Demon Hunter (The Collegium Book 1) Read online

  “Why?”

  Yolanthe flinched.

  “Lady, get outta the way.” A burly man brushed past them, his work clothes stained with sweat and stinking. A tired woman walked resignedly after him. Client and prostitute.

  “We can’t talk, here.” Fay looked around the dingy foyer and met the desk clerk’s eyes. He turned away. “I have to eat.” Hunger was undoubtedly contributing to her spacey feeling. It was twenty four hours since she’d eaten anything but airline food.

  “I think I walked past an Italian restaurant on the corner.”

  “That’ll do,” Fay said.

  They walked fast since Yolanthe’s blue sweater wasn’t a match for New York’s cold. She shivered and crossed her arms.

  “You don’t live here?” It could have been small talk, but it wasn’t. Fay was curious, part of her needing to know who this woman, her mother, was.

  “I live in Fremantle, Western Australia. We’ve just had a long, hot summer. To me, this is freezing.”

  “Africa was hot.” Fay spoke without thinking. Australia was as far from the Collegium as it was possible for Yolanthe to run.

  “You lived in Africa?”

  “No. I just did a job. A demon binding.”

  Despite the cold, Yolanthe stopped. “You bound a demon?”

  “Collegium business.” She shouldn’t have mentioned it.

  “The Collegium banishes demons. It doesn’t bind them,” Yolanthe said definitely. “Demons don’t belong in this world.”

  “They’ve been coming through.” Fay frowned as her mother shivered again. “Let’s get inside.”

  The restaurant was warm and filled with cooking smells. Plastic table cloths hung limply in the narrow, crowded space. A teenage waitress seated them and scribbled their order for lasagna and chicken tortellini. She dumped a basket of herb bread between them.

  Fay ate a piece of bread, aware of how closely Yolanthe watched her. It made it difficult to study her in return, unless she outstared her. It didn’t seem worth the effort.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “Hardly.” Fay wiped her buttery fingers on a paper napkin.

  “You are. Beautiful strong bones. And tall. I always wanted to be tall.” Yolanthe sighed. “You’re not really like Richard or me. Grandmother’s grandmother was an ex-slave.”

  Fay blinked.

  “Grandmother said she walked so tall. She was proud of who she was—free—and what she’d survived. Courage made her beautiful. I will always remember Grandmother saying that. The lives we lead, every decision, it shows on our faces.”

  “Not with Botox, it doesn’t.” The conversation and its direction confused Fay. Where were the apologies, the explanations, the reasons for Yolanthe’s appearance? From Australia to New York was no small journey.

  “Here are our meals.” Yolanthe looked beyond Fay to the kitchen and sat back in her chair.

  The waitress thumped down their plates and retreated.

  Fay picked up her fork. The tortellini was good, flavored with basil. It filled and warmed her.

  Yolanthe was slower to start eating. “I’ve spent years thinking of all the things I’d say to you when we finally met, and now, they don’t seem important. My daughter is sitting across the table from me.”

  The open emotion that set Yolanthe searching for the paper napkin to blot her tears sat awkwardly with Fay. She swallowed a mouthful of tortellini, found it suddenly dry and drank some water.

  “I never thought of you at all.” She winced at the baldness of the statement, the cruelty of it as a response to Yolanthe’s tears.

  “I know.” Yolanthe wadded the paper napkin. “That was Richard’s warding, keeping me away.”

  “Are you saying Dad bound me not to think of you?” It was just possible that a warding begun in infancy and reinforced every year could constrain her greater power. Until she blasted all ties this morning. “Oh my God, he kept me from you.”

  The deep internal shudders of the morning returned. He’d isolated her on purpose—even from her mother, and she hadn’t known. “How much of my life has he twisted?”

  Yolanthe shook her head, distressed. “In the beginning, Richard was right to keep me from you. When I learned why he’d married me.” She broke off. “Have you heard the gossip?”

  “That he married you for your bloodline, gambling on a baby like me, a new tool for his ambition.”

