Fierce Lessons (Ghosts & Demons Series Book 3) Read Online Free

all this attention must be what walking around with big boobs must be like, but with even less respect.
    To avoid confrontation, I sat at an empty table at the far end of the room. I needn’t have bothered. Confrontation followed me.  
    “Hey, Iowa. Got a minute? We want to pick a bone.”
    I looked up slowly from my coffee. One of the Spook Squad stood over me, arms crossed. I should have known it would be one of the CIA’s remote viewers that would get amped up enough to come at me first. I searched for this one’s name. Manny called him, “the muscly one.” The tag on his camo told me his name was Douglas.
    “Do you have any idea how much shit my people had to put up with from your people after we got here?” Douglas asked.
    Behind him, Wil and Manny sifted out of the crowd by the coffee station. They left their trays behind to come stand on either side of the spook. He ignored them and focused his fury on me.
    “When we came here to help you people, we put out the call that there was at least one demon within our walls. Guess one of them was you. Was the other your brother? How many spies are walking among us right now because you people didn’t take us seriously? You treat what we do as a joke, but we were right all along.”
    “I don’t know about spies within our walls,” I said. “And Trick was my half-brother.”
    “I think you mean half-breed . My point is — ”
    He stopped, raised his head and stiffened. The tip of Manny’s knife sat just under his chin.
    “Here’s my point,” she said. “Like it?”
    Douglas swallowed hard and I watched his Adam’s apple bob. When he spoke, all the bass that he’d put in his voice to try to bully me had leaked away. “What are you doing?”
    The whole Choir was still again, watching and listening, but Manny and Douglas had their back turned to the room. No one but me could see the knife and only Douglas felt its sharp tip.
    The guys at the Spooks table knew something was wrong, though. They all stood and Wilmington turned to face them, her hands on the pommels of the twin swords at her hips.
    They stared.
    Wilmington stared back.
    They were unarmed. The Spooks wisely sat back down.
    “Manhattan,” I said in a low tone meant only for her. “Put that away. I’ll handle this.”
    “I’m getting his attention,” Manny said. “The Choir has a no discrimination policy. Black, Asian, White, LGBTQ…we’re all here, fighting the good fight. We even let this idiot in.”
    “As a black woman, I gotta say I get edgy when somebody says the words, ‘you people,’” Wil said. “And you say it a lot, Douglas.” Her gaze was still fixed on the remote viewers’ table. “This isn’t about us and them. The fight is going to be tough enough. If we don’t work together, the war’s already lost.”
    “How do we know this guy isn’t a demon spy?” Manny asked.
    “What? I’m a patriot!” Douglas was still frozen by the blade at his throat. He began to tremble.
    “Sewing the seeds of discontent and suspicion,” Manny said, cold as ice. “Sounds to me like something a demon spy might do, Mr. Douglas.”
    “This is outrageous! I — ”
    “Oh, you don’t like being accused of treason? You don’t like how that feels? Poor baby. We’ll get you something for that diaper rash,” I said.
    “You weren’t here when the real shit went down, Mr. Douglas,” Manhattan said. “You didn’t see what happened the day the library was blown up and the demons came. You didn’t see my girl here take down a red demon with nothing but a belt, a wooden sword and a pair of big brass ovaries. That was her first official day on the job, man.”
    “This is unacceptable,” he said.
    His cheeks flushed and I could see waves of heat rising from his head.  
    “Manny,” I said. “Be cool. I mean…cooler.”
    Manhattan made her blade disappear as suddenly as it had appeared. I spotted the sleight of hand — a hidden sleeve in her left gauntlet. That’s a neat trick