Demon Hunter (The Collegium Book 1) Read online

  “The local Aboriginal people. Their shamans have stories of journeys that resemble portal travel, but Jim hasn’t encountered any Aboriginal porters. Seems colonization disrupted the transfer of site knowledge.”

  “Or else they’re staying secret, like Jim.”

  “Jim’s independent, not secret. But you’re right. Aboriginal porters could be protecting their portals with silence.” Yolanthe paused at the top of the stairs. On the top floor, the house’s simple plan repeated itself with another corridor bisecting the house.

  “Jim and my room is to the left. Opposite is Susie. Next to her is Paul.” She indicated the room opposite the stairs. “And beside him is Daniel, who is away at the moment. His room overlooks the backyard. So does Linda’s. She’s beside you. And here you are. Next to the stairs, I’m afraid, but we’re all quiet. You won’t even hear Susie slip out at night.”

  She opened the door to Fay’s room. “I hope you’ll be comfortable. It’s not the biggest room.”

  But it was a lovely one. Pale apple-green walls provided a backdrop for handcrafted wood furniture, while the starkness of white bedding and curtains was lightened by apple blossom pink cushions on the window seat and bed.

  “I hope you’ll be happy.” Yolanthe paused in the doorway. “You probably need some time to yourself. If you need anything, Jim and I’ll be downstairs. Otherwise, lunch in an hour?”

  “Thank you.”

  “I am glad you’re here.” Yolanthe closed the door behind her.

  Fay dropped her bag at the foot of the bed and explored the room and the private bathroom that continued the white and green color scheme. New soap and fresh towels waited. There was a bathmat patterned in green ducks on the tiled floor. A rummage in the cupboard revealed shampoo and conditioner.

  “All the comforts of home.” The would-be flippancy rebounded as Fay recognized the truth. Yolanthe and Jim wanted her to feel at home. The room had been prepared with love, not expecting her to join them so soon, but hoping.

  She sat in a comfortable armchair and pulled off her boots, putting them to one side before standing and shrugging off her coat. The polished floor was smooth and pleasantly cool under her bare feet. A breeze blew in the open window, warm and scented with honeysuckle. Fay inhaled. The salt tang reminded her of Piper Lodge’s proximity to the sea.

  “A beachside holiday?” She tested the concept. How long since she’d had a holiday? The fact she couldn’t remember suggested it was a while. Since school, perhaps?

  She slammed the door on thoughts of her father and the Collegium. “Live in the moment.” She needed this breathing space and she’d earned it with that shattering portal travel.

  But if she stayed alone in her room, she’d brood. She jammed her dirty clothes into her bag and carried it all down to the laundry.

  Yolanthe heard her footsteps, and popped her head out of the kitchen. “Everything okay?”

  “I wondered if I could use the washing machine?”

  “Of course.” Yolanthe came all the way out of the kitchen. She took laundry detergent from a cupboard, measured and added it to the machine, while Fay stuffed in her clothes. “Normal wash?”

  “Yes. No stains, this time.”

  “Ah.” There was a pause as Yolanthe clearly thought of and dismissed the stains Fay might acquire in her work. She pushed the start button. “It’ll take just over half an hour.” Still talking, she lead the way out of the laundry and closed the door behind them, shutting out the sound of the machine. “We don’t have a dryer. Fremantle has such sunny days. The clothes line is out here.”

  She opened the back door and they went down the veranda steps and turned left. The clothes lines occupied a corner of the lawn. Honeysuckle grew over the side fence. A small black and white bird with a long tail chittered loudly and flirted across the adjacent herb garden.

  “A willywagtail.” Yolanthe smiled. “Which is a ridiculous name, but apt.”

  The bird landed on the fence and its coquettish tail dipped in proof of its name. Beyond the herb garden, a tidy vegetable patch was framed by a lemon tree and a fig tree losing its leaves in preparation for winter. The hum of slow city traffic sounded distant. It was as if a spell of drowsy contentment compelled the visitor to linger.

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Seven years. Jim bought the Piper Lodge nine years ago. We met at an art auction and after we married I moved in with him. He couldn’t leave his portal.”

