by John Corwin
George looked at me. "Do you feel anything, Miss Glass?"
I closed my eyes and opened my senses. I sensed the low simmer of Tyler's presence, and glimpsed the brilliant white energy at the cores of Mr. Sticks and George. The radiating heat from the building intensified. I usually enjoyed warmth, but this sensation brought me no comfort. Instead, it sent chills skittering down my back.
"I don't feel vampiric auras from here," I said. "Just an odd warm feeling."
George nodded. "Let's go inside."
The moment he opened the door, a blast of rancid air hit us in the face. I staggered back, coughing and hacking and spitting. It smelled as though someone had left a truckload of eggs in the hot sun. The only one of us who didn't seem adversely affected was Tyler.
His forehead pinched and his green eyes looked deeply troubled. "This isn't good."
George pressed a handkerchief over his nose. "It's brimstone, isn't it?"
Tyler nodded. "This is the most concentrated I've ever smelled it on the mortal plane."
Mr. Sticks retrieved something from the car trunk and returned with small scraps of cloth. He placed one over his nose. The cloth spread over his nose and mouth and stuck there. George took a scrap and did the same thing. I followed his example. The moment the silky material masked my nostrils, the odor vanished.
Tyler took a scrap but stuck it in his back pocket. "I don't need it."
George raised an eyebrow. "Such high doses of brimstone fumes could harm your lungs, despite your demon soul."
"And it's such a foul odor," I added.
He gave me a hurt look. "I think it smells good." Even so, he put on the mask.
Mr. Sticks and George led the way. George stepped into an empty office in the first hallway. Scattered papers lay on the floor next to the desk. I picked up one of the papers.
I skimmed through it. "This is a shipping order to relocate blood from Los Angeles to Atlanta."
George took the document. "Interesting. This much blood would feed an army of vampires."
Sticks gave him a knowing look.
"An army?" Tyler folded his arms. "Is there something you haven't told us?"
George shook his head. "Suspicions, nothing more." He nodded toward the door. "We should continue."
After the other two men left the office, Tyler took me aside. "I get the feeling he still isn't telling you everything."
"You may be right." I sighed. "It's probably because we haven't taken that orientation yet."
He snorted. "Doubtful." We followed the others.
In the next office, coffee-stained documents littered a desk and the floor. A toppled chair, a broken mobile phone, a trace of blood—each office bore some trace of a struggle or a quick departure.
"Anything yet?" George asked me.
"I'll be sure to let you know the moment I sense anything besides this awful heat." The deeper into the building we went, the stronger the stifling heat pressed against my senses. I was tempted to dampen my sensitivity, but didn't want to miss any vital clues.
We found the body of a young man in the break room, his head tilted at a horrific angle, face terribly bruised.
George knelt next to him and ran a finger along the spine. "Neck's broken."
"Perhaps you could tell me something I didn't know the moment I saw it." I drew in a shuddering breath and took calming breaths.
"Do you sense anything from the body?" George asked.
Swallowing the bile in my throat, I knelt and touched the man's cold skin. "I don't know if my ability works on dead people."
"If he died from a broken neck, there's a good chance he's not a vampire," Tyler said.
"Agreed," George replied. "Still, it never hurts to make sure."
The blinking clock on the microwave caught my attention. I looked at the large watch on the dead man's wrist. The hands were stuck on twelve AM. "Why would this man be here at midnight?"
"True dedication," Tyler said.
George looked at the watch. "Interesting. The watch shows today's date."
I pointed to the microwave. "It looks like the power went out." I opened the microwave door and removed what had once been a frozen meal. "It looks like he was making lunch or supper."
Tyler opened the refrigerator. "I'd guess it was lunch, judging from all the food in here." He pulled several plastic containers marked with names from the fridge. "When did you get the tip about this place?"
George pursed his lips. "This morning."
"Interesting timing, wouldn't you say?"
