you protect her, demon?" Varga asked. "Surely her death, and the pain it would cause Daniel, would be quite a feast for you."
Gelsenim looked at Bree, and she shook her head slightly, even that slight motion making her sick and dizzy. She didn't want Varga to know that she was Gelsenim's preferred host. It seemed like losing the tiny advantage it might give her if Varga didn't know. Of course, Leander knew. She slanted a glance at him, and caught him looking at her. His face was empty of expression, and she couldn't read him at all. But the fact that Varga was even asking led her to believe Leander hadn't told him.
There must have been some intelligence, some coherence still present in the demon, because he replied, "Daniel does not wish it, and he is my host."
"He commands you so far?" Varga asked speculatively.
"For now," the demon replied.
"You seem to have a stalemate on your hands," Scanlon put in. He and his people were arrayed on the other side of Franchesca, watching the proceedings. "You risk the demon burning you if you threaten Jenkins, and she’s your only leverage against Thorvaldson. Unless, of course, you plan to threaten his life."
"I'm dead anyway once I give up the spell," Daniel replied with a look at Scanlon. "Varga will hand me over to you if he doesn't kill me himself. For what it's worth, I didn't mean to kill your son. I was just trying to get the demon out of him."
Leander's grip shifted on Bree's arm, prompting Bree to remember that Leander knew the truth, that she'd killed Scanlon's son, and he wasn't correcting Daniel. And Daniel was making sure Scanlon thought it was him to keep his attention off Bree. With despair, she realized that Daniel was right. They would have no reason not to kill him once they got the spell out of him.
"He's dead at your hands, nonetheless. He was my only son," Scanlon replied, voice rough.
"The only a hope of me handing over the spell is to let Bree go," Daniel said, turning his attention back to Marton. His voice was strained, and came out in breathless pants.
"And I won't let her go unless you tell me," Varga replied. "Stalemate again."
The pressure on Bree's heart let up, and she nearly fell over. Only Leander's grip held her up. She had to know what Franchesca was doing to Daniel. She flung her Reader sense out, and it was excruciating. She grit her teeth and forced it out, out and into Daniel. It was so hard to read at the level she wanted without touching him, and she wasn't sure she could do anything to stop whatever Franchesca was doing if she didn't have that contact to work with, that conduit to Daniel's energy.
Like a camera lens coming into focus, the energy picture resolved. Franchesca was pulling apart the restraining structure, finding the weak points, tearing it down.
"Gelsenim, I command you!" Bree shouted frantically, tearing her energy away from the read and channeling it into her will and base energy. "Stop Franchesca!"
The demon seemed to waver for a moment in indecision, then he turned to face Franchesca.
"Felakim! Stop him!" Varga roared.
His demon left him in a burst of smoke and took the form as a winged sphinx, head of a woman, body of a lion, between Gelsenim and Franchesca, teeth bared and claws extended. "My master forbids it," the demon screeched, it's voice high, feminine and grating.
Gelsenim didn’t reply in words. He raised his hands, and gold flame shot out of them. Immediately, the other demon countered with red fire. Where the energies met, an explosion of force and fire roared up into the air, into the canopy of cedar trees above, catching them immediately on fire.
Bree looked back at Daniel, tried to focus her Reader sense again, but she couldn't get it to work. In the orange light of the flames, Bree could see he was sweating. His eyes were closed and clenched in pain. As she watched, he toppled sideways, and his face went slack. Franchesca let him fall, and shot a triumphant look at Varga.
"No, no no!" Bree whimpered. She saw Varga nod at Franchesca, then he raised his hands, clenching his fists, and shouted, "Gelsenim, I command you! Depart, and do not return this night!"
He resisted. Bree could see that he was resisting, but his form started to waver. Scanlon moved to Varga's side, and added his power to Varga's, echoing his words. "Gelsenim, depart!"
"No, stay!" Bree countered with all her might, but it wasn't enough. The demon's form swirled and shifted, taking on his human form. He extended a hand in entreaty toward Bree, then he dissolved into smoke, and disappeared, taking her last hope with him.
She pulled against Leander's grip, trying to get to Daniel, and to her surprise, he let her go. She scrambled over to Daniel on hands and knees. He was lying on his side. She put a hand to his neck, feeling desperately for his pulse, and finally, she found it. She trembled all over with stress and relief. He wasn't dead. Gently, she rolled him over onto his back. She pulled her shirt sleeve out from under her jacket and tried to wipe the blood and sweat off of his face. Her battered heart was breaking, she was sure of it. "Daniel, please, please, come back," she whispered raggedly. She didn't care what else was happening, what kind of power plays were going down. She just wanted to be sure he was alive, and unbroken. She needed to know if he was still himself, though she knew how unlikely that was. She didn't realize she was crying until her tears fell on his face. He eyelids twitched in response, then opened. His dark eyes looked into hers, and she held her breath. "Daniel?" she asked hesitantly.
"Bree," he responded. "Help me up."
There was something in his voice, in just those few words, that made a chill run up her spine and across her shoulders. She reached out and gripped his hand, and through that contact, forced her Reader sense into him. What she felt there made her world come apart. Dark power, nothing but dark power, and chaos, and madness.
Her shock must have registered on her face, because Daniel started laughing. "And to think I didn't want this to happen." He shook his head, as if in bemusement, and let go of her hand. With some effort, he pushed up off the ground, and turned to face the others. "Well, what have we here?"
