The Black Merchant

by Shannon Reber

  It made me miss Erkens, though also Ian and Spencer. Those three were my team . . . even though they were so opposed to each other’s existence.

  I wished I had taken the time to read Ian’s text. What if he had decided that he wanted nothing to do with me since I had sided with Spencer rather than him? What if . . . no. Ian wasn’t like that.

  He was a good guy. He simply continued to think of me as his little sister’s best friend, someone he needed to watch out for. I was eager to get past that. I wanted there to be more between us.

  No. I had to concentrate on the situation around me. I was in a half-realm where human-traffickers were holding girls as prisoners. I had to find a way to get us all out of there safely.

  My eyes turned around that space. It was a building that had probably been cool when it was a functioning brewery. In the state it was in, creepy was the best descriptor of it.

  It was full of spider webs, dust bunnies, rotted wood . . . and something like the smell of rotten eggs. From what I’d read in Erkens’ books, that sulfuric scent was the smell a portal gave off before it was opened.

  I grabbed for Simms’ arm and motioned for them to duck behind what looked like it had been a bar at one point.

  Simms raised his brows curiously yet didn’t question me. He and Roy hunkered down behind that bar with me, both of them with their eyes fixed on me.

  I brought my hand up to cover my nose and made a small motion with my other hand to try and pass the message that way. It made me feel a little bit jealous to think of the telepathic link that had formed between Roy and Simms. They didn’t need to revert to my pathetic excuse for sign language.

  My eyes went wide as the sound of a pop filled the air and that smell of rotten eggs got all the stronger. Voices were all around, several men having obviously passed through that portal.

  “I don’t know. I was told to check the cameras. That’s the only info I was given.”

  “There can’t be anybody here. Raven would have let us know.”

  “Raven is the reason we’re in this mess. Her and her stupid vendetta.”

  That argument went on as those men walked away. I couldn’t tell how many of them had been there. It was more than two, that was all I knew for sure.

  Hope rose in my heart. Cameras. That meant there was some sort of technology in that building. All I had to do was find it and I was home free.

  Roy’s eyes met mine again and slowly, he started to rise. I didn’t know what was going on. It looked like he planned to follow those guys.

  That seemed like a bad idea to me. Maybe it would work, though. If they could only see him as the dog he would appear to be to others, he would be far safer than me or Simms.

  As he stood to follow them, something clicked in my brain. The men who had come through the portal had talked about a woman named Raven. The woman who owned the landscaping company Erkens and I had gone to a little while before, her name was Raven Forbindelse. And everything began to make sense. Kam was innocent. The reason three of those girls had been chosen from the locations where he mowed the lawn was because Raven had chosen them.

  I didn’t know what those guys had meant about a vendetta. It hardly mattered, though. She must be the spotter. I had no idea if she would have a larger role or not.

  I raised a finger to stop Roy and quickly brought up the picture my phone had recorded of the woman who’d opened the door at the landscaping place.

  I had no internet access right then, so simply showed them both that woman’s picture and typed out a quick note on my phone to show them as well. Both of them nodded in understanding and Roy rushed off to follow those guys.

  Simms took out his own phone and after a moment, turned it for me to see the screen. ‘Roy will find out what he can about those guys. We need to find the communications center,’ he had written.

  Oh. That was probably a far better idea anyway. Technology was the only advantage I had. If Simms and I could find it, I would be able to help in a very real way rather than simply tagging along.

  It was weird as we moved in the direction those men had gone, to see that there were other spirits around that building. LJ wasn’t the only ghost who had returned . . . or been sent back, whichever it was. I didn’t know if they could be called friends or foes.

  I kept my hand wrapped around the canister of demon-mace, my eyes scanning as much of the area as possible. My ability to see through glamours didn’t appear to be any use at all.

  I had a feeling it might be useful at some point. That point was not right then. I kind of wanted to return it. Too bad that wasn’t an option.

  Simms glanced at me as we walked into a section of the building that looked like it was made up of offices. He looked worried. I did my best not to resent him for that. It was hard.

  Simms stepped into a long, office lined hallway in front of me. His hand was on the butt of his gun as his eyes swept the area. I hung back, something inside me screaming for me to get out of there.

  My hand flew to my chest like it intended to keep my pounding heart from breaking free. On the floor in front of Simms was a glowing line. I had no idea what it was. Something inside me told me to stay away from it.

  Simms clearly didn’t see it. Before I could do anything to warn him, he came to an abrupt stop. His foot was trapped inside that glowing line. He gasped in pain, trying to free himself but nothing happened.

  And maniacal laughter filled the air around us. Someone knew Simms was trapped there and they were coming. I had to get him free before we were both caught and our ability to free the girls was taken away entirely.

  I looked hard at the spot where Simms’ foot was trapped and suddenly realized what it was. It was a portal that had been placed in the ground as a trap.

  The fact that only Simms’ leg had gone through was a stroke of luck I didn’t think was possible. It wasn’t a full portal. It was basically a tear in the fabric of our world.

  I had no idea what kind of creature had done that. It wasn’t important, though. I had to get him out of it and get away before whoever was so amused found us.

