by Jamel Cato
My fight or flight instinct went into overdrive, but I resisted the urge to run.
The beast gently craned its head toward Ramachandran for a scratch behind the ear. “When they are afraid, humans emit pheromones that predators can detect. Try to control your fear.”
I tried.
My host seemed totally relaxed. That’s because he was a powerful Tryvodyn. In the Astral spectrum, I saw rings of multicolored energy radiating out from his brain and enveloping the heads of every animal in the vicinity.
“Did Serenity create the Carghill Bees or did you?”
“We created them together.”
“Then why doesn’t your name appear on the patent?”
“I did not want my name to appear on a paper which claims that one animal owns another. That is called slavery. But even if I had felt differently, Queen Caroline believed that listing only Sellietuanajo’s name would be in the best interest of her future political campaign. It was the Queen’s decision to make and she made it.”
The patent had been filed seventeen years earlier. “She anticipated Serenity’s campaign all the way back then?”
“She did.”
“And being left out doesn’t bother you?”
“What bothers me is the unnecessary destruction of entire species unlucky enough to share the planet with us.”
“Aren’t you worried they’ll stop paying royalties to you?”
“Tryvodyn is a Latin word. On this continent, beast tamers are called Gurahlutagnathan. Generations ago, some Guras voiced objections to the various caste systems of our culture. The few among them who were strong enough to tame human minds used their abilities to make the castes of large groups of people indeterminable. In response, magic callers from the Brahmin caste hunted us almost to extinction. Queen Caroline gave us safe refuge in her Court much as I am doing for these creatures. Many of her own blood kin were lost defending us from the Brahmin warmakers. We were not the first group she had defended from persecution. This is why the Gheecie Court is so few in number compared to the Tuatha de Danann and the other Courts. My people owe their existence and prosperity to her moral character. As far as I am concerned, the royalties are hers to give or not give. But as you can see, she is a generous benefactor.”
“Is Serenity a Bantu?”
“No.”
“Is she a sorceress?”
“No.”
“A witch?”
“No.”
I tried another dozen options and received a negative response to each one.
“I have no intention to bring harm to her,” I said.
“The beasts here would have given you more than curious looks if I thought otherwise.”
“Can you tell me what she is?”
A flock of small red birds swooped down from the sky and briefly arrayed themselves to form a symbol I recognized.
“I have given an oath not to speak of her nature outside the Court.”
“Thank you.”
“You are quite welcome.”
I rose to leave. “I won’t take up more of your time, Dr. Ramachandran.”
“Dr. Tiptree?”
“Please, call me Tree.”
“When I was a young man and first learning to control my power, I tamed a ferocious tiger. I treated it well and gave it what I felt was an excellent and comfortable life. We developed a strong bond. One day, I asked him if he would still attack me if I freed his mind from bondage. He admitted he would. When I asked him why, he said, ‘Because I am a tiger.’”
I smiled, understanding what I was being told and what I needed to do with that knowledge.
The tiger watched me intently as I walked away.
CHAPTER 20
My car screeched to a halt in front of Jason’s house.
When I burst inside, Tiffany shouted. “Up here!”
I sprinted up the stairs, where I found Jason kicking at the door to his son’s bedroom.
The door would not budge and there was an orangish light glowing around the frame.
“Stand back,” I ordered, pulling out a device from Ancient Egypt called a Khinavaar Reed. This particular reed was enchanted with ward reversal magic. I pressed it against the door and said a phrase in Coptic.
The door hinged open with a creak.
Jason and I plowed it fully open and stormed inside with Tiffany on our heels.
To Jason and Tiffany, it would look like their two toddlers, Jaden and Jason, Jr., were floating in midair.
But I could see they were being carried by Parsenon. The children were crying and shivering in fear.
Tiffany screamed.
Jason rushed forward but was repelled by an invisible barrier.
“Parsenon,” I said as calmly as I could. “Let them go.”
He recited his own original bedtime story.
DO DEMONS SING?
Uncle, do demons sing?
What joy to me that would bring.
For when I am bad, just even a tad,
they pluck my heart like a string.
No, demons don’t sing.
That’s a lie for which I’m too old.
They just do their thing,
which means control kings
and then devour my soul.
Parsenon narrowed twenty of his forward-facing eyes at me. “Your top priority should be obtaining my urn, not birdwatching.”
“Everything I’ve been doing is part of the effort to get to the urn. You have to give me time.”
“You have three days before you start finding the bodies of your loved ones, beginning with these two. This is your only warning.”
“I thought deadlines didn’t matter?”
“Things have changed.”
“How?”
“Three days,” he said. “Not a minute longer.”
He reached out a claw and fractured a finger on each child’s hand, then vanished.
I dove forward and caught both boys before they broke other bones against the hardwood floor.
