Demon Down, page 5
part #4 of Xoe Meyers Series
I'd lied when I'd spoken about Chase's feelings for me. I was pretty sure that he did in fact have them. I might have had a few feelings myself, and it was making my head spin more than anything else that was going on. While I was unsure about my feelings for Chase, I knew for a fact that I loved Jason, and shouldn't have been thinking about Chase or his pretty little girlfriend at all.
On that train of thought, I also made a promise to myself to not be jealous of Josie. Just because I had a bad first impression of her, didn't mean I actually knew anything about her or her relationship with Chase.
What it all came down to was that Josie was none of my business. I had enough business of my own to attend to anyhow. Of course, the hardest part of any type of business is minding your own.
5
While we were busy with our dramatic issues of the heart, or what-have-you, my dad had concocted a plan. Kind of. Jason and I were still sitting on the bed when he'd found us. He made a beeline for the alchemy table as soon as he entered the room. Jason and I rose and looked over his shoulders while he deftly began mixing herbs and powders together.
The thing he had been looking for in all of the kitchen cabinets was a recipe book, and not the kind for food either. The book that he scanned with his fingertips as he measured out different substances looked ancient, and was written in a language I had never seen before.
He threw the last pinch of powder into the large metal pot, then turned to me. “Fire please.”
“Why can't you do it?” I asked, feeling crabby.
My dad sighed. “It's good practice.”
“I've had enough practice,” I groaned.
My dad huffed. “Humor me.”
I took a deep breath and rolled my shoulders a few times to relieve some tension. With how on edge I was, making a fire should have been easy, but I was just too distracted. I forced my brain to be silent and walked through the visualization I always did in my head before using my powers. The visualization was finally starting to become second nature to me, and didn't take nearly as long as it had in the beginning. As I opened my eyes, a flame flashed into existence in the pot.
Without a word of thanks my dad stirred the contents of the pot with a long metal spoon. Next he grabbed a large vial of dark liquid and poured it into the pot, extinguishing the flame I'd just created. He stirred the contents again, then used a small metal funnel to pour the resulting liquid into a clean glass vial.
He stood and handed the vial to me with pride. “You'll need to drink this before bed tonight. Every last drop, and no spitting it out,” he warned.
I took the tiny vial and examined its contents, not liking the idea that he thought I'd want to spit it out. “I don't think I'll be thirsty,” I decided, then asked, “What's it supposed to do?”
My dad smiled proudly. “It's to help you to dream. You're going to find my mother.”
“Like heck I am!” I exclaimed. “I told you I don't want to have any more prophetic dreams. They're always about bad things, and we so have enough bad things to deal with already.”
“This won't be a prophetic dream,” he assured. “It's more of a . . . tracking dream. You'll be able to travel between realms, not physically of course. Think of it like astral projection. Your body will remain here, while a part of you searches the other planes. You will use the ring to find her. Rings like that always want to return to their owners.”
“This seems dangerous,” Jason said as he pulled me close to him, “and it could ultimately be fruitless.”
My dad ignored him, and spoke to me instead. “It's not dangerous. You will only be there mentally. When you wake up, you'll still be safe in your bed. Nothing can harm you as long as we have your body.”
“Why can't you do it?” I asked. “I've never even met your mother. She won't know who I am.”
“I don't have any talent in premonition or dream-walking. The two go hand in hand. If you can do one, you should be able to do the other,” he answered.
“She still won't know who I am,” I pressed.
My dad rolled his eyes. “You're well aware that we have a strong family resemblance. I'm quite sure that she'll recognize you for who you are. Appearance-wise, you could easily pass for her sister.”
“Except slightly younger, of course,” I countered.
My dad's face gave away the fact that he was beginning to lose patience with me. It was a look that I'd become accustomed to. “Most immortals stop aging at some point. Some take longer than others, but your grandmother looks the same age as I do.”
Considering that my dad looked around 35, and a well-maintained 35, I really probably could pass for my grandmother's sister. The thought was unnerving, to say the least. It would be strange to have a family photo together . . . not that such a thing was likely to happen.
“And what am I supposed to do with my grandmother when I find her?” I asked weakly. “She's obviously not terribly concerned with our lives. Why would she even help us?”
“She will help us simply to keep her line from dying out,” he replied. “She has no interest in my life, because she has been assured that my continued survival is not an issue. So, you will find her and ask her to teach you how to create a portal. If you can create a portal, we can free Bart. Him being out of his lair and in the human world will level the playing field. It would take him time to learn how to use his powers in the new environment. We would be able to defeat him.”
My knees felt weak. I sat down in my dad's vacated chair and looked up at him. “Say this all works, and I'm somehow able to make a portal. Bart has to know that we don't want him running free, which means he'll be expecting an attack. He'll have a plan.”
“But he does not know the difference between magic here, and magic in the human world,” my dad countered. “It takes time to develop the same skills in the human world that come so easily to us underground.”
“Fine,” I answered, out of arguments. If dream-walking was as safe as he claimed, we had nothing to lose in trying. Plus I had to admit, the prospect of meeting my demon grandmother was more than a little intriguing.