  Fay nodded. Portal managers were self-appointed wardens with an added twist of devotion. Theirs was a difficult talent to unravel. A few inherited portals down ancient family lines, such as the descendants of a clerical family in Beijing. However, families like the Li were rare. Most porters spent a number of years unattached. They explored the space between the portals. When a portal manager died or through ill-health was compelled to relinquish his or her portal, competition to assume responsibility for it was strong. Porters willingly traded their freedom for the security of a personal portal.

  The Collegium kept track of porters and their portals, occasionally doing deals to use this swift form of travel.

  Fay hadn’t seen the Fremantle portal on any Collegium list. When added to Cynthia’s unrecorded New York portal, it suggested a shadow web of global travel, a world of magic beyond the Collegium. It was a world she’d have to discover, one where she’d have to build a place for herself, a life.

  “I don’t know Jim’s full name.”

  “James Hubert Smith. I took his name when I married, so I’m Yolanthe Smith.”

  Fay followed Yolanthe down the narrow side path to the front of the house.

  Red roses, carnations and a frangipani tree filled a narrow space between a low limestone wall and the veranda. Potted gardenias guarded the front steps. Either Yolanthe or Jim liked a perfumed garden. The street was narrow and old, built for walking and carts. Parked cars crowded it as it struggled to accommodate a modern world.

  Yolanthe trotted up the front steps and sunk into a wide swing chair on the veranda. She patted the cushion beside her. “We have a few minutes before lunch. This is one of my favorite places, warm in the sun and watching the street. We have wonderful neighbors.”

  The cushions were comfortable and the slight swing of the chair relaxing. But Fay couldn’t help the tension that invaded her, sitting close to this woman who was her mother.

  “I’ll answer any questions you have, Faith. Anytime.” Yolanthe was tense, too, despite her cheerful hostess chatter. Her hands tightened around her hooked up knee. “Having you here is more than I deserve. It’s up to you to set the pace of our relationship, the parameters. Your father…” She shook her head. “You’ve been portal sick. Now’s not the time to talk seriously. But don’t think badly of Richard. He had reason to protect you from me.”

  Fay shifted sharply.

  “No! Not that I’d hurt you.” Yolanthe breathed deeply and continued in a quieter voice. “I had a breakdown when I learned Richard married me for my bloodline. I’d have run away with you if I could and I wasn’t in a state to be a fit mother. I drifted for years. Richard gave you stability.”

  “He gave me the Collegium,” Fay said bitterly.

  “Which he loved dearly. You could say he shared his most precious love with you.” Yolanthe’s voice was strained, striving for dispassion.

  “Or that he sacrificed me to it.”

  “Was it so bad?”

  “I don’t know.” Fay stared at the tangled, sculptural branches of the frangipani tree. “The Collegium is all I’ve ever known. Developing my powers to serve it was my whole life. Dad cut away everything else. Without it, I don’t know who I am. If he ever really loved me.” She forced out the final words. “He used me. And you abandoned me.”

  “Oh God, Faith.”

  But Fay was locked tight in her own agony, unable to respond to her mother’s pain. Help came from another quarter.

  “Yolanthe, get away from that woman. She’s evil!”r />
  Chapter 6

  An old woman stood on the footpath outside the boardinghouse, clutching its low gate. Although barely waist high, the white wooden pickets were a protection she seemed unwilling to relinquish. “Get away, Yolanthe. I’ve seen her in my dreams. She’s a demon consort.”

  “Linda, she’s my daughter.”

  Fay caught back the power she’d called. Linda was the name of one of the Piper Lodge boarders. Fay steadied the violently rocking swing chair. At the first hint of threat she’d leapt out and positioned herself with her back to the solid wall. Now her hand tightened painfully on the chair back.

  Yolanthe struggled up, worry in every line of her. “Faith, Linda is only a minor prophet. She won’t hurt you.”

  Linda stalked through the gate, snapping it shut behind her. She was tall and thin, beginning to bow with age and dressed in a wild swirl of purple. Numerous scarves were all aflutter as she put a hand dramatically to her throat. “I’ve dreamed of her, Yolanthe. Evil dreams of demons.”

