Demonsense (Demonsense series Book 1)

by Sara DeHaven

  He stopped in mid-button, and looked up at her, eyebrows raised in surprise.

  She tucked her hair behind her ears and said, “I know, I let you go ahead. Your energy seemed strong enough, although you did seem to go through it pretty fast. But there was just a kind of darkness in your base energy, something growing…” she trailed off uncertainly.

  “But not taint?” he prompted.

  She shook her head. “No, not taint. I’m having trouble describing it in words. There are always dark areas on a read. I think they’re basically a person’s issues, unresolved grief or guilt, what have you. This was like that, but also different. Or maybe because you’re so high powered, even your issues read stronger. I’m not sure. But I do know it was worse after you’d called Gelsenim. I would be very surprised if it wasn’t worse still today. The real weakness in this whole monitoring idea is how inexperienced I am. It’s not like I’ve ever read a Demon Master who was getting demon burned and losing his mind. All I can do is look for changes. And have you stop if you’re changing too much. I’d like to do a deep read and see if that’s the case.”

  “Do I seem to you like I’m starting to lose my mind?’ Daniel asked mildly.

  “Well you aren’t yourself, that’s for sure.”

  “Neither are you,” he returned with a small smile, which took some of the sting out of his words. “Look, I think at this point, Hunter comes first. Even if you did the read and found this darkness streak is worse, unless I’ve actually started to seem erratic to you, I would want to move forward on this. If that's not the case, let’s just do this thing and get it over with.”

  There was something in his tone that told her he wasn’t looking forward to calling the demon any more than she was, and that settled her. She knew Demon Masters became addicted to calling the demons, and there was no eagerness to be read in any of his tells.

  Realizing she was out of excuses to delay further, and reminding herself sternly that at least this was something she could do to help Hunter, she said “Fair enough. Let's get started.” She got off the bed, grabbed up the exorcist kit and backed as far away from Daniel as she could get in the moderate sized bedroom. She opened up the kit and found familiar items: A fine silver crucifix on a delicate chain, holy water in an old Tresor perfume bottle, a small blue leather Bible, and a few dried wands of lavender. She riffled through the Bible until she found one of her favorite passages for use in exorcisms, then loosened the top on the holy water bottle. She still had her own crucifix on from last night, so she left the one in the kit alone. Daniel raised the ward, and she stayed inside it so she could perform an exorcism if she had to. Then he spent several minutes casting the masking spell for demonic energy he'd mentioned earlier. Finally, he stood quietly, then without any of the ritual of last night, he shouted, “Gelsenim, I call you! Gelsenim, I command you!”

  Faster than Bree believed possible, the air heated and the demon emerged into existence in his human shaped form. He looked fresh as a daisy, in a spotless white shirt, a tweed jacket, and brown wool pants. His blond hair waved crisply back from his forehead, the handsome country gentleman façade marred only by the orange gleam in his eyes. “Well, here we are, all together again,” the demon drawled. “Miss me that much, did you? Ready to let me go for another ride?”

  Bree was deeply relieved that Gelsenim had taken his human form, but at the same time, she felt like slapping that smug face. If Daniel felt annoyed, he didn’t show it. “No time to talk today, Gelsenim. I have some work for you.”

  “And what’s in it for me?” the demon replied as he examined his red painted fingernails. It struck Bree as odd that the demon wasn’t trying to gain some kind of mastery of the situation. He’d fought hard enough last night, both the first time Daniel called him, then later to keep control of Daniel. If he were human, she would have read him as embarrassed and trying to hide it, like someone who’d done something foolish while drunk and was hoping you wouldn’t mention it the next morning.

  “Perhaps a little something to assuage your boredom,” Daniel replied in an almost friendly voice. “I know you’ve mentioned before that it gets dull having to scrounge for food all the time. I want you to look for someone for me.”

  The demon’s form wavered, started to take on that of Hunter, as it had last night when the demon had been taunting Kevin, but it quickly reversed itself.

