Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series (85 page)

Ellery’s words were wise, but Gail found no solace in them.

She’d brought him home. He’d probably studied her grimoire and knew everything about her family.

Now he probably even knew which goddess was the fount of their gifts.

Agatha would likely regret claiming her soon.

“We need to go tell the others,” Marion said. It seemed to Gail like her voice was being transmitted through an underwater speaker. It was distorted by Gail’s own despair. How could they forgive her for this?

She understood perfectly well now why Claude wouldn’t allow Ruby the chance to choose how to wield her power if it were going to get her into situations like this. Gail might have done the same the same thing.

Candy Corn oozed out from under the bed and wound herself around Gail’s legs.

“Go away,” she whispered. It wasn’t just to the cat, but to everyone. When no one moved, she added, desperately, “
Please
. Go away.” Now they all stood, slowly. She didn’t look at them to gauge their expressions. She didn’t want any more of their pity.

Claude was the last to ease away.

“
Chéri—
”

“Don’t call me that.” She fiddled with her ring’s stone, and then tugged at the band. He probably wished he’d never put it on her—that he hadn’t connected them in this permanent way.

“I’ll never stop calling you that. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Don’t hurry.”

Thankfully, he didn’t try to get the last word. He just stood there in the doorway for a while.

She didn’t look up.

He left and closed the door behind him.

She curled into a ball on the bed, not caring that her shoes were still on or that she’d left several pans of bread in the oven. Someone would get them.

Candy Corn hopped onto the bed, stepped over Gail’s legs, and turned in a circle at her back.

“Go away.”

The cat never listened, but chose right then to start.

Claude leaned over his notes on the kitchen table and tried to concentrate through the miasma that was Gail’s despair, but it was difficult. The longer they were near each other, the harder it would be to extricate their feelings—what was hers from what was his. It wasn’t just the ring and their shared familiar, but just—his love for her. Not for Laurette, but for
her
. His broken witch.

He hated that she was hurting and that she thought it was her fault.

He’d never been used in the way she had been, but as an incubus, he knew a little something about being on the other side of an abusive relationship. Maybe his abuse had always brought his victims pleasure, but it had still sullied them and put that taint on their souls. How many people had he condemned?

Too many.

Now, it was like he was experiencing a reflux for all he’d done. He was enduring flagellation for the foul shit he’d done on the behest of his father and his father’s lord. It hurt like a bitch and he’d endure it because he’d been running from karma for too long, but it wasn’t fair that it should be filtered through Gail. It should hit him and him alone. She’d endured enough, not just in this life but in the last.

The chair to his right groaned against the floor, and Claude looked up to see a face he didn’t expect: Jason’s.

“Bread smells great, huh?”

Claude straightened up and smoothed the wrinkles out of his papers. “Gail’s a phenomenal cook.”

“Phenomenal lady.”

There must have been something in Claude’s stare that Jason didn’t like, because he put his hands up in a gesture of preemptive defeat.

“I don’t mean anything by it. I’m not going to swoop in and make trouble for any of you. I didn’t know any of you existed until recently, and I’d like to get back to my old life as soon as possible. Minus the psychic shit.”

“You’ve always had it?”

Jason nodded. “I get it from my mother. When I was a kid, we were in pretty rough shape. We weren’t just broke, but poor. Could barely afford the trailer park fees, you know?”

Claude nodded, but really, he didn’t know. He may have lived hand to mouth, but he had never known hunger. He’d never had any concern about wealth because wealth was for people who had nests to feather. He hadn’t had a nest since he left his mother’s as a young adult.

“Until recently, my mother worked for one of those phone-a-psychic services, and
none
of those people were the real deal, you know? They had certain scripts they’d follow depending on the cues the callers gave them, and their goal was to keep the callers on the line as long as possible. More minutes, more money.”

“But your mother was the real deal.”

“Yeah. At first, she didn’t want to give that away. She didn’t want to take the job at all, but I was so young. She couldn’t afford to put me in daycare, and it was the only job she could find at time that was legit that she could do from home. All she needed was a phone. Had to beg, borrow, and steal to get it turned back on so she could start working.”

