Personal Demon by Kelley Armstrong Read Free Book Online Page B

something that sounded like “Jack,” and the guy who’d let me into the club appeared. “You and Sonny take Faith to dinner. Make her feel welcome. Think you can handle that?”
    The young man grinned. “I believe I can manage.”
    “Just don’t talk her ear off. I want you both back by nine. You’re on floor duty tonight. Oh, introductions.
    Faith, Jasper. Jasper, Faith.”
    The young man shot Guy the finger. Guy only smiled and shooed us out.
    “Jaz, please,” he said to me. “ No one calls me Jasper. Not even my mother. The moment she recovered from her temporary insanity, it became Jaz on everything but official documents, and I plan to change those too, as soon as I can be bothered filling out the paperwork. Now to collect Sonny, wherever the hell he’s hiding—”
    “Right behind you,” said a deep voice.
    Behind us stood a young man, Jaz’s size, but with straight dark blond hair to his shoulders, a deep tan and an angular face that wasn’t ugly, but would never make it onto a billboard.
    Jaz slapped him on the back. “Hey, bro. Guy just gave us another tough assignment. Gotta take Faith here out to dinner and chat her up. Faith, this is Sonny. Met him in preschool. Our first joint effort was putting worms in the sandbox and we’ve been together ever since.” A wink my way. “Though the pranks are a little more serious these days.”
    He kept up a near steady patter all the way out of the club and down the street. He asked about my test, then told me about his and about Sonny’s. Jaz had been with Guy’s crew for a year now, with Sonny following him the next time a spot opened—they hadn’t wanted to compete against each other. Jaz paused for breath only long enough to ask what kind of food I liked.
    Normally, such nonstop chatter would have put me off, but in Jaz it didn’t seem to be nerves or ego. It seemed like…energy. Endless energy, needing an outlet, and I could feel it, like low-level chaos rippling from him.
    Over dinner, Jaz tried to let me do some of the talking, but considering that my life story was a fake, I was just as happy to let him continue.
    He told me a bit about himself and Sonny. Nothing overly personal, just enough to be friendly. First, supernatural type. I hadn’t been able to pick up vibes from either, and soon understood why. Both were the same minor type, magicians—a watered-down version of a sorcerer.

    That they’d met in preschool was no coincidence. Their parents had worked in the St. Cloud Cabal satellite office in Indianapolis where they’d attended a school selected by the Cabal. An otherwise ordinary school. There was no risk in that—supernatural kids didn’t come into their powers until their teens. They’d be encouraged to befriend those classmates whose parents worked with theirs—kids they’d see at Christmas parties and picnics and on the company’s Little League team. Then, when they grew older, they’d already have someone who could share their supernatural coming-of-age experience, someone they could talk to and commiserate with. Watching Jaz and Sonny, seeing that easy camaraderie I’d lost with my human friends, I felt a pang of envy so sharp it was hard to eat.
    They were younger than me, both twenty-three. They’d left home as teens and drifted about ever since.
    That wasn’t surprising. I knew what it felt like, suddenly being different, with secrets to keep, powers to understand, searching for your moorings, for your identity, your place in this new world.
    Jaz and Sonny seemed to have found an anchor in the gang. Neither had any complaints and that seemed genuine, not a put-on for the new girl. Jaz gave me a rundown of all the members: their races, positions and personalities. He certainly made my job of intelligence gathering much easier.
    As dinner stretched well past the hour mark, I relaxed enough to take a closer, more critical look at Jaz. If I had a type, he wasn’t it. The mop of curls to his jawline was longer than