Page 9 of Demon Unleashed

5

“Something’s up,” Enya said, and looked at her colleagues, who were all assembled in the great room, which sported a huge sectional with seating for at least ten, an oversized TV mounted on the wall, and was adjacent to the kitchen, where her colleagues’ mates were chatting and preparing the evening meal. “I can feel it in my gut.” She paced back and forth.

“Can’t you just enjoy the calm for a while?” Hamish asked. “It doesn’t happen every week that we don’t have to rush to a demon sighting and kick their butts.”

Enya tossed him an annoyed look. “Doesn’t that worry you?” She looked at Logan, who was flicking through the channels. “Logan? Anybody?”

Logan stopped his channel surfing for a moment and looked at her. “What do you want, Enya? Don’t you need a break from time to time? I sure do. So, enjoy the fact that the demons have been quiet this week. Relax. Recharge.” He glanced at Winter, a psychic, who instantly met his look. “Do something fun.”

“Pfff!” Enya scoffed. Easy for Logan to say. The way he looked at his wife right now, it wasn’t hard to guess what he meant by fun. She ripped her gaze from him, sick of the lovey-dovey exchange she had to witness. Instead, she walked up to Manus, who was lounging in one of the large armchairs, and slapped him on the shoulder.

Manus whipped his head to her. “What?”

“Have you been listening at all?” she asked.

He motioned to the TV. “What now? Come on, Enya, I just wanna watch the boxing match if Logan can find the damn channel.” He cast his friend an impatient look.

“I’m on it,” Logan said, and continued flicking through the channels.

“There are more important things than boxing matches on TV,” Enya scolded him. “Aren’t you worried that the demons are planning something big, and that’s why we haven’t gotten a glimpse of them in the last week?”

“Like Hamish said, enjoy the fact that it’s quiet,” Manus said calmly. “Why are you so antsy? Haven’t you kicked enough demon ass in the last few months?”

“Give her a break, Manus,” Aiden interrupted.

Surprised that at least one of her colleagues seemed to be taking her side, Enya looked at Aiden. He’d changed a lot over the last few years. Now a father of six-year-old twins, he showed a lot more patience with his colleagues, and had lost a lot of his hotheadedness. His mate Leila had a lot to do with it. She was human and had been a scientist who’d discovered a drug to reverse Alzheimer’s. Aiden had been assigned to protect her after it had become clear that the demons wanted the drug because it made humans more susceptible to their influence. The drug had to be destroyed and Leila had to go into hiding so the demons couldn’t capture her and force her to recreate the drug for them. It had all worked out in the end—because Aiden had fallen in love with his charge, and she was now living in the Stealth Guardians’ secret (and invisible) compound in Baltimore.

“Listen, Enya,” Aiden continued, “if there’s really something big brewing, then there would be reports from other compounds too, and so far, we haven’t heard anything unusual, have we, Pearce?”

Pearce, their resident IT genius responsible for communications, nodded. “All other compounds report the usual level of demon activity. Nothing less, nothing more. I filed our weekly report this morning.”

“And?” Enya asked eagerly.

He shrugged. “Neither the Council of Nine nor any of the other compounds contacted me to ask questions. Nobody is concerned that we’ve had a quiet week for a change.”

“Yeah, but what if they’re wrong? What if something is up?” Enya asked. She’d always trusted her gut, and her gut was telling her that the absence of demons in Baltimore was a bad omen. “After Zoltan’s last defeat, do you really think he’s sitting on his hands, doing nothing?”

“Of course not,” Pearce said tersely. “I’m sure having lost possession of the source dagger must have stung. Can’t have helped him prove to his demons that he’s the right leader.” He cast a look at Daphne, his mate, who’d been instrumental in snatching the valuable dagger from Zoltan’s claws. “And getting his ass kicked by a woman with his demons watching… Well, I’m sure he’s still doing damage control in the Underworld.”

Hamish nodded. “Pearce is right. There’ve been persistent rumors from the Underworld that Zoltan’s reign is anything but cemented. He’s got other things to worry about than terrorizing Baltimore.”

Enya braced her hands at her hips. “Let’s assume you’re right. Let’s assume Zoltan is indeed in the middle of a power struggle or fighting off other demons vying for his throne. Well, put yourselves in his shoes. What would you do to accomplish that?” She let her gaze wander over her colleagues. “Anybody?”

There was silence, then Aiden spoke up. “We’re not in Zoltan’s shoes. Demons aren’t like us. They think differently. Their actions often make no sense. They’re irrational, impulsive, uncoordinated. That’s why we’ve been able to defeat them so far.”

“The grunts, maybe,” Enya admitted. “But not Zoltan. He thinks like us. He’s outsmarted us plenty of times. Take the source dagger, for example. He found it when it had been lost for centuries. It took him less than six months from the day he found out about its significance until he blew up the safe it had been in. Don’t underestimate him. He was able to do something that our entire race was incapable of: finding the source dagger.”

“Yes, he found the dagger, but we are in possession of it now,” Pearce said. “Thanks to Daphne.”

From the kitchen, Daphne called out, “What are you thanking me for?”

“For saving my life with the source dagger.”

Enya tried to shake off the memory of what had happened only months earlier, when Pearce had been mortally wounded during a fight with the demons in which each side had tried to gain possession of the source dagger, the ancient artefact that made it possible to create portals the Stealth Guardians used to teleport from one location to another. But the source dagger also possessed another power—to reverse a mortal wound and save a person’s life. Daphne’s swift and brave action to snatch the dagger from the demons and use it on Pearce had saved his life.

Daphne came closer and winked at Pearce. “I believe you already thanked me plenty for it.” She put her hand over her slightly rounded stomach. Her bump was barely visible, but everybody at the compound knew of Daphne’s pregnancy. Pearce had been unable to keep the news to himself and announced it shortly after a pregnancy test had confirmed it. And she wasn’t the only one at the compound who was pregnant. Winter was also expecting her first child with her mate Logan. It was as if the condition was contagious.

“So what’s all the talk about the source dagger?” Daphne asked.