Page 72 of Demon Hunter

Gus nods. “Yeah. They’re… I don’t like them.”

“Can you sense just the ones in this room or in the other dorms too?”

He thinks about that. “All of them, but these ones feel closer. There’s a location difference.”

“That’s good,” Marc says dryly, “Since we haven’t spoken to the other demons yet and don’t need a riot.”

Ian ignores him, staying focused on Gus. “Concentrate on this intention: You want all the circles in this room to be deactivated.In this room,” he emphasizes. “Put some power into it.”

Gus takes a deep breath, and I feel his power reacting.

A chorus of gasps rise from the demons nearest us, and it moves like a wave through the room.

“Well, something happened,” Matt says.

“They’re inactive now,” Raum confirms. He approaches the nearest bunk. “May I?”

The demon nods, and when Raum reaches out to remove the necklace from their neck, pure joy spreads over their face. “I’m not compelled to resist,” they breathe.

A demon in the next row hesitantly lifts hands to the necklace, pauses, then removes it. “Free,” they say shakily. “I’m free.”

Around the room, other demons catch on quickly, fumbling to get the chains of their ordeal off. Raum opens a gateway and begins ushering them through, counting heads as they stumble, some openly weeping, away from Earth.

Gus buries his face in his hands. “I should have done something sooner,” he mumbles, and I let go of my resentment over Matt’s attack and put a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re doing it now.”

The rest of the night follows the same pattern: Teleport to a branch location, Marc instantly kills family members, Gus frees demons, Raum sends them home. I’ll never say this out loud, but if you’re going to undertake a dangerous sting operation, you really need to have a higher demon on your side.

Finally, we get to the last branch, the one in New Hampshire. The one where Gus’s cousin Rachel lives, the only one he thinks might be redeemable. Dawn is on the horizon, so we need to move quickly now, and Marc teleports us directly into Rachel’s bedroom. I try not to feel creepy about it and hover at the back, close to the door.

Gus kneels beside her bed and gently shakes her awake. “Rach?”

She blinks, then bolts upright. “Gus? What the fuc—” Spotting the rest of us, she grabs for the blade on her nightstand.

“Rachel, no, it’s okay. I need to ask you one thing,” Gus pleads. “Just listen, please. If you could, would you end this? Our whole family legacy? Would you send the demons home?”

Rachel’s eyes flicker around the room. Light is filtering in around the blind, enough for me to tell that her eyes are brown. “Gus, what is this? What have you done?” she whispers.

“Please just answer. Would you?”

It seems like eternity before she nods.

My gaze shoots to Marc. Is she being truthful, or?—

“Rachel will come with us,” he says, and relief makes me sag. At least Gus will get to keep one relati?—

The opening door shoves me off-balance. “Rach! Time to— Fuck!” Hard hands grab my arm, and a blade is suddenly against my throat. “Get away from my daughter!”

I roll my eyes and begin the necessary self-defense moves to free myself, but with a roar, Matt crosses the room faster than my eyes can track. I hear the snap of the man’s arm and then he’sflyingback into the hallway and—fuck. Matt threw himthrougha wall—no, two walls. I can see through the holes in the plaster.

Blinking, I look at my boyfriend. “Dude… what the fuck?”

Chapter 31

Matt

My heart’sin my throat as I stare at Dylan. He knows now. How can he have missed it? Marc hasn’t even had time to work out exactly what happened to me, and somehow I have to explain this to Dylan in a way that won’t make him think I’m a mutant freak.

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