She knew her dreams had passed her by. That hadn't stopped her from organizing a rowdy celebratory party at the Longbar when the chief announced my promotion. She'd generously seen my advancement as success for her own perseverance.
Now I intended to throw away not only my two years of service, but Maggie's twenty years of sacrifice as well.
I couldn't do it. I couldn't leave, at least not until I'd proved that women had the talent and the moxy to do the job. Not until I'd kicked down the door that barred women from their just due. Then I'd leave on my own terms and not because a stuffed shirt like Lenny Greene ran me away.
I splashed cold water on my face, dried it with a paper towel, and practiced my serious, unflustered expression in the mirror. I straightened my spine and tucked a stray hair behind my ear.
"Thanks, Maggie. What are you doing here so early? I thought you didn't start until eight?"
"Greene called everyone in to 'provide logistical support' to the detectives. For us clerical gals, that's code for 'fetch coffee and sandwiches.'" She gave me a friendly pat on the arm. "Gotta change into my uniform. You keep your chin up."
Maggie swept out.
After a last glance in the mirror, I strode back through the hallway to the squad room, head high. I'd messed up by arguing with Lenny Greene. But if I nailed Sleeth, I'd silence his claims about my ability forever.
Dave rocked in his chair, pencil tapping in his hand while he chatted in a low voice with one of Mack's detectives. When they saw me, their conversation stopped, and the detective sauntered out. From the sympathy on Dave's face, he'd heard about my reprimand.
I yanked my chair out and sat.
"Sorry, Nicky," he mumbled.
My fingers clattered on the typewriter keys. "Not much of a case anyway. Open and shut. Sleeth did it."
Dave dropped his eyes to his own unfinished report.
"What? You don't think Sleeth did it?"
My partner poked at his typewriter with his forefingers, finding one letter at a time. "There's no evidence. No connection to the victim, William Decker."
"You think it's coincidence he showed up there in the middle of the night to find Decker's body? He's guilty as hell. The sick bastard tasted the blood."
"No prints on the knife, and no blood on Sleeth. Mack couldn't break his story about finding Decker like that. We couldn't hold him."
I stopped typing. "The guy's an animal. You saw him. He looked… excited. He gets off on cruelty. And he's smart enough not to leave evidence."
"How do you suppose he managed it? The ME said Decker hadn't been dead more than a few minutes when we arrived. No one could have gutted the man, ripped out the heart, and still been pristine."
I sat back in my chair. "He wore coveralls. Or a surgical gown. It's probably in a garbage can outside the door."
"Mack had officers check all the garbage cans for a two-block radius. No sign of bloody clothes, and none in Sleeth's car, either."
"Then he had one or more accomplices who took them away before we got there. Or they did the slice and dice while Sleeth watched from the door. After all, he'd need help to restrain a grown man the size of Decker."
Dave lolled in his chair. "Why are you so dead set on Sleeth as the killer?"
Sleeth's pale blue eyes stared out from my memory. "He's cold. Cold like a hard frost. Cold like an ice age. If he ever had any humanity, it's dead. It froze over."
"Is that your female intuition talking? Detectives aren't allowed to use intuition." He grinned and gave me his Joe Friday imitation. "All we want are the facts, ma'am."
His words stung, not least of all because they echoed Greene's. I'd thought I could count on Dave. No matter what, partners supported partners.
"Laugh all you want. I know a killer when I see one. Sleeth's criminally insane. It's our job to get the bastard off the street."
"Our job is to get the evidence so the DA can convict. We can't lock up psychos until we have proof they've committed a crime."
"And to get that proof, someone else has to die. Doesn't that strike you as wrong?"
"Have faith, Nicky. The righteous will prevail, and the unjust will be punished." Dave pulled his report from the typewriter and checked his watch. "Shift's over. I'm going home. The watch commander wants us at the hospital at three."
"What for?"
"Photo op. The mayor's son made it, and the mayor's going to thank you personally at a press conference. You're a hero." Dave winked at me. "If you want a promotion, nothing beats having the mayor in your debt."
