by Sara DeHaven
Daniel gave no reply, and Sophie clambered tiredly back to her feet and set about formally closing the circle while Bree sat with the silent Daniel. To find out this new hiding talent of demons was likely his fault must be devastating. In a way, it justified all her arguments about why it was dangerous to have any contact at all with demons, all her reservations about this whole project. On the other hand, it was entirely possible the demon had said that just to torture Daniel. And she couldn’t deny they had learned some things here tonight, possibly important things. There was so much else she wanted to ask. Lines of questioning blossomed in her head, all demanding answers.
At that thought, a chill hit her like cold rain on the back of her neck. What if this was the influence of the demon, making her want more contact? She couldn’t feel that in Daniel, but what if she was more vulnerable? Bruce was supposed to be monitoring me, she thought frantically. In all the excitement and confusion, they’d skipped that step. “Go get Bruce,” she demanded anxiously of Sophie.
Sophie gave her a concerned look, then nodded and vanished downstairs.
"It wasn't as close as it looked," Daniel said stubbornly as soon as Sophie was gone, a little animation returning to his voice. "You just did another deep read. Can you honestly say my will energy was used up?"
"Used up? Jesus, Daniel, you weren't planning on taking it that far to the edge, were you? The first time we're doing all this?"
Daniel shook his head. "I wasn't planning on going until my will energy was gone. I'm just saying I had more than enough left to banish the demon without an exorcism."
"Yes, but your base energy," Bree began to protest.
"Fine, my base energy is trashed. I know. But it was worth it. Tell me you see it was worth it."
She got to her feet and impatiently pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'll tell you no such thing! It was crazy to push yourself that far. Yes, we got good information. But we could easily have called the demon another time for more rather than have you risk us all like this! My involvement stops right here unless you can convince me you'll let me call the shots about when to end the demon contact."
Daniel looked up at her, and she had the sense that a part of him was still far away. "I see your point, but I want you to see mine as well. If we'd stopped when you first gave me the signal, we would have missed out on vital information. I'm not new to this, you know. I can hold out longer than you think."
Bree's face turned hot with frustration. "Maybe you still had the juice to order the demon away, but you sustained some kind of damage from the contact. Something's gone wrong with you base energy."
She felt a savage satisfaction as Daniel's face finally registered some concern. Before she could press the point, she heard the sound of Bruce’s heavy tread on the stairs.
He came into the room and looked speculatively at Bree and Daniel. Bree wasn't sure what he was looking for, but she felt caught out, somehow. That made her realize he had already started reading her, reading Daniel as well probably.
He came to stand in front of her, and said, “Yeah, I know, we forgot. I was just thinking that when Sophie came to get me.” He leaned forward and put his huge, warm hand on Bree’s chest, where it completely covered the crucifix, the amulet and the skin revealed by the vee of her dress. She consciously worked at opening to his read, and in a moment, a warm smile split his heavy beard. “You’re a little freaked out, babe, but you’re you. You don’t seem any different to me.” Bree smiled tremulously in relief. Some of her anger at Daniel had slipped away in her concern about what Bruce would find on the read.
Kevin arrived bearing a tray with a water pitcher and cups. Sophie came in on his heels bearing another tray with bread, peanut butter, jam and some plates and knives. Sophie set her tray on the floor in front of Daniel with a clatter. "Let me check your wound, and then we'll talk," she said brusquely. Kevin put his tray down as well, then helped Daniel to his feet. Sophie led the way out of the room, Daniel following obediently behind.
"She's not very happy with him, is she?" Kevin said to the room at large.
"Why should she be?" Bruce replied as he settled down onto the floor, reaching for the loaf of bread. "It's clear he risked his health by pushing things too far, but more than that, he risked the rest of us."
"I'll admit he cut it close, but I think he's stronger than you realize," Kevin said, sitting on the floor as well.
"And more arrogant than you realize, apparently," Bruce said with a piercing look at Kevin.
