The Devil's Daughter Box Set

by G A Chase

  Bart was still rolling up the bandage. “Think you can ride? We need to get after that last demon. Since he didn’t head back here for a motorcycle, he must have slipped away in the river. He can’t be far.”

  Sere was grateful that Bart didn’t want to discuss her connection to Jennifer, or worse, Joe’s death. “Fuck that doppelhole.” Sere felt the icy-cold tentacles of anger tighten around her heart. “So long as that chickenshit isn’t going to come after us, we’ve got a bigger problem. I recognized the lead demon. He had high cheekbones, deep-set penetrating eyes, tall aristocratic forehead, and sharply angled jaw. Sound like anyone you know?”

  “You could be talking about half of the city,” Bart said.

  Sere was grateful her doppelgänger body was the result of a different ancestry than her soul. She’d never be recognized as a member of the powerful elite. “My father, Baron Malveaux, had similar features to that demon. Each time that living devil forced a new upper-class New Orleans woman into sexual indentured servitude, he took her as his own concubine before abandoning her to his brothels. That ensured that each rich, respectable family carried at least one of his heirs. Within the first two generations after his death, the Laroque branch of the family tree realized the importance of nurturing those genetic markers.”

  Bart stuffed the cell phone, cord, and bandage in the black medical bag. “Hang on a minute. As his daughter, you died before any of these family shenanigans started. How would you know what the Laroque family was up to?”

  Sere remembered Kendell’s lectures on their shared heritage. The poor woman had tried so hard to explain why the baron’s history mattered, but as a child, Sere couldn’t have given a rat’s ass. Now she was glad Kendell had spent so much time drilling the information into her head.

  “Kendell knew it would be important for me to learn about our family history. I can see now how right she was. Many in New Orleans consider bank president Marjory Laroque and her brother—former Chief of Police Gerald Laroque—to be the culmination of the family’s aspirations. Those people are mistaken. For a time, Marjory’s son, Lincoln Laroque, held the real power in the city. When my father decided to retake what he thought was his rightful place among the living, he wanted to use the most powerful man in New Orleans—and also the one who most closely resembled him in aspiration and appearance. That demon leader you decapitated wasn’t Lincoln’s doppelgänger, but he must have been from a close relative. And there are three unaccounted-for demons headed toward New Orleans right now. I’m willing to bet my gator-skin boots there’s another Laroque doppelgänger leading the charge.”

  “So what?” Bart asked. “Since every doppelgänger has a real in New Orleans, it would only make sense that eventually a member of the Laroque family would surface in the swamp. It’s not like the death-and-demon replacement of a member of the most powerful family in New Orleans is going to go unnoticed.”

  Sere looked up at Bart, envious of his ability to stand and function. “The demon said even if I killed him, he’d regenerate in hell without being wiped clean like any other doppelgänger. That means someone already understands some of the professor’s technology.”

  Bart shrugged. “Powerful family in life. Powerful family in death. Not much new about that. I’m still not seeing the new danger.”

  They didn’t have all day, but she needed to explain the situation to him. He had a right to know what he was up against if he was going to join her on her next mission. “That’s just one piece of the puzzle. I suspected I had an enemy in hell. During that demonic experiment, Sanguine told me the real danger is coming from someone in this reality, not hers.”

  “Someone in life is calling forth the demons? Why?”

  “I asked the same thing.” Sere looked into Bart’s soulful eyes. “It’s because of me. Sanguine didn’t want to spell it out for fear someone might be listening, but I think she figured out what our enemy is up to. I’m a human soul living in an immortal body. That’s the kind of thing some people might find enticing. People with money and influence, like the Laroques, would consider immortality their ultimate prize even if they did become part demon to obtain it. Researching how my father traveled between dimensions and created me would be just a matter of finding his journals. That would have been the hard part. Based on this demon outbreak, they must be ready to run some tests, which means they have read at least some of his writings.” She spread her arms out to display her body. “They already have the first successful experiment in front of them. I’m proof that the two parts can coexist in the same doppelgänger body. And the professor has made it clear that he has enough data to keep me going even after Jennifer has died. The same would be true for any of the professor’s projections that escape hell. The next step for our demon scientist would be to try to reproduce the results.”

