Demon Master (Demonsense series Book 2) (52 page)

“Oh, it’s not that I want to be involved, not really,” Leander assured her with a grin. “Who in their right mind would? But somehow, you put me to shame by throwing yourself in the middle of it. You make me feel like I should do something, like maybe I can do something to help.”
 

Bree reflected for a moment on the irony of the fact that she appeared to be having the effect on Leander that Daniel had on her. When she didn’t answer immediately, Leander went on. “Besides, I don’t like the idea of you being in that much danger. You’ve got some good skills, don’t get me wrong. I think you’re a better battle Caster than I am. But I saw how dangerous things can get, and if you’re going to go in, you need good Warding. That much, I can do.”

“Kevin did brilliantly, you know, before he got shot,” Bree told him. “Warding is his only talent, but he’s got it in spades.”

“Where was Daniel in all this? I’d think as a former Keeper, he’d be one of the first ones called in on a situation like that.”

Bree had become enough at ease during their conversation that she found herself replying honestly, at least to a degree. “Daniel wasn’t well, he couldn’t come.”

“Is Daniel a Demon Master too?” Leander asked with evident curiosity. Bree was completely ambushed by the question. Here she’d nearly seduced the man to keep him from asking it before, only to have him come out with it when she was completely unprepared. And damned if her face didn’t give her away, as she knew it would with such a direct question. She was such a crappy liar.
 

“He is, isn’t he? I had a feeling he was,” Leander said with what sounded like satisfaction. “One thing I’m good at is sniffing out dark energy. I thought he read as a little demon burned. And to be honest, I guessed that was why you were doing the demon research together. But what I don’t get is how he managed to make Keeper. How on earth has he kept this hidden all these years?”
   

“Leander, I can’t tell you that,” Bree replied, trying to control her panic. “That’s Daniel’s business.”
 

Leander had been taking a sip of his tea as she responded, but he put down his cup and leaned toward her over the table, expression serious. “Bree, you’ve asked me to trust that you’re using what Demon Master ability you have for good purposes. I’ve agreed not to turn you over the Ecclesias at this point. But you also promised to tell me more. I’m in an awkward position here. I want to do the right thing. I’m inclined to trust you, but to be perfectly honest, I’m less inclined to trust Daniel. There’s something off about that guy.”

“Funny, he says the same thing about you,” Bree replied with some heat.
 

Leander gave her a crooked smile. “We must seem ridiculously like two strutting roosters, fighting for your attention.”

“Maybe a bit.” She was reeling from inadvertently revealing Daniel’s status, mind racing in anxious circles like a rabbit seeking its burrow when a hawk flies by. She had to find some way to judge how dangerous it was for him to know that information. It was particularly unnerving not to be able to call on her Reader talent. Fortunately, Leander went on, giving her time to think.

“You know, I actually tried to tell Daniel I wouldn’t go after you at that party. Being new in town, I didn’t want to screw up a potential new friend group. He told me not to refrain on his account, that you weren’t together and never had been. That’s when I read him. I wanted to be sure he was telling the truth, and not just speaking out of anger or hurt pride. Bree, surely you’ve read the dark energy in him. Are you sure he’s not Keltoi?”
 

Bree almost laughed at that, partly out of nerves, and partly at the absurdity of the idea. “He’s definitely not Keltoi, trust me. I’ll admit he’s a bit demon burned. There's a unique way demon contact seems to affect him. He’s more susceptible than most, although it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with his character. He’s a good person, very morally rigorous, I’d say.”

“I’ve seen some pretty righteous characters succumb to Demon Master insanity.
 
I’ve sometimes wondered if it isn’t a certain rigidity of character that’s part of the problem.”
 

Leander reached for a cookie and took a bite while Bree considered how to reply.
 
Was Daniel rigid? He wasn’t self-righteous. He certainly wasn’t closed to new ideas. But she had to admit there was something rigid in the way he kept his Demon Master and Binder talents separated off, in the discipline it took to keep the Casting active that hid those talents, in how he kept the spell up pretty much full time. “I wouldn’t exactly call him rigid, not in the usual sense of the word,” she told Leander. “But I have to say I’m interested in how you know so much about Demon Masters,” she added with a searching look.
 

