Demon Master (Demonsense series Book 2) (61 page)

“Demon, you will obey! Depart!” Marton demanded.
 

Franchesca’s eyes widened, her mouth rounded in either shock or pain as the demon possessing her rushed out of her in a stream of red and gold smoke, then vanished. Franchesca wilted, and with more force than was necessary, Marton deposited her on the couch. She was out cold, one leg awkwardly bent, hair half obscuring her face.
 

Leander abruptly realized he was still holding the chair out in front of him like a lion tamer. He set it down, and dropped his ward with a huff of effort. As he half turned to scoot the chair back under the dining table, he said, “My god, that bitch is crazy! I don’t know what you keep her around for.”
 

He was completely unprepared when Marton took three long strides toward him and punched him in the face.
 

“What the fuck was that for?” Leander cried as staggered back, clutching at his face with one hand, the other extended towards Marton in an instinctively defensive posture.
 

Marton’s hand shot out and grabbed Leander hard by the arm, fingers digging in. His eyes were blazing, though Leander could see no sign of the orange demon mark in them. He was completely in control of his demon. “You had to push and push until you set her off. This is your fault.”

In spite of his fear, Leander was outraged enough to talk back. “It’s my fault that she’s demon burned? That she doesn’t have enough sense to avoid calling demons she can’t handle?” Marton’s hand tightened further, and even though he knew it would only anger Marton further, Leander pulled against Marton’s grip. Marton pulled back, dragging Leander forward until his face was inches away from Marton’s.
 

“You have made me very unhappy tonight, little brother. I begin to wonder if you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
 

All the fight drained out of Leander at Marton’s tone. It wasn’t just that weird burr of demon, it was that Leander heard his death in it. It had happened before, just once, when he’d been seventeen. Marton had beaten him so badly he’d broken his arm, his collarbone, and two of his ribs.
 

Marton could so easily kill him here and now. What casting Leander knew wouldn’t stand a chance against Marton, even when he wasn’t possessed. He looked into Marton’s eyes, looking to see if this was his time. Their gaze held for four long beats of Leander’s heart before Marton thrust him away.
 

Marton ran his hands over the sides of his dark hair, smoothing it into place. “God, what a cluster fuck,” he said on a sigh. That fast, his mood shifted. Leander allowed himself to breath again. “We’ll be lucky if someone hasn’t called the cops.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Leander answered weakly.

“Start cleaning things up. If they show, we don’t want there to be evidence of a fight.”

Leander managed to stop himself from snarling,
Besides my face, you mean.
 

Marton went and bent over Franchesca, who was already starting to sit up, one hand to her head. Marton sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.
 

She shrugged him off roughly and scooted away from him. “Leave me alone,” she rasped.
 

Marton’s hand snaked out and caught in Franchesca’s hair. He pulled on it, hard, jerking her head towards him. “I told you not to call that demon,” he told her.

“It would have been fine if Leander hadn’t baited me like that,” she said sullenly. Marton shook her a little more by her hair, then released her. “I told you to clean up,” he said to Leander over his shoulder.

Leander lost no time finding a broom and dustpan. He hauled his garbage can out from under the sink and dragged it into the living room. He started picking up the larger pieces of glass and mirror he could find one at a time.
 

There was an uncomfortable silence as he worked. It jangled at his nerves that Marton just sat there watching him. And his Demonsense was still worked up from all the demon contact, which just added to his jittery tension. He wished to God Marton would send his demon back where it came from. Marton might think he had total control of it, but Leander couldn’t help but remember that Marton had been possessed that time he’d beaten him so badly.
 

He swept up the rest of what he could with the broom, listening all the while for any sounds from the apartment below, but he didn’t hear any. Hopefully, some small remnant of his luck was with him and his downstairs neighbors were out.
 

After he put his cleaning supplies away, he sat back down tiredly in his damaged chair. Marton regarded him steadily. The scratch mark on his left cheek was livid. “I don’t want to hear any more excuses about Bree Jenkins. In fact, I don’t care if you have to beat the information out of her. She’s no trained Keeper like Thorvaldson. I’m sure she’d break easily.”
 