“How long did it take for her to start sneaking in real readings?”

Jason tipped his chair onto its back legs and stared at the ceiling a long while. “She told me a year, but I don’t know if she was being truthful. I think she couldn’t help herself and started doing real readings pretty much immediately. They didn’t fire her for not sticking to the script because so many of her callers came back again and again for new readings. She liked it because it was anonymous and no one could track her down. Well … until
that
guy.” He rolled his eyes, and Claude didn’t have to guess at whom his distasteful expression was directed. They’d both felt their father enter the room.

Even as he became increasingly stripped of his power, they’d always sense him nearby. It was in their coding.

“That’s dirty, even for you,” Claude said to his father. He pushed back from the table, rolled his papers into a tube, and tamped them into his back pocket. He’d been making notes on everything he could find about Shaun to add to the knowledge Annie had imparted. He needed to figure out his weaknesses and if possible, what his association to Ross was. They knew very little about Ross, so it was tough going.

“How many 1-900 psychics did you have to speak to before you tracked down the woman who bore your son?”

Papa’s jaw ground side to side. He remained in the deck doorway as if he were afraid to come farther into the kitchen. Claude couldn’t blame him. With all the crosses and other holy objects tacked to the walls, self-preservation would have motivated him to stay outside. As long as he meant the people inside the house no harm, he was perfectly fine.

Maybe he didn’t trust himself.

Claude didn’t think he was going to answer, but he took another step into the kitchen and muttered, “Too many.”

“You know, you wouldn’t have to resort to creative means to track down your children if you stuck around for their births.” Now Claude’s teeth ground. Papa hadn’t been around for his, but his mother had summoned him not long after and made the demon mark him, just in case he
forgot
later.

“That implies a degree of commitment I’m not comfortable with.”

“Did you hear that?” Jason chuckled and stood. He gave Claude a nudge with his elbow as he walked past to the stove. He snatched one of the cooling rolls from the rack. “He’s umpteen thousand years old, and he’s concerned about
commitment
. I say he has plenty of time for commitment.”

“That’s because he’s never wanted to commit.” Charles stepped into the kitchen via the back deck and slid the screen door closed. “Well, except to my mother. We all know how that turned out.”

Papa growled.

“I don’t. Do share,” Jason said.

“Oh.” Charles grabbed a roll, too, and leaned his butt against the sink. He gave their father a churlish grin. Years ago, he wouldn’t have dared, but Charles had grown increasingly bold with his derision to Papa
since marrying Marion. He’d been bound to let it out sooner or later. Overdue, even. “You see, my theory was that my mother was the only woman he ever loved and that she didn’t love him back.”

Jason whistled low.

“Yeah, right? Can you imagine? The one time an asshole like him falls for someone, and …”

Charles’s eyes took on a faraway look, and he toyed with that roll in his hand idly.

“Is he okay?” Jason asked when Charles didn’t say anything for a while.

Claude chuckled. “Rule of thumb around here is if someone zones out, it’s probably because of psychic shit. We’re generally too much on high alert to let down our guards. I’m guessing Marion must be nearby.”

“No, she went with Ellery to get her cat,” Charles said, and he fixed his gaze on Papa. Claude knew they were conversing mind to mind, something Charles generally avoided with their father, but whatever they were saying was closed off to him.

And whatever Charles was saying made Papa’s cheek twitch.

The fact that Charles had made the discussion private meant that the contents were either embarrassing or distressing. But for which of them?

Charles bit into his roll, but didn’t break his gaze from Papa.

Papa looked away first and stared down at his watch.

“Have somewhere to be?” Claude asked.

“Not urgently.”

Claude swept an arm toward the table. “Then have a seat. You can pretend to be normal and eat something. Gail has the refrigerator full of leftovers.”

“Any chicken salad left?” Charles asked, and he already had the fridge door open.

Papa
cleared his throat, and surprisingly took the seat Claude offered.

There seemed to be a collective breath-holding as he sat. He was a big demon, and that spindly chair Clarissa refused to let go of looked rather unsure of itself.

Pop!