  “Yes, the boy, Hunter. Kevin’s son. Are you familiar with Keltoi locations in this city?”

  “You want me to work for you?” the demon asked, a peculiar intensity in its tone.

  There was a fractional pause before Daniel answered, “In this, yes. A Keltoi named Franchesca Gambrini has him as well as another called Scanlon who may be the boy’s biological father. I want you to check in this city and the immediate surroundings, in a 50 mile radius, any Keltoi location known to you. You will ask any of your fellow demon kind you encounter if they have seen the boy. You will not tell any being in this or any other dimension, demon, human, or other, that I have set you to this task. You will not reveal my location, or the location of this woman here with me. You will not hint it or convey it by any non-verbal means. You will use none of the powers of your kind to do so either. You will do no harm of any kind, in any dimension, to the boy. You will attempt to enter my presence when you have completed this task. You will not take physical form at that time. You will touch this stone without causing me pain.” He paused, and pushed up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the green stone and leather bracelet on his right wrist. “When I feel the touch, I will call you fully to my presence as soon as I am able to hear your report.”

  The demon was strangely quiescent throughout Daniel’s instructions. He had stopped mimicking human movements and there was a hungry look on his face, like a man listening to the stock tip that was going to make him a rich man.

  “You cannot compel me for long,” the demon replied softly.

  Daniel raised both his hands and made fists of them. “Long enough for this, I can.”

  The demon gasped and threw its head back, mouth open in a kind of pain/pleasure, then his form disintegrated until it was gone completely. There was moisture in the room from its passing, and a bit of unpleasant mineral smell, but that was all. Bree pushed out her Demonsense, which had been at a high pitch, and could find no demon sign in the vicinity or in Daniel. She nodded to him, and he dropped the wards and his masking spell, then sat tiredly on the bed. Bree carefully put the exorcist kit back together, then joined him again on the bed and sat in silence trying to think of something to say.

  “Okay, that was weird,” she finally got out.

  “No shit,” Daniel replied faintly.

  “It wasn’t even really that scary. I’m relieved, don’t get me wrong, but does anything you know explain that? Where were the flames? Where was the offensive sexual talk? And why didn’t he try to possess you? Why didn’t he even try to fight you?”

  “It kind of fits something I’ve wondered about. Demon Masters typically call demons and have them do work for them. Like I did when I was experimenting as a kid, only bigger things, worse things. I have thought that if the demons fight other Demon Masters as much as Gelsenim fights me, it might not be worth having their help. But from what I’ve read, they don’t always fight like that." He absentmindedly rubbed at his healing knife wound. "I assumed that since Demon Masters typically want demons to possess someone or do something bad, they're happy to comply, since it feeds them, even if they resent being controlled. I’ve been careful to do no more than try to get to know Gelsenim before. I haven’t asked him to do anything. I haven’t wanted to have that kind of relationship with him. You might say I’ve tried to befriend him.”

  “Befriend a demon?” Bree asked incredulously.

  He shot her an amused glance. “What were we just saying about signs I’m losing my mind? Seriously, I was just trying ways to find out as much as I could. But maybe demons obey Demon Masters not just because they get fed. Maybe they want to
obey for some reason.”

  “Like when Gelsenim said last night that he was taking on the form you preferred, because you preferred it. I got the sense then that in a weird sort of way, he wanted to please you.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it gives him something to do. Maybe he does get bored, like he once told me. He’s obviously not without intelligence. How else would he come up with such detailed form? How would he be able to play the part that he does?”

  “Or maybe he craves the structure in some way,” Bree said, speaking quickly as the ideas started to unroll. “Maybe he's fairly formless on his own and needs you in some way to take a form, to know what to do with himself.”

