Chapter 4
Chapter Four
DANIEL
Skye shoots me a snarky little look, and I hold in my smile. He’s so much fun to rile up. Although…
“Just for future reference,” I say, moving forward and closing the door behind me, “after you throw your cup at your attacker, run. You should have been halfway out the back door when I got here.”
Kieran sighs. “Danie—”
“There isn’t a back door,” Skye snaps.
“Then halfway out the window.” I point to a window across the room. “That one, by the way. Not the one next to the door your attacker came through.”
“Sometimes I really hate you.” He… bounces toward me. No, not bounces. That’s a happy word. How do I describe his pissed-off walk? It’s all attitude.
Before I can decide on a word, he snatches the pieces of his cup from my hand, then heads to Gabe’s kitchenette, saying over his shoulder, “I’m so sorry, Gabe. I’ll replace it. Where do you keep the mop?”
As Gabe directs Skye to the utility closet, I edge around the coffee splatter across the floor and sit on the sofa in the spot I’m sure was Skye’s. That’s just going to piss him off more.
Sure enough, when he turns around and sees me, his eyes narrow, but he says nothing.
“Will someone please catch me up while Skye is cleaning?” Kieran asks, perching on the arm of the sofa beside Connor. “I’ve left Josh on his own at the desk. It’s not busy, but I can’t hang around here forever.”
“You didn’t have to come down,” Connor says. “I was going to come and give you a full update.”
Kieran huffs. “Like I was going to wait when Daniel told me a spirit visited Skye and threatened him.”
Skye freezes. There’s a momentary silence, and then he, Gabe, and Connor all turn to look at me.
Oops.
“What?” I ask innocently.
“You said the spirit threatened Skye?” Connor doesn’t sound happy. But then, he hates anything that stresses Kieran out, and threats to our Mannix family definitely stress him.
“What would you call it? The spirit invaded his home, gave him a headache, and then gave him a warning.” Sure, that might be phrasing it to give the wrong impression… but it’s all true.
“You’re an ass,” Skye declares, then turns to Kieran. “It didn’t threaten me. It warned me.”
Kieran’s green eyes travel from Skye to me and back again. “That’s what Dan said.”
Skye blows out a frustrated breath. “No, I mean it was trying to warn me about a threat in general. Not a threat specific to me. And it was the good guy… spirit… thing.”
The glare my boss turns on me would cause a lesser man to cower. But I’ve faced down a demon, so I just give him my best smile.
He must recognize that scolding me would be a lost cause, because he just shakes his head and turns back to Gabe and Connor. “So a spirit came to give Skye a warning? Why?”
Gabe spreads his hands. “We don’t know. It didn’t get to that part before it was destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Kieran shoots upright. “What do you mean, destroyed? By what?” He whirls on me. “You didn’t mention that!”
“I didn’t want to worry you.” Just to concern him enough that he’d convince Skye to stay here at the estate until we could be sure it was safe for him to go home.
Sinking back onto the sofa arm, Kier runs a hand through his hair. “Okay. So what do we know?”
Connor slides an arm around his waist and says, “Not much. Skye just identified the spirit from the Collective’s archives, but so far, that’s not pointing to happy news.”
“Of course it’s not,” Kieran mutters. “Is Skye safe? What can we do to protect him?”
Skye returns from putting away the mop and plants his hands on his hips. “Of course I’m safe,” he declares. “I don’t need protection.” He falters and glances at Gabe. “Do I?”
Gabe shrugs.
“Not. Helpful.”
“I wish I could be helpful,” Gabe says. “I wish I had all the answers for you. The spirit found you because you’re a conduit, and—actually, that reminds me. Why’d it take so long for the spirit to find you?”
“What do you mean?” Kieran asks, and Connor fills him in on the whole “hidden gate” thing.
“That means the spirit was within fifty-ish miles of Skye from the moment it reached Earth, but it said it had been searching for a while. Why didn’t it sense him right away?” Connor turns back to Gabe. “Before, you thought it might have to do with the type of spirit.”
Gabe nods, reading through something on the Collective’s archive. “The adiut is a top-level spirit as far as abilities go. It should have had no problem sensing an active conduit within fifty miles.”
I’m not following everything they’re saying, but it’s still cool as fuck. Like something from a movie. “What does ‘active’ mean?” I ask. “Is Skye an active conduit? He doesn’t work for the Collective or anything.”
Connor leans back into the sofa and pulls Kieran—with a startled exclamation—into his lap. “It helps me think,” he excuses, which nobody really believes. “An active conduit… I guess that just means a conduit who’s trained and able to make contact with spirits. Skye should count as active.”
“What if I had my shields all the way up?” Skye counters. “Locked down tight. The spirit was just a headache and a buzzing noise.”
“Show me,” Gabe says, and I don’t know what Skye does, but a second later, Gabe and Connor both nod. “That would make it harder to sense you from any distance.”
Skye bites his lip. “Which means that theoretically, the gateway could be pretty close.”
“How close?” Kieran and I ask in unison.