Kevin looked startled, then sighed. "You got me there." He constructed his peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the speed of an experienced parent and bit into it while Bree weighed in.
"You're both right. He's incredibly strong, and experienced at all this, but I don't think he's as good at judging his limits as he thinks he is. That demon did get to him in some way."
"How? What's wrong with him?" Kevin mumbled around a mouthful of sandwich.
"I'm not exactly sure," Bree admitted as she began pouring out glasses of water for everyone. "He didn't get taint, it's not that, but his base energy was affected. It got darker, is the only way I can think of to put it."
"That can't be good," Bruce said.
Daniel and Sophie came back into the room. Sophie settled down next to Bruce and Daniel lowered himself slowly between Bree and Kevin.
Silence fell as they began to eat, and it struck Bree that it wasn't just because they all had their mouths full. No one wanted to start the conversation, to reference the big, pink elephant in the room that was shaking the floorboards with its "Look at me!" dance. No one wanted to say out loud that Daniel really might have been responsible for the new hiding talent in demons. Daniel’s hands trembled enough that the ice in his glass rattled. No one commented on that either.
Just when Bree had braced herself to bring it out into the open, Bruce sat back and put a napkin to his mouth, wiping it with a dainty gesture. “Okay, I'll say it. That was scary as hell. I know you guys told us that even without Demonsense, anyone can feel some bad energy if they’re that close to a disembodied demon. But it was worse than I expected."
“I’ve see a couple before, but nothing that big,” Kevin replied as he constructed a second sandwich. “Or maybe I should say, nothing that strong. I could feel the pressure it was putting on Daniel’s wards. It definitely made a couple of good shots at breaking free. I don’t mind telling you it gave me a few seriously bad moments, wondering if I could hold it if it did get through. Erekim are definitely stronger than any of the other types of demons I've warded against before.”
“You're all dodging the point!" Sophie interjected, slamming down her glass of water in an uncharacteristic display of temper. "That thing nearly broke free, and if it had, we'd all be dead!"
"Just because it charged the wards doesn't mean it nearly broke free," Daniel protested, face going stiff.
"But you didn't even try to stop it!" Sophie continued, angry tears forming in her eyes. "As a Demon Master, you're supposed to be able to order them around, aren't you? Why would you risk us all like that?"
Daniel put down the sandwich he'd barely touched. "It's clear to me now that I didn't give you all enough information about demons before we started this."
Sophie opened her mouth to reply, and Daniel held up a hand, the gesture more placating than demanding. "Just hear me out for a minute. The trick to mastering demons is to be specific in what you tell them to do and not to do. They’ll jump on any loophole to try to get around your control. I didn’t forbid it from trying to break free, although I could have. But I’ve found if I place a bunch of limitations on them at the get go, there’s not much room for them to talk or interact normally.”
Kevin gave an outrage tinged laugh. “Interact normally? What about that interaction was normal?’
“Normal for them. If we want to get useful information out of them, we have to start with understanding them,” Daniel replied. “And we can’t understand them if we don’t let t
hem be themselves to some degree.”
"We won't have any chance of understanding them if we're all dead," Sophie insisted doggedly.
"She's right, you know," Bruce spoke up. His voice betrayed a carefully harnessed anger, as did the look he leveled at Daniel. "We could easily have been killed. We went ahead with this tonight because you assured us you had enough will and base energy to master that thing. But you pushed it, Daniel. You pushed it right up to the edge. That wasn't fair to any of us."
Daniel flushed, but his eyes held a steely glint. "I know what it looked like from the outside, but trust me, it wasn't nearly as risky as it looked."
Kevin put a hand on Daniel's forearm. "I think you need to listen, Daniel. You need to understand that not everyone has the risk tolerance you have. You're going to have to respect that if you want help with this."
Daniel was silent for a long while, and Bree couldn't resist sending out a tendril of Reader sense. He was clearly more agitated than he looked, but when he spoke, his voice was calm.
