Demon Trackers: The Anointed

part five

"Nice to see you too." Cal grinned, more at ease now that they were away from the living quarters.

Jake sniffed his shirt. He had pulled a clean one from his duffle once they'd left the repaired Hell-hole.

Paps's gaze finally flicked up. "You reek of demon."

"Ohhhh. Yeah, I got something for ya." Jake swung his pack off his shoulder to dig inside. "Here." He tossed the severed demon hand to Paps. "A little present for you."

Only Paps could squeal like a delighted little girl over the stinky body part of a hellspawn. Guy was an entirely different level of odd, but also a bona-fide genius. Like James Bond's Q only with added elements of the supernatural and spells and incantations in his arsenal. Paps had come up with the idea of using time-slowing spells on the ice bullets to keep them from melting inside the shotgun chamber.

"What's this?" Cal leaned over the little glow worm.

"Whoa, kid, not too close." Setting the demon hand down, Paps scrambled over and nudged Cal back a few steps. "Nasty little buggers. Some kind of parasite one of the teams picked up while exterminating an akhlys in Cambodia."

"Ew. Swamp hag?" Jake mimicked a shudder. "Hate those. Their eyes especially, all hollowed out and pitty."

Cal and Paps just looked at him. "Pitty?" Cal deadpanned.

Jake cocked his chin. "So whatcha gonna do with a parasite anyhow?"

Paps plucked the worm up with the tweezers and placed it in a jar. "Oh you never know what properties they have. Could have a deadly toxin. Maybe a cure for cancer. Or I could throw them on a pack of werewolves and give them the scabies for a week."

"Now you're talking."

"Yep." Paps passed Jake to put the jar on a shelf. "And you still stink."

"Demon bit him," Cal informed the weapons maker.

Paps spun. "What? You cleaned it properly?"

"Course." Jake stepped back from Paps who charged toward him. Little guy looked fierce, forehead lined in concentration, while plucking up a tiny brown vial from the shelf and cotton balls from a drawer on the way."

Jake threw his hands up to ward off the man. Last time the dude looked at one of his wounds he stabbed some kind of stinger into it. Stung like hell, even if the wound did heal up in half the time. "What? I washed it, poured consecrated water over it and everything."

"Where?"

"Right on top of the wound."

Paps's gaze rolled toward the ceiling. "Where'd you get bit?"

"Near his left shoulder." Cal laughed, enjoying this way too much.

Jake glared at him.

"Demon bites are nothing to take lightly." Paps poured whatever was in the little bottle onto a cotton ball. It was soon saturated a dark green.

"I know. That's why I washed it out."

Paps lifted his thin brows and held out the cotton ball. "Angelica oil. Don't be a child."

Jake wasn't going to look, but he swore he heard an impatient tapping of Pap's foot. "Fine." He took the offered cotton. Both Cal and Paps watched until Jake pulled the neck of his T-shirt down and dabbed the oil over the bite marks. The two were worse than mothering hens. Well, okay, this stuff didn't sting and was numbing the pain a bit. It stunk though. "You girls happy now?"

"Ecstatic," Paps droned, pushing a cork into the top of the vial and handed it to Jake. "Keep it."

"Uh, thanks." Jake slipped it inside one of his pack's outer pockets.

"So, I take it you didn't show up because you missed my handsome mug. Your mother summon you?"

"No." Cal's brows scrunched together. He looked to Jake. Since Celalundria had sent them to their father two years ago, she'd never summoned them back.

"Why would you think that?" Jake asked.

"Oh." Paps turned away, busying himself with moving jars of questionable substances around the closest work table. "No reason. Just asking."

"Paps." Cal came around the table while Jake closed in from the scientist's other side. "What's going on?"

The old guy glanced up at one brother, then the other.

"Paps. Please." Cal used sincerity like a weapon. His dark eyes widened. "If something's going on with our mom, we should know. She's okay, isn't she?"

"Celalundria?" Yep, Paps was a goner, poised to spill everything. Gotta hand it to the kid. "Kay, listen, your mother's fine. Don't worry about that, but something big is going on. Riffs and Hell-holes are opening up at an alarming rate, more and more demons are getting out. There was even a run at the postern bridge."

"What?" Cal stiffened. "Demons tried to get into Karavel?"