Rogue

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

THE DEMON STARED at me with wide eyes as I took in his appearance: my height with a rounded face and curly brown hair. If it weren’t for his black eyes and the two small horns peeking through his curls, I might have mistaken him for human. That and the fact that my power was going a little berserk. What the hell was David thinking? Why hadn’t he told me he was sending me to see a demon?

Kelvan put up a hand and fear flashed across his face. He stepped back until he was pressed against the door. “You’re Mohiri... and Lycans! David, why did you send hunters into my home?” he asked shrilly, and I glimpsed tiny fangs where his canines should be.

A faint voice issued from the cell phone in his hand, and he hit the speaker button.

“Kelvan, this is my friend Sara I told you about,” said David’s familiar voice. “Sara, meet my good friend Kelvan. You’ve probably figured out that Kelvan is a vrell demon.”

I looked at Jordan, who had studied demonology a lot longer than I had. She gave a slight nod, which I assumed meant vrell demons were not dangerous.

“Hi.” I smiled at Kelvan but didn’t extend my hand. I didn’t think he would appreciate my power’s reaction to him.

“Hello,” he replied stiffly, without returning the smile.

David spoke again. “Kelvan is one of the best hackers in the business. He’s actually the one who tracked Madeline to Albuquerque.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Kelvan shifted from one foot to the other. It struck me then that he was not being unpleasant on purpose. He was genuinely afraid of us, afraid of everything if all the locks on the door were any indication.

Someone moved behind me and Kelvan’s eyes widened even further. “David vouches for you, but what about the other hunter and the wolves?”

I glanced over my shoulder at Roland who looked ready to pounce if Kelvan made one false move. Turning back to Kelvan, I said, “Are you going to try to eat us or anything equally unpleasant?”

The look of horror on his face was almost comical. “Of course not!”

“Then we’re good.” I faced my friends. “Chill out, guys.”

Roland’s jaw dropped. “But he’s a demon, Sara.”

I arched an eyebrow, and he reddened. “I didn’t mean it that way. You’re different.”

“David trusts him and so do I. Not all demons are evil, you know.”

They all stared at me like I’d sprouted my own pair of horns, and I could feel Kelvan’s eyes boring into the back of my head.

Jordan looked at Kelvan. “You see what I have to live with? Watch out or she’ll be trying to feed you blueberry muffins next.” She went to the coffee table, grabbed a National Geographic magazine, and settled down in the stuffed armchair as if she hung out in demon lairs every day.

Roland relaxed his stance, and he and Peter took the couch. He picked up the TV remote. “Hey, do you mind if we watch TV while we wait?”

“Um, sure, go ahead,” Kelvan replied weakly as if he didn’t know what to make of the strangers invading his living room.

“If you guys don’t need me anymore, I have something to take care of,” David said. He told me to contact him when I got to Albuquerque then said goodbye and hung up, leaving me standing with a nervous demon. I tried not to stare at Kelvan, but it’s not every day you meet a demon. Sure I’d seen a few, but none that were humanoid.

“David said you have a laptop and some phones for me,” I said to break the awkward silence.

Kelvan nodded and went to the far corner of the living room that served as his office. The large desk was almost impossible to see beneath the computers and multiple monitors that were mounted on stands to make room for them all. Soda bottles and Chinese takeout containers also littered the top, and he muttered an apology as he hurried to clean it up.

I took the opportunity to study the apartment. It was cluttered, but much cleaner than I’d expected based on what I’d seen of the building. Books, magazines, and newspapers lay around the living room, and the kitchen table was covered in what appeared to be model airplane pieces. There was a stereo with an actual turntable and a large stack of albums beside it. The top one was a Fleetwood Mac album, and my fingers itched to find out what others lay beneath it.

All in all, it looked like a pretty normal place, not what I’d expected a demon’s home to look like. But then, I’d never really imagined demons living among humans this way. I’d pictured them living in sewers and abandoned buildings, not in a little apartment with throw pillows and a ficus tree.

I did take note of the thick bars on the windows, and I couldn’t help but wonder who or what Kelvan was hiding from. Granted, it wasn’t the nicest part of town, but his defenses seemed a bit extreme. Maybe he was afraid someone was going to steal all his computer equipment.

“I hope you like Macs. They’re all I use, and David didn’t give me much notice.”

I turned to find Kelvan holding out a thin, silver laptop. “Wow, it’s so light,” I marveled when I took it from him. And small. This would easily fit in a backpack. “Nice!”

“It gets great battery life, and you can go a few days without charging if you don’t use it much. I got you a padded case to protect it.”

“This is great, Kelvan. Thanks.”

Kelvan smiled for the first time, and his fangs flashed again. It was a little strange to be talking computers with a guy who had fangs, but I did my best to act like it was no big deal.

He held up a small rectangular gadget. “This is a mobile hotspot and it’ll let you connect to the internet from almost anywhere. The account is not in your name, and there’s no way to trace it back to you or us. I also installed some of my own apps on the Mac that will allow you to browse the internet and make secure calls that can’t be traced to your IP. Come over to my desk and I’ll show you how to use them.”

