Bruce shrugged. "I don't think most powered ever think about demons with any true curiosity or spirit of inquiry. We're indoctrinated to believe they're evil and it's our G.o.d appointed duty to fight them in whatever way we can. And besides, there's always that first time someone puts the pieces together and makes a new discovery."

Steve nervously jiggled his fork between thumb and forefinger. "Why wouldn't Bree's ability to merge so well with a demon be like every other trait humans have, on a continuum? Maybe Sophie is right and powered who can attune energy are more likely to be good at it, but even of those there are individuals who are extremely skilled at it. Not to mention the fact that demons are supposedly of different types. Maybe it's a combination thing. The right demon with the right person."

"What I don't get is why Daniel would be so negatively affected if this theory is true," Kevin said with mouth still partly full of a bite of pita bread. Everyone gave him a moment to finish chewing so he could go on. "He's a high power Reader, of energy at least, and a high power Exorcist. He has incredible flexibility in his powers."

"That's a d.a.m.ned good point," Bruce said slowly. There was a little silence as they all considered what had been theorized so far. It was Bree who broke the silence. "You know, Daniel's isn't really like most Exorcists. When I worked with him on that teenager Father Steuban brought to us, he wasn't attuning much at all. He just sort smothered the demonic energy with ritual energy and then wrestled it out of the kid. Definitely more brawn than finesse on that one."

"Then maybe my theory is still valid. Maybe he's not as skilled at attuning and that explains his trouble with demons."

Steve backed Sophie up. "It sounds like your theory does hang together if you think of it that way."

"But I'm not sure that explains Daniel's particular vulnerability," Bree said worriedly. "Lots of powered aren't great at attuning, and they don't all respond so badly to demon contact."

"Yeah, but how many Demon Masters do any of us know?" Bruce countered. "It's awfully hard to come up with any meaningful theories when we truly know so little about that particular talent, and how getting demon burned really comes about. What we really need on our team is some high power ex-Keltoi that has gotten out and is on our side. There's a whole raft of lore that's forbidden to us nice, law abiding powered."

"Finding someone like that, especially in time to help Daniel now, seems awfully unlikely," Kevin said doubtfully. "Like I said before, Bruce, feel free to see if you can get Daniel to consider other options, but I'm betting he can get this divided thing figured out. Consider that as far as we know, no one else has ever come up with a workable hiding spell for power signatures. He's very innovative, very knowledgeable, and he's very strong, and I don't just mean in powered terms. If he puts his mind to this, I think he can come up with a fix."

"Well I hope you're right," Sophie said. She began putting silverware on empty plates.

"Amen," Bree said softly as she reached to help Sophie start clearing the table. The conversation broke up as they all took on clean up tasks, with Bruce and Steve going out to be with the boys. Bree reflected that they were all feeling frustrated and helpless, not just about Daniel, but about the wider situation with the increased possessions and civil unrest. She talked with Sophie and Kevin about it as they did dishes, the kitchen smelling of the citrus dish soap Sophie used.

Kevin surprised her by insisting that it was still worth trying to be of some help in the riots that had been breaking out. "Given your description of what happened last night, maybe we need to be more careful about just plowing into these situations. But on the other hand, it's like I was saying the other night. If we help even one person, it's worth it."

"Yeah, it's worth if you don't get killed," Sophie said with some disapproval as she scrubbed out her frying pan with more than necessary force.

"We'll be more careful," Kevin insisted.

"Careful how?" Sophie challenged.

"I think we have to do better at just picking a single task and focusing on that. A sort of quick in and out strike. Keep in mind that I can keep up a physical ward for short periods of time if I have to. Even if there's gunfire again, we should be safe if we stay alert and on the edges of things. I think we should do what we did before, which is to go in pairs."

Bree was somewhat convinced by Kevin's argument, and she liked the idea of working with Kevin again. Leander had definitely been helpful, and he had the added plus of being a Caster, but the situation with him was now so confused and delicate that she didn't relish getting into another high stress situation with him. "You know, I think you have the right att.i.tude, Kevin." She was familiar enough with the kitchen that she was able to put things away as she dried. "I get all stressed out when I think we have to somehow stop all this. But that's an impossible goal. We're not Keepers, even if we're taking on some part of a Keeper's work. If we just focus on what we can do, maybe we'll feel better about it."

