by G A Chase
She rolled the Blackbird to the back of the garage next to the antique and threw the black tarp over it like a mourning veil. “I suppose it’s now up to me to put Joe’s equipment to good use.” Though she couldn’t come up with an immediate need for the speed demon, the bike’s stealth and power were far too useful for it to sit unused for long.
She was back on her Triton with her shotgun and snakes before she realized Madeline should be told about Joe. “Fuck.” She looked down at the snakes with their heads sticking out of the saddlebags. “I just can’t deal with talking to a civilian at this point.” Reasoning that the condolence would probably take all day and the demons wouldn’t wait, she fired up the bike, headed out the door, and clicked the remote to seal up the cache.
After she’d been busting ass up and down the swamp highway on the Blackbird, the old café racer felt like a city scooter. She appreciated the change of pace. Both snakes kept their heads poked out of the saddlebags with their forked tongues flicking the breeze like little kids holding spinners out a car’s windows. Being on the road, moving at a sane speed, gave her time to think.
Demons had once again invaded her reality. Joe was dead. The most powerful family in New Orleans was attempting to copy her immortality. Yet with none of those issues pressing down on her for immediate action, all she could think about was Rampart “Bart” Thibodaux.
She could handle an attraction that was purely physical. Bart was certainly a fine specimen of human masculinity. Such walking sculptures weren’t unknown in the hell she’d grown up in. Back then, all she needed to do was grab the doppeltoy by the belt buckle and have her way with it. Bart, however, had his own soul, desires, and emotions that prevented her from living out her carnal urges. She could rely on her memories of sexual escapades to defuse the longings, but the emotional availability he’d shown her wasn’t something she knew how to deal with.
So far, she’d relied on the idea that he’d infected her with his blood and soul, creating an impure desire in her—one that wasn’t natural. As long as she was the only one experiencing the emotion, it remained little more than a crush she could analyze away. Watching him fuck Edie while imagining it was her was close enough to how Sere had dealt with doppelgängers for her to find the sexual play between the two real people mildly amusing—well, perhaps more than mildly.
“Why the hell did you have to sit next to me while I was still emotionally raw from Joe’s death?” That simple act had touched her soul as no action of a man ever had before.
She was relieved to pull off at the exit Joe had indicated in his instructions and turn into the abandoned gas station. “This place would have made so much more sense for hiding those high-performance motorcycles.”
Joe must have had his reasons for imposing on the quiet neighborhood and, worse, the innocent old woman. Sere swung her Triton behind the old station. The phone booth had been so covered in graffiti that it was hard to imagine the receiver could be lifted from the cradle without first being cut loose from the spray paint. “Where did you find these places?”
She kept the Triton running while she reached over from the bike to the pay phone. Though there wasn’t a dial tone, she pressed the buttons Joe had written down.
“Hello.” The male voice on the other end had no emotion.
“Joe’s dead.” She didn’t know what else to say. Though Joe had given instructions on how to reach out, he hadn’t left some secret password to prove she was worthy of the meeting.
“Take the streetcar to City Park. Find the old girl scout camp by the lake. He’ll meet you at dusk.” A quick dial tone followed by silence indicated the conversation had ended.
She looked up into the brightening sky. “That should give me just enough time to rally the troops.”
Sere pulled up to the offices of Montgomery Fisher, CPA and double parked in front of the door. “I won’t be long,” she said to her snakes.
The little slithery dudes rolled around in the saddlebags so fast the gator skin looked about to come alive. Madeline kept her property so clean the reptiles probably hadn’t even found a single field mouse to chase.
“I’m sorry you guys were bored in that garage. I promise, the next place I stop I’ll find you something to eat.” Sere didn’t bother taking off her shotgun. Hiding her activities from Linda had gone on long enough. If the old woman hadn’t yet figured out that CPA stood as much for Ceaseless Poltergeist Annihilators as it did for Certified Public Accountants, that wasn’t Sere’s problem.
She pushed open the door. “Is he in?”
The haggard receptionist slid an envelope across her desk to Sere. “This is not how a professional business is run: people who barge in here without appointments, a worker who shows up when she darn well pleases, and an owner who seems to think his receptionist can juggle all of the requests like a circus freak. I’m going to be asking for a raise if this keeps up.”
Sere opened the flap and pulled out the hastily written page.
Meet us at the warehouse. You know which one. The gang’s all here, including a mad guard dog. We’re just waiting for you.
Bart
Sere stashed the note in her pants pocket. “Thanks, Linda.”
The exasperated woman held up a half dozen notes. “And what am I supposed to do about these requests?”
“I’ll see that Mr. Fisher is in the office bright and early tomorrow.”
“You’d better.”
Sere stepped out of the office, feeling like a dental patient who’d just learned that she needed a root canal. The combination of meeting place and the term mad guard dog had to indicate that Fisher had again apprehended the professor’s old lab assistant Thomas. Having been forced to swallow a shotgun pellet, the man was likely more demonically insane than ever, but it wasn’t the little nemesis that worried her. The gang had to mean Kendell and her contingent. Bart and Fisher were always content with letting Sere take the lead. The people who’d raised her in hell, however, still viewed her as a child who needed protecting.
