Lida slipped an arm around Trey, looking quite unconcerned that the golems had been destroyed, which didn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling. “The river wasn’t part of the plan,” she replied with a shrug. “Michael fucked that up.”
Her brother’s face crumpled as fury surged through me. But his face lit up again when she put her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t get upset, little brother, you redeemed yourself with Adam and Roger.”
Michael gave her a tentative smile, then looked to me. “They were p-pussies who didn’t have the stomach for the business,” he said as if reciting a script.
I was only paying him the barest of attention. Lida and Trey were too relaxed, too confident. Something else was coming. I kept every sense I had extended, scanning. Eilahn and Ryan could sense it too; we stood with our backs to each other, weapons at the ready.
“So, Lida,” I called out, “how long before you ditch Trey? Now that you’ve wiped out half the band, you can probably get out of your contract and go solo, right? That’s what you’ve always wanted.” I could see doubt flicker across Trey’s face, and I wondered if I was saying something he’d refused to admit to himself. “Trey doesn’t want to be a full-time musician. He wants money and stability. He’s doing this for you because he wants your uncle to get him a nice high-paying white-collar job.”
“Or, for that matter,” I continued, “how long before you get sick of caring for Michael and put him in a home?” I heard Michael’s swift intake of breath and pressed on. “It’s not like you’re going to keep up this pretense of caring for him if you don’t have to, and you’re not going to take him with you when you leave Trey and Beaulac behind. You don’t want him in your band, do you? Not when you have to stop and coddle him every time he gets upset.” I looked her way, seeing the truth of it in her eyes. “Or will you even bother putting him in a home? Once you’ve taken care of us, you won’t need him anymore. In fact you won’t be able to risk him blabbing, will you?”
Trey took a shocked step back from her. Yet another truth he hadn’t wanted to consider.
“Shut up!” Lida screamed. She was losing control and knew it. “Michael, shut them up! Call the rest!”
Confusion warred with misery in the young man’s face. There was a part of him that understood, but he’d been loyal to his sister for too long to want to believe it.
But Trey wasn’t giving up that easily, and apparently had a bigger stick than sibling love. “Detective Gillian, did you know that Michael killed his father?” His tone was conversational, but there was a vicious gleam in his eye. He had to win this now and get rid of us.
Michael gave a strangled cry of horror. “You promised you’d keep it secret!”
Trey’s hands tightened into fists. “Michael, if you don’t take care of these people, they’ll take you to jail and keep you there forever.”
Michael looked at us in sudden terror. “I didn’t mean to! He was teaching me! I lost control! I’m sorry!”
A wave of pity nearly overwhelmed me as I realized how Trey had managed to control the young man. “Michael, don’t believe him,” I said as gently as I could. “You were just a boy, right? It was an accident. We don’t put little boys in jail for accidents.” I felt a vibration under my feet. Not an earthquake, I realized, mouth going dry. But a lot of dirt moving.
“You can’t trust her, Michael,” Trey said, eyes not leaving us. “She wants you to put your men away so that she can arrest you.”
I felt as much as heard a low rumble. Shit. How many more of them are there? “Michael!” I yelled. “You have to stop this! They’re going to kill you as soon as your men have killed us! They won’t need you anymore!”
“See, Michael?” Trey said, turning a comforting smile on the man. “She’ll say anything to get to you. You can’t believe anything she says. I love your sister, so that makes us family, right? And family would never hurt you.”
Michael looked into Trey’s oh-so-earnest face, then nodded and turned back to us.
And an army of golems descended upon us.
Chapter 34
They came from all around us like a slow wave, with more coming from behind, cutting off our retreat. I couldn’t take the time to count them, but I estimated that there were more than twenty and less than fifty. I hoped.
