Jo swiped a finger across the screen to delete the image, then looked up at Randall. “Nothing. It’s just a client. Can I see Marla?”
Randall gave her a long look, but nodded. He led her from the house to the ambulance. Jo climbed in and unzipped the body bag. Marla’s faced was battered, bloodied, and several bones in her jaw and cheeks were obviously broken. It was obvious to Jo that she didn’t go down easily.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Jo said in a whisper. “I am so, so sorry. I was out trying to protect you, and you give your life protecting my family? Oh, you were a real fighter, girl, and I am so sorry for this.” She looked to the heavens, then said, “Lord, please protect this child of yours and see her to your side, Amen.”
A little part of her felt like a hypocrite, praying after everything she found out recently—that God had left Heaven centuries ago and his angels were all scattered across Earth completely ignorant of their true nature. But another part of her felt comforted in the prayer, like somebody heard her and would look after Marla in the next life. Jo wiped her eyes, then zipped the bag closed and stepped out of the ambulance.
“What’s the plan, Jo?” Randall asked as he walked up to her. “I know that look. There’s something going on more than you’re telling me, and I want in on it. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me nothing, Randall. I was just doing my job.”
“Doing my job, more like it,” the cop replied. He was talking about an incident a year before when Jo had put down a necromancer with a zombie fetish. The necromancer had raised a bunch of people all across the city, including a cousin of Randall’s, and he got way more involved in the supernatural scene than he ever wanted to before she was laid to rest again.
“Either way, I can’t have you involved in this,” Jo said.
“Does it have anything to do with that text you got? Because you know the feds will subpoena your phone and read all your texts.”
“I know they will, but I hope this will all be settled before they can find a judge, get the data from the phone company, and figure out what anything means. Until then, I need you to cover for me.” Jo started back toward her car.
Randall followed close behind. “Cover for you? With who? What am I covering for?”
“This is some more of that stuff you don’t like to know about,” Jo said.
“Yeah, but if I’m going to lose my job, I think I’d better know what’s going on,” Randall said to her back.
Jo stopped. She turned back to Randall, who spread his hands in front of him. She sighed. “There’s a lot more going on here than your job, Randall. There’s a lot more going on than my mom and kid, not that I care much about that right now. But this is not anything you want to be involved in. Trust me.”
“I can’t, Jo. It doesn’t matter how much I don’t want to be involved, I am involved. I got involved the second you told me you were beating up this dead woman’s boyfriend while somebody was at your house turning her insides into her outsides. You can’t unring that bell. There’s a dead woman here, and you’re the alibi for our best suspect. That makes you our best suspect. Add to that the fact that your mother and daughter are missing, and you’re not freaking out over that, and I am not letting you out of my sight.”
Jo hung her head. “Fine. Then get in the car.” She opened the driver’s door and slid in behind the wheel. A pair of plainclothes police waved and started heading in her direction. She gave Randall a sharp look, and he opened the passenger door and got in.
“This is so gonna cost me my job,” he said, clicking on his seat belt.
“Well, look at it this way, Randall. At least now you’ll be able to get in all that deep-sea fishing you’ve been missing.”
“We live in Phoenix, Jo. We’re like three hundred miles from the ocean.”
“Good thing you’ve got plenty of time to make the trip, then.” She jammed the car in reverse and backed out of her driveway, narrowly missing the front of the ambulance as it turned around and headed to the hospital. Jo noted soberly that it wasn’t running any lights or siren. It didn’t need to, there was no need to hurry.
The same couldn’t be said for them. With three hours until midnight, she had to wrangle an angel and devise a plan to get her mother and daughter back safely. And try to keep a nosy cop alive. And maybe kill a demon or three. Well girl, nobody said this superhero life would be easy.
9
“Why are we at a gym? You need to get a little workout in before we go find your daughter?” Randall asked as Jo put the car in park.
