Secrets of the Demon

Chapter 13

I locked the office and returned downstairs right as the coroner’s black van pulled up. I suppressed a laugh as I saw the driver exiting the van with a pair of lopping shears in his hand. Sarge had obviously tipped off the coroner’s office as to the inaccessibility of the body.

Jill was finished with her pictures of the area, including shots of the exterior of the building. She retreated to give the van driver access to the hedge, but he hesitated, eyeing the thick bushes. He slid a hopeful glance to me.

“Any chance you have a chainsaw in your car?” he asked.

I had to grin. “Sorry!”

“Worth a try,” he said with a rueful smile as he stepped forward, lopping shears at the ready. It took him several minutes to hack his way through the hedge, and I had to agree that a chainsaw would have been more efficient. The damage to the bushes would have been about the same.

Once the brush was cleared away, Jill stepped forward to take more pictures, and then I had the chance to take a decent look at the victim. Unfortunately my better view of the body didn’t give me any new and fascinating insights. He was still bloated and maggoty. No previously unseen bullet wounds or arcane symbols. But I took a mental note of the fact that he was still wearing his jacket. He’d probably been attacked as soon as he arrived at the office in the morning or right when he was leaving.

The coroner’s personnel loaded the body into the body bag and onto the stretcher, then dutifully carted him off to the morgue.

“All right, chick,” Jill said. “I’m done with my part, and I’ve seen you too much today. I’m gonna hit the road.”

“Love you too, bitch,” I replied, smiling.

She grinned and headed to her van. I helped the officer take the tape down, then made my way to the other side of the building where I’d left my car.

A chill wind hit me as I turned the corner, briefly robbing me of breath in shock at the abrupt change in temperature. It was a mild day, but that blast of air felt practically arctic. It faded as soon as it hit me, leaving behind an eerie calm that sent the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. That feels like the wind from a summoning. The thought snaked through my head even as a whisper of arcane brushed past me.

I turned slowly, completely unnerved. I sure as hell didn’t see any summoning diagrams chalked out on the sidewalk. Maybe it was something else? Had to be. Perhaps another portal like the one in my aunt’s library?

A nauseating ripple of menace passed through me and I edged toward the building, instinctively wanting something solid and real at my back. I shifted into othersight, scanning the area and the sky above me. There was nothing physical that I could see, but there was an odd cast to the surroundings, like a slow coiling of power—rapidly producing the effect of scaring the ever-living shit out of me. This was something that wanted me, and not in a nice way. I knew that viscerally.

Stucco dug into my back as I pressed against the building. I could feel my pulse speeding as the odd coil of potency seemed to tighten and coalesce in front of me. Shit. Is someone controlling this? There was no one in sight. And what the hell was it anyway? I still couldn’t see anything tangible.

Stop panicking and start doing something! I railed at myself. Pressed up against the building like this, I was an easy target for whatever was happening. Plus, I was pretty much powerless. Too bad I don’t have a portable version of the storage diagram. I felt a lovely little ping at the thought, but I pushed it aside. Now wasn’t the time to figure out how to accomplish something like that. If it was even possible.

I shoved off the wall and took off at a dead run for my car. I had no idea if I’d be any safer there, but visions raced through my head of other arcane dangers I’d faced, and the sanctuary of steel and plastic was better than nothing at all. I could sense the malevolence swirl behind me, as if snapping at my heels.

I heard the distant screech of tires on pavement and the thrum of an engine, and the thought flashed through my head that I might escape this unknown thing chasing me only to get hit by a car. But I also had the unshakeable sense that getting hit by a car would hurt less.

I heard a squeal of brakes, and suddenly a car slammed to a stop a few feet in front of me. The driver threw the passenger door open. “Get in!” he shouted unnecessarily as I practically dove into the car from sheer momentum. The instant I was mostly in, the driver slammed his foot down on the gas, and I had to yank my trailing foot quickly inside as the acceleration closed the car door.

I took a heaving gasp of relief, terror shifting to amazement that I’d somehow escaped the thing chasing me. Then I looked up and processed who my rescuer was.

