Demon Hunter (The Collegium Book 1) (5 page)

An old woman stood on the footpath outside the boardinghouse, clutching its low gate. Although barely waist high, the white wooden pickets were a protection she seemed unwilling to relinquish. “Get away, Yolanthe. I’ve seen her in my dreams. She’s a demon consort.”

“Linda, she’s my daughter.”

Fay caught back the power she’d called. Linda was the name of one of the Piper Lodge boarders. Fay steadied the violently rocking swing chair. At the first hint of threat she’d leapt out and positioned herself with her back to the solid wall. Now her hand tightened painfully on the chair back.

Yolanthe struggled up, worry in every line of her. “Faith, Linda is only a minor prophet. She won’t hurt you.”

Linda stalked through the gate, snapping it shut behind her. She was tall and thin, beginning to bow with age and dressed in a wild swirl of purple. Numerous scarves were all aflutter as she put a hand dramatically to her throat. “I’ve dreamed of her, Yolanthe. Evil dreams of demons.”

The repeated mention of demons convinced Fay. The woman was terrified of Fay’s work. She wasn’t a threat. Fay released her summoned magic.

“What the hell?” Jim ran out the front door. He held a paring knife in one hand and a carrot in the other.

“I think we should go inside before the neighbors notice us,” Yolanthe said quietly. Her gaze moved warily among them and settled on Fay. “You are always welcome in this house.”

“Yolanthe.” Linda’s cry was despairing.

“Faith is my daughter. She
fights
demons.”

“Fights?” Linda subsided, contemplating the idea.

“What did you do?” Jim put the knife and carrot behind his back, but he stayed in the doorway.

“No harm.” Fay acknowledged his right to protect the portal. “I summoned magic when Linda shouted. When I didn’t need the power, I turned it sideways. You won’t be bothered by mosquitos in the future.”

“You released a protection spell?” Jim tilted his head, clearly listening to the hum of the portal. His shoulders relaxed. “Sensible. Better to use the magic than try to send it back.”

“That’s what the witch who taught me the spell said.” Fay concentrated on reassurance. “There are a few places around the world that’ll never need mosquito nets.” She looked at Linda. “And if you’ve been seeing me in dreams the last two years, I have been fighting demons. The Collegium installed a new reporting program and it increased my duties. You’d be surprised how many people summon demons and then lose control of them. I apologize for bringing their evil into your dreams.”

  “Yes, but why was I seeing you?” Linda walked up the veranda steps and stared at Fay with faded blue eyes. She wore amethyst earrings and a scent of lavender, and clutched an oversized handbag.

“Maybe your talent picked up my link with Faith.” Yolanthe eased between them and touched Jim’s elbow, turning him back into the hallway. “Let’s go inside.”

Fay waited until Linda’s gaze dropped and she walked inside, skirting just slightly as she passed Fay. Then, unobserved, Fay rubbed her arms and the rash of goose pimples.

Demon consort. The naming was out of Fay’s worst nightmares. Lilith had been the first. She had taken a demon lover for the power and for the half-demon child she’d bear. Her daughter had eaten her, but no one mentioned that part of the story, nor the incestuous relationship between daughter and father. Demons perverted all they touched.

And Fay had been proximate with demons for two years.

Maybe Linda was right and she wasn’t safe to be around?

“Get inside, girl,” Jim called. “I want my lunch.”

A shudder broke Fay’s paralysis. She was welcome here and a porter had deep protections against evil contaminating his portal. Crazy they might be, but porters protected their power.

And Yolanthe hadn’t hesitated to defend Fay and to claim her.

If there was evil in the world, there was also its opposite, too. Goodness. Love.

Fay closed the front door behind her.

“Do you drink tea?” Jim asked as she entered the kitchen. He frowned at Yolanthe in a minatory demand for silence.

Fay’s tension eased another notch. His determined normality was neutral ground. “Tea’s fine. Although I refuse to pollute it with milk.”

“Barbarian.” He chopped the carrot with swift precision. A jerk of his head indicated the tea canister, teapot and kettle. “If you make the tea, it’ll be ready about the same time lunch is on the table. Five teaspoons of tea. Linda lunches with us.”

