Page 83 of Daemon Master

Adrian gave him a faint grin as he shakily regained his feet. “Never better, thanks to you. If I wasn’t in your debt before, I certainly am now.”

Xander blushed and shook his head stubbornly. “I still owed you after how you risked your life to save me from Souleater.”

Adrian chuckled. “Well, let’s call it even then.” He turned to Seymour. “Any idea what happened there?”

Seymour shrugged. “Ghosttear’s technique, perhaps?” He narrowed his eyes at Xander. “What I want to know is whyyouweren’t as affected.”

“Dunno. I felt my aether roiling inside, but I was able to fight through it.”

Adrian thought for a moment. “If Ghosttear’s doing something to our aether, Xander’s is more diluted than ours. Maybe that’s why the disruption didn’t hit him as hard.”

“Maybe.” Seymour said doubtfully. “But then, why did it affect Freya as much as it did? Or all those other daemons? Their aura’s aren’t that much stronger than Xander’s.”

Adrian didn’t have a good answer.

Tremorfist materialized beside the watcher. Seymour kept his gaze fixed on Ghosttear’s twitching form. “All I know is that this has gone on long enough.”

“Wait!” Adrian moved in front of Seymour. “At least, give me a chance to talk to it first.”

He expected the watcher to argue, but Seymour surprised him by sighing and jerking a nod. “Fine, be my guest. Just make sure you stay out of its area of effect. There’s no guarantee Xander will be able to drag you to safety a second time.”

Oddly touched by the watcher’s gruff concern, Adrian faced Ghosttear and cleared his throat. “Hey there, buddy. Sorry about Lockrod. He was only trying to play. None of us want to hurt you, so you can calm down now, okay?”

He paused, eying Ghosttear. If the daemon understood, it didn’t seem eager to comply.

“Wow, how convincing,” Seymour said. “Thank goodness you were here.”

“Have you got a better idea?” Adrian snapped.

“As a matter of fact, I do. Tremorfist!”

The daemon huffed and pounded his chest. Adrian preemptively flinched, bracing himself against the deafening sound. To his surprise, when theStunning Howlcame, it was much quieter than he’d expected.

Seymour smirked at his reaction. “After that fight with Shadowlash, we’ve been practicing focusing his technique in a more concentrated burst. It’s a far more efficient use of aether, perfect for disrupting a daemon’s channeling or even shattering small objects.”

“It’s also much easier on my eardrums,” Adrian said.

He could tell when Tremorfist’s technique hit Ghosttear because the daemon ceased shuddering and froze in place. Adrian held his breath. If they could break Ghosttear out of its instinctive defense, maybe they could better reason with it.

His gut clenched when more aether burst from Ghosttear in response. Rather than spread outward like it had before, however, it coated the collapsed daemons. Something about the magic struck Adrian as familiar, and it took him a few heartbeats to realize what.Kali’s relics.Their aether was similarly unstable. Could the two somehow be related?

The gathered crowd screamed, scattering for cover as flashes of energy split the air. Adrian shoved his speculation aside and ducked beneath a streak of aether. He looked up just in time to see a spinning line of force similar to one of Lockrod’sUnbendable Rodsnarrowly miss his head. It hung there for a few seconds before winking out. Panning his vision across the area, he glimpsed more of those same rods alongside other aetheric bursts in different configurations.

His spine tingled when he realized what he was witnessing. That hadn’t just looked like Lockrod’sUnbendable Rod—it hadbeenhis daemon’s technique, along with a half-dozen more stolen from the other stricken daemons. Assuming he was right about Ghosttear’s connection to Heartrender, what exactly had Serenity Corp created in that spirit-cursed lab of theirs?

“I admit, you might’ve had the right idea,” Seymour said. He dodged an eruption of virulent green energy followed by a blast of tempestuous wind. “Maybe violence wasn’t the answer.”

Adrian rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you think?”

“It’s not likeyourplan worked out any better.”

“At least, it didn’t make things worse!”

Seymour huffed. “Well, if you’ve got any other bright ideas, don’t hold back.”

Adrian’s gaze darted from Seymour to Freya to Lockrod to Ghosttear. There had to be a better way to handle this beyond brute force, but what? He couldn’t safely approach Ghosttear, and even if he could, he didn’t know what he’d do once he got there. Most daemons, especially when unbonded, struggled interpreting human speech. And with how far gone Ghosttear was, Adrian doubted mere words would reach it anyway.

If one ofhisdaemons had lost control of its aether, how would he help? Try to bolster it with his own aether, perhaps, like what Tremorfist had done when Seymour bonded Shadowlash. Either that or attempt to soothe it through their bond.