Demonsense (Demonsense series Book 1) (27 page)

“Why, I think that could be arranged,” Franchesca told Scanlon, then looked down at Daniel and said, “I’m sorry you left this as my only choice, my love. If you had just cooperated, this could all have been avoided.” She bent down and ran her fingers gently down Daniel’s cheek. Her face softened as she met Daniel’s eyes. Briefly, so briefly that Bree wasn’t sure she’d seen it, she saw a look of naked longing come over Franchesca’s face. Then, abruptly, she gestured to Scanlon. “You’d better hit him again, and try to knock him out this time, I don’t want him interfering.”
 

Before Daniel could get his bearings and react, Scanlon bent over him and hit him viciously on the side of the head. Daniel’s head snapped sideways, but his eyes were still open, and Scanlon hit him again, on the temple. That time seemed to do the trick. Daniel’s face went slack. He was out.

Bree’s mind stuttered and whirled, desperately trying to think of something to do, some way to get free. Her shield spell had had more effect than she'd thought it would. She hadn’t known it might repel someone who was already touching her. But keeping Franchesca off her no longer seemed to be of any help. Bree knew she was hopelessly outclassed. Her shield spell wouldn't last long against these three.

Franchesca stood looking down at Daniel, arms crossed, then glanced thoughtfully at Scanlon and Justice. Then she smiled. “Yes, I have it. I see a way to do this. So Kevin has your son?” she asked Scanlon.

“He adopted him,” Scanlon replied quickly. “I never even knew about the kid. His bitch of a mother never told me, not until I ran into her a couple of months back. I’ve had a Reader check him out. He’s powered, maybe high powered.”
 

“I think we should have Kevin bring him to you,” she responded.
 

Kevin had been pulling with all his strength against the bonds of the tape, and this stilled him. He was frowning in a mix of anger and confusion.

Franchesca turned and gestured to Justice to come closer. He moved to face her, expression wary. Franchesca spread her arms, threw back her head and shouted, "Tirakku, I command you!”

Justice’s body jerked, and his face twisted until the demon was uppermost and answered, “I am here, my Master.”

“Tirakku, leave your host, and enter this man.” She pointed at Kevin.
 

Justice looked over at Kevin, his head canted oddly on his neck. “I don’t think that one will feed me as much,” the demon said doubtfully.

“You will be rewarded, Tirakku, I promise. And you will obey.” Franchesca brought her hands together in a loud clap, and Justice began writhing and panting. He was clawing at his chest so hard that the buttons on his shirt started popping off.
 

Bree was involuntarily screaming “No!” behind her tape, and Kevin pulled so hard against his bonds that his chair went over sideways and crashed to the floor. Bree looked down at Daniel, willing him to wake up, and she saw him stir slightly.
Come on, come on!
she thought frantically. But he didn't move again.

Bree drew in and focused her will energy, and tried once again to make her shield spell protect someone else. A surge of energy left her, but it didn't get across the room to Kevin. She could feel that the spell had nothing to attach to, and it drained away.

Justice collapsed onto his knees, shirt half torn off, his chest showing raw scratches where he'd clawed himself. He started keening, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he finally collapsed. Bree’s Demonsense, which had been throbbing painfully through this entire nightmare, flared even brighter as a formless cloud of orange smoke began pouring out of Justice’s open mouth and moved across the room toward Kevin. The tears Bree had managed to control throughout the beating welled up and spilled over and down her cheeks. She could do nothing as the demon entered Kevin, who thrashed and hyperventilated as the demon settled in. Finally, he was still, and Franchesca gestured Scanlon to help her right the chair. She pulled the tape off Kevin’s face briskly. “Tirakku? Do you have control?” she asked.

Bree shuddered as Kevin’s voice emerged demon tainted. “I do, my Master. The man was well warded, but not enough for a demon of my class. What is your bidding?”

“You will go to your host’s home,” Franchesca said crisply. “You will retrieve his son. We will be waiting outside the house. You will hand over his son to us.”

“What about his, you know, partner,” Scanlon enquired. He had retreated until his back was against the front door of the office as the possession had transferred. Bree noted that he looked afraid and was trying to hide it.