  Bart stroked the stubble on his chin. “Let’s take this one step at a time. Even if the Laroque doppelgängers could regenerate and retain what they knew after decapitation, the family wouldn’t risk one of their powerful elite—not for the first test anyway. But they’d also not want a bunch of random immortal test subjects running around New Orleans. Which means the three-demon breakaway contingent isn’t going to waste time on a joy-ride killing spree.”

  Sere expected that the three-demon force was headed to some Laroque stronghold. She assumed Bart’s military training was leading him to the same conclusion. “What are you thinking?”

  “We have one guinea-pig doppelgänger with two guards who might not be there strictly for that demon’s protection. If I were told I was being taken somewhere to subjugate my identity to another, I might not go willingly. Even if the real and the doppelgänger are mostly the same person, there’s a hell of a difference between being the one taking over versus the one being potentially extinguished.”

  “Good point.” For the first time since she’d watched Joe’s life fade away, she felt something resembling a sense of mission. “If the three aren’t working in unison, that would slow them down and buy us a little time. But why wouldn’t the Laroque family just send an armored truck to pick him up? Seems risky leaving the transfer to a couple of demons with desires of their own.”

  “Your friend Fisher has proven money can’t be spent without leaving a trail. The Laroque elite wouldn’t risk their involvement in the potential demon apocalypse being discovered. Too many people might be watching. They won’t tip their hand until they’ve created their immortal. Remember, this is just their first attempt.”

  “So they’re relying on the demons bringing the doppeldummy to New Orleans,” Sere said as she worked her body off the pavement, “but they couldn’t just bring him to the real’s house. We’re talking about transferring a soul. That’s, like, deep voodoo shit. I can kill a doppelgänger and under the right circumstances have that energy transfer to its real, but that’s because the demonic energy is amped up in hell. It’s like grounding an electrical charge. Transferring a soul into a demon would take some work.”

  “So the immediate questions are where are they taking him, and who would have those kinds of skills?”

  “Once Kendell and Myles secured my father in hell, they put the voodoo community under tight control. Even with all of the Laroque family’s power and money, no practitioner is going to cross the city’s paranormal-power couple. That means our demons won’t be headed for any of the secret voodoo parlors.”

  Bart leaned against the seat of the Blackbird motorcycle. “The Laroques wouldn’t let someone as powerful as a potential immortal out of their grasp. They’d have to base their experiments somewhere in New Orleans where no one would see what was happening. What’s the most secure and secret spot you can think of that they might use?”

  Gerald Laroque hadn’t been in charge of the force in more than a decade. That removed an interrogation room in police headquarters from Sere’s consideration. But Sere had one other idea.

  “One of the bank vaults in New Orleans Bank and Trust. It would make perfect sense. Marjor
y now runs the bank that my evil father made the seat of his power.” Sere shivered at the memory of being locked in the baron’s magical iron room. “This is all starting to hit a little close to home for me. We need to get word to Fisher to look out for the three demons and let him know where they might be going. Head down the road until you get a signal, and I’ll round up our gear.”

  Bart pulled out his phone, but instead of powering it up, he turned it over and yanked out the battery.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked.

  “You remember a little while ago you asked what I knew about GPS technology?”

  “Yeah. You said it was none of my business.”

  Bart shook his head and snickered. “That’s not what I said. My training is classified.” He threw the pieces onto the blacktop and stomped on the brittle plastic, shattering it to bits. “My personal phone could have been easily hacked. Even if I had a burner phone, it wouldn’t be that hard for them to use it to tap into Fisher’s computers, phones, cars—you name it. As the former chief of police, Gerald Laroque would still have access to every phone call in the greater New Orleans area as well as GPS locators. If we call Fisher, we will just be painting a bull’s-eye on his back.”

  “Do you still have your wallet?” Sere asked.

