Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series

by Holley Trent

  Blue light flashed in the kitchen, and she covered her eyes until the burning pull in her gut withdrew.

  Mark. She’d met the angel last night, as he’d helped bring the boys back. These people had such a complicated network of relationships that she’d been unable to grasp it all, and had resorted to drawing out a map of them all on a scrap of paper. So much to learn so fast, but she wanted to know everything. She wanted to learn more about this world she’d been kept from and understand what her place in it was, whether it was with Claude or without him. Maybe he was just the catalyst and they’d go their separate ways.

  Somehow, she didn’t think so, though.

  Mark padded to the stove and peered into the pot. He nudged his horn-rimmed glasses up his nose and grunted. “Beef vegetable? Ooh, is that barley?”

  “Yeah. Do you actually need to eat?”

  “No, but it’s become a habit. Do you mind?”

  “Take Claude’s. He’s dead to the world … along with my familiar.”

  He picked up the tray and carried it to the kitchen table cluttered with medical supplies and various items of arcana. Clarissa had left an athame—a ceremonial knife—on the table in case Gail needed it.

  She probably wouldn’t. In her line of witchcraft, she didn’t use implements, but the tool could help in some circumstances. Gail doubted she’d be witty enough to remember what those were when it was important, tough.

  “Some couples share familiars,” Mark said.

  Gail leaned her butt against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve never heard that, but I suspect you’re incapable of lying. Besides, we’re not a couple.”

  “Okay, fine. You’re not a couple, but you’re most definitely a matched pair. That is absolutely indisputable. As for lying …” He shrugged and grimaced. “I can do it, but it doesn’t come naturally. It also doesn’t feel great. It makes me feel ill. Anyhow, familiar sharing doesn’t happen very often because it requires a certain degree of compatibility. You and Claude have it because you’ve been around before.”

  “Damn!” Ellery strode into the room and mashed the pedal of the aluminum trash can. She tossed in a pair of latex gloves. “You didn’t tell me that Sweetie’s brother was Calvin Fucking Wolff.”

  “Ell, I told you during your drive out here that his name was Calvin.”

  When the boys had come back, they’d all been a bloody mess. Gail hadn’t known what to do but call Ellery, even if she wouldn’t make it out to the coast immediately. She’d left Durham at the end of her twelve-hour shift and had just now gotten a look at all the guys. The trusted doctor that had been there last night for Sylvester’s benefit had come and gone.

  “And why would I make the connection that the werewolf in question is the same one named Major League Baseball’s MVP last year? Yo!” She gave Gail’s shoulder an annoyed poke. “He’s famous.”

  “No shit?” Gail had had a hard time caring given the fact Claude hadn’t seemed to have been breathing when they all tumbled into the living room. Priorities.

  Ellery propped her fists onto her hips and shook her perfectly-coiffed head. How she managed to get all that hair into such a neat bun, Gail had never figured out. “How do you get into these situations?”

  Sweetie walked into the room with Agatha on her heels, sucking the air out of the room as she came. It took a moment for the air to regulate in the wind goddess’s presence. That happened every time she came near, and it wasn’t just in Gail’s head. Ellery had said she felt it, too. Maybe they weren’t completely shittastic witches after all.

  Agatha looked at Gail, then Ellery, spun around, and went right back to where she came from.

  “What’s her deal?” Ellery asked.

  Mark pushed his glasses up and furrowed his brow. He knew Agatha almost better than anyone. She was his boss. Well, sort of. She wasn’t his boss-boss, but his Earthly boss. She was creative director at an advertising agency down in Wilmington, and Mark was a copywriter who worked beneath her.

  Apparently, angels weren’t inherently wealthy. Mark shared an office with Ariel, who was an art director—whatever that meant.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “She’s generally aloof, but predictable.”

  “Huh.” Gail turned the burner down under the soup and slipped a lid onto the pot. “Ell, Mark says two compatible witches can share a familiar.”