Franchesca glanced at Scanlon with some annoyance, and then turned back to Kevin. “Take care to hide your presence from the partner. I want you to stay in this host for a time.”
 

“It will take much energy to keep control of this one. He is a strong Warder. I will need to feed,” the demon answered in Kevin’s voice. The scratchy tone of the demon was less evident.
 

“You may feed from your host. In fact, I invite you to feed from him until he's dead, once I let you know we're done with him. I never liked him anyway. When you're finished with this assignment, return to me and I will provide you with a new host, one more suited to your nature. Go now.”

“As you command, Master,” the demon replied. Kevin straightened his glasses with a gesture Bree knew well, and the familiarity of it was somehow more disturbing than if Kevin had done something uncanny and unlike him. He turned and walked toward the office door.
 

Bree looked anxiously at Daniel, and saw with relief that his eyes were opening. But before he could do more than glance around the room, Kevin was gone. Bree’s Demonsense finally started to calm, but she felt no relief. She was too distraught to feel relief.

Franchesca turned to Bree and said musingly, “Now, what to do with you.” She walked forward until she stood in front of Bree and looked down at her. “My, you are a mess.”
Bree was careful not to look at Daniel, but she knew that Scanlon probably was watching him again and any surprise move on his part was likely to be foiled. If Daniel even had a surprise move left in him. He was strong, but no one's power could last forever, and he'd abused it multiple times tonight already.
 

Bree had experienced many kinds of fear in the last few hours, but apart from when she was first grabbed, she hadn’t truly been in fear for her life. She had quickly figured out that Franchesca wanted something, and had assumed, maybe just out of a sense of denial, that Franchesca wouldn’t kill her until she got what she wanted. But there was something in the cold way Franchesca was regarding her now that caused Bree to rethink that assumption. If she succeeded in getting Hunter, she would no longer need Bree to control Daniel.
 

Scanlon seemed to come to the same conclusion, because he said, “I don’t think we should kill her here. Too traceable.”

“I am not a complete amateur,” Franchesca said dismissively. To Bree’s surprise, she leaned over and yanked the tape from Bree’s mouth. The pain was intense, given Bree’s cut lip, and she couldn’t control a pained gasp. Her mouth was dry and sticky, and she ran her tongue around it trying to generate some moisture so she could speak. Not that she knew what she wanted to say. She realized that taking the tape off meant Franchesca felt Bree was no threat magically. Either she was operating instinctively or sometime tonight had read Bree on an energetic level. Somehow, Bree thought it was the former. She got the impression that Franchesca operated by instinct more than by logic.
 

“I might let you live if you give me the right information,” Franchesca said, straightening up again.
 

“ ‘Might’ is not much of an incentive,” Bree replied hoarsely.
 

“It’s all the incentive you get,” Franchesca answered. “Do you know Daniel’s hiding spell? Did he show it to you?”

Bree hesitated. She had read something of the spell with Daniel’s permission during his stay at her house, but she couldn’t claim to have mastered it to the extent that she could teach it to someone else. But should she pretend to know it? Would that buy her time for Daniel to recover and maybe help her?
 

“I guess he must trust me more than he trusts you,” she replied after a brief pause. Franchesca’s face flushed red with rage, and Bree felt a fierce satisfaction as her thrust went home. She had only an instant to enjoy it as Franchesca slapped her hard across the face, pushing the agonizing throbbing in Bree’s cheek and mouth over the edge into viciously sharp pain again.
 

“He may want to sleep with you, but he doesn’t love you,” Franchesca said hotly, eyes boring into Bree's.
 

Bree felt a momentary, intense emotional pain surge up in the center of her chest at that until she realized it might not be true. She shouldn’t care if it were true anyway, she told herself harshly. "That doesn’t change what I just said,” Bree returned, voice strengthening. “Obviously he never trusted you with the spell. I don’t like to think what he would do to me if I just handed it to you.”

Franchesca gestured impatiently as she stood up straight again. “He won’t hurt you, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I, on the other hand, have hurt you. And I will kill you with pleasure if you don’t prove useful to me.”

“You’ll kill me anyway. So why should I help you?”

