Before she could complete the thought, Lane started convulsing. The demon had jumped to Javier! And apart from Daniel, Javier was the strongest powered Bree knew. He was tired, but not drained as Kevin had been. The demon should not have been able to enter an Exorcist as experienced and well prepared as Javier. Before she could even begin to think what to do next, Javier raised his arms, and a pressure built against her ears as Javier pushed against the wards.
“Hold the wards!” she shrieked in panic at the red-haired Warder. “Javier is possessed!”
The pressure built, and her ears popped as the wards blew. The Warder flew through the air and slammed violently against the wall, then collapsed onto the floor.
Bree dove for the Bible and bottle of holy water as Javier turned to face her. To her dismay, the top was off and the bottle was empty. All she had was the Bible, the salt and the remnants of magical energy built earlier in the ritual working. And no back up. The other Keeper was down from the wards blowing, Lane and Kevin were down. She scrambled to her feet as Javier stalked toward her. He was breathing in hard, loud huffs.
She held up the Bible in front of her and tried to gather the rattled scraps of her Demonsense around her. “By this Holy Word, I command you! By the will of God, I command you!” she tried, but Javier slapped the Bible out of her hand. Where was Daniel? Where were the other two Keepers?
She knew she was about to die. How fitting that it be Javier who did it. She doubted he’d ever truly forgiven her. And the demon could work with that. If only she had approached him before, sincerely tried to work it out with him. But he was so damned stiff-necked! She was going to die because of it.
“You
want
to kill me, don't you Javier?" she burst out.
Javier stopped short with his hands hovering over her. Before she could stop and think too much about what she was doing, what she was risking, she continued. “You never did forgive me for Seth's death. But it was as much your fault as mine."
Javier’s face was working, and he was breathing even harder. But he was fighting now. Somehow, she’d opened an emotional pathway that gave him room to fight.
“He just wasn’t good enough in your eyes if he wasn’t using his power,” she continued relentlessly. “You're the one who sent jobs his way. You wanted him to be part of the club, some kind of honorary Keeper. But that wasn’t what made him special, it never was! It was his heart! His heart, and his music!”
Slowly, Javier’s hands descended, but they were shaking now. She took a careful step back. “You pretended to forgive me, because you thought God wanted that of you. But you never did. And that’s the weakness the demon is using in you. You don’t forgive! You are not a forgiving man.”
Javier gave a wordless roar and clutched his head. Bree backed up against the coffee table, and with a quick motion, she turned, slammed her hands down into the blessed red wine pooled there, the slapped them down on Javier’s chest.
“By the holy blood of the Savior, I command you Tirakku! Leave this host! By the mercy of Mother Mary, leave him!” She threw every ounce of power she had into gathering the energy of the prayers in the space around her and flung her Demonsense into Javier, felt the energy signature of the demon, attuned, and
shoved
against it, shoving it
out.
She felt it surging out of Javier in an almost blinding, horribly hot rush. The back of her mind gibbered that she was going to burn up in it, but she kept her hands in demonic energy, dragged it to the floor, and with a final prayer, sent it into the earth. All that remained was the lingering, demonic stench of sulphur on the air.
Chapter 16
Bree
looked at her hands as silence descended on the room. She expected them to be black and burnt to a crisp, but there they were, still wet with the wine, but otherwise fine. Her hair was hanging half out of the hasty braid she’d made. She regretfully wiped her hands on Kevin’s very nice, but already ruined rug, then pushed her hair behind her ears as she carefully straightened up. Javier was lying on his back with silent tears streaming out of his open eyes and down the sides of his face. Waves of trembling moved across his body, but the worst of the physical reaction seemed to be over. Lane seemed to be asleep, which was a fairly common after reaction to a possession. Kevin’s glasses had gotten knocked off somehow in the melee. His face looked pale and vulnerable. He stirred as she watched.
