Read Online Demon Accords 6: Forced Ascent by John Conroe - Free Book Online

for my quarters.  Home these days was no longer the swanky hotel I had come back from the South to, but instead it was a lower level of a factory that was owned by a textile company that was a subsidiary of a holding company that was owned fifty-eight percent by an industrial conglomerate and forty-two percent by a retail sales chain that specialized in discount clothing.  Both of those were owned in the majority by an offshore company whose shareholders were Tanya, her mother, Lydia, and fourteen trusts that all listed some combination of the three as beneficiaries and trustees.  Tanya had started the process while we lived in the hotel.  She had multiple factories with excess space, along with empty rooms in apartment buildings and office buildings, all renovated to provide a dizzying array of hideouts for us all over New York City, parts of New Jersey, and even Philadelphia and Boston.  Some, like this unused lower level, were very large, easily able to house a whole bunch of us.  Some were much smaller, just sized for a core group.  The properties were owned by a maze of corporations, holding companies, foreign entities, and off-shore shell corps.  It was a tangled web that was constantly being shifted by involving Coven members and corporations from around the world.  The plan was to shift residence at random intervals, which would be decided by Tanya and her vampire chief of security, Arkady.
     
    I entered our four-room suite to find Tanya already sleeping on the king-sized bed, looking tiny by comparison.  It was now almost three in the afternoon, but a couple hours of naptime would go a long way.  Stripping to boxer-briefs, I slipped in beside her, curling my larger frame around her.  Once again, I was at odds with the federal government.  Add to that the new threat of DuClair and a fast-approaching Halloween, an attempt on Toni, and the media.  About the only thing left that hadn’t blown up was the damned witch’s grimoire, which was safely tucked away.
     
    Six and a half hours later, I woke when Tanya moved to slide out of bed.  The sun was long down and I could feel through our bond that she felt like she’d overslept.  I clutched one slim wrist as she slid across the sheets, both my eyes still shut. She stopped moving and I opened one eye, staring up at her perfect features.
     
    “I did not mean to wake you, zayka ,” she said, tugging gently on the captive arm.
     
    “You don’t have to go yet,” I protested.
     
    Immediately she moved closer, lying down against my chest, snuggling closer.
     
    “Perhaps not yet,” she agreed.
     
    I tucked my head into her raven black hair, breathing lilac and jasmine with every intake of air.
     
    “You are feeling a little overwhelmed?” she said after a moment, no doubt reading me through our two-way connection.
     
    I snorted.  “Let’s see, hunted by entire federal government of the most powerful nation on earth while trying to close an endless supply of open Hell holes and hunt down an escapee from Hell who is probably some greater demon, not to mention keeping assholes from attacking Toni and avoid reporters.”
     
    “Reporters?  What reporters?” she asked, sitting up and crossing her legs.
     
    “Well, just one, but where there’s one, there’s more,” I said.  Absolute silence greeted me so I pulled back and opened my eyes, meeting two very blue ones that were impatiently waiting for an answer.  So I told her about Brystol Chatterjee and her pal, Barry.  She made me recount every word of the conversation, both mine and Stacia’s.
     
    “Hmm, clever girl,” she said when I was done.
     
    “Who? Brystol?”
     
    “No, Stacia,” she said.
     
    “That sounded suspiciously like a complement,” I said.
     
    “I don’t like your wolf girl, but I never said she lacked intelligence,” she said.
     
    “So what do you mean… clever?”
     
    “She forced this Brystol girl to reevaluate you—to look at you from a whole new