Outside the Emergency Department of the Hospital where the children were waiting with her mother to see a physician, Tiffany confronted me.
“Was this because of you?”
“Tiff,” Jason said from my side. “He saved them.”
“Tiff nothing. Answer the question.”
“I’m sorry, Tiffany,” I said. “I do everything in my power to keep my family out of my business.”
“Everything in your power? How many times have you taken my husband to run the streets with you?”
“That’s my first cousin,” Jason said in my defense.
She pointed at the waiting room. “And those are your children! It’s bad enough I can hardly sleep when you’re on duty because I’m worried about some random thug shooting a bullet with your name on it. Now I have to watch my kids star in a deleted scene from the Exorcist! I don’t even know what the hell that was. You don’t even know what the hell that was. All we know for sure is that it was there--in our house--because of him. You heard him talking to it. He knew its damned name.”
“But he saved them,” Jason repeated.
“Tiffany, I—”
She whirled in my direction. “Can you promise me that something like that will never happen again?”
I could not.
“Exactly,” she said. She faced Jason. “I’m taking the kids and going to stay with my mother. I’ll call you after I have some time to think.”
“You can’t just take my kids.”
“Watch me,” she said, turning to go.
“What about our cookout on the Fourth?”
“Tell J. Lo to cook and clean for your crazy ass voodoo family since she’s been dying to take my place. Now she can do it without creepin’.”
This left her husband speechless.
We went to a local sports bar called 10 for 100. The name was a football reference to making ten receptions for one hundred yards, but on that night, I felt like it stood for paying a hundred penalties for making ten mistakes.
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“I love my family,” Jason said. “I love Tiff.”
I sipped my beer and waited for the rest.
“I told Carmen I’m not leaving my wife. I told her a thousand times. I wish the duty officer had never partnered us up. You know what went through my head the first time I saw her? That Lil’ Wayne song, Mrs. Officer. That’s outta pocket, right? I asked for a transfer and the Captain asked me why. When I told him, he literally laughed in my face. After that, he started calling me Ghost every time he saw me like I’m the dude from that show Power. Sometimes he even says it in front of Carmen, knowing damn well she gets the reference. She got a boyfriend one time and I thought it was over. I didn’t like the idea of another man touching her, but I kept telling myself it was for the best. I have two little boys to think about. Then she told me he talked to her sideways and acted like he was going to put his hands on her. I went to go see him.”
I remembered that incident because Jason had asked me for the money he needed to settle the matter quietly before there were court summons and depositions that might come to Tiffany’s attention. The dastardly part is that I turned around and borrowed the money from Darlene. I would do it again. He’s like a brother to me.
“Sometimes,” Jason went on, “Tiff and I go out and Carmen shows up at the same spot and pretends she’s there with me. Her friend Mina came with her a few times. Mina keeps threatening to message Tiff on Facebook because she says it’s foul the way I’m preventing Carmen from having a life. She downvotes family photos that we post. I told Tiff it’s just some girl I arrested. Carmen’s been around the boys. I dropped them off with her that time when Tiff was out of town for work and you needed me to roll with you to Delaware to see somebody. I can’t remember who it was.”
It was a necromancer who was using animated cadavers to tunnel under retail stores and steal entire safes.
“I’m sorry about tonight,” I said.
“What was that in my house?”
“A demon.”
“It sounds like you’re working for it.”
“He’s trying to make me work for him. That’s what tonight was about.”
“This is part of the Serenity case?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you need to work that out. You’re my-man-fifty-grand, but I can’t have Dracula and ‘em coming up in my house touching my kids.”
“I love those kids. I love you and Tiff. I would die before I let something happen to any of you because of me.”
“Tiff is right, Cuz. You can’t make that promise.”
I handed him a small object that looked like a river stone.
“What’s this?”
It was the magical ward that had been protecting my own home from supernatural invasion. I had placed a smaller version inside Jason’s home years earlier, but this one was twice as strong and had a coating of wood carvings from the Ark of The Covenant to keep demons out. Parsenon couldn’t penetrate it.
“It’s a ward stone. Put it wherever you keep your gun when you’re off duty.”
“Right there?” Darlene asked me two hours later. She was massaging the ache in my back that I’d developed after crashing against the floor to save Jason’s children.
“Yes, right there.”
I had told her everything about Serenity, Parsenon and Byron except the part about the demon threatening to kill her. She had been more like herself once I assured her that I had seen Byron with my own eyes.
“You don’t have any idea where he might be keeping the urn?”
“I don’t even know what the urn is.”
“If it’s valuable to a demon and a Puppet Master like Garrison, it has to be something that can be used to control or blackmail people. Think about it.”
I did. “You’re right, like always.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m starting to think I was out of order asking you to find Byron. I kind of feel like what happened at Tiff’s house tonight is just as much my fault. Plus…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Speak the truth and shame the Devil.”