“It is not fine,” Jason argued. “This whole plan is insane.”
My dad and I both looked at him like he was being silly. Jason scoffed. “And if you figure out how to open portals, what then?” he asked. “The other demons are foaming at the mouth just at the possibility.”
“They won't need to know,” my dad replied. “As soon as Bart is free, I'll kill him. There will be no one else to speak of portal making. In fact, without Bart's gossip spurring other demons into action, they will move on with their lives and find other things to focus upon.”
“Plus,” I added, “if I can make portals, then I'll easily be able to escape any demons that try to get their hands on me.”
My dad nodded his agreement excitedly.
Jason's mouth hung open, but he didn't offer any further argument. It seemed things were settled. There was a moment of silence, then my stomach spoke up. The ice cream hadn't been terribly filling, and I was running on empty.
I turned back to my dad. “How does one acquire dinner in the demon underworld?” I asked.
My dad smiled. “One orders out.”He turned on his heel and left the room, presumably to place a food order.
“I don't like this Xoe,” Jason said as soon as my father had left.
“I'll tell you what,” I soothed. I rubbed my hands up and down his arms in an attempt to ease his nerves. “You can stay next to me while I sleep. If it seems like I'm panicking or something isn't going right, you can just wake me up.”
“And what if you don't wake up?” he countered.
“Then my dad will know what to do,” I assured, though I wasn't actually entirely sure of that fact.
Jason nodded, but he obviously still wasn't happy with the situation. He seemed like he was about to say more, but then he turned his head as if listening to something in the distance. “Someone is here,” he noted.
He had probably heard the front door. Vampire hearing is creepy. “Are you sure it wasn't my dad leaving to get food?”
Jason shook his head. “I can hear him talking to your mother.”
I found myself wondering how many of my conversations Jason had overheard over the time we'd been together. The thought upped the creepy factor of his supernatural hearing more than a little.
“Let's go see,” I said, needing to do something other than stand there.
Jason followed me out of the room, through the kitchen, and to the front door. Allison had answered it, which she wasn't supposed to do. We were trying to keep it on the down-low that we had brought a human and a vampire to the underground, and having the human answer the front door was a tad counterproductive.
Standing outside of the doorway trying to talk their way in were Josie and another demon. At least, I assumed he was a demon since he was walking around freely in the demon underground. I glared around Allison's back at Josie's smiling face. Maybe no one should have answered the door at all.
Josie was now dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a long-sleeve shirt with horizontal black and white stripes. I wasn't sure why she'd changed when she'd only been gone for a short while. I had to admit that the new outfit was slightly more becoming than the last. Maybe she wanted to impress Chase.
The boy beside her was about Max's height, which was pretty short. He looked vaguely like Josie, only with light brown hair instead of red, and pale blue eyes instead of green. He wore all black, and it suited his demeanor. He didn't look terribly interested in the conversation that Allison and Josie were having.
Allison turned to me and Jason when she realized we had entered the room. “They say they're here to see Chase . . . again. Were we expecting any visitors?” What she meant was, do I have permission to be completely catty to this girl, simply based on the fact that she's dating Chase, and we don't like new people, because we don't like change?
I rubbed at a spot of tension between my eyes. “Hi Josie,” I said begrudgingly. “I'll get Chase for you.” Then I walked away.
I really wasn't trying to be rude. Okay, I wasn't trying to be that rude. I honestly didn't know if my dad wanted extra visitors. We were after-all trying to keep everything we were doing a secret. Inviting guests along for the ride didn't seem like the best way to do that.
Jason waited with Allison and the visitors while I went in search of Chase. I checked a few empty rooms before I finally found him lying on a bed in a room at the very end of the hall.
Many of the rooms in my dad's house were non-descript, and probably didn't even serve as bedrooms on a day-to-day basis. This one was different. It was very . . . lived in. It seemed that Chase had been given a room in my dad's house quite a while ago. It made sense I suppose. I knew he didn't have a house or apartment of his own, even though he's twenty-two.
The room didn't have much in the way of décor, but there was a sturdy wooden desk with books strewn about, as well as a dresser with several drawers left open. Unfolded clothes peeked out of the drawers, begging to be ironed.
Chase was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. He turned his head to look at me as I stood awkwardly in the doorway. “You can come in,” he said apathetically.
I stepped into the room at his invitation, but didn't go any farther. “Josie and another demon are at the door. I'm not sure if my dad wants people over, so . . . ”
Chase looked back up at the ceiling. “It's probably her brother, Verril,” he commented, but didn't get up. His slight accent made the name Verril sound strange. I was so used to hearing Chase speak that I didn't think about his accent much. He'd never told me where he was born or how he acquired it. He never really told me anything about his past period.
I sighed. “Well they're your . . . friends. So you should probably come and see to them and convince them that we don't have a human and a vampire staying down here with us, even though the human in question answered the door.”
Chase rolled out of bed and walked right past me. Not even so much as a thank you. I hesitated for a moment, then stomped after him. I briefly considered throwing a fireball at his back, then decided not to be petty.
