Mark of the Demon

CHAPTER 24

My good mood didn’t last long. My pager shrilled before I could make it back to the station, and I had to read it twice before the meaning of the message got through to me. It wasn’t another body. It was six of them.

A local man who’d taken a sick day to go fishing found the bodies piled in an ugly heap about fifty feet from the shore in a rarely traveled or fished area of the lake. Trouble with the engine on his flatboat had caused him to drift into a small cove, where he discovered, to his delight, where all the fish had been hiding from him for the past twenty years. He’d reached his limit after an hour of fishing and then decided to investigate the source of the odor that had drifted to him when the wind shifted.

I had a feeling his sick day was justified now.

It might have been fairly simple to get to the scene by boat, but going by car was another matter entirely—several miles of rutted dirt roads, followed by a ten-minute hike on foot down a narrow deer trail. Fortunately, by the time I made it to where all the other vehicles were parked, some of the good ol’ boys had busted out their ATVs and were shuttling people back and forth through the woods.

I climbed off the back of the four-wheeler with a mumbled thanks to the driver, well aware that he had gone over a few extra bumps in order to get the full effect of my tits pressed up against his back as I hung on for dear life. I would be walking back, thank you very much.

To my surprise, there was already a cluster of local and not-so-local media in a small clearing on the low ridge above where the bodies had been discovered. A murdered homeless drug addict could be a decent mention on the evening news, but a mass dump of six bodies in various states of decomposition couldn’t be passed over. No, this one would probably make national news.

I saw Dr. Lanza on the ridge, standing next to a slender, leggy woman with blond hair and a lovely face. The woman wore jeans that were low-cut and form-fitting without looking painted on and a black T-shirt that showed her obvious dedication to her workouts. There was no layer of pudge above the jeans on this woman, and I found myself standing straighter and pulling my stomach in. Damn doughnuts.

Dr. Lanza caught my eye and motioned me over. “Detective Kara Gillian, this is Dr. Susan Vaughn,” Doc said when I reached him. “Dr. Vaughn is a forensic entomologist.”

I shook the woman’s hand, but there must have been something resembling a blank expression on my face. “I do bugs,” Dr. Vaughn added with a smile.

“Oh! Right.” I shrugged sheepishly. “I was either going to go for that or foot doctor, and the latter didn’t make much sense.”

“Susie … um … happened to be in town when I got the call,” Doc said, “and I’m hoping she’ll be able to help us determine how old these corpses are.”

It’s Susie? And she just happened to be in town? Doc, you dog!

Doc must have picked up something in my expression, because his lips twitched into a smug smile. Then he glanced down the ridge and all trace of humor slipped away. “Let’s get started,” he said tersely, and started making his way down the small slope, with the two of us following. I grimaced as the nauseating odor grew stronger, but even if I hadn’t smelled it, the sound of the flies would have warned me that something ugly was nearby. The buzz was constant, and any motion sent clouds of the insects swarming up, only to settle back on the flesh as soon as they could. Now I understood the need for someone who knew their bugs.

I took in the surrounding area. Under any other circumstances, it would be an idyllic setting, lightly wooded with a scattering of spring wildflowers and a beautiful view of the lake—perfect for camping or trysting. The location definitely offered privacy, and it occurred to me that these bodies could have easily gone undiscovered for years if not for the fisherman’s engine trouble. The demon had to have dumped these bodies, too, I realized. The pile wasn’t far from the water, but there was enough of a climb from the shore to make it difficult for someone carrying a body, much less six. And it was definitely a significant distance from the road. I just couldn’t see someone loading bodies onto the back of an ATV to trek them all the way back here to dump.

They were all nude, piled haphazardly and limbs splayed, swollen and black with decomposition, and rippling with a patchy gray-yellow carpet of maggots. It was difficult to tell what kind of injuries had been inflicted, due to the maggots and the state of decomposition, but there was enough evidence to tell me that these were uncomfortably similar to my other Symbol Man cases.

