by T. G. Ayer
Half-hidden amongst the trees and shadows was a pey demon.
Chapter 78
“Syama,” Vee said, keeping her voice low.
Her tone must have held sufficient warning, enough that it would make Syama stiffen. The hellhound glanced at Vee. “Where?”
Vee pasted a smile on her face. “Behind you, due north, within the trees. Pey demon. Not totally sure, but I see enough to make me bet on it.”
Syama nodded. “Okay, how do you want to do this?”
Vee thought for a moment. “Let’s go inside the house, preferably somewhere out of his sight. He needs to think that we haven’t seen him, and what better way than to appear to leave the lawn?”
“What excuse you going to make to Monroe over there?” Syama asked, darting her gaze in the detective’s direction.
Vee shrugged. “Don’t need to explain myself to her.” With that, Vee turned on her heel and strode off toward the house. Glancing over her shoulder, Vee saw that Syama was standing there, frozen on the spot. Vee turned and waited for the hellhound who eventually moved and began to hurry toward Vee. “You okay?”
Syama nodded. “Yeah. I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts.”
Vee nodded. Though she wondered where her ghost had gotten to, she didn’t ask. Radhima had an odd habit of appearing like a thought come alive. She’d come when she was needed.
For now, Vee awaited Syama’s arrival as she stepped into the front hall of the mansion to which the expansive lawn belonged. Inside the living room to the left, a woman paced the black carpet, her red kaftan flowing behind her. The pair of cops speaking to the woman wore the body language and expressions one would bear when coaxing a wild animal, spines curved, heads somewhat bowed, voices low.
Vee hid a smile and turned to stand near the tall floor to ceiling windows that sat beside the doorway. Through them she watched the tree line, hoping to catch sight of the demon. Vee was disappointed to find that all she saw were shadows.
“Still there?” asked Syama from beside Vee.
“No idea. I can’t see him anymore, but it could just be the angle from here. Or he could have left thinking he was in the clear.”
Syama nodded. “Ok. You wait here. I’ll go check the place out. Track him a little, see where he is and what he’s doing. Be back in a few.” Syama disappeared, and Vee disliked the feeling of helplessness.
She knew Syama was safe, hell the hellhound had done far more dangerous jobs before she’d ended up on Vee’s detail. Still, Vee worried. Part of caring about people Vee guessed.
She forced herself not to pace as she waited for Syama to return. A shadow on the lawn drew Vee’s attention, and she shook her head as she watched a white owl fly close to the entrance than change direction. Seconds later, Akil came up behind her, the heels on his shoes making low thunking sounds on the slate-tiled floor.
Before she could speak, Syama shimmered beside Vee, her eyes wide. “I found him. And I don’t think you’re going to like where he went.”
Vee shrugged. “Just take me there. I don’t want to know now.”
Syama nodded and held onto Vee, shimmering into nothingness. They reappeared inside dense tree-cover and sank to the ground instantly. Beyond the thicket was a rectangular clearing and at its center was a manhole.
Nothing else in the clearing appeared disturbed, but Vee knew that if Syama brought them here, it meant only one thing.
She was going to have to enter the sewer.
“Crap,” Vee muttered.
Syama grinned. “Exactly. I knew you weren’t going to like it.” She gave Vee an apologetic smile.
Vee shrugged. “Girl’s gotta do what she’s gotta do,” Vee said just as her cell phone began to vibrate. Good thing she always turned the sound off when she was about to head to a crime scene.
“Monroe’s trying to get a hold of me I see.” She spoke mostly to herself as she tried to figure out what to tell the cop. In the end, she just messaged Monroe to keep her posted and that she’d had an agency emergency, ending with a request for samples of the snakeskin to be sent to her lab at Shankar Industries. “Let’s hope that doesn’t piss her off even more.”
Vee glared at Syama, knowing she was being unreasonably annoyed with the hellhound. It wasn’t her fault that the pey had led them to the entrance to an underground tunnel or bunker, or whatever it was. Vee would bet it was the sewer system though. It was just the way her luck worked.