A teaspoon of tea for each person and one for the pot. Fay knew the routine. She boiled the kettle, poured a little water into the teapot to warm it, tipped it out, added the tea leaves and more water and replaced the lid.

Yolanthe handed her a crocheted tea cozy. It was striped orange, black and white, like a tiger, and fitted snugly over the brown china pot. It was the essence of everyday life, and despite the strain in the air, they all tried to match it.

“We pour the tea at table,” Yolanthe said. “So if you could carry it through?” She picked up a tray of sandwiches and walked through the wide door opposite the conservatory. It lead to a dining space that opened to a light-filled living space complete with sofas and a large television.

Sitting at the massive wooden dining table was Linda. Her mouth was pursed, her eyes cautious. The enormous handbag sat prominently on the table beside her.

Fay set down the teapot and took a chair opposite. The four place settings made her seat easy to guess. Jim was at the head of the table, Linda on his right, Yolanthe on his left, closest to the kitchen, with Fay beside her.

Yolanthe poured tea.

“I didn’t know you had a daughter.” Linda watched Fay over her teacup. Her hands shook a little, swollen arthritic joints burdened with silver rings.

“Faith’s been working for the Collegium,” Yolanthe said.

“Oh.” Relief clattered Linda’s teacup back onto its saucer. “A Collegium guardian.” She smiled at Fay, a woman transformed. “A Collegium guardian, how wonderful. You do fight the demons.”

Fay had encountered that response before. Elderly magic users had enormous respect for the Collegium and its work. They remembered the strength and idealism of its early years. They remembered her great-grandparents.

“I’ve resigned,” she said discouragingly.

“Oh dear.” Linda tutted. “Why on earth…” Abruptly, her eyes widened. “Oh, my dear. Three nights ago, that was you?” Her amethyst teardrop earrings trembled.

Fay stiffened in her chair. “What did you see?”

“A woman dancing with a demon. She had your long, blonde hair, but I didn’t see your face. You called it by name.”

“Don’t say it,” Fay ordered.

Linda blinked, shaken from the half-trance of memory.

“That demon isn’t banished, only bound. You don’t want to say its name.”

“You made it tell you its name.” Linda stared at her. “It screamed and slashed you.”

“I needed its name to bind it,” Fay said steadily.

“It killed you,” Linda whispered.

Yolanthe moved convulsively.

Fay took her hand. It was as cold as ice, as cold as hers. “It didn’t kill me. It tried, but I won.” She squeezed Yolanthe’s hand. “I survived.”

“I’m glad you resigned from the Collegium,” her mom said fiercely.

Linda spooned more sugar into her tea and stirred it with an uneven clink, clink-clink of spoon against china.

“I saw it kill her,” she whispered.

The cold in Fay eased. She, who ran scared from human contact and relationships, had reached to comfort Yolanthe. She had reacted instinctively and Yolanthe had defended her with the same instinctiveness. Fay might be demon scarred, but she was human, not demon-mad. “Yolanthe said you’re a prophet?” Fay looked across the table.

“Yes.”

“Then you see truth in strange forms. The demon fight foreshadowed not my death, but changes in my life.”

“Resigning from the Collegium.” Understanding and acceptance blazed through Linda. “Of course. Leaving it must be like death. The old loyalties, your duty. How it must hurt to leave them.”

“Faith’s first duty is to herself,” Yolanthe interrupted.

Fay released her hand. “Don’t worry. I feel no guilt at leaving the Collegium. But the death of that old life is what Linda saw. The demon’s existence simply blurred the picture.”

“What is it like to fight a demon?” Jim’s question changed the tension around the table.

“Horrifying. For all but the most powerful demons, to act independently in our world, they have to possess a body. All those I’ve fought have taken a human. Sometimes that possession is forced, and then, I can save the person, casting out the demon. But other times.” Her voice slowed. “Some people invite them in. Then exorcism kills the demon host. Last year, I had to kill a man I knew, another Collegium guardian.”

