Page 50 of Demon Hunter

But if I really have developed superpowers… If Marc healing me has somehow transformed me into a weird human-demon hybrid… Dylan can never know. He was raised in the Collective just like me, and neither of us have warm fuzzy feelings for demons, not even Marc—though I’ll concede to grudging tolerance there. On top of that, demons killed Dylan’s family. He had nobody left because of them, and while he might not want to murder me if he finds out, I don’t… I can’t…

He's not going to want to stay with me. If I’m a demon now, he won’t want to sleep beside me and love me and spend his life with me.

I can’t lose Dylan, so he can never know. No matter what. Which leaves me in the shitty situation of having to (badly) lie to my boyfriend and hide all the weird things that are happening.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, either—how am I supposed to know if that noise I’m hearing is also audible to him? Or if the smell is? Is it more unusual for me tonotcomment on something that’s obvious? And the whole strength thing is concerning—what if I accidentally hurt him? I don’t know how much force I’m exerting until it’s too late, hence the drawer knob and the whole couch thing last weekend. I don’t want to injure Dylan, ever, and oh my god, what if it’s a sex injury? What if I hurt him while we’re having sex?

The thought of it haunts me, and as someone who can see and talk to ghosts, I don’t use the word “haunt” lightly.

“What are you mooning about now? Shouldn’t you be doing something useful?”

I startle, dropping my empty coffee cup, but manage to save it before it hits the floor. On the subject of being haunted…

Norval raises his impressive brows. “Well, at least nothing’s wrong with your reflexes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move that fast. This rest has done you good.”

I smile weakly, because I never have moved that fast before. I don’t think humans can. Maybe some—I don’t knoweveryhuman, obvs—but not me.

Still, if Norval wants to put it down to rest and clean living instead of me being a demon now, I’ll take it.

“I’m not mooning,” I protest. “I’m thinking… uh, about the route we’ll take down to San Diego tomorrow.”

The thousand-year-old ghost looks at me like I’m crazy. “I’m not an expert in driving, seeing as the DMV won’t give a driver’slicense to a dead man, but isn’t I-5 the fastest, most direct way from here?”

Damn him. “Yeah,” I’m forced to admit. “But if we take I-5, we wouldn’t, uh… we wouldn’t get the views we’ll get on the Pacific Highway.”

The “are you crazy” look shifts to “do you have head trauma,” and I mutter, “Never mind. You’re right—I-5 is the best option.” At least he’s distracted now. “Do you have any news for us?”

He harrumphs and shakes his head. “Maybe. Not yet. I’m close, though.”

“Close to what?” Dylan asks as he stumbles into the kitchen with his eyes half open.

“You’re up.” I glance at the clock in surprise, wondering if I lost track of time, but there’s still an hour until he normally wakes up. “Everything okay?”

He nods as he heads toward the coffee machine. “My brain is braining too loud for sleep.”

I make a sympathetic noise—been there, done that, got the whole friggin’ merch line—even as Norval says, “I’ve spent a millennium hearing English evolve, and this generation makes the least sense of any of them. ‘Braining’ is not a verb, Dylan.”

“Since when do you care?” I ask. Dylan’s so focused on the coffee dripping into his mug that I’m not sure he even heard Norval.

My pseudo-uncle tsks. “If we cared more about these things, communication would be easier,” he grumbles, and I get it. He’s in a bitchy mood because things aren’t going his way.

“What are you close to, Uncle?” I ask sympathetically. “Maybe we can give you a fresh perspective.”

Dylan comes to lean against me as he sips, and I carefully—so carefully—put my arm around him. He doesn’t flinch, so I don’t think I was rough. “Fresh perspective,” he agrees. “Close to what?”

I grin. He’s so cute when he’s waking up.

Norval shakes his head and sighs. “I’ve been tracking down this one family. They got kicked out right after the first Collective settlers arrived in North America—I don’t remember what for. I wasn’t here at the time because some idiot in Russia thought it was a good idea to summon demons to protect northern villages from polar bears. Have you ever been to northern Russia in winter? I’d been dead for six hundred years and I still felt the damn cold.”

As fascinating as that is… “Okay, so the whole family got kicked out? That’s unusual, right? Or was it a young family?” It would make sense for a hunter to take their kids with them if the kids were still minors, but otherwise the Collective usually doesn’t punish a whole family for the sins of one member. There aren’t enough hunters in the world—and our life expectancy isn’t good enough—for us to be expelling them all the time.

“It was just a single hunter,” Norval says grimly. “A veteran man. There was a big kerfuffle at the time but I cannotremember why,dammit!” He shouts the last few words, frustration overtaking him. “He went on to marry and have a family, and they all moved around a fair bit. And now I can’t find them. The last trace of the family was in New Hampshire in 1897, and then…” He shakes his head. “I can’t find them after that. The whole beleaguered town they were living in is full of ghosts, but nobody knows what happened to them or where they went.”

That’s… weird. Older towns with lots of ghosts are always a great place to track down historical information and family lineage—especially if it’s another ghost doing the asking.

“Have you asked Ian to check the archives?” Dylan asks. “If we know why they were kicked out, we’ll have somewhere to start. And if you can give me the names and approximate ages of the last-known descendants, I can probably find somethingin official records.” He grimaces. “It would take a while, though, and I have a bunch of other stuff going on. How likely do you think it is that this family is involved? Nearly four hundred years is a long time to hold a grudge.”

Norval hesitates. “I don’t know,” he finally admits. “I don’t like that I can’t find them, and I don’t like that none of the other families I’ve looked at are good options for this. But I can’t say I have proof it’s them.” He huffs. “For all I know, they went on vacation for a week, caught smallpox, and died, and nobody ever bothered to let their neighbors know or even clear out their house.”

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