***
“You know something; you’re going to have to explain this to me once again. Tell me why this Leonard character wouldn’t be after the book?” Kevan asked them again. “Because I gotta tell you, your explanation makes absolutely no sense. Demons sound like the kind to want this grimoire.”
“Oh for god’s sake, woman,” Marcus growled, as he planted himself in one of the chairs. “What is so difficult to understand?”
“I don’t know, you telling me that it doesn’t matter that this demon, and let me get this right, this high level demon, according to you guys, who is asking us about the grimoire, isn’t after it,” Kevan spat back at Marcus, getting pissed off at his highhanded attitude. Just because they were new to this supernatural stuff didn’t mean that they were stupid, and what he was telling her was just plain stupid.
“Well then, here it is again, for the fifteenth time,” Marcus drawled. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his legs, tenting his fingers together, and staring straight at Kevan. “I will try and make this as simple as possible for you to comprehend.”
“Marcus!” Caleb warned his brother.
“No Caleb, I’m tired. We have been at this for hours, and they refuse to accept that we know what we’re talking about. We are warriors, but we aren’t stupid,” he snarled, and glared at Kaitlyn and Kevan, who were just as frustrated over the communication chasm.
“Yeah well, we may be humans, but we aren’t stupid either,” Kaitlyn chimed in.
“Oh gods, here we go again.” Marcus rolled his eyes, as he leaned back in the chair. Kaitlyn barely resisted the urge to smack the smug look off his face.
“Oh you ... if you would get your head out of your ass, things might not take as long; you might even hear what we’re telling you. You keep telling us that Leonard, a high-level demon, specifically sent someone to talk to you when he discovered that we were asking questions about the grimoire, but it doesn’t matter. Are you smoking crack, or what?” Kaitlyn pointed out.
“Excuse me?” Marcus barked at her, and jumped to his feet to get in Kaitlyn’s face.
“Your explanations are the biggest load of bull shit that I have ever heard, and no, I will not excuse you,” Kaitlyn snapped at him.
“Marcus, you’re not stupid, don’t start acting like it now,” Kevan shot at him.
“Hey, you all need to calm down,” Caleb shouted, trying to defuse the situation.
“I’m not going to calm down. Think about this for one second, you should know us well enough by now to know that telling us a demon doesn’t want the grimoire, just because he’s a demon … it reeks like a huge load of crap,” Kaitlyn finished at high volume.
“It can’t use it, it’s a demon, so why would it need it, or want it?” Marcus bellowed at her. “The Drusa grimoire is a spell book made up of spells that can only be used by witches, warlocks, and sorcerers. It’s a demon, it can’t use the spells.”
“So what? That is the most asinine reasoning that I have ever heard,” Kevan shouted, getting frustrated with Marcus’ one-dimensional thinking. “Oh my gods, you are the most frustrating man.”
“At least we know that someone had a sense of humour,” Kaitlyn joked, trying to break the tension that was engulfing the room.
“Excuse me?” Marcus roared, confusion reigning on his face. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh come on, think about it. It all makes perfect sense. Can you think of a better way of evening the playing field? It wouldn’t do to let everyone have the same ability, now would it?”
“You’re a strange woman,” Marcus muttered, as he threw his hands up in aggravation. “Your mind comes up with the weirdest ideas, going off in different tangents; how does someone even think like that?”
“You know that I’m right,” Kaitlyn smiled, enjoying herself as she watched Marcus run his hands through his hair in frustration. “Okay, for the slow ones, listen up. If all the races had the ability to cast spells, then the stronger ones would have enslaved the weaker centuries ago. The PTB’s have given us a fighting chance of survival.” Kaitlyn felt she had explained herself quite clearly.
“The PTB’s?”
“Oh, come on, you should know that. PTB, the powers that be,” Kaitlyn told him.
Marcus stared at her, wanting to scream, wanting to tell her that she was crazy, that she had no idea what she was talking about. Instead, he had to clench his jaw and grind his teeth. “As much as I don’t want to admit this, and believe me I really don’t want to admit this, but what she ...” he pointed in Kaitlyn’s direction, “said, actually makes some sense.”
“Yes!” Kaitlyn cheered with a fist pump, and then stuck her tongue out at him.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Marcus growled. “Most the time, the stuff that comes out of your mouth makes absolutely no sense.”
“Enough,” Caleb interrupted. “We’re getting off the subject at hand.”
“You’re totally right, we are,” Kevan told them. “But you’re still wrong.”
“Kevan,” Caleb sighed.
“No, I mean it, listen to me, okay? You say that Leonard is a demon, therefore can’t use the book to cast the spells, fine, I understand that, no big deal. But what’s to stop him from hooking up with someone that can, and somehow getting them to do the dirty work?”
“Hooking up, now we are to think like fifteen year old teenagers?” Marcus uttered, wishing for his orderly life back.
“You know, you’re really are very impressive,” Kaitlyn told Marcus, her face very serious.
“It’s about time you noticed,” Marcus declared.
“Yeah, the fact that you’re able to walk upright with your head shoved up your ass is amazing,” Kaitlyn spat at him.
