Fury of the Demon

Chapter 29

As I returned to the house, I allowed myself a moment to bask in the success of the Jill and Steeev venture. Yet at the same time I knew how incredibly fucking lucky we’d all been. Farouche obviously didn’t know how much Jill meant to me. He likely thought her a close friend at the most. I knew damn well that if he’d known how much I loved that stubborn woman he wouldn’t have settled for a simple dump of a dead body on her lawn. His people would have grabbed her at the first opportunity to use as leverage to get Paul and Bryce back.

Mzatal was still on the mini-nexus, and as I passed I felt how much stronger the flows were than the previous day, coiled with potential energy like a compressed spring.

An exultant shout from the direction of the obstacle course drew my attention. I heard another shout, then the sound of Bryce cursing along with a musical peal of laughter. A few seconds later Bryce and Eilahn burst from the woods pelting neck and neck toward the house. At least I assumed it was Bryce. It was hard to be sure since he’d apparently done a face-first, full-body plant into mud somewhere along the course.

However, he didn’t let what looked like an extra ten pounds of mud slow him down, and even though I knew damn well Eilahn could outrun any Olympian, and was certainly sandbagging a bit for his benefit, Bryce still managed a final kick to finish neck and neck with her.

Eilahn grinned widely as Bryce flopped to the ground. “You fight dirty,” he managed, then let out a wheezing chuckle. “I love it.”

“I should have warned you about her,” I said as I approached them. “No such thing as a fair fight in her book.”

Eilahn bared her teeth. “A fair fight is the one you survive.”

“I’m with you, sister,” Bryce said as he pushed up to sit. He swiped a hand over his face and flicked mud away. “Though I admit I didn’t see eye to eye with you when you hooked my leg and shoved me into the mud.”

“I wished to be certain of my victory,” she stated.

“And stepped on my back.”

“Very certain.”

“You were already winning!” Bryce said in exasperation. “You stopped, waited for me to jump the log, and then tripped me.”

Eilahn tilted her head. “I wished to be very certain of my victory. And it was most amusing.”

Bryce lobbed a chunk of mud at her which she nimbly dodged. With a parting musical laugh she loped off into the woods.

I cocked an eyebrow at Bryce and smiled. “Do you want the hose?”

“I think that’ll be a good start,” he replied with a laugh.

He levered himself to his feet while I fetched the hose and turned the water on for him.

“I’ll let you sluice yourself off,” I said, handing him the hose. “But I’d like to pick your brain once you have the worst of the mud off.”

“I’m all yours,” he said with a smile as he began to rinse.

“I need to get something from the living room, and then I’ll meet you on the back porch.”

He nodded and held the hose over his head. Smiling, I headed inside. It took me a few minutes to find the journal I needed in the stack on the coffee table, and by the time I returned to the back porch Bryce had not only finished rinsing off but had even found a battered towel to dry himself. He’d also exchanged his wet and muddy clothing for battered-but-clean t-shirt and shorts, and his drying shoes sat in the sun on the steps.

“Ready for my brain picking,” he said.

“I’ll try and make it painless,” I replied and sat in one of the rocking chairs, gestured for him to do so as well. “This is one of Tracy Gordon’s journals—the one that has your name in it along with several others.” I passed it over to him. “Do you know any of these other names?”

He read through the list, all humor fleeing from his expression. “Shit.”

My gaze locked onto him. Finally, something. “You do know them? How?”

“I know about half of them.” He looked up at me, perplexed. “What the hell?”

“Anything unusual about them? Any common link you can think of?”

“The ones I recognize work—or have worked—for StarFire or other companies Mr. Farouche owns.” He frowned in thought as he drew a finger down the list. “But they do all sorts of things. I mean, they’re not all—” Pain flashed briefly over his face before he could control it. “They’re not all like me. Hanson is an accountant. Stevens is Mr. Farouche’s in-house financial advisor. Sonny—he’s listed here as Jesus Ramirez—is kind of like me. Aberdeen is the surveillance specialist for StarFire. And Henrietta—” He shrugged in bafflement. “Hennie is a damn cook.”

I slumped in the chair. Great, so at least half of the people on the list worked for Farouche, but we still had zilcho idea why they were in Tracy’s journal. “Any link apart from working for Farouche you can think of?”

Bryce considered for almost half a minute, then gave a shrug. “Nothing I can come up with.”

