Page 43 of Higher Demon

Ian

It takesa week of secret searches through the archives, plus a message to an archivist at the York compound, asking for a variety of random records to “fill in some gaps I noticed,” before I have a decent idea of the story behind the Highett family. That records request was painful—I had to track down names and dates of past Collective members through several centuries to make it look like I really was following up on things that had gotten lost and not specifically targeting the Highetts. It’s fucking hard to fake that shit.

During that time, I’ve also had the disconcerting experience of some parents demanding apologies for Marc’s comments to their kids while others demanded that he be invited to the class more often. That threw me for a loop. Who the fuck would have thought that reasonable adults would want a higher demon talking to their kids?

But then, nobody’s ever said hunters are reasonable.

We are (mostly) smart, though, and a lot of parents saw the value in having their kids get used to the presence of a higher demon and learn more about the beings they’ll have to deal with. Tasha from the Education Committee led that charge—and privately told me that the parents who agree with her (and me) are the ones who’ve seen the most action hunting demons. The ones who’d prefer to coddle their kids tend to be in more admin-related roles, and lower on the power scale. I thought that was interesting.

Whatever the motivation, the result is that the Education Committee has officially requested that Marc guest lecture on a regular basis—and asked if he’d also do some adult education sessions. Or rather, they’ve asked me to ask. Which is a dirty cop-out, since they’re the official body here and I’m just an archivist-slash-teacher-slash-hunter. I couldn’t even tell them he’d refuse, because it would tie in so well with our plan to build a network for him. This will get him actually talking to people, and they can see that he’s… er. I might ask him to rein his natural self in a bit.

Dylan’s been doing good work—we sent him the pics he asked for, and he used them, with careful editing of backgrounds, to set up an Instagram account for Marc. He wants to do Snapchat as well but decided to wait until Insta’s taken off and Marc actually has friends. He also sent me and Matt some pics of us with Marc to post to our accounts. Then he sent us lists of things to “casually” mention in our Collective app chat forums and on the private Discord server about Marc “behind the scenes.” Things that imply we hang out with Marc a lot as friends. He’s started posting stuff like that too—things like “hah, yeah, I remember that. Even through the screen his reaction was obvs.” We’re paving the way for our generation and the one behind us to think of Marc as friend material—or at least not someone to fear and despise.

Which makes it super ironic that I’ve been avoiding him since I raced out of his house eight days ago.

Lucky for me, Matt got sent out on another assignment later that same day, and he was so busy whining about it that he didn’t notice I was distracted. One day, waaaaaaay in the future when I can look back on all this as something funny, I’m going to tell him what a crappy brother-bestie he is. It’s all his own fault he’s always on assignment, anyway. If he wasn’t showing such a talent for complicated, diplomacy-heavy jobs, the council wouldn’t keep sending him on them. Talking people out of summoning demons isn’t a job just anyone can handle.

Although I get a real kick out of Matt having to be diplomatic.

Buuuuut that means I’ve had a week mostly by myself—Uncle Norval’s been traveling the world, talking to other ghosts on a fact-finding mission—to avoid Marc and obsess over how stupid I am.

I kissed Marc.

And dammit, I know I didn’t imagine him kissing me back. Not at first—I took him by surprise. But I’m no virgin, and I know exactly what it feels like when a guy’s into me.

Except this isn’t a guy. It’s a demon. Ahigherdemon. That’s… Well, it’s not good. If he wanted to, he could kill me with the power of his mind. Worse… he could enslave me. We don’t talk a lot about the fact that higher demons have that power, because there’s nothing we can do about it. Our only defense against them has always been to destroy them as quickly as possible… which isn’t easy. I don’t even know how it would feel if he did take over my mind—nobody who’s had it done to them has lived to tell the tale. Or if they did, the demon hid the truth so well that we never knew it happened.

Part of me wants to wonder if that’s why I kissed Marc—because he mind-controlled me. Maybe he’s mind-controlling me now. This could all be part of a sick, twisted demonic game.

But it’s not.

He wouldn’t do that. I don’t know why I’m so sure, but I am. Maybe because he’s so disdainful of humans. Why would he want to kiss one?

And I’m pretty sure if I was being mind-controlled to hate myself for kissing Marc, which I also did because I was being mind-controlled, there would be a better end game than just my internal angst. After all, I’m a single gay man. Kissing a guy is just another Wednesday for me. Why not go after someone who’d feelrealtorment over it? A married, straight, homophobic hunter who despises Marc? I can name three off the top of my head who would fit the bill. Orrrr, if he really wanted to cause me angst, he could make me tell Matt or Connor—or both. Con would go ballistic if he found out I’d kissed a higher demon, and worse, the higher demon who nearly killed him all those years ago.

So yeah, this being a twisted demonic game doesn’t really check out.

Which brings me back to… I kissed Marc. And I liked it.

I want to do it again.

My cock is hard as steel just thinking about kisses… and more.

I’ve had some very, very dirty dreams in the past week. Dreams that had me waking sweaty, shaky, and sticky with my own cum.

What the fuck am I supposed to do now? The stupid part of me, guided by my body and hormones, wants to start with kissing and escalate to fucking. The part of me that’s slightly less stupid thinks that’s probably not a great idea.

And just this morning, the most intelligent part of me pointed out that Marc might not be interested anyway. Just because he kissed me back in the heat of the moment doesn’t mean he wants to fuck with a human. Especially when you consider the diplomatic implications.

That was the decider. I need to talk to him about guest lecturing, about the Highetts, and about the new photos Dyl wants, and he’s probably not interested in me anyway, so I put on my strongest deodorant and changed my clothes three times—before settling on jeans, a hoodie, and my oldest Vans, because I’m not trying to impress him, dammit—and drove over to his house.

Where I’ve been sitting in my car for twenty minutes.

Ugh, this is ridiculous. Ihaveto talk to Marc. Legitimately, for official reasons. I can text or try to call, but past experience tells me that won’t work. He won’t answer. My only option is to go up to his door, knock until the sound annoys him so much, he lets me in, and then…

Can I just pretend the whole kiss thing never happened?

Oooh. Denial and avoidance. That sounds like the perfect option!

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