  The repeated mention of demons convinced Fay. The woman was terrified of Fay’s work. She wasn’t a threat. Fay released her summoned magic.

  “What the hell?” Jim ran out the front door. He held a paring knife in one hand and a carrot in the other.

  “I think we should go inside before the neighbors notice us,” Yolanthe said quietly. Her gaze moved warily among them and settled on Fay. “You are always welcome in this house.”

  “Yolanthe.” Linda’s cry was despairing.

  “Faith is my daughter. She fights demons.”

  “Fights?” Linda subsided, contemplating the idea.

  “What did you do?” Jim put the knife and carrot behind his back, but he stayed in the doorway.

  “No harm.” Fay acknowledged his right to protect the portal. “I summoned magic when Linda shouted. When I didn’t need the power, I turned it sideways. You won’t be bothered by mosquitos in the future.”

  “You released a protection spell?” Jim tilted his head, clearly listening to the hum of the portal. His shoulders relaxed. “Sensible. Better to use the magic than try to send it back.”

  “That’s what the witch who taught me the spell said.” Fay concentrated on reassurance. “There are a few places around the world that’ll never need mosquito nets.” She looked at Linda. “And if you’ve been seeing me in dreams the last two years, I have been fighting demons. The Collegium installed a new reporting program and it increased my duties. You’d be surprised how many people summon demons and then lose control of them. I apologize for bringing their evil into your dreams.”

  “Yes, but why was I seeing you?” Linda walked up the veranda steps and stared at Fay with faded blue eyes. She wore amethyst earrings and a scent of lavender, and clutched an oversized handbag.

  “Maybe your talent picked up my link with Faith.” Yolanthe eased between them and touched Jim’s elbow, turning him back into the hallway. “Let’s go inside.”

  Fay waited until Linda’s gaze dropped and she walked inside, skirting just slightly as she passed Fay. Then, unobserved, Fay rubbed her arms and the rash of goose pimples.

  Demon consort. The naming was out of Fay’s worst nightmares. Lilith had been the first. She had taken a demon lover for the power and for the half-demon child she’d bear. Her daughter had eaten her, but no one mentioned that part of the story, nor the incestuous relationship between daughter and father. Demons perverted all they touched.

  And Fay had been proximate with demons for two years.

  Maybe Linda was right and she wasn’t safe to be around?

  “Get inside, girl,” Jim called. “I want my lunch.”

  A shudder broke Fay’s paralysis. She was welcome here and a porter had deep protections against evil contaminating his portal. Crazy they might be, but porters protected their power.

  And Yolanthe hadn’t hesitated to defend Fay and to claim her.

  If there was evil in the world, there was also its opposite, too. Goodness. Love.

  Fay closed the front door behind her.

  “Do you drink tea?” Jim asked as she entered the kitchen. He frowned at Yolanthe in a minatory demand for silence.

  Fay’s tension eased another notch. His determined normality was neutral ground. “Tea’s fine. Although I refuse to pollute it with milk.”

  “Barbarian.” He chopped the carrot with swift precision. A jerk of his head indicated the tea canister, teapot and kettle. “If you make the tea, it’ll be ready about the same time lunch is on the table. Five teaspoons of tea. Linda lunches with us.”

  A teaspoon of tea for each person and one for the pot. Fay knew the routine. She boiled the kettle, poured a little water into the teapot to warm it, tipped it out, added the tea leaves and more water and replaced the lid.

  Yolanthe handed her a crocheted tea cozy. It was striped orange, black and white, like a tiger, and fitted snugly over the brown china pot. It was the essence of everyday life, and despite the strain in the air, they all tried to match it.

  “We pour the tea at table,” Yolanthe said. “So if you could carry it through?” She picked up a tray of sandwiches and walked through the wide door opposite the conservatory. It lead to a dining space that opened to a light-filled living space complete with sofas and a large television.

  Sitting at the massive wooden dining table was Linda. Her mouth was pursed, her eyes cautious. The enormous handbag sat prominently on the table beside her.

  Fay set down the teapot and took a chair opposite. The four place settings made her seat easy to guess. Jim was at the head of the table, Linda on his right, Yolanthe on his left, closest to the kitchen, with Fay beside her.