“Did you all come on board at the same time?” I asked, frustration rising. “Are you all from the same area? Are you all allergic to Ethiopian peanuts?” I threw up my hands in desperation. “There has to be something.”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying here.” He shook his head, grimaced. “We weren’t all hired at the same time. Hennie’s been around longest. Otherwise it’s spread out over a few years. Nothing in the past eight years though.” He scrutinized the list again. “I think the theory of being from the same area is out. Hennie’s from Vegas, and Sonny’s from California. Not sure on the rest.”

I blew out a sigh of disappointment. “Thanks anyway. I’ll check with Paul to see if he can run the names. Maybe something will pop as a connection.” I closed the journal and stood.

“Wait!” Bryce said. “Shit. I just realized—there is a connection.”

I spun to face him. “There is? What?”

“There was this one time we all went down—passed out or got really sick and dizzy—all at the same time. Several at the compound, including Mr. Farouche and Paul and me. It didn’t hit everyone, but every person I know on that list was somehow affected.”

My skin tingled. This was it. “Tell me what happened.”

“It was sudden, struck us all at once,” he said, face intense with the memory. “Some people had a bit of nausea, headache, vertigo, that sort of thing. Others collapsed completely. Lasted about ten minutes. Seriously weird.”

I felt my pulse quicken. “When was this? Date? Time?”

“No clue on the exact date. It was in November, late afternoon.” He paused in thought, then gave a firm nod. “It was a Wednesday, because Wednesday was always sushi day for Paul, and we’d decided to go eat dinner at Auntie Mimi’s Super Sashimi.”

Hot damn. “I know what the link is to the people collapsing,” I said with barely contained glee. “That’s the same date and time an attempted gate to the demon realm got fucked up and nearly collapsed.” I gave him a tight and triumphant smile. “It happened in that warehouse where you got shot, where you and Paul went chasing a wiggle.”

He nodded, but his brow creased. “Why would a collapsing gate affect some people and not others?”

“That’s what we have to find out,” I told him. Could it be summoning ability? No, I decided. There was no way there were that many summoners or people with arcane aptitude running around. I frowned. Farouche and the essence-eating murderer I’d tracked down the year before were non-summoner humans with arcane abilities. But what if it isn’t something so blatant? “When you think of each of those people, is there anything they do really well, or is unique?”

“You mean like arcane stuff?” He shook his head. “Paul and I are normal. I saw what the lord did in the demon realm, what you people did out here yesterday.” He lifted his chin toward the back yard. “We can’t do any of that.”

I smiled slyly. “Actually, that’s not true. Mzatal told me that Paul uses his computers and equipment to play with the arcane flows of Earth and can even sense them in the demon realm.” I hadn’t known Bryce long, but I’d seen him in action. “You ever get hunches? Feelings or intuition that seem to always pan out?”

Bryce shrugged. “Sometimes. Everybody does.”

Not the way he did, I was willing to bet. I traced a sigil on the porch rail. “Do you see anything? Feel anything?”

“Nope, don’t see anything.” But then he frowned. “I, uh, feel something right here though,” he said doubtfully, pressing a hand to his stomach. “Maybe. Probably my imagination.”

I dispelled the sigil. “Now?”

His frown deepened. “It’s gone.” He peered at me. “What’s the deal? I have stuff like that all the time.”

“Bear with me.” I pretended to trace another sigil. “What about now?”

“Nope, nothing. See? A coincidence.”

I smiled. “Yeah, sure,” I said and traced a complex warning sigil that pulsed and emitted a “loud” arcane broadcast.

“The back of my neck itches a little,” he said with a shrug, though I saw him wince.

I grinned and dispelled the sigil, feeling most triumphant. “Ha! You are so sensitive. I didn’t trace a sigil the second time.”

He shook his head in obvious disbelief. “I don’t know, Kara. That’s pretty out there.”

I gave him a withering look. “Excuse me. You spent two days on another world, were brought back from the brink of death by magic healing, and you say that butterflies in your tummy are Out There?”

Bryce gave a bark of laughter. “I mean for me. I’m just muscle.”

“Yeah, suuuure.” Brains too. He sure as hell didn’t get into vet school on brawn. Tito, the man Mzatal killed in the warehouse, fit the bill of muscle with a little arcane sensitivity. I had a feeling Bryce had a splash of arcane-bolstered intuition thrown in as well. “How many times have hunches saved your or your boss’s ass?”

He waved it off. “I have pretty good instincts in the field, and yeah, it’s been handy.”

“You’re one of the best Farouche has, right?”

“Had,” he clarified. “But yeah, I was one of his best.”

“I think your former boss is trying to load his staff with people who are really good at what they do. Tell me,” I said, tilting my head, “is there anything special about the cook?”