Twenty minutes later, I closed the laptop after a crash course in how to use a Mac and Kelvan’s special software. In addition to the laptop, he gave me a bag containing four prepaid cell phones and an envelope containing five hundred dollars in cash. I tried to refuse the money, but he said it was from David, not him. When I asked him if David could afford it, Kelvin chuckled and said their clients paid generously for their services. His statement made me wonder exactly what they did for their clients and why he chose to stay in this rundown building when he could afford to live in a better neighborhood. He seemed like a nice guy, a bit shy around strangers. But then it wasn’t as if a guy with horns could go out and socialize a lot. From the look of his apartment, he didn’t have many visitors either.

I was getting to my feet when a scrawny white cat entered the living room and headed straight for Kelvan. It was easy to tell from the cat’s matted fur and staggering walk that it was unwell, and I automatically bent to pick it up. The poor creature weighed next to nothing, and it could barely manage a weak hiss in my direction.

Kelvan immediately reached for the cat. “Please, don’t hurt her.”

I was so shocked anyone would think I could harm an animal that I answered more sharply than I meant to. “Don’t be ridiculous.” I cradled the cat in my arms, my power already searching for the source of her illness. It didn’t take long to discover the tumors riddling her frail body. The poor creature would be lucky if she lived another two weeks. “She’s full of cancer. Didn’t you take her to a vet?”

His eyes widened until they looked like large black buttons. “How do you...? I took her to one of our doctors, and he said there was nothing he could do for her.” He held out his hands and I saw they were trembling. “Please, Lulu is all I have.”

I gave him a reassuring smile and sat on the couch between Roland and Peter with the cat on my lap. I had healed very sick animals before, but never one so full of cancer. I didn’t want to make any promises to Kelvan until I knew I could help Lulu. I laid both hands on her stomach and cringed as my power explored the extent of her tumors. They were so big that some of them had fused together. She should have been put to sleep weeks ago. The agony on Kelvan’s face told me he knew that, but couldn’t bring himself to part with her.

Kelvan came to stand before me, clenching his hands together. “What are you going to do to her?”

Roland stood beside him to watch me. “Dude, I think this is Lulu’s lucky day.”

“What do you mean?”

“Watch.”

Hoping Roland was right, I stroked Lulu’s head, letting my power soothe her. Soon her head drooped limply against my thigh, and my power went to work. I went after the smallest tumors first, gently consuming them with healing fire that repaired the organs they had damaged. The largest growth was attached to her lungs, and it took me a good five minutes to destroy that one. Then I had to fix her weakened heart and remove the remaining impurities from her blood. I smiled in satisfaction as the glow faded from my hands. That should do it.

“You killed her!”

I looked up at Kelvan’s grief-stricken face and shook my head. “No, she’s just sleeping. See? She’ll be perfectly fine when she wakes up. The really sick ones always do this after they’re healed.”

“Healed?” His eyes darted from me to his cat. “How... how is that possible?”

“It’s something I do, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d keep it to yourself.” It had been careless of me to show my power to a stranger, especially a demon, but all logic had gone out the window when I’d picked up the sick cat. Standing, I placed the sleeping cat in his outstretched hands. One of my fingers grazed his hand, and he jumped as if he’d received a shock. “Sorry.” My power was a bit amped because of the healing and the presence of a demon. I forced it back down. The lessons with Nikolas and Chris had really paid off.

Kelvan’s next action shocked us. He sat on the coffee table, cradling Lulu to his chest while fat tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely when he could talk again. “Lulu was my brother’s cat, and she’s all I have left of him.”

“Your brother?” I prodded gently.

“Mallar, my older brother. He brought Lulu home five years ago when she was just a kitten.”

Jordan came to stand beside me. “Where is he?”

Kelvan sniffled and wiped his face with his hand. “He was killed two years ago. He and his friend, Jaesop, went out one night and ran into some vampires.”

“Vampires?” Peter asked. “Why would they kill another demon?”

Kelvan shrugged sadly. “Why do humans kill other humans? They are evil. Vampires think themselves superior to all other races, and they kill anyone who crosses them. There are few demons who would not rejoice if every vampire was wiped from the face of the earth.”

“Is that why you’re helping us?” I asked him. “Because of your brother?”

“David and I have been friends for years, so I would have helped him anyway. When he told me Madeline could lead the Mohiri to the Master, I made tracking her my first priority.” He stroked his sleeping cat’s head. “Hunters don’t help my kind, and we don’t help them. But if you need anything, you let David know and he’ll contact me. I can never repay you for helping Lulu.”

“You don’t owe me for that. I would have done it anyway.”

He gave me a watery smile. “You are not like other hunters, are you?”

Jordan snorted. “You have no idea.”

“How did you know what we are anyway?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “Most demons can sense another demon when we get close enough. My people have a very good sense of smell, which is why I knew those two were werewolves.”

Jordan covered a yawn with her hand and looked at me. “As fun as all of this is, I’m ready to crash for a few hours.”

“Me too.” I gathered up the laptop, cell phones, and cash and looked around for my backpack before I remembered I still had to buy one. I spotted a paper bag on the kitchen counter and stuffed everything into it. If we ran into anyone on the way to the car, I doubted they’d take much notice of a Chinese takeout bag.