"I know I feel better being able to do something, no matter how small," Kevin replied stoutly as he rubbed a sleeve across his sweating brow. It was warm in the kitchen, and he tended to run hot anyway.

"You two make me feel like I should be doing more." Sophie pulled out the plug on the sink and squeezed out her dish sponge and put it in its brown ceramic holder, a gift from one of her patients who was a potter. "Maybe, if you guys told me where to go, and I happened to be not at work or on call, I could come and do a little first aid and healing work."

"I imagine that could be helpful in the aftermath of one of these situations. I think once there's enough police presence and the whole thing is dispersing, it should be safe, although I'd still feel better if you were there with a Warder."

"I don't think I know any other Warders besides Kevin," Sophie said uncertainly.

"Well, even if you had Bruce with you for some kind of physical protection, that would be better."

"Good point," Sophie conceded. They finished up in the kitchen and joined the others in the living room, keeping the conversation light around the two boys, who were soon showing the hyperactivity of tiring children. The evening ended relatively early as a result.

Bree ended up feeling very glad she'd come. She felt much less alone with her varying dilemmas, more clear on her stance with regards to how best to intervene in the terrible things that were happening around her. She said her goodbyes to everyone, then made the short drive home. As she got out of her car and walked to her front door, she felt a few sharp gusts of wind. She looked up into the night sky and saw that clouds were moving in, scudding across the half full moon. Probably tomorrow would bring back the relentless spring rains.

She undid the ward she'd set on the door, and went into her house. Hanroi came trotting up and b.u.t.ted his still lightweight, kittenish frame against her ankles, trilling in welcome. She picked him up and scratched under his chin, then put him down and went to turn on lights in the living room and b.u.mped up the thermostat to get the heater going.

She went into the kitchen, thinking about having some tea, but once she looked into her cupboard at her choices, nothing really sounded good. She prowled around restlessly for a while, did the few dishes she'd left sitting in her sink, then straightened up in the living room.

She finally settled on her couch and sat still long enough to realize she was restless because she was avoiding calling Gelsenim. She'd promised she'd do that, and it was weighing on her that he was likely waiting on her call, suffering from his hunger and probably regressing to his former state the longer he was away from her. She turned and arranged herself sideways on the couch, knees pulled up, and moved the white alpaca throw that was draped over the back of the couch over her. As she cuddled up, Hanroi jumped up onto the small s.p.a.ce between her knees and her chest and began kneading the blanket. He was, fortunately, in the mood to be petted rather than in the mood to run mad about the house. She stroked him absentmindedly as she considered whether she had a responsibility to take care of Gelsenim. It would be a very heavy responsibility if that were so. But she had to admit to herself that as long as Gelsenim was with her, he wasn't off doing the usual terrible things that demons did if they managed to break through to human s.p.a.ce and possess someone. The mechanism by which that happened was still entirely unclear to Bree. Obviously, demons could be called by Demon Masters but how, really, did they manage to get through sometimes on their own? And why didn't it happen more often? With those thoughts, Bree's resolve hardened. She would call Gelsenim, even though it still freaked her out to do it on her own, without Daniel present.

She drew her will energy together, focused on her desire for his presence, and said aloud, "Gelsenim, I call you!"

There was the betraying rush of heat, the shimmer of air, then, faster than usual, Gelsenim took human form, coming into being standing nearby and smiling down at her. Bree noted that he'd made an effort to appear a little older. The beginnings of lines beside his eyes were evident. He looked more like someone in his mid-thirties than the younger form he'd taken before. And, interestingly, his nail polish, always a constant before in any form he took, was gone. He sported a light colored fedora with a brown band, perched jauntily on the back of his head, and a lock of his blond hair fell fetchingly over his brow. "Good of you to call, my host," he said cheerfully. He was clearly pulling out all the stops to make himself appealing. While her Demonsense registered his presence, it was the mildest possible background buzz.

Bree's paranoia meter jumped up a few notches. She had to guard against being taken in. She tried to bring to mind his demonic form to bolster her caution. "Okay," she said, "you can go ahead and possess me, but I want your word first that you'll leave when I ask."

"You would take my word?" Gelsenim asked, with what sounded like real curiosity.

"Let's just say I'm starting to feel like maybe I can take your word," Bree replied carefully.

