Prince of Demons 1-3, Box Set

by Victoria Danann

  “Funny. Let’s go.”

  A18 turned out to be on the water side of the marina which meant that she had an unobstructed view of the water and the skyline, looking south, which meant that she wouldn’t ever have the sun in her eyes. Not rising. Not setting. Her plan was coming together and she was riding a wave of elation right up until learning that it would be a good six months before the Sailors Wharf Yacht Yard could finish the renovations and get the boat delivered.

  She decided she’d go to St. Pete and live in a motel to oversee the work. Myrna was great about working out details. She agreed to rent out A18 when she could and deduct part of the fee from Lana’s monthly rental. It was a better deal than Lana had hoped for and much appreciated.

  So she would winter in Florida like a circus performer and be back for spring.

  In mid April Lana was waiting on the dock in a windbreaker as her beautiful boat glided into its new home right after a spring shower had blown through. The air still smelled like the whole world had just been freshened up. She giggled while Josep and Myrna stood beside her clapping and whistling and making it feel like the occasion that it was. Josep grabbed a rope as a crew member lowered fenders off the sides.

  Myrna gave her a half hug. “Congratulations, hon. I’d better get back to the office.”

  “Second Chance huh?” He grinned at Lana noting the name painted in navy blue script.

  “Would you believe me if I told you it was named ‘Second Chance’ when I got it?”

  He smiled, with eyes dancing. “No.”

  “Well, believe this then. It has nothing to do with you,” she laughed.

  He lifted his chin with an arrogance reserved for exceptionally good-looking guys. “We’ll see.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He looked to the right and left dramatically. “No fat ladies. No singing.”

  The Second Chance’s engine was cut and a rough-looking guy stepped onto the dock with paperwork. She knew Captain Boderie from Florida. He’d offered to have her accompany them on the trip up the east coast. She’d looked between him and his second of choice and made two decisions. She’d fly and have a set of clean new sheets waiting to replace the ones she would burn after those two men had slept on them.

  “Ms. Ravin.” He handed her the paperwork. “As soon as you sign here, you’ll have full possession of your boat.”

  “Thank you, Captain. My friend is going to look it over first. Just a formality.” She offered her most professional detached expression.

  “Have it your way.” Brian, the crewman, threw their two duffels onto the dock. “We’ll be back in an hour.”

  Lana looked at Josep. “That work for you?” Josep nodded. “See you in an hour.”

  Two hours later, she had seen the last of Captain Boderie, changed the sheets, wiped everything down with disinfectant, and was greeting Jimmy, who volunteered for the honor of stocking the virgin galley.

  That evening she sat on her deck in a folding canvas chair and sipped white wine as she admired her view of the Boston skyline at night, exactly as she had envisioned herself doing a thousand times. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Life was good. Maybe better than it ever had been.

  There was no shortage of things to do. It would take a year just to see all the sights in and around Boston. Her live-on slip came with a primo parking place. She would buy a car when she felt like it. She’d driven her worldly possessions, everything she’d decided to keep, from Dallas in a one way van rental, which meant that at the moment she was a boat owner, but not a car owner. She pushed the impulse to create a to-do list from her mind, admonishing herself to simply enjoy the moment.

  After three weeks of instruction from Josep that included a lot of memorizing and even more drills, she was ready to take her boat out alone for the first time. Josep had insisted that she wait for a day when no weather was expected. She’d complained that that rule might mean her solo sail would never happen. But a day did come with a forecast of smooth sailing and no clouds in the sky.

  Josep didn’t hide his concern as he gave her last minute instructions over and over. And over. When she pulled away, she waved at him as he stood on the dock like an anxious parent.

  She had state of the art navigation and radar monitors next to the wheel and, she thought, the kind of instruction that money can’t buy - the kind that comes with an instructor who cares what happens.

  Within ten minutes she was in open water, leaving Boston behind, and she never could have imagined that she could feel so free. So free and independent. The experience reminded her very much of the exhilaration she’d felt the first time she’d driven a car by herself.

