Daemon

by Doug Dandridge

  A red thing was moving toward him. The window shattered, sending glass in his direction. He could feel her terror in the set of her eyes. Terror not just for her, but for her children as well. She was a good momma, he thought. She had cared for the safety of her babies before herself. The view switched to those children, crouching at the entrance to the hall, their eyes and mouths wide with fear. Something lifted the children from the floor and they disappeared from view. The view switch back to the redness reaching for him, transparent to his gaze. An energy, he thought. Not solid. The energy looked familiar to her sight, though he didn’t know why. Then the room spun and he was lifted up and twirled as in a tornado. The last thought was wondering if the guilt of something she had done had caught up with her. And then the vision went black, and Jude came to himself, shivering from the sharing of the last moments of life with the victim. And her death.

  I wonder what she was so guilty about, he thought, looking at the head.

  “I need to do a soul reading,” he called out, keeping everyone else away for the moment. He searched for the soul in the room, and was having trouble connecting with it. Maybe it’s the drink, he thought. It might be numbing my mind, so let’s try something else.

  Jude reached down to the floor and smeared some of the red liquid onto the fingers of both hands. He then touched the fingers to the temples of the head, the largest piece of body still around, and started to say the words, concentrating on communing with the soul that would stay in the area of the death for at least a day or so. Though in a heinous killing like this it might stay for decades, if not centuries, haunting the area as it relived its death over and over again. He kept concentrating and saying the words, but nothing came to him.

  That's impossible, he thought, trying to will it to happen. Nothing came, nothing was there. But there had to be something there, unless something else had taken the soul with it from this area.

  Jude released the connection, then looked around the room, using his second sight to search for energy residuals. He could pick out the blue of the building soul, as expected. It was a strong soul, befitting a building in this section of town, and Jude had to admire the work that went into constructing it, wondering where the initial kernel came from, human or animal. There were still some wisps of whatever the red energy was, though it was fading as he watched. He concentrated on it for a moment, taking a reading on the resonance and frequencies, committing those to memory. It wasn’t like anything he had ever seen. It had some resemblance to the demonic, but without the taint of evil or darkness which he was used to seeing in that energy. How can that be? he thought, flipping a wisp of the power over in his mind. It invaded and apartment and killed a woman, in a horrible manner. And it apparently ate her soul. It must be totally demonic, mustn’t it?

  The only other explanation would be a sending of an elemental force. The sending itself would not have to be demonic or evil, though most senders who attempted such would be by default. But the energy did not have the taste of elemental. In fact, it didn’t have the taste of anything from Earth or any of the spiritual realms that contacted it. How is that possible? Everything we see is either from Earth or someplace that connects to it. A new realm we haven’t heard about? That of course was possible. But if so it opened up a number of horrible possibilities.

  Jude let go of the energy and looked for the wisps of soul stuff. Even if the kernel of the soul was not in this room there should be wisps of energy connecting to it. But where were they? Jude looked, increasing his concentration and coming up with nothing at all. And that was only possible if something had not only swallowed the soul and taken it with it, but had captured all the residual energy like a vacuum. Which meant…

  Jude broke the spell, blinking his eyes several times as the physical world superimposed itself over the spiritual again. He pulled the notebook from his jacket pocket, pulled the pen from it, starting to jot down his impressions.

  “What did you get?” asked Montoya, coming up to his partner once it was obvious that he was no longer in trance state.

  “There’s no soul in residence,” said Jude, continuing to write his notes.

  “But that means?”

  “Yeah,” said Jude, nodding his head and looking at his partner. “We have a soul eater. I’m just not sure what it is, but I do have that much.”

  “Shit,” said Montoya, making the sign of the hand as he said a quick prayer. Jude knew his partner was a staunch church goer, one reason he let Jude handle the magic part of the job. To him having his soul eaten before it got to paradise would be the most horrible thing possible.

  “I guess I need to talk to the children,” said Jude with a frown, looking around the room. “Hey,” he said to one of the forensics men who was back in the room. “Where are you keeping the kids?”

  “They’re down the hall,” said the man with a nod of his head. “Lady from social services is with them.”

  “Thanks,” said Jude, walking down the hall while listening for someone. He went past the first room, the light off and the door wide open. The next door was slightly ajar, with a dim light. He knocked gently and pushed it open, to see the two young children sitting on a bed, a woman with short cut blond hair facing them and talking in a gentle voice. She turned around at the knock and Jude felt his breath catch in his chest.

  She looks just like Laura, he thought, his first impression. She had the same pert nose, the same eyes, deep blue that seemed to contain the universe. Her hair was the same color and cut. Jude realized that he was standing there staring at her, but wasn’t able to move.

  “Can I help you?” she said in a voice that was maybe half an octave higher than his late wife’s, but close enough to make his spine shiver. He shook his head and closed his mouth, swallowing and taking a moment to calm himself while she looked at him with those gorgeous orbs.

