Part 29 (1/2)

But looks could be deceiving and Derek didn't trust anything having to do with demons.

'Okay, so you know my name. Who are you?'

Gina tugged at Derek's gun, but he pulled it away from her grasp. He wasn't ready to kill this guy yet. He should be, but something was stopping him.

G.o.d, he was confused.

The man smiled, showing off even, white teeth, not at all like those snarling fangs the demons sported. 'Look again, Derek.'

What kind of game was this a.s.shole playing? 'I am looking. Still don't know who you are.'

'If you let your guard down I think you could figure it out.'

Derek studied the man and frowned. There was something familiar about him, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe he and Lou had run into him before, but it wasn't likely. The Realm of Light was a close-knit organization. Derek had met them all, and he'd have remembered this guy.

'You want to tell me what's going on here?' Starting with who you are? Starting with who you are? It was driving him crazy. The familiarity, the niggling sense of awareness and foreboding. Gina moved to his side and he glanced down at her pale, tear-streaked face. She slipped her hand in his. It was driving him crazy. The familiarity, the niggling sense of awareness and foreboding. Gina moved to his side and he glanced down at her pale, tear-streaked face. She slipped her hand in his.

'You don't recognize me, do you?' The man paced slowly in front of Derek, studying him by tilting his head from side to side. 'We never did look alike. You always favored your mother's side of the family.'

Derek let his eyes drift closed for a fraction of a second, wanting this all to be a bad dream. Denial was a good thing, right? This man couldn't be who he was beginning to suspect he was. He was supposed to be dead, or in jail. Anywhere but here. Why here, and for what reason?

'You're not him.'

One corner of the man's mouth lifted, as if he were just letting Derek in on a private joke. 'Yes, I am.'

'You left. Or died.' He refused to believe it. It was some kind of trick, or illusion. h.e.l.l, it had been so long Derek didn't even remember his face anymore. And twenty-five years had changed him.

'Is that what your mother told you? That I died?' He stepped so close Derek felt the man's breath across his cheek. 'She was always afraid of me. That's why she took you and ran, hid you away so I couldn't find you. Because she was scared of me. But you never were. Then or now. You don't fear me at all, do you?'

'No.'

'Good. A boy should never be afraid of his father, Derek.'

Derek's heart crashed to his feet. Despite inner denial, he couldn't refute the truth.

He heard Gina's gasp, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from his father, Ben.

'What are you doing down here, withthem?'

'They are my brothers. I belong here.'

So what he suspected all along had really happened. All those years ago, when the demons had taken his brother, Dominic, they had also taken his father. He had asked his mother about it but she refused to talk about Ben.

Maybe the Sons of Darkness had taken his father be fore they'd taken Nic? Maybe he'd even been part of Nic's capture. Derek wished he could remember. He'd only seen the demons take Nic.

He had such vague memories of his dad, of the times before Nic disappeared.

Did his mother know? Was that why she'd been so obsessed with running after Nic had been taken?

'How are you a.s.sociated with these things?'

'We have a lot to talk about, Derek. Will you put your weapon down and listen?'

A dozen demons appeared, filling the outer room, standing behind Ben. He could take some of them down, but not all of them. And he had Gina to consider. 'Do I have a choice?'

'Not really,' his father said, amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice.

Derek tried not to shudder. 'Then I guess I'll just listen to what you have to say.' For starters. Then he'd think about what he had to do, what his options were.

'Derek!' Gina urged in a fervent whisper.

'It's okay,' he said, not even looking at her. He had it under control.

He'd listen, but no matter who the man claimed to be, these things were going down. And if Derek had to take himself and his father with them, so be it.

All demons had to die, no matter who they were.

He just had to get Gina out of here first. As soon as he figured out a plan.

'I don't suppose you'd care to hand over your weapons,' Ben suggested.

'No. I think I'll hang on to them for now.'

Ben nodded and motioned through the doorway. 'Then you and Gina can follow me.'

The demons parted and allowed them to pa.s.s. Derek didn't like it, but he and Gina were surrounded and they had little choice.

As they followed Ben, it occurred to him there were no light fixtures, but low-level light allowed him to see where they were going. And as they moved from room to room, the dirt walls became real walls. He ran his fingers across them. Real, painted walls. This wasn't at all like the other room. Solid floors and sterile, gray walls, like a laboratory, with computer gadgetry that belied his expectations about demons. He hadn't expected tech stuff. Who the h.e.l.l used these things?

'What is all this?'

'We'll get to that later,' Ben said, motioning him into yet another room, an expansive, elegant living area with sofa and table and chairs. Gleaming silver swords lined the walls over one sofa. 'Take a seat.'

Derek's eyes widened at hownormal this all seemed. If he didn't know better, he would think he was in somebody's house.

'How'd you get all this stuff down here?' he asked, he and Gina taking a seat on one of the love seats across from the sofa, noting as he did so that all the slimy muck had disappeared off his boots.

He looked to Gina, who appeared shocked. She had yet to say a word, just stared at Ben and then back at him as if she couldn't fathom it all, either.

'Think of it as wish fulfillment,' Ben said, slipping onto the sofa. 'Want something to drink? Beer? How about a cigar?'

In an instant an ice-cold bottled beer appeared on the table in front of him, along with a humidor. Derek lifted the lid, somehow not surprised to find it filled with his favorite Cuban cigars. He inhaled the sweet aroma, then shook his head, certain neither of those items had been there before. 'How'd you do that?'

'Like I said,' Ben said with a sly grin. 'Wish fulfillment. Anything you can think of, just wish for it and it can be yours.'

Uh-huh. He'd seen too many people sell their souls to the devil to fall for that s.h.i.+t. 'No, thanks.'