Dr. Vaughn stepped closer cautiously as she pulled on latex gloves, her heavy fall of blond hair swinging forward as she peered at the maggots and flies. I couldn’t help but think that she looked a lot more like a member of the Swedish Bikini Team than a bug expert. “A lot of injuries here,” she said, utterly unperturbed. “Maggots tend to cluster around orifices”—she gestured at the maggot-filled nose and mouth of one body—“and also any break in the skin.” Her gaze traveled over the nearly unbroken mass of maggots. “This is unbelievable.”

“Can you tell how long they’ve been dead?” I asked.

Dr. Vaughn nodded, pursing her lips. “Oh, yes. Or, rather, I can tell you how long the bodies have been out here.” She flicked a finger at a fly. “These are blowflies.” She glanced over her shoulder at the lake. “And out here in the open like this, flies are going to find these bodies almost instantly.” She looked down by her feet, then picked up a number of tiny black pellets. She peered at them, then held them out toward me. “These are the egg cases, and these,” she poked at a few of the pellets that looked as if one end had been cut off, “have already hatched.”

I looked at the egg cases and then up at her. “Okay.”

Dr. Vaughn met my eyes. “Give me a few minutes and I should be able to give you a time frame.”

“You got it. Just don’t make me pick up any bugs.”

Dr. Vaughn gave a throaty laugh. “Deal.” She turned away and crouched, examining the insects on the bodies with what I privately thought was an insane amount of interest.

Heck, who am I to judge? I thought, wrinkling my nose. She does bugs, and I do demons.

I moved to the side to keep out of the way of both doctors as they examined the bodies and conferred with each other in hushed voices. Finally Doc turned to me. “Crime Scene has taken pictures of the pile already, so I’m going to have them start moving the bodies, unless there’s anything else you want to look at.” He nodded toward three men in striped outfits who were clambering down the slope—trustees who would get extra “credit” for helping to remove bodies on this scene.

“Go for it,” I replied. I could feel only the faintest flickers of the arcane, and with all the insect activity I couldn’t even tell if the symbol was on any of these bodies. It would seriously suck if these were not Symbol Man victims. Two serial killers would be more than we could handle. Hell, one is more than we can handle.

Doc flicked his fingers to dislodge a stray maggot, lip curling in disgust. “As soon as these guys get the bodies off one another, I’ll be able to tell more.”

I didn’t have to wait long. As the first body was pulled away from the others and turned over, I could clearly see the symbol that had been carved onto the chest. Okay, so we’re still dealing with the same killer, I thought with strange relief.

The trustees staggered by me with their grotesque burden as they carried the body to a clear area to lay it out. I began to step back to avoid the stench, then froze as a faint sensation of arcane resonance rippled over me. I shifted quickly into full othersight, reluctantly stepping closer to the body. It’s the symbol, I realized. The symbol is arcanely protected. I hadn’t noticed it on any of the Series Two victims because they’d been found relatively quickly and there were still arcane traces all over them. But on these, most of the residual arcane energy had faded to nothing—except for the potency twined into the symbol itself. No wonder the symbol had always been recognizable, even on the badly decomposed bodies. I gave myself a mental head-smack. I should have thought of that earlier. Chalk that one up to inexperience, I thought with a small sigh.

For the next hour, I discovered it was impossible not to breathe in the stench of rot. I didn’t have any trouble with nausea, but one of the trustees was not so fortunate and had to lean over a bush several times to heave. Jill was there, taking pictures of the entire process as the bodies were removed and laid out, face grim and pale as she worked.

I crouched next to the two doctors, making notes and listening to their observations as they examined each body as it was removed from the pile. Six bodies, each with the symbol carved into the flesh and positioned so that the symbol wouldn’t be exposed to air and insects. Make it last longer, even with the arcane protection. It’s important to whatever he’s doing.