I barely noticed Trey and the others retreating inside the building. I was almost grateful for that since it meant I didn’t have to worry about accidentally shooting Michael. At this point I didn’t have a problem shooting Trey or Lida, but my do whatever it takes attitude wasn’t quite ready to cut down someone who’d only been a pawn. I wasn’t so sure that Eilahn or Ryan would share that attitude.
But I didn’t have time for that particular moral dilemma. “Eilahn, you keep our backs safe!” I shouted as I quickly reloaded. I chambered a new round into the shotgun, then held it tight against my miserably sore shoulder, gritting my teeth as I fired at the approaching golems. At least my lousy aim didn’t matter so much. With so many of them coming at us, I was guaranteed to hit one of them.
I breathed raggedly as I fired again and again. I couldn’t hear anything but a low buzzing, a combination of the gunfire and my own stress response of blocking out all sound. I dropped five or six of them, but the line kept advancing, closing in on us like a giant claw. I could only trust that Eilahn was keeping our rear safe.
I chambered another round and squeezed the trigger, but there was no violent kick of the shotgun this time. I’m out. I slapped my hand onto the side pocket where I had extra shells, but it was empty. In my peripheral vision I could see Ryan swinging his shotgun like a club, taking off the head of one of the golems. I could barely hold the shotgun at all; I doubted I’d be playing T-ball with golem heads.
I let the shotgun drop from my hand and drew my Glock. My right arm was so numb that I nearly dropped it, and I quickly transferred it to my left and started firing. I could see puffs of dirt rising where my rounds struck the golems, but they weren’t very impressive. We’d taken out over half of them, but the rest still marched in devastating silence toward us.
I felt another rumble beneath my feet. No, I thought in dismay. Not more. We can’t even handle these. I looked past the golems, braced to see another wave of the creatures come around the building.
I sure as shit didn’t expect to see a big yellow bulldozer come around the corner. Crawford was at the controls, while Zack stood atop the canopy, keeping his footing with inhuman balance. He squeezed rounds off from his rifle, sighting down it and blowing off golem heads even as Crawford mowed down a good dozen of the creatures with the bulldozer. Crawford was shouting something incomprehensible, face stretched into an exultant grin that I never expected to see on my sergeant.
Zack suddenly swiveled the rifle toward me. No, not at me—
I whirled to my left in time to see Zack’s shot take a chunk off the head of the golem there, but it apparently wasn’t enough to slow the thing down. I yanked my gun up, but I could see its fist coming at me . . .
White light exploded behind my eyes and I crumpled to the ground. I’m dead, I thought through the haze and pain. I struggled to focus only to see the golem standing over me, raising its blocky fist for a blow that would no doubt crush my skull like a melon.
Not dead yet. About to be. I couldn’t make my body move, could only stare at the impending blow. And I could hear again. I could hear everything.
Eilahn screamed something. It wasn’t Ryan’s name, but he whipped his head around, his face filling with horror and shock as he took in the sight of me on the ground and the golem about to brain me.
In the span between one heartbeat and the next he straightened, expression smoothing to ice, with only his eyes showing a devastating rage. He raised his hands before him, and in the next heartbeat the space between his hands filled with white-blue potency. He lowered his head, lip curling as he unleashed the power into the golem above me.
Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed as dirt rained
down around me.
I felt frozen as I stared at Ryan’s motionless form. I distantly heard Zack let out a cry of horror. He leaped off the bulldozer and swiftly moved to Ryan, cradling him in his arms like a child. I felt Eilahn’s arms around me and I was distantly aware that she was holding me in similar fashion, but I couldn’t look away from Ryan.
A hand on my chin did it for me as Eilahn turned my face up to hers. “What did you yell to him?” I asked. It came out in little more than a cracked whisper, but I knew she’d heard me.
“It matters not. How badly are you injured?”
“The golems?”
A flicker of annoyance passed over her face. “They have all been defeated. How badly are you injured?”