"Then, my host, you have it," the demon replied. His form wavered, then dissipated into a mist that quickly entered Bree's body with a rush of warmth. Gelsenim's previous form reappeared in front of her, although she could very clearly feel his presence inside her. "May I sit?" he asked, gesturing to the other end of the couch.

"Sure, go ahead." Bree watched, feeling her body tense as he flopped down, pulled his hat off and put it aside on the round end table next to that end of the couch. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead, but most of it fell back down. The effect was amazingly detailed and realistic. She thought he must not have devolved too far into his less disciplined, less intelligent manifestation if he could maintain such a good simulacrum of life. She'd noted before that the more agitated or hungry he was, the more he preferred his outwardly demonic form. She allowed herself to relax a bit. "So, are you feeling, um, coherent?" Bree asked, uncertain if that was the right word to use with him.

"Yes, my host, especially now that we are joined. I believe that since you are allowing me more frequent possessions, I am better able to maintain clarity when we are apart. Though I was getting hungry," he added with a sharper tone.

"I have been giving thought to that, Gelsenim, to what it might take to keep you in a state where you're not suffering the hunger so much. And where you can maintain your clarity."

"That's easy," Gelsenim told her, his voice still casual, but his blue gaze intense. "We should stay joined. I can a.s.sure you, I have seen no sign that our joining harms you. And you must admit that I have helped you many times now when we are together."

Bree couldn't help the rush of distaste that came to her as she imagined being permanently joined with Gelsenim. She swallowed it down and tried to focus on how to best explain her objections to him. "I realize this may be difficult for you to understand, but we humans don't have any experience of symbiosis."

"Wrong, my host. Symbiosis is how your kind produces young. The growing young one feeds off of the host female."

"But that only lasts for nine months. And the baby isn't another thinking being, not at that state. We're an inherently solitary species," Bree explained.

"Wrong again." Gelsenim seemed to be enjoying arguing, but his reb.u.t.tals were coming so quickly that she had the sense he'd been thinking this through during his time away from her. "Humans seem unable to live alone in most cases. They almost always partner with another and raise young, and the young are with them for a lengthy period of time. And they so often congregate in cities. They join in groups for many purposes, as did the Seldenai."

"I concede all that," Bree replied seriously. "But what you're not getting, or you don't want to hear, is that it feels like a violation to us to have a demon enter us. We don't have s.p.a.ce inside of us to easily accommodate another being." She'd been marshaling her arguments too. "We fear another taking us over, even in our intimate relationships when we're physically separate. We humans want to be close to others, but at the same time, we want to be independent, apart."

"Perhaps I understand the concepts insufficiently, but are these not opposites?"

Bree smiled a little in response. "You're right, in a way they are. That's my species for you. I guess we're contrary that way." She paused to consider for a moment, then went on, cautiously stretching out her knees, which were feeling a little sore, trying to extend her legs on the couch without actually touching Gelsenim. There wasn't quite enough room, but as her feet were barely touching his leg, and they felt human enough, she decided to leave them there. Hanroi seemed less concerned with Gelsenim's presence this time and was sound asleep on her lap, having barely stirred as she lowered her legs.

"I think a lot of the time, though, we do okay with it. We spend time with others and we spend time alone. If you and I were always joined, I would never be alone. And while that's appealing to the part of me that wants to be close to another, it's really unsettling to the part of me that wants to be alone."

"I believe I could maintain silence and dampen my energy greatly from time to time if that were needed," the demon replied. "It's not the way it was with the Seldenai, but I realize I may have to adjust. For example, how is your Demonsense right now?"

Bree did another quick internal check. "Pretty quiet," she admitted.

"As you see, I have been working on my energy signature further. I believe we have only begun to explore the ways we might coexist together. It is very, very interesting to contemplate." The arm that had been extended along the back of the couch dropped and draped across her lower legs, one hand lightly embracing one of her ankles. His hand was very warm, and for a split second, Bree enjoyed the sensation. Then it registered with her that Gelsenim was trying to be seductive. She had to put the kibosh on that, and fast. She frowned at him and told him firmly, "Please don't touch me. I don't want to experiment with your physical form right now. I want to focus on our conversation."

The demon removed his hand with an engaging smile and put it in his lap. "Does it not interest you at all, the ways we might join?"