  “I don’t think he meant to use you.” Yolanthe abandoned even the pretense of interest in her meal and pushed aside the plate of lasagna. “I was too young to see how much he resented those with more power than him. He wanted a child who couldn’t be patronized or sidelined. All his discipline and effort couldn’t narrow the gap against a stronger magic user. Richard wanted you to have that effortless mastery.”

  “Effortless.” Fay stabbed a piece of pasta. “I can’t remember a time when Dad wasn’t training me in magic, in fighting, in Collegium knowledge. He wouldn’t allow me friendships with mundane school friends because they might distract me from learning to be a guardian. Other Collegium guardians begin training at eighteen. By eighteen, I could defeat any master at the Collegium. My formal training was short and brutal as they all tried to take me down.”

  “Faith.” Yolanthe looked sick.

  Fay struggled to force back the volcano of emotion. Anger and pain ran through her like lava, deep and scarring.

  “Do you know my reputation is for detached control?” Fay abandoned her meal. Her stomach was too knotted to eat. “Today, I’ve accepted and rejected a lover, rejected my father and my job, which is the only identity I’ve ever had, and met you. I don’t think I can claim emotional detachment anymore.”

  “Why would you want to?” Yolanthe put her hand out. “You’re a living, breathing, hurting person. You’re allowed to show that hurt. I’m desperately sorry for my part in it. I should have been braver.”

  “Can we leave?” Fay pushed back her chair.

  “Of course.”

  Fay dropped enough money and over to cover the meal and headed for the door. The walls of the restaurant were falling in on her and the other diners had grown sly-eyed and threatening. “I can’t do this. I can’t hear your excuses or face anything more about Dad, about who I am.”

  “It’s okay.” Yolanthe’s hand on her arm stopped Fay in the street. “We don’t have to talk, but you’re not returning to that hotel. I’m not much of a mom, but a friend wouldn’t leave you there. Come home with me.”

  “Australia. I can’t.” It was more than the official papers required. The thought of the long flight daunted Fay physically and psychically. She couldn’t stay locked in a tin can that long. “I can’t.”

  “I have a portal.”

  The simple statement broke through Fay’s panic. She stared at Yolanthe.

  “Actually, it’s not mine. It’s my husband’s. Jim traded travel with Cynthia here in New York. She’ll send us home. If you’re willing?”

  “You married again?”

  “It took me a couple of decades. After Richard, I went self-destructive. Jim taught me to trust again.”

  Fay shook her head. The world wasn’t making sense. “But you said Jim owns a portal?”

  “Oh, he’s crazy.” Yolanthe readily picked up Fay’s doubt. “All portal managers are mad. But Jim’s madness is the good kind.”

  Fay sagged against a grimy wall. She really needed time to process this horrible day with its twists and turns.

  “Come home,” Yolanthe said simply.

  Home. All Fay had ever had was the Collegium. “All right.” At this point, any direction would do. Home? “I need to get my bag.”

  Chapter 4

  The portal was in the basement of a house in Queens. It was not the official Collegium-recognized portal for New York, nor was Cynthia Nguyen a Collegium-recognized porter.

  She was, however, typically portal crazy.

  In her case, the mania took the form of collecting soft toys. Teddy bears,
rabbits, ducks, cartoon characters and rag dolls filled shelf after shelf in the heated basement. Magic animated each toy and they ruffed, quacked and chatted in a low volume clamor.

  “They’re company,” Cynthia said. “And Squiffy guards the portal.”

  Squiffy was a blue lamb that fluffed its fleece in pleasure at being mentioned. Then it nibbled at the green line enclosing the portal. The line flickered and sparked.

  “Instinct.” Cynthia smiled fondly at the blue lamb. “Isn’t Mama’s Squiffy a funny baa-lamb, trying to chew the portal?”

  Squiffy sneezed and trotted over to butt Cynthia’s shin.

  “Quite right,” she said. “Jim is waiting to hear from us. Are you ready, ladies?”

  “Ready and eager to be home,” Yolanthe said.

  “Good.” Cynthia extended her hand over the line of green light. Her physical intrusion into the portal was sufficient to trigger its powers. “Jim, are you there? You owe me travelling time.”

  “I pay my debts, Cyn. Send them on through.” The Australian drawl sounded clear despite the portal’s echo.

