“And then?”
“A day, a week, a month later, there they’d be. They’d look just like everyone else, but as soon as I saw them I remembered and for just an instant I could see the demon they tried to hide.”
Interesting. Most seers heard a voice or had a dream. But I’d yet to meet one who could peer past the mask and see the truth. And most seers just saw. DKs fought. Until the recent heavy losses of federation life had changed everything, I’d been the first one who was both.
“What are you?” I asked
“I’m Bram.”
“Not who. What?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your parents. Could they do anything . . . freaky?”
He straightened. “No! I’m not one of them.” His mouth curled in horror.
I kind of thought he was; he just didn’t know it yet. Though after the initial ripple at his approach, I hadn’t felt anything else. No buzz of a Nephilim, no hum of a breed. Which was downright strange.
I reached out, brushed his arm with my fingertips. “Never mind,” I soothed.
Once I’d have been able to touch him and hear a whisper revealing what he was. Now I touched him and felt his fear, his loneliness, his hatred of the Nephilim. I caught flashes of battles, glimpses of near misses, glances of victories, but I heard nothing beyond the harsh rasp of his breath.
I was going to get rid of this demon inside me even if I had to rip the thing out myself.
Bram withdrew his arm. “What are you?”
My eyes searched his. “What do you think I am?”
His gaze wandered over me, from my increasingly shaggy dark brown hair, to the jeweled collar around my neck, touching on the tip of the phoenix wing that curled over my shoulder just a bit. There was nothing odd about a girl my age having a tat at the nape of her neck. However, Bram’s expression made me think he had an inkling of what it might be for.
He continued to examine me, peering at the turquoise that rested between my very nice breasts. The flush that crept over his cheeks as he moved on made me wonder how long he’d been out of the priesthood.
“Bram?” I asked. “What do you think I am?”
His gaze returned to mine. His pupils were dilated so large they blotted out the dark blue shade of his eyes. I reared back before I could stop myself. He looked so demony, I half expected him to reach over and yank out my throat.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I think you could be anything.”
How right he was.
CHAPTER 16
“There are others like you,” I said. A tiny white lie.
I didn’t know of anyone quite like Bram. But that didn’t make him any less one of us. There was no one like me, either, but that just made me the leader of this whole damn mess.
“Do you see the demons?” he asked.
“I—uhh—” Did. But if I told him why I didn’t anymore, he’d only try to kill me. “I’m what we call a DK, or demon killer.”
I was. That just wasn’t all I was.
Quickly I explained the federation and how we worked. “I think you should join us,” I said.
“I’m not much of a joiner anymore.”
“Since you left the priesthood?”
Bram’s gaze shifted away. “I didn’t exactly leave.”
“Thrown out?”
“No.”
“You’re AWOL?”
He gave his almost-smile. “I left, and I didn’t go back, but I don’t think they care. I’m sure they excommunicated me as soon as they realized I was gone.”
“Excommunicated? Why?”
“I—well—you see . . . there was this dream, and in it there was a man, but he wasn’t a man.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“He was a priest.”
Uh-oh.
“A monsignor to be exact.”
“What did he do?”
Bram’s eyes met mine. “Terrible things.”
“What did you do?”
“Went to the bishop, but I couldn’t explain why I knew what I knew.”
I’d gotten myself into all sorts of trouble as a kid by telling people what I’d “seen” when I’d touched them. Eventually, I’d stopped sharing—until Ruthie had convinced me that my curse was in fact a gift from God.
“Because you couldn’t explain,” I said, “they didn’t believe.”
“But I kept dreaming, and the more time that passed, the worse the dreams became. So I—” He took a deep breath, then blurted, “—stabbed him.”
I liked his initiative.
“Let me guess,” I said. “He didn’t die.”
“Stabbing wasn’t the way to kill him.”
“How did you find out what was?” I couldn’t believe that his dreams weren’t clueing him in. Seemed a little half-assed to me. But so much did.
“He was in pain, a little out of it. Said he’d done nothing but what an incubus had to do to survive.”
“Moron,” I muttered.
“He thought I was powerless. That I wouldn’t have the guts to try again.”
“But you weren’t powerless, and you did have the guts.”