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I sighed and turned back to Rasmus. “In order to find the demon portal—and get both Jack and ya off my back—I need to know why ya reek of demon, Rasmus. Are ya willing to help me figure this out? Or are ya going to be yer normal belligerent self?”

Rasmus turned in the cage and looked at all the bars. “Why did you lock me in here?”

I stared at him in disbelief before my temper notched up. “Are ya tetched in the head? Why do ya think?”

Rasmus grunted. “I have no idea what that means. Try using English so I can understand.”

I looked over at Conn who was studying the dirt on the floor. He thought I didn’t see his shoulders shaking, but I did. Had he set me up for shits and giggles? If so, Rasmus would hate me even more after this farce. Not that I cared, but I didn’t need more trouble.

Sighing, because I knew Conn would not help, I gave Rasmus a patient smile. “Humans naturally absorb demon effluvium. It clings to their auras, but eventually wears off. However, if ya’re hanging out with one regularly, then ya reek of them. That is yer condition at the moment.”

Rasmus crossed his arms. “You hang out with one. Do you reek?”

“No, as a descendant of The Dagda, I have a natural immunity to effluvium. And for the hundredth time, Conn is not a regular demon like the kind ya hunt. To emanate as strongly as ya do means you either visit with a demon regularly or one of the royals put a compulsion on ya. Which is it?”

Conn and I watched the demon hunter look down and scrub his face. He seemed to wrestle with himself over answering.

I turned to look at Conn. “Does a compulsion come with a silencer spell?”

Conn stroked his jaw. “It can, but it requires layering. Only a few can put a complicated compulsion on someone.”

My head tilted toward the cage. “Do ya think they afflicted Rasmus with a layered one?”

“I never thought to check him for compulsions at all. He’s a hunter, so I naturally assumed demons would avoid him. Why else would he be running around free and harassing you?”

“Fair enough,” I said.

But I would bet money demons had put a compulsion on Rasmus. Believing it gave me an idea.

“Can ya teach me what to look for when we check him? Is that against the rules? I’d like to learn.”

Conn shrugged. “Very little goes against the rules for you.”

“Whose rules?” Rasmus asked. “What are you talking about?”

I turned back to him. “We’re talking about The Dagda’srules. He was the one who bound Conn to my family. Ya know The Dagda was my ancestor. I told all yer kind the day I was captured and again the day they released me.”

Rasmus blinked. “The Dagda was the son of Goddess Danu. He was first king of theTuatha de Danann. I looked him up.”

I snorted. “What ya mean is ya checked out my story after I explained all this to yer council. I’m sure ya just wanted to make sure I wasn’t lying. The stone necklace Jack stole from me once belonged to The Dagda. It holds special powers and only Conn’s keeper can use it. To everyone else, it’s nothing but a pretty bauble.”

“What does it do?”

Conn answered him for both of us. “It does lots of things you don’t need to know about. In your case, it will allow Aran to also see which demon put a compulsion on you. We would need access to the spot on your body where the compulsion was placed. When touched, the compulsion owner should appear in ethereal form to all three of us.”

“I don’t want to see that demon woman ever again. She killed my entire team,” Rasmus blurted out.

Conn shook his head. “I highly doubt that. She may have enslaved their minds and sent them to do some dirty work for her but killing them would cause too many complications. The Underdark has rules against demons killing humans outside of a sanctioned war.”

Rasmus gripped the bars of his cage. “We hunted them and killed a few. They expanded their size like your sidekick and defeated us easily after that. When the fighting was over, I was the only human left. Bodies of my team were scattered about on the ground and never moved. Some were bleeding. Others had lost limbs. I can’t see them still being alive.”

I crossed my arms as I tried to think this through. Could the hunters really be dead? Sure, they could be. Whatever Conn believed, the galactic average demon from Underdark didn’t shy away from killing a human unless specifically ordered to leave humans alone. And demons, unlike humans, regenerated. They rarely procreated from scratch, though not from lack of trying.

But I could be wrong.

Goddess knew those seven years I spent locked up had changed a lot of things in the world I remembered.

“We won’t know the truth until we find the demons responsible. We won’t know which caste ya dealt with until we look at yer compulsion mark. Are ya willing to let us look at ya or not?”