  The visual feast of contrasting blues between water and sky was so beautiful it made her solar plexus hurt. If she’d been told at that moment that she was Mistress of the Universe, she would probably have said, “I know! Isn’t it great?”

  If asked, she wouldn’t have been able to say exactly when she noticed a change in visibility. It seemed that the fog came in fast. Lana would later remember being more concerned with what to do than with wondering about the sudden change in weather. Or the drastic forecast error.

  So this is the reason for all the drills.

  She reasoned that the choices were either drop anchor and take her chances that someone wouldn’t plow into her, or try to make her way blind and take her chances that she didn’t plow into someone else.

  She started mentally listing proper operating procedure.

  Rule number one. Slow to a safe operating speed. Be prepared and able to stop.

  Rule number two. Watch the depth indicator and the compass…

  She glanced at the monitors. All black. The boat had an Azimuth 1000 digital compass as a failsafe, but the numbers were spinning like a Las Vegas slot machine. Spin. Stop. Spin. Stop.

  Rule number three. If you are unable to establish your position, stop, shut your engine down and listen. You may hear vehicular sounds from ashore, nearby boats or breakers on a reef, all of which may help you to determine your position. Your best choice may be to anchor and wait out the fog. Strong winds are seldom present during fog conditions therefore your safety should not be jeopardized.

  “Rule number three it is,” she said. Then added, “Great. I really am starting to talk to myself. See, Lana? You said this would happen. Next, a horde of cats will be showing up yowling demands to come aboard.”

  She couldn’t play music because of the “listen” instruction. She tried to read, but the battery on her e-reader had gone dead. Alone on the water with her own thoughts, enveloped in a dark gray fog, she wondered if anyone had ever had a claustrophobic panic attack from the feeling of being enveloped. Worse, she thought it was playing tricks with her mind because now and then she thought she saw ribbon-like swirls of mist that were rose-colored in the fog.

  There was only one thing to do and that was to make a cup of tea to settle her nerves. Thankfully she still had shipboard power, which meant the stove top burners were working. Apparently she was too shaken to remember that caffeine doesn’t settle nerves. It does just the opposite. But by the time she’d had half a cup she could see that the fog was thinning.

  By the time she’d finished, it was completely gone as if it had never happened. The world according to Lana was, at that moment, a place where the blue of endless water reflecting sunlight was competing for brilliance with the blue of endless sky. She rinsed out her cup, started the engine and turned toward home with the absolute surety that, no matter what else, that had been enough uncertainty for a day.

  Making way back to the safety of her own little watery reserved parking spot, she rehearsed in her mind what she was going to tell Josep about the experience. When she was five minutes out, she radioed the office.

  “Hello Constitution. This is Captain Atalanta Ravin on the Second Chance.”

  Myrna answered. “Welcome to Consolation, Captain. Change to channel 68 before proceeding. Over.”

  “A
cknowledged.”

  Lana switched the VHF according to instruction then reopened the channel. “Captain Ravin on the Second chance. I’m about two minutes out. Requesting permission to enter. Over.”

  “Stand by.” Lana stopped to wait for the response. “We don’t have a reservation for the Second Chance, Captain. Over.”

  Lana opened the channel so that Myrna could hear her laugh. “Funny, Myrna. I say again, let me in. Over.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “Myrna. Do you read me? Over.”

  “Roger your request, Captain. I say again, we cannot verify a reservation and we’re pretty full. Identify Second Chance type of craft. Over.”

  “Second Chance is a forty-four-foot cruiser. Myrna. As you well know. Over.”

  “Stand by.” After another brief pause Myrna’s voice resumed. “For tonight, all we have is a Mediterranean mooring on C3. Over.”

  Lana gritted her teeth. Obviously her friends at the marina intended to take the gag all the way to prank status. So be it. There wasn’t much she could do about it. Marina officials were king.

