by J. L. Murray
"Time machine," I said.
"What does that mean?" said Gage.
"It means let’s go back and find out what the bloody hell is going on."
I’d done some surveillance for my PI job in the past and I quickly figured out how to pause the recorder, load a file, and play back the recording. Gage pulled up a chair and watched.
"Do you want me to go?" said Craig.
"Nah," I said. "I might have some questions and you’ve been very helpful. Unless you want to go?"
"To tell the truth, it feels good to finally do some good," he said. He leaned against the warden’s desk and watched us.
"I’m going back a few days to the night the seal was broken," I said. I glanced at Craig, worried about his reaction. "Craig, this may be shocking to you if you’re a Normal," I said.
He raised an eyebrow and gave me a cockeyed grin. "Ma’am, nothing shocks me anymore. Judge not, and all that."
I wound the footage back to the night in question. "What time do you think? Approximately," I said.
"Midnight," said Gage. "Sam was specific about that. Said Summoners always work exactly at midnight. They think they have more power or something."
"I’m going back to 10 p.m." I said. After a minute of watching Sasha lying motionless on his cot, I sped up the footage.
"Whoa," said Gage, pointing at a figure that had waddled onto the screen. "Freeze it. Who’s that?"
I paused the footage just as the man looked right at the camera. The warden couldn’t help smiling a wicked little smile for his own private movie. "Just like the picture on the desk," I said. "That’s the warden."
Craig peeked over my shoulder. "That’s him all right," he said.
"Looks like a sweaty walrus with that mustache," said Gage.
"That is an accurate depiction, sir," said Craig.
"What’s he doing?" I said, playing the footage again. The warden pulled out a set of keys similar to Craig’s and unlocked the cell door. Sasha stood up to meet him and the two shook hands and walked out into the hall, my father wiping his hand on his pants as the two walked out of the shot.
"That don’t seem like something a prison warden should be doing," said Gage. "And all by his lonesome, too. What time was that?"
I looked at the clock in the bottom corner of the screen, scrolling up in military time. "23:02, so 11:02 PM," I said.
"If your dad broke the seal, why was the warden helping him?" Gage said.
"Your dad?" said Craig.
"Oh," I said. I looked at Gage. He shrugged. I turned around to face Craig. "You’ve been straight with us, so I’ll be straight with you," I said. "My name is Niki Slobodian. My father is Alexei Slobodian. We’re looking for him because we think he let something out of Hell. Something very bad. Any questions?"
"Nope," said Craig, not missing a beat.
"You don’t seem very surprised," I said.
"Well, it explains why you looked at those pictures for so long. And I couldn’t place you before, but I recognize you now. I saw you in the papers last year, but that’s not where I know you from. I know you from the sketches in Slobodian’s book. Six months ago, before the warden went bats, I had to search Slobodian’s cell. I saw all his sketches."
"So you’re on our side?" I said. "You can leave if you want to."
"I’m good," said Craig. He looked around probably more out of habit than actually afraid someone was listening. "I haven’t told you everything, Miss Slobodian. I got a daughter. She’s not exactly a Normal, if you catch my drift."
I nodded. "Hard on a family," I said.
"She’s a tough girl," he said. "She means the world to me. That’s why I ain’t so keen on New Government. I fought for this job in the past, but enough’s enough. From now on I’m fighting for all of her kind. They can’t take away their rights if we don’t let them."
"You sound like the protesters down at City Hall," I said.
"Maybe I should join them," he said.
"If you quit your yapping, Slobodian," said Gage, "you’ll see that something’s happening."
I swiveled back around and looked at the screen. A guard had wandered into the shot. I looked closer. "Is that Bailey?" I said.
"Looks like him," said Gage, "but he seems more normal. He ain’t walking funny."
I looked at the time. Fifteen minutes after midnight. Bailey had just looked into my father’s cell and ran to the bars, floundering for his keys. He opened the cell door and poked around under the bed with his nightstick. It would have been comical if I didn’t have such a feeling of dread about it. Just as Bailey was reaching for his radio, a bulky shape began to appear right outside of the cell. It flickered in and out of view and Bailey stopped to stare.
