Page 16 of Wayward Daughter

I was also near certain if I spilled my guts about my mother, I still wasn’t getting access to that diary and these assholes might try to hunt me next.

“Listen, Logan. I am not a fan of taking my team on jobs that could get us killed. I didn’t want to be at that house like that. I was threatened and I don’t like being threatened. I’m also not a relic who refuses to listen to any new information. I’m listening. Let me manage the bishop, but let’s work together on this. Just stop flirting with my priests,” Caleb said.

I started choking on my beignet and blew powdered sugar all over Caleb’s black suit.

“You’re really bad at women if you think that was flirting and not me reacting to you being annoying as fuck.”

Caleb casually brushed the white powder off his suit.

“Be that as it may, we’ve had several priests take it that way. And you did spank me,” he said, clearing his throat.

“That was not a kinky spank or an invitation. I was hoping you’d run away in terror so I could get the demon out of that guy. I’ll be more clear I don’t like you if we ever end up on the same job again.”

“You like me though, right?” Saul asked, sipping his coffee abomination.

“You’re currently on my shit list for not stopping when my dog was trying to play with the werewolves.”

“Sorry, but your dog obliterated those werewolves and he can’t be more than thirty pounds. And beignets can’t be good for him,” Solomon said.

I glared at Saul, daring him to out Pan’s secret. He just kept sipping his coffee until the straw made that annoying noise when the liquid gets too low. The bastard cocked an eyebrow at me.

“He just stopped three werewolves from eating you. Clearly, the beignets are paying off.”

I was kind of missing when Solomon didn’t talk to me.

“Touche. Look, the bishop in charge of Venatio Daemonum is a relic. He’s hardcore into doing everything by the book and isn’t open to hearing what you’re trying to tell us. We are open to hearing it and Caleb is vying for his job when he retires. If you want things to change with Venatio Daemonum, we’re going to be how you do it.”

“Mm-hmm, you’ve basically muscled in on all my jobs and been turds about not listening before.”

“Logan, not listening to you would have gotten us killed. I believe in our methods, but we were vastly outnumbered. We’re listening now. Also, whoever this Yellow King is, I have a feeling they are why that house was so dangerous and that witch mentioned you specifically.”

Motherfucker. I couldn’t pass that off as the witch just threatening all of us in general because I heard someone say that name the night my mother went missing. And Rainer had been digging into the lore books for thirty years and I joined the search once he thought I was old enough. All we’d found about the Yellow King was a collection of short stories by a fiction writer.

I didn’t know what that nun’s diary said, but it was information I didn’t have before and I couldn’t get unless I worked with these guys.

“We’re picking a safe word. One of us says it and everyone stops and listens. That goes for me too.”

The LeDoux girl really needed to think about how she displayed her hatred. I could see where my priests had taken it for flirting and got confused, but she also spanked me and called me Daddy. Which was also confusing for me, but I wouldn’t have run out the room screaming.

We all listened as she told us about the night her mother went missing when she was seven. She said her mother was a teacher, and it was a completely normal night. Her mother told her if she practiced her reading for the night, they could watch a movie before bed.

Logan’s mother was raised in the Flame, but chose not to take up the torch. She knew about magic and monsters. Logan said her uncle taught her about the ways to protect a house and notify its residents if a supernatural was getting revenge. I needed to ask about that because we could use it.

It was how her mother knew to hide her in a trap door in the floor. Louisiana homes didn’t have basements and a lot of the houses were raised because of the flooding. Her mother might not have taken up monster hunting, but she had a secret compartment built into the floor just in case.

Logan hadn’t known about it until she was given a dagger, shoved into it, and told not to make a sound. She said there were herbs and salt in there she typically used when she was dealing with monsters that her uncle taught her about later.

She was keeping a secret. I believed her when she said she couldn’t see what happened after she was underneath the floor. I was also raised by a single mother. I knew a mama bear would fiercely defend her cub, but I also knew even Saul would have trouble fighting off that many people.

She was protecting someone. I was guessing they were supernatural, and it was because of the Church’s stance on them. I believed it, but I was starting to doubt. She refused to let us inside this establishment because a supernatural ran it. Nothing demonic happened while we sat outside and talked. The food and coffee were delicious.

She could tell us if she was ever ready.

We needed a plan. I couldn’t bring her into the rectory. The common priest wouldn’t know ghosts, vampires, and shifters were real, but they did believe in demons. Logan was fairly well known to Venatio Daemonum because we ended up on the same jobs and she was antagonistic to all of us, not just my team. It would be rude of me to ask if she had a similar reaction to all priests now that we were kind of on the same side.

“We need a place where Solomon can translate the diary and share information and maybe we can take a look at your texts too. A lot of our Esoteric texts were digitized a few years ago to protect the books. We’ve got the originals and the translations. I see no reason why you shouldn’t have access to them if we are reading your texts too.

“I can already tell you I’m going to have to give a report to the bishop when I get back. I won’t lie about what happened at that house, but I am going to omit this entire meeting until I feel like it needs to be known. If it ever needs to be known.