  Bart looked confused and patted the bulge in the back of his pants. “Those demons make lousy robbers. Once the leader took the credit card out of my wallet to pay for gassing up the bikes, he tossed the billfold on the ground. I wasn’t about to just leave it there.”

  “Fisher figured out where to send me based on the demons’ use of your credit card.”

  “I think I see where you’re going.” Bart pulled out the worn leather wallet and checked the contents. “Fortunately, I do carry more than one card. If I put nine dollars and eleven cents’ worth of gas on my business card, that should at least tip Fisher off that there’s a problem and who to contact. Then all I need to do is stop by the bar and let Edie know what to tell Fisher. Do you think he’ll know to stay off his phones?”

  “He’s pretty damn smart,” Sere said. The possibility of seeing Bart with Edie after witnessing their fuck session left Sere concerned that a bar brawl might be in her future, but even so, she couldn’t let the woman be emotionally blindsided. “When you tell Edie about Joe, realize she kind of had a crush on him.”

  Talking out the future mission was wildly different than getting on with her life. Sere stood next to the Honda Blackbird as if it were a spectral transport to the afterlife. “What am I supposed to do with you? I’ve never felt so lost.”

  Bart wrapped his arm around her waist. “Joe would have wanted you to have it. Just focus on one action at a time. I’ll take the lead. We’ll get some gas in order to notify Fisher, then we’ll stop off at the bar.”

  At least he didn’t give her some bullshit about one day everything being okay again. She secured Joe’s shotgun, knives, and personal effects in the small storage of the cowling. The helmet that had given her such a forceful connection to Joe lay at her feet.

  “What about that?”

  “It might come in handy. I’ll throw it on the back of my bike. We don’t dare power it up, however, in case the remaining demon is wearing its match.”

  She fired up the menacing motorcycle like a dragon she intended to ride into battle. “I need to fight someone.”

  He looked her over. “Maybe it’d be best if I go to the bar alone. Once we fill up, you can head down to Joe’s cabin, and I’ll meet you there. I don’t need you giving my already shorthanded staff more work by creating havoc.” He walked down the highway to the group of stolen bikes tossed haphazardly into a field.

  Asshole. But he’s probably right. She revved the Blackbird’s engine while waiting for him. Unfortunately, with the exhaust dampener, the bike sounded like a bunny trying to puff itself up rather than a high-performance beast threatening to chase down everyone within earshot.

  As Bart finally rode up next to her, she shouted over the Ducati’s engine noise, “Lay into your ride. This thing doesn’t know how to go slow.” She flipped on the light switch, feeling like she was violating Joe’s modifications to the bike. And now everyone can see me.

  Once Bart was well past her, she twisted the throttle and lifted her feet from the ground. Without the beefy Navy SEAL’s added weight, the motorcycle shot through the first curve like a racehorse without a rider. The wind tousled Sere’s short hair. For just a moment, she felt as if Joe’s spirit was ruffling her locks and teasing her to go faster. Bart was a couple of hundred yards ahead.

  I need to see what you can do. She hammered the gearshift and blasted the bike down the road. Without the technological advantage of the helmet, her understanding of the road ahead and its obstacles was limited to what she could see.

  Don’t get careless. The thought could have easily been a residual warning from Joe. “I have no intentions of crashing another bike, old man. But you’d be the first to tell me I need to understand my limits if I have any hope of surpassing them. Don’t worry. I’m beginning to understand the effects my recklessness has on others.”

  When she rounded the next curve, Bart was right in front of her. The glowing-green speedometer on the Blackbird read eighty miles per hour. “Sorry, my friend, but you’re going to have to catch me.” Sere steered the Blackbird around Bart’s Monster and tore into the open road. She snugged down tight against the gas tank. The small windscreen barely provided enough protection for her to see what lay ahead. Her eyes watered from the air and emotion, but being back on the speed demon made her feel alive.

