Read Online A Despair of Demons (Travelers, Book 1) by Cassy Campbell - Free Book Online Page A

equipment you think you’ll need.”
    Connor said,
“Yes, sir,” but Ben reared back in his chair. “‘The five of you?’ What exactly
does that mean?”
    “Sorry,
Lieutenant, you won’t be joining them today,” the general said.
    “General. I’ve
been cleared. I’m perfectly—”
    “Not today.”
General Mace repeated himself without raising his voice but with an air of
finality. Ben’s ingrained military obedience froze any further protests in his
throat. He slumped back in his chair.
    Liv privately
sighed in relief. She knew Ben had to be hurting, and they’d already been
attacked by demons once today on that beach.
    General Mace
turned back to Connor. “So, were you the target or just in the wrong place at
the wrong time?”
    Jordan
answered. “They’d been ordered to that specific place to look for the
Singularity.”
    Liv turned her
mind from Ben to Elachai. If she could find him again, find out what he’d done
to her, maybe she could find some way to stop him, make herself immune. Or
correct the damage. She wanted her memory back.
    General Mace
said, “But nobody saw Elachai in Ganja.”
    The general’s
statement wasn’t exactly a question, but Connor answered him. “Not as far as we
know.”
    “Sir,” Liv
said, “it looks like they’re searching for Elachai pretty single-mindedly. We
need to know more about the demons, their world, and their leader.”
    “And put a stop
to their raids,” Jordan added.
    General Mace
looked around the table. “Any ideas who he might be?”
    “Head Demon,
probably,” Connor said.
    “Great, we’re
fighting Satan,” Ben said.
    “We shouldn’t
assume he’s a demon,” Jordan said. “There are certainly other forms of life in
Hell.”
    “Intelligent
ones?” Liv asked.
    Jordan shrugged.
    “What,
something worse than demons?” Ben asked.
    “Apparently.”
    “So we go to
Hell,” Gin said.
    General Mace
said, “Absolutely not. Hell is off-limits.”
    Connor opened
his mouth to protest, but closed it when the general said, “Period.”
    Instead he
said, “They’re searching for a Singularity.”
    “Which may not
even exist,” Liv pointed out.
    General Mace
asked, “Why would they want a Singularity?”
    “I don’t know,”
Liv admitted. “I never conceived that such a thing would be possible. Everybody
has Mirrors, hundreds or thousands of them. In all the infinite worlds, how can
he be the only one? How could circumstances conspire to make sure there was
only one world where he came into existence? It’s inconceivable.” Regardless,
she couldn’t ignore the implications of a Singularity’s existence.
    “But possible?”
Jordan asked.
    “She just said
it was inconceivable,” Ben said.
    “Sure, but not
impossible,” Liv said. “Infinity means infinite possibilities. If he is
Singular, he’s truly unique, in all the multiverse. Of course Raul wants him. We
know he pushes people. Who knows what else he can do? If they figure out how he
does what he does...”
    “What if we
figure out how he does what he does?” Jordan asked.
    Liv opened her
mouth to give him a snarky answer, but realized he wasn’t joking. “Yeah, I’d
love to. Let’s just ask him to erase my brain a few more times in the name of
science.”
    “Until you find
him again,” General Mace said, “we need all the information we can get. Get to
Blue Beach and get me some answers.”
    *           *           *
    Liv stood in
front of the blasted building in Ganja, holding the mass spec. “It’s definitely
explosive residue, Connor. Nitroamines, trinitrotoluene.”
    “TNT,” Trent
said.
    “Yes.”
    “What kind of
nitroamines?” Connor asked her.
    “Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine.
Also steel fragments.”
    “It was a
grenade.”
    “Looks that
way. But there’s something else weird. A lot of dinitrotoluene.”
    Connor gave her
a look. “TNT breaks down if it’s stored at high temperatures. Dinitrotoluene is
one of the main