  Yolanthe poured tea.

  “I didn’t know you had a daughter.” Linda watched Fay over her teacup. Her hands shook a little, swollen arthritic joints burdened with silver rings.

  “Faith’s been working for the Collegium,” Yolanthe said.

  “Oh.” Relief clattered Linda’s teacup back onto its saucer. “A Collegium guardian.” She smiled at Fay, a woman transformed. “A Collegium guardian, how wonderful. You do fight the demons.”

  Fay had encountered that response before. Elderly magic users had enormous respect for the Collegium and its work. They remembered the strength and idealism of its early years. They remembered her great-grandparents.

  “I’ve resigned,” she said discouragingly.

  “Oh dear.” Linda tutted. “Why on earth…” Abruptly, her eyes widened. “Oh, my dear. Three nights ago, that was you?” Her amethyst teardrop earrings trembled.

  Fay stiffened in her chair. “What did you see?”

  “A woman dancing with a demon. She had your long, blonde hair, but I didn’t see your face. You called it by name.”

  “Don’t say it,” Fay ordered.

  Linda blinked, shaken from the half-trance of memory.

  “That demon isn’t banished, only bound. You don’t want to say its name.”

  “You made it tell you its name.” Linda stared at her. “It screamed and slashed you.”

  “I needed its name to bind it,” Fay said steadily.

  “It killed you,” Linda whispered.

  Yolanthe moved convulsively.

  Fay took her hand. It was as cold as ice, as cold as hers. “It didn’t kill me. It tried, but I won.” She squeezed Yolanthe’s hand. “I survived.”

  “I’m glad you resigned from the Collegium,” her mom said fiercely.

  Linda spooned more sugar into her tea and stirred it with an uneven clink, clink-clink of spoon against china.

  “I saw it kill her,” she whispered.

  The cold in Fay eased. She, who ran scared from human contact and relationships, had reached to comfort Yolanthe. She had reacted instinctively and Yolanthe had defended her with the same instinctiveness. Fay might be demon scarred, but she was human, not demon-mad. “Yolanthe said you’re a prophet?” Fay looked across the table.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you see truth i
n strange forms. The demon fight foreshadowed not my death, but changes in my life.”

  “Resigning from the Collegium.” Understanding and acceptance blazed through Linda. “Of course. Leaving it must be like death. The old loyalties, your duty. How it must hurt to leave them.”

  “Faith’s first duty is to herself,” Yolanthe interrupted.

  Fay released her hand. “Don’t worry. I feel no guilt at leaving the Collegium. But the death of that old life is what Linda saw. The demon’s existence simply blurred the picture.”

  “What is it like to fight a demon?” Jim’s question changed the tension around the table.

  “Horrifying. For all but the most powerful demons, to act independently in our world, they have to possess a body. All those I’ve fought have taken a human. Sometimes that possession is forced, and then, I can save the person, casting out the demon. But other times.” Her voice slowed. “Some people invite them in. Then exorcism kills the demon host. Last year, I had to kill a man I knew, another Collegium guardian.”

  “No,” Linda exclaimed, bright-eyed and pleasantly intrigued. She nibbled a sandwich, ignoring the salad Jim scooped onto her plate. “A Collegium guardian summoned a demon?”

  “He was a minor mage and wanted more power. He left a journal.” And a wife and five year old son. Fay had stood at the back of a graveside crowd, divorced from it, and watched a five year old boy throw rosemary onto his father’s coffin. The widow had stood dry-eyed. Death gave an ending, but it couldn’t heal old hurts. Betrayal came in many forms.

  “More tea?” Yolanthe offered the only immediate comfort she had.

  “Thanks.” Fay sipped it unsweetened. She wanted to answer Jim and explain why she’d killed her old life. She’d been rejecting more than her father’s rule. “Fighting a demon is like fighting a man with his skin worn inside out. They are slick with horror and wrongness, and they want to drag you to hell with them. The physical injuries they inflict heal. No one talks about the spiritual scars.”

  “On the basis that a good Collegium guardian toughs it out?” Jim asked.

  “Maybe.” Fay considered, then shook her head. “I think it’s just too difficult to reveal the scars.”