  “I’m Detective Lieutenant Jude Parkinson,” he said with a stutter. He wiped his face with a hand, then wiped the hand on his pants before holding it out.

  “A magic user,” said the woman with a hint of distaste in her voice, looking at the hand. She finally took it and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I guess you can’t be too bad, if you’re only using it to track down violent criminals. And you aren’t responsible for what happens to them.”

  A church woman and a bleeding heart liberal, thought Jude, though he couldn’t generate too many negative emotions behind those words. Laura had been both of those as well, and he had loved her despite it. Or because of it?

  “And you are?” he asked when it became obvious the woman wasn’t going to offer anything.

  “Sarah,” she said, giving him a short tight smile. “Sarah Stranger. I’m a social worker with the city.”

  “How are the children?” asked Jude, glancing at the small faces that looked wide eyed up into his.

  “How would you think they were?” answered the woman, putting a hand on the shoulder of the girl. The child sniffled a bit, and a tear ran down her eye, but she showed as brave a face as she could.

  “Could I talk with them?” said Jude, not looking forward to bringing more darkness to their world, but wanting to get on with it.

  “Can it wait?” she asked, looking at the children and wiping a tear from the boy’s face with a handkerchief. “I would prefer to take them to the church shelter and get them bedded down tonight.”

  Jude motioned for the woman to follow him out into the hall. She whispered some words to the girl, stood up, and followed the Detective. She shut the door gently behind her and turned to face the policeman.

  “Look,” he said, keeping his voice low. “We didn’t get all the information we wanted from the mom. Something ate her soul after it killed her, and there’s nothing to talk to. Those kids might be the only source we have.”

  “What about the building soul?” asked the woman, her expression showing that she didn’t really like the concept of the animating force of buildings.

  She is a member of the church, he thought
, wondering how to phrase things so she wouldn't be offended. That seemed very important to him because of the attraction he felt for her. Or the attraction I feel for a dead woman, he thought.

  "The building soul has a memory," said Jude, looking into her eyes just for the thrill that brought him. "It's limited, and agrees to the letter with what the woman saw."

  "When you looked into her eyes?" said the woman, that same expression of distaste on her face.

  "I realize you may not like magic, Ms. Stranger," he said, looking away from her face and at the floor. "Remember, we would not solve half the murders we do now without using it. I have a talent, and I use it to probe the minds of the victims, so that we might avenge them. And I pay a price."

  The woman put her hand on Jude's arm. His eyes moved back to her face, which now had a slight smile.

  "I mean no disrespect, Detective," she said, looking him in the eyes. "I am a follower of the faith, and we are not allowed to use any magic. I actually violate some of the proscriptions so I can function in this city. And I personally think your form of magic is one of the least damaging."

  "When can I talk to the children?" Jude asked again. "I promise not to involve them in again kind of magical reading. Just a few questions that might shed some light on what happened."

  "How about tomorrow morning," she said, looking back at the closed door. "I'm going to take them to the shelter and get them bedded down. And I would like to be there when you talk to them."

  Jude thought for a moment. He knew he would be up for another two or three hours. Going back to the station and filling out his paperwork. He needed some sleep, and knew that the end of that sleep would bring a massive hangover.

  "How about late morning?" he finally said, watching her face. "And you can be there, if you agree to have lunch with me afterward."

  "I'm not sure," she said in a suspicious voice.

  "What could be safer than to be in a public place with a police detective?" asked Jude, smiling. "And I know you have to eat like the rest of us."

  "Why not," said Sarah after a moment’s hesitation, nodding her head.

  "Then it's a date," said Jude, giving the woman a wide smile.

  "I don't drink, though," said Sarah, sniffing the air. "I suggest that you don't while you’re with me, either."

  The social worker turned and opened the door, while Jude walked back to the living room. Don't drink while around her, he thought, knowing that she had smelled the alcohol on him. He was used to having a stiff drink when he woke up in the morning. It was something he would have to forgo this coming morning, if he wanted to make the right impression. And he definitely wanted to make that impression.

  On the way back down Montoya gave Jude a quizzical look.

  “What?” said Jude, glancing at his partner.

  “Your mood seems to have improved a bit,” said the Sergeant with a smile. “I guess there's nothing like a bloody murder to make a homicide detective feel better.”

  “It has nothing to do with the killing,” said Jude, shaking his head. “Though something about the killing really bothers me.”

  “You mean besides the fact that her soul was devoured by some unknown demonic creature that penetrated a class one security system like it wasn't there.”

  “Not really demonic,” said Jude, shaking his head. “More daemonic. A force of nature. But that isn't the part that bothers me. What really bothers me is that someone sent such a powerful killer after somebody who couldn't be that important. You got the notes from the other detectives, right. What did she do for Daemon Corp?”

  “They said she was an energy production technician,” said Montoya, a look of distaste on his face.

  “So she killed people for a living, so their energy could be harvested for the greater good,” said Jude, shrugging his shoulders. “Not a job that I would want, but work someone had to do.”

  Montoya shot Jude a glance that was transparent of his negative feelings.

