Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
DANIEL
Ewan comes in through the back door just as I sit at the table. His tee is inside-out and he’s not quite panting, but definitely breathing heavier than usual, which means he probably ran to get here.
He points in the direction of the living room and raises his brows, and when I nod, he joins me at the table. “Josh is tied up with the guests,” he murmurs. “He’ll come as soon as he can.”
I just nod again. I’ll be glad to have Josh here, since I know him best of all the people with special skills—aside from Skye—but truthfully, I don’t know what he’d be able to do.
He’s a medium, which means he can talk to ghosts and apparently help them cross over to the afterlife, and he did manage to banish that one demon, but he’s got no experience with spirits.
I really wish Connor would hurry up and get here.
In the living room, Skye clears his throat, then pitches his voice a little louder than usual. “What can you tell us about Cato?”
The silence that follows grates on my nerves.
I hate this. Hate that Skye is in there with a creature that might be working for the other side.
Hate that I can only hear half of their conversation.
Hate that even if I could hear it all, there’s pretty much fuck all I can do about the whole situation.
“It’s a cruel and sadistic demon that takes unusual pleasure in torment,” Skye says, repeating what he’s just heard. “I thought all demons took pleasure in torment?”
Another pause.
“Cato goes to extremes. Other demons consider it out of control and unstable. Got it. So why haven’t any of these other demons acted to remove Cato from power?”
So far, this is all confirming what the spirit we met the other week already told us. It’s good to have that confirmation, but I can’t help wishing they’d hurry up. What if this spirit is going to be destroyed like the other one? We need new information.
“The situation didn’t affect them, so they removed themselves from Cato’s sphere and allowed him to continue— Wait, you said ‘him’? I thought demons didn’t have genders?”
“So did I,” Gabe says.
Ewan and I exchange glances, and I see my own impatience reflected in his eyes. Does it matter if demons have genders? I honestly don’t care about the gender of the creature that’s going to try to feed on my soul.
“Demons can choose to have genders,” Skye says. “Okay. So Cato has chosen to be male?”
“Does the choice impact their appearance?” Gabe adds. “I know higher demons can choose to appear in different forms and with different faces. Is that limited once they choose a gender? Or can they later choose a different gender?”
I start to get up, but Ewan grabs my arm and pulls me back down. “Gabe’s not an idiot,” he whispers. “I’m sure this matters.”
I don’t see how, but then, I’m not a demon expert. So I grit my teeth and nod.
“There are no limitations,” Skye announces. “I guess that makes higher demons genderfluid? And nonbinary, for those who prefer not to choose at all.”
It also humanizes them in a way I find terrifying, and a chill races down my spine.
The back door opens, and Connor and Kieran come in. Con takes us in with a glance, and I point toward the living room. He doesn’t wait to respond, just heads that way. Kieran joins us at the table.
“Anything?” he mutters, and I shake my head.
“Catch you up later,” Ewan promises.
In the other room, Skye is saying, “This is another associate who will join us.” The spirit obviously doesn’t care, because next he says, “So the demons who disapprove of Cato’s wasteful cruelty let him get on with it and went their own way?”
Kieran raises his copper eyebrows, pulls a small notepad from his pocket, and begins making notes. Who even carries a notepad anymore?
“But that’s changing now.” There’s a note in Skye’s tone that makes me itch to go in there. Kieran even looks up from his notes. “Cato’s plans will impact all demons, and they won’t accept that.”
“What plans?” Ewan whispers.
“What plans?” Connor asks.
The silence that follows is agonizingly long, and I rub my left thumb over the scars on my right hand. What can it be saying?
“Could you stop there for a moment, please? I want to update my associates before you continue,” Skye says finally, then, faster and less formally, with a slight tremor shaking his voice, “Cato wants to bring down the barrier between worlds and allow demons and spirits to mix freely with humans.” He says something else, but my brain’s stopped processing.
Demons roaming freely on Earth? I stare at my hands, at the white scars crisscrossing my palms and fingers.
One minor demon, weakened by fifty years of captivity, trapped by a salt-and-quartz circle, being worn down by a medium with banishing herbs or whatever, was able to take down Ewan and do this to me.
I was behind a salt line at the time. If things had been even just a little different, it could have killed us all.
What could a stronger demon do? Or two demons?
And how could humanity deal with them? What about little kids, the elderly?
Sucking in a deep breath, I make myself focus. Freaking out over it isn’t going to help. We’re trying to prevent this. That means I need to stay on my game and do my part. Whatever that’s going to be.
“…know how he plans to do that?” Gabe’s asking, his voice hard and grim. I haven’t known Gabe long, but I’ve never heard him sound like that before.
The pause this time is shorter. “By opening more gateways than the barrier can hold against, all at once. The spirit—I’m sorry, do you have a name?”
Stupidly, a laugh bubbles up and catches in my throat. I don’t know why, but Skye asking the spirit’s name right now, in the middle of explaining how we’re all going to meet our doom, just strikes me as funny.