It sounded like Daniel at his most wry, his most relaxed, and yet it didn't sound like him at all. Bree slumped back to sitting on the ground. She didn't have the strength to get up. She had stopped crying, and she realized, in a distant sort of way, that she was in shock. Out of all the terrifying things that had happened this night, this was the worst, that Daniel could change so utterly.
"What did you do to him?" she heard Varga ask Franchesca. He'd put a shield up the moment Daniel started to move.
"He was very demon burned. I just helped him over the edge," she replied. She sounded a little breathless, whether from excitement or dismay, Bree couldn't tell. She realized Franchesca really didn't have a clue about what she'd just unleashed. It wasn't a simple matter of Daniel being demon burned, it was worse, a whole other order of worse, if Gelsenim's stories of the divided were to be believed.
Daniel cocked his head. "Demon burned? Is that what this is? Funny, I don't feel demon burned. In fact, I feel great!" He spread his arms wide. "Isn't this fun, all of us here together like this? I wonder what will happen next?" He turned to face Scanlon. "I believe you were planning on killing me?"
Scanlon's lips parted in reply, but Daniel's hand shot out in a short, sharp punching gesture, and Scanlon clutch at his chest. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell backwards, into the arms of the tall black woman, who had darted forward to catch him. She bore him to the ground, and felt for a pulse. After a moment, she glanced up at Varga. "He's dead, sir."
Those words broke through Bree's fog. Daniel had just killed someone, without a thought, without hesitation. It was as he himself had feared. He was out of control, and too powerful to be put down. It could be that if Varga and all the other Keltoi present acted quickly, they could do it. Then she remembered. Leander had a gun.
Leander must have remembered at the same time. He swiftly raised the gun to aim it at Daniel, and without even glancing at Leander, Daniel gestured, and the gun flew out of Leander's hand and straight into Daniel's.
"Would you look at this?" Daniel said, waving the gun toward Varga. "Magic is all well and good, but sometimes a gun just feels good in the hand, you know? And besides, I'm a bit tired. Now, the question is, do I want to kill the rest of you?"
There was a long silence. Nobody moved. Nobody except the demon, Felakim. It had stayed outside of Varga's body after Gelsenim was vanished, and now it crept up on Daniel, a bit behind and to the right of him. Again, Daniel gestured and said, almost casually, “Be gone, demon." The demon collapsed into smoke and disappeared with a pop of energy.
In spite of how drained he must have been from the duel, Daniel appeared freakishly strong. Bree had to wonder if having that darker side take over had freed up some of his power. She'd always known that his Demon Master and Binder talents were nearly as strong as his Caster ability. They’d been locked away for so long, and now they were completely free.
She saw Varga and Franchesca exchange a glance. Franchesca gave a little nod and slinked toward Daniel.
"Daniel, my love, how wonderful to have you back," she purred, a little smile on her face.
Daniel's attention shifted to her, and he smiled back. It was a predatory smile. "Franchesca. Up to your old tricks, I see." Franchesca moved in close to him, and Daniel's gaze dropped to her cleavage, prominently displayed in the low neck of her dress. He extended a long finger and traced it along the edge of the vee, gaze speculative.
Everything, Bree was thinking, I've screwed up virtually everything. Daniel had been winning when Leander dragged her forward and threatened her. She had chosen wrong, and now Daniel was lost to her, lost to himself. Varga was free to act, to move forward with whatever political agenda he was setting up with all the demonic possessions, all the bombings. Free, that is, so long as Daniel didn't kill him. Suddenly, fiercely, Br
ee hoped that he would. "Daniel!" she cried. "You came here to kill Varga, so do it!"
Daniel's gaze flew to her, and for a split second, she thought she saw Daniel, the real Daniel, looking out at her. Then he looked down at his leg, where Franchesca had inserted a needle in his thigh. With a swift motion, she pushed in the plunger, withdrew the needle, and backed away. Daniel's face registered puzzlement, then anger, then his eyes fluttered closed, and he fell to the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Leander watched Thorvaldson lose consciousness with a profound, jittery relief. He'd felt acutely vulnerable, watching how easily Thorvaldson killed Scanlon and took the gun from him. The man had well and truly snapped, that was for certain. He watched in disgust as Franchesca knelt over him, murmuring, straightening his limbs and petting his hair and face.
He glanced at Marton warily. He and Scanlon's people had just witnessed Marton cheat in a duel. Oh, maybe he hadn't been the one to drug Thorvaldson, but no one would believe Franchesca did it without Marton's orders. It was a profound loss of face, and there was every chance he wouldn't want any witnesses to the act.
He felt pinned in place. He wanted to go for the gun Thorvaldson had dropped when he collapsed, but Marton could feel threatened by the move and was perfectly capable of frying him where he stood, even without a demon on board.
Bree was still on her knees next to Marton. Her head was bowed, hair partially obscuring her face, but Leander could see that she was silently crying. He tried to steel himself against the sight. She was crying over Thorvaldson, after all, not over him, over his betrayal. Now that he knew she hadn't died from Marton's attack, he refused to feel guilty. She was a naive idiot to trust him as she had, and she was getting what she deserved.
Clearly, he had dithered too long about going for the gun, because Marton paced forward and got it himself. Leander watched with narrowed eyes as Scanlon's people tensed. In a move almost foolishly confident, Marton checked the rounds in the gun, put on the safety, tucked the gun in the waistband of his pants at the small of his back and turned to face Destry, where she'd risen to stand over Scanlon.