I picked at receipts and other notes scattered on the dresser. “I’ve seen her house. I’m not sure you made a wise decision.”
“Why are you here, Dutch?”
His brusqueness pricked. He was really having issues with me lately. One minute he wanted to pull me into his arms, and the next he wanted me out of his sight. Fine, I’d give him the message and leave him to it. I holstered Margaret and said, “Hedeshi says hello.”
Every emotion in him fled instantly, like he was a roiling ocean growing completely calm in a matter of seconds.
After a long, drawn-out silence, he asked, “Did he hurt you?”
“No. We had a very nice conversation, in fact. And he helped me win a year’s supply of sweet rolls, but I gave it to Iggy.”
“What did he say?”
“Oh, you know, he talked about the boys back home, the fact that he wanted to rip out my jugular and drink my blood, your father’s plan to take over the world.”
He looked to the side in thought. “I knew there had to be someone behind this. It’s too organized. Too well thought out.”
“Well, he wants you to know if you’ll stop hunting them, they’ll leave me alone, allow me to die of natural causes.” I scoffed. “Like that’s going to happen.”
I saw him clench and unclench his fists. “They’re liars, Dutch. Each and every one. They would lie when the truth would sound better. They have no intention of leaving you alone, no matter what I do.” He took the bottle, and just before downing a swig, he said, “They want you more than they want their next breath.”
“I figured as much, but why didn’t he just kill me then? Why go through all the theatrics?”
“Hedeshi isn’t stupid,” he said after putting the bottle back. “He knows he can’t fight your guardian. He has no defense against her. The moment he attacked, she would have been on him, and he knew it. They will have to attack in a group to get past Artemis.” His lips softened as he examined me. “He upset you.” It wouldn’t have been hard for him to pick up on that. Probably the minute I drove into the parking lot.
“Only a little.” When he didn’t say anything, I asked, “You’ve been hunting them? Is that who hurt you?”
He examined his bandages. “They’re very strong.”
“I could tell. You broke that man’s neck, and he still came after me.” I ran my fingers along the chipped edge of the dresser I was leaning against. “How is that possible?”
“As long as they’re inside, they make the human body almost indestructible. Once they vacate that body, it will die if it has been mortally wounded.”
The last time demons had escaped onto this plane, there were hundreds of them. There was no way Reyes could fight them all, even with Artemis’s help. “Do you know how many are here?”
“Not many,” he said with a shrug. “And there aren’t that many people who are genuinely clairvoyant.”
“So, you know who they’re targeting?”
“Yes.”
“And, what? You’re going to kill them all?”
He raked his fingers through his hair, exasperated. “To stop a war between heaven and hell from spilling out into this world? Yes.”
He had a point, but still. “Reyes, you can’t kill these people.”
“I just need to kill the demons inside, but sometimes the human has to be sacrificed to obtain that goal.”
“Well, then stop.” I pulled a chair out across from him and sat down. My eyes were adjusting and I could just make out the sensual line of his lips, the fringe of his thick lashes, the frame of mussed hair. His wide shoulders were bare, and duct tape shimmered over one of them and across his abdomen. No bandages. No gauze. Just duct tape. How sanitary could that be? “You can’t kill innocent people.”
“That man last night wasn’t innocent, if it makes you feel better.”
“Sadly,” I said, curious about what the man had done, “it does, but only a little.” I rubbed my arms, still fighting off the effects of my encounter with the Englishman. “What happened?” I asked, nodding toward the tape.
He took the bottle of whiskey again and downed about a third of what was left before replacing the cap. “I was mugged,” he said after wiping his mouth on the back of a hand.
As he’d said before, it was doubtful a human could do that to him, but I dropped it. He was never one to share with the class anyway.
He lifted a gray T-shirt off the back of another chair and pulled it on with great care. When he settled back, it took a lot for me not to sigh aloud. He looked really good in gray.
“I thought it was almost impossible for demons to get onto this plane.”
“It is. These are left over from our last encounter.”
A jolt of surprise shot through me. “You mean from when they had you in that basement?” I had destroyed them then. The light inside me proved a powerful weapon. “There were more?”
“They’re like cockroaches. Once they escape onto this plane, they can hide for centuries as long as they stay out of the light.”
He’d told me before, they’d been banished from the sun when his father was cast from the heavens. It was now lethal to them.
“They weren’t all in that basement, but most of them were. Still, this is organized. Way more organized than anything the lesser brethren would be capable of. I’m not surprised Hedeshi is behind it. He was always such a suck-up.”