  “I’ve never heard that before.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Ellery turned to Mark. “Why wouldn’t we know that? That seems pretty important, you know? If that’s the case, we should have had a choice of opting out of the familiar ownership. What if I don’t want my partner to know how I’m feeling all the time? Or what if I don’t want to mingle my magic that way?”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to? If you’re truly that compatible, it shouldn’t bother you so much.” Mark pulled a saltine through what was left of his broth and popped it into his mouth.

  “You wouldn’t understand, angel.” Sweetie tucked her chin over his right shoulder and gripped his chair arms. “You’ve never been in a relationship. Doesn’t matter how much you like someone. Sometimes, you’ve got to have your own space.”

  Ironic, seeing as how Sweetie never had her own space. According to Clarissa, Sweetie was always around people because she was attracted to energy. It was apparently a werewolf proclivity, though it affected some more than others. If she’d taken a mate, she probably wouldn’t have been so needy.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said, patting her right hand. “But I don’t know why no one told you it was possible, Gail. Ell. As far as I know, it’s common witch lore.”

  “It’s not,” Agatha called out from the living room. “Not anymore.” High heels clacked against hardwood, and then the front door slammed.

  “Jeez, she’s wound tight,” Ellery said. She shrugged and patted her pockets. Pulling out yet another pair of latex gloves, she said, “I’m going to go check on Sylvester. Gotta make sure he doesn’t have infection setting in from that shrapnel. Then I need to go home and feed my cat.”

  Gail left the clingy werewolf to Mark and padded back up the stairs.

  Clarissa’s house had five bedrooms, two downstairs that were original to the house—though one was currently being used as a pantry—and three upstairs in the new second floor. She’d put Gail in the room that had once been Marion’s, and Claude was on the other end of the hall near the stairs.

  She poked her head in, intending to switch off the light, but he must have heard that quiet click, because he whispered, “Chéri?”

  Lucky guess. More than half the people in the house at the moment were female. “Which chéri do you want?” She braced herself for the wrong answer.

  “Only you. Come here.”

  She let out the breath she’d been holding, but stood her ground. If she got too close to him, she might touch him, and that was the last thing he needed. It was hard, not touching him. Not jumping his freakin’ bones, even when it was entirely inappropriate. Especially when he was laid out like that, so weak and harmless. There had to be something in that incubus magic of his that was screwing with her brain.

  “Candy Corn bothering you?”

  “I feel like I’m breathing in an inordinate amount of hair, but no, she’s not bothering me.” His voice was stronger, but still tired. Clarissa had said he’d heal quickly, and Gail was glad to see that was true. They were overdue for a hell of an argument, and she didn’t want to kick the man while he was down. “Come here. Close the door first.”

  “Why?”

  “Shit, Gail. Come on. It’s bad enough having the cat in my business, but I don’t need the entire house to overhear everything I say to you.”

  “Why does it need to be a secret?”

  “I didn’t say it was a secret. It’s just quite difficult to have an intimate conversation with someone when you don’t even have the illusion of privacy. You know I’m not going to hurt you. Please close the door. I could,
but I’d prefer to not waste the magic.” He closed his eyes and she watched a lump move down his throat. He could probably have some water now. She could go get it.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, stop. Just come here.”

  “I got too close to you a couple of days ago, and you knocked me out for about eight hours. Remember that?”

  “Given what happened to me yesterday, do you understand why I did it? That could have been you being brought here a bloodied mess. No, it would have been worse for you. You wouldn’t have survived it.”

  Well, damn. He could at least pretend to blow some sunshine and rainbows up her ass. Clarissa said it was true—that people wanted to hurt her just because she supposedly belonged to Claude. They’d hurt her to spite him. That was some trippy shit right there. She’d managed to forget about that in the past day because she’d been so busy playing cook and nursemaid.

  She took a step farther into the room and shut the door softly.

  “Have you spoken with Charles?” Claude asked as she sat on the edge of the bed.