“I don’t have time for interpersonal politics.” She kicked the motorcycle engine over and headed through the city streets toward the warehouse along the Industrial Canal.
Sere pulled between Fisher’s parked Jeep and Bart’s Ducati. She reached in her saddlebags and let her snakes coil up her arms for moral support. “Once we get inside, don’t go slithering too far away. I may need you to help me make an impression and maybe even give some moral support.”
As she marched in the front door, everyone turned toward her. Her stomach quivered at seeing Bart’s smile, which extended from his kissable lips to the lines beside his soulful brown eyes.
“Glad to see you made it,” he said.
Before her emotions got the better of her and she said something in front of the others that she might regret, her attention turned to the middle of the crowd. Thomas lay thrashing on the floor like a wild animal caught in a snare. Ropes were tied around his arms and legs. His eyes had turned completely red. Drool ran from the sides of his mouth.
“What do you want from me now?” he growled.
She wasn’t sure. Instead of responding to him, she turned to Fisher. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad we’re not worrying about him causing mischief again, but what were you thinking?”
The CPA superhero sidekick in his seersucker suit pulled on the leash as if trying to get the mad dog to heel. “You told me to take charge while you were away. After I talked to Edie, I figured you’d want to get everyone together. This seemed to be the most secluded place to meet, but I found demon boy camped out in the office.”
Bart must have caught her look of concern. “Fisher called from a burner phone.”
Fisher smiled at her look of confusion. “I’ve got a stash of them at the office. Not all of my clients are on the up-and-up. It makes them feel better if they know our conversations are confidential.”
“In case I haven’t mentioned it lately,” she said, “I’m damn glad you agreed to be my
partner in the city.”
He held up the leash. “This was just my most recent activity. Before capturing Thomas, I tracked down every bank transaction within a ten-mile radius of Bart’s bar. Those demons are getting clever. I didn’t find a single illegal transaction.”
Sere shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We know three of them snuck past us and found their way to New Orleans.”
Fisher shook his head. “Oh, I found the little buggers, even though the person in charge did a fine job of covering their tracks. Not many people can make money appear out of thin air. There’s always a corresponding bank account somewhere that records the debit—or in this case, thousands of accounts losing miniscule interest payments.”
Once again, Sere was amazed at Fisher’s financial forensic abilities. “What did you find?”
“The money came from Marjory Laroque. She’s the only one powerful enough to manipulate that many bank accounts. The cash was distributed to moneylending shops from Jackson’s Bluff to New Orleans like a trail of cheese for the rats to follow. My guess is she didn’t know where the demons would surface, so she spread a wide financial net. I’ve been tracking when and where the money’s been collected. Between their bar stops and unexplained delay outside the city, they’ve only been in New Orleans for six hours.”
Sere felt hope building in her chest. If Marjory had only had her new toy for a few hours, it was unlikely she’d managed the soul transfer. Such things took time, and impetuousness was never an attribute of the bank president.
No one had mentioned Joe. Sere assumed Bart figured she would want to break the bad news herself. The others deserved to hear it from someone he loved. “Their delay was to booby-trap Joe’s cabin.” She wrapped her snakes over her shoulders for support. “I haven’t been around real people enough to know how to say this, and it’s not like it was something you’d taught me to deal with growing up. So here it is: Joe’s dead.”
The soul-sucking silence in the warehouse made Sere wish she’d chosen other words, though she couldn’t imagine what they would have been. In slow motion, Kendell put her hand to her mouth. “How?”
“He was saving me. Instead of calling out for my help, he lay quietly dying so I wouldn’t rush into an ambush. By the time Bart and I got to him, he only had minutes left to live.”
Bart put his arm around Sere’s waist. Though she knew she should reject his compassion, her knees went wobbly as she leaned against his side.
“There wasn’t anything we could have done even if we’d gotten there earlier,” he said. “Joe’s injuries were too severe. He only hung on long enough to say goodbye.”
Sere appreciated Bart’s support, but showing weakness wasn’t going to help her remain in charge of the group. She straightened up and took a half step out of his embrace. “So we’re down our main military strategist, and we know our enemy has possession of the three demons. What other issues are we dealing with?”
Kendell crossed her arms over her stomach as if she were about to be sick. “We can’t find Sanguine. I’ve checked every source I have, short of reopening the interdimensional gates we formed to keep an eye on Baron Malveaux. She should have responded. Without talking to her first, I don’t dare try to close the gate to hell like you asked.”
Sere wondered why she had to be the one to disclose all of the bad news. “I talked with her.” Again, the stunned silence pulled at Sere’s soul. “The demons conducted an experiment on me. The details aren’t important at the moment.” From the stern look on Polly’s face, Sere knew that not everyone shared that assessment. “My consciousness traveled back along the power line to hell or, more specifically, the devil’s old interdimensional iron cabinet. Someone in hell abducted Sanguine and is holding her prisoner there. She believes the doppelgängers are able to escape because she isn’t exactly in hell, but she’s still close enough to power up the gate. It’s as if our hidden foe is using her to prop the door open.”