"It interests me more intellectually than in actuality," Bree told him honestly. "You know, I think it's simply hard for you to truly understand why we don't like possession. It appears you may have evolved in symbiosis with the Seldenai."

"On those rare times when I have been well fed enough to experience clarity, I have thought that humans do not like possession because of the things we get them to do. They are not always what the person would wish to do on their own, though of course it is easier to possess those who truly do wish to harm others."

"It's certainly one reason we don't like it, but the other reason is the feeling of invasion." Bree tried to think of an example that might make the situation clearer. She could only think of one, one she was reluctant to use, but she couldn't come up with another, so she plunged ahead. "You have, I believe, possessed someone who raped another person?"

"Yes, my host," Gelsenim answered quietly. He looked embarra.s.sed, but Bree guessed it was more because he knew it was what she wanted to see more than that he was truly sorry.

"You may have noticed that the person being raped didn't like it," she went on with forced steadiness. She had fortunately never been raped, but given her recent experience, and the harrowing deep read she'd once done on someone who had, it was very difficult to talk about. "In that situation, you are physically entering another person's body with a part of your body without their permission. It's the same with possession. To us, it feels like rape. The revulsion and fear you've seen on the victim's faces, well, that's how many people feel about being possessed."

Gelsenim's face reflected confusion. "I have often felt fear once a host knows they are possessed, during an exorcism, but not often during the possession. Usually my own enjoyment of being in a host seems to affect my host. I have seen them greatly enjoy physical sensations, and if they are powered, they clearly enjoy the increase in their abilities."

"That may be true for people who don't know they're being possessed, or who are volunteering because they want more power, but neither is true for me."

"Do you feel... raped, my host?" the demon asked her, face softening. He appeared to care. Of course, he could probably fake all kinds of emotions, but for once, she got the distinct sense that her answer mattered to him. So she tried hard not to answer reflexively. She almost wanted to tell him yes, just to get her point across, but it wasn't true. "Not at present, because I'm volunteering right now. I've been lucky enough to have mostly asked you to possess me. But when I've seen you possess Daniel, it repulses me. And if you were to possess me against my will, if you refused to leave when I asked you, then yes, I would feel raped."

Gelsenim was quiet in response. He grasped both hands together in his lap and seemed to consider them. It gave Bree an unwatched moment to really look at him. She realized that in making himself look a little more mature, he had managed to please her. She found him more attractive. The look seemed to suit his more thoughtful, more intelligent recent manifestations. In the past, he'd often looked like someone in his early twenties, someone careless and callow. It was actually rather fascinating to wonder which of his many appearances was closest to his true nature. Was it any of these human manifestations, or was it the demonic ones? Right now, he seemed the least demonic he ever had to her.

He finally spoke, and his voice was quieter still. "I find I do not want you to feel raped. I do not wish to cause you pain. This is... a novel sensation. It has been my business to cause pain for many long eons."

"Well, but you have said that wasn't the case with the Seldenai."

"You must understand," he answered, looking up at her now, blue eyes level and serious. "It is only since I began talking with you and Daniel that I even remembered the Seldenai. It had been a very long time since I had done so."

"You know, Daniel and I speculated a lot together about how, if you have memories, you must have a mind that exists without any physical form, because you don't have a stable physical form. At least you don't on our plane of existence. Where you go when you're not here, what you call the void, do you have physical form there?"

"We seldom can maintain physical form there. It is difficult to do so in this plane as well unless we possess a host. Even then, with most hosts, we can't maintain it for long. I think that because I don't experience hunger with you, I am not having trouble maintaining this form. As to where my mind exists when I am not in physical form, I have no answer for you."

Bree saw an opening to pursue the question that had made her want to call him in the first place. "So how do you break through when a Demon Master isn't calling you?"

"Daniel used to ask me that, and I was unable to tell him," Gelsenim admitted. "But now that I'm able to think, I may be able to describe it in some way." He shifted his posture a little in the corner of the couch to face her more fully. Bree had to pull back her feet a little to give him room. Hanroi gave an annoyed chirp as she jostled him.