“Hennie?” A fond smile touched Bryce’s mouth. “She’s a great cook. Nothing exceptional though.” He paused and considered. “Except maybe her red velvet cake,” he added with a chuckle. Then his brows drew together in thought. “She’s always on top of people’s allergies and preferences. Like, she never forgets and serves Jerry peas, or lets different foods touch on Carter’s plate. She cares, for sure.” He looked up, shrugged. “But it’s not a super power or anything. I will say she does make the best soup for a cold or flu though. Really does the trick.”

“Bryce, let go of the notion that sensitive people need to be X-Men mutants.”

He smiled wryly. “Gotcha. I guess that’s the picture I had in my head.”

“What about Sonny? What’s special about him?”

Bryce exhaled. “That one I know. He has this way of calming people. Mild-mannered, unassuming, often overlooked or underestimated. He was the Hispanic one you saw on the road with Farouche.”

“He didn’t look so mild-mannered with a gun pointed at me,” I said. “But I also know he’s under Farouche’s influence.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I find it pretty interesting that your former boss is hiring freaks like you.”

“Interesting for sure,” he said. “You know the accountant on the list? You could ask him to do any sort of calculation, and he’d have the answer before you could type it into the calculator. He got sick of us testing him.”

I pursed my lips, nodded. “Take a single aspect and super-charge it. Gives your former boss a lot of power. And not only does he hire people with talents, he somehow finds them in the first place.”

Bryce rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin, frowning in thought. “Y’know, I think there’s more to it than that.”

“Such as?”

“Now you’ve got me thinking about it,” he said, “and, well . . .” He grimaced. “I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“Try me.”

He remained silent for several seconds, very obviously gathering his thoughts. “The people who are ‘talented’ get better at whatever they’re talented at after working for Mr. Farouche for a while,” he finally said. “Like Paul. He was a damn good hacker before we snatched him, but after a month he was, well, you’ve seen him in action. It’s like he leveled up. And I’ve seen the same sort of thing in several others, though I didn’t really connect it all until now.” He gave a self-conscious shrug. “Myself included. My instincts have always been good, but they got a lot better after I was recruited.”

I let out a low whistle. “Not only does Farouche have a way to find talented people, but he amplifies their talent.”

“Kara! Bryce!” Paul shouted from inside. “Come quick!”

Bryce and I hurried in and down the hall to my so-called office where Paul sat in front of his new laptop.

“What is it, Paul?” I asked.

“Is this him? Is this Idris?” he asked, practically bursting with excitement as he spun the chair to face us.

I hurried forward to peer at the grainy image on the screen. “Shit! Yes! Where is he? When was that?”

“Private jet at a small airport not far from Amarillo,” Paul informed me proudly. “Morning of the day before yesterday. He came off the plane with—” He clicked, changed to an image of a sturdy red-haired woman.

“I’ve seen her before,” I said, but the memory of where and when eluded me like a handful of smoke.

“Gina Hallsworth of Katashi’s organization,” Paul supplied after a few clicks in another window. “I ran searches for known associates of Katashi and have reference pics for most of those now.”

That was all I needed to trigger the recall. “She’s a summoner,” I announced. I’d seen her a few times when I spent my miserable time at Katashi’s.

Paul clicked again. “Bryce, this is who was at his elbow.”

Bryce’s arm brushed mine as he moved in closer. “Shit. Nigel Fox.”

“One of Farouche’s people?” I asked.

He grimaced. “A top man. Worked out of Austin. If he’s babysitting Idris, Farouche is serious.”

I let out some inventive curses. “Great. Farouche and Katashi’s people are definitely working hand in hand,” I muttered. “Muscle and summoners.” And Farouche’s controlling influence, I realized with dismay. Idris was brilliant and resourceful and his captors would want to be absolutely certain he was under control. If Farouche hadn’t already put the fear-whammy on him, he’d surely do so at the first opportunity. So why did he need Idris’s sister and mother as insurance? Farouche’s influence was more than powerful enough to keep Idris under control.

Realization dawned an instant later. It was likely the same reason Rhyzkahl couldn’t simply manipulate Idris to be compliant. That sort of mental adjustment interfered with summoning skills, and the same might very well hold true for Farouche’s fear crap. Therefore, they needed backup leverage, i.e. his family. Damn it.

“Got anything else?” I asked.

“There were five, including Idris,” Paul said. “Isumo Katashi right here.”

“Shit.”

“And then this guy,” he said. “Last off the plane.”