"You have a point," he conceded. He looked around the circle. "You all were doing so well. You did a great job of not reacting to the demon. I guess I misunderstood the amount of stress you all had to deal with. I've spent so much time around demons as an Exorcist that I tend to forget how they can affect people who aren't as used to them."
Sophie leaned forward. Some of the fury had gone out of her, but she was clearly still tense with anger. "This isn't about how hard it was to be around the demon, although I'll admit it was even harder than I expected. It's about the fact that you ignored Bree's signal to wrap things up. You asked for monitoring, then you ignored the monitor."
Daniel took a long drink of water before he answered. It looked to Bree like he was trying to reign in some combination of irritation and embarrassment. He put the glass down. "You're right, Sophie, and I'm sorry. I should have listened to Bree, because that's what I agreed to do. I got too hooked by the fact that I was getting more information than usual out of the demon."
Daniel shot up in Bree's estimation at that. He might be over confident about his abilities and his stamina, but at least the man was capable of admitting a fault and making an apology.
"So you're willing to promise you won't do that again?" Sophie pressed.
"Yes, I'm willing to promise just that," Daniel returned seriously.
Sophie sighed and her posture sagged, as if her anger was all that had been holding her upright in the face of exhaustion. She must have run a healing spell on Daniel when she took him into the other room to check out his knife wound. They were all tired from the tension of the demon encounter, but the particular kind of tiredness Bree was seeing in Sophie had its source in wielding magic, she was sure of it.
“What I couldn’t get over was how much this one was willing to talk,” Bree said, slipping off her shoes and pulling her knees up to her chest under her dress. She was still angry with Daniel, but the whirl of thoughts and questions that the demon encounter had engendered was taking over. “In my experience, if they talk at all, they just spout a few threatening or disgusting things and have done with it. I know you told me you could get this one to talk,” she nodded at Daniel, “but how much was a real surprise. I almost hate to admit it, but for me, this experience confirmed to me that Daniel’s right to try to communicate with them. I know I learned some new things.”
"I was so busy praying to the Mother to keep us all from getting fried that I didn’t learn a damn thing,” Sophie said darkly. She reached her hand over to Bruce, and their fingers entwined.
“Well, for example, I learned that they can read very specific images from our minds to know what will disturb us, but they can’t read energy levels,” Bree continued. “It got a picture of Hunter from one of us, probably Kevin, yet it couldn’t seem to tell when Daniel was weakening. I’m sure it would have put more into breaking free if it had known that he wasn’t at his best, especially toward the end. And that whole thing about it assuming a form Daniel wanted. To me, it seems like a flip side of their ability to pick up something from our minds that scares us. Because Daniel is a Demon Master, it seems to be responding in some way to what he wants.”
Daniel had been mechanically munching his way through his sandwich while he listened. He put it down half eaten on his plate and interjected, “There is some strange sort of relationship I have with this particular demon. On the one hand, he does his best to offend me. On the other, it’s as if he wants to please me.”
“If that shit it was doing pleases you, I’m going to have to worry about you, my man,” Bruce said, only half joking.
Daniel waved off Bruce's comment. “Not most of what it said, of course. But the fact that he'll talk to me. The fact that he's beginning to take the form I prefer. I really have begun to wonder how far that could go.”
Bree sat up as a thought struck her. “The way it liked its human form. Do you remember? I got the impression it may have initially taken it from some image in your mind, but it was getting used to the form.”
“Yeah, Daniel, what’s up with that?” Kevin asked, looking across the table at Daniel. “You think demons look like some gorgeous F. Scott Fitzgerald character?”
Daniel smiled slightly. “If he took it from me, I’m not sure how,” he admitted. “Some movie I saw somewhere? Some book I read?”
Bree felt a chill, and her arms broke out in goose bumps. “That thing is not handsome,” she said sternly. “And I worry about you calling it ‘he.’ You have to keep your emotional distance from it.”
Daniel shrugged. “It’s always taken an overtly male form with me, so I think of it as ‘he.’ Really, you don’t have to worry. I’m in no danger of liking him. Or it.”