  Cynthia pinched two dabs of green light and tagged Fay and Yolanthe.

  Immediately, Yolanthe stepped over the green line and vanished.

  “As casual as a stroll in the park.” Cynthia nodded approval. “Clear to see her partner’s a porter.” She frowned at Fay. “Hurry it up.”

  “Thank you for use of your portal,” Fay said meticulously. It didn’t offer her nearly as much delay as she suddenly wanted. How had she forgotten how much she hated portal travel and the need to trust her safety to a stranger?

  Easily. Yolanthe’s offer of portal travel had given her the chance to escape the city and evade the Collegium’s trackers. That was worth the discomfort.

  “Thank Jim.” Cynthia flapped her hand in a shooing gesture. “Get on through.”

  Fay glanced down at the tag of green light on her arm, braced herself for the shock of immersion, and stepped into the portal.

  The basement vanished. Around her the darkness was lit by slowly swirling stars. There was no up or down. Her disorientation was complete. Only the green light still glowing on her arm reassured her that Cynthia could always find and retrieve her. She walked forward three more steps and the cheerful Australian voice said. “There you are.”

  Blue light zapped her, dislodging Cynthia’s green.

  Her fourth step took Fay out of the darkness and through another portal.

  The blue light faded, leaving a small square cellar softly lit by an unshaded, low watt light globe. The walls were honey-colored, rough-cut limestone, the floor white beach sand, and hundreds of sea shells spread in patterns over the floor and on niches in the walls. The hushing sound of the sea filled the crowded space like a lullaby.

  Fay wasn’t comforted. She shuddered and shook like a dog coming out of an unwanted cold bath.

  “Hell, Yolly. The kid’s not portal fit.” A short, broad man who could only be Jim, scowled at Yolanthe even as he grabbed Fay’s arm. He bristled like a grey-haired terrier. “Up the ladder with you.”

  The ceiling was barely higher than Fay’s head, yet the crude wooden ladder seemed dauntingly tall. Her legs were wobbly, but her hands grasped the ladder firmly. She knew from experience that she’d feel better away from the portal. “Promise me coffee and I’ll make it up the ladder.”

  “You can have a whole pot full,” Jim said.

  “If you fall, I’ll catch you,” Yolanthe added.

  Fay choked on a laugh.

  Jim put his head back and roared. “She’s double your size, darl.”

  “I’d manage.”

  The concern and determination in Yolanthe’s voice were unfamiliar to Fay. No one caught her when she fell. Life lessons of self-reliance sent her up the ladder faster than prudence dictated. She emerged into a tidy storage space and shuffled aside as Yolanthe and then Jim followed, carrying Fay’s bag. He closed and bolted the trap door and kicked a cotton mat over it.

  “Coffee.” Jim lead the way through a cement-floored laundry room with a double sink and large table beneath the louvered window.

  The kitchen was across a wide hallway. Fay blinked at the bright sunlight. She wasn’t up to calculating time differences, but the cuckoo clock above the sink read half past ten. She had lost half a day and it was morning again. For all the disorientation in the portal, the experience would have been no more than a minute, tagged as she’d been from porter to porter.

  “I’m sorry, Fay. I didn’t see you weren’t portal fit. Nor did Cynthia.” Yolanthe’s forehead wrinkled at the final thought. “Jim?”

  “Yeah.” He poured coffee into three mugs. “Cyn should have seen. I owe you an apology, Yolly. How’d you hide it, Faith?”

  She accepted the mug of coffee, refusing milk and sugar, and wrapped her fingers around the heat. “My weakness, my problem.” She’d had practice.

  “Huh.” Jim snorted. He rummaged through a bread box and loaded a plate with an assortment of pastries and rolls. “Come and sit in the conservatory. You look like you need warming up.”

  “Like last night’s leftovers?”

  Jim grinned. “You’ll do.”

  The conservatory failed to live up to its grand name. It was a relaxed space off the kitchen. Someone had glassed in half the back veranda and filled it with potted ferns, orchids and white wicker furniture. Through the glass you could see a brilliant blue sky and closer at hand a backyard with a third of it graveled for parking and the rest divided into lawn and garden.