  She drew her right hand down Candy Corn’s back and watched the cat roll over. Charles—the tall, dark-haired one they jokingly called “Cupid” because his mother had been descended from a love god. He knew when people belonged together. It wasn’t gut feel, but the fact he was on a hotline to the Fates that couldn’t be disconnected. He’d hear it in the cosmoses, apparently, whispers of who belonged to whom and where they could be found.

  “Yes, briefly. He passed out on me just like you did, but at least he ate first.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He was a little delirious, Claude. He was in a lot of pain and talking a lot of gibberish.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said, and I quote, ‘Yes, you’re the right one. Maybe fifth time will be the charm.’ Then he started swearing because Marion had to abrade his burns.”

  “Not necessary for a cambion, but it’ll speed up the healing.”

  “Good to know, but I suspect you’re going to tell me he wasn’t talking gibberish.”

  “He wasn’t. He told me earlier … uh, yesterday, I mean. That thing about the fifth time being the charm—he said I knew you even before you were Laurette. Before I was in this skin, this body. He never told me that before. But apparently, we’ve been having bad luck at this.”

  “Or maybe we’re not really meant to be together.”

  “Or maybe we are, and someone doesn’t want us to be because of what we could be together.”

  “Now you’re talking shit.”

  “Don’t you feel more powerful when you’re around me?”

  “Oh, I feel a lot of things. How could I help it, when angels and a goddess and werewolves and all kinds of creatures walk in and out of this house as if it were some kind of supernatural rest stop? Ever since I woke up on the sofa downstairs, I’ve been choking on the energy.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “I know exactly what you meant, but why should I make things easy for you?”

  “I wouldn’t dare imply that you should. I would never suggest that you’re the type of woman who’d take things lying down.”

  “Except you. I took you lying down two nights ago when I met you.”

  “We didn’t—”

  She closed her eyes and put up her hands, palms out. “Right, right. We didn’t meet then. You’ve got to give me some time to process all this. From what I understand from bits and pieces I’ve been able to extract from y’all in the past day or so is that every time you come into my life and upend it, things don’t end so well. Knowing that, I’m not inclined to be exceptionally compliant.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire. It was taking everything she had to not roll over and submit to the guy, and she wasn’t even sure if she liked him.

  She turned her left wrist over, stared at her watch face, and cringed. She needed to call her boss at Rooster’s. Yesterday, she’d managed a pretty convincing fake cough that had prompted the guy to tell her to just stay home, but she wasn’t sure he’d be so accommodating for two days in a row. God forbid Barrett would have to tuck that greasy hair of his under a hat and man the fryer himself for another night.

  The more she thought about it, the less going back to work at all appealed to her. Her apartment had been broken into, and whoever it was probably knew where she worked, too. She couldn’t afford to quit, but Clarissa would certainly put her up until she found a job nearer the coast. She’d be closer to her family, too.

  Claude made an exhale that sounded like a cross between a sigh and a hiss. His external injuries may have been healing, but who knew what he looked like on the inside?

  “You yelled at me about a hundred and fifty years ago because I wouldn’t stand by and let your slave master beat you.”

  Her back stiffened and she caught her own indignant lips jutting out at the bottom of her periphery. Bullshit. She wouldn’t—

  Claude’s expression was pained, and not just because he was struggling to sit up.

  “I don’t know what compelled me to intervene,” he said. Sweat beaded on his brow as he straightened up and put his back against the headboard. He tucked the striped pillow behind his head. “No, that’s not true. Then, as now, I didn’t pay much attention to the plight of the mundanes around me, you know? My magic acted as blinders of a sort, and I minded my own business as much as I could. The first time I saw him hit you when you were hauling water, I did nothing. You were his property, according to the law. I’m not always so keen on the law, but being what I am, I tried not to raise unnecessary attention to myself or my mother. She had enough suspicion on her because she wasn’t discreet in her practicing.”