  I made a motion to Simms to tell him to be quiet and turned my eyes around that area. I wanted to find something I could use to pull him out. I didn’t want to get close to that tear. There was no telling how that kind of portal would work. It was possible that with that one small tear in the veil, it would weaken the rest of the walls between the worlds.

  Simms looked like he was about to throw up, his skin slicked by sweat as he motioned for me to leave. I furrowed my brows, my eyes still scanning the area. He made an even more vehement motion and waved both of his hands to tell me to go away.

  I ignored him. My attention was fixed on the wall not far from us where a tablet had been affixed. That tablet was what I had been looking for.

  I rushed over to that tablet, my fingers fumbling over the screen with the mix of anxiety and excitement. The trouble was, I didn’t recognize any of the icons. I scanned through them as fast as possible, still hearing the laughing as it got closer and closer to us.

  Because there was no time to waste, I got into the coding and scanned through it. My stomach went fluttery as my skin tingled. It was like nothing I had ever seen.

  I stared at it for a few long seconds, my mind trying to process what it saw. It was a binary code, though unlike any code I’d ever encountered. Mixed in with the 0’s and 1’s were words that didn’t look like an English word I’d ever seen. It was like it was written in a language that . . . then it hit me.

  Ian’s family was Catholic. I had gone to mass with them quite a bit as a kid. Part of the mass was spoken in Latin. One of the words that were interspersed through the code was written in Latin.

  The trouble was, I only recognized one or two of those words and the laughter was getting closer and closer. I had to hurry up before we were caught.

  From what I could tell, that tablet had been used to open the portal. It wasn’t a creature at all. I’d had no idea that tech
nology had that kind of power. My mind wanted to contemplate it more, although there was no time. I would have to put it away to study later on.

  Codes were patterns. Languages were codes. I was a code-breaker. I could do this. This was like any ordinary system. I only had to unravel the code.

  The numbers and words cruised their way through my mind. It was the kind of puzzle I loved. If I had more time to contemplate it . . . I didn’t. That was when I spotted the pattern.

  That code was the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the system was even more complex and even more fascinating. There wasn’t much I could do at that moment. What I had found though, was a way to close that system out. So far as I could tell, that would close the portal. Or that was my wish, anyway.

  My fingers flew over the screen and a smirk came to my lips. I had an app on my phone which would allow me to record that code so I would be able to study it later.

  The creepy laughter was almost on us by the time I heard a gasp of relief from Simms. I whirled around to face him and beamed. He was free. All we needed to do was get away from what was coming.

  TWENTY

  Simms and I rushed over toward a kind of decrepit looking wall. I knew it wouldn’t hide us completely. It should conceal us well enough since it was fairly dark in the old brewery.

  We pressed ourselves against that wall right when the creepy laughter had reached its crescendo.

  Because I couldn’t stand not knowing, I peeked around the wall to see who had shown up. My jaw went tight at the sight of the woman. I had the crazy urge to rush out and break her stupid nose though I managed to hold myself back . . . barely.

  It was the woman who had opened the door when Erkens and I had gone to the landscaping company. She didn’t look surprised in the least to see that no one was in that trap in the floor. “My, my. Kam did tell me that the girl was a very well-known hacker. That’ll raise the price we’ll be able to get for her. Some guys like a girl with brains,” Raven said in a mocking tone.

  Because it was obvious she knew we were there, I motioned for Simms to stay where he was and stepped out into that dark hallway. My heart pounded so hard it made my head swim yet I did my best to push past the fear. I had to make sure that woman was distracted so Simms would be able to get out, find the girls, and get them to freedom. “How could you do something like this, Raven? Subjecting another woman to rape is a vile thing to do,” I said, my fingers having set my phone to record our conversation like I had done with Adrian.

  Raven rolled her eyes at me, not deigning to answer my question. “Men may see you as eye candy but all I see is a stupid little girl who is too blind to see the truth. Do you want to know who marked you, little girl?”

  I scowled at her. “Kevin Marchand,” I growled, hating her even more than him.

  She threw back her head in that same maniacal laughter. “Kevin?” she shrieked, doubled over with her mirth. “He doesn’t have the brains. He’s just a dumb piece of muscle we use.”

  I did my best to focus on getting her to tell me about their operation in a way that could be recorded. I had to ignore the way she mocked me. It didn’t matter. “Who is it, then? Who marked me?” I asked, my fingers curled into tight fists.

  “I did,” a voice said from behind me.

  I whirled around, my skin going cold at the sight of the creature that stood there. He was that same monstrous thing I had seen at Hope House. Red. Scaly. Reptilian. Winged. I knew the voice.

  Tears rose in my eyes as it all played out in my mind. Deegan. It was him. He was the incubus.

  I had met him in Philadelphia in a grief counseling group. He was a student-counselor at Hope House. Holy blue screen. Deegan was an incubus, a sickening creature who had only been looking for victims.

  I backed away from him, determined to get the girls out of there. I had to get them away from that thing. I had been so stupid. I had been so sure my own instincts couldn’t be trusted, I had ignored all the things that should have clued me in about him. I had ignored his connection to me, Esther, and Hadley.