  “Yes! That’s along the lines of what I’ve always thought. Why do they take the forms of demons as we conceptualize them in our art and books? They can obviously take other forms, but they take the form we expect. The only exception to that that I’ve heard of is when you get a lot of disembodied demons in the same space. Then, they tend to take a variety of forms, as if they’re trying to assert some kind of individuality. With regards to Gelsenim, I’m starting to expect that at least part of the time, he’ll take the human form we just saw. Maybe he’s doing it because I expect it, but maybe it’s a way to be an individual.”

  “But I think we expect the demon shaped forms for a reason. You know how wrong demonic energy feels to our Demonsense. It feels sickening, and dark, and scary. Even normals can feel it a bit if they come in contact with the possessed.”

  “Yes, but what if that has something to do with our perceptive senses, the way we’re wired? What if there’s some sort of clash between their energy and our energy that makes us perceive them that way?”

  “Oh, come on now Daniel, you’re starting to stretch it. We’re talking beings who feed on violence, on rape and war. I’m sorry, but in my book, that’s innately evil. I don’t think my senses are misperceiving them at all. I think they’re right on.” Bree was enjoying the debate, enjoying the mad flow of ideas they could get into together, so she was unprepared when Daniel leapt to his feet and stalked for the door, anger apparent in his posture. He stopped short with his hand on the doorknob, took an obvious breath for control, and turned to face her.

  “I need you, I need someone to think out of the box with me,” he said with a hard look at her. “I don’t love the demons, Bree. I want them out of our lives as much as you do. But just categorizing them as evil and fighting them where we find them hasn’t gotten us anywhere. I thought you were with me on that.”

  Bree felt like she’d been slapped, and while she was hurt by his tone, another part of her wondered if there might not be some truth to what he was saying. It was important to consider novel ideas if they were to find some new way to address the demon problem. But she felt an instinctive desire to challenge him whenever she thought he was warming to demons in any way, because that could be a sign he was moving toward becoming demon burned. She slowly unfolded her legs and moved to sit facing him as she tried to explain. “Daniel, I am with you on that. I get what you’re saying. But maybe I’m just not good at thinking out of the box about demons. Maybe it's too personal for me.”

  “But you already have!” Daniel exclaimed, taking a step toward her, hand raised in a beseeching gesture. “You’ve already helped me think differently about all of it! And I haven’t had anyone to talk to about this, not in years…”

  Bree was on her feet and moving toward him before she realized what she was doing. She took his outstretched hand in both of hers. “I’ll try, Daniel, I’ll try to stay with you on this,” she said, looking up at him, wanting, needing to do something to soothe the loneliness that had come so clearly to the surface at his last statement.

  He froze in place, his dark eyes the only alive thing about him, and he was searching her face with a desperate sort of intensity. Her heart stuttered, and she felt herself falling into his gaze. Without conscious volition, her Reader sense dove into him, seeking to know, to connect further. She felt the intense, delicious flare of his power first, as always, and the emotions she connected with were a mix of longing, desire, anguish and more than last night, far more, was the darkness. It had grown so much that it throbbed with life. He was so blinding with both light and dark energy to her senses that she gasped and released his hand, stumbling backwards in her haste.

  Despair flashed across his face, followed quickly by a mask of control.

  “Oh Daniel, I’m sorry,” Bree began.

  “Sorry for what?” he replied woodenly.

  “Sorry for reading you like that, I didn’t mean to, it just sort of happened,” she replied, face flushed with embarrassment. He regarded her silently, and she floundered on. “But I’m afraid it didn’t look good.”

  Daniel barked out a laugh tinged with an edge of hysteria. “It didn’t look good. It didn’t look good!” he repeated, still laughing. His eyes were wild now, and both hands clutched at his hair as he paced briefly back and forth in front of the door. There was no humor in the laughter, and when he stopped abruptly and dropped his hands to his side, she flinched. He stepped closer to her, and he suddenly seemed very tall, very male and frightening as he said, “I have been beaten, tainted, and possessed. I’ve watched people near and dear to me hurt when I couldn’t protect them, and I’m responsible for the kidnapping of a six year old child. I would hope that it ‘didn’t look good’ inside my head right now. Otherwise, I would already be the monster everyone takes me for.”