“No,” Linda exclaimed, bright-eyed and pleasantly intrigued. She nibbled a sandwich, ignoring the salad Jim scooped onto her plate. “A Collegium guardian summoned a demon?”

“He was a minor mage and wanted more power. He left a journal.”
And a wife and five year old son
. Fay had stood at the back of a graveside crowd, divorced from it, and watched a five year old boy throw rosemary onto his father’s coffin. The widow had stood dry-eyed. Death gave an ending, but it couldn’t heal old hurts. Betrayal came in many forms.

“More tea?” Yolanthe offered the only immediate comfort she had.

“Thanks.” Fay sipped it unsweetened. She wanted to answer Jim and explain why she’d killed her old life. She’d been rejecting more than her father’s rule. “Fighting a demon is like fighting a man with his skin worn inside out. They are slick with horror and wrongness, and they want to drag you to hell with them. The physical injuries they inflict heal. No one talks about the spiritual scars.”

“On the basis that a good Collegium guardian toughs it out?” Jim asked.

“Maybe.” Fay considered, then shook her head. “I think it’s just too difficult to reveal the scars.”

Linda interrupted. “Do you like the chutney in your sandwich. I made it. I’ll give you the recipe.”

“I don’t cook.” Fay blinked at the change of subject.

“Nonsense, dear. Anyone can follow a recipe. And you did say you were changing your life,” Linda added coyly.

“Not radically enough to cook.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m chief cook,” Jim said.

“A very good thing.” Yolanthe smiled at him. If the smiled was forced, everyone still appreciated the effort. “I married him for his cooking.”

“A lie. You married me for—” He broke off, glancing at Fay who watched intently, wanting to understand her mother and her choices. The humor dropped from him. “We married because we love each other.”

“The best of reasons.” Linda finished her tea and sandwiches. “You’ve all been very kind to an old lady who muddled her prophecy, but I won’t trespass further on your family time. It was good to meet you. Faith, was it?”

“Fay. Fay Olwen.”

The Olwen name passed by Linda without an eyelash flicker. “Fay. I’m sure we’ll talk in the future.”

They listened to her footsteps ascend the stairs.

“Linda usually naps in the afternoon,” Jim said. “You should, too, Yolly. You look washed out.”

“It’s Faith’s—Fay’s—first day, here.”

“She’s a big girl and can look after herself.”

“Jim, don’t be rude.”

He opened his eyes wide. “I’m not. It’s the truth.”

“I want Fay to feel welcome.” Yolanthe was upset enough to start a fight.

“I do feel welcome,” Fay intervened. “And if I’m family, you don’t need to stand on ceremony with me.”

Family
. It was a magic word for all of them.

“If you’re sure? I am tired. Perhaps you could nap, too, after being portal sick?”

“Maybe.”

“Well.” Yolanthe stood slowly. “I will have a nap.” She touched Fay’s shoulder lightly. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Fay nodded and Yolanthe walked out, looking back twice.

“Stubborn woman. She’s exhausted.” Jim gathered up plates. He worked efficiently, filling the dishwasher and setting it running. “Do you have plans for this afternoon?”

Fay hesitated with the rinsed teapot in her hands. She needed exercise, not rest. Her body might be tired, but her mind and emotions were over-busy. The whir of the dishwasher reminded her of a forgotten chore. “I have to hang out my laundry and if I’m staying a couple of weeks, I’ll need some more clothes.”

“There’s money in the biscuit barrel.” He nodded at a daisy-painted china container that stood on the corner of the bench.

“I have money.” American dollars, not Australian. It didn’t matter. “I have credit cards.”

“Do you want your father to track you to Yolanthe through them?”

She hesitated.

“Look, Fay. I know I’m a stranger to you and God knows what shit you’ve gone through. You don’t give trust easy. But all I want is Yolanthe’s happiness. I have more money than Midas. I used to be an investment banker and I still dabble. You can spend money like a golden river and I’ll not notice it. Anytime you need money, take it from the barrel. If you need more than is there, just tell me. Later, if you insist on paying me back, we can work it out. I’d prefer it if you considered the money a gift. I might be a crazy porter, but I value family. Yolanthe and you are it.”