“Oh, I met a few when I was in the Keltoi,” he replied breezily, and with a definite light of mischief in his eye. He clearly wanted to shock her, and he’d succeeded. Leander was former Keltoi? What did that mean about what he might do with the information she’d given him so far?
 

Bree had felt out of her depth before, and now she was in serious trouble. She was clearly not cut out for espionage. The hell of it was, she shouldn’t be surprised, because Daniel had hinted at suspicion of Leander. She realized she had blown Daniel off about it out of anger.
   

“Don’t look so worried,” Leander chided, wiping at the sugar left by his cookie at the corner of his mouth. “I did say former Keltoi.”

Bree’s Reader sense reared up automatically as her stress grew, but as usual, she couldn’t come up with any pattern that made sense to her. “So when was this?” she asked. She nervously picked up her cup for a drink, then put it back down without taking a sip.
 

“Back when I was a teenager. I was raised in foster homes, and when I was thirteen, I was stupid enough to think I’d do better on the streets. I was in a pretty bad place when a Keltoi spotted me and recruited me. He was a Reader, and noticed that weird thing where I’m not readable. He wanted to use that. And for a while, I went along with the program. That’s where I learned the little bit of battle Casting I know, and where I first developed my Warder abilities. Since I was fostered with normals, I didn’t know what I was. So at first, I did find a home of sorts with the Keltoi.”

There was a studied unaffectedness in the way he summed up his early life that spoke to Bree of a deeper hurt. It sounded like a sad story. She was well aware that if Leander were still Keltoi, he could be playing all this up to get her sympathy, to soften her towards him. She hated having to think through all the possible layers of deception between them, so she found herself responding to the one part in what he’d told her that she could honestly relate to. “I grew up in normal family too. I was about the same age as you were when I finally found out what I was, although both my Reader and Demonsense talents came on far earlier.”

“My Demonsense came in kind of late, at around sixteen or so. My Reader sense came in a lot sooner. And I had some signs of Caster ability before I knew what it was. You know, sensing the energy of certain objects, things knocking over near me for no apparent cause.”

“Things knocking over?”

“I have a small talent for telekinetic spells, and that’s how it first started to manifest. It kind of explains those stories of poltergeists in the house of teenagers, don’t you think? Not to mention the fact that birds had started to follow me around by then. I have to say I kind of freaked out the last couple of foster parents I had.”

“I find telekinetic spells seriously difficult,” Bree replied, hoping to keep him off the subject of Daniel. And even though Leander might well be lying to her, it was also possible that in getting him to talk about himself, she was getting a chance to know him, to begin to get more of a sense of whether she should trust him.

“Note I said a small talent,” Leander replied ruefully. At Bree’s doubtful look, he said, “Here, let me show you what I mean.” He pulled the tea bag out of the mug and put it on his cookie plate. Then he lifted his right hand over the mug and began slowly gesturing in a small circle with the tips of his first two fingers. Bree leaned forward in interest, and saw that the tea had begun to move in a little whirlpool. As she watched, it went faster and began to rise out of the cup, a tiny tornado of tea hovering in the air over the mug. It was a small thing, but somehow delightful. She glanced up at Leander’s face and saw no sign of strain. In fact, he had a gentle smile on his face as he regarded his handiwork. He gradually slowed the gesture, and the tea spun back down in the cup until it settled into a slow swirl.

“That’s a cool trick. It looks to me like it takes a very fine sort of control,” Bree told Leander as she settled back into her chair.

“Well, that’s more my style, power-wise. In that sense, I was something of a disappointment in the Keltoi. They tend to give preference to high power types with heavy duty Casting abilities, or to those who can sustain and survive possessions, neither of which I was good at. Still, I do have the Keltoi to thank for most of the powered schooling I got. And I’ll admit, as a teenaged boy, I was pretty fascinated by the tough image the Keltoi represented. As you can imagine, as a foster kid, growing up in poor families for the most part, I was feeling pretty disenfranchised, not really a part of mainstream society.”