Cory Crawford glanced first at me, then in the rearview mirror, lips pressed together in a thin line beneath his mustache. “You okay?” he asked, words clipped.

I gulped and straightened in the seat, then fumbled for the seat belt. “Yeah.” I busied myself with the belt while I racked my brain for some way to explain why the hell I’d been pelting across the parking lot.

But he’d somehow known that I needed a rescue.

“Did you see something behind me?” I blurted.

Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. “Not ... exactly.” He slid a look toward me. “I was coming back to see if you wanted to go conduct that search warrant and I saw you running ...” He paused, skepticism and self-doubt warring in his face. “I ... I didn’t see anything behind you.” For an instant I thought he was going to add, but I knew something was chasing you. But he’d clamped down on whatever else he might have been tempted to say.

A tense and awkward silence descended upon the car as I resisted the urge to hug my knees to my chest. I glanced back once, using othersight to scan the road behind us, but I couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary.

Crawford slowed and then pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store. He parked, but left the car running. He kept his gaze straight ahead and his hands on the steering wheel. “Just give me some line of bullshit here, okay?” he said, voice tight and tense. “I’m not ready to hear anything else.” Remorse shadowed his face, tinged with the barest trace of fear.

My chest tightened, a weary pity mingling with a nebulous sense of frustration. I wanted him to know, I realized. I wanted to stop having to lie to him and hold details back. But I also knew that forcing the truth onto him would make it all blow up in my face. Crawford had turned into an unexpected ally in the past few months, and I couldn’t afford to lose that.

“It was a big dog,” I heard myself saying, flat and expressionless. “Rottweiler, I think. I was trying to get to my car so that I wouldn’t have to shoot it.”

Some of the tension left his shoulders. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought too.” He looked briefly disappointed, and I had the feeling it was directed at both of us. Silence fell for another moment, then he took a deep breath and turned to me with a tight, almost desperate smile. “Well, do you still want to do this search warrant?” he asked. “Or do you want to go see if ... if the dog is still there?” I could almost see the thoughts whirling behind his eyes, praying that we could move on and forget that this strange and unexplainable moment had ever happened.

“You can take me back to my car,” I said, fighting to keep from sounding anything other than normal and settled. If I still felt that odd sense of danger I’d tell him to clear out, and fuck the idea of shielding him from the truth. “And if everything’s okay, then we can head over to do the search warrant.” I needed to do the search anyway, and it would get my mind off what had just happened. Besides, that piece of paper with the initials had raised a number of questions.

“Sounds like a plan,” he replied with a firm nod.

We returned to the City Towers building and cruised slowly through the parking lot. I had my senses extended as far as my little skills could manage, but there was no trace of the strange malevolence as far I could tell.

He pulled up right next to my car. “Vic lived in a condo near the lake—Emerald Heights. Unit number forty-three. I’ll follow you over.”

“Thanks, Cory,” I said, meeting his eyes.

The smile he gave me in return was sad, and this time there was no doubt that he felt he was failing me. But I had no idea what I could say to reassure him that wouldn’t make things worse.

I didn’t linger in the parking lot and made tracks out of there as quickly as possible. I couldn’t sense that strange menacing presence, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.

It’s not there anymore. So does that it mean it’s gone, or did it merely relocate?

Either way I wanted to get the hell out of there.

The search of Vic Kerry’s condo ended up being quite anticlimactic and mostly fruitless other than the picture it painted of a man living a mostly solitary existence. He had hundreds of books in damn near every genre, and enough DVDs to open his own rental store. But it was clear that he wanted far more out of his life, as evidenced by the number of brochures on the kitchen table for cars, houses, and vacation destinations. One room of the condo was fully occupied with exercise equipment similar to what was in his office, and I had to wonder if he’d thrown himself so thoroughly into fitness and working out more from a desperate need for a social outlet than from a desire to live longer.

There was also nothing work-related as far as we could see. After about forty-five minutes of digging through drawers and closets, we called it quits and left. An oddly morose fatigue dragged at me as we returned to our cars.

“Be careful out there,” Crawford said as I opened my car door. I looked over at him to see that there was very real worry in his eyes.