"In the void, I can perceive your world. It is like echoes of sound and sensation. I can, for example, perceive you quite clearly now that I am so much aware of you. I can linger near the echo of you and be ready to respond to your call. There are times when the echoes become louder. My kind is attracted to this as the echoes have some energy, some of the emotional energy on which we feed. This is all instinctive. And the negative emotional energy comes through stronger. It is a stronger energy in most cases than positive energy, at least to my kind. So we can sense those who might be easy to possess." He raised a hand and gestured as if polishing a mirror. "Then, it is as if there is a thinness in the s.p.a.ce that separates us from you. It does not always happen near a host to whom we are attracted, but where the echoes are louder, the thinness sometimes furthers, and we can push into your s.p.a.ce. There is a short time after we enter your s.p.a.ce for us to choose a host. If we are unsuccessful, we are usually drawn back into the void. So we do not always get to choose the most delicious hosts."

"So it must be something in the particular power of Demon Masters that opens the door between you and the void, that makes it go both ways."

"Yes, that makes sense to me also." Gelsenim ran his fingers back through his hair, the gesture an almost perfect copy of one Daniel often used. "I understand you have many questions, my host, and I wish to please you, but there is much that I truly do not know about my own kind, about my own self. I have hopes that were we to remain joined, more memories would return to me. More of this mental capacity would be available to me, to speculate, to take physical form, to make theories and to test them. I have some vague memory of this process. It is something in which I engaged with the Seldenai, I am sure of it. Yet I do not remember many details. If I could perhaps stay even a few of your days with you, what might come to me?"

The look Gelsenim gave her was openly pleading. It sat strangely on his more mature face, as if a child's needs were peeking through from the back of a man's psyche. She was a bit moved by the look, but truly more moved by the idea. What might Gelsenim know, what might he be if she let him stay joined with her longer? How many more questions might be answered?

"I'm curious about that too. And I think maybe we can work up gradually to more possession time. I wish Daniel were here," she added wistfully. "I need him to monitor me, and he's just good to brainstorm with about all this. He thinks of questions I miss."

Gelsenim shrugged. "I was drawn to Daniel before I met you, but now he does not interest me."

Bree felt her hackles rise at that. "He interests me, so I guess he'd better interest you." She decided to confide more fully in Gelsenim. "He's asked to be alone for awhile, to try to work out how to be less susceptible to being divided. But if that doesn't work, I want to try doing another deep read on him and see if I can't find some way to attune with his energy and mend the divide. Daniel's afraid he could go divided in the middle of it and call a demon, and maybe bind me or anyone else who was around."

"As I told you at our last meeting, he can call almost any demon and it should not be a problem. In fact, he can call many demons at once. I have mastered many at once before."

And he had, at the riot in Pioneer Square, when she'd de-possessed all those Keltoi at the same time with his help. And another time as well, last year, during that last conflict with Franchesca, when Daniel's ex had called a whole raft of demons at once. That memory brought to mind another, a far worse one, but one she had been meaning to ask Gelsenim about.

"Gelsenim, that first time I had you possess me, when Daniel and I were doing battle with Franchesca to rescue Hunter, I got the impression that you had somehow seen me a couple of minutes before when I managed to order a demon out of Jim Scanlon. I had some holy water on me, and I used that, but I hadn't had time to do an exorcism spell. I just willed the demon to leave, and it did. But it killed Scanlon on the way out. Did you see that, from the other side, in the void?"

"I was nearby. I felt the echo of that event strongly. The doorway was nearly open as many demons had already been called through. And I was looking for Daniel. We are often drawn to those we've possessed before, if they survive the possession."

"Why did it kill him?" Bree asked in a small voice. "It doesn't seem to kill anyone when I order demons out while you possess me."

"In those cases, our power is combined. Either we are both ordering the demons out, or I myself am ordering them out. It may be a different energy than when you do it on your own."

"If what you're saying is true, then any Demon Master power I have is lethal." Bree felt cold inside saying the words.

"I don't know that that is true, my host," Gelsenim replied. He put a hand on her ankle again, but this time, Bree was too distracted to stop him. "All demons but the weakest are capable of killing a host on exiting. Sometimes we kill a host by choice, sometimes it just happens. Perhaps you were not the cause."

Bree wanted to believe that, with all her heart. But it would be dangerous to believe it just because it was convenient. "Daniel thinks the reason I'm not succeeding in casting out demons with Demon Master talent is because I'm afraid of killing someone. He says he never has, though he tries not to use his Demon Master talent, so there's not a big track record there. In your experience, how often does it happen with other Demon Masters?"