  My mind spun through so many memories. He had been assigned to go to our grief counseling group because of a few fights he’d gotten into at his school. He’d had a lack of real connection to anyone. He’d always acted very distant with women, though had watched them closely . . . like a spider watched a fly. Why hadn’t I noticed it before? I probably would have let him talk me out of any suspicion I’d had about him simply because we’d been friends or that was how it had seemed.

  He hadn’t been my friend at all. He had seen me at Hope House and because he knew my skills with computers, had marked me to keep me away from the truth. It was likely he had already known that Hadley had come to me and Erkens.

  “Is your dad really dead?” I snapped, unsure how to speak to him anymore.

  The thing that had been my friend not so long before, folded his scaly arms over his chest. “Yes, Madison. My dad died when I was fifteen. My mom started drinking her grief away and I was left alone.” He ran his tongue over his teeth. “Left alone to visit the dreams of any girl I wanted. The girls who wouldn’t have looked at me when they were awake suddenly let me do anything I wanted with them.”

  Bile rose in my throat. “Deegan, don’t you get it? That’s rape. You didn’t give them a choice,” I whispered, tears sliding slowly down my cheeks as I continued to recoil from him.

  “I am what I am, exactly like you.” He motioned to the tablet that I had closed the portal with. “You are a genius. You use your brain to get what you need. I use my power in the same way.”

  My skin tingled as the tears dried on my cheeks with the heat of the rage that rose inside me. “And Julie? Did you give her a choice or were you just being who you are with her too?” I growled out, furious that he would compare my understanding of computers to his assault of women.

  That monster bared his teeth, his hands balling into fists. “I loved Julie. I LOVED her! I didn’t know carrying my child would kill her. I had no idea,” that creature hissed at me and actual sparks skittered across his skin.

  Fury glowed from his eyes. He stepped closer and I could see flames in the back of his throat. Fear consumed me as he reached out to grab me.

  I brought my hand out of my pocket and sprayed the demon-mace directly in his face. His skin burned and blistered, though not like I had expected. I had thought it would stop him in his tracks. Turned out, all it did was piss him off.

  Deegan furled his wings and roared, more sparks flying from him. It was like he wasn’t a full incubus.

  That was when it hit me. Deegan’s father was an incubus. His mother had survived his birth. In all the myths I’d read, bringing a creature like that into the world killed humans. Deegan’s mom wasn’t human.

  To judge by the sparks, it was obvious he had power over fire. To judge by the scales and the other reptilian features, I’d guess his mother was a dragon or a dragon-shifter.

  He was half incubus and half shifter. What could stop that sort of creature? In all the books I’d read over the last couple of weeks there hadn’t been a single mention of how to kill a mixed-blood monster.

  I could hear Raven cackling as she watched Deegan come after me. She stopped laughing when Simms rushed out from behind the wall with Roy. Oh, right. They had that telepathic link. Simms must have told his friend what was going on.

  Roy’s figure began to enlarge until a giant blue arm guided me gently away. I wanted to argue but needed to get the girls out of there. They were my first priority. I inclined my head to him and took in a deep breath before turning to leave.

  I heard Deegan roar with rage. I didn’t look. What I did was to run in the direction I assumed people would be held. I hoped they were okay.

  The majority of the building was a large, warehouse type space. We had been in the hallways that led to the offices. I allowed my instincts to lead me out.

  If I was a repugnant, sex-trafficking fiend, I would probably be smart enough to keep the girls in a space
that was easy to access, yet easy to conceal. It seemed likely they would be held in the basement, close to the loading docks. It was a guess, though I had a feeling it was a good guess.

  I could hear the roars from the fight between Deegan and Roy. It made my skin crawl and my heart ache. Deegan. It didn’t make sense.

  I remembered him clearly from our group. His grief had been real. His anguish over the way his mom drank her sorrows away was just as genuine, I was sure. Was it possible he hadn’t been in the group to find victims?

  Something inside me did believe that the person I had known in Philadelphia was the real Deegan. What had made him change? Why would he have metamorphosed into . . . the thing he had turned into?

  My steps faltered as I contemplated that question. I had rushed down a rickety flight of steps into a basement area. It was as manky as the rest of the building. What surprised me was the fact that every ghost who had lingered around the building stood at the bottom of the steps, all of them pointing to my right.

  My spine turned into an icicle and goosebumps rose on my arms. It was the creepiest thing I had ever seen in my life. I wanted to run away. I had to nut up, though.

  I turned my lips up in a tiny smile of thanks to them and turned in the direction they had pointed. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. In front of me was a big, rusty metal door, or that was the glamour which had been placed on it.

  The truth was, that door was a very sophisticated piece of technology. There was a touchpad set on the wall next to it, obviously to enter the passcode into. I didn’t have the passcode.

  The thing was, I had a basic understanding of how their system worked. If I could get into the coding again, I should be able to rewrite the passcode to allow me to unlock the door. It was possible I could unlock all the doors right from there.

  I took in a breath, counted to three, and marched to that door. I could do it. It didn’t matter that it was new to me. I had closed the other portal. I could open that door.