  Ever, from what Charles had insinuated. Charles had never met her in the flesh, but he had met her. Even in death, Mathilde Fortier was a force to be reckoned with. Charles had hinted in his pseudo-delirium that one day Gail would have a meddlesome banshee for a mother-in-law and that she should resign herself to it now.

  Marion had punched him in the arm hard for that, but he wasn’t the slightest bit contrite.

  Gail fidgeted with the corner of the bed sheet and refused to meet Claude’s gaze. “What about the second time?”

  “The second time, I … I told my mother.”

  “And?”

  “And she said if it bothered me so much, then I should take care of it. And if I didn’t, she would. As I said, she wasn’t a discreet woman, so I immediately regretted telling her. I had to fix it myself, and fast, before she got a fool idea in her head to start conjuring up dark shit. She wasn’t so concerned about her soul, you know, because she’d struck that deal with Papa.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  He scoffed. “Maybe deal was the wrong word. It wasn’t a deal so much as an edict. She had power of her own, but courted more of it. She farmed it, and then stored it up like bullets in an arsenal. By the time she lured him to her trap, no supernatural being in a three-state area would go near her. When she trapped him, it was a do-it-or-else type of scenario. She would have killed him if he didn’t give her what she wanted.”

  “Which was?”

  He rolled his eyes, and judging by the ensuing groan, it wasn’t an easy action for him. “His seed. He got a son he didn’t want, and in exchange, she got to steer her eternal soul. That’s the way it works. You give a demon a child, and your soul is free.”

  “That’s why you hate each other—because of your mother.”

  “That and other reasons. Where Papa is concerned, there’s no shortage of reasons to dislike him. He’s just … odieux. Odious.”

  Clarissa had said Gail should get used to the peppering of French, because even after all these years, it was the language Claude thought in. His English, however, was impeccable. He had no accent at all unless he stressed. He was obviously stressed.

  “Anyhow, I didn’t want to fight your master with magic or any overt force whatsoever. Instead, I tried to appeal to him on
a business level.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I offered to buy you.”

  “Buy me?” Her voice had careened into one of Ellery’s stratospheric pitches, but who the fuck could blame her? She set her foot on the floor, posturing to stand, but he grabbed her wrist.

  “Please, chéri. I just want to clear the air.”

  She settled back onto her bottom, but her foot bobbed angrily against the bedside. “Go on.”

  “The price he quoted for you was obscene. Not that you weren’t worth every penny and trillions more, but he knew the price he was quoting was one I couldn’t pay … at least, not yet. I don’t know what was going on in that house, whether he wanted you for—”

  “Don’t say anything else.”

  He raised one shaking hand and nodded. “After that, I truly considered handling the man the way my mother might have. Perhaps poisoning him, but then his bitch of a wife would have decided what happened to you. I didn’t want that. I had to wait, and get the money.”

  “So you did buy me.”

  “Took me about a year, and by then, he needed the money badly.” Claude chuckled briefly, then gasped from the probable pain of it.

  “What did you do to him?”

  “Wasn’t me, I swear. Karma. Sometimes it even works in the favor of sad sacks like me. I got you for half what he originally demanded, and used the savings to set you up in a little house near my mother. She kept an eye on you, best she could.”

  “But … that wasn’t enough?”

  Claude closed his eyes and gave his head a small shake. “You want to hear this now?”

  No. She absolutely didn’t, because what if the story was worse than what her runaway imagination had been feeding her? Anxiety gnawed at her gut, and her foot tapped ever harder.

  “Yes. Tell me the story.” She’d keep pretending to be brave around him, though she didn’t know how much longer she could keep it up.

  Claude opened his eyes. “My mother often went into trances to communicate with spirits, and sometimes she couldn’t be pulled out until she was done conducting her business. I suspect my father had been counting on that and waiting for it. Had she been conscious at the time, he wouldn’t have gone near you.” He cringed and balled his hands into fists. “Laurette, I mean. He wouldn’t have gone near Laurette.”