“Caligula must want anonymity,” Inga said.
“He’s a just killer,” Cleo said.
I had a slightly different view. “Maybe he thinks he’s fooling us into believing he’s noble.”
Caligula asked his victim, “Isn’t it fair for you to lose your life when three people have burned to death because of your crime?”
The man stuttered for a moment then said, “N-no, I waited for the roofer to leave his house before starting the fire so no one would get hurt. Any deaths were accidental. The news is filled with lies these days.”
The arsonist had been trying to help himself, but he’d failed miserably. Murmurs of disagreement ran through our group of angels. Most of them had lived for hundreds of years, if not thousands. Back in the good ol’ days, there would’ve been no doubt that the arsonist would die.
As for me, I didn’t like to see anyone take the law into their own hands, particularly a demon. As a detective, I’d seen too many cases that appeared at first blush to be obvious but then turned out to be much more complicated. We needed judges and juries to second-guess what investigators thought was the truth.
I sure wasn’t comfortable acting as a judge and executioner, even when I could read someone’s mind and knew exactly what they were thinking at the time they did something wrong. So far, I’d destroyed demons only to defend myself or protect someone else from them.
While I was watching the Avenger character on the video, he pronounced the same words he’d used before to justify murder. “Through the power invested in me by the Almighty Lord, I therefore commit your body to the deep to be turned into corruption.”
The man screamed, “No! I can explain. It was—”
His words were cut off when Avenger pulled a large revolver from his gown’s pocket. This time I got a much better look at it. It was definitely a .44 Magnum, Dirty Harry’s gun.
After a loud boom, the bullet slammed into the victim’s forehead, hurtling him backwards off the cliff. The camera moved forward again and looked down into the churning waves crashing against the bottom of the cliff. In the darkness, it was difficult to see far, but it did not look like the same location as before. I didn’t see the tree growing on the slope, and the cliff’s wall was darker.
Not that it mattered to the poor idiot, assuming he was human, who’d just reincarnated in a new life somewhere in God’s great universe. At least this time, we could expect to find a body.
The cameraman turned to face Avenger. He said, “And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast. And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death. Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God.”
Being a preacher’s son, I had no trouble recognizing the quote from Leviticus. It happened to be one of my father’s favorite passages. He whipped it out regularly to justify tough punishment for all manner of misdeeds my sister or I’d committed. Maybe I was too cynical, but it seemed he was reaching too far to explain his cruelty. I hoped that even devout Christians would see through his manipulation.
Then the video went blank. The screen was soon filled with a panel of talking heads, but Honah turned off the news.
The first thing that occurred to me was one of my earlier theories about why Caligula had killed didn’t work in this case. There was no evidence of any more demons encroaching on San Francisco. In fact, there didn’t appear to be any demons involved at all, except Caligula. Why had he really killed this arsonist?
I pondered the question for a couple of minutes but didn’t come up with any reasonable answer. A new theory came to mind. Maybe Caligula loved the limelight he’d received in the first set of murders. Avenger was famous worldwide now, and he was particularly popular in the US. Maybe the acclaim had swelled his head. Lots of folks craved attention, and the vigilante had gotten it in spades.
“At first light,” the chief said, “the same team who were so successful at finding the first murder site will redeploy. I am particularly interested to hear whether the sorcerer used his magical powers to help him with this killing.”
The angels slowly dispersed, chatting among themselves. Cleo, Inga, and I stayed together, talking in low voices about next steps. The demon was proving the principle that anything bad can always get worse.
Chapter 9
WE WERE STILL talking about how to stop Caligula when Honah approached us.
“Gabriel, you and Jack are best suited to following the humans’ investigation of this most recent murder. He will visit the location of the first attack on the off-chance it was used again. I personally doubt it. Until he returns, you should take advantage of our computers here to monitor the news media and disseminate any significant discoveries. Cleo and Inga can assist you. They might learn something about modern investigatory techniques.”
With a friendly wave, he vanished.
Inga scowled. “So, we’re your interns now? Is that the correct term?”
Cleo tittered. She obviously didn’t mind helping out. Guardian angels, though, seemed to think themselves too good for grunt work. “If there’s some war out there that you’d rather fight, be my guest. Most police work is pretty dull, but we usually get our guy.”
Inga grumbled but followed me and Cleo as we entered a room with a dozen desks, each containing a state-of-the-art computer. I sat at one work station and motioned for them to sit on opposite sides of me at other desks. Then I showed them how to turn on their machines. We each had individual login passwords, but as far as I knew, most of the angels had never used this room.
Luckily, both women remembered their passwords, and we all logged onto the legion’s network. I showed them how to search the Internet and bring up various news websites. To my surprise, Cleo knew how to type, but Inga had to rely on the hunt and peck method.
The legion maintained accounts with all the major news services, so I handed out login information to my helpers. Each computer included a large monitor where six websites could be opened simultaneously. Collectively, we sat there watching eighteen different sources try to make sense of Avenger and his lawless campaign.