“And after I get the information out of her, what then?”

“You can kill her, for all I care, if you think you’re compromised. Just make it clean. I have enough details to take care of right now.” Franchesca stirred at Marton’s words, and an evil little smile came and went on her face. Doubtless she’d be thrilled to see her rival for Thorvaldson’s affections dead. “If you’d made more progress with her, it wouldn’t have come to this,” Marton concluded, standing up. “Come,” he said shortly to Franchesca, as if she were a dog.
 

Franchesca got slowly to her feet, teetering a little. “I don’t feel like going out to dinner anymore,” she told Marton’s retreating back.
 

“Fine,” he replied stiffly, “take a cab home.”
 

Leander was not at all okay with being left alone with Franchesca. To his very great relief, she ignored him, walking over to put on her coat and sling her purse over her shoulder. She left without another word to him.
 

He slumped back into the chair, prodding carefully at his throbbing cheekbone, and as he did, relief was replaced by anger. Why in fucking hell wouldn’t Bree return his calls? He could have sworn he had her hooked. She should be willing to see him out of guilt if nothing else, after their last, strange interlude. She’d seemed genuinely concerned about him. Didn’t she at least want to know how he was doing after that disastrous read of hers? Obviously, she didn’t actually give a shit.

Leander got restlessly to his feet, paced into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, looking for something to eat, wanting some distraction. Nothing looked remotely appealing, and he slammed the door shut.
 

He went to the big windows that lined the south side of his loft and looked out. It was full dark, and a misting rain beaded the windows. He put his forehead against the glass, trying to cool his fevered thoughts. They were all thoughts of Bree. Bree sitting on his lap, Bree rubbing his back, Bree holding his hands, looking up at him, apologizing to him. The thoughts made him acutely uncomfortable. There was longing in them, and the feeling sickened him.
 

He spun away from the windows, hands clenched. She was probably with Thorvaldson. He was sure that was the only thing that would keep her from calling him back, from wanting to see him. How dare she fuck up his plans like this? He absolutely could not afford to get on Marton’s bad side.
 

His frustration and fury rose then, and abruptly crystallized into a plan. He was done waiting around for her. He would get some answers tonight if he had to take her apart piece by piece to do it. He went into his bedroom, put on his coat, and collected his gun from his bedside table and tucked it into his coat pocket. Then he went to his dresser and pulled out the top drawer. His hand dipped underneath the socks and he drew out his switchblade. He thumbed the release button, and the blade whipped out. Instantly, he was flooded with images of Bree bound to a chair, screaming, bleeding, telling him everything he wanted to know. A light sweat broke out on his face, and nausea churned away in his stomach. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling weak. Enough. He pressed the blade back into its housing and tucked the knife into his other coat pocket, picked up his keys, and headed out the door.

Bree
arrived home from her office having no idea how she got there, grateful that some part of her brain was attending to driving while her thoughts and feelings staggered around like a herd of drunk football fans. She couldn’t find street parking in front of her house and had to search down the block a bit. She finally managed to wedge her Subaru into a tight spot about six houses down. She got out of the car, slung her daypack tiredly over her shoulder, and headed off down the sidewalk toward her house. She was three houses away when she heard a sharp crack followed by an echo that bounced in a confusing way all around her. She barely had time to wonder about what it was before she heard another at the same time as she felt her daypack jerk. She whirled around to see no one behind her just as a third crack sounded, accompanied by a thudding sound from the trash bin sitting out on the curb right next to her.
 

It finally clicked. Someone was shooting at her, probably using a silencer. She immediately ducked down behind the trash bin, mind suddenly very alive, body quivering. Who the hell would be trying to shoot her? Was the trash bin even remotely adequate protection?
 
Somehow, she doubted it.
 

She took a calculated risk and made a dash for the nearest parked car. There was another crack, accompanied by a high pitched ping as a bullet winged off the car in front of her. Whoever was shooting at her was in a position to see her scrambling from the trash bin to the car. Bree glanced quickly around, trying to judge the angle of the shooter. It seemed to her that the sound had been coming from up the block, closer to her house. And when her daypack had jerked, she was pretty sure it had jerked to the right, meaning the shooter was up ahead and to her left. Of course, by the time she worked all this out, the shooter could have moved.
 

