“We’re so screwed,” Sykes said, pacing.
Shut up, I wanted to yell. He’d been saying that for the last thirty minutes and driving me nuts. My powers and headache were on the upswing again after leveling off at Mrs. Watts’ but I didn’t want to get catty with my teammates. The glances Bran threw my way told me he knew I was close to losing it again.
“So freaking screwed,” Sykes repeated.
“You can say it a gazillion times, Sykes, it won’t make anything better,” Kim snapped. “And it’s not us who’re in trouble, the humans who made the deals and canceled are.”
“But we helped them,” Izzy said.
“No one forced them to sell their souls in the first place,” I cut in.
“Lil!” Izzy scolded me.
“She’s right, Izzy,” Kim said. “No one put a gun to their heads.”
It didn’t matter whether the humans had canceled their contracts or not. All the ones we visited had similar stories—they had no memory of what had happened, yet their homes had broken glass everywhere and an accident had occurred that had reversed their fortunes. Bran made sure I didn’t get anywhere near them.
A man whose daughter sold her soul after he was hit by a car and broke his spine was now brain-dead. He and the daughter were in a head-on collision with a truck yesterday. She was now the one with the broken spine while he was on life support.
A couple who couldn’t have children, and had twins after the husband gave up his soul, was in the hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning.
Their children didn’t make it and the husband, who had done the signing, was in the ICU.
A music mogul’s club caught on fire, killing several people and leaving most of his body with third-degree burns. Lawsuits were already piling up because the doors had been jammed for some reason. Not only was he ruined financially, he was being held liable. By the time the lawyers finished with him, he would be penniless.
“Not only are they losing their ill-gained wealth and fame, they are being punished.” I glanced at Bran. He hadn’t spoken since we left Mrs. Watts, except to choose our next location. He was frustrated and kept forking his fingers through his hair. Even now, he stood near the edge of the roof and stared down at the city, anger surging from him in giant waves.
“The weirdest thing is that these misfortunes started while we were stuck in the valley,” Izzy said.
“Let’s be honest here,” Remy cut in. “They started after we sighted the first lightning demon. Mancuso was right and Master Haziel was wrong.”
I shook my head. “Master Haziel is never wrong. Who is Mancuso?”
“David Lee’s manager,” Izzy said. “Mancuso said no one could get away with playing with their soul without consequences. Master Haziel had said nothing would happen.”
“And we haven’t heard anything about David Lee,” Sykes said. “We need to find an Internet café and see how he’s doing.”
Kim gave an unladylike snort. “Enough with the bromance, Sykes. I’m sure David Lee’s voice is gone. It is obvious the demons are targeting the humans to get their souls back. I’ll ask again, why now? Why not four months ago when we started canceling their contracts?”
“Maybe it takes a special kind of demon to harvest souls,” I said.
“Like Reapers?” Remy asked then glanced at Bran. “What do you think, Bran?”
“Reapers don’t hurt humans or exact retribution,” Bran said. “They are Neutrals. The Tribe is made up of something else, and they were summoned to do one thing—stop me from getting my freedom.”
“Why would you think that?” I asked, not liking the certainty in his voice.
“Because I know who is behind the summoning.”
We converge on him, every said asking, “Who?”
“Gavyn,” Bran said.
There was silence, then everyone started talking at once.
“Your brother?
“How do you know?”
“Why would he do this?”
Bran pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “He’s the only person who’d go to extreme lengths to stop me from canceling my contracts. He wants me to take my rightful place as the leader of the demons because I won the battle on Jarvis Island. He asked me about it during Darius’ party at the Brotherhood’s compound.”
“What did you tell him?” Remy asked.
“What do you think?” Bran snapped. “I wasn’t interested and I’m still not. He didn’t stop asking and pushing. The last time I saw him, we had a fight about it and he stormed off.”
That was the Gavyn I knew, throwing tantrums when he didn’t get his way. Every time I thought there was hope for him, he pulled some crap that made me hate him.
“I know how my brother thinks,” Bran continued. “Waiting until my freedom is within my grasp then pulling a fast one is straight out of our mother’s book.” He paused, his gaze locked with mine a moment longer before moving to the others. I knew everything about his past—or, at least, I had known it. “Our mother did exactly the same thing when our father tried to sneak us out of Coronis Island. She knew for months what he’d planned, but waited until the night we attempted an escape. We were in a cave on the way to collect the Kris Dagger when she and her Lazari warriors surrounded us.” He chuckled, though there was no humor on his face. “It’s actually a brilliant strategy if you want to punish someone.”
“Evil and mean-spirited,” I said dismissively. “Gavyn is—”
“My brother,” Bran said and gave me a sad smile. “He’s not thinking straight.”
Oh, he was. Gavyn only ever thought about one person—Gavyn. He was conniving and power-hungry. To think I’d offered to heal him when a demon drained his powers. That was one memory I would have loved to forget.
“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Kim asked. “You know, after we visited the fourth or the tenth Damned Human?”
Bran shrugged. “I wasn’t sure. And part of me didn’t want to believe it.”
“Doesn’t what you want count for anything in his stupid plan?” I asked.
Don’t worry, his plan won’t work, Bran reassured me. “Gavyn doesn’t know that my psi energy is purified despite the Runners’ refusal to cancel. We should do something to help the humans. The Tribe got a head start on this, but we must catch up and stop them. Remember, we only canceled my contracts.”
There was silence, but we were all thinking the same thing—this might be bigger than we’d thought. When Bran won the battle on Jarvis Island, he’d gotten hundreds of thousands of contracts. While we’d focused on canceling his, the other junior and mid-level Cardinal Guardians from the other sectors around the globe had gotten the bulk of the other contracts. If the Tribe was punishing humans for canceling contracts and getting their souls back, their reach might extend beyond our sector.
“Sorry, dude, but your brother is a douchebag,” Sykes said.
“Please, don’t insult douchebags,” Kim said. “Now what?”
“We tell Darius to kick Gavyn out of the Brotherhood compound,” Izzy snarled. “He doesn’t deserve their hospitality if he’s back to his evil ways.”
Bran shook his head. “Gavyn left the Brotherhood the day after the party four months ago, but I know where he stays and works. I’m going to find him and have a long talk.”
“We are all going,” Remy corrected him. “He’s going to tell us how to send the Tribe back to Tartarus or whatever hole they crawled from.”
Bran actually smiled. “He runs a private club at Ritz-Carlton, L.A. Live. Demons only. He also lives there. Follow me.”
The room we appeared in was done in white and black, and had floor to ceiling windows with an amazing view of the city, the mountains, and the ocean in the background. Gavyn wasn’t home, but it was obvious why he had left the Brotherhood, with their homey stucco houses, for his old life. He was living in a lap of luxury, the latest electronic gadgets beside clairvoyant crystals projecting holographic motion images of him, his sister Celeste, and Bran.