“It’s not so bad,” Syama said, her tone soothing.
“Speak for yourself,” Vee muttered, staring at the manhole cover.
Akil cleared his throat—sounding oddly human, though he was currently perched in a nearby tree, all feathers, and beak, and great big black eyes. “I’m with Vee on this, sorry Syama. Anything underground and filthy is just not my thing.”
Syama raised her eyebrows. “Says the guy who was just way underground, and very very filthy not two days ago?”
Akil snorted. “That experience only serves to compound my dislike for this operation.”
Vee sighed and straightened her spine. Man up, woman, she said beneath her breath. Out loud, she said, “Either way, we have to do this. If it’s possible we can track him to where he’s holding Lucy, then we’d better get moving. We don’t want to lose him because we were squeamish.” Vee looked over at Akil, and then at Syama. “You guys can do the glamor thing and throw it over me as well. I don’t think I’m good enough at it to use it under pressure.”
Syama nodded and glanced over at the manhole, her expression hardened. “Let me just give the place a scan, see where we can arrive safely. Wouldn’t be good to arrive in front of a patrol and get blown to bits.”
Vee lifted her eyes at Syama’s dramatic scenario. It was more like being ripped to pieces than blown to bits. Vee studied the clearing for aural imprints. After a few moments, she let out a disgusted breath. “There are way too many aural patterns to track anything specific. It’s good in a way, in that it confirms the demons’ presence here, but I’m not going to be able to pick one out of that tangle, let alone try to find the killer’s specific aural pattern.”
She raised her eyes to meet Syama’s gaze. “We’re going to have to rely on you once we get in. At least until we’re able to identify specific aural patterns.”
Syama nodded, her eyes shifting to dangerous blood-red. “It’s what I do,” she said, smirking. “I’ll be in hellhound form until we get inside. It’s just easier to track the smells.”
They fell silent as Syama shimmered and her body grew translucent. A cloud of swirling gray and black shadows convulsed and reformed until Syama solidified again, in the form of her hellhound.
The beast stood shoulder high to Vee, two pairs of gleaming black eyes watching Vee with the strangest expression. Vee nodded, and Syama turned and trotted off toward the manhole. As she moved she shimmered away and faded to nothing.
The moment between Syama’s disappearance and then reappearance felt ten times as long, with Vee imagining all sorts of awful alternate scenarios.
But, thankfully, Syama returned in what Vee confirmed was three minutes and twenty seconds, and solidified in place in her hellhound form. The large black beast shuddered, shaking her head the way a dog would when about to shake off water from its fur.
The movement dispersed a blast of black and gray shadows which swirled and then converged to form Syama’s human shape.
“We’re good to arrive in one part of a long stretch of tunnel, but we have to hide quickly because from what I saw the patrols are not spaced out too far apart. I tried to search further in the tunnels, but I didn’t want to spend too long apart from you two. It’s best we stay together.”
“Yeah. Worst case scenario we jump straight home.”
Syama nodded, and the two women headed to the manhole. The route meant they would be walking into the bare sunlit clearing, bringing them into unprotected space. As they approached, Vee scanned the surrounding bushes and trees, oddly aware of the incong
ruous beauty of the forest, the sunlight streaming through the trees, dappling the green carpet of grass that covered the ground.
The scene was idyllic, and yet to Vee, it represented a doorway to a hell she didn’t want to imagine. Seemed best to wait until she met her hell face to face instead of spending too much time dreaming up possibilities. In Vee’s experience, her imagined possibilities tended to be too tame, with the actual events usually far worse than anything she could have dreamed up.
Both Syama and Vee bent and studied the manhole, the gray metal covered in flecks of rust. It appeared to be a few decades old and yet, apart from a few flecks of rust it was clean.
“This looks like an entrance that has been used a lot in the recent past.”