Julia teleported into the kitchen with her infant charge on her hip, and her eyes went wide as saucers when she saw Gulielmus. “Shucks.”

Charles grabbed her arm before she could pop back out. “Hey, sis. Hungry?” He pointed to the open chicken salad container. “Got crackers for that. You can give some to the little guy.” He wriggled his eyebrows.

“I just stopped in so he could play with Ruby for a while before dinner. I—”

Charles, wearing a grin nearly as wide and almost as dangerous as the Atlantic, took the baby. “Relax for a while. Pop was just asking about this little guy, weren’t ya, Pop?”

Papa’s nostrils flared.

Had the demon
ever
held a baby, including one of his own? He’d certainly had enough chances, given his extraordinary fertility.

“Uh, I don’t know …” Julia pressed her hands against her back and groaned. That kid was heavy as an anchor like his daddy, so it was no wonder a waif like her was feeling the effects of carrying him around all day. He was unbelievably clingy. There was attachment parenting, and then there was
Kelly
.

Charles plopped Kelly onto Papa’s lap and retreated to the fridge, whistling a jaunty little tune. “Ooh. Someone bought grapes.”

Julia shifted her weight nervously. She’d never had to spend much time around Papa, and she liked keeping it that way. Of course, Charles and Claude wouldn’t let him do anything to her, and Claude suspected Jason wouldn’t be keen on seeing her harmed either and he didn’t even know her.

One day, one of them should update the list of all the siblings and which ones weren’t demonic assholes.

Kelly stared up at his father with quiet wonderment, and Papa blanched. Neat trick for a demon.

“What’s his name?” Papa asked.

Charles and Claude both looked to Julia. This was her rodeo.

She cleared her throat and cast her big brothers a nasty look. “His name is Kelly.”

“Kelly?” Papa didn’t bother disguising his sneer. “You named him
Kelly
?”

Julia stamped her foot. “Well, you didn’t name him at all! You and his idiot mother abandoned him at the hospital! I gave him a good, strong name and I’ve been—” Her voice cracked and face flushed bright red. “I’ve been doing the best I can to raise him. He’s not
my
kid, but I love him anyway. You’d better be glad Calvin is a good man ’cause he could have said no, and where would your kid have been?”

She swept a hand toward the table.

“Oh, you don’t care. You never cared about any of us, so it wouldn’t have mattered where Kelly ended up. You would have found him on the streets one day and would only bother with him because you needed another incubus to do your dirty work.”

She stomped again.

“You can’t have him!”

Her voice had gotten so high at the end that even Papa
flinched.

Silence was heavy in the kitchen. Claude turned his back to the room to hide his quiet chuckles. That look on Papa’s face was like nothing Claude had ever seen before. The demon wasn’t afraid of his powerful sons, but he was definitely wary of this shrieking cambion in a floral hippie dress.

Julia wouldn’t hurt a fly. She was too good. Maybe that’s what Papa was afraid of.

Finally, Papa broke the quiet. “Your mother never raises her voice, so I can’t imagine from whom you’ve inherited the proclivity toward bombastic dramatics.”

Claude turned in time to see Julia balling her hands into fists. She took one stomping step toward the table, and Charles pulled her back with a chuckle.

“Julia, honey, I can’t be certain, but I think he made a joke.”

Papa’s shoulders edged up ever so slightly in a gesture that could barely be called a shrug. “I think
Kelly
needs a new diaper.” He said the name as if it tasted as bad as what he smelled.

“Hmph.” Julia walked over and snatched him up. “I bet he does. You probably scared the piss out of him.”

Charles nudged Claude’s ribs. “Oh, shit. He made her curse mildly. She’s
really
mad.”

Julia stuck her tongue out at Charles and popped away.

Charles doubled over with laughter, and Claude couldn’t help but laugh, too, because it was just that infectious. He’d seen his brother sad and withdrawn for far too many decades, and Charles’s laughter was like a barometer of his mental health. He hadn’t stopped laughing, really, since Ruby was born and he gave Marion that huge honking diamond. She called it her “hillbilly ring” because it looked so fake.