As we watched, Sasha was suddenly there, accompanied by someone. Someone big.
He was a foot taller than Sasha, and my father wasn’t a small man. The figure was twice as wide, but it was all hard muscle. The footage was in black and white, but I could tell he wasn’t a normal human color. The horns curled out of his skull into two knife-sharp points. He had a ring that went through two flat nostrils. He was completely naked, and his body was humanoid, though extremely powerful-looking. His knee buckled slightly as he approached the terrified guard, as though he were feeling weak. Bailey backed up, his mouth opening and closing. There was no sound, so I couldn’t tell if he was screaming, or too scared to make a sound.
The demon’s body blocked our view of the guard then, but it was obvious something strange was happening. There were bright sparks coming off the creature’s—Abaddon’s—horns, and he seemed to be changing shape. Getting smaller, clothing appearing on his body until, turning around, he was nearly indistinguishable from Bailey. He walked up to Sasha, and I saw the body of the poor guard on the floor. He wasn’t moving. Abaddon spoke to my father for a moment and there was something aggressive in his attitude toward Sasha. After a minute, Abaddon turned his back and went back to the body. He hunched over it for a minute and all three of us gasped as he stood back up. He was holding something in his hand, dripping blood, and he was tearing off chunks with his teeth like it was an apple.
"So that’s why the hearts are missing," I said. I glanced at Gage, worried he might lose it again, but apparently the black-and-white didn’t affect him the way seeing the carnage in person did.
Sasha appeared to be angry, as he began gesturing wildly, pointing at the body, then pointing down the hall. Abaddon shrugged, bending over and picking up the dead boy easily and throwing him over his shoulder. He disappeared from view as he walked out of the shot. My father’s body relaxed when the demon left. He went sort of limp and he put his hands on his knees and stood there for a minute-and-a- half. Then he stood up and wearily walked to the cell, closing the door behind him, and lay down on the cot.
I sped up the footage. After about an hour, the demon came back and sat in the folding chair right outside the cell. I tapped a key to play back at normal speed. The demon looked, to my eyes, incredibly self-satisfied. I wondered if he had picked off any prisoners on the way back. He sure didn’t look like his knees were buckling anymore. I paused the footage and looked at Gage. "Thoughts?" I said.
"Why’d he come back?" said Gage.
"Exactly," I said. "Why the hell would Sasha return to prison if he didn’t have to?"
"Can I say something?" said Craig. I nodded.
"Well, if you speed that footage up a few hours, you’ll find the two of you on there, right?"
"So?" said Gage.
"Well, if I may be so bold," said Craig. "Your dad’s walls are filled with pictures of you, news clippings of you, his sketchpad is filled with drawings of you. Did you consider that maybe your father wanted to see you before he disappeared?"
"That’s ridiculous," I said. "He was gone the whole time I was growing up. I saw him maybe once a month after we moved here. He left me with Sofi and only showed up drunk once in a while to knock me around. He doesn’t care about me."
"Sis," sai
d Gage, "the guy has a point. Maybe your pop feels bad for the way he treated you. Remorse or whatever."
"Well he has a funny way of showing it," I said. "That Dark he let out could have killed me. It almost did."
"Why did he let the Dark out?" said Gage. "He didn’t have to do that."
"To buy time, maybe," I said. "To distract us until he had time to do whatever he needed to do."
"But he didn’t know you’d be working the case," said Gage. "Remember?"
"Yeah," I said. "So how did he know I’d come visit?"
Gage shrugged. "As soon as you heard about it, wouldn’t you come and see him? You’d assume he had something to do with it eventually. And he didn’t know we’d catch up to that Dark so quick."
I looked at Craig. "Do you know how many prisoners you lost this week? You said they were disappearing."
"Yeah, we did lose a few," he said. "Four, I think. You think that thing ate their hearts, too?"