A hand closes over mine, and I look up into Kieran’s concerned green eyes. I shake my head and mouth, “I’m fine,” and he gives my hand a little squeeze. It’s only a small thing, but it makes me feel better.
“Wist,” Skye says. “I’m Skye. That’s Gabe and Connor.
Wist says that it’s never been done before, but the theory is sound.
Cato has been working toward this in secret for centuries and is finally at the point where most of the pieces are in place, so the news is beginning to circulate through the otherworld. ”
“Centuries,” Connor mutters, his voice so low I barely hear it. “I… Where are the ghosts? Where’s Uncle Norval? How did he fucking miss this?”
“Easy,” Gabe says. “If it was so secret that demons in the otherworld didn’t know, how was Norval supposed to find out here on Earth?
But definitely we need to talk to Intelligence,” he adds.
“Wist, do you know when Cato plans to move? Or how? Does he have demons waiting here on Earth to open those gateways, or are there humans aiding him in this?”
Fuuuuuuuuck. I didn’t even think of that.
Frantically, I search my mind for everything I know about opening gateways.
Connor gave us a crash information session right after we met him, but it was all tangled in with the spirit possessing Skye and the knowledge that the Collective existed and we’d never be able to close the gateway—or as we knew it then, the vortex—in the Garden Suite.
I’m sure he said demons can only open gateways if they’re on Earth…
and maybe that some demons aren’t strong enough?
And only humans with metaphysical skills can open them—though again, some aren’t strong enough and it could kill them.
“Wist doesn’t have access to those details. He had hoped to get them from a friend who worked for Cato, but the friend—” Skye cuts off. “Uh… the friend was killed by Cato. Wist… an adiut spirit came to see me last month, to give me a warning. Was that… Could that have been your friend?”
I wince. It would be a big coincidence if it wasn’t. Skye’s going to take this to heart. He already feels guilty over the spirit’s destruction, even though he couldn’t have done anything to prevent it.
“It was,” he says heavily. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
The pause is brief this time.
“No, I’m afraid we didn’t get that far before… Just the generic warning. We’ve been trying to discover more since.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Gabe says gently. “But we need more information if we’re going to stop Cato. You said before that the other demons won’t accept Cato’s plan. What does that mean?”
Kieran, Ewan, and I stare at each other in surprise. I guess we were all so caught up on the invading demons part that we didn’t take that in. Maybe these other demons will stop Cato?
“Many higher demons don’t want to live with humans. Wow, that’s insulting. Cattle? Ouch.”
The urge to laugh comes back. I’m fine with demons thinking of me as a big, stinking bull if that means they’ll stay in the otherworld.
Skye’s still talking. “Taking down the barrier would also cause the… I don’t know that word.
” I picture the thoughtful frown that always accompanies that tone.
“Oh, I see. Um… I guess atmosphere? Maybe environment. With the barrier down, theirs would merge with ours, and some elements in it that we don’t have would be diluted or destroyed, which would cause several species in the otherworld who depend on those elements for survival to be wiped out. ”
“So these higher demons, are they going to try to stop Cato?” Connor’s tone is neutral. He’s expressed some pretty strong feelings about higher demons. I doubt he’s thrilled to hear we might be on the same side as some, even if it is an “enemy of my enemy” kind of situation.
“Wist can’t speak for them. Okay, sure, but do you think they might?” Skye asks. “You can’t speak for them. Uh-huh. Wist, do you by any chance work for these higher demons?”
I tense. What’s Skye doing? What if Wist does work for the demons but they don’t want Skye to know that? He needs to stay away from these hot-button questions.
“You’re not permitted to share that information. Okay, great. Uh… do you know where the hidden gateway is?”
I can’t believe I forgot about that. All the time and effort Connor’s spent searching for it over the past year, and now that we have the chance to ask someone who might know, I completely forgot. Good thing Skye’s the one asking the questions.
“Not on this side. How does that work, exactly? There’s no direct correlation between landmarks in the otherworld and here? So if you went through a gateway ten miles east of the hidden gateway in the otherworld, you wouldn’t necessarily be ten miles east of it when you got to Earth?”
This pause is too long for a yes or no answer, and I’m starting to get restless again when Skye says, “Yeah, that’s getting too technical for me to understand.
But the short answer is yes, there’s no correlation.
Can you tell us about the gateway on that side?
Do you know how Cato is keeping it hidden from us? ”
Kieran’s back to scribbling frantic notes, and I watch his pen move over the paper. This is all so important, but I wish the spirit—Wist—had never turned up. Skye and I could be having a post-sex snack right now in preparation for round two.
“Cato only allows those he trusts to use that gateway. It’s guarded at all times, and nobody else can get near it.”
“Dammit,” Gabe mutters. “What else can you tell us about Cato, his plans, and the other higher demons and their plans?”
“And numbers,” Connor adds. “If Cato is successful, how many demons will descend upon Earth?”