by Jayne Faith
“Nah, people are moving stuff in and out of apartments all the time,” Johnny said. “We should be okay.”
We got out, and he reached into the back to hoist the dolly. I grabbed the bundle of cords. He pointed to a sidewalk that threaded between two of the complex’s buildings.
“So Damien can’t just lift the statue and float it to the trailer?” Johnny whispered as we passed an apartment balcony with TV sounds drifting through the screen door.
I gave a short laugh. “That’s not how magic works.”
He raised his free hand and shrugged. “I’m not a crafter, I don’t know.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You may not have magical aptitude, but you know plenty about magic.”
“But seriously, why doesn’t it work that way? He’s walking around with a lotta juice.”
I was pretty sure he knew the answer—if anything, he probably knew more about magic than I did—but sensed he was trying to keep the conversation light.
“Most magic makes use of the four main magical elements—earth, fire, water, air. In order to move an object, he’d have to use one or more elements.” I paused, considering. “Maybe build up enough earth energy underneath the statue, in theory, since earth is the most solid of the elements. I’m not sure a mage could even do that, not with an object the size and weight of the gargoyle. I bet he could lift something smaller. Either way, the point is that magic still has rules.”
“Rules? Booor-ring,” Johnny sing-songed.
I grinned. “Once we have it the gargoyle on the dolly, he should be able to help us keep it balanced and maybe even give it a magical push to make it easier to move.”
“I guess that’s better than nothing.”
We both slowed and then stopped. We were back in the shadows. Over the sound of crickets I could hear the soft watery flow of the Boise River, which was a few dozen feet ahead of us. The scents of decaying leaves, cool water, and moist soil mixed and filled my nose.
“Hey, it’s over here.” A low voice drifted to us in the dark, and I whipped around.
Damien’s tall form with Roxanne’s shorter one alongside approached from the Greenbelt that ran along the river.
“No Gregori henchmen yet, I take it?” I whispered when they joined us.
“Nope, we’ve got the statue to ourselves.” Damien looked around, rubbing one arm up and down the other. “But I think there are some Rip spawn nearby, so we need to get our asses in gear.”
He seemed a little jumpy, and the tempo of my pulse quickened.
“Lead the way, Agent Storm,” Johnny said to Roxanne.
She was a Marvel comic book fan, so our secret agent names honored her favorite characters.
“Prepare yourself, Agent Iron Man,” she said, half turning and flipping her fingers in a beckoning motion. “This is one ugly gargoyle.”
We followed her, jogging with quiet footfalls along the paved bike and pedestrian path that followed the Boise River. I couldn’t help casting a furtive glance behind me and darting looks into the deep shadows of the underbrush along the river bank. As long as I could remember, I’d been told to stay off the Greenbelt after dark. Parts of it were quite isolated from roads or houses. The coils of my whip, bouncing against my left thigh as I ran, and the more familiar weight of my service weapon at my right hip brought me some measure of comfort. I focused on the back of Roxanne’s head, hidden in the hood of her sweatshirt, as if keeping my eyes on her would ensure her safety.
She veered off the Greenbelt onto a patch of lawn edging one side of an apartment building. Slowing, she led us around the corner and then stopped. We were on another of the pathways in between buildings, and all the nearby windows were dark. I passed the bundle of cords to Damien so I could reach for my small service flashlight. I released it from my belt but didn’t switch it on. No light was required to spot the bulky mass of the gargoyle, planted in the grass just off the sidewalk.
My head thumped hard, and I reflexively winced and squeezed my eyes closed for a second. When I opened them, my vision swam with so many swirling shadows it was like trying to see through thick smoke. Panic spiked my pulse and clenched my chest. I shook my head and blinked hard, and the dark shapes retreated back to the edges of my vision.
The faint aroma of Johnny’s cologne wafted to my nose, and I heard the leathery rustle of his jacket beside me. “Are you all right?” he whispered.
I moistened my dry lips. “Yeah, fine.”