It was exactly the kind of politics that made me hate my job.
6
Kasker pulled his Mustang to the curb in front of the Luna Azul, sure that Seve Calderon would be in the restaurant even though the place wouldn't open for hours. The rising sun already heated the pavement, promising another scorching day.
The burly Latino door guard took note of his arrival but kept his eyes on two men walking on the opposite side of the street. When Kasker approached, the man held the door open.
Inside, a whip-thin Asian and a scruffy white dude lounged at a table by the door. They rose as he entered, hands straying toward guns holstered under jackets. Kasker strode past without acknowledging their presence.
Cool and dim, the interior was welcome refuge from the heat outside. Salsa music played from the doorway to the bar on his left. Kasker glimpsed a busboy polishing glasses.
In the dining room, vacant tables had upturned chairs stacked on their red checkered tablecloths. Orange walls were decorated with sombreros, fans, and painted gourds.
The clanging of pots and pans came from the kitchen at the back of the room. Kasker threaded between tables, making his way toward a booth by the kitchen door. The place smelled of fried food, and his stomach growled, reminding him that he needed to feed the flesh soon or suffer its distraction.
A tall, muscular Negro and an equally impressive Latino flanked Seve Calderon, a diminutive Latino who sat in the vinyl-padded booth and sipped cinnamon-laced coffee. The bodyguards scrambled up, and the Negro put himself in Kasker's path.
Kasker stopped, toe-to-toe with the man, a slow smile forming. Silent, he stared into the bodyguard's eyes, waiting, one ruthless hunter challenging another. The bodyguard flinched and stepped back.
Seve pursed his lips and waved a hand at the bodyguards. "You two, help with the deliveries out back."
Kasker waited while the hired thugs obeyed their master. When they'd gone, he slid into the booth and turned his attention to the demon clothed in the flesh of a rich, middle-aged crime lord. The muscles of the demon-inhabited flesh were stiff and the eyes hooded.
Kasker's flesh tensed in response. While he didn't fear the demon, a certain wariness was called for, and diplomacy was not his strong suit.
"I expected you sooner."
"Decker escaped."
Thin black brows pulled down, and the fine wrinkles at the corners of Seve's frigid brown eyes deepened. "No soul escapes the sabueso del infierno—unless the sabueso permits it. Or have you become weak and incompetent now that you walk among flesh-clothed souls?"
A flash of heat blossomed in Kasker. For a moment, his grip on the flesh loosened. Huge jaws fitted with long, sharp fangs thrust forward from his face. Heavy lips wrinkled in a snarl. Massive leg bones that ended in enormous paws lifted from his arms. His skin, his true skin, burned black with the flames of Hell.
Seve's face darkened, overcast by the emergence of a black skull with long spiral horns and empty eye sockets. A forked tongue slithered over the demon's pointed teeth—teeth that gnashed in angry response to Kasker's loss of control.
"We are not for the eyes of mortals, sabueso," the demon said.
The demon faded, and Kasker struggled to submerge his own true nature, envious of how quickly Seve looked fully human again. But the demon had worn the flesh for many years, whereas Kasker had only a few months' experience.
Seve's lips turned up in a smug smile. He'd shown his s
uperiority over Kasker just as Kasker had dominated the overeager guard. Kasker vowed he wouldn't let the demon humiliate him again.
"The pact was broken, the soul untethered," Kasker said.
The demon rubbed his thumb and finger over a mustache no thicker than a pencil. "You're sure?"
"I tasted the blood."
"This is not good news, mi amigo. Could you follow?"
Kasker squeezed his hands into fists on the tabletop. "I was nabbed by the pigs and held until this morning."
"Few untethered souls survive long. By now, he will have escaped his fate." The demon scowled. "You owe me a debt. How will you repay it?"
"His escape wasn't my fault. Find another to take his place," Kasker shot back.
The demon straightened, a challenge in his eyes. "You think it's easy? Then you do it. Find another, bind his blood."