"It does raise questions." He pulled a wallet from the dead man's pocket and took out the ID. "Not many vampires carry driver's licenses." He held turned it around. "And if they do, they're usually expired."
"They don't drive cars?" I asked.
"Sure, but if they're pulled over, they can compel the police to let them go." He put the wallet into an evidence bag. "Even new vampires can do that to noms." George sighed and touched a cross-shaped pendant on his collar. "All teams move into position and secure this location. We've got at least one corpse on the premises."
A man's voice emanated from the pendant. "Sir, this is Carswell. Do you want my people to sweep for evidence?"
George replied. "Start outside and work your way in."
"Yes, sir."
Sticks stepped into the hallway and stared toward the area we hadn't yet visited. George set the evidence bag next to the corpse and followed Sticks.
Tyler's took my hand and pulled me close. "Are you okay?"
I rolled my eyes and pushed away. "I'm fine. Don't coddle me in front of the others, please."
He grinned. "Don't want to look soft in front of your part-time boss?"
"That, and there's a body in the room." I turned him to face the door. "Now, go."
"As you command."
A set of sturdy double doors guarded the last part of the building. Mr. Sticks tested them but they were locked. He solved the dilemma by spinning on a heel and smashing the door from its hinges with a powerful kick.
Tyler chuckled. "Well, if anyone's still around, they'll know we're here now." His lips curled up. The man always seemed perpetually amused by the world. Sometimes his cavalier attitude really bothered me. Today it boosted my confidence.
He'll protect me. During our long vacation, we'd dedicated an hour or so each day to learning self-defense techniques, though Tyler had taken it to an extreme and taken other martial arts classes. With his superhuman reflexes, it hadn't taken him long to pick up on the basics. I'd dedicated that time to sipping drinks by the beach.
Having encountered a vampire before, I knew there wasn't much I could realistically do to fight one. Even Tyler had barely won the fight with Stephen, a creeptastic vampire who'd nearly killed my best friend Isabel, and then tried to kill me. I'd gotten the last laugh by removing his vampiric abilities with my odd powers.
George flashed Sticks a look. "You really should work on that temper."
Sticks shrugged and went through the open door and into a black room. I followed the others inside.
It was like walking into a sauna, except the heat wasn't physical, but psychic. Grey shadows darker than the pitch black danced before my eyes. I staggered back into the hallway and breathed with relief as the heat abated. My eyes must be playing tricks on me.
"You just glimpsed something big, didn't you?" Tyler asked.
George turned around. "Glimpsed?"
Tyler nodded. "Yeah, that's what we call her special talent."
"Apt description." George felt along the wall. Something clicked and the lights flickered on to reveal a sprawling empty warehouse.
My mouth went dry and I wanted to run away screaming at what I saw.
Demonicus Chapter 2
The black shapes I'd seen in the darkness still flitted around the room like leaves in a storm. They had no discernable shapes, but morphed from second to second. None of them looked larger than my hand. Most were like motes of dust. But what truly bothered me were
the bodies.
Several slumped figures were bound together in the center of the room. I counted at least six more corpses scattered around the area.
"Jesus." Tyler's voice was rough, all traces of amusement gone.
"We need to make sure they're not alive." I took a step forward, but George quickly barred me with an arm.
"Careful," he said. "We don't know if the runes are still active."
"Runes?"
He pointed down.
A black line was burned into the concrete floor. I followed the line to a circular diagram perhaps four feet across. A body lay in the center of it. The line continued from the other side and ran to yet another diagram, this one identical in size to the first, but with a different pattern. The line ran through several such diagrams, curving in a giant circle, but it didn't stop there. Lines ran from each design and into the center to construct several slightly larger patterns, which encircled a pattern at least three times larger than the others.
Sticks's nostrils flared. He knelt and rolled a silver coin across the floor. Sparks flashed as it intersected the lines of one pattern with a body inside it, but it continued its journey all the way across the room. He rolled several more coins. Electricity arced each time one touched a pattern with a body in it except for the design in the center.
