Deadly Curiosities

by Gail Z. Martin

  Darkness descended over the car, blotting out the light. Normal darkness has stars and street lights and reflections. This was like someone had dropped a black shroud over the car, blotting out the world.

  I’d already slammed down the door locks, but I checked again. Teag and I held on as a force began to rock the car. I heard metal ripping. The car lurched to one side as something slashed the metal in Teag’s door. It didn’t get into the passenger compartment, but the next swipe certainly would. The rear window smashed, and a foul smell seeped into the car. Teag and I were both screaming.

  I tried the key but the engine didn’t even grind. The car rocked again, not quite tipping over. The darkness was toying with us. Playing with its food.

  Inside the car, the temperature plummeted. My teeth were chattering, and ice crystals were beginning to form on the windshield. My left hand was holding onto the agate necklace hard enough that the silver setting drew blood.

  Abruptly, the rocking stopped. Was it the blood? I wondered. Or was the big bad thing outside just getting ready for new tricks?

  Blindingly bright light flared, knifing through the darkness. I saw two things. First, Sorren stood directly behind us, dressed all in black, armed with a very large, very lethal looking sword.

  The second thing I saw were monsters.

  Maybe I should have been glad that Moran’s demon wasn’t the thing wrecking our car, but his minions were plenty scary. If Dr. Frankenstein had built a do-it-yourself monster from the rotting parts of big reptiles, it might have looked like the things that surrounded the car. Big teeth. Sharp talons. Powerful legs. Crafty eyes that were utterly cold and looked very hungry.

  The car’s engine roared to life and I floored the gas pedal.

  “You’re just going to leave Sorren back there?” Teag asked.

  “Nope,” I said. I’d been scared, and now I was just plain pissed off. I cut the Mini Cooper in the tightest turn I could manage at high speed and headed straight for the things that were closing on Sorren.

  Six of them to one of him. Not a fair fight, even though Sorren was laying about with sword fighting moves that would have done a movie blockbuster proud. The sword gleamed an odd blue, and I wondered if he’d chosen it over a Glock because magic is better at fighting magic. Whatever the reason, he’d obviously had practice, and by the time we got there, he had put down two of the creatures.

  The other four were closing on him. From the look of it, they’d already scored a few hits. Sorren’s left sleeve was slashed and dripping dark blood. The front of his shirt hung in tatters. I revved the car and steered straight toward the monsters.

  “What the hell!” Teag screeched. “You’re going to hit Sorren!”

  “Bowling for bad guys,” I muttered, bearing down on the creatures. We hit the first one, smashing the left headlight. The second one bounced into the air, crashed down on the hood of the Mini Cooper and left a bloody streak and a big crack on the windshield. Teag got the third one with his door in a move that was either brilliant or suicidal. I steered toward the last one, which was still battling Sorren. “For God’s sake, Cassidy!” Teag threw up both arms and ducked his head.

  We hit the monster square on, knocking him down and running him over. Problem was, I couldn’t stop fast enough to take out the creature and not hit Sorren, too.

  Good thing vampires are fast.

  I skidded to a stop, watching carefully for either the darkness or the minions. The engine was making suspicious coughing noises. My windshield wipers seemed to be stuck on. A nasty streak of black blood was smeared down the cracked glass of the windshield and all the way to the grillwork. My car was a wreck, but we were alive.

  Sorren came up behind us, and I saw that he was limping. I unlocked the doors, and he climbed into the back. “Nice driving,” he said.

  I took it slow on the way home, because that was all my poor, battered car could manage. I doubted demon protection was part of my insurance coverage, and at my most creative, I couldn’t for the life of me invent a plausible lie. You see, there was this rabid, hungry, escaped tiger in rut…

  We took the back streets, because the cops could probably get me on a dozen vehicle violations, and I didn’t want to explain all the blood. Sorren didn’t say a word for the entire trip, which took longer than usual because the Mini Cooper could no longer cough up speeds above a crawl. Teag and I were silent too, with a sense of doom hanging over us that I haven’t felt since I got caught sneaking out of the house as a teenager. We were totally, completely, busted.

  Just before I got to the turn that would bring us back to my house, I saw the car in my rear view mirror. “Uh oh,” Teag said. “Looks like we picked up some company.”

  Just then, the police cruiser switched on its strobes. Obediently, I pulled over to the curb and sighed.

  A cop stepped out of the car. He was a State Police officer, and his hat had a plastic rain protector over it. He didn’t look happy. “Hello officer,” I said, hoping I managed to look harmless.

  “Having problems with your car?” he asked. It was dark out, so I prayed that the worst of the damage – and the blood – wasn’t apparent. How I would explain the claw slashes escaped even my fertile imagination.

  “I think we hit a deer,” I said, doing my best to meet his gaze. “It came out of nowhere from the trees, bounced off us and kept going. I hope it’s not hurt too badly.”

  The cop eyed me like he was trying to decide whether or not I’d been smoking something. I did my best to channel Baxter’s blinky-eyed innocence. Next to me, Teag was staying very, very still.

  Sorren leaned forward and smiled at the officer. “She’s been through a lot tonight,” he said in a honey-smooth voice. “She really needs to get home.”