Polly put her hands behind her back and started pacing the way the professor did when working out a problem. “Sounds like we have a lot to discuss with the professor.”
“It’ll have to wait,” Sere said. “Sanguine is okay for the moment. They’re not going to hurt her, and it turns out the demons aren’t out to kill me. They need us both. She’s one end of the power connection, and I’m like the electrical cord into life. The demon explained that their survival in this realm is based on the residual energy from hell that comes off me.”
Polly nodded as she paced. “Then the most obvious answer to ending them would be to throw the switch, but that would also end your existence. Other than that, we could send you back to hell, but that might not even be possible now that you have Bart’s blood in you.”
“Polly Urethane,” Kendell yelled, “don’t even talk like those things are options.”
Polly stopped walking. “Of course they’re not options, but a scientist has to consider everything, even if it isn’t reasonable. I’m just trying to see our situation from the demons’ perspective.”
“Stop it, both of you.” Sere said. “This isn’t the time. The Laroque family has three demons, and from what I’ve seen, I believe one of them is a Laroque doppelgänger. I’ve concluded they want to transfer the soul of the real person into the immortal demon body.” She pointed at Thomas, who had calmed down at hearing the new information. “We already know what happens when a real and a doppelgänger share the same human body.”
Fisher smirked. “Possession doesn’t always result in the demon side taking charge.”
“Fair point,” Sere said. “But with both you and Thomas, we’re talking about two sides of the same being struggling for control within human bodies. A member of the Laroque dynasty might embrace having evil at their beck and call, especially if it meant living forever.”
Polly was pacing again. “Such a union might also be an attempt at bypassing the interdimensional power cord that keeps you going, or rather, creating a personal connection to hell. Basically, they’re cutting our umbilical cord.”
Kendell shook her head in apparent disbelief. “I will never understand why our family is so intent on creating a devil.”
Myles wrapped his arm around Kendell’s waist. The show of affection and support that came so naturally to the couple after two decades together nearly brought tears to Sere’s eyes. Bart had a similar ease with taking command of her emotions, but the fear of becoming reliant on his support kept making her pull away. Kendell, however, didn’t show the slightest bit of the submission that Sere had dreaded as she accepted Myles’s love and support.
I’ve got so much to learn about relationships, Sere thought.
“The question,” Myles said, “is how do we stop them? And if we can’t, how do we rid the world of another megalomaniac intent on ruling over every human being? So far, our exorcisms have relied on voodoo, and if we’re going to keep the loas of the dead out of the picture, we can’t approach their religion.”
Sere hunched down and studied Thomas, who mentally hovered between sane and demonic. “While you all debate the inner workings of paranormal spirituality, I’d rather focus on the problem directly in front of us. Bart, do you still have the med kit Joe gave you?”
“Of course. It’s in the storage bag on my Ducati. Why?”
She looked up at Polly. “During the demon’s experiment, they forced me to swallow a shotgun pellet. By coiling up the bandage, we were able to draw it out from my gut. Maybe we could do the same thing for Thomas.”
“Won’t work,” Polly said. “Even using the bandage as a magnet requires a connection to a real. Since Thomas isn’t a doppelgänger, there’s no one to connect him to.”
“What if I wrap the cloth around my arm?” Sere asked. “Since I don’t need Jennifer’s healing power, I won’t absorb the energy. I can be a paranormal electromagnet.”
Polly shrugged. “I suppose it’s worth a try. Worst case is nothing will happen. What do you hope to accomplish?”
Sere turne
d back to Thomas. “He’s worse off with the pellet in him. You said it would magnify whatever power was in charge. Maybe the pellet will do more than that. It’s hell based, as is his demonic possession.”
“I think I see where you’re going,” Bart said. “If the demon is holding onto the pellet, it might get pulled out as well.” He headed out to the motorcycles at a slow jog.
Polly looked over her shoulder at the retreating muscular bartender. “That man is smarter than he looks. And he looks damn fine.”
Polly laid the bandage over Sere’s palm then wove it up her arm like a trainer preparing a boxer for a fight. “I hate to be the voice of optimism, but assuming this does work, it might be a good idea to have a plan for the demonic spirit. If you’re correct about Thomas’s demon being locked onto that pellet, he’ll be searching for another host once he’s out of that body. You’re a doppelgänger, so it’s unlikely it’ll be coming after you.”
Sere hadn’t considered that she might be putting Jennifer in danger. “What do you have in mind?”
Polly turned to Kendell. “You wouldn’t happen to have any spirit jars left in the VW, would you?”
“Of course. I keep a couple on hand at all times.”
Sere stared at Kendell. “You just carry voodoo jars around like an old woman with hand sanitizer in her purse?”
“Since I’m dealing with the voodoo equivalent of a little girl who keeps scraping her knees, it seems like a good idea.” Kendell headed toward the door without waiting for a response.
Sere wondered if the woman would ever see her as a grown-up rather than thinking of her as a child who kept getting into trouble.
Polly connected the power line to the bandage around Sere’s hand. “It would be best if you didn’t get too close to Jennifer during this exorcism.”