"Me either," George said. "But I think I read about something like this happening several centuries ago."
I narrowed my eyes at Sticks. "How do you hear what he's saying?"
"He said he hasn't seen anything like this." George watched as the last coin reached the other side of the room. "The runes are defused."
"It's a demonicus." Tyler hissed a breath through his teeth. "During my time in Haedaemos, I heard whispers about such a thing, but thought it was impossible to pull off something so complex."
George stepped over the outer line and walked to the nearest body. He knelt and put a hand to the neck. "This man is still alive."
I touched the fallen man. His skin was warm and I felt a pulse, but my insides felt as if someone had vacuumed them out. I didn't sense things about normal people, or if I did, I'd simply grown so accustomed to the sensation I no longer recognized it for something out of the ordinary. This man seemed normal except for the strange empty pit he evoked in my stomach.
Tyler crouched next to a woman. "This one's alive too."
I walked over and touched her. Once again, I felt a gaping void.
Mr. Sticks motioned me over to a young woman in a short skirt and knee-high boots. Her attire was far more stylish than the others'. I touched her. Her skin felt like fabric, but emitted no warmth. Her irregular pulse throbbed against my fingers. Despite the psychic heat in the room, her aura felt cold. Seconds after I touched her, I felt the squirming presence of her vampirism and nearly jerked my hand away.
Vampires unsettled me. Unlike the vampires of myth, I'd learned that the real ones still lived and breathed. I was about to release her when I sensed something else even deeper beneath the curse, which bound her to a life of drinking blood.
She, too, felt empty. I suddenly recognized the missing element. "I've glimpsed something." I rose on shaky knees. Tyler flashed to my side and steadied me. This time, I felt no shame requiring assistance.
George looked concerned. "What is it, Miss Glass?"
"These people aren't alive. Only their bodies are."
Sticks grimaced.
"Exactly," Tyler said, as if the man had spoken. "Their souls are gone."
I noticed employee badges clipped to the shirts of the men. The woman wore one at the waist of her skirt. "These people worked here." I pointed to the young woman. She looked my age, though with vampires, appearances meant little when it came to years. "She is—was—a vampire. I can still feel the aura, but her soul is gone too."
"So this was a front for the vampires." George put a finger to his chin. "It's common practice to hire noms. Vampires can tolerate sunlight to a certain degree, but they are, by nature, nocturnal." He looked at the girl. "She was probably a new convert and, as such, had low social status."
"Whatever you say." Tyler's lips attempted a smile, but faltered. It was obvious whatever had happened here bothered him a lot more than he was letting on.
"Explain this demonicus," George said.
"I don't know much." Tyler ambled toward the center of the room and the bound bodies. "I'm sure you're familiar with the nine circles of Hell."
"I've heard of them, yes." George followed him. "There is a great deal of myth about Haedaemos, but very little in the way of fact."
"There are actually thirteen circles." Tyler grabbed the leg of one of the bound bodies and unceremoniously dragged it to the side. He looked curiously at the man in the center of the bodies. "Hmm, he's got a white robe on."
"So I noticed," George said.
Sticks's gaze hardened as he watched, but he made no move to stop Tyler from moving the bodies. I decided to go check the corpses for auras while Tyler explained.
"Is there a significance to thirteen?" George asked.
Tyler pointed to the pattern in the center of the large diagram where the complex pattern connected to a series of circles with a black one at the very center. "It's all about power. The outer circles are the lesser demons, the masses. The very center represents the most powerful demons."
"Didn't you say your father was one of the powerful ones?" I asked.
"He'd like to think he's the strongest." Tyler chuckled.
"Your father is in the center?" George asked.
Tyler shook his head. "No, that's the Abyss."
"The Abyss?" he glanced at Sticks, but the other man shook his head.