  “I don’t take you for a monster,” Bree whispered though lips suddenly gone dry.

  “Well, maybe you should,” he whispered back, taking another step toward her.

  Before she could decide what to do, there was a knock on the door. Daniel stilled, eyes narrowed, then he waved his hands by his head, nulling the sound stop spell. He turned and opened the door. Joe was on the other side. “Daniel, Javier wants to speak with you," he said with an assessing look at both of them. Bree flushed again, wondering just what it was Joe thought he was seeing. Daniel shot her an unreadable look over his shoulder, then went out after Joe.

  Bree backed up and sat down hard on the bed, then winced as the motion sent a stab of pain across her ribs. She wanted to know what Javier had to say to Daniel, was upset that she was being excluded, since it had to be about Hunter. But she couldn't see pushing it right now, not with how tense things were with Daniel. And he would likely tell her about it when he was done talking to Javier anyway. She hoped. She wasn't sure how fighting it out with Daniel to be included would go, if it came to that. Probably not well.

  She sighed, and lay down on the bed, curled up on her side. The emotional roller coaster with Daniel was too much for her, she couldn’t keep up. And what did it mean, that his mood could change so quickly? He hadn't seemed that bad before Gelsenim possessed him.

  Still, whether he was just stressed, or showing the initial signs of Demon Master instability, right now it didn't matter. Hunter had to come first. The way she understood it, Demon Master instability came on slowly, over time. She was probably over reacting and anyway, the puzzle of Daniel could wait.

  Unless it's different for him. Unless being so high power made it different, her fear whispered in a counterpoint to reason. And she didn't know if it really was just fear or her intuition talking. Still, being a Reader, and, she had to finally admit to herself, a high power Reader, her intuition was better than most people's.

  It can wait, she reminded herself. It would have to wait.

  Chapter 18

  Scanlon was so tired he felt drugged. Franchesca had him drive around in circles the rest of the night until she was sure they weren’t being followed, then directed him back to Carson’s office, and they’d been waiting for Carson there ever since. He wanted to take Hunter to his house, but Franchesca vetoed that. She’d said Thorvaldson knew his name now and could probably trace him through Keeper sources. And that really pissed him off because she was the one who used his name in front of Thorvaldson. Somehow he didn’
t think it was because she was stupid. She'd meant to do it to keep control of him and the kid.

  He couldn’t believe she'd blown it. Thorvaldson was down, and if she hadn’t been playing her sick little game with him, they could have just snatched him and run. He’d tell Carson that, but not in front of Franchesca.

  Franchesca sat on the couch across from him, restlessly adjusting the edge of her skirt, pushing at her hair, and generally primping as they waited for Carson to show up. Justice had come to just enough that Scanlon could haul him up the stairs and dump him in a chair, then he’d passed out again, or maybe he’d just fallen asleep.

  Scanlon looked down at Hunter. He'd finally stopped asking to go home and had fallen asleep. He studied the boy, looking for signs of himself. They had the same color of hair, that was for sure. And, he thought, pretty much the same eyes and the same general build. But his mouth, his chin, even some of his expressions were his mother's.

  He shifted uneasily. He didn't want to think about Carlie. She'd overdosed on heroin after an ugly scene where she'd told him she'd had his kid and gave it up for adoption because he wouldn't marry her. As if he'd ever marry a low power prostitute. While a part of him had been curious about the kid, he figured he could have more kids later, hopefully with a high power wife so they'd have more chance of a powered kid.

  That was before his older sisters had had their kids. Two each, in rapid succession. And none of them had turned up powered. Both of his sisters had more high power talent than him. They liked to rub his face in it, so he wasn't exactly disappointed when their kids weren't powered. But it made him realize it might not be that easy to have a powered child. After his last nephew was born, he decided to see if he could find out about the kid Carlie put up for adoption. It was quite a bit of work to get the information, and he had to pay a Reader to follow Hunter and assess him.