“I’m supposed to meet some people here,” Jo said as she opened the door and slid out of the car. She walked to the side door of the squat cinderblock building. A large mural depicting champions of boxing and MMA from Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier to Royce Gracie and Anderson Silva ranged across the wall, with graffiti-styled lettering two feet high proclaiming it “Dempsey’s Gym & Fight Club—the best place nobody talks about.”
Jo reached out to knock on the door, but her hand froze as she saw the twisted hunk of metal where the doorknob used to be. She reached under her jacket and unclipped the hammer head from her belt, then drew the handle from the other side, snapped the expandable titanium handle to its full length, and twisted it into place with a click.
“Nice toy,” Randall said, drawing his sidearm and flashlight.
“I don’t like to shoot things,” Jo replied.
“I don’t either,” the stocky cop replied. “But some things really need to get shot.”
Jo pulled the door open, and the pair entered the building. Randall played his flashlight around the room for a few seconds, then reached over and flipped on the light switch. Fluorescent tubes flickered to life through the cavernous room, illuminating heavy bags, speed bags, and weight benches arrayed around a central elevated boxing ring. A rough wooden desk sat in one corner of the room in a makeshift “office” consisting of the desk, two chairs, and one battered four-drawer file cabinet with a dead fern on top of it.
Along the back wall was a row of lockers with low wooden benches in front of them and a door marked “SHOWERS” nestled into the far corner. The room was empty, but signs of a struggle were everywhere. Weight benches lay scattered like pieces of a demented Erector Set, a dumbbell rack was overturned in front of a shattered mirror, and the water cooler lay gurgling on its side, its contents pouring out onto the floor.
“Looks like somebody put up a hell of a fight. Who were you supposed to be meeting here?” Randall asked, moving farther into the room.
“My corner man, Jake. He runs this place.”
“He a fighter?”
“Not anymore. Says he used to fight some back in the day, but not for years.”
“Yeah, looks like he remembered how to throw a punch,” the cop said. Randall stepped close to the ring, then holstered his gun. “Jo?” he called.
“Yeah?”
“Your Jake a Hispanic guy?”
“Yeah, he’s Latino.” Jo stepped forward, then brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh no, Jake.” She started forward but froze as Randall raised a hand to her.
“No,” he said, all cop. “This is now a crime scene. And you can’t be here. Hell, I shouldn’t be here either, and I’m probably going to end up an ex-cop before this whole mess is said and done. But there’s obviously something going on here that’s more than I know, and I’m guessing you have to sort it out on your own.”
Jo looked at him, then looked back into the ring, where she could just make out Jake’s still form laying spread-eagled on the mat. She could tell even from a distance that his body had the stillness of death about him, and that was before the coppery scent of blood registered above the ever-present gym smell of leather and sweat.
“Give me a minute before you call it in,” Jo said, moving toward the ring. “Please?”
Randall looked at her, then nodded. “Seriously, though. One minute.”
Jo nodded, swallowing past the lump in her throat. She walked up th
e cinderblocks that served as de facto ring steps and ducked through the ropes. She pulled out her cell phone and started shooting video as she walked around the body.
“Dennis, video coming your way,” she said quietly.
“Got it,” the disembodied hacker replied. “That writing looks Enochian.”
“I don’t know anything about that, but have you seen this kind of...ritual before?” Jo asked.
“Yeah, I have. Unfortunately, I was a part of one. This is a summoning.” Jo closed her eyes, but the image before her was seared into her mind’s eye.
Jake was staked to the mat, spread-eagled like some demented Da Vinci sketch. He was stripped naked, but it was hard to tell because his body looked almost like it was wearing a red suit, it was covered in so much blood. His hands and feet were nailed to the mat with long spikes, and his body had been split down the middle, the skin peeled back in the center. His organs were set aside in neat piles around the circle, and words in some strange script were scrawled all around the canvas mat in blood and bodily fluids. The dead man’s eyes were clenched shut, but his open mouth told the tale of the terrible suffering he had endured.
“Summoning?” Jo asked.
“Yeah, someone has called a demon and used your buddy as the portal. Judging by the amount of blood, it wasn’t a very large demon. That’s the good news.”
