Page 16 of Higher Demon

“Jolynn’s not so bad. She’s not as smart as Cal, though.”

“She’s not a hunter,” Marc repeats. “Have I met her father? I don’t think so.”

I shrug. “There’s no reason you would have. He’s just another hunter.”

“Maybe.”

The word hangs in the air, and Matt and I exchange glances. What’s he saying?

“I think you need to explain faster. I checked Jolynn. She’s a hunter.”

“She has surface-level markers for hunter skill elements,” Marc corrects. “But nothing to back them up.”

Yeah, that’s not clearing up my confusion. I make a hurry-up gesture. He looks at my hand like it’s radioactive.

“I don’t want to make any accusations,” he says slowly, and every cell in my body goes cold. Marc doesn’t do polite. He doesn’t hesitate to be blunt and rude and completely upfront. The fact that he is now means we’re really not going to like what he says next.

“Just be honest,” I manage.

“Some higher demons are very interested in Earth and humans but don’t necessarily want to spend that much time here. They’ve… you could saycultivatedspecific humans to keep them up to date on the newest trends.”

It’s such a round-the-block way explanation that it takes us a minute to process what he means.

“Spies?” Matt hisses while I grab my margarita and take a big gulp. “There are demon spies in the Collective? I thought we got them all!”

“All of Cato’s,” Marc agrees. “His agents were all linked to him and died when he did.”

“Why didn’t you warn us there were others?” I demand.

“I didn’t know. I’d heard talk about humans used to share information—worms, we call them—but nobody mentioned having anyone inside the Collective.”

I stare at him. “Why else would they have spies?”

“Spy is a word with negative connotations,” he begins, and I put a hand out to warn Matt to shut up. We don’t need any more interruptions. “I never heard that those humans were being used as spies. More as gossipers. The information being shared really was the type of thing that’s found in the public domain. Like a foreign correspondent would do.”

“Okay.” I stop and think about what I want to say next. “Okay, so let’s not focus so much on the… correspondents.” I can’t bring myself to call them worms. They’re stillpeople, after all. “I’m more interested in why you’re saying Jolynn isn’t a hunter when it looked to me like she is.”

He frowns. “She’s not a hunter. What you’re seeing are… It’s hard to explain. They’re somewhat like tattoos.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Matt looks at me. “Are you following this?”

I pull a face. “Kinda. What you’re saying is that a higher demon somewhere tattooed Jolynn’s mind and soul with the signs of a hunter so she could go undercover in the Collective.” It sounds like some fucked-up fantasy novel.

“Trippy,” Matt mutters, then falls silent as our server appears with our food.

We thank her sincerely, beg for refills of our drinks—I’m going to need a lot more tequila to process this—and wait until she’s gone to look at Marc. “Was I right?”

“More or less. From what I know of how the Collective works, my guess is that Jolynn is merely the latest in her family line.”

I try to remember what I know about Jolynn’s family and swear. I’m pretty sure the Highetts have been in the Collective for a few hundred years, at least.

As Marc picks up his knife and fork, Matt and I stare at him. “What you’re saying is that some higher demon picked a random human, however many generations back, psychically tattooed them, and sent them to the nearest compound with orders to fit in and report back?”

He waits until he’s done chewing to reply. “Yes. I don’t know how detailed your records are, but if it had been me, I wouldn’t have just sent them to a compound. I’d have set up some kind of scene with a lesser demon attack and gotten a local hunter to ‘discover’ the new talent and invite them in.”

Of course he would. I don’t reply, just stare at my food and wonder where my appetite has gone.

“Eat,” Matt prompts, reading my mind. “You’ve gotta drive—and think.”

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