  Fay chose a chair in the sunlight and sunk into it gratefully. She concentrated on her coffee and the heat of the sun. The muscle-eating chill of the portal gradually eased, taking with it the distressing shudders of weakness.

  “Have a pastry.” Yolanthe pushed the plate towards Fay.

  “I’m sorry. How long have I…?” She’d been sitting in a daze, ignoring these two virtual strangers. She’d let them see her weakness.

  “About twenty minutes,” Yolanthe said.

  “I’m a boring guest.” Politeness slipped on like a distancing armor.

  Jim was having none of it. “You’re not a guest. You’re my stepdaughter. This is Yolly’s home, and yours.”

  The definite claiming was outside Fay’s experience. She stared at him.

  Yolanthe clasped his hand. “Thank you, darling.”

  “Only telling the truth,” he grumbled. But his eyes were bright as he returned Yolanthe’s clasp. “Piper Lodge is a boardinghouse, Faith. We have four lodgers, all magic users. Daniel’s away on field work, and who knows where Piotr is, but you’ll meet Linda and Esse at dinner, tonight. I’ve fixed up your room with clean sheets, but I know Yolly will want to add special touches to it and you’ll probably have your own ideas. It’s at the top of the stairs.” He scowled. “And you’re not to pay board. You’re family.”

  The avalanche of words stopped, and Fay was grateful for the break. “Thank you.” This alternate universe was confusing: no questions, no demands, just giving.

  Jim’s scowl relaxed. “Good girl.”

  Yolanthe punched his arm. “I told you I hate that phrase. It sounds like you’re talking to a dog.”

  Fay studied their relaxed interaction, felt excluded by it and reached for a pastry sticky with honey and hazelnuts. It was delicious.

  “A local bakery.” Yolanthe smiled at her. She seemed calmer and stronger in her own home. “Jim picks up a selection on his way home from his morning swim.”

  “Are you that close to the ocean?”

  “Almost on the beach,” he said.

  “But close enough to walk into town,” Yolanthe said. “Or—Jim, do you still have your scooter?”

  “The Wasp?” He grinned. “You wanted me to get rid of it.”

  “Well, the way you ride, I thought you’d kill yourself. But Faith’s more sensible.”

  “Ha,” he interrupted. “She arrived portal sick. That’s way more dangerous than my riding.”


  “I heard what Constable Harrington said to you when he gave you your third ticket.”

  Jim flushed and abandoned the argument.

  Yolanthe turned back to Fay. “If you need to get around, Jim’s scooter is in the shed. He’ll dust it off for you.”

  “Thank you, but—”

  Her mom hadn’t finished. “When he learns the reasons for you travelling portal sick, he’ll apologize.”

  “Reasons?” Jim sat forward.

  “Faith has fought with Richard, quit the Collegium and abandoned her lover.”

  “Holy cow,” he said reverently.

  “I didn’t abandon Steve.”

  “Is that his name?” Yolanthe was interested.

  “And we weren’t lovers.”

  “You are absolutely Yolly’s daughter.”

  “What?” The two women stared at him, baffled.

  “No half measures. It’s all or nothing. Life,” he said with satisfaction. “Is going to be interesting.”

  Chapter 5

  “When I travelled to New York I hoped to convince you to visit one day. That you’re actually in the house, part of the family.” Yolanthe’s hands clenched. “I dreamed of this day, but I didn’t believe.”

  Fay backed away from the emotion. She picked up her bag which Jim had left in a corner of the kitchen and swung it over her shoulder. Yolanthe was showing her to the guest room. “Do you have other children? Does Jim?”

  “No. But even if we did, you’d be special, wanted.” Yolanthe caught her breath, cutting off the stream of words and emotion. They walked in silence along the hallway that cut through the middle of the house. Halfway along, the staircase rose, built of the same wood as the floor, rich and red, subtly gleaming.

  “Jarrah.” Yolanthe patted the bannister. “It’s a local hardwood. Most of the old houses use it.”

  “How old is the house?”

  “A bit over a hundred years. It was built by a retired sea captain. His wife was the first porter here. The first European porter,” Yolanthe corrected conscientiously. “The Nyungar people probably knew of it.”

  “Nyungar?”