“It's none of your business what I am,” I heard Allison say as I neared the room. Crap, they were figuring it out. Demons don't have a supernatural sense of smell like werewolves, so we can't instantly tell what type of supernatural a person is right away. We can, on the other hand, somewhat sense when someone isn't a demon.
“There you are,” Josie said as her attention turned from Allison to Chase. Jason was standing back in the corner, far enough to stay out of the argument, but close enough to protect Allison if she needed it.
Chase glanced at me before he walked over to Josie. “I told you it's not really a good time,” he told her. “I have a lot of things to do for Alexondre.”
Josie rolled her eyes. “Let me handle Alexondre. I've missed you. I won't take no for an answer.”
She pushed her way past Allison and walked into the house. I gave Chase a you deal with it look, grabbed Allison, and went into the kitchen with Jason bringing up the rear.
“What on earth is going on in there?” My dad asked as we appeared. He had a phone cradled against his cheek, and dozens of take-out menus in his hands.
Josie barged into the kitchen behind us. “Just order pizza,” she said. “It's the easiest thing with all of these random people around here.”
“Speaking of random people,” I began, but stopped at a glare from Chase as he entered the kitchen as well.
Verril walked in behind Chase and went to lean silently against the far wall. Apparently we were having a party. Fun fun.
“Josie, this isn't the best time,” my dad said slowly as he tried very hard to keep his expression friendly.
“I haven't been around in months,” she whined. “And it seems like no one is even happy to see me.”
I was liking her less and less. I had the urge to tell her that she was right, and that no one was happy to see her, but held my tongue. I'd been doing that a lot lately, and it rankled.
My dad took a deep breath. I was pretty sure he was counting to ten. “Pizza it is,” he said finally. He handed the phone to Chase. He looked around for a moment more, then announced, “I'm going to go check on Libby.”
I watched my dad leave. He was the last person my mom would want checking on her, but voicing my opinion would do no good now. It was probably a lie anyhow, since Jason had heard them talking when he had actually gone to check on her a few minutes before.
Chase dialed a number into the phone without looking at any of the takeout menus, and waited while it rang. Apparently he knew the number for pizza by heart. As Chase ordered, I wondered if our delivery guy or gal would look like a human, or if we'd receive our pizza from another giant lobster or some other form of fish-person. Would they be offended if we ordered anchovies?
Josie entwined her arm with Chase's and hung off of him while he placed the order. She looked like a teenage girl enamored with her first crush. I seriously hoped I didn't look like that when I was around Jason.
“Thirty minutes,” Chase announced as he hung up the phone. He appeared more than a little uncomfortable with Josie being at his side, but he didn't pull away from her either. He caught me watching them and stared back at me defiantly. I glared right back. Glaring contests are kind of my thing.
Since there was no dining room table, Josie and Verril began pulling stools up to the large kitchen counter. The rest of us watched them silently. Personally I was considering just taking a few slices of pizza to eat in my room.
“I've told your dad a million times to buy a proper table,” Josie said looking at me. “I used to eat dinner over here almost every night . . . well the nights when Chase wasn't out watching over you-”
I was pretty sure she had hoped to surprise me with the information that Chase had been watching me from afar long before we met, but she failed on that point. Chase had already told me. It wasn't anything weird.
Sometimes when my dad wasn't available to check on me, he would send Chase in his stead. I suspected that Josie had not been a fan of Chase filling in, even if he was just following orders. Heck, I might be a little salty too if I'd had to deal with Jason checking in on another girl all of the time. Although, I would probably take it out on the guy instead of the unsuspecting girl.
I snorted, “Sorry for stealing him away so much,” I replied sarcastically. I didn't care if I was being rude. She'd started it.
Jason grabbed my hand, a reminder to not let my temper get too out of control. I couldn't burn other demons, but I could easily destroy my dad's kitchen by setting things on fire around her.
Allison sat down on one of the stools that Verril had moved, then grinned over at me, obviously enjoying the whole scene. Josie slammed the next stool down with more force than was necessary, then sat and spun on her stool to face me. “So I hear you're quite popular among werewolves,” she prompted. “A real alpha queen, or would that be alpha bi-”
“Josie!” Chase snapped, cutting her off mid-word.
I glared at Chase, who had obviously been blabbing since Josie had first come a'callin, but he raised his hands in an I didn't do it gesture. I turned back to Josie. “Says who?” I asked calmly.
Josie shrugged. “Word gets around. It's not every day a demon decides to sully herself by hanging out with dogs.” She started to spin around on her stool as if very bored with our conversation.
My first thought was that Josie was so lucky that Lucy wasn't with us, because that smug smile would have been wiped clean by now. My second thought was that I didn't like the fact that Josie had kept tabs on me. Sure word gets around, but she wouldn't have made note of it if she weren't intentionally trying to find out about me. I was about to ask again exactly how she had heard about my interactions with werewolves, but the doorbell rang.
“That was fast,” Verril commented as he glanced at the clock on the wall. It was the first time I'd heard him speak. His voice was calculated and confident, and not really what I had expected from the quiet guy sitting in the corner.