“What is this, Preston? We’re divorced, but you call anytime you need me as if we’re not. And every time, I respond like we’re not. Your doctor’s office still calls me to make sure you show up at appointments. Byron hates it. I know I should tell them to call Eve and stop calling me. Lately, I’ve been asking myself why I haven’t done that.”
“Why lately?”
“I think Byron is going to ask me to marry him.”
I went quiet. What were we doing? More specifically, why was I dragging Darlene, and my extended family, down into the dangerous quicksand that was my life? An actual demon had put its claws on my little cousins because of me.
They all deserved better.
I stood up from the sofa. “I think you should tell him yes.”
“Really?”
“My jealousy aside, everyone says he walks on water. I want you to be happy, even if it’s not with me. I’m still holding on because you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You’re my anchor and I’m scared of where I might drift without you. But keeping a tiger in captivity because it makes you feel safe ain’t doing no favors for the tiger.”
Now she went quiet.
“Will you talk to Tiffany?” I asked.
“Yes. I’ll give her a day to cool off and then I’ll go over to her mom’s.”
I headed for the door.
“Be careful, Tree.”
I paused but I didn’t look back because doing so would’ve broken my resolve.
CHAPTER 21
I needed to get things moving.
I called Jasmine on her secure personal line.
“Hey,” she said, sounding genuinely happy to hear from me.
“Did you take over the world yet?”
“I’m working on it. Are you calling to give me a hand? Or a different body part?”
“Can we keep it one hundred?”
“Of course,” she said in a more serious tone.
“I’ve never met a woman like you. You’ve helped me see some truths about myself that might have taken me a lifetime to recognize without you.”
“Are you okay?”
“I want to be more than just your maintenance man.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning we only get together at hotels way outside the Beltway. Meaning you lean away when people take selfies around us to ensure we don’t accidentally show up together in the background of somebody’s social media posts. Meaning I’m literally putting my life on the line for someone who’s ashamed to be seen with me.”
I was on a roll.
“That’s not true,” she said.
“Which part?”
“The part about being ashamed to be seen with you.”
“Prove it.”
“How?”
“Let me be your date at the Union Station Ball tomorrow night.”
The line was silent.
“See,” I said accusingly.
“It’s not that I’m ashamed to be seen with you. You’re a very handsome man and I’d love to be on your arm, but the USB will be full of people who don’t know I’m separated. Some of them work with Alonzo.”
“They’re going to find out sooner or later.”
“I’d rather that be at a time and place of my choosing, like after the divorce is finalized.”
“This is a time of your choosing.”
“No, this is a time of your choosing. And, I’m not trying to be hurtful or anything, but when did we agree this was more than just sex and politics?”
“If all I am to you is a steppingstone and a penis in a glass, then I’m out. Forget about everything. And I mean everything.”
She sighed. “Fine. Do you have a tux? It’s too late to rent one.”
“I’m trying it on right now.”
Next up was a call to Garrison’s
secure line.
“This is Peakes.”
“I’ll be at the USB tomorrow night. Meet me outside The White and Black store at eight thirty-seven to take a look at that artwork we discussed.”
I hung up before he could tell me that I was not the one in charge.
I dialed Art Carini’s number.
“Hi, Preston.”
“Hey Art. Listen, I need a big favor.”
“Bigger than last time?”
“Yes?”
“Just a sec,” he said as he secured his line. “Okay, what do you need?”
“I want a face-to-face meeting with Carlos Vasquez.”
I was causing verbal blackouts all over DC.
“I would strongly recommend against that. Let me come up. We can get smoothies and talk this out before you do anything you’ll regret.”
“My mind is made up. I’ll sleep in the bed I make.”
“As your friend, I’m telling you this is a very bad idea.”
“You are a good friend, Art. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Seriously, I do. But this is something that needs to happen.”
“I’ll make the call first thing tomorrow.”
I extended my dial-a-thon with a call to Ashley Gilbride.
“You were on my list of people to call today,” she said.
“Why is that?”
“We just got your Secret Service clearance back. It took longer than usual, and I think we both know why.”
“When can I meet Serenity?”
“Can you be in Miami the day after tomorrow?”
“I can.”
“Okay. I’ll have our advance team send you the details.”
“Sounds great.”
“Is that why you were calling?”
“No. I wanted to know if you were going to the Union Station Ball tomorrow.”
“Why, do you need a date?”
“I’ll be there as Jasmine’s date.”
“Wow. Is this a coming out party?”
“Much to her resistance.”
“I’ll bet. The establishment types don’t normally bring their mistresses and boy toys to the USB.”
“Where do they normally bring them?”
“To the kind of hotels far outside the Beltway where Jasmine probably took you.”