“The bad news is that it’s still a demon, and it’s here.”
“And in the company of someone with the knowledge and power to call it forth,” Dennis agreed.
“There was already one demon here,” Jo said. “We ran into it last night. I sent it home with my hammer.”
“Good girl, but that one obviously wasn’t the boss.”
“How do you know?” Jo asked.
“You aren’t dead,” Dennis replied. “A boss demon, something like an Archduke, or even a Duke of Hell, would have just ripped your head off and sucked out your soul like eating a crawdad.”
“That’s an image that will spoil jambalaya for me forever,” Jo said. “But yeah, I took that one out pretty easily.”
“You’re out of your weight class, Jo,” Dennis said. “I’ll put in a call to Luke. He can get a flight out of Charlotte and be there in four hours, tops. With a little luck, we can have this all settled by sunrise.”
“That would be great, if I had that long,” Jo replied. “But I have a midnight deadline or this monster kills my mother and my little girl. So you can put Luke on a light-tight private plane if you like, but I can’t wait around for the cavalry. I have to take the fight to the monsters, and to do that, I need to wake up an archangel. Any ideas?”
“Yeah, but you aren’t going to like it,” came the voice from her phone.
“Is it any worse than having a demon murder my whole family?”
“Probably not, but it might be a close second,” Dennis said.
A sinking feeling came over Jo as she realized what he was going to suggest. “Oh, come on. There has got to be someone else.”
“I’ve been scouring the web, Dark and light, the whole time we’ve been on the phone. Phoenix isn’t exactly a hot-spot of magical activity, you know. That’s probably why Michael hid out there in the first place.”
“I know there aren’t many high-level practitioners, but this guy? Come on, there’s not anybody else in the city who can help?” Jo wracked her brain through every Shadow Council contact, every seedy supernatural creature, and every undead or half-alive magic wielder she had ever come into contact with. Every road led back to the same place.
“Fine, call Dr. Evil and tell him I’m coming,” she said with a sigh. She turned back to Randall. “You coming with me, or are you going to stay here and try to cover up my mess again?”
“I’m with you,” the cop said. “Who’s Dr. Evil? Is that his nickname or something?”
“Or something,” Jo said, shaking her head as she turned toward the door. This is gonna suck so bad. Why couldn’t I just fight another demon?
10
Jo pulled up in front of Dr. Evil’s Magical Emporium and Internet Cafe thirty minutes later. Despite the late hour, the front of the shop was brightly lit, and she had to park at the far end of the lot, jockeying for space between a cavalcade of Prius hybrids and Tesla electric cars. One battered pick truck stood out like a sore thumb, the exact opposite of the normal automotive distribution of Arizona.
“What the hell is this place?” Randall asked as they got out of the car. He gaped at the garish display of color-chasing LED signs screeching words like “GAMING” and “FREE WI-FI” into the desert night. “And doesn’t the owner know we have ordinances on signage in this town?”
“I don’t think he cares,” Jo said, and I’m pretty sure he’s located on the correct side of that for a reason.” She jerked a thumb at the Phoenix City Limits sign that sat just at the edge of the Emporium parking lot. “As to what this place is, I like to call it heaven for nerds. Also the lair of one of the most powerful magicians in the Southwest, and the one most likely to help me with a case, provided the right incentive.”
“Incentive? Are you going to bribe somebody?” Randall asked.
“Oh God, I wish,” Jo said. By now she stood at the door, waiting for him. The entrance to the store was covered in window decals proclaiming the store a dueling center for Magic: the Gathering, Yo-Gi-Oh, Cardfight Vanguard, Bushiroad, Pokémon, and half a dozen other games with brightly colored stylized lettering.