With my heart still racing, I pressed my fingers over the end of the flashlight to partially shield it and switched it on as I approached the hulking form, aiming the beam at the statue’s base. It stood at about five feet tall, shorter than me but somehow seeming much bigger because of its bulk. I had to walk partway around it to find the Gregori stamp.
A hissing screech sent my pulse racing again, and I sucked in a sharp breath through my nose. The sound had come from within the gargoyle, but it was also inside my head and I was sure no one else had heard it. Cold sweat sprang up on my palms, neck, and chest. As if drawn by an unseen force, my hand—the one muting the flashlight’s illumination—reached out toward the statue’s wing. When my fingertips made contact, the first thing I registered was that the surface was hot to the touch, like Roxanne’s gargoyle. I hoped the heat only indicated the demonic energy of a trapped Rip spawn and not a human as well.
My eyes filled with a shadowy image, and the only thing I knew for sure was that it was cast in the strange blue and yellow hues of my previous dreams and visions. A terrible choking feeling of claustrophobia stole my breath. Only, it wasn’t my lungs that felt compressed. I could feel my chest moving, nearly hyperventilating as my breaths came too fast. My mind reeled, trying to reconcile the sensations that belonged to me and the other things I felt, the foreign perceptions that somehow filtered through me.
I blinked blindly, trying to clear the images that came through the eyes of the other. The vision sharpened, and my eyes sprang wide in shock as I recognized my own face. I was somehow looking through the gargoyle’s eyes, or—no, through the eyes of the demon locked inside.
Chapter 16
“ELLA? CAN YOU hear me?”
“Is she breathing? Should I call an ambulance?”
Faces in front of me swam into focus. An arm was slung around my upper back to support my slack body, and hands held the useless weight of my head. In a reflexive spasm of my lungs, I sucked in a loud breath and then coughed and panted, drinking air in hungry lungfuls as if I’d just been dragged from the water and resuscitated. Nausea poured through me as unwanted recognition registered in my fogged brain. I knew this feeling. It was the same sickening, surfacing sensation that had filled me when I’d awakened on the gurney. When I’d narrowly escaped the grave.
Roxanne’s face, slashed with shadows from the off-angle beam of light coming from the flashlight I’d dropped, crumpled in tearful relief.
“Ella, are you okay?”
My focus shifted to Johnny’s face. I nodded and opened my mouth to respond but produced only a weak croaking sound. I cleared my throat and tried again.
“Yeah, I think so.”
I sat up under my own power, let my head fall forward, and pushed the heels of my palms over my closed eyelids. When I dropped my hands to the cool grass to push myself up, the world tilted dizzily and I groaned. With Johnny grasping one arm and Damien holding the other, they carefully hoisted me to my feet.
“What happened?” Damien asked, still keeping hold of me.
I swallowed hard against the foul taste of bile, trying to work some moisture back into my dry throat. “I, uh, passed out I guess. But I’m fine,” I insisted.
I bent down to pick up my flashlight, forcing Damien to let go of my arm. When I straightened, I realized Roxanne was staring at me, her eyes huge and round and her hands pulled inside the cuffs of her sweatshirt and pressed over her mouth.
“Hey, I’m okay, really,” I said, softening. “What do you say we get this thing loaded an
d get out of here?”
I gestured to the gargoyle but didn’t touch it. I wasn’t a complete idiot.
No one moved. I cast my light around at the three people staring at me, aiming at their chests so I wouldn’t blind them. They all wore similar expressions of apprehension and concern. Damien took half a step forward and started to lift his hand toward me. He stopped short of actually reaching for me. Smart guy.
“Ella,” he said. “It’s only been a matter of weeks since you experienced something really traumatic. Maybe you haven’t given yourself enough time to—”
“Look, I’m just tired and a little out of condition,” I interrupted. “I haven’t slept much lately. After we get Nathan back, I’m going to rest. I’m planning to catch up on sleep and take it easy the next couple of days, I swear. Now can we please get on with it before someone shows up to snatch our bargaining chip out from under us?”