I peered at the distant image of the man, shook my head. “No clue.” His hair was pulled back in a ponytail and he wore a poet type shirt, but I couldn’t tell much else about him.

Bryce shifted beside me. “Mystery Man Twenty-two.”

I gave him a baffled look.

“Some of Farouche’s visitors remained anonymous,” he said with a shrug. “We had nicknames to keep them straight.” He leaned closer to the screen. “No doubt on that one. He’s been in and out for years.”

“I know the jet,” Paul told us. “Belongs to Farouche. And they loaded into cars that belong to Farouche. No GPS though. They’re being careful.” He clicked back to one of his screens displaying incomprehensible streams of numbers and text. “The plane is back in Louisiana, and I’m keeping an eye on the flight plans for it and Farouche’s other jets.” He glanced back at me. “That’s all I have for now.”

“Don’t suppose you found anything on that ring I drew?” I asked hopefully.

“Um.” He flushed, grimaced. “No.” He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, grimace deepening. I gave Bryce a baffled look in the hopes he could translate.

Bryce chuckled under his breath. “What he’s not saying is that the drawing sucks and there’s not much he can do with it.”

Paul smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, but yeah. That’s pretty much it.”

I gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s cool. My talent sure as hell ain’t art.” I knew my crappy drawing had been a long shot, so I couldn’t be too disappointed. “Awesome job with the pics, Paul,” I added, totally impressed that he’d found the video. “Keep on it and let me know what you come up with.” Like I needed to tell him to keep on it. He was already typing away, totally absorbed and probably no longer aware we were even in the room.

Bryce headed off to shower while I went out back to tell Mzatal what Paul had found. It didn’t look to me as if Mzatal had moved since I last saw him, but the half-full glass of tunjen told me Jekki diligently tended to his needs.

I felt him acknowledge my presence, and a few seconds later his eyes opened. I quickly filled him in on the sighting.

“It’s two days old, which means they could be anywhere by now,” I said with a wince. “But it’s more than we had before.”

“The information is very useful,” he assured me. “Knowing his location within the last few days will allow me to narrow my searches through the flows, much as if tracking footprints.”

With a quick parting kiss, I left him to his work, and as I returned to the house I mulled over the various new information we’d gleaned over the past few days. Farouche was no saint, Katashi was busy on Earth, and now, thanks to Paul, we had confirmation of Idris’s cryptic StarFire clue and knew for certain the two were working together.

I stopped dead. Facts shuffled and re-ordered. How could I have missed this possibility? If Farouche was involved in holding Idris, surely he had a hand in related matters as well.

I broke into a run, burst through the back door and raced down the hall to the living room. “Bryce!” I called out as I shuffled through folders on the coffee table, found the one I needed. “Bryce!”

He emerged from the bathroom holding a towel around his waist with one hand and a toilet plunger in the other. “Kara?” Shaving cream covered half his face, but he had a look in his eye that said he was ready to take down whatever threatened me. With a towel and a toilet plunger, apparently. “What’s wrong?”

I winced. “Sorry. There’s something I need you to look at, but it can wait a few minutes,” I said. “Can you meet me in the kitchen when you’re finished?”

“No problem. Two minutes,” he said and ducked back into the bathroom.

I flipped through the case file folder and chose photos. Less than two minutes later Bryce came in, fully dressed and freshly shaved, with a piece of toilet paper stuck to a nick on his jaw, probably caused by my bellow.

“Reporting as ordered,” he said with a smile. “What’s up?”

“I want to see if you recognize any of these people.” I laid out a half dozen photos on the table.

He peered carefully at them, took his time with each one before moving to the next, then went through them all again.

“Only one of them,” he finally said. “This one.” He picked up a photo of a smiling woman in her late forties standing on a beach with the waves behind, and holding up a whole sand dollar. Laugh lines crinkled around hazel eyes set in an attractive face. Light brown hair with blond highlights waved to her shoulders.

It was the pic I’d hoped he would choose. “How do you know her?” I tried hard to keep my voice neutral, but Bryce was a sharp cookie and didn’t miss the tension and excitement that leaked through.

“She’s a detainee of Farouche’s.”

“Still? When did you last see her?”

“She was at the plantation on the morning of the day I was shot.” His eyes met mine. “Who is she to you?”

Adrenaline surged through me as a floodgate of possibilities opened. “This is Idris’s adoptive mother. We think she’s being held as a hostage to assure his good behavior.”

His expression went from curious to grim.

I pulled the wedding photo of Idris’s sister from the folder, passed it over to him. “What about this one? Was she at the plantation too?”

