I must have looked confused.
He swirled his hand in the air, his long claws sparkling in the lamplight. “The Watchers. The record keepers of God’s final judgment. An aberration of humanity.” He shrugged and turned away to pull several books from the shelves until his arms were laden with texts. Texts that implied my answers were better wrestled from pages than wasting his time. Texts I wasn’t going to read. I didn’t have the time, and to open one without direction would indebt me to the demon. I had enough indebtedness.
In truth, Naberius wouldn’t let me near his most treasured delicate parchments.
“Do they possess abilities beyond their stewardship and immortality?” I asked.
“They are not immortal. Hardly longer in lifespan than…” Naberius glanced over his shoulder and ran his gaze over me.
Okay, point taken. “But in order to contribute to a final judgment, they’d have to live long enough to evaluate generations of mankind.”
He plopped the manuscripts down on a massive granite slab in the nexus of the shelving aisles. The sound reverberated throughout the endless archives, the swirl of dust momentarily changing the torchlight from golden to a brown haze.
“So would there be value to the Consortium in binding demons to kill the Irin? Or enslavement of the Irin by compulsion?” I asked, risking his irritation.
There went the swirls of ice in the eyes again. “Irin, no. They are immune to even demon compulsion. But—” He seemed lost in thought for a moment.
“Before they turn?”
“Yes. No.” The first word came out in a hiss, and the demon plucked the bottommost book and positioned it perilously on top of the stack as his blue-sheened claws turned the vellum pages. “No compulsion of the young. But their deaths…Irin deaths are recorded.”
Really?
“We do not interfere. To impede their evolution delivers a mark of judgment.”
Evidently, a black mark. “Would a bound demon be immune from this repercussion?”
His eyes flickered back to meet mine. “Neither demon, nor clan—both would suffer.”
“And the Irin’s blood?” I considered the bodies I’d found. Few had been Irin. The specific scents had distinguished two separate groups of dead youth, but the Consortium had spared neither, bleeding them both dry. “Does their blood provide some transference of power? Would it provide longevity to others?”
Naberius’s mouth twitched at the corner; his precisely manicured black goatee moved just a fraction. “Develop a bloodlust, child?”
“Uh, no.” I waited, but Naberius didn’t share the answer to my question. “If the Irin are reduced in numbers…”
“Their collective power is finite. Like magic.” He snapped the words, his impatience indicating that I should already know this information. “What is available to the whole is now available to the few.”
Like magic? “Does that work for the wizards?” At his intense look, I hastily reworded. “The sorcerers, as we destroy them, do those remaining ones become stronger? That isn’t the case with demons.”
“We are unique.” His voice and the arched angle of his brow bones reflected his detection of an insult, though a minor one. “The human mutation of magic was an aberration. A vestige of the Nephilims’ greed, the Fallen granting power where it did not belong. The Messengers eradicated their presence, but as with any bad seed, they continue.”
“It’s a big incentive for the Consortium to pluck us off to do their dirty work.” He gave a quick nod, and I continued. “They don’t take the hit, and we bear the mark. What overall gain would they get through reduction of the Irin?”
Naberius considered the question, and I expected him to blow me off again. He turned back to restack his books and moved farther away, in essence dismissing me. Courtesy demanded I wait until he was gone before I left, so I waited.
He spun back around. A sudden flare of the torches illuminated the several-yard stretch between us. “Sorcerers do not have the longevity to benefit from this plan—unless they change their circumstances or align themselves with others of greater power. Seek their partner in the shadows.”
With that he floated farther down the aisle and out of my sight.
I hadn’t had an opportunity to delve further into the “aberrations of humanity” topic. However, Naberius’s words implied the same thing Decibel had told me. The immortals evolved from a random genetic appearance in the human strains. So how did Sol, as an Irin, produce an Irin offspring? Because I had no doubt Jez was his biological child. I was also fairly certain he’d never told her. Why, I couldn’t determine.
I traced my path back to Shalim’s courtyard.
A finite pool of magic. Interesting.
Before my last several missions, Shalim said he had felt a ripple in the underworld. I’d assumed he had waxed poetic. Now I was certain he’d literally felt the vibration caused by the deaths of the Irin youths. He had sensed the power shift in the magical energy and currents across the earth. I suspected he had felt the death of the others as well, though I still had to pinpoint their origins.
So now I could add powerful beings in the shadows to my ever-growing list.
Who had the longevity and power to appeal to the Consortium’s greed? More importantly, what would such a being gain from such a step-down partnership?
I had a bad feeling I didn’t carry a big enough stick to poke in the shadows and survive.
***
Motorcycles work well for surveillance of cars, maybe even buses, but they lack discretion in following people on foot. Frankly, most people would notice a bike coming back for a second look, never mind a third or fourth.
I watched Anne Kidd leave the hospital on foot. If I left my bike and she picked up a ride a few blocks from here or a bus or cab, I’d have to come back to try another time. There had been no listing for her in the phone directory, and there were no driver records for her at the DMV. I’d run several queries against some local databases myself.
All had come up empty.
So either she had covered her tracks or she was too new to the area to leave a footprint. I parked the bike and headed into the hospital.