  “Roger. Proceeding to C3. Out.”

  On the way to C3, Lana couldn’t help but notice that her slip was indeed occupied. By the time she was moored to C she was hopping mad and no longer in a joking mood.

  She stormed toward the office and threw the door open. “What the hell, Myrna!”

  Myrna looked at her like she didn’t know her. “Excuse me?”

  “How long have you and Josep been cooking this up? I didn’t know how to do a Mediterranean mooring! You know how long that took?”

  Myrna had an odd look of wariness on her face. “I take it you’re captain of the Second Chance?”

  Lana gaped. “Alright. Enough! Where’s Josep?”

  Myrna’s brows moved together and deepened the grooves that had started to appear between them. “Josep?” Her brow cleared. “You mean Joe?”

  “Ugh! I’m never watching Jimmy while you go to the dentist again.”

  She slammed the door as she stomped off toward the box on the water that Josep called home. After a full minute of pounding on the door, she heard a clearly put out, “Just a fucking minute!”

  Josep answered the door looking tousled and wearing nothing but jeans with the button undone. He’d also cut his hair. She was processing that when she heard a feminine voice. “Joe? Should I get dressed?”

  Lana’s eyes, which had automatically gone past his shoulder when she heard the woman’s voice, came back to meet his. His eyes that weren’t looking at her warmly, like usual.

  “Is there something I can do for you?”

  She turned to motion toward the interloping vessel that was occupying her space and, in doing so, noticed that the skyline had changed. The skyscrapers were a completely different configuration, different heights, colors, shapes, placement, and number. The various mysteries hit her all at once, like a baseball bat to the chest. Consolation Marina. Not Constitution Marina. Myrna didn’t know her. A short-haired version of Josep called “Joe” was looking at her like he’d never seen her before.

  She turned back to the half-dressed man wearing the flush and the confused expression just as she felt her knees getting weak.

  CHAPTER 3

  Cal Magnus hadn’t really enjoyed life since they’d pulled him from field duty. He’d started out as a mercenary magician slash scientist and ended up as a full time employee of The Order. He didn’t really have a title. Just did what he was told and figured that even the mundane jobs at Black Swan were a thousand times more interesting than selling insurance or counting beans.

  Of course those “mundane” jobs had usually involved travel to some exotic destination and investigation of the authenticity of an artifact suspected of being of supernatural origin. If he determined the object of his examination was real, he personally transported it to one of the repositories for such things. Usually either the one in the Himalayas or the one in Idaho Springs. He didn’t think of himself as Indiana Jones. Exactly. But he did think of himself as an adventurer and thought there might have been a little similarity.

  That had all come to an abrupt halt when a bout of malaria contracted in Brazil had left him with parasites still thriving in his liver. The Headquarters Clinic in Edinburgh had been treating him for six months and the little buggers still persisted. So they had him living in one of the apartments at the facility at Charlotte Square where they could torture him at will in between assignments. Assignments as thrilling as cataloguing archives or administering tests to interns.

  The worst torture was that they wouldn’t tell him when he’d be cleared to return to field duty. So his life had become a matter of shuffling between his apartment, the clinic, the library, the classrooms, and the dining hall. He believed he had reached his limit of tedium and only that morning had considered throwing himself out of his apartment window while he stared at his eggs and tomatoes. When he realized that the entire building was only three stories high and that, at most, he’d probably break a couple of bones, he sighed and took another bite of breakfast.

  As it happened it was a good thing that he decided to delay further suicide fantasies because, on that very day, Director Tvelgar sent for him.

  “Mr. Magnus. I have a job for you.“ Simon motioned to the chair in front of his desk.

  Cal immediately perked up and felt years younger. “Yes, sir?”

  “You’re going to Jefferson Unit. There’s a young woman being held there who is either suffering from a rare form of delusional amnesia or she’s been dimensionally displaced.”

  Cal cocked his head to the side. “Interesting.”