She went over to the red-haired Keeper sprawled on the floor. She knelt beside him and gently shook his shoulder. He moved limply, his head lolling at an odd angle. Cold prickles went down her spine. He looked dead. Feeling sick, she felt for his pulse, then leaned close over his mouth, hoping to find he was breathing. He wasn’t. She didn't know if it was a broken neck from being slammed into the wall, or if it was the magical backlash of the wards being blown out so forcefully, but it didn't matter. The demon had killed the Keeper. Bree started to shake.
The front door opened, and one of the other Keepers came in, with Daniel following close behind, looking more frightened than she had ever seen him. He pulled up short as he saw her, closed his eyes briefly, then moved toward her more slowly. She put a hand up as he approached, saying, “taint,” and he stopped again. He looked down at the Keeper, then up at her, brows raised in question.
"He was killed when the wards blew," she told him.
"Jesus fucking Christ." He glanced around the room, then went over to Kevin, who was trying to sit up. Daniel righted him, and started untying him.
“What in God’s green earth happened in here!” the other Keeper exclaimed as she knelt beside Javier. “We felt the wards break, and there was so much backlash, we had one hell of a job getting new ones set up outside. ”
“The demon jumped to Lane, and then to Javier, I don’t know how. It got Javier to break the wards, but I managed to complete the exorcism before it could do much more.”
The Keeper shot her a look of respect, then closed her eyes, probably doing a sweep with her Demonsense. Bree was relieved she didn’t have to be the one to do it. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to stand up much longer, let alone use any more power tonight.
Kevin was sitting up now, and he sobbed into Daniel’s arms. “I tried, I tried so hard, Daniel,” he moaned out between sobs. Bree realized that the sooner Steve got out here, the better this would go for Kevin, so she went and fetched him. Steve’s face was streaked with tear tracks, but he had himself under control. He looked more determined than scared as she led him out into the living room. She was proud of him as he took Daniel’s place and told Kevin over and over that it wasn’t his fault.
Daniel approached her with a cautious look and stopped a careful two feet away. “You need to eat. Food first, and then sleep.”
Bree nodded and followed him into the kitchen, washed her hands, and sat at the breakfast bar. Daniel pulled sandwich fixings out of the fridge and he was halfway into making a roast beef sandwich when Bree registered what he was doing. “Sorry, I’m a vegetarian. Just give me the bread,” Bree told him, but he shook his head.
“I’m sure we can do better than that.” He rustled around in the fridge until he came up with some leftover Pad Thai. He picked the chicken out of it and heated it up in the microwave for her. Bree slowly ate it, as well as two slices of buttered bread he put in front of her. He was silent as he munched through the sandwich he’d started to make her, then irritated her by slamming things around the kitchen as he cleaned up. He knocked over a glass of water and dropped a knife onto the floor with a clatter as he went. By rights he should be dragging, but it was clear he was wound up, even angry. And right now, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Javier came in about ten minutes later. His hair was carefully combed into place, and his face had been washed, but there was no hiding the strain in his expression. She was surprised he could stand up.
“No demon sign,” he said. “The exorcism was successful.” He was carefully looking somewhere between Bree and Daniel.
Bree knew she should clear the air with him somehow, maybe apologize for what she’d said during the exorcism, but her brain just wouldn’t bring the words to mind.
“I called in the description of Hunter. Keepers are already monitoring some of the known Keltoi locations. I’ll take some of Hunter’s things, and we'll do what we can with a finder spell.”
“Steve said he had on the locater amulet Daniel gave him,” Bree finally responded, but Daniel shook his head.
“He knew the spell, and I would have felt something by now if he'd used it. It’s most likely they found it and took it off him.”
Bree’s heart sank. She hadn’t realized how much she was counting on the amulet. She was missing hers. Franchesca probably still had it.
“A finder spell is far more likely to work if it’s done by someone with a connection to Hunter,” Daniel argued. “It should be me.”
“It would be safest if you did no further working until your taint is cleared. I assume you picked it up in having contact with Kevin after he was possessed. And I won’t have anyone to spare to do it until at least tomorrow. Besides, as you well know, a finder spell has only a very outside chance of working given that it was apparently high powered Keltoi who took him. I’m sure they'll have adequate defenses against such spells.”