The third wave of employees arriving for a three-to-eleven shift filled the sidewalk and main entrance. I meandered through them and headed for administration and billing. One young guy was rummaging in a backpack, textbooks piled beside him, a small trolley of incoming interoffice and postal mail ignored to the side.
Not waiting for his attention, I leaned against the counter and spoke right up. “I wonder if I could check on a billing arrangement. I’d like confirm that it has cleared.”
He stopped pulling books from the backpack, shrugged, and headed for a monitor and keyboard on the other side of the counter from me. His hospital ID dangled from the lanyard around his neck. His name, Brian Swope, and an unflattering picture ate up most of the real estate on the card.
“What’s the name?”
“Samuel Jessup.” I leaned across the counter to view the screen. As Brian worked through the Js, I pointed to the name and touched the monitor. The small charge I let loose caused the screen to flash out and Brian to swear in disgust.
“This equipment is older than dirt.” He jiggled the monitor and thwapped the Enter key. With a frustrated exhale, he looked at me and then back around the room for anyone else. “The system must have locked out this access. I’ll need to check on another terminal. I’ll be right back. You need to stay behind the counter.”
Okay, unauthorized personnel aren’t supposed to look at the patient info. I nodded and leaned my elbows on the counter—a man with all the time in the world.
He disappeared to the back room, his recycled-tire sandals flapping a mean rhythm on the vinyl floor. I leaned over the counter, swiveled the monitor toward me, and picked up the keyboard. A brief touch and the screen returned, bright and operational.
Seemed like magic, but I’d reconnected the loose cable at the back of the monitor that I’d pulled
during my electrical charge. I skimmed my fingers across the keyboard using my reluctant helper’s login and searched for the human resources system database. Several layers deep, I found Anne Kidd’s home address, 359 Eucalyptus Way, oddly not within walking distance. So where had the RN headed off to?
The firm snap of the clerk’s sandals coincided with my turning the monitor back to his side and a jiggle of the cable again. His squinting eyes reflected his suspicion that I’d have taken liberties while he was gone. Yet the screen appeared black and in its same helpless state. The clerk did tap the keyboard again, just to check. It didn’t erase the scowl on his face.
“Any luck?” My innocent inquiry didn’t erase his suspicion either.
“The Jessup payment is registered but won’t clear the billing system until after midnight tonight. You’d have to call tomorrow to confirm.” In other words, you’re done; now leave.
“Okay, thanks.” I smiled and headed back the way I came, exiting onto the street near my bike. The afternoon heat had yet to dissipate. The warmth floated over the asphalt around my legs in an open oven of heat. Not even walking created enough of a breeze to cool off.
I swung my leg over my bike as my phone vibrated in my pocket. A text from Chaz.
Found sorcerer-portal location.
First one since the other night, but we’d racked up a number in the last few weeks. Where the hell was he? I made a mental note to add tracking him down to my list.
The increase of sightings overall wasn’t good and made it hard for me to manage to be everywhere at once.
Demons had always been able to pick up the energy signatures from unnatural portals, since magic and energy were a deep part of their origins and nature. Follow-through to check out the occurrences had become a riskier proposition given the two clan members who had been lost to separate summons. Hence my increased involvement. Resistant to spells against demons as well as to mind control, I made the ideal guinea pig from Shalim’s standpoint, but I couldn’t cover every instance.
The sorcerers had picked up their pace. Chaz’s message flagging the tenth sighting Shalim’s clan had made this month. I hadn’t worked this many in the several months prior to the incident with Samuel at the warehouse.
Could be that we just hadn’t been diligent enough, but my gut told me it had more to do with the fiasco with Samuel. There was an end game here, and we didn’t know what it was yet. Something had jammed up the works, and I would bet souls that the sorcerers were ramping up for more than just to even the score.
My phone vibrated again.
Confirmation sighting: interchange of Belmont and Eucalyptus.
Another bad coincidence.
CHAPTER 10
I trolled along Belmont. The bike’s engine rumbled at a low speed, not enough to garner attention. The houses were old and small, though well kept. It was still midafternoon, but well-used cars, to match the houses, lined the street. Scattered compact energy-conscious vehicles dotted the driveways and carports.
Chaz’s message had given only the street intersection. My guess was the Consortium planned to meet or home in on a target.
I pulled out the phone and texted back. Exit point?
Scout followed from fault line. Lost within five blocks. Signature picked up at intersection.
Scout. A meeting here seemed far-fetched. This neighborhood was a repository for the elderly, young couples with no kids, and perhaps some singles.
From my experience, the Consortium preferred large, isolated locales. The middle of the afternoon in broad daylight didn’t really fit either.
That left a target. A scout sent by the Consortium to locate another source for what? Blood? This didn’t follow the homeless boys’ abduction pattern along the tracks. Maybe the pattern had changed again, or maybe the target was an Irin in the queue, like Stan Markowski and Ayden Marlow. Although I didn’t remember any listing in this neighbor in Decibel’s research.