After a brief look, he nodded. “Yep. Until about a week ago.”

My pulse quickened. “Tell me everything you know about what happened to her.”

Bryce dropped both photos back to the table. “I wasn’t assigned so I don’t know a whole lot, but Sonny was their handler after they arrived,” he said. “They were brought in from out of state at the same time, but kept separately. Neither knew the other was there.” He tapped Amber’s photo. “I never talked to her. Jerry left with her about a week ago. He came back. She didn’t. I don’t know anything more.”

“Jerry?”

“Yeah. Jerry Steiner. Like me.” He shook his head, distaste curling his lip. “No, not like me. He never loses any sleep over the job. Gets off on it.” He sighed out a breath. “She’s dead?”

“Yeah, she is,” I said grimly. I touched the photo of her smiling and beautiful on her wedding day, then tugged out a crime scene photo of the young woman—naked and displayed with the sigils all over her torso and legs.

His expression went flat and cold. “Raped?”

I nodded.

“Jerry would do that,” he said tightly. He continued to examine the photo. “But the cuts? Jerry didn’t do that. Not that he wouldn’t, but those cuts are too careful. Controlled.”

“That’s specialty work with a big dose of the arcane,” I told him. “But he probably brought her to whoever did it.”

“What was her name?”

“Amber Palatino Gavin,” I told him. “I would dearly love to nail her murderer to the wall, but right now I want to get Idris’s mom to safety even more.”

Bryce’s expression remained dark, but I caught the flicker in his eyes. He wasn’t Amber’s killer, but twenty-seven other ghosts haunted him.

“The mom,” he said after a moment. “She was a nice lady. And being kept as a five-star captive.”

That much was a relief at least. “I can’t imagine Idris’s mom not being nice,” I said. “You know Farouche. Do you think he’d move her?”

He folded his arms, considered. “It’s not a black and white answer, unfortunately,” he finally said. “If he thinks she’s compromised in any way at the plantation, then yes, he’d move her. But he feels pretty invulnerable there. If I was to venture a guess, I’d say that she’ll be there until needed elsewhere.”

I carefully gathered up all the photos and printouts and tucked them back into the folder, then pulled out a photo of Idris, smiling at his high school graduation with his mortarboard precariously balanced atop his unruly mop of curly blond hair. “This is Idris around two years ago. He’s had to grow up fast.”

“Poor kid. He’s in a bad spot.”

I let out a soft sigh. “I’m not sure yet, but I think he may be my cousin.”

Bryce stared at me for a moment then gave a sharp nod. “Kara, we’ll get him back.”

His voice held such conviction that I found myself wondering about his own family. What connections had he been forced to sever when he entered Farouche’s inner circle? Before I could ask, I felt Mzatal’s touch, and when the back door squeaked I looked up. “You got all that, Boss?”

Mzatal strode into the kitchen, his stance taut like a cat ready to spring. “Some, and the remainder now.” His eyes locked on Bryce. “Where is Angela Palatino?”

Bryce stood firm though I wouldn’t have blamed him one bit if he’d retreated a step. “On the Farouche plantation. About seventy miles from here.”

“I will go for her,” Mzatal stated. “I require transportation.”

“You can’t just go for her!” I blurted out.

He turned his gaze on me, darkly intense and questioning.

“She’s a hostage,” I explained, fully aware that he wouldn’t know the Earth/human dynamics. “That means they’ll kill her before you get to her.”

“She’s right,” Bryce said. “I know the layout and operations of everything on the plantation.” He lifted his chin, impressing the hell out of me that he could do so in the face of Mzatal’s intensity. “Here’s the deal. If I was still Farouche’s man, as soon as I got wind that you were on or near the property, I’d hold a gun to the woman’s head, get on the PA and tell you to retreat or I put a bullet in her skull.” He shifted his weight and looked away, and I knew it was shame in the knowledge he’d have done exactly that. “Not to mention there’ll be plenty of armed men to take shots at you.”

“The projectiles are of little concern when I am prepared,” Mzatal stated. He paused and his aura flared like heat from an oven. “Yet, the other perspective is valid.” Anger born of frustration dropped his voice to quiet menace.

“We need a solid plan, Boss,” I said gently. “We’ll come up with a way to get her out of there.”

Mzatal gave a stiff nod, turned and swept out of the house. I watched him go, extended to him, and felt his answering touch. Inaction killed him. I knew that feeling all too well.

“Holy Christ, I’m glad I’m not his enemy,” Bryce breathed.

I snorted. “No shit.”