  A bike horn sounded from far behind her. “Shit, we were supposed to stop for gas.” She hit the brakes and swung the bike around, skidding the rear tire. The motorcycle accelerated in the opposite direction through the black smoke of burned rubber she’d just created a minute earlier. The cloud of eye-watering smoke caused her to lose sight of Bart.

  The tire skid made it obvious which exit he had taken. She pulled into the brightly lit service station at the base of the exit just as Bart was taking off his helmet. “Sorry. I got a little carried away.”

  “I noticed.” He lifted the gas nozzle then plugged it into his tank. Slowly pulling the lever, he dispensed an exact $9.11 into the tank. “How’s yours set for fuel?”

  As with eating, Sere seldom paid much attention to the necessities of motorcycle riding. “I guess I should fill up.”

  He looked over her shoulder. “You’re down to the reserve. Yeah, you should fill up.” He handed her the credit card. “Maybe Fisher will get the hint that there’s two of us.”

  The lump that had sat at the base of Sere’s throat moved down to her stomach. “And only the two of us.”

  39

  Chapter 11

  Sere sat on the motionless Blackbird in front of Joe’s cabin. As if conducting some philosophical experiment, she held onto the idea that as long as she didn’t enter the dwelling, he might still be inside. She remained planted on the vinyl seat, wishing illogically that it were so.

  “This is crazy. I’ve got work to do, and I’m being emotional.” Even as a child in hell, she’d had better control of her reactions. “Must be that damned blood in my veins.”

  She swung her leg off the motorcycle. At least Joe didn’t set booby traps in his home, just in his hidden caches. Her last visit to the cabin, however, had resulted in her being attacked by a demon lying in wait. And there was another demon out there somewhere—one that had already proven its expertise against one of the most skilled professionals Sere knew.

  She drew the shotgun from the cowling and made sure it was fully loaded. “I hope to hell you are here. I could use the fight, and I’d be happy to be rid of you before facing your cohorts.”

  Instead of heading to the front door, she snuck around the side of the cabin. Since the demons had taken the technological bandage from Joe’s hidden cache, they might have absconded with his high-speed swamp boat as well. She couldn’t afford to tak
e any more chances with people’s safety—neither with those she cared about nor with herself. Putting herself in danger had a way of making those closest to her make dumb-shit moves to save her.

  The field of pine needles had been raked smooth. There were enough randomly strewn newly fallen needles, however, to prove that Joe had been the one setting his security system and not some demon recently trying to trick her. She cocked the shotgun and crept under the deck. The small dock just offshore rocked from the gentle lapping of the water, but there was no boat moored to it. Not that it mattered. With all of the hidden bends and beaches along the river the demon could have stashed the boat within a hundred yards and Sere wouldn’t see it. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t alone, even though every indication argued against the hairs that stuck up on the back of her neck.

  “So this is what you’re going to leave me with, Joe? That sixth sense, eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head nervous feeling you kept saying was something that couldn’t be taught?” Sere wasn’t sure she liked it.

  She ran a tactical assessment to figure out where her adversary might be hiding. Anyone who was out there would have seen her pull up. Her hell-based lab-geek abductor had made it clear they couldn’t kill her. They needed her to be alive but not necessarily walking around freely killing every demon she met. If they did capture her, they’d be free to run whatever experiments they could imagine.

  Her mind was slowly clearing from the overwhelming emotion of loss. Heading into the cabin would have been foolish. Even if there was no one hiding in the shadows, the breakaway contingent had likely set some surprise for her on their way to New Orleans.

  “Is that why you hightailed it after killing Joe?” she asked quietly to whatever boogey demon might be hiding in the shadows. “Did your compatriots expect you to come here and find me dangling by my boots?” She didn’t really care if the demon heard her. He had her helmet. Though she hadn’t played with all of its little gadgets, it probably had enhanced hearing to go along with the night vision. “I have to accept that you can see and hear me,” she said as much to herself as to the demon. “But you don’t want to come out to play? Maybe you think I’ll grow bored and step into your trap. You are kind of a doppelshit. You know that? I’ll bet you pulled the same game on Joe.”