She reasoned that moving away from the shooter was her best bet, which meant retreating back toward her car. Before she could chicken out, she took off running, half bent over. It was a few beats before the next shot came. She heard it strike the big green yard waste bin she was passing. She swerved away from it, into the street in the narrow space between the bumpers of two parked cars, crouching down as far as she could get. She felt pinned down, sure that the shooter was probably moving toward her at this very minute.

She risked rising up slightly to look back up the street for any sign of movement. There was a streetlight just behind her, but the area in front of her was darker, the next streetlight a good way up the block, past her house. There, coming towards her, skirting the line of trash and recycling bins scattered at the curb, she could see a tall form, maybe six cars down. The form crouched down before she could get a good look.
 

Bree took advantage of the shooter’s self-protective move. She ran straight across the street, between two more parked cars, and kept going, across the sidewalk, through what felt like an endless, open stretch of lawn, heading between two houses, hoping against hope she wasn’t about to run smack into a fence. She didn’t get far before she found one, but there was a gate.
 

She fumbled at the cold latch, which was wet from the earlier rain. As she felt it release, she pushed against the gate while glancing over her shoulder, and felt a hot shock of electric panic as she saw the shooter starting across the street towards her. Again, all she registered was what looked like a tall person, dressed in black, before she was off and running again after shoving the gate closed behind her.
 

A wood fence about six feet high enclosed the back yard she’d entered. It was fairly thickly planted with shrubs and a few trees around the perimeter, and her instinctive impulse was to hide in the darkest corner she could find. But then she would be trapped. She glanced frantically around as she dashed across the yard, looking for another gate. She found none. She had enough adrenaline racing through her system that she wondered if she’d somehow be able to grab the top of the fence and vault herself over into the next yard, but even while she pictured it, she knew it wouldn’t work. She just didn’t have that kind of upper body strength.
 

She heard the sound of the gate latch behind her, and she had to make a decision, fast. She veered toward one of the trees at the back of the yard, up against the fence, and leapt for a sturdy branch, hands grabbing for the rough bark as her feet scrambled for purchase on the trunk. She had just managed to get her left foot wedged between the trunk and a lower branch when she felt something whizz by her head at the same time as she heard another crack.
 

Panicked, she pushed off with her foot and launched herself along the branch, towards the fence. The branch bent under weight as she got her feet under her, and she started to lose her balance. In a desperation move, she dove for the top of the fence, slamming into it painfully as she got an arm hooked over the top. Her feet scrambled for purchase, one of them getting tangled in the smaller tree branches. Why wasn’t the shooter firing again? Was he reloading?
 

She finally got enough leverage with her left foot that she was able to push off and get her right knee over the top of the fence. Without thought to what might be on the other side, she rolled herself over the top just as another crack and echo rang out. She landed on her back on the ground, scraping her side on something sharp as she went down. Her breath was knocked out of her and she was unable to move for several precious seconds. She heard the sound of the shooter scrambling into the tree on the other side of the fence.

Bree managed to pull in a gasping breath and forced herself onto her side, then her knees, and up onto her feet, legs shaking. She tried to run and at first could only stagger, slipping on the wet grass beneath her feet. It only took her a moment to realize that this yard was fenced also, but there was a clear path to a gate. She noticed lights on in the house, saw a figure moving in front of the window, and had a brief desire to run up to the back door and pound on it, begging to be let in, but it would take too much time, and she'd be illuminated by the light from the window, making herself an easy target.
 
She got to the gate and got it open as she heard a thump behind her, the shooter landing on her side of the fence. She ran down the walkway at the side of the house, then out across a short stretch of lawn and onto the street front sidewalk. She veered diagonally across the street, back towards her house. That was her ultimate destination, but she quickly realized she was too exposed. Her glance raked the two houses in front of her, and she rapidly calculated what she could remember about how the yards were laid out, where the fences might be. If she could just weave in and out of various yards, she might lose the shooter. She took her best guess and dashed between the green Craftsman bungalow and the boxy grey house.