Finally the last of the remains were zipped up into body bags and Doc stood up and stripped off his gloves. “Four men and two women,” he said, mouth set in a firm line and a thin beading of sweat on his upper lip. “All with ligature marks around their necks and notches at their elbows and ankles, in addition to various other signs of torture.”

Dr. Vaughn rolled her neck on her shoulders. “For now I’m going to say that there’s nothing older than two months and nothing fresher than three weeks.”

I did some quick mental calculations, then took out my phone and pulled up the calendar. “So that would fall between these dates?” I showed my phone to Dr. Vaughn, pointing out the dates.

The entomologist looked at the screen and nodded. “Yes, that would work.”

“Thanks, both of you.” I turned and jogged back up the slope, slowing as I saw Ryan climbing off the back of an ATV.

“Hey, Kristoff. Check this out.” I showed him my phone.

He looked at the screen, a faintly bemused expression on his face. “You have all the phases of the moon on your calendar?”

“Yeah, like, duh. And now it’s finally useful. Doc and the entomologist think that these victims were killed between the last two full moons.”

He looked at me with a So what? expression.

I gestured to the row of black body bags at the bottom of the ridge. “I think these are last month’s victims.” I took a steadying breath. “I think he attempted the summoning last month and it didn’t work.” I rubbed my palms on my jeans, unnerved. I didn’t want to think about what we’d be facing right now if he’d been successful.

Ryan blew out his breath. “Fucking lucky for us. I wonder what went wrong.”

“I don’t know, but he’s not giving up. He’s trying again this month.”

A sickened expression passed over his face. “And he’s going to keep doing this until he succeeds in this summoning.”

I chewed my lip. “The convergence will begin to taper after this month. It’ll still be enough to summon higher demons, but my bet is that pulling an unwilling Demonic Lord through will be damn near impossible after this next full moon and for about another eighteen months or so.”

“So, we have just this month to catch him,” Ryan said.

I nodded. “And he’s going to throw everything he has into this summoning. He knows it’s his last chance for a while.”

Ryan moved to the top of the slope, looking down at the scene of the body dump, anger and dismay in his eyes. “I guess there’s no doubt that these are Symbol Man murders?”

I shook my head. “They all have the symbol, all have signs of torture, all killed by ligature strangulation.”

He was silent for several heartbeats as he looked at the activity at the bottom of the slope. “I wonder why he’s killing all his victims the same way now. The Series One victims were killed in different ways.”

“Well, I have a theory about that.”

“Share?”

I took a deep breath. “I think that the first murders were practice. It explains why those victims were killed in a variety of ways and had varying amounts of torture and damage done to them. The last two were strangled.”

Ryan scowled. “He was trying to see what kind of death would give him the most zing and found that strangulation worked the best.”

“That’s right. And I think he was probably also figuring out how to store that potency for later use. To build his little Demonic Lord prison.”

“And then he had to stop for three years …”

“Because the sphere that holds the demon world diverged from ours …” I trailed off, looking away from the lake.

“What’s wrong?” Ryan followed the direction of my gaze.

“The victim at the wastewater plant. I think that was from last month’s attempt as well.”

Ryan frowned. “What makes you say that? And what are you looking at?”

“See that fence?” I pointed at a tall wooden fence barely visible through the trees. It was probably about a mile away, and only the fact that we were standing on a slight rise allowed us to see it at all. “That’s the back of the wastewater plant.”

I watched his face as comprehension flashed across it. “The broken bones … She wasn’t dropped from the top of a vat. The demon was flying her body here and dropped her.”

I nodded. “You’re pretty smart for a Fed.”

“I missed a bunch of questions on the entrance exam on purpose so that I could get into the agency,” he retorted, smile flickering at the corners of his mouth.

“So it was an accident that the body was found so quickly.”

“But the others …” His expression grew more serious. “He’s been trying to find out what he can about you. He knows you’re a summoner.”

I nodded, feeling the prickles of cold sweat along my spine. If he knew that, then he knew damn near everything about me.

Meanwhile, I knew his name, and not a damn thing else.