Gelsenim shrugged. "That is hard for me to say. Even now, my memories are hard to access with any reliability. I believe, though, that it is rare. And as I said, it may even then be the demon's choice."

"So if I'm in control enough, either because you're with me, or I learn to do it alone, I should be able to forbid a demon from killing its host on exiting." Bree's expression grew sharp as she considered it.

"I should think so," Gelsenim responded, patting her ankle soothingly.

Bree rubbed her knuckles to her lips, thinking hard. "You know, everywhere I turn, I keep running into the same d.a.m.ned lesson. I can't avoid this. The safest course is to keep moving forward, to get better at using my talents. Probably even to keep experimenting with letting you possess me as well. I'm a danger to others if I can't control my power. Yet I can't shake the feeling that there's danger in getting good at using it. Just because I don't seem to be getting demon burned yet, it doesn't mean I won't. Most Demon Masters don't show demon burn for a few years at soonest."

"My host, I honestly do not think you will," Gelsenim said with unusual firmness. "We are truly compatible. I am not certain the same would be true if you allowed another to possess you."

"Well, it's not exactly in your interest for me to check that out, is it? Of course you'd say that," Bree replied, giving him a narrow look.

Gelsenim smiled. "Too true. You see, I am transparent to you. You hardly need fear me."

"Yeah, right," she replied skeptically.

"I have said I do not wish to cause you pain," the demon said gently.

Bree regarded him seriously, brows drawn down in thought. "I want to believe you," she admitted. "I want to believe that you've changed from being freed of the hunger. But even if you have, I just don't know that I'll ever be able to allow the amount of possession time you would want."

As the words left her lips, Bree realized she'd been far too honest. There was something in the intimacy of the setting, of their conversation, that had led her to be so. She would have done better to string him along with promises. She found herself thinking Daniel wouldn't have made such a mistake, but she squashed that thought. Daniel wasn't here. She had to start learning to rely on herself.

"You are not Seldenai," the Gelsenim replied, but while he usually sounded sad when he spoke of his former hosts, this time he sounded speculative. "You are not Seldenai," he repeated more strongly. "With the Seldenai, we did not often bother to take physical form, though I seem to recall we could, I think in service of some art form. With you, it seems to give you comfort to perceive me as outside of you. Perhaps then you do not feel so... violated. And besides, this form intrigues me. Why do you suppose I am drawn to make for you a male form? I am feeling from inside you how a human form should feel and be, so why am I not female?"

The question startled Bree. She'd never given it any thought. "Aren't demons always male?" she asked stupidly, because she already knew the answer.

"Of course not, my host. Though almost always we appear so to you. I am not certain if we have gender the same way you do. But I believe some demons are drawn to female form. I have made both. But with you, it is clear to me I must be male. Why is this? Is it what you desire?"

Bree was truly stopped in her tracks by that one. Hadn't she and Daniel speculated that Gelsenim showed some tendency to want to please? Why might she want him in male form? The answer, or at least an answer, came to her. "Males are seen as stronger in my culture. As protectors. Maybe I want you to be strong. I want to feel protected. But the irony here is that what I most want protection from is demons."

"And as I have just rea.s.sured you, that is something I can protect you from in almost every case. The benefit of our joining goes both ways, Bree."

The demon so seldom used her name that it seemed strange to hear him say it. She regarded Gelsenim quietly, openly. He looked back at her patiently. She couldn't help but ask herself whether she might be able to tolerate his presence if he could stay this coherent, and dampen his demonic energy signature this much. He didn't feel evil to her right now.

It was a hard thing for Bree to admit. She'd hated and feared demons nearly all of her life, as her Demonsense had come upon her so young. But working with Daniel on demonic research had made her more openminded on the subject, made her admit there was a great deal she didn't know, and that was worth knowing. In the end, she would find out only through experience if Gelsenim could be rehabilitated, could truly leave behind his impulses to do wrong.

"Tell you what, Gelsenim," she finally offered after some thought. "You're building some trust with me by leaving when I ask. In return, I can commit to calling you more frequently. But I want you to keep in mind that I'm on the lookout for any bad behavior from you. I need to trust that you won't do, you know, demonic things when we're joined. And keep in mind, worst case scenario, I can always have Daniel order you out."