They glared at one another. Kasker needed the demon's support to continue his hunt. There would be consequences for them both if he failed. He looked away.
Seve must have had similar thoughts. The steel in his voice was gone when he spoke.
"How did the police catch you?"
"I still wore the flesh when they arrived at Clark's Books moments after me."
Seve smoothed the tablecloth. "How did they know to come?"
"Silent alarm, the pigs said. It was a trap. He set me up to look responsible. But why? It wouldn't save him."
"Blood and sacrifice," the demon muttered.
"Exactly."
The demon's eyes widened. "It was a sacrifice? Decker didn't die of natural causes?"
"There were runes drawn on the floor and imbued with power. A bewitched blade was used to cut the soul free. The magic carried a trace of Holmes."
Seve sucked in a breath. "Decker and Holmes are linked?"
Kasker nodded.
"Did Decker fight?"
"No sign of it."
"The blade, it was white? And the runes spiral out to a portal?"
Kasker stared at the demon. "To the back door. You've heard of this?"
"Si, many years ago. I thought the knowledge lost."
"Is it of the angels? Why would they save a man like Decker?"
"No, sabueso, of the universe, and therefore much more dangerous, especially in the hands of a soul like Holmes."
Seve sat back in the padded seat and sipped his coffee while Kasker considered what the demon had said. Magicks loose in the world… they could have consequences greater than the salvation or damnation of a few souls.
"What do you know?"
Seve blotted his lips with a white linen napkin. "The ritual severs the binding and frees the soul."
Kasker chafed at the demon's reply. This much he knew already. "So the soul escapes into nothingness instead of being swallowed by Hell. Humans cling to their lives. They would agree to die this way to escape their fate?"
The demon put his fingertips against his temples. "The soul still yearns for existence. The rune path guides it in a search for new blood, new flesh."
"The loosed soul has the power to kill?" Kasker asked. He wiped a wrist across his forehead.
"No, no. It is weak and blind. It seeks warm, unoccupied flesh, just as we do when we manifest here. There may have been a second sacrifice nearby, one that prepared a new vessel for occupation. Did you sense it?"
Kasker frowned at the table and thought back to the night before. "How near?"
"In the past, the receptacle waited on the other side of the door."
"If Holmes sacrificed another so Decker could take its flesh, it had to be done near the bookstore. I sensed no dispossessed souls in the alley, and I would have smelled Holmes if he were nearby."
Kasker rubbed a hand across his mouth and wondered if that were true. He'd broken the rules and taken the flesh because he'd been unable to trace Holmes since his escape from Hell. He'd caught whiffs of his prey in the Solaris area, but never enough to track. How was Holmes hiding the scent of his damnation?
"Then perhaps the transfer was unsuccessful and the universe has taken the soul owed me. If this was Holmes' first attempt to wield the power, he may not have mastered it yet."
"How does Holmes come by this knowledge?" Kasker asked.
The demon pushed his coffee cup away. "There is a tome, thought destroyed. The freeing of souls is but one secret it illuminates. Great harm can be done with the knowledge in it. Perhaps even the unmaking of Heaven and Hell. To find it, you must seek answers from another, one who stands outside our paradigm."
Kasker shifted on the bench. "I'm a simple hunter. Saving Heaven and Hell is beyond my purpose."
"You are sabueso del infierno, the greatest hunter in Heaven, Hell, or the universe. The one who can help will not wish to be found, but no one is better qualified than you to locate the Oracle."
7
My feet ached, and I wished Mayor Newell would get on with it. The conference room at the hospital was hot and stuffy. Antiseptic tainted the air and burned my nostrils. We stood on a low stage at the front of the windowless room. A bevy of reporters and photographers gathered before us, jostling for places in the front row.
Dave and I were to the mayor's left. His son sat in a wheelchair to his right. No way the mayor would allow himself to be trimmed from any photos. He might be short, bald, and chunky, but he looked sharp in his fancy three-piece suit, gold ring flashing on his pinky finger.