“Oh gods Kaitlyn, knock it off!” Kevan sighed. Marcus had a grin on his face. “I wouldn’t look so pleased with yourself, mister. You know, we may be new to all this shit, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t add two plus two. Why wouldn’t a demon gain control of someone that could cast the spells in the grimoire? He would have the entire world under his thumb. However, you act like I’m the crazy one who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You both have to come up with explanations for dismissing a demon with a great interest in this book, as well as the fact that you KNOW both Mullin, and this Leonard character.”
Caleb looked to Marcus, who had paused, thinking for a moment before he nodded his agreement. “We’ve dealt with It a few times over the years,” Caleb admitted.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she teased. “You guys would know better than I would; so do you think he’s asking about the book just for the hell of it, or does he want something more?”
“It wants something more,” Caleb reluctantly agreed with her. “But I’m still with Marcus on the fact that It doesn’t want the book.”
“Okay stop, why do you keep calling him, It?” Kaitlyn demanded to know. “I don’t know about you, but Mullin certainly looked like a man to me?”
“It wasn’t a man. It was a demon that has taken on the image of a human.” Marcus saw no point in Kaitlyn’s interest in humanizing a creature.
“Whatever, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck ...” Kaitlyn argued.
“Doesn’t make it a real duck!” Marcus ground out. “It’s not human, it’s a demon!”
“How about, rather than confusing us further, we say he or him, rather than It. We know that It is not human, but it would make things so much easier for us to say, and think of Mullin as him.”
“You need to learn this shit,” Marcus growled at her.
“We are, but you have to give us a chance!” she shot back, hands planted on her hips, not backing down from the glaring general. “As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“I know that Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Marcus shot at her. “I was there.” Kaitlyn’s mouth dropped open as she c
lued in to just how old these guys really were.
“Okay, now that we have had our history lesson, can we continue?” Kevan wanted to know.
“Sorry Sis, please carry on,” Kaitlyn told her, as she continued to watch Marcus very closely.
“Thank you, now where was I? Oh yeah, you keep saying that he doesn’t want the book but …”
“He doesn’t want the book,” Caleb reiterated.
“But what if he does?” Kevan argued.
“Kevan, you don’t understand, even if he,” Caleb looked to Kaitlyn who smiled, and nodded her head, while Marcus groaned and rolled his eyes. “Even if he did have someone who was able to cast the spells from the book, he wouldn’t have ultimate control, and I don’t think that Leonard would trust someone enough to allow them that amount of power. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?” Kaitlyn argued. “Okay, okay, you’ve made your point, but now listen to mine. Somewhere out there is this book of catastrophic spells, according to you, right?” She looked for confirmation from Caleb, who nodded his agreement.
“Why wouldn’t he want it? Even if he can’t use it, if he has it, he still holds a lot of power,” Kaitlyn speculated. “Maybe he just wants to make sure that no one else gets it! You know, the whole, I’ve got the biggest cock, attitude.”
“Now she starts making sense,” Marcus muttered to himself. Kaitlyn flipped him the bird.
“Love the analogy, Sis.” Kevan smiled at the mischievous grin plastered on Kaitlyn’s face. “So here are the facts: this book is a threat to all of us, right? So what kinds of spells are in it?” Kevan wanted to know. She watched as they all shot looks back and forth to each other but stayed silent. “Hello, I’m talking to you, asking questions, what kinds of spells are in this book?”
“That’s just it, Kevan, we don’t know,” Caleb stated.
“Excuse me? What do you mean you don’t know?” she yelled at them. “I’m so goddamn tired of not getting information. You guys must know who would have knowledge. I’m sick to death of feeling like an idiot. Fuck, for all we know, it could all be nothing more than an urban legend.” Kevan shook her head with frustration. “Or it could be some dusty old book that has nothing but nonsense in it. Daphne was murdered, and it could have been for nothing more than a rumor.”
“Kevan, it’s not nothing,” Niall spoke up. “Samhain went crazy after he supposedly found it.”
“And that is the key word, isn’t it? Supposedly.” Kevan pointed out, “You all believe it, they believe it, and all the races know about this book, that it is supposed to be locked up in the .... They all looked confused, as she tried to recall what Caleb had called it. “You know the library thingy?”
“You mean the Repository of Knowledge,” Caleb supplied.
“Yes, that thing, but now this horrid book is floating around out there somewhere.”
“Well, I doubt it’s floating,” Caleb teased her. Kevan looked at him, rolling her eyes.
“You know what I mean; this thing could be absolutely nothing.”
“You could be completely right. This whole thing could be about nothing, but what if it’s not? What if the book is real and the threat is real?”
“Well then, I guess we had better do something about it, shouldn’t we?” Kevan informed him. “If this whole thing started because Dreyden wanted the book, then it is up to us to ensure that he doesn’t get it.”
“So that is the plan?” Kaitlyn questioned. Caleb looked at the rest standing in the room. They each nodded their agreement.
“I guess that’s the plan,” Caleb stated.
“I hate to break the news to you bad boys, but you need to work on your planning skills, because this one really sucks,” Kaitlyn informed them.