I gave him as reassuring a smile as I could create. “Thanks. It’s all good.”

He dipped his head in a brief nod, then took a deep breath. “Look, Kara, I think you should know ... there’s a lot of chatter among the rank about the task force.”

The frisson of worry returned. “What kind of chatter? They want to take me off it?”

He gave a shrug, which didn’t exactly alleviate my unease. “It’s mostly stupid gossip.” He slid an apologetic look toward me, which told me what most of the gossip probably entailed. I was growing used to the fairly open speculation that I was banging Ryan. Pretty damn funny, considering the truth.

“I know the chief’s a supporter of you being on it, though,” he continued. “And he’s the one who really matters.”

I nodded, but the simmering worry remained. The chief wasn’t going to risk his job so that I could play around with the feds.

He grimaced. “I wasn’t trying to upset you. I just thought you might want to know what’s being said.”

“I do,” I said. “Thanks. Knowledge is power, right?”

He hesitated then gave me a weak smile. “Yeah. I guess it is.” He licked his lips—a completely uncharacteristic gesture for him. “Watch out for those dogs, okay?” He tried to chuckle, but it fell flat. He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. “You should tell Agent Kristoff ...” He trailed off and I felt another wave of sympathy for him.

“I’ll be careful,” I said quietly. “Thanks for worrying.”

He turned and climbed into his car without another word. I ducked into mine and watched him depart. One thing was for sure—I wasn’t going to be telling Agent Kristoff anything, at least not for a while. Ryan would freak, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with that right now.

I drove without any real direction in mind at first, driven mostly by a need to simply get away. It annoyed me that I felt a twinge of guilt for not wanting to let Ryan know about what had happened. Why did I need to run and tell Ryan anytime something weird or strange happened to me? Maybe because he’s the one of the few people I know who understands “weird and strange,” I reminded myself with a sigh.

But I couldn’t face him right now. I needed to chill for a while before seeing him, otherwise he’d know something was up.

At the next stop light I sent a quick text to Ryan, telling him that the scene took longer than I’d expected and that we’d have to hit the studio tomorrow. I didn’t want to get sucked into a phone convo with him. Too much chance that he might hear something in my voice, and then I’d end up explaining what happened and he’d be all worried and ...

I sighed. And that was the problem. He acted worried and caring and all of that, like the absolute bestest of best friends. And I liked that we were such good friends, I really did. Or rather, I would like it more if I didn’t want so much more, and if I could get rid of the niggling sense of uncertainty about him. Aaaand we’re back to me being whiny and neurotic! Full circle on the emotional roller coaster.

Besides, as harsh as it might sound, there was little that Ryan could do if I told him, other than worry.

Rhyzkahl might be able to do something. Even as the thought whispered through my head I couldn’t help but feel as if I was somehow betraying Ryan by even considering another summoning of Rhyzkahl. But the demonic lord would be far more able to tell me if it had been some sort of directed attack or simply some random ripple of arcane weirdness.

My thoughts continued to tumble in jagged discord for the entire drive home. Full night had descended by the time I pulled up to my house, with the waxing moon hanging above the trees, mocking me with its not-fullness . Still, it’s less than a week until the full, I thought as I entered my house and locked the door behind me. And summonings of Rhyzkahl were always easier than traditional summonings since he was willing to be drawn through.

I descended the stairs to my basement and looked down at the storage diagram, uncertainty coiling through me. Unfortunately, I had no way to measure how much power was stored beyond a general sense of full or not full. I was fairly sure that I had enough to perform a summoning of Rhyzkahl.

But I’d been a summoner long enough to know that “fairly sure” was a good way to die a screaming death. If I ran out of power partway through the forming of the portal, it would latch onto the next closest source—me—and would then collapse in on itself while merrily reducing me to the smallest possible pieces.

I fought back the spurt of panic the mere thought of that had produced. No. It would be the height of idiocy to attempt a summoning without being absolutely positive that I had sufficient power. There was no such thing as screwing up a little when it came to that.

Not to mention I’m not exactly calm and focused right now.

I turned away from the diagram and returned upstairs. It looked like I was on my own for a little while longer.