This wasn’t the end I’d hoped for after my first date with Inga, but it could’ve been a lot worse. We could’ve been wiped out by the troll and his girlfriend back in the bar, but we’d lived to find more monsters to destroy. Instead, I’d loved sitting with her during the second set and swaying to the music.
-o-o-o-
Saturday, August 12th
SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT, Jack reported back about his search of the first execution area. He found no signs of any recent use. I’d expected that. California’s coastline stretched almost a thousand miles. Why would Avenger go to the same place twice? That would make him too easy to find in the future.
Throughout the early morning darkness, Jack, Inga, Cleo, and I monitored a variety of news outlets, each of us striving to scoop the others. Unfortunately, none of us heard any great revelations from cable news.
I studied both execution videos carefully without noticing anything new.
It was still dark in San Francisco when Honah sent me home to greet the rising sun in Golden. Jack, Cleo, and Inga kept staring at their displays. Angels didn’t get tired, not in the human sense, but they could be numbed into unconsciousness. Five hours straight of cable TV blathering had rendered all three of them almost incoherent. They didn’t have a human’s incredible tolerance for the boob tube.
I, at least, had caught a break and got to leave. When I said goodbye to each of them, they barely mumbled their responses. Honah was probably guilty of some workers’ rights violation, not that any of us would’ve said so. We wer
e too well-trained to complain.
-o-o-o-
DURING THE COOL morning, I handled the ranch chores while Ellen visited her doctor. So far, everything had gone great with the baby. I touched Ellen frequently to make sure she and her daughter stayed healthy. Nothing mattered more to me than their futures. I couldn’t tolerate the idea of living forever if that meant I would have to relive some terrible experience in their lives.
When she drove up and parked in the garage, I walked over. “Is everything okay?”
She waddled up to me and hugged me. “Seems to be. The baby is dropping.”
Her olive-green U.S. Army t-shirt was stretched to the tearing point over her bulging stomach, so I knew the kid was still in there. “What’s that mean?”
She used her hands to form of funnel in front of her hips. “The baby’s head is sliding into position above my pelvis. It’s the first step in the birthing process.”
I looked back at the barn where I still had a couple of hours of work to finish. Too bad. “Why are we standing here? Let’s go. I don’t want to be part of one of those local TV stories about a woman who delivers her baby in the front seat of her brother’s pickup.”
She patted my forearm. “No worries. Sometimes, particularly with new moms, it starts weeks before the baby is born. Just don’t plan any faraway trips. Are you ready for lunch? I’m starving.”
Relief flooded through me. “No, you go ahead. I’ll grab something later.”
Honah had done something to sweet Ellen’s mind to cloud her to the fact that I didn’t eat anymore. She just didn’t seem to notice.
When she disappeared inside the house, I sent a mental note to the boss warning him her time was near. I didn’t want any complaints about me bailing out of some demon investigation to help my only sister through one of the most important experiences in a woman’s life.
As usual, he didn’t respond. I took that as acceptance.
-o-o-o-
AFTER DINNER, I helped Ellen up the stairs and made sure she was comfortable. She claimed the contractions hadn’t started, not even a little false labor. That was reassuring when I was about to head out west for the entire night.
I didn’t receive any updates from the legion during the day, and I assumed they’d discovered nothing worth reporting. All the evening news had said was that Avenger was the most popular public figure in the world at that moment. I could understand that folks hated arsonists—I did, too—but this was ridiculous.
Instead of teleporting me to the SF headquarters, Honah shipped me to a new location along the coast. This one happened to be south of San Francisco, along the coast road to Santa Cruz. One of the guardians had found the victim’s body splayed out over a pile of driftwood at the foot of a three-hundred-foot-tall cliff.
For the moment, we had the crime scene to ourselves. Jack said, “I didn’t want to call it in until we’ve had a chance to search the area in its natural state. This time, no angels have landed anywhere close to where the shooting occurred.”
I appreciated their caution, but found little evidence. The spot was about a hundred yards west of the Coast Highway, and cars zipped along it without seeming to notice me standing out there with two other people.
Our group walked up to the road and found the small turnout where Caligula and his crew must’ve parked. They’d stepped over a guardrail into a field of dead grass leading out to a promontory over the sea. Three distinct trails passed through the meadow.
When I got to the execution site, I turned back and checked the amount of traffic on the highway. This early in the evening, vehicles were passing about once every three minutes. Later at night when the latest killing had occurred, the traffic had probably been much lighter.
Even so, the cameraman had used lights to illuminate the victim in the video. I was puzzled as to why no passerby had seemed to notice. Certainly, nobody had reported seeing anything odd along the road the previous night.
Having seen the latest video multiple times, I could visualize on the ground where the various actors had stood. This time there was no blood near where the victim had been shot.
Kiko was the other angel with me and Jack. I asked her, “Did you see anything on the hillside below us? It slopes less than the last time. The body must’ve tumbled down it.”