I put a hand up to the side of my head. I could feel the lump there, but I didn’t have double vision or anything. Yet. I was probably mildly concussed, but the fact that I was able to realize it was probably a sign that it wasn’t too bad. “Help me stand,” I said. “This isn’t finished.”
She nodded and helped me up. I swayed briefly but she kept a hand on my arm to steady me. I couldn’t look at Zack and Ryan. Instead I focused on the scene by the building.
Trey stood in front of the building door, shielding himself behind a weeping Michael. I could see Lida still inside the building, staying mostly behind the doorjamb. Crawford had come down from the bulldozer and had his gun trained on Trey. I couldn’t see the gun that Trey was holding to the back of Michael’s head, but I knew it was there from the level of tension in everyone involved.
“It’s over, Trey,” Crawford growled. “The golems have all been destroyed. Killing Michael won’t give you a way out.”
I knew what Trey was going to do. Crawford probably did too. I could see the decision click into place in the man’s eyes, chasing away the anger and defeat for the few seconds before Trey pulled the gun away and stuck it in his own mouth.
I didn’t even twitch at the sound of the gunshot, but Michael jerked violently, no doubt thinking that he’d been the one shot. He fell to his knees, clutching his head in his hands as Trey’s body crumpled to the floor.
“You stupid fucks!” Lida screamed. Her face twisted in fury as she reached down and yanked the gun from Trey’s limp hand.
She’s not going to kill herself, I thought in a flash. But my gun wasn’t in my hand. I’d dropped it when the golem hit me. I could only watch in numb horror as she lifted the gun to aim at her brother’s head, hatred suffusing her features. “Crawford! Shoot her!” I yelled.
Lida’s whole body jerked before the words were out of my mouth, and a red spot bloomed on her forehead. An instant later the gun fell from her hand, and she dropped to the ground.
I blinked in surprise at Crawford, but he was looking at the crumpled form of Lida with a perplexed expression on his face. He turned to me. “Kara, did you . . . ?”
I lifted my empty hands. “Not me, Sarge.”
Eilahn cleared her throat, then held my gun out to me. “You dropped this,” she said. Then she gave a light shrug. “They are not so hard to use after all.”
She turned to walk away, smugness radiating from her every move. I rolled my eyes and started to retort, but the words died away at the sight of Zack still cradling the motionless Ryan.
He blasted that golem with arcane power. The image I’d pushed aside came flooding back in. I’ve seen that done once before, I thought, hands beginning to tremble slightly. And the expression on Ryan’s face had been . . . inhuman.
I took an uncertain step toward them. “Zack? Is he all right?”
He jerked his head up, then shocked me by baring his teeth and growling deep in his throat. I froze, then took a slow step back.
A shudder seemed to crawl over Zack, then he seemed to regain himself. “I will tend to him,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. He stood, still cradling Ryan, then started walking down the road.
“Zack?” I couldn’t keep the desperate note out of my voice. “Is he going to be all right?”
He paused. “I will tend to him,” he repeated. I expected him to continue walking, but he remained still. “Kara, you must trust me,” he said without turning. His back was stiff and straight. One of Ryan’s hands dangled at Zack’s side, and I could see the top of his head by Zack’s shoulder. I didn’t know whether I wanted to rush to Ryan and put my arms around him or run as far away from him as I could.
He blasted that golem with arcane power.
“He will be as he was, Kara,” Zack said after another several heartbeats of silence. “You have my oath on that.”
As he was . . . when I knew him? Or before? A chill shimmered through me.
I watched him walk down the road until he rounded the curve and was out of sight. Then I returned to the others and the rest of our mess.
Chapter 35
“What are we going to do about Michael, Sarge?” I asked quietly.
Crawford scrubbed at his face with both hands before letting them drop to his side. “Fuck if I know, Kara.” Somehow we both understood that we weren’t talking about who would take care of him. There was still a great deal of investigating before us, but from everything that had been revealed by Lida and Trey, I now doubted that Ben Moran had known of the murders. So, yes, his uncle would remain his guardian, but... “What if he does something like this again?” Crawford said with a sigh.