I tried to look bright and energetic, but I didn’t think they bought it. Regardless, Johnny went to retrieve the dolly he’d dropped a few feet away, and Damien gathered the rope and bungee cords. I knew I’d have to touch the gargoyle again to help move it, but I hesitated, looking around for something to put between my hands and the stone. I couldn’t afford a repeat of what had happened a few minutes ago. I quickly untied my boots and slipped out of them so I could pull off my socks. Both Johnny and Damien gave me long, wordless looks, and I knew I’d have to answer their questions at some point.
With my socks on my hands as makeshift gloves, the guys and I tipped the statue, and Roxanne shoved the dolly under the lifted edge of the base. When we pushed the gargoyle upright, the dolly creaked a warning at us, but it held. The weight caused the wheels to sink into the damp grass, however, and there was no way the three of us were going to muscle it to the nearby sidewalk unaided.
The tingle of magic brushed over me as Damien gathered his power. I recognized heavy rope-like strands of green earth energy with much smaller filaments of yellow air magic intertwined. Air energy was the hardest of the four elements to master, and integrating it with another element required a high degree of skill. The gargoyle shifted under our hands as Damien raised the wheels of the dolly just enough to allow us to push it over to the pavement.
By the time we got it to the nearest parking lot, all of us were grunting and sweating with the effort, even with the assist from Damien’s magic. I left them to go move the truck closer, noting as I ran around the back of the truck to the driver’s side that the trailer had no ramp. I pulled as close as I could to the walkway where the others waited with the statue, and as I got out I dared a tiny smile of victory over the fact that no one had called security or come out to question what we were doing.
I should have saved it. We’d just tipped the gargoyle onto the trailer, with Damien’s magic to keep us from dropping it, and were working on shoving it into the middle of the platform when a sickening icy shiver passed over me like a chilly wind. I froze, my eyes scanning the sky.
“Do you feel that?” I heard Damien ask.
Roxanne gasped. “Something’s coming,” she said with fear thickening her voice.
I spotted the dark form of a large demon briefly silhouetted against the moonlit sky before it dipped back down into the dark cover of the tree line. The creature was still near the river, but somehow I knew it was headed straight for us.
My heart plummeted into my stomach like a stone dropped into a pond. “Arch-demon. Get in the truck!”
I had a few brimstone burners on me, but they were for minor demons and wouldn’t do a thing against a Rip spawn that size. Thanks to my prominent position on Devereux’s shit list, I’d been unable to swipe a large demon can from the station.
We left the gargoyle where it was, still partially hanging off the back of the trailer. Damien and I exchanged a glance as he followed Johnny to the passenger side. I hurried Roxanne ahead of me to the driver’s side, and my new partner and I seemed to silently arrive at the same thought. Magic didn’t conduct through glass. A stun gun wouldn’t work from inside the truck, either. He closed the door after Johnny was in, and I did the same once Roxanne’s hand was clear of the doorjamb.
In a newer vehicle, we would have been safe inside, as cars built within the past twelve or thirteen years came standard with mage-charmed materials that couldn’t be penetrated by demonic energy. But I couldn’t afford the upgrade on my pickup, so it was unprotected.
Damien and I remained outside on either side of the truck. Magic buffeted me and sent electric pulses zipping over my skin as he rapidly drew a huge current of power. As I pulled my gun from my belt and hit the charge button, the demon rose like a specter above the rooftop of the nearest apartment building. Like a prehistoric winged hell-creature, in flight it was easily over a dozen feet from wingtip to wingtip.
“Call it in, Johnny!” I shouted without taking my eyes off the creature. I had no idea whether Damien’s abilities could contain a demon of this size, but even if he could handle it, we’d need Strike Team to bring a trap sooner or later. I preferred sooner.
The creature circled above us, letting out an otherworldly hissing screech that seemed to resonate deep into my bones. The pulse of the other in my forehead intensified, almost as if answering the demon’s call. I planted my feet wide and extended my arms with both hands gripped around my gun, trying to aim through the shadows gyrating in my vision.
