Page 26 of Higher Demon

Yeah, I don’t care. “Marc’s not trying to steal our souls, Uncle. He saved yours, didn’t he? Let’s try to be reasonable.”

There’s a small silence while the stupidity of that request sinks in. Reasonable? Us? Yeah, that’s not in the gene pool. Gabe’s the closest we’ve got to reasonable.

Speaking of… “How’d you go at Mannix?” Maybe distraction will work.

Sure enough, Uncle lets his hands drop and turns to face me. “I told Connor you were fine and he was imagining things. Then I said you’d found some documents in the archives that I wanted to study.” He gives a self-satisfied nod, as though Con would have fallen for that. I bite back a groan.

“Did you talk to Gabe?” Matt asks.

“Gabe and Tom and Kieran. They’re going to distract Connor and warn us if he decides to come out here.”

That’s something, at least.

“If your brother decides to pay a visit, do let me know,” Marc says silkily as he strolls over to the armchair I was just sitting in and makes himself comfortable. Damn it. “I’ll want to avoid his odious company.”

“He misses you too.” I go to lie full-length on the couch, feet—with shoes still on—propped on the opposite armrest. I never do that, not at home, and definitely not at other people’s houses, but I just can’t resist irritating Marc. And anyway, with his magic, it’s not like he’ll need to have the couch reupholstered or anything.

I can feel his irate gaze boring into me, and the smug satisfaction it gives me is amazing.

Then Uncle Norval ruins it.

“Get your feet off that couchright now, Ian Massey. What kind of animal are you?”

There’s nothing quite like having your thousand-year-old ghost uncle scold you like a child to ruin the glow of one-upmanship.

I sit up, ignoring Marc’s smirk. Matt and a glowering Uncle Norval join me on the couch.

“Okay,” I declare, trying to get this clusterfuck of a night back under control. “There are two things we need to talk about. Marc, tell Uncle Norval about what happened today.”

Marc raises a brow. “Your stupidly reckless driving?”

JesusChrist. “No, about Jolynn Highett.”

He blinks, face blank, then nods. “Oh, the impostor girl.”

I can’t believe he forgot that, like it’s unimportant and not something that’s freaking me all the way out.

He glances at Uncle, then gives his attention to his fingernails as he says, “Today, when I was teaching Ian’s class?—”

“You werewhat?” Uncle Norval bellows, turning on me. “Ian, you gave him access tochildren?”

That’s a reminder of the countless missed calls and messages I still have to deal with. “They’re fine. Only their feelings got hurt,” I say impatiently, then add to Marc, “Get on with it.”

He very succinctly explains, and I get the thrill of seeing Uncle Norval completely lose his mind, mouth opening and closing wordlessly.

“I’m going to have a poke around the archives and see what I can find out about the Highetts,” I say into the silence. “But do you know anything about them? Any chance you remember when the family first joined the Collective?”

Uncle closes his mouth and sets his jaw. “This is mighty convenient. Are we sure he’s not trying to tear the Collective apart by pitting us against each other?”

Marc sighs. “I don’t need to pit you against each other to do that,” he says, sounding bored. “But, if I were going to, I would have done it by making a dramatic public declaration and maneuvering Highett Senior into challenging me. As I told Ian, I wouldn’t even need to hurt him—it’s highly unlikely he has any powers at all. Then, with half of this compound watching, I’d call several other families into question and sit back to watch as they all tore each other to bits.” He smiles faintly. “The best plans are always the simplest ones.”

There’s a sudden throbbing pain in my head as I imagine the chaos and mistrust that would follow. “But he didn’t do that—and he’s not going to,” I add hastily for Marc’s benefit. “Instead he waited to tell me about it privately, and he’s going to see if he can find more information for us about the demon involved.”

Uncle harrumphs very impressively, then grudgingly says, “I don’t know a lot about the Highetts. They’ve always been an underpowered family, and they procreated with other underpowered families. I’ve never had any real interaction with them.”

I make a mental note of that. Even if they were only mixing with underpowered families, it seems odd that no power has come down through the line in all these generations. There should be something, however faint. “Marc, you’re sure she had no power at all?”

He scoffs. “She’s not a hunter. I would know. If you’ll let me examine her more closely, I could say if there was ever any hunter capacity in her DNA, but she definitely is not one.”

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