How Chaz had intersected a scout’s exit from a fault line left me with a bad feeling as well, causing the phantom cramp of discomfort to tweak between my shoulder blades. The demon sightings I had worked correlated to portals ripped open by sorcerers, emitting strange pulses in energy. The fault lines would reflect no surge, and there were too many exits to cover. It wasn’t as if Chaz could just sit at one gate out of hundreds and wait. So how had he narrowed in on this one?
I parked my bike behind an Escalade, the only shiny new SUV on the block, and took some time removing my helmet to check for the address on the sheet from my pocket. Anne Kidd’s house was three houses up on the right.
Where did she fit into this picture?
I locked up the helmet and headed away from Anne’s house. One block down, I hit the alley that ran behind the houses. Shalim’s crew would cover the street from dark recesses underground. The late-afternoon sun would keep them out of play for another couple of hours.
Unfortunately, the Consortium’s scout could be anyone from the mailman to the little old lady walking her dog. But the scout would have the emotional empathy of a dishrag. Their body, a carcass long since dead to the world, received programming for a specific goal and function. If this one canvassed for an individual, it would check out each house until completing its programmed goal. Initial detection finished, the scout would return to transmit the location or proceed with extermination.
Playing both ends against the middle was something I wanted to do, but I wasn’t reconciled to throwing Anne Kidd to the wolves, be it to the Consortium or a demon clan.
I kept to the alley’s shaded areas and counted the houses until I’d reached the back of her house. A seven-foot-high rickety wooden fence warded off all the homes. Anne’s included one battered aluminum trashcan. Her garage door resisted my efforts and the gate door in her fence had no give either, both locked. Large blue recycle bins on wheels dotted the street.
I pulled big blue closer to the fence and used it to reach the top and work my way onto the limb of a prickly tree too close to the fence for effective security. From the tree, I could hear music from within the house and see a wall of windows that framed a large family room and conjoined kitchen.
I had her window half open when her doorbell rang and knew I’d run out of time.
Anne had one hand on the open door when I spun her backward, away from the outstretched hand of the scout. Holding a rain boot with a fire helmet on his head, the animated corpse was masquerading as a thirty-year-old man collecting for the fireman’s fund.
She yelped in surprise and struggled against me as I pulled her to the floor. My timing wasn’t fast enough.
The scout’s face mirrored determination as he pushed into the house and skimmed his hand down Anne’s bare arm. She gasped in pain and watched a burst of flame launch from his fingers and smolder. I shoved her farther behind me.
Not programmed for me, the scout grabbed me anyway in his attempt to get to Anne. I felt the pain, but the injury slid off me as I grabbed the obsidian blade from the back of my belt and aimed for what should have been his heart.
No blood and no contact. My effort would have been more effective if he’d been alive, but the human heart was gone. The one the Consortium programmed didn’t beat; it merely provided a battery. I needed to remove the source without damaging it.
He kept a hold on my arm while we circled. He inched toward Anne, who had scooted backward on her elbows, away from both of us.
It took most of my strength to hold him back. Not a matter of muscle, more an undeniable attraction. He wanted at her, and his pull toward Anne was close to an immovable force. I could ignite him, but I really didn’t want that option. I needed him incapacitated and whole with a body I could use to lure the Consortium and the demons away from Anne Kidd. Because I had finally figured out what she was. The scent of chocolate and spice released with her terror and clicked the puzzle pieces into place.
The scout and I struggled. He snarled and opened his mouth wider than humanly possible for a live person
with good facial structure. That was probably what clued in Anne as to which side she should choose in this—aside from the flame-from-his-finger trick.
I shifted to slide a leg between the scout’s and pressed hard to knock him off center. She beaned him across the back of his skull with a square-based copper lamp. The hit didn’t take him out, but it did throw him off.
Unfortunately, he slid down her leg on the way to the floor. She screamed at the heat and backed away. I punched my hand through the hole my knife had punctured in his chest, gripped the source of the scout’s power, and pulled.
The pain shifted from my fingers to my elbow joint and flared into my shoulder as I held the radiant, flaming ball of red energy. No solid matter, just a twisted, evil energized battery, constructed by the Consortium to keep their “workers” mobile and focused. Without a soul, without a heart, the scouts were empty husks.
I concentrated and directed a cold blue-and-white flame that swirled, an exotic candy cane, to encase the source. Squeezing it bit by bit, I compressed the energy until, with a final fizzle of steam, the flame imploded. Plasma and energy diffused in tendrils of mist around the corpse. A reek of day-old seafood lingered in the air, but the body was still.
Anne had backed away during my process. While she may have been logistically on my side for the battle, the new turn of events had caused her to reconsider. The lamp neck still fisted tight in her hands, her gaze moved between me and the cordless phone on the counter a few steps away. I had been designated a danger to be reckoned with.
Fair. I considered her equally dangerous.
I remained squatting next to the corpse in an attempt not to raise her anxiety level. “I need to get him away from here.”
She grabbed the phone and pointed the lamp at me. “You just stay right where you are. We’ll let the police settle this.”
“Sorry, Anne, I just can’t do that.” I beckoned the phone from her grip to my hand and tucked it in my jacket pocket.
She gasped but recovered enough to slide backward and shift the lamp from hand to hand like a small sword. “Stay away.”
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