Page 65 of Demon Hunter

Dylan

Matt dragsme away for dinner before our new contact messages back, but I have my phone on me, so I’ll get a notification if they do. I didn’t realize how hungry I was getting until I saw and smelled the food, and while the others are talking—mostly answering Raum’s questions about Earth and asking about his job—I inhale the glorious food.

Something’s different with Matt. More different, I mean. Obviously something’s been going on with him, but now he seems… lighter? Still weird, still treating me like I’m delicate glass coated in poison, but less stressed, somehow. Which is great. Unless it’s because he’s finally had a chance to chat with his bestie and decided he’s definitely going to end things between us.

We’ve never spent this much time together andnothad sex before. Multiple times. Anywhere we can. But it’s the touching I miss the most—and the part that worries me. Lower sex drive? Meh, it’shimI love, and he’s just had a life-altering trauma. The lack of affection could mean that he feels less affection for me, and no amount of love on my part is going to make him want to stay in a relationship he doesn’t want to be in.

As soon as we get this crisis resolved—as soon as I’m sure he’ssafe—we’ll talk about this. Maybe it’ll mean he leaves me, and I don’t know how I’ll cope with that. But any idiot knows relationship problems don’t go away without communication, and we can’t go on like this forever.

Finally full, I sit back and sigh. “Fuck, I’m tired.” We were driving all day—was that only a few hours ago? “Has someone gotten in touch with Norval?”

Ian shakes his head, his mouth full of biryani. He swallows. “I was going to, but I don’t know where he is right now. He’ll check in soon, though—he was pretty insistent yesterday that I do the archives search right away so you could get to work on tracking down the family once you arrived.”

“It fits better and better the more I think about it,” Matt muses. “A family that’s raising and enslaving demons would move around a lot to avoid notice. But how are they keeping the demons… I mean…” He grimaces. “There’s no delicate way to say this. I’m sorry. I know that with the right circle, demons can be compelled to complete tasks, or even compelled into servitude. But using demon labor for a company like this brings a different scale into it. The jobs would be changing every day, and there would be multiples of them. Four-thousand-plus demons under the control of, what… three dozen hunters? The hunters wouldn’t be able to handle distributing tasks on that scale.”

That’s something niggling at me too. “We need more information.” I feel like that’s my mantra lately.

“When do we think we want to clue in our brothers?” Ian asks, and Matt’s eyes widen.

“Not until we know more. The last thing we need is Connor going off the rails over this.”

Marc sniffs.

“Shut up,” Ian tells him, then explains to Raum, “Marc and my brother pretend to hate each other.”

“I assure you,” Marc tweaks his cuff into perfect alignment, “there is no pretense involved.”

“And yet you allow him to live,” Raum pronounces philosophically. “Such is the sacrifice required of a bond.”

Ian seems to freeze, but I don’t get it. “Love me, love my family,” he croaks.

Matt gives him a weird look and opens his mouth—I’ll bet every cent I own to say something like “What’s wrong with you?”—but my phone blares an alert.

I snatch it up from the table, leaping to my feet and knocking over my chair. “That’s him.”

It’s a race back to the study—for me, Ian, and Matt, anyway—but I beat everyone out and dive into the chair as Marc and Raum saunter in.

“What’d they say?” Matt demands, like he’s not looking over my shoulder at the screen.

I never met him personally and regret telling my family he existed

“What does that mean?” Ian murmurs. “Do they not know Matt survived?”

“They know.” My mind is racing. They have to know, with as good at hacking as they are. “Sounds like they tipped the family off to me finding their site, though, and picked Matt as the victim of their point.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” Marc says. “We need to question this person directly.”

Slowly, all three of us hunters look at him. Does he mean…?

“Get their name. I’ll bring them here. Once I have them in the same room, I’ll be able to sense if their intentions are pure or not.”

“Without invading their brain?” Ian checks, and Marc nods impatiently.

“You will still need to ask questions, but Raum and I will be able to tell if the answers are truthful.”

Matt and Ian still seem unsure, but I’m already typing.

How much do you regret it?

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