“I’ll learn to control them,” I vowed. “What happened when I touched you?”
Dante shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, but now I understand how you destroyed the knife at the Club.”
“How do you know about what happened at the restaurant?” Remy asked.
“Word spreads fast where she is concerned,” Kael answered.
“The customers said you were looking for a fight when you arrived,” Dante added.
“We were looking for Gavyn, not a fight,” Bran corrected him. “You don’t happen to know the location of Mount Hermon, do you?”
Dante frowned and exchanged a glance with Kael, then they both shook their heads. “No, but we can find out,” Dante said. “You think your brother is hanging out with these demons?”
“We think he summoned them,” Bran explained.
Dante frowned. “Why would he do that?”
This time Bran explained his theory about what happened to the humans. “We have no idea how two of them managed to survive. One is a woman with children, so we assumed the demons either felt sorry for her or decided to punish her by making all her children ill.”
“Demons don’t show mercy,” Dante said.
“Really?” Sykes asked, then he pressed a fist against his chest, imitating the gesture Dante and Kael often made whenever we met. “I always thought you two were the picture of gallantry.”
Dante ignored him. “I have not heard of a demon capable of doing what you just described.”
“What if the Tribe is a breed of demons from somewhere else?” I asked.
Dante’s eyes narrowed. “The Tribe?”
“We think that is their name—the Tribe. What if they were summoned from, say, Tartarus?”
Telepathic communication between Dante and Kael happened so fast all I caught was ‘Summoners’ and ‘no way’, then silence.
“If you know something, tell us, please,” I cut in, my eyes moving back and forth between the two nature- benders.
Dante’s expression grew thoughtful as though he was debating how much to tell us. When he spoke, he did slowly. “It is possible to summon powerful beings into this world, but it’s never been done in my lifetime. It takes special circumstances to do it and the consequences are never pleasant. Hermonites and Guardians have a system in place that keeps the balance between good and evil. Bringing in more powerful beings could tip that balance, so summoning is very rare.”
“Besides,” Kael added, “summoned demons don’t look anything like us. They come back with rotting flesh and stink.”
I heard their words, but I focused on what they weren’t saying. “You know about the Tribe.”
“We knew something was going after your humans and tried to get in touch with you last week, but whenever we responded to Guardian energies, we always found the senior Cardinals.” Dante’s glance swept us. “From the aggressive way they went after your humans, I think the Order might be involved.”
“The Order?” Sykes asked.
“The new Hermonite High Council,” Dante explained.
“It’s made up of representatives from each house,” Kael added.
Someone cursed. I reeled with shock. The demons had planned to select a new ruler during the mortal combat battle on Jarvis, but we’d foiled their plans when Bran won. Obviously the crafty demons had found a way to come together after all.
“Who’s their leader?” Remy asked.
“What makes you think they’re involved?” Bran asked at the same time.
“We don’t know their leader because we’re out of the loop since…” Dante glanced at me then away. I had a feeling he meant to say since my father was defeated. “But the council has been holding secret meetings since the combat on Jarvis Island. Like clockwork, they met every Friday night until a week ago. Something happened to stop them from meeting. The day after, young Hermonites began to disappear from their homes. No one knows why. At the same time, your humans were being targeted. That kind of efficiency means a lot of demons working together under a single directive.”
“The ones at the restaurant believed we were behind the kidnapping,” I said. “How do you know so much when you are out of the loop?”
Dante shrugged.
Bran chuckled. “You have someone on the inside.”
Dante didn’t deny it, but neither did he admit it. Instead, he bowed toward me again. “We will contact you once we get more information on the Tribe and Mount Hermon.”
“May I see, uh, your arm?” I asked before they could leave.
Dante looked ready to argue, then he pulled back the sleeve of his coat. He had a nasty burn on his skin. Kael scowled.
“Can you self-heal or do you have someone to heal it?” I asked.
“I do. I’ll be in touch.” He bowed briefly.
“What if I want to contact you?” I asked before he could teleport.
He hesitated, his eyes narrowed. I was tempted to telepath him that I knew he and Kael had lied to us. They knew more than they’d told us about the Tribe, but with my crazy powers, I could hurt him worse than I already had.
“Use your powers and we’ll find you,” he said then dematerialized.
“Now that we have those two in our corner once again, let’s eat.” Sykes patted his stomach and started for the door.
“I don’t know if they’re really ‘in our corner’ as you put it, Sykes,” I said. “They know more about the Tribe than they told us and what they know scares them.”
Sykes groaned. “Damn. Now you’ve ruined my appetite.”
- 9 -
THE CONFERENCE
Mrs. D was waiting for us when we arrived at HQ, her glasses dangling on the tip of her narrow nose.
“Where have you been?” she demanded, eyes slitting like a cat’s. “We’ve been trying to contact you for hours. “Return your weapons and head straight to the conference room.”
“What’s going on, Mrs. D?” Izzy asked.
“Ask the Cardinals. Don’t keep them waiting,” she snapped.
We looked at each other. No one spoke, but we were thinking the same thing—we were finally going to get some answers.
Inside the conference room, the senior Cardinals sat at one end of the large circular table, their expressions unreadable. My grandfather, the Cardinal Psi Guardian, waved us toward the empty chairs. He wore his “leader of the Cardinals” face, not the indulgent, loving Grampa I saw around our house. Like the other Cardinals, he wasn’t dressed for hunting, which was strange. He studied me intently as though searching for something. I gave him a brief smile, which he didn’t return. Not a good sign.
“How long have you had that headache, Lil?” he asked in a soft voice, though the vibes from him indicated he was angry.
“Since the attack on the island.”
“Yet you still left the valley?”
Confused, I glanced at my friends. They wore bewildered expressions, too. “Master Haziel said it was okay.”
“Is he also the one who said you could take the dagger instead of leaving it behind to be examined?” Grampa barked.
“Yes. Didn’t he explain?”