Bree put her elbow on the table, chin on her hand. She was still uneasy about learning of Leander’s Keltoi ties, but she couldn’t help but be fascinated by his story. She’d never personally known someone who’d left the Keltoi. “Why did you leave?"
 

Leander had seemed quite casual throughout his recitation, but a shadow came over his face as he responded to her question. “Because I couldn’t stomach the violence, not really. The longer I was in, the worse things I saw. And frankly, I didn’t like the structure either. There’s a definite hierarchy in the Keltoi, a lot of rules, if you can believe it. I guess that’s how you keep a bunch of sociopathic powered in line. I got out at eighteen, once I thought I could succeed in disappearing for awhile and take care of myself without having to go back out on the streets.”

“And are you still on the run from them, so to speak?”

Leander shook his head. “No, I went back to Marton after about five years, made a truce. By that time, I’d proven I’d not revealed any of the information I learned in the Keltoi to the Keepers, and besides, by then, most of what I knew was out of date. Marton always had kind of a soft spot for me, so he let me go.”

Bree’s ears had pricked up at the name. “Marton? Marton, oh what’s his name, maybe Vargas? Varga?”
 

“Yeah, how could you possibly know Marton?” Now it was Leander’s turn to regard her uneasily.

“I don’t,” Bree assured him. “But I heard that he was the leader of the L.A. Keltoi. He’s also some kind of distant cousin to Daniel.”
 

“Is he really? I suppose I see the resemblance, now that you mention it, in level of power anyway. Marton is high power in just about everything, like Daniel.” Leander’s expression transformed into a look of great glee. “Man, wouldn’t it be interesting to see those two face off?”

Bree reached out and slapped him on the arm. “You are bad!” she exclaimed. “No, it would not be interesting. Someone would end up dead.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Leander sighed with theatrical regret.
 

“Please, at least attempt to be serious for just a few more minutes,” Bree admonished. “I want you to be honest with me, Leander. Do you still have ties to the Keltoi?” Bree could only hope that such a direct question would trigger some kind of response that she could read. But Leander’s expression, his body language, gave nothing away.

“Not anymore. Bree, I’m not out to hurt you, or Daniel. Like I told you before, I’m asking some questions because I’m trying to do the right thing for a change. To be honest, I still feel guilty that I didn’t go to the Keepers when I left the Keltoi. I know that’s what a lot of Keltoi do to get out, they trade information for asylum. But at that age, I didn’t trust them anymore than I trusted the Keltoi. And in some ways, the choice I made did work well for me. This way, I don’t have to hide from the Keltoi, or be perpetually distrusted by the Keepers. I get to go my own way. That’s always been important to me.”

Somehow, that last statement had a particular ring of truth to Bree. Leander did seem like the type of person who avoided being tied down to anyone’s expectations. Just look at how much he had loved shocking her with his announcement that he’d been Keltoi. He positively enjoyed being different, took pleasure in causing a stir. In a way, it was hard to feature him as some kind of Keltoi spy. He didn’t seem serious enough for that. Leander’s eyes were fixed on her face, and she got the impression he’d brought his Reader sense up. She met his eyes, searching for the truth, and challenging him a bit over the read. It was a strange moment, with each trying so obviously to see into the other.
 
“You know, I haven’t given up on the idea that you might be able to read me,” Leander told her softly.

“I haven’t give up on it either,” Bree admitted. This time, she consciously brought her Reader sense to the forefront of her awareness, keeping her gaze locked with Leander’s. She could tell she was still not up to full strength, but was in far better shape than she had been the last time she’d tried, at his place.
 

She felt a shift in the energy between them as she slowly pushed back her chair and moved to stand over Leander. Her power was filling her as she invited it in. If she succeeded this time, she would know for certain if she could trust him. She would stop feeling like some kind of naive idiot, fumbling her way through a dense thicket of fatal hazards with only a pocket knife to hand. She wanted her power back, both literally and figuratively. There was an edge of anger in her, at Leander for intruding and asking his questions, at herself for not trusting Daniel’s assessment of Leander.