“Because killing people is far more inconvenient than any of you straight powered think. Both normal law enforcement and Keepers do tend to get involved. Whereas if you give me the information I want, I can have you and Daniel held until the job I’m working is complete. At that point, I can release you both in such a way that I’ll be long gone before you can get organized to come after me.”

“And how would you ever be able to hold Daniel for that long?” Bree couldn’t help asking.

“By keeping him drugged, of course. Don’t worry, I’ll let you tend to him. You won’t be kept tied up the whole time.”

For a moment, Bree considered the idea. If she cooperated, or pretended to cooperate, maybe there would be some opening to get her and Daniel free, hopefully before Scanlon got too far away with Hunter. She looked up into Franchesca’s face and forced her Reader sense to tune in. It was fiendishly difficult with the amount of pain she was in. She examined Franchesca closely, especially the muscles around her eyes and mouth, which were always most revealing, then her posture. With a sinking feeling, she was almost sure she read that Franchesca planned to kill her anyway.
 

She saw Franchesca’s eyes widen as she realized Bree was reading her. Then she turned away and addressed Scanlon. “This is no use. She won’t cooperate. I’m sure you have a place where your clan takes people that need eliminating. Take care of it.”

Bree felt hysteria rise up in her where she wanted courage to be. She couldn’t help it. As Scanlon walked toward her, a grim look on his face, she jerked uselessly against the tape holding her to the chair. She knew she was acting like a dumb animal in a trap, but her brain had stopped working. She was totally unprepared when Daniel’s voice roared out, “Gelsenim, I call you! Gelsenim, I command you!”

Chapter 14

Heat
and a ball of red-orange light rushed into the room. Franchesca whirled to face Daniel. Before Gelsenim could take shape, Daniel shouted, eyes wide open, “Gelsenim, possess me!”
 

Franchesca backed away, stumbling on her high heels. Daniel’s back arched up off the ground, neck muscles tensed and face contorted as Gelsenim entered him in a rush of orange smoke. "I, I command you!" Daniel gasped, and as he spoke, demonic fire flickered at his lips. His body jerked hard, and a haze of heat rose and shimmered all around him. He was weakened and losing control of the demon.
 

Bree's mind went numb with the horror of it. He was going to burn, just like Seth. She shook her head, hard, fighting off the dissociation. She grasped for options, for ways to help him, and came up with nothing. There was no time. "Daniel, fight him!" she shouted. "You can do this!"

Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, Franchesca shrieked, "Gelsenim, I command you as your Master!"

Daniel writhed and shuddered, and the heat haze began to clear. He jerked a few more times, then stilled, eyes closed. Bree had no idea who was in control at this point: Daniel, Gelsenim or Franchesca. Before she could think how to find out, Daniel rolled to his side, and his shoulders and arms strained against his bonds. The tape tore and parted with an audible rip. He sprang to his feet in a move too fast to be real. He advanced on Franchesca, a growl emerging from his throat.
 

"Gelsenim, I command you!" Franchesca screamed as Daniel grabbed her by the arms and threw her across the room. She landed against the arm of the waiting room couch, then bounced off, onto the floor. She scrambled to her hands and knees, but before she could get to her feet, Daniel pulled her up by one arm and slapped her so hard that she collapsed onto the floor again.
 

Franchesca raised her reddened face and whimpered, "Daniel, please, it's me, Chesca!"
 

Daniel bent raised his hand for another slap, then froze. Slowly, he straightened, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he swayed on his feet.
 

"Daniel, don't forget, she's going after Hunter!" Bree countered frantically.
 

Daniel's hands clenched and he trembled. As he fought for control, Franchesca got to her feet. Fear and calculation chased each other across her face, then her expression resolved and she moved toward Daniel. A sensuous flush mounted her cheeks, and she twined an arm around Daniel’s neck. She crushed her mouth to Daniel’s, and writhed her body against his. He froze, then pulled her against him roughly and kissed her back. One hand moved down to her ass and kneaded it as he thrust his pelvis hard against her.
 

Bree watched for a moment, sickened, waiting to see if this was just a move on Daniel’s part to catch Franchesca off guard. As the embrace lengthened, the hope she had dissolved. She turned her head away, then caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Scanlon strode up behind Daniel, the muzzle of Franchesca's gun in his hand, and hit Daniel hard on the back of the head with the grip.