Mayor Newell was running one sentence of thank you to twenty sentences of his usual political propaganda. He bragged about how he'd increased the number of officers on the streets, how he'd cut the crime rate. No mention of last night's horrific murder, although I was sure the press would ask if given the whisper of a chance.
"And here she is, folks. Officer Demasi, the first female patrol officer on the Solaris PD and the person responsible for saving my son."
Flashbulbs blinded me. Too late, I wiped the automatic smile from my face. I didn't want people to think I was a bit of fluff. Stern Officer Demasi. That's how I wanted to be immortalized.
"Can we get you and the mayor's son together?" one of the photographers shouted.
The mayor took my elbow and guided me to a place behind his son's wheelchair. He pressed close to me and smiled. The smell of cigarettes mingled with his overpowering cologne to create a nauseating odor. I thought I might barf in his son's lap if we didn't finish soon. Lucky Dave stood on the other side of the podium, stifling his amusement.
"Okay, folks," the mayor's rat-faced press secretary said. "That'll be it for now. The mayor's a busy man."
The press grumbled but took their cue and dispersed from the hospital conference room.
The mayor patted his son's shoulder. "Remember what the doctor said. No strenuous activity, which means you can't chase your nurse—or Officer Demasi."
Newell gave a forced chuckle and grimaced once his father's back was turned. He'd been silent throughout the press conference.
The mayor hurried away, the press secretary scurrying behind. I'd intended to make my own hasty exit, but Newell caught my forearm.
"I'd like to apologize for my father's comment," he said in a raspy, soft-spoken voice. "We haven't been properly introduced. And I haven't had a chance to thank you, either."
He held out a hand. "Tad Newell."
My face heated like a bonfire. "Officer Demasi."
His hand remained in the air. Belatedly, I gave it a weak squeeze. "No need to thank me. I was just doing my job."
He looked like hell. One side of his face was masked in scrapes, and the other was purple edging into green. I couldn't imagine how Dave had recognized him.
"Then thank you for being expert at your job and saving my life." He smiled through puffy lips. It sent a tingle along my skin.
"Mr. Newell, if you wouldn't mind, I have a couple of questions," Dave said, pulling his notebook from his shirt pocket.
Tad shifted his gaze to my partner as if he'd just become aware of Dave's presence. "Of course. Anything I can do to h
elp."
"Can you tell us how the accident happened?" my partner asked.
"Well… no." Tad studied his hands where they lay on a red plaid robe. "It's all gone. I don't remember anything about yesterday. I don't remember getting up. I don't remember having lunch with my dad, although he says we did. I must have been thinking about something and stepped off the curb without looking."
Dave waited, silent. I wondered what he was fishing for. When he didn't get anything more, he pressed on.
"Any idea what you were doing in that neighborhood? Buying something at a business? Visiting a friend?" Dave tapped his pencil on the page.
"Is that relevant? I was in the wrong. I've convinced my father we shouldn't press charges against that poor kid who hit me."
"You know how it is," Dave said. "We have to dot all the I's and cross all the T's or the duty sergeant will be on our case for not being thorough."
"I don't know why I was there, although I'm sure I had a good reason when I set out. There's nothing listed in my day planner." Tad hung his head. "Sorry. I wish I could be more help. The doctor says my memory might come back eventually."
He turned his attention my direction. "Maybe you could help me?"
"Me?" It came out shrill. I threw up my hands. "I'm not a psychiatrist."
Tad laughed. It was a low, throaty sound that resonated all the way to my bones.
"You were there when it happened. I thought maybe if you told me about it over lunch tomorrow, it might jog my memory."
"Lunch?" I'd become a monosyllabic mimic.
"They're discharging me tomorrow morning. Let me buy you lunch. I have to do something to repay you."
"No, really—" I wanted to melt into the floor.
Tad's fingers took mine, and he gave me a hangdog look. "You wouldn't turn down an injured vet would you?"
Dave seemed terribly interested in the carpet. My face had gone from a bonfire to a forest fire.
"Travo's at one?" Tad suggested.
No Place Like Hell Page 3