The two stepped into the room, and Jo’s ears were assailed with shouts of joy and fury as energetic gamers cajoled, cawed, and cackled at their vanquished opponents. A twelve-year-old white kid with faded green hair and freckles slumped in his chair, vanquished by a laughing Asian boy with a Justin Bieber haircut and a smattering of acne across his cheeks. Two overweight men with goatees and black t-shirts pored over a scattering of cards on a table, each pointing to one or another and making suggestions or snide comments while a wide-eyed college kid looked on, apparently soaking in the knowledge of older gamers. A trio of high school girls sat around a board game with a husky African-American man reading from a rulebook.
Everywhere Jo turned, people were playing one game or another, laughing, joking, and generally enjoying themselves. Until they noticed her companion. As soon as they took in Randall’s uniform, a hush fell over the room.
Jo looked at the man. “You must be a real killer at parties.”
“My wife always wonders why I never get invited,” he said with an easy smile. “You wanna let them know I’m not here looking for illegal Adderall and an ounce of weed, or should I let them sweat?”
“Let’s scare ‘em a little. A little healthy fear of incarceration will do the youth of the world some good.” She turned to the room. “I’m looking for Doctor E. Where is he?”
The green-haired boy pointed behind her. “He’s in the Gundam Room.”
Randall looked at her. “Do I even want to know what a Gundam Room is?”
Jo laughed at her friend’s discomfort. “You’re gonna get your nerd card revoked, Randall. A Gundam is a scale model of a Japanese battle mech from a cartoon. Don’t you know anything?”
Randall just looked around the room, his eyes wide at the multitude of nerddoms on display. “Apparently not.”
“Follow me. Let’s go see Dr. Evil.” Joanna turned around and walked through dozens of folding tables and matches of various collectible card games toward a small doorway. Through the door, she saw a desk with a big man in a lime-green dress shirt seated behind three brightly colored boxes. She stopped at the door and knocked. “Doc? Got a minute?”
The big man looked up from the boxes and motioned to the teenager sitting across from him. “Take these up front to David. Tell him to give you ten percent off whichever one you decide on. Fifteen percent if you buy all three.” The kid nodded, scooped up the model boxes, and headed for the door.
Jo stepped in with Randall and closed the door behind her. “Good sale?” she asked.
&nbs
p; “Not bad. Two fifty if he buys them all, about ninety for each one if he buys them separately,” Dr. Evil replied.
“Does that math work?” Jo asked. She sat in one of the metal chairs across from the desk. Randall leaned against the door frame.
“Eh, rounding,” the big man replied. “Now, what can I do for you, Joanna? I’m sure you aren’t here just to help me maximize profits on model sales.”
“I need your help,” Jo said. Her voice was tight, clipped, and it was pretty obvious from the set of her shoulders that those were the last words she ever wanted to come from her lips.
Dr. Evil leaned forward, a grin splitting his face as he rubbed his hands together. “Absolutely, Jo. What can I do for you? You interested in getting back into the game? I’d be happy to sponsor The Iron Maiden in any tournaments you wanted to play. I’ll get you cards, sleeves, supplies, teammates, anything you want. Hoodies, t-shirts...you name it, I’ll have it made.”
“Not that kind of help. The other kind. Magic.”
“That’s what I was talking about. Magic. I didn’t think you were going to step down into Yu-Gi-Oh after playing in the big...oh.” His face fell, and he leaned back in his chair. “You mean the real stuff.”
“What else would she mean?” Randall asked. “What is this Iron Maiden stuff?”
“There’s a card game called Magic: the Gathering,” Jo began.
“Yeah, I saw signs and stuff out front. Looks interesting.”
“Don’t,” Jo said with a sharp wave of her hand. “It’s more addictive than crack, and at least as expensive. Anyway, I used to play. A lot. And I was good. Really good.”
“One of the best,” Dr. Evil agreed. He wore a solemn look, like he mourned something lost. “She was one of the best I’d ever seen. Until she quit. The world lost a great Magic player when you retired, Joanna.”
“I grew up, Leon,” Jo replied. “Sometimes we have to do things like that.”
“I disagree. Growing older is mandatory; growing up is optional.” Dr. Evil shook his head.
Calling All Angels (The Shadow Council Case Files Book 1) Page 6