Syama nodded then pointed to the left of the manhole where a small shred of translucent white skin lay pooled on the grass. Vee eyed it with disgust and suppressed a shudder. Syama’s face mirrored Vee’s discomfort. She took a deep breath and focused on the manhole cover. “Well, then, good thing we can bypass that entrance.”
Chapter 79
Vee found herself more than ready to get inside. In fact, she felt they’d wasted a little too much time already.
Syama was nodding, her expression grave. “I’ll see if the way is clear and come straight back.” She glanced up at Akil who’d flown closer to a tall oak that threw a shadow over the pair. “You watch her,” she said, her tone hard, as if she thought that the owl shifter would not do his duty.
Vee frowned, then shook the thoughts from her head. She had to concentrate. She’d deal with these two and their strange undercurrent when they were home.
“Well,” she said to Syama who was staring up at Akil. Syama met her glance, a question in her eyes. Vee lifted a brow. “Waiting for Kaliyug to be over or what?”
Syama rolled her eyes and disappeared, the air glinting with a thousand tiny pinpoints of light. In Syama’s absence, Vee glanced up at Akil, her eyes narrowing. The owl lifted his wings, fluffed them out and then rotated his head around for a full turn.
Vee clicked her tongue silently and faced the hole in the ground, waiting for the hellhound to return.
Seconds later, Syama shimmered into solidity beside Vee and nodded. “We’d better go quick. The way is clear, but we may not have too much time. We’ll be glamored, but some high-level demons can see us. No telling what level demon they’ll have on security detail here.”
Vee nodded and reached for Syama’s arm, glancing up at the sirin who’d already taken flight. Within seconds, Akil was beside them as Syama’s form shimmered and she jumped Vee inside a darkened tunnel. The air smelled wet and musty, and thankfully didn’t stink of a sewer. Although that was no guarantee they wouldn’t come across one soon enough.
The tunnel was a round pipe made of brick and mortar, harking back to the days when New York’s waste and water was still under construction. This particular pipe had a shallow stream of water at ground level and bore no watermark at all.
“This must be an old or no longer used tunnel.”
Akil materialized beside Vee, although she could tell he was still glamored from the faint glint of silver at the edges of his body. “What makes you say that?” he asked, studying the brickwork.
“Regular use of the tunnel, meaning water passing here all the time, would leave a horizontal line along the tunnel wall. We don’t see any sign of that which suggests this tunnel has been closed off or had been unused for decades. It takes years for a watermark to dry off enough to fade away. And there is still a chance that this is an entry tunnel only and has never been used to transport water into the sewage or wastewater systems beneath the city.”
Syama made a face. “Let’s get out of here, okay? There’s a patrol up ahead that’s coming up to that intersection in a few seconds.”
Vee glanced around. “Where?” Syama pointed to a narrow channel behind Vee, just wide enough for her to slide into.
“Get inside, and I will stand here. My glamor is impenetrable. None of these demons would be able to see me. Not unless they are part hellhound themselves.”
“Yeah. Then we’ll be shit out of luck.”
Syama rolled her eyes, and Vee grinned. This felt like old times, and she decided that she was going to enjoy it for the moment. She winked at the hellhound and shimmied into the narrow channel, holding her breath as Akil took off, flying down the tunnel and disappearing into the darkness.
Syama moved to hide Vee, and just in time too. A pair of giants thundered along the tunnel, sending the narrow trickle of water vibrating so hard that droplets rose off the surface of the stream.
Vee watched over Syama’s shoulder, half in awe, half in horror as two rakshasa demons walked toward them. Both appeared high-level, but thankfully not powerful enough to sniff out a hellhound.
Syama stiffened, but Vee could tell from the hellhound’s aura that she was not at all afraid. In fact, she was totally devoid of emotion, which concerned Vee more than if Syama had been terrified, her heart racing a mile a minute.
It was odd too. Though Syama had come to Vee hardened and experienced, she’d never been emotionally vacant. Another thing to be worried about.
Vee focused as the two rakshasas drew closer, holding her breath as they slowed their steps to come to a stop right in front of Syama’s nose. Vee felt a little ill.