"I don’t know anything," I said. "But it’s possible."
I sped up a few hours of footage until Sasha rose from his cot, stretching. He walked up to the bars and said something to the apparently dozing Abaddon. The two joined hands through the bars, and they flickered in and out of view before fading completely. The time on the monitor read 3:21 AM.
"That must have been when they killed Judge Shandler," I said. Sure enough, they were back at 3:59 AM.
"Can I ask something?" said Craig. "Not to interrupt into matters that I’m ignorant about."
"Ask away," I said, watching the screen as the two flickered back into view in the hallway. Sasha pointed to the demon’s belt, and Abaddon took out the keys and let my father back into his cell.
"Slobodian is supposed to be some kind of Summoner, right?" he said.
"Yeah."
"And that means he’s supposed to be able to summon entities from other places and control them, if I’m not wrong."
"You’ve done your homework," I said.
He shrugged. "We got an extensive briefing when they brought your dad in. But looking at him here, does it look like your father’s in charge of that thing?"
"Shit, he’s goddamn right again," said Gage. "Look at that."
"It’s technically doing what he says," I said. "From the looks of it, anyway. But it’s like Abaddon’s playing a big joke on him or something."
"If Abaddon was really under your dad’s influence," said Gage, "he’d be rushing to do his bidding. Like a dog. I’ve seen it, it ain’t pretty. Did a weird spell on a lower demon once and he was hopping after me, wanting to bring me stuff. But this? This ain’t it. Abaddon’s messing with him. Like he’s waiting for something. Or maybe he’s just waiting for Alexei to kill himself from exhaustion. You gotta keep up a constant mindgrip with this stuff. A Summoner could sustain it longer than a Caster like me, but still."
"Sam said Abaddon and Sasha had some sort of mental connection," I said. "They’ve had it for years. Could it be that Abaddon’s been playing Sasha all this time? So when the time was right, Abaddon would be out in the world?"
"It’s possible," said Gage. He scratched his head. "Damn, sis. It makes sense, don’t it? The player is getting played."
I rubbed my eyes. I was suddenly exhausted. "What does it mean for us, though?" I said.
"It means the shit hasn’t hit the fan yet," said Gage. "It also means old Alexei’s probably not going to be able to hang on very much longer. Look at him. He’s goddamn frail. What’s wrong with him?"
I shrugged. "How should I know?"
I sped up a few more hours-worth of footage, and paused it just as another figure walked into view, accompanied by the warden. It was Mayor Delaney, I could tell by her perfectly coiffed up-do that never seemed to budge. I’d seen her on the news during a windstorm, giving a speech on New Citizenship, and her hair didn’t move. For some reason it fascinated me. Other than her hair, though, Delaney was typical New Government. Just another mouthpiece. If voting were still around, like in the old days, I’d vote for anyone but her.
Bailey stood up and blocked Delaney and Jeffries. After a few words, the mayor walked over to my father’s cell and the warden walked quickly back the way he came. Norah Delaney talked to Sasha for a few minutes, during which her body shook like she was crying. Sasha looked like he was laughing at her. Delaney began gesturing wildly, like she was yelling at him. Sasha shrugged and Delaney pointed her finger into his chest, then turned and stomped off. Ten minutes later I saw myself and Gage walk into the shot. I froze the image.
"What was that all about?" I said.
"Looks to me like the mayor might be dirty," said Gage.
"Maybe that’s why Jeffries was meeting with her," I said. "Think he had something on her? There was a picture of her and Sasha together hanging in the cell."
"Possible," said Gage. "You got the picture on you?"
I pulled out the Polaroid. Gage looked at it. "Looks like they’re pretty cozy," he said. "Think they were a couple?"
"Maybe," I said. "I didn’t hear anything about it, but that doesn’t mean anything."
"So," said Craig, "what would happen, theoretically, if the warden knew Delaney was involved with Alexei Slobodian?"
"Blackmail, of course," said Gage. "Look at that slimeball. He looks just the type."
"Bet the public wouldn’t like their New Government candidate chumming it up with known super-criminals," I said. "Warden probably threatened to go public if she didn’t pay up."
The sound of voices came drifting in from the hall. It seemed to be several men arguing, but I couldn’t make out the words because there were so many voices yelling at once. Craig walked to the hall to see what was going on.
"So what do we do now?" I said. "How will we possibly find them? We can’t just follow the bodies this time."
"Why not?" said Gage. "We just need to figure out who Slobodian wants dead and check them out. Maybe we start with the warden. He seems to know an awful lot. Plus I don’t like the look of him."
I nodded. "You’re right," I said. "I want to talk to the mayor, too. Should we split up?"
"Hell no," he said. "Don’t you watch movies? Bad shit always goes down when the heroes split up."
I smiled. "Infinite wisdom of Bobby Gage."
"Niki, Bobby," said a voice from the doorway. The arguing had stopped. I looked around to find Eli followed by Craig. "Warden Jeffries is dead." He walked over and looked at me sadly from the other side of the desk. "I’m sorry, Nik, but your father killed him."
"Yeah, we gathered that," I said. "You come to arrest him in his prison cell?"
"I came to talk to him," he said.
"Well, you can’t," said Gage. "He’s gone."
"What do you mean he’s gone?" said Eli.
"See for yourself," I said. I rewound to freeze on the shot of Sasha and Abaddon in front of the cell just before they disappeared. Eli looked at me, a dumbstruck expression on his face.
"So you’re going after that thing?" he said.
"Looks that way," I said. "That’s the job, anyway."
"You can’t," he said.
"Says who?"
"Niki, did you see it? Did you see what it did?"
"It’s not a thing," said Gage. "It’s a demon."
Eli looked at him. "Not like any demon I’ve ever seen."
"Me neither," said Gage. "But I’ve brought back demons before. And we have to treat this like any other demon."
"But it’s not just some rogue demon, out for a stroll," said Eli. "You saw what it did. What kind of power was that?"
Gage shrugged. "Some kind of hellion magic, I guess."
"You guess?" said Eli. "Niki is a tough girl, Bobby, but even she can’t handle shit like this. She’s a good shot, but by the looks of this thing a gun isn’t going to faze it."
"Hey!" I said. Eli and Gage looked at me. "Shut up, the both of you," I said. "Arguing is not getting us anywhere. Eli, how was the warden killed?"
"Same as the others. Heart ripped
from his chest."
"Okay," I said. "We need to work together. The Dark was a distraction. Keep that in mind. That thing that killed dozens of people in one day was just a distraction. That gives us a clue that this is some serious shit. Our only advantage is that Abaddon or Sasha didn’t think we’d take care of it so quickly. They were probably aiming for chaos. Am I right, Bobby?"
"Sounds logical," said Gage. "Demons do love their chaos."
"So there’s that," I said. "No chaos means they don’t have the cover that they’d prefer. They can’t take things slow. They might get sloppy and make a mistake. We have to be careful."
"No," said Eli. "You need to tell your boss that you can’t do it."
"Wrong," I said. "We just need to go into this knowing how hard it’s going to be. Eli, you don’t have to be a part of this. You didn’t sign on for this job, like Gage and I did."
"Bullshit," said Eli. "You’re not pulling that on me again. You can’t get rid of me."
"It’s not about you or me," I said. "It’s about people’s lives. It’s nothing personal. If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to."
"Yes I do," he said. "I’m not leaving you. Never again. If you’re going to do this, then so am I."
"Fine," said Gage. "Tag along if you want, but enough with the lovey-dovey crap. Let’s go talk to Delaney. Eli, can you find her address?"
"Give me five minutes," said Eli, ducking out of the room.
"Craig," I said. "I have a favor to ask you."
"Shoot," said Craig.
"My godmother is in the hospital, at St. Joe’s. You know it?"
"Sure."
"Her name is Sofi Benko. She’s on the sixth floor, room 633. Can you keep an eye on her?"