Page 20 of Demon Hunter

And Marc.

God help me.

“Yeah, that’s okay.” My voice is a tiny bit husky, and I clear my throat.

Connor, either oblivious to the tension or trying to lighten it, says, “Great, because the IT guy at our compound keeps threatening to kill me, and I need someone to call when my computer has a shit fit.”

I laugh, and Ian throws half a slice of toast leftover from Matt’s breakfast at his brother—who catches it and takes a bite.

“Humans are disgusting,” Marc observes, his face set in lines of clear distaste.

“Aww, we love you too, boo,” Ian coos.

“Playing fast and loose with ‘we,’ there,” Matt mutters. “So… now you know that I’m officially off the market, you love Dylan, Dylan thinks you’re kind of okay… what’s next?”

“Is this a birds-and-bees kind of question?” Ian asks. “Because I thought you’d already moved past that.” He turns a sympathetic face to me. “If Matt can’t satisfy you, there’s this website?—”

“Why is he here?” Matt wonders aloud. “Does he need to be here?”

“You’d be freaked if he wasn’t.” I pat his cheek reassuringly. “Don’t worry, dude, you satisfy me just fine.”

“Why amIhere? Surely there must be some hell dimension I could have been sent to instead,” Marc mutters.

Ian pouts. “I’m starting to feel unloved.”

“As much as I’ve missed this—god only knows why—we need to talk about our next steps. Marc, how soon do you think Matt will be in good enough condition that the doctors will agree to a transfer?” Gabe’s tone is serious.

“I can convince them to agree now, if you’d stop being so squeamish.”

“No.” The chorus is unanimous, and Marc sighs.

“Very well. At the rate I’m working now, another two days.”

“Dylan, will you be ready?”

I nod. “Yes. I’m nearly there—just testing out a few bugs. I assume someone will want to contact the facility to talk about Matt’s care. I have that mostly planned out too.”

From the looks of consternation, none of them had considered that.

“Fuck,” Connor swears. “Do you have a doctor lined up who can talk to them?”

“Not exactly. Don’t worry, though,” I say confidently. “I’ll handle it. In two days, we can bring up the transfer again and mention the excellent private hospital we’ve spoken to already, which is all set to take him. Then we’ll go from there.”

Connor and Gabe seem unsure still, but Matt and Ian, who’ve seen what I can do when it comes to technology, are unfazed. Marc just looks bored. He’s probably wishing we’d just let him do it his way.

That’s a big fat no from me.

“Okay, so that’s settled,” Gabe says. “Matt, do you remember anything more about the attack? Or about that day?”

Matt grimaces. “I wish. I checked into the motel, texted Dylan to let him know where I was, and then I was planning to go to the address that was in the report.” He glances warily at the door. It’s closed, but I’ve noticed that the nurses, especially, don’t seem to see that as a deterrent. They’ve been so nice, but knocking seems to be outside their scope of work—and they never close the door when they leave. “There was supposedly a rank smell in one of the apartments, but the tenant and the management company couldn’t find where it was coming from.”

“Sounds like a foetidum demon,” I murmur, my eyes on Matt’s face. It might just be wishful thinking, but it looks like his color is better even than it was when he woke up. “Who reported it?”

He shrugs slightly. “That wasn’t in the job sheet.”

“I checked,” Ian adds. “Right after we went to that address and found no sign of any demonic activity—including the rank smell. It was tagged from the online division. I assumed one of you tech geeks found the reports or emails from the management company to the landlord and decided to have someone check it out.”

My heart is in my throat. Slowly, I turn to face Ian. “What?”

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