I echoed his sigh. Evening was falling and the mosquitoes were beginning to come out. The moon was barely visible through the trees. A couple more days and it would be full, and summoners all over the world would be inscribing circles and preparing offerings and making bargains.
The subject of our conversation was sitting on the ground on the opposite side of the bulldozer from where the bodies of his sister and Trey still lay. Michael hadn’t spoken a word since the shooting had ended and had acquiesced numbly to being led to sit by the bulldozer. He stared off into the distance, his arms wrapped around his legs and his chin resting on his knees.
“He’s broken,” I said. “His best friend blackmailed him into using his talent to kill, and the sister he adored actually hated his guts.”
“Fuckers,” Crawford muttered. “What happened to the father?”
I shrugged. “I can only guess from what was said. It sounds like their dad also had the ability to control earth elementals and was teaching Michael Junior how to make the golems. Something happened and it got out of control. Michael Senior was killed and Michael Junior and Lida were badly injured.” I shook my head. “I guess we’ll never know.” Lida had probably blamed him for their father’s death—in an accident that was most likely Michael Senior’s own fault.
“The uncle is his only family, yes?” Eilahn said, startling me slightly. She moved so damn quietly, and I’d half-forgotten she was with us.
I nodded.
“Send him to the demon realm then,” she said, folding her arms over her chest, her gaze on the young man. “He would be cared for there, and his skills treasured and guarded.”
I could only stare at the demon in surprise at the suggestion. Send him to live there? Was that even possible?
“Send him to the what?” Crawford asked, abruptly jerking me out of my own thoughts.
Oh, yeah, I thought with a grimace. I never did tell Crawford about the whole demon summoning thing. I cleared my throat uncertainly. “Um, it’s not what you think, Crawford. I mean, she’s not talking about hell.”
He slowly turned his head to look at me, expression so incredulous that I almost burst out laughing.
“Let me explain,” I began.
Crawford listened to my explanation about the demons in stony silence. I left out the little detail about Zack and Eilahn being demons, but I told him about me being a summoner, and what that entailed. At the end of he simply gave a long sigh. “Why couldn’t you simply be an alcoholic like all the other detectives?”
I grinned. “Demon summoning has less vomiting!”
“What kind of life would Michael have in
the demon realm?” I asked Eilahn after Crawford had moved away to start making phone calls.
“What kind of life would he have here?” she replied evenly.
I shook my head. “Nope. That’s not good enough. His life wouldn’t be unbearable here, he wouldn’t be a slave or anything like that—”
“Michelle Cleland,” Eilahn interrupted. I struggled to place the name. A few heartbeats later I remembered, ashamed that I’d forgotten it at all. Michelle Cleland had been a victim of the Symbol Man, offered up as a sacrifice to the demonic lord Rhyzkahl by the serial killer. After the Symbol Man had been killed, Rhyzkahl had returned to his realm and Michelle had vanished at the same time.
“I thought she was dead,” I said finally, brow furrowed. “Rhyzkahl took her back to the demon realm after the summoning, and I assumed that . . .” I trailed off. I’d assumed that he’d killed her in retaliation for being summoned, but now that I made myself actually think about it, that didn’t fit with what I’d come to learn about Rhyzkahl and the demon’s code of honor. Michelle had not been the one to summon him, in fact had been a victim herself. Killing her would have been a pointless act of misplaced vengeance, which was most certainly not the demon way.
“Why would Lord Rhyzkahl slay her?” Eilahn asked, in line with my thoughts. “She has some small arcane skill and has proven to be useful.” The demon tilted her head to look up at the sky, where the moon was beginning to clear the trees. “She is free of her addiction and seems content.” She flicked a glance at me. “Happy, even.”
“Is she free?” I asked, still dubious.
A smile briefly curved her mouth. “As free as any of us are.”
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