As soon as the demon was within range, I pulled the trigger sending electric pulses zapping through the air. My shots hit with satisfying little pops of violet-blue sparks, but they weren’t enough to paralyze or kill the demon. Mostly they just seemed to piss it off, but I only hoped to distract it long enough to allow Damien a chance to fully rev up his magic.
And rev it up he did. I’d never felt anything like it. It was as if he sucked in power from all directions, creating an energetic tornado around himself. Every inch of my exposed skin was alive in the current of magic he drew. Meanwhile the demon darted and dipped at us, but like the ones before it shied away from approaching close enough to possess me. Damien’s magic also gave it pause, and it screamed in frustration. The horrible sound scraped my eardrums, and I winced and clenched my teeth.
“Stop firing,” Damien ground out, clearly at his max.
I obediently lowered my gun, glancing at him just in time to see streams of magic that blended all four elements shoot from the fingers of his right hand. The glowing threads arched up and back, surrounding us and the truck in a sort of spherical lattice. He must have determined that forming a protective live ward around us was safer than attempting to contain the Rip spawn in a bubble of magic as he’d done before with the minor demons.
After the energy he’d already expended to help us move the gargoyle, I couldn’t imagine how he was able to summon enough to hold the barrier. But I could hear the wail of a siren approaching fast. Strike Team would arrive within seconds. Damien just had to hang on for another minute or two.
I started to breathe a little easier when the demon reared up and screamed. Its eyes were two orbs of flame in its dark, ugly head, and they were trained on something behind us. I whirled and spotted a young woman in yoga capris with a blond ponytail, probably a student from nearby Boise State University, illuminated by a parking lot light and standing on a patch of grass between two walkways. She held a leash while her little cocker spaniel lifted his leg against the trunk of a tree. She was partially turned away, her eyes on something else, and I could see the cord coming from an earbud in her ear. I knew it was useless—if she hadn’t heard the demon’s call, she wouldn’t hear my warning—but I screamed at her anyway.
She didn’t even turn around. Just as Strike Team’s trucks screamed into the parking lot, the demon dove at the woman. At the last minute it twisted in the air above her and darted straight at her face. In a shift that couldn’t be explained by traditional science, the demon shrank and morphed into an elongated streak of darkness that bifurcated into two prongs, one entering each of the wo
man’s eyes.
Her head jerked back as if she’d been punched. Her entire body grew rigid, and she released her hold on the leash. Her cocker wisely tucked tail and sprinted away. I called to him and clapped my hands, and he ran at me. Damien opened a space in the sphere for the little dog to slide through. I scooped him up in my arms and held him as he quivered.
The woman turned to face us, but she no longer looked like the perky college student of a few minutes ago. Her skin had paled to the dead gray color of ash, and her eyes were burning coals in her head. Strike Team would have an exorcist with them and should be able to save the woman before she made a kill. If they didn’t and she managed to take a life while possessed, there would be no way to separate her from the demon possessing her.
Strike members streamed from two Hummers and formed a half-circle around the woman, firing bursts of blinding, pearly white—ethereal magic energy created with the aid of mages—until she collapsed. The shots weren’t lethal. They were just meant to incapacitate until the possessed woman could be safely contained. Then an exorcist would perform the separation in a special enclosure so the demon couldn’t escape. A handful of Strike men and women had hung back to make sure no one approached too close to their operation. One of them was positioned behind the trailer, and I glanced back just in time to seem him eyeing the gargoyle’s base. He touched his earpiece, and his lips moved.
My skin tingled as Damien dropped the live ward he’d formed around us. I blinked, trying to clear the after-images left by the absent strands of magic and the bright bursts from Strike’s weapons.
He groaned, and there was a dull thunk as he half-collapsed against the truck. I tucked the dog under my arm and ran around to Damien’s side. His lids were pinched closed, and he panted like he’d just sprinted around the block. I reached out to take his arm and steady him, but Johnny jumped out and engulfed me and the dog in a bear hug.