  “Indeed. She was picked up in Boston. Claims that she went out on her boat and, when she came back, everything was different.”

  “How did The Order get involved?”

  “Well, the boat in question, which has been secured at the Naval facility in Boston, was equipped with an advanced system of holographic radar unlike anything we’ve seen before. Anywhere. It’s off limits to anyone who isn’t Order personnel until we can get a firsthand look and start to sort this out.”

  “And you want me to take a look at the boat?”

  “No, no,” Simon waved his hand in the air, “we have people for that. I want you to interview this young woman and determine whether or not we should be, ah, concerned.”

  As much as Cal wanted a field assignment, that sounded far afield of his training and experience. He could hardly believe it when he heard himself say, “Are you sure I’m the right person for the job, sir? I don’t really have experience in counseling.”

  “Of the available personnel, I think you’ll do just fine. If you should conclude that she has actually experienced some sort of accidental displacement, there will be somebody on site who might be useful in acclimating the subject to her new circumstances.”

  “Sir?”

  “Elora Laiken.” Cal couldn’t help the big smile that spread over his face. “I see you know her,” Simon added.

  “We met a couple of times when we were younger.”

  “I see. Well, the odds of the young woman being a displacement case are small, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s good to know you’ll have support if you need it. At least I believe you could coax the Lady Laiken’s assistance, should it come to that.” Cal got to his feet when Simon rose. “Good luck. Your transport leaves,” he glanced down and shuffled a couple of papers, “in three hours. You better get cracking.”

  “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.” Cal turned toward the door.

  “Oh and the clinic at Jefferson Unit will take over your treatment.”

  Cal’s shoulders slumped. There was nothing like the mention of more treatments to ruin the moment. Still, he was getting on a plane to go somewhere else so life couldn’t be all bad. “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Lana was upset and disoriented, but she wasn’t so upset and disoriented that she didn’t notice that she was being held prisoner by a building full of man candy. She hadn’t b
een ill-treated, but she wasn’t free to wander around either - that point having been made by locked doors and guards. No matter how kind or how cute, guards were still people whose job it was to restrict the freedom of other people. That wasn’t necessarily bad either, unless the person in question hadn’t done a frigging thing except take a boat ride on a beautiful day.

  She looked out the window at the sports field that seemed to be surrounded by the building where she was being held. In the middle, there was a woman with shocking red hair playing frisbee with a large black dog, and several pairs of impossibly athletic-looking guys running laps around the track. Judging by the view out the window, it was impossible to tell what sort of facility it might be.

  A wave of sadness washed over her when she wished she could pick up the phone and call Dizzy. What exactly had she been thinking when she had left a perfectly profitable career, a perfectly respectable home, two sisters and a best friend who were quirky but loved her, and, of course, her mom and dad?

  The door made a swish sound as it dragged across the carpet that was too plush for the door rise. She turned just as a nice-looking guy with pale green eyes set a portaputer down on the conference table across from where she sat. She guessed he’d be just under six feet. Black hair that might be showing a couple of premature grays above his ears. His features were enhanced by the kind of strong, pronounced jawline that punctuated an air of masculine confidence.

  What was most compelling about the new guy wasn’t his obviously superior genes or the fact that he rocked a casual, rumpled linen look. It was the intensity of focus on her - an intensity that made her feel immediately reduced to the status of ‘specimen’.

  “Ms. Ravin. I’m Cal Magnus.”

  She did her best to look unperturbed and unimpressed. “Let me guess. You’re either the Relentless Interrogator, not that the others haven’t been thorough, or maybe the Torturer General?”

  He responded with a crooked smile that lit his eyes. He spoke as he was removing his jacket and hanging it on the back of the chair. “It can’t have been that bad.” He looked at the table in front of her. “I do want to talk to you about how you’ve come to be our guest. I’d like to think of it more as a conversation and less as an interrogation. Do you need anything before we get started?”