  “I know that you might not think it a necessary job,” said Jude, gesturing with open hands. “But what would we do without this energy. Let the Shadows overrun us.”

  “Damned magic and its side effects got us into this mess in the first place,” said Montoya with a raised eyebrow. “Though I don't expect a magic user to see that.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Jude, his mind going for a moment along his partner's train of thought. “Why would someone want to kill a respected employee of the largest corporation in the world?”

  “Maybe the relatives or friends of someone she harvested,” said Montoya. “Someone who might hold a grudge.”

  “I would think they would hold more of a grudge toward the judge who sentenced those people,” said Jude, looking up at the dial on the elevator and noting that they were almost to the lobby floor. “But that's the only motive I can think of too.”

  The door opened and the men stepped out into the lobby. A couple of uniformed men raised their billies in salute as they walked from the lobby and headed out to the street. Jude was relieved to see that Murphy was down the street, talking with the official PR woman of the department, getting the canned story of the evening. He looked toward the window high up the building, switching his sight, noting the residuals of some energy, the same he had seen in the apartment. Whatever it was had come in through the night. Someone on the street must have seen it.

  “We got some statements from some of the street people,” said a uniformed Sergeant, walking up as if he had read Jude's mind.

  “So what did they see?”

  “Some of them saw nothing,” said the Sergeant, shrugging. “Whether you believe that or not. A couple made statements that some kind of red energy ran out of the apartment and turned into a fucking tornado. It tore down the street and avoided a couple of street people that got in the way.

  “Doesn't sound demonic to me either,” said Montoya, looking over at Jude. “A demon would have torn through the innocent just for evil's sake.”

  Jude adjusted his second sight for a moment, scanning in on the energy resonance he had picked up in Sondra Mangonel's apartment. He hadn't found a soul, but the energy residue of the woman had been everywhere, deposited through the years in her day to day activities. Now he looked up the street, the direction to the elevated station five blocks away. The faint markings of her footprints were apparent to his vision. Even deeper were other prints, fainter but still noticeable. And deeper, deeper still until they faded away to nothingness. The tracks of a woman who had trod a familiar path day after day.

  “This was her daily route,” he said to Montoya, looking up the street to the elevated station that crossed the road. A train was pulling out of the station, its windows squares of bright light competing with the artificial day of the city. “She came this way every day, from home to work. From work to home, so she could provide for her children.”

  “Not a job I would want to do, family or not,” said Montoya, shaking his head. “To provide life while risking her immortal soul.”

  “Maybe,” said Jude, looking over to where some uniformed police were talking with some of the homeless. “Maybe, but...” His voice trailed off as he saw a red glow through the pocket of one of the scruffy looking men. A glow that looked familiar, the same resonance he had been tracking here on the street.

  Jude headed toward the grouping, Montoya mumbling something about crazy fools. The uniformed men looked around as he walked up, tensing for a moment, then relaxing as they noted that it was one of their own.

  “You have something in your pocket,” he said to the slender man, looking him in the eye. “What is it?”

  The man looked confused for a moment, then confusion turned to anger as the man bowed up. “None of your damned business,” said the man in a quavering voice, his bravado slipping and his eyes glancing at the other cops.

  “Why don't you reach in that pocket and pull out whatever is in it,” said one of the uniforms, his own hand falling to the grip of his holstered service
revolver.

  “I didn't do anything wrong,” said the man, looking over his shoulder at the woman and small children who stood behind him.

  “I just want to see what it is,” said Jude, calming his voice. “It was something she gave to you, before she went home.”

  Jude noticed that the other man, a big bruiser, was glaring at him. Jude was sure he had never seen the man before. At the same time he looked familiar. There was something murderous in that glare, like the man would attack him if not for the backup.

  “It's just a bill she gave to me,” said the man, pulling his hand out of his pocket, slowing as the Officers tensed their hands on their guns. “She was a nice lady. I don't know why anyone would have wanted to hurt her.”

  The man held out a five, enough to feed him and his family for several days. Jude reached out and touched the bill, feeling the energy, seeing the resonance of the woman.

  “What is your name?” he asked the man, switching back to normal vision.

  “Jamie Swenson,” said the man, lowering his eyes to the ground. “I don't want no trouble. I didn't come here for trouble.”

  No, thought Jude as he nodded his head. You came here to escape the Shadows that overran the place where you and your family lived. And here you are on the streets, potential victims of things just as bad.

  “He says he didn't know her,” said one of the uniforms, taking his hand off his pistol.

  “I saw her every night, every morning,” said the man, nodding.

  “And how long have you been around here?” asked Jude, looking over the man's shoulder at the frightened woman and her children.

  “About a week,” said the man, folding his hands in front of his body. “We been moving this way for the last year, after Chi-town went down.” The man looked at the ground for a moment, then back up into the eyes of the Detective. “She seemed like such a classy lady. One of the few who walked home at night. I felt desperate, asked her if she could help me to feed my children. And she helped more than I thought she would.”