“So, what else did we learn?” Sophie prompted.
“That I’m responsible for demons being able to do a hiding spell. That all the Keepers and Exorcists that have been hurt or killed as a result of misreading the power of a demon can be laid at my door,” Daniel said evenly.
Silence fell on the room like a stifling, wet shroud. Everyone glanced down at their plates, unwilling to see Daniel laid so bare.
Everyone except Bree. Was it possible he was responsible in some way for Seth’s death? Had Seth misread the demon because it was engaged in a hiding spell, or because of Seth’s own error? The anger that had been simmering under the surface surged up in Bree so hard and fast that she nearly choked on it. Some part of her had already reached the same conclusion Daniel had, but she hadn't wanted to admit it to herself.
The others made some response, but Bree's brain couldn't seem to process the noise into language. Unbidden, the image of Seth burning in the demon's fire intruded. Her hands fisted, and she forced herself to breath slowly. That is the past, it's over, it's too late to do anything about it, she told herself sternly. She looked at Daniel, and while his expression showed only a solemn reserve, Bree read misery in the cant of his shoulders, the unevenness of his breath. A part of her was wild to launch herself at him anyway, but as the image of Seth's death faded, some logic began trickling back into her. She didn't know for a fact that Seth's death was caused by misreading the strength of the demon. Seth hadn't been the most skilled Exorcist out there. In fact, she had surpassed him in ability at least two years before his death. But he had still insisted on taking primary whenever they encountered a larger demon. And she had let him, partly to protect his ego, and partly because she rather enjoyed that he was being protective of her. That was one of the things she couldn't forgive herself for.
She had made mistakes, and quite likely Seth had as well. It wasn't fair for her to dump all the blame on Daniel's shoulders. Clearly, if it was somehow Daniel's fault, it was nothing he'd meant to happen.
Having worked her way through that morass of feelings, she was able to tune back into the conversation. Daniel was just saying, "It's something I'm just going to have to take responsibility for."
Bree waded back in, hoping it wasn't too obvious how tuned out she'd bee
n. “Maybe, Daniel. But keep in mind it's possible that the demon said all that to hurt you.”
“And yet it rings true,” he replied softly.
“But from what you’ve told me, the demons can only partly hide what they are, what level of power they have,” Kevin speculated, pushing his plate away and leaning back on his hands. “Whereas you can completely hide aspects of your power. How can that be the same thing?”
Daniel wiped his hands on a napkin and shook his head. “Powered magic doesn’t translate directly into something demons can use. Even if they learn a spell while possessing someone, they can’t necessarily use it, even when possessing someone powered. They lack fine control. When they're disembodied, like Gelsenim was today, they can have a lot of raw power, especially the bigger demons. That’s why they’re dangerous in that form. But they can usually only use spells in a crude way, if at all. And they can’t pass on a spell they’ve learned previously directly to a new host, at least that I’ve ever heard. In other words, some demons might be able to manage some rough version of my hiding spell without their host being aware of it.”
“Oh my God!” Bree exclaimed, eyes going wide. “That’s it! That’s why the Keltoi want you, Daniel. Some demon told them about the hiding spell. Or a Demon Master got wind of it and forced the information from a demon. But the demon can’t explain clearly how to do it. They can only say they got it from Gelsenim, who may have told one of them he got it from you." She turned to Daniel. "Wouldn’t that be bad, seriously bad, if the Keltoi had a good hiding spell for their darker powers? Wouldn’t that tip the balance in their favor? It would make it so much harder for Keepers to track them!”
Daniel slumped and ran a hand roughly through his hair. “I couldn’t see it,” he muttered. “All I could think of was all the Keltoi I pissed off as a Keeper who might carry a big enough grudge to come after me. That has to be it,” he continued more strongly, looking around the room at each of them. “Why didn’t I think of that? It’s not like negative applications of the hiding spell haven’t occurred to me before. My father and I used to discuss it when we were working on it.”
