King of the Underworld by RJ Kane

King of the Linderworld

466

Adrik

“Can you explain to me, like I’m a child, what you just did?” Battista asked.

Sephie chuckled. “Stephen helps to clear a person, so whatever heavy issue they’ve been struggling to deal with can successfully be dealt with, basically. In very general terms. Sergei, for example, has been struggling with something that happened over 20 years ago. He still carries a tremendous amount of guilt from it. Anytime you carry around heavy emotions for too long, they start to cause other problems. For Sergei, it was becoming overwhelming. It was all he could think about. He was beating himself up about it, blaming himself for what happened, doubting himself because he felt like it shouldn’t have happened. Stephen helped him create a pathway to get all of that out, if you will. Viktor, on the other hand, helps to strengthen his aura. It ensures that those negative thoughts and feelings can’t get a foothold in him again. He might still feel them from time to time, but they’ll move through him like they should, rather than illegally squatting in his psyche for 20 years. What you saw was Sergei’s aura, before and after Viktor fixed him.”

“Those hol es that you saw before Viktor fixed him are where demons gain access to people. Big enough ho le, weak enough person, the demon can get in and start running the show,” Ivan said. He glanced at Sephie, as they both had the same idea at the same time. She grinned at him, walking back to Battista.

“Wonder Twins, unite!” she said, motioning for Andrei and Misha to come back. She grabbed Battista’s hand again, using them to push what Ivan could see to Battista. “That’s what it looks like when a demon has gained access and is starting to run the show, Her demon has been there for a while. It’s very defined. Sometimes, they’re not as clearly defined. It’s like they’re fuzzy if they’re new. Hers has been there a while.”

“This is how you knew about my business associate?” Battista asked.

“One of the ways, yes,” Sephie said. I could feel her reluctance to reveal everything to Battista.

“You were right when you said we all complement each other. We’ve figured out how to work together to confirm whether someone’s demon is running the show or not. Because we’ve done it a few times now, the demons know who Stephen is. If they haven’t gained full access to a person, he can essentially scare them off. If they have gained access, that’s when the only choice is to break their psyche,” I said.

that left him in such a

when the people were coughing uncontrollably? Stephen scared

next step would be to have Viktor fix the mayor. We did buy him some time with

about the DA?”

hanging on him. If there was a demon there, it was the most talented one we’ve come across yet. No one picked up on anything,”

not to say that it won’t be an issue in the future. They were fine tonight, but that

did you find out from the switch-hitting representative?” I asked

a new wing on the hospital. I suspect that she’s much the same as just about every politician on the planet, however. She’s going to figure out a way to make it all about her and take the credit for everything.” he

looked at each other and laughed. “That’s exactly what she was thinking. You just left out the money laundering part. She’s gonna su ck as much money out of the project for herself as possible,” Andrei said.

cking is an activity that she seemingly enjoys,” Misha said. Somehow he managed to keep a straight face when he said it. Clearly, Stephen was coaching him on how to do so. The rest of us erupted into

to Ricardo already though. She has everything on him. He’s helping her use

difficult to get

original plan? Vitaliy

wife comes from a wealthy family. If we expose her affair, along with Henry, her wife divorces her, the family money goes away. She stops wanting to help Henry, as he’s basically

her completely, because she’s likely to get help from Ricardo, but that could also work to our advantage. Expose that connection and she goes down when Ricardo goes down,” Battista said.

an untimely ‘stroke.” It could go either

along with his girlfriend, I needed to keep the people of the city on my side; helping the mayor fight corruption was an easy way to do that. The less options that Ricardo had inside the city, the easier he would be to take down