“Fifty miles was already too close for comfort,” he adds.
Gabe shrugs. “Any gateway that’s so completely hidden from us makes me nervous, no matter where it is. I wish I knew how that was even possible. But,” he adds, “I guess it could be within a few miles.”
The horror on Kieran’s face is probably a close reflection of mine.
“It’s probably not,” Connor soothes, petting his boyfriend. “The spirit said it had been searching for Skye for a long time. I bet it’s close to fifty miles away.”
“Or the spirit went the wrong way right after it came through,” I point out, remembering what was said earlier.
If Con’s eyes could beam lasers, I’d be incinerated.
“Getting back to the point,” I continue, “is there danger to Skye, and should he stay here until we can be sure he’s safe? I vote yes.”
“You don’t get a vote!” Skye throws up his hands in exasperation, his pretty hair swinging. “This isn’t something that gets voted on.”
“Sorry, Skye, but I vote yes too,” Gabe says, pulling an apologetic face.
“We don’t know where the gateway is, but we know that a spirit whose type often works with higher demons came through it and was destroyed while in your house.
It’s safe to say it was a higher demon who killed it, and there’s a chance they might want to make sure it didn’t get to talk to anyone. ”
Say what?
Skye goes pale, and I scramble up and wave for him to sit. This isn’t what I was thinking at all. Like… I thought it would be best for him not to be alone until we knew what this vague danger warning is about. A higher demon hunting him down and killing him wasn’t on my radar.
Which brings me to my next question… “What’s a higher demon?” My voice is a little rough, and I clear my throat.
Nobody answers, and Kieran moans. “This is going to be bad, isn’t it?”
Still nobody says anything. I fold my arms across my chest to hide the fact that my hands have started to shake. My scarred hands that I nearly lost the use of during a confrontation with a demon that Connor said wasn’t that dangerous.
Skye breaks the silence. “You gotta tell us. Whatever it is, we need to be ready.”
Connor sighs. “I don’t think you can be ready for a higher demon. It’s…” He rubs his hands over his face.
Gabe takes over. “Imagine the worst person ever. The kind of person who would actually sacrifice children to give themselves power and then eat their dead bodies.”
Okay, so not good people then.
“And then multiply that level of evil by a thousand.”
I swallow.
“And give them the power to take down anyone. To rip through your mental shields like they’re butter.”
Skye presses his hand over his mouth.
“There are seven occasions in known history that a higher demon has come to Earth free of any restraint and was successfully banished. Destroyed. Killed. Whatever you want to call it. Seven out of… well, we don’t know how many.
Hundreds, definitely. Maybe thousands. Most of them happened back before we discovered we could guard gateways, and there were usually no survivors to talk about what happened.
Those seven times, it took teams of… I think the smallest one was ten hunters. And there were casualties.”
“What… what happened the other times?” Kieran asks.
“Death and destruction. If you go through the list of horrific massacres in history outside of actual wars, a lot of them were hunters being murdered while trying to stop higher demons. But that’s not the worst part.”
Jesus, it’s not? What could be worse than that?
“These are smart demons. They’re the most powerful.
As far as we’ve been able to establish, they run things in the otherworld.
If the lesser demons and other beings do as they’re told and don’t attract attention, they’re fine, but otherwise…
” He shrugs. “Like most demons, soul energy is a delicacy for them, and humans are… weak. When they come to Earth, they seek out people who are willing to trade soul energy for power.”
Hope springs to life in me. “They can’t just take it?”
Gabe grimaces. “Well, they can. If they kill you, they can capture your whole soul before it moves on and suck out the energy that way.”
The hope vanishes.
“But it’s the trading of energy for power that’s a greater concern for us, because it establishes a direct connection between that person and the demon.
Lesser demons can’t come to Earth unless they find an unguarded gateway or are directly summoned, but higher demons can.
They have the power to use that kind of connection as an open invitation—an unrestricted summoning, if you will. ”
“What kind of person would do that?” Skye murmurs, and Connor and Kieran exchange glances.
“If you want a history lesson, we can go back through all the ‘greatest’ and most awful leaders and rulers and point out which ones we know for a fact had bargained with a higher demon,” Connor says. “Fun fact: some of them died abruptly when hunters finally banished the demon.”
“You said before there were seven times a higher demon had come to Earth unrestrained and been banished,” Kieran says. “What does that mean, unrestrained? Is there a way to restrain them?”
Connor shakes his head. “Not how you mean. A properly drawn summoning circle is the only form of restraint we know of. All demons are subject to the rules of a circle. But if someone knows enough to summon a higher demon with a proper circle, that means they plan to bargain with it.”
I clear my throat again, almost wishing I hadn’t come here.
I could be out in the far south field right now, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air and smell of dirt and manure.
“Can a higher demon get through a guarded gateway?” I seem to remember Connor vaguely hinting about that when he was first telling us we needed a gatekeeper, nearly a year ago.
Connor and Gabe look at each other, but Gabe’s the one who answers.
“Yes.”