Page 11 of Higher Demon

Marc’s gaze slowly sizes her up, and it’s like her confidence was a balloon with a slow leak. I can actually see her deflating. “Our mistake,” he says smoothly, when she looks thoroughly chastened, “was in thinking you knew anything at all.”

Her lower lip starts to tremble.

To my surprise, Marc turns away from her and leans a little closer to me. “You have a problem,” he murmurs.

Oh, hooray. Just what I wanted to hear. “What?” I mutter back.

“She’s not a hunter.”

The words reverberate through me. That’s impossible. I might have just joked about it to Matt, but there’s no way Jolynn could have gotten this far into her training if she wasn’t a hunter. For fuck’s sake, I can feel it in her myself. Hunters have the ability to recognize other hunters.

But Marc’s gaze is steady and deadly earnest. Shit. Something’s going on here, and knowing my luck, it’s waaaay above my pay grade.

I give the slightest nod to acknowledge that I heard him and hope he understands that we’ll talk about it later. I’m not going to make a fuss about this in front of the entire class without knowing more.

“Jolynn, if you’d like to take a break and use the restroom, you can have five minutes,” I say instead. She’s out of her seat and headed for the door like a shot. I wait until she’s gone, then ask, “Do I really need to make introductions?”

There are a few headshakes, but for the most part, the kids seem stunned into silence. That’s disappointing—if this is how they react to a “friendly” higher demon, they’re not going to do well against one who’s trying to kill them.

Not that they would anyway. But it doesn’t bode well for how they’d handle a lesser demon, either.

“Nobody wants to speak?” Marc raises a brow. “Truly?” He flicks me a glance. “If this is the caliber of the next generation, you should weep for humanity.”

Scowls appear on young faces. They don’t like that. I decide to needle them a bit.

“I wish I could say you’re wrong, but they’re not living up to standards today.”

With a burst of noise, one of the girls in the second row shoves her chair back and stands. “That’s Marc,” she says defiantly to me. “He’s a higher demon who was on our side back in the Battle for the Barrier. Now he’s the demon ambassador to Earth.” She folds her arms across her chest and glares at us both.

“It speaks,” Marc murmurs, just loud enough for them all to hear. “Behold.”

“Hey, that’s mean!” Tim yells. “You can’t talk to her like that. I’ll report you.”

“To whom?” Marc’s urbane drawl makes the very idea sound ridiculous. Unfortunately, Tim’s used to being ridiculous and doesn’t notice.

“To the council!”

I’m relieved to see some of my students looking embarrassed. I was starting to think none of them were worth anything, but it could just be they were letting the less intelligent of their peers lead the discussion so they could enjoy an easy class. I can respect that.

Though I won’t let them get away with it.

“Just to be clear,” Marc’s saying scornfully, “you, a trainee hunter, are going to go to the council of the Collective—an organization that has spent the last thousand years protecting humanity from demons—and complain to them that a demon said something mean to your friend.”

There’s a brief silence as even Tim realizes how humiliating that would be. I count to five and then step in.

“Thank you, Anna,” I say to the still-standing girl who introduced Marc. “Please sit down. Yes, everyone, this is Ambassador Marc from Crmærdinesgh.” I ignore Marc’s tiny flinch at my pronunciation. “I invited him here today because he has firsthand knowledge of the differences between there and Earth. Since I’m sure you’ve all done the assigned reading”—that’s heavy on the sarcasm—“maybe you have some questions for him?”

Nobody speaks.

“Really? This is an opportunity most people don’t ever get. Your peers at other compounds would probably love the chance to learn about Crmærdinesgh and demons from someone who’s actually lived there. And you’re going to waste this chance?” My voice is dripping with disappointment. I’m kinda proud of how teacher-ly and adult I sound. Even if I did butcher the pronunciation of Crmærdinesgh.

“It’s not that easy,” Jed, one of the ones who’s usually quiet and possibly napping, defends. “He’s a higher demon, and we’re just trainees. I bet the first time you met him, you didn’t ask a million questions.”

Marc laughs… and laughs. And laughs some more. Seriously, point made.

“That’s true,” I concede, then turn to Marc. “Itistrue. I didn’t ask you any questions the first time we met.”

He shakes his head. “Oh no, you did. I believe it was ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ You followed that up with ‘Let go of my brother,’ and then started hitting me with some truly unattractive fake flowers. How old were you? Eleven?”

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