They had to stay put and hope for the best. If Syama so much as vibrated a molecule, the two demons would sense it immediately. That much Vee knew when it came to the use of jumping or transporting. The jump left a signature at the entrance to the other side—whatever that was.
So the two women remained stock still waiting to see what the rakshasas would do next.
They began to speak, the sounds guttural and hitting Vee deep in her stomach. Her eardrums rang with the noise, and she winced, tempted to put her fingers in her ears.
But she didn’t move. And found herself trying to shut the sound out. Which oddly enough enhanced the clarity of the syllables.
“How long more of this do you think the team is going to handle?” asked one of the demons.
Vee’s eyes widened and her mouth opened in shock. She could understand them? No. She must have been imagining it.
But when the next demon opened his mouth, she knew she hadn’t imagined it at all. “As long as it takes. You shut your mouth and do your job until the boss tells you we are ready to move on.”
The first demon’s brows furrowed, his wide red nostrils flaring. Shaking his head, he snorted. “You’re just saying that because the boss likes you. Keeps you at her side. We’re the ones who have to sleep in the tank while you eat with the Lord.”
“Graig. Probably best if you shut your trap.”
“Who’s going to hear me? We’re in this tunnel, maybe two miles away from central command?”
“Shows how dumb you are. Did you read the schematics? The way the sound works in this place? Everything echoes. Cough here and they’ll hear it somewhere else. In the tunnels and that’s not a good thing ‘cos the next thing you know you’ll set off the sound traps and end up with a spike through your dumb skull.”
The first demon snorted then fell silent, casting his eyes around the tunnel. For a brief instant, Vee could have sworn he’d looked straight at her, over Syama’s shoulder and directly into the channel she stood within.
He did pause then to point at the channel and Vee was certain her heart had exploded within her chest.
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?” said the more senior rakshasa, shifting so that he could see what his partner was pointing at. Metal clinked as their short daggers clanked against each other’s armor— the tunnel not being made for two giant rakshasa demons to walk abreast. The two, standing side by side, would measure the same as four human men standing abreast.
At last, he’d shuffled around enough to stare at the channel, and Vee felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Now she was caught—dead. The closer they drew, the closer they
would be to Syama too.
Shit.
Chapter 80
“Ah, who knows. Probably something to do with expansion and contraction of the tunnels. Makes sense that they’d put them in here and there you know. I could be wrong. I didn’t do tunnel systems or subterranean architecture at Harvard you know.”
The second demon chuckled, and the sound echoed down the tunnel. Senior thunked the idiot on the back of his head and said, “I suggest you shut up for the rest of the route or I’m going to get our routes changed, so I don’t have to see your ugly face again for a while. God knows how we’re even related.”
The second demon glared at his partner. “Fine. Keep it up, and I’ll tell Mom.”
The first demon had already walked off, leaving his dumber brother standing in front of Syama, shoulders hunched. He kicked the ground, slapping his boot against the water. Vee was positive the demon was pouting. Wonders never ceased.
Then he huffed and slouched off leaving Vee feeling almost sorry for him.
A few minutes later, Syama shifted and turned her face to Vee, her expression a muddle of amusement and frustration.
Vee grinned as she slid out of the channel. “Poor guy. Gotta live up to pretty high standards.”
“Yeah,” Syama smiled, staring after the two demons who’d already disappeared around the bend in the tunnel.
Then Vee frowned. “Harvard?” She shook her head, but Syama waved a hand at her.
“It’s likely he went there,” Syama said, grinning when Vee’s eyes widened. “You have no idea how long demons have lived among humans, how many decades, centuries that they’ve been working toward their freedom.”
“And sending a rakshasa to Harvard only for him to be on sentry duty?” asked Vee, shaking her head more firmly. “That makes absolutely no sense.”
Syama pursed her lips. “It’s likely he’s being tested. Or he’s turned into an entrepreneur of sorts.”