She looked at me with cold disdain, as though I wasn’t worthy to ask her questions.
I waited.
Instead of answering, she said, “I would like to know what you said to Honah to persuade him against punishing you. Did you get down on your knees and beg?”
I almost couldn’t believe my ears. “No, but I kissed his fat, hairy ass. Why would you care?”
She didn’t answer.
Jack snickered. “Gabe, I noticed spots of blood and tissue are scattered all the way down to the water.”
I peered over the edge. The slope was far too steep to scramble down, so I switched into a falcon and flew to the track the body must’ve followed.
Sure enough, the victim had hit some rock a dozen feet down and left a patch of his scalp. It was disgustingly easy to imagine him flipping and tumbling all the way to the bottom. For his sake, I hoped the bullet had killed him instantly. The man had been a killer himself, but he hadn’t deserved this kind of end.
I followed his line of descent all the way until he hit a rocky beach about ten yards wide that was covered with driftwood and floating debris. By the time he got to the bottom, he’d lost most of his clothes, and I couldn’t tell that he’d been shot.
Back in human form, I stood on the tiny beach and looked up the hillside. Nowhere along the way had I noticed any magical echoes. Jack and Kiko had followed me down and landed as close as they could to the cliff. The tide was coming in, and the waves soaked our feet.
“Did either of you notice any signs of magic?” I asked.
“Only at the top,” Jack said. “Honah was the only one of us sensitive enough to notice a faint echo. The same demon who’d visited the first killing site, presumably Caligula, converted into a crow above us. I assume he wanted to make sure the arsonist hadn’t survived.”
The man’s remains were spread over several clumps of driftwood, mostly bloody bones scraped raw by the trip down. I’d seen enough, too much, in fact. This was as grizzly as crime scenes got.
I returned to my bird form and flew back up to the flat point. Jack followed and we changed into human form. Kiko just flew away.
I said, “We’ve seen what there is to see. The victim suffered a nasty end last night. The only evidence of infernal activity seems to be what Honah noticed.”
“I agree,” Jack said. “No gathering spell this time. And we’re no closer than before to finding Caligula.”
“You’re right. We aren’t making progress and we’re losing the battle for public opinion. A lot of folks claim they love vigilante justice.”
He groaned. “Insane. They’re just encouraging him to kill again.”
No matter how popular Caligula as Avenger was, we needed to stop him. Unfortunately, I was out of new ideas. “What do you plan to do?”
Jack shrugged. “Out of ideas. I guess I’ll work on my reports. Got a big job ahead of me at the office.”
Thank God, Honah kept all his files in his mind. “I’ll go back to Claim Jumper. Maybe someone new will show up and give us a clue.”
“Good idea. Stay in touch.” Jack turned into a large Swainson’s hawk and flew north.
I sent the chief an update, and he told me to check in with Cleo and Inga before returning to the bar. Then he teleported me to the headquarters building.
I found the two women still sitting at the desks they’d occupied when I left them. “Hi, how are you two?”
Both slowly looked up. Their eyes were dull and vacant.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Their mouths moved, but no sounds came out. They looked like fish out of water. I reached out and turned off their machines.
“You probably shouldn’t watch so much TV. You have to build up a tolerance for it over months or years, like normal people do.”
The room was dead quiet. They tried to stand, but I had to help them up. They probably hadn’t moved anything but a mouse in sixteen hours. Because they didn’t need to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom, they could stay put for nonstop watching. That didn’t mean they were immune to its effects.
I told them what little I’d learned about the arsonist’s final moments. In halting voices, they told me a few tidbits they’d learned from watching the finest investigative reporters in America.
Before Cleo and I left for Claim Jumper, I pulled Inga aside for a moment. “Hey, would you like to go to another music performance with me? I really enjoyed our time together.”
Yeah, that was sneaky. She was almost catatonic, highly subject to suggestion, and she uttered one word. “Okay.”
“How about bluegrass? I’ll bet you haven’t heard much of that.”
“Okay.”
“Terrific. I’ll let Honah know.” Of course, she was free to change her mind when she came to her senses, but I hoped she wouldn’t.
I left her standing there wobbling on her feet as Cleo and I stepped out a side door onto the rooftop patio next to a lovely garden, Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to stroll through it. We turned into birds and flew toward Claim Jumper.
For a few minutes, Cleo seemed to have trouble keeping up with me, but the exercise did her good. When we arrived on the street, she seemed to be back to normal.
We changed into pure spirits and waited for a demon or two to drop by. I knew the password, but we didn’t want to show ourselves inside.
Time flowed onward, and I began to wonder whether we’d ever get inside. We’d come early, but back in Boise, many drinking establishments found customers waiting for them when they opened.
Apparently, demons preferred late hours. Then two sentient beings stopped at the front door. Cleo and I each took one. They turned out to be newlywed male leprechauns, and were holding each other’s hands.
Infernal Justice (Angels at the Edge Book 2) Page 9