“It can’t hurt,” Daniel replied impatiently. “If I can just get some of my things at my place…”
“Out of the question,” Javier replied, looking directly at Daniel for the first time. “It’s clear the Keltoi still want you, and I don’t have people to spare to go with you and protect you. Our resources are better spent elsewhere right now.”
“I don’t recall asking for your protection,” Daniel returned. He took a step closer to Javier as he spoke. Bree felt a male dominance battle winding up between the two men.
“Whether you asked for it or not, you hardly serve our cause if you’re taken by the Keltoi,” Javier returned. “We have information that a major action is going down soon, and between preparing for that and the recent increase in possessions, my people are spread thin and hurting. I don't need you making their job more difficult.”
“What I’m planning would make it easier! For God’s sake, Ortiz, I’m hardly a civilian. Let me help!”
“Perhaps tomorrow, when your taint is clear, and your base energy is recovered,
if
I have personnel to spare.”
“Do you really want to leave Hunter with these people one second longer than necessary?” Daniel's face reddened in anger. Bree had seen him in a number of stressful situations, and she’d never seen him like this. Granted, she didn’t know him well, but her sense of him was that he didn’t lose control easily. He moved closer to Javier, and he was radiating readiness for a physical confrontation. She wondered if it was the taint pushing him over the edge, or the stress of his confrontation with Franchesca. She found herself agreeing with Javier that Daniel wasn’t in good shape to do a working.
“No one wants that, Daniel,” she interrupted. “I know you’re a good Caster, and of course you should try the spell. But Javier’s right that you need the taint cleared first. I could probably do the taint myself tomorrow. With any luck, Hunter will be found before then anyway.”
Javier shot her a grateful look, then continued before Daniel could respond. “We have a safe house that you and Bree can stay at tonight, and for the next couple days if need be. There’s only a couple of hours until morning in any case.”
"The next couple of days?" Now it was Bree's turn to get upset. "I'm not staying in some safe house for the next couple of days, not with Hunter missing. There has to be some way I can help in the search for him!"
Daniel crossed his arms. "I'm with her."
Javier frowned and regarded each of them closely, clearly reading them. "You do realize both of you are dangerously low on base energy? You won't be in the position to help Hunter if you die."
"Oh come on," Bree started to protest, but Javier interrupted her.
"Go ahead and read each other if you don't believe me."
Bree had a stubborn impulse to refuse, but she knew Javier was good at energy reading, so he was probably right. She tried to call up her Reader sense to double check, then winced at the lance of pain that went straight into her forehead at the effort. She swayed, and Daniel put a hand under her elbow to steady her.
"I've seen Keepers up and talking one moment, only to drop dead the next when they've overused their power," Javier pressed. "Thorvaldson, I'm sure you've seen it as well. And you're in even worse shape than Bree right now. Now both of you, just please do as I say for tonight. I promise you'll be kept updated on events, and I will personally check in with you tomorrow."
It was hard to swallow, but Bree could see the sense in Javier's request, and apparently Daniel did as well, because the aggression went out of him. They both agreed to go to the safe house for the night.
The Keeper who had been outside with Daniel, introduced simply as ‘Chen’, was assigned to drive them there. Chen had been questioning Kevin, who reported he had no information at all about where they might have taken Hunter. He simply didn't have enough time with the demon to get any feel for that at all. Both he and Steve looked absolutely ravaged, and Bree gave them each a long, hard hug goodbye.
She fell asleep in the car and awoke only when they arrived at the safe house and Chen shook her awake. It was an older contemporary style house, probably from the seventies, wood and big expanses of glass, surrounded by tall Douglas fir trees that were swaying and rustling in a brisk off shore breeze. Bree could just make out a glimmer of light from another house through the trees, but otherwise, the setting was very private. Chen told her the house backed onto Carkeek Park, and being fairly close to home struck her as a comfort.