"Abyssal demons are the most powerful, but they're also confined to an eternal prison." Tyler scuffed a shoe over the black circle. "There are rumors the Abyssals were once gods, tricked into creating their own prison."
"There are no gods," George said matter-of-factly. "Only demons and mortals."
A slow, condescending smile spread across Tyler's lips. "George, I'd like to politely point out that you don't know what in the hell you're talking about." He shivered. "Even during my short life I've seen enough to know there's far more to Earth than Eden and Haedaemos. We just haven't found it yet."
Mr. Sticks actually nodded.
George didn't seem to take any offense whatsoever. "Perhaps we should pray we never have to find out. I'm not certain we're equipped to handle anything more than the norm—vampires, Arcanes, lycans, and Daemos."
"Daemos?" Tyler perked with interest. "I always wondered how Baal made them."
"Baal?" I recognized that name from my religious upbringing. "Does he actually exist?"
Tyler managed a wry grin. "Yes, my father the Grand Overlord of Haedaemos."
My mouth dropped open. "Oh, dear. I'm not sure how I'll explain that one to my parents."
A commotion behind us drew our attention. A group of Custodians entered the room and stopped cold at the sight of the demonicus.
"Give us a few moments," George said. "We're still investigating."
"What is this?" asked a short stocky man. "Are these demon summoning runes?"
"Yes, Carswell."
"Sir, protocol dictates we immediately sterilize this room and contact Exorcists."
"I'm well aware of protocol, Carswell, but this is a special case."
The man opened his mouth.
"Carswell, I ordered you to give us a few moments," George said, his voice still every bit as amicable as usual. "If you can't do anything productive in the meantime, perhaps you'd like to go outside and enjoy the spring weather."
Carswell pressed a hand to his chest. "Yes, sir." He turned to his team. "Continue your sweeps outside."
Moments later, the room was empty except for the four of us.
I touched each of the bodies. All wore employee badges, two were vampires, and not a one of them still had a soul. I determined the same thing about the other bodies in the room and relayed the information to G
eorge Walker.
"In all my years, I've seen only a couple of cases of missing souls, and those were because of an incubus named Vaedaemos." Geroge cut the rope binding the bodies together. "Daemos can devour souls, but from what I've heard, the victim must agree to it."
Tyler frowned. "That's true for demons too." He shook his head. "It can't be compelled. A person has to truly give up their soul." He ran a hand through his thick hair.
"What about possession?" I asked.
"Those rules are a little easier to work around." Tyler folded his arms. "People who don't care for their bodies typically open themselves up to possession. Sometimes you can tempt your way in."
I repressed a grimace. During our vacation time, Tyler had refused to talk much about his past. What he'd told me before had been couched in generalities, but I knew he'd been a very bad boy.
"I wonder why only one person in the middle had a white robe," Tyler said. "Maybe he was part of a cult."
"Tell me more about this demonicus," George said.
Tyler opened his mouth to speak when the doors at the rear of the warehouse opened and Carswell and his group entered. The moment they stepped across the threshold, sparks flashed across the back wall like a lit fuse, racing all the way to the back right corner of the room. The floor there began to bubble like tar.
"We tripped a ward!" Carswell shouted.
"That was a demon ward," Tyler said. His eyes widened. "I hope to God your people can fight."
"Weapons free," George called.
Carswell and his people drew silver swords and formed a line just as something crawled from the inky mass on the floor.
I gasped as the creature stepped into the light. With at least a dozen legs coated in shiny black chitin, it stood as tall as a Great Dane. Each leg bristled with spiky fur and terminated in pointy spikes that clinked with every step. The monster unleashed a screech that nearly sent my skin crawling off my body.
"Oh, shit." Tyler backed away. "That's a crawler."
It skittered toward Carswell's team.
"A very descriptive name," I said in a dry tone. "What, precisely, does it do besides crawl and turn my knees to jelly?"
"Scuttles, shrieks, and devours souls."