Hollywood Demon (The Collegium Book 6) by Jenny Schwartz Read Free Book Online Page A

Doris closed her mouth. Whatever she’d been about to say, she obviously changed her mind. “Mark isn’t in danger from a demon. There is no demon.”
    “I—”
    “Just wait. Think about it, Clancy. You didn’t sense a demon before this poor man attacked you. If Mark hadn’t primed you with his talk of demons, would you have accepted the reasonable explanation of a psychotic break.”
    Clancy hooked her heels on the edge of her seat and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Bryce said he wanted to eat my heart and take my soul!”
    Her grandma sat back in her chair, her face losing color. “Mark didn’t tell me that bit.”
    “Mark wants to keep us out of it. Safe.” As she said it, Clancy realized how true it was. Initially, Mark had wanted her understanding. Perhaps he’d even considered her as an ally; an equal, after years of being the kid on the estate. But now, he’d pulled away to protect her and Doris. “I didn’t sense the demon, but isn’t that characteristic of demonic possession?” She frowned, trying to remember a field of magic she’d had little interest in when she studied at the Collegium. “Demons like to possess humans because our flesh hides them.”
    Ugh. She reached for her hot chocolate and took a healthy swallow to wash away that nasty thought.
    “I have a friend who’s a retired priest,” Doris said. “I’ll have him stop in and check on this Bryce Goodes. Poor soul.”
    “Can your friend do an exorcism?” A question Clancy had never thought she’d ever have reason to ask.
    “Yes.” Doris finished her hot chocolate, some color returning to her face. “Father Jorge has experience with evil.”
    Clancy shivered. Evil. It was a concept most people debated philosophically or relegated to horror movies. But evil was real and it twisted lives.
    Mark had lost seven years of his life to chasing it.
    “Grandma, how do we help Mark?”
    “It’s not Mark who needs help.” The interruption came from the man opening the back door. His voice was biting and the expression in his eyes furious. “What are you doing here, Clancy?”
    “Jeremy.” All of her muscles went slack in shock. Her arms released her knees and her feet thudded to the floor. “Hi?”
    Her brother ignored her tentative greeting. “I felt the magic you used. I was in the middle of an early tutorial session and I had to break it off to quiet the surge of geo-forces you caused.”
    “I’m sorry.” She felt awful. This was why she’d vowed she wouldn’t use her magic. She wanted to stay here, at home, and that meant respecting that home was Jeremy’s territory. The Collegium had awarded it to him. “I didn’t meant to. I was—”
    “Good morning, Jeremy,” Doris broke in. “Don’t I warrant a polite greeting, even if you can’t spare one for your sister whom you haven’t seen in over a year?”
    He flushed. “Good morning, Grandma.” He crossed the small room, bent and kissed Doris’s cheek. But as he straightened, he scowled at Clancy.
    Because he was scowling, he missed the warning look Doris directed at her.
    Apparently, they weren’t going to tell Jeremy about the demon.
    More secrets. Clancy sighed.
    “So, what is your excuse?” Jeremy demanded. He looked every inch the successful hipster with his carefully trimmed black beard, and the tweed jacket over dark brown trousers that was probably a fashionably ironic joke on the old academic uniform. “You know your power is unstable. That’s why Erik kicked you out of Iceland.”
    Well, there went one of her secrets: the reason the Collegium had demoted her, and she’d resigned. From independent, roaming sensor of geomagnetic disturbances, she’d been recalled to New York to provide support to more senior—and reliable—geomages at the Collegium.
    “I quit the Collegium,” she said to her brother.
    “Neville told me.”
    Of course he did , she thought bitterly, and was instantly ashamed of her bitterness. It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault