Idris winced. “So it’s a good emergency measure, but too many valves and nodes blocked like that would create back pressure in the system.”
“Yep,” I said. “Kablooey.”
“All right, we’ll stick to the plan. Assess and stabilize.” His voice went hard and cold. “Then we take down Katashi.”
“I know the area pretty well,” Bryce told Idris. “I can take you where you need to go.”
“And I have a lead on a half-dozen properties where Katashi and his crew might be based,” I said. “Since I can’t see them holing up in a motel, my hunch is that they’re renting a big house in the area. Maybe you two can scope out the addresses while you’re out checking valves.”
“Yeah, that’ll work,” Idris said and tucked the map back into his bag.
“Excellent,” I said. At least I hoped so. There was probably nothing to worry about. After all, how much trouble could an ex-hitman and an angry, obsessed, summoner child of a demonic lord get into?
Whatever happened, at least we had cookies.
Chapter 8
Shortly after noon, I delivered Idris and Bryce to the crime lab and Jill’s olive green 1974 Chevy Malibu. With them was a big box of tools Bryce had found in my shed.
What began as a casual query about what tools I owned soon morphed into Indiana Bryce and the Holy Shit, Check This Out! after I opened the shed and told him to help himself. Apparently my dad and grandfather had amassed an enviable collection of tools, hardware, gadgets, and I had no idea what else. While Idris and I looked on, Bryce conducted an archaeological dig punctuated by exclamations such as “Oh my god, I wonder if this still works!” and “My grandpa had one of these!” and “Christ on a crutch, is that a jack for a Model T?!”
If not for the annoying detail that the fate of the world was at stake, Bryce would have delved for the rest of the day. Or longer. That said, he also knew how to use the tools, and after forty minutes and plenty of colorful language the Malibu sputtered to life. I made sure the boys had spending money and cell phones, then left them to their own mission and drove the two blocks to the PD and my meeting with Pellini.
• • •
The Beaulac PD detectives’ parking lot had been restriped with fresh and perky white paint, and smooth asphalt now filled the hole where lightning had struck and revealed a valve. Fortunately, a physical barrier had no effect on my ability to sense the valve. Damn good, since it allowed me to see the flickers of orange within the normal blue-green hues of the valve. Crouching, I pretended to search for something I dropped while I made a closer assessment. Now that I had a better idea what to look for, I had no trouble discerning the fraying border. Idris would need to put this one near the top of his list.
“Gillian?”
I looked up to see Cory Crawford standing a few feet away, his expression one of pleased surprise. Cory was my former sergeant in Investigations, and one of the few non-arcane people who had any knowledge of my not-so-normal abilities. He hadn’t changed one bit in the six months since I’d seen him last. Hair and mustache dyed the same dull-brown of his eyes. Tan dress shirt, brown slacks, and a tie with an eye-gouging design of purple and green swirls. Until this moment, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him.
I straightened with a smile. “Hey, Sarge. Long time no see!”
“Too long,” he said then gave me an openly appreciative once-over. “You look great. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“Thanks,” I said, smile widening. “I kinda got in shape.” My time in the demon realm had included quite a bit of physical training, and I couldn’t help but be pleased with the results. I’d actually gained weight, but none of it was flab.
Well, maybe a pound or two. The faas loved to cook, and one of Jekki’s souvenirs from his time on Earth was an Italian cookbook titled, I’m Gonna Make You a Ravioli You Can’t Refuse.
“Pellini told me you’d be stopping by,” Cory said. “Gotta say, I never thought I’d see you two work together without the threat of a court order.”
I laughed. “Yeah, it must be a full moon.”
A wince flashed across Cory’s face. Though he knew I dabbled in “extranormal activities,” he didn’t enjoy reminders. He busied himself with pulling a cigarette out of a pack. “Have you been officially called in on the plantation investigation?”
“Not officially.” I did my best to make it sound as if it was only a matter of time before that happened. “However, I’d like to get an idea of what occurred and determine whether it was an isolated event.” I also need to check the valve node out there, I added silently. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Szerain to keep the node stable, secure, and intact, but . . . I didn’t trust Szerain. With anything. Not at the moment.
“Whatever happened out there was fucked up, that’s for sure.” He lit the cigarette, shifted to stand where the smoke wouldn’t blow in my face. “There’s been a lot of that lately,” he added, unease in his voice. “Agent Kristoff filled me in on a few things after you disappeared last year, but I have a feeling that was only the tip of the iceberg.”
“How much do you want to know?” I asked. He hated the weird, but he was also a damn good cop.
He flicked off ash and met my eyes. “Enough to get out of the way of a shit boulder before it flattens me or someone else. Right now I have no idea what to watch out for.”
“I think we’ll be seeing a lot of shit boulders in the coming weeks,” I said with a wince. “As far as what to watch out for, off the top of my head I’d say earth tremors, weird creatures, or anything that feels off where you can’t put your finger on why. And don’t hesitate to call me, even if you’re not sure it’s part of my particular ‘specialty.’ I need to know about that sort of thing. Also, I wouldn’t park in the middle of this lot if I were you.” I angled my head toward the repaired hole.
He dropped a startled glance to the fresh asphalt and visibly fought the impulse to step away from it. “Should I find a reason to cordon it off?” he asked.
“Might be best. Several feet around it as well.”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Thanks. And I’ll do my best to keep you in the loop.”
“Great,” he said with the tone of a man who really didn’t want to be in the loop at all but knew the need for it.
I left him to finish his smoke and headed inside. Pellini was on the phone when I reached his open office door. “I didn’t ask whether or not you could do it,” he was saying, voice gruff. “Just get it done. We’re heading out that way now.” He hung up.
“Everything cool?” I asked.
“Ran into a snag getting authorization to visit the plantation,” he grumbled. “Kristoff pulled some crap this morning, and now the feds have it locked down tight.”
My desire to check on the valve node ratcheted up several notches. “What did he do?” I asked casually.
“I don’t know any specifics.” Pellini stood and tugged his pants up a bit higher. “There was a strange event that apparently no one can fully remember or explain. Next thing anyone knows, Kristoff has command authority over the entire scene, and access is way more restricted.”
I turned to glance at the clippings pinned to his wall while I fought to hide a face-contorting frown. Easy to get that command authority when you were a demonic lord with the ability to manipulate people’s thoughts and memories.
“You’re on his team. Surely you can get us in.” Pellini’s voice held an odd edge, but I couldn’t tell if it was uneasiness, desperation, or simple curiosity about my role on the task force.
“I can try,” I said as I scanned the clippings. Several were news reports of arrests he’d made or cases he’d worked, but one stood out from the others. “I have my task force ID with me and might be able to bluff my way through,” I continued. Worst case scenario would be that I’d take a long drive with Pellini for nothing. Weirdly, that wasn’t as horrifying as it once was. Especially now that I was looking at a picture of Pellini and Boudr
eaux dressed up as—according to the caption—a Dark Angel and the Crystal Incubus. Boudreaux wore all white sewn with a billion crystals, an intricate mask, and cool-as-all-hell shimmering wings. Pellini, face shadowed in a deep hood, stood half a foot taller than normal in a flowing black robe. Huge feathered wings crested well over his head and folded behind him.
“Go ahead and laugh,” he said with a snort. I glanced at him, and he gestured toward the clipping. “Everyone else did.”
It spoke volumes that he had the picture up in his office at all, knowing how much ribbing he’d get. “You made these costumes?” I asked, incredulous.
“Yeah, and got into a shootout during the contest.” He shrugged. “No point trying to keep my hobby quiet after that.”
It sounded as if there were previous costumes and contests that he’d kept secret with far more success. I quickly skimmed the article. He and Boudreaux had broken up a drug and human trafficking ring, and took down the head bad guy in a firefight, during which Pellini got shot. All while in awesome—though unwieldy—costumes. “Dude, that’s seriously cool,” I said with genuine awe. “How’d you learn to make costumes like that?”
He grabbed his keys and notebook and exited the office, leaving me no choice but to hurry after or be left behind. “My parents.” he said over his shoulder after I closed his door and caught up with him. “Dad was a tailor, and mom was a seamstress and costumer. She worked on Mardi Gras costumes pretty much all year, every year I can remember.” A smile of pride touched his mouth as we exited the building. “She was always in high demand ’cause of how good her stuff was.”
“You ever do that as a side job?” I asked. “Or does that take the fun out of it?”
He unlocked his car and waited until we were both in before answering. “I tried my freshman year at Northwestern State but didn’t have the time for it. Too much going on with football and classes, and I didn’t want to lose my scholarship.”
“You had a football scholarship?” I asked, impressed yet again.
“A small one,” he said as he started the car. “Barely covered the cost of books, but I liked playing. I had an academic scholarship that paid for most of the rest.”
He pulled out of the parking lot while I fought to hide my surprise—along with my shame for jumping to conclusions. Clearly he hadn’t always been a slacker. So what happened to him? My fingers itched to dig for my smart phone and look up anything I could find on him but I managed to resist. For now.
“I can’t see football and costuming going together very well,” I said.
“About as well as costuming and being a cop,” he replied with a wince. “Boudreaux caught it harder being Sparkle Pants, though. At least I was a menacing Dark Angel.”
“He gets plenty of shit already,” I said, thinking back to any number of interactions between Boudreaux and other members of the department. Cops tended to be macho assholes, and short, scrawny Boudreaux was an easy target.
“He’s tough,” Pellini said. “Can’t survive as a runt around here if you’re any other way.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Runt. Scrawny. We all participated in the casual abuse without thought. Sure, Boudreaux survived, but that didn’t mean he remained undamaged.
Pellini turned onto the highway, accelerated, and set the cruise control for ten miles over the speed limit. “He’s catching grief now because of Angus McDunn being his stepdad. So far it’s indirect, but it’s still bullshit.”
“He can’t take a leave of absence?” But even as I said it I realized Boudreaux wouldn’t. That would be admitting defeat.
“He took one day off to see to his mom,” Pellini replied. “I tried to get him to take a week but he refused.” He flicked the radio on to play classic rock at low volume, and I didn’t protest—both of us content to let the conversation die.
• • •
I pulled my wandering thoughts back to the here and now when Pellini shut the cruise control off. Half a minute later he made the turn onto the long gravel driveway that led to the Farouche Plantation gate.
Though I’d been here before, this was my first time actually seeing where I was going. On the previous trip I’d been in the back seat of a Lexus SUV with my wrists zip-tied and a bag over my head while I pretended to be kidnapping victim Amaryllis Castlebrook.
Old, perfectly trimmed oak trees lined the drive, shading us from the midday sun. In the distance, the mansion stood—tall and stately on the left, and jagged, collapsed, and burned on the right. The gate was closed, with a grey Crown Victoria bearing government plates parked to one side of it. As we neared, a clean cut man wearing tactical pants and a black FBI t-shirt stepped out of the car and glowered at us.
I quickly dug my FBI special consultant ID out of my bag. “Let’s hope this works,” I said, and Pellini gave a mutter of agreement.
My fantasy of gaining entry to the plantation with the power of my ID crumbled swiftly. The agent barely glanced at it before handing it back with a shake of his head.
“Restricted access,” he stated, setting his oh-so-square jaw.
“I’m on Agent Kristoff’s team,” I told him. “Is he here?”
“No, ma’am. He left a few hours ago.”
“There are a few things I really need to check on,” I insisted. “Could you please call him and get his clearance for us to go in?” At this point I had nothing to lose by trying.
The agent’s expression turned more forbidding, but he tugged his phone out of the holder on his belt. “Who’s your partner?” he asked with a lift of his chin toward Pellini.
“Vincent Pellini, detective with the Beaulac PD.”
The agent stepped away from the car and dialed a number on his phone. A few seconds later I heard low conversation. Great, so Ryan answered this guy’s calls and not mine? Jerk.
My annoyance melted to relief as the agent returned with the sign-in log. “You’re both cleared. Don’t enter the mansion itself or the Ops building without an escort.”
I thanked him profusely, and while he opened the gate we signed the log. A faint prickle of the arcane washed over me as the car passed through the entrance. I noted that much of the warding that had previously graced the gate was gone. Szerain’s work, I figured. Would be tough for the FBI to conduct any sort of investigation if its agents kept getting turned away by aversion wards and other arcane protections.
“What a mess,” I breathed as I took in the sight of the damaged mansion. Once again, I didn’t have to pretend to be seeing it for the first time. The mansion had been ablaze last time I was here, courtesy of Mzatal and lightning, and before that I’d only seen the side that faced the lawn and the pond. Was it even a pond anymore? Most of the water had boiled away when Mzatal grounded his power. It would probably take several months of Louisiana rainstorms to fully restore it.
Pellini parked in the visitors lot and killed the engine. A weird quiet enveloped us as we exited the car, and the closing of the doors echoed like gunshots. The valve thrummed in my arcane senses, low and insistent, like music with a heavy bass playing several blocks away.
I meandered in the vague direction of the back of the mansion, and Pellini followed a few seconds later. The once luscious lawn with its copious flowers and ornamental trees lay in ruin—plants trampled, crushed, and strewn with rubble. Yellow crime scene tape bounded large swaths, and an odd, fresh ozone scent lingered over a more earthy foundation of mud and charred wood. Potency arced like violet lightning between chunks of debris. Steam rose from the pond basin, and the mud boiled in slow bubbles near the center. Several agents moved among the outbuildings but none gave us more than a passing glance.
“Anything jumping out?” Pellini asked, cutting into my musings. I glanced his way to see him watching me. Oh, right, I’m supposed to be helping him find a link between what happened here and his murder victim. In fact, there were plenty of links, but none I’d be stumbling over on the lawn, nor any I chose to share with him.
“It’s not like I get
weird vibrations or anything, y’know,” I lied with what I hoped was the right combination of sincerity and tartness. Pellini didn’t need to know about my arcane skills. I started to add that I wasn’t a clairvoyant like Marco Knight but clamped down on it. I had no idea whether Marco’s talent was simple clairvoyance or an ability far more complex.
I continued to wander in aimless fashion while Pellini dogged me several steps behind. Ahead of us lay the shattered remains of the gazebo—with the valve node at its center. Broken columns rose from the edge of the raised stone platform. A pillar of potency flashed in the center, oscillating from brilliant peacock to deepest midnight blue.
“Looks like a bomb went off there,” I remarked as I headed toward it. In othersight, residual potency drifted like fragile luminescent tumbleweeds.
“The reports agree that there was an explosion centered at the gazebo,” Pellini said.
His eyes remained on me as I cautiously stepped through the residue and to the center. He won’t have any idea what I’m doing. To anyone without the ability to see the arcane it would appear as if I was idly flexing my hands. Keeping my back to him, I went to one knee and pretended to peer at the cracked and crazed marble at the center of the gazebo floor. To my immense relief there was no sign of instability or fraying within the node. Damn good thing since it would be nightmarishly difficult to get Idris out here to fix it. For security, I retraced the barricade seal, and Kadir’s implanted training rose to guide my movements. The intricate barricade comprised of Kadir-style sigils prevented the node from being used by the demonic lords as a passageway to Earth.
Energy flared as I completed the final sigil, and I jerked aside to avoid the burst. I shot a look behind me only to see it head straight toward Pellini like a flickering golden basketball. A warning shout rose in my throat, but I swallowed it back. The arcane burst wouldn’t hurt him. At most he might experience a few seconds of discomfort, like a stabbing headache or a sudden deep chill.
Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7) Page 8