  “You really shouldn’t be on the road,” the officer said. “You need to get home.”

  “You won’t need to report this,” Sorren said with the same tone he used to turn Baxter into his adoring fan. “She can take it up with her insurance.”

  “Sorry about the deer,” the officer said. “Just report it to your insurance company.” He slapped the roof of the car and I winced, expecting it to fall off. “Drive safe, y’all.”

  Teag didn’t move a muscle until we were well out of sight. Then he left out a gust of breath and slumped in his seat so quickly I feared he’d been shot.

  “What?” I asked, alarmed.

  He withdrew the map from its hiding place and fanned himself with it. “Oh. My. God. You and Sorren handled that so well. I was terrified he was going to search the car for drugs or something and find the map.”

  I gave a shaky laugh. “I was pretty scared of the same thing. Where did you hide it?”

  Teag shot me a sly grin. “That cop looked pretty straight to me, so I put it somewhere I didn’t figure he’d look. I slipped it in the waistband of my jeans under my shirt.”

  I chuckled. “Good thinking.” I knew Teag had had a run in with some homophobic cops at one time in his life, and I didn’t like how pale he looked. I had been afraid of getting a ticket. It hadn’t occurred to me that Teag was afraid of getting roughed up, or worse.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said, turning the car toward home. I thought about cracking a joke about Sorren glamoring the cop, but then I saw the look on his face and reconsidered.

  The car sputtered to a stop in front of my house and we got out. I caught my breath. The back window was smashed, and the rear bumper was gone. Three deep slashes had ripped through the passenger door like a can opener. The front windshield was cracked from side to side, and the hood was dented so deeply it looked like a boulder had bounced off it. The driver’s front tire was nearly flat.

  Sorren had stopped and was talking quietly on his cell phone before joining us.

  Teag followed me up the steps to the front door. I could tell that, despite his injuries, Sorren was on high alert, turning around to watch behind us as we entered. Baxter greeted Teag and me joyfully, overdue for his dinner. He took o
ne look at Sorren, stopped barking and sat down with the same glazed look I had seen on my stoner cousin. I wondered if Sorren’s glamoring would give Baxter the munchies.

  “Of all the irresponsible –” Sorren began as soon as the door shut.

  I held up a hand, palm out. My vampire boss could talk to the hand. “Not before dinner,” I snapped. I had seen a body that was flayed and ripped to shreds, been chased by the black cloud of doom, saved a vampire from a pack of demon-spawn, and had my car totaled by refugees from Jurassic Park. I was hungry and I was so not in the mood to be lectured.

  Sorren was angry. Well, so was I. And right now, I was angry at Moran for killing homeless guys. I was pissed at the demon for whatever its role was in turning Trifles and Folly’s antiques into supernatural C 4. And I was royally ticked off at the hassle I was going to face explaining my damaged car to the insurance agent.

  Sorren muttered something in Dutch. His accent, usually unnoticeable, becomes more pronounced when he’s angry or hurt. And belatedly, I realized he was both.

  “You’re bleeding,” I said. I stopped to look him up and down. He looked like he’d been to war, and he had been, to save our necks.

  “It’s only a flesh wound,” he deadpanned.

  I gave him a ‘shut up’ look and started to look for gauze.

  “Really, Cassidy. I’ll be fine,” Sorren said. “I’m nearly healed.” He pulled back the shredded cloth of his black shirt to reveal a newly healed set of slashes, thin pink scars where, not half an hour earlier, there had been a bone-deep gash.

  I uncorked a bottle of wine and sloshed some into glasses for Teag and me. It was that kind of night.

  By now, I had grabbed one of the frozen pizzas I keep for emergencies and thrown it in the oven. I poured kibble into Baxter’s bowl, grabbed my wine glass, and sank into a chair.

  “Ok,” I said to Sorren, taking a swig of Chardonnay to steel my nerves. “You were about to tell me that going to the Navy yard was irresponsible, reckless, and stupid. Go ahead. Let me have it.”

  Sorren watched me for a moment, and then he began to chuckle.

  “What?” I asked, thoroughly annoyed.

  “You are so like your Uncle,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Uncle Evanston?”

  “Actually, you take after all of your relatives,” he said, in a tone that left me wondering whether or not that was a good thing. “Headstrong, completely heedless of danger – and rather remarkable,” he said.

  I chanced a look at him. “You’re not going to yell at me?”

  Sorren sighed, and since he didn’t need to breathe, I knew it was an intentional gesture. “What would be the use?” A hint of a smile quirked at the corner of his mouth.

  “Yes, what you did was dangerous, reckless and all the rest. But it needed to be done, and daylight was the time to do it,” he said. “As for what happened, you could have hardly expected it.”

  “There’s been another murder,” Teag said. Sorren listened as we recounted what happened before the darkness fell.

  He finished his recap and turned to me. “You never said what vibes you picked up from the murder scene, Cassidy,” Teag said.

  I took a deep breath and sipped my wine. “It feeds on fear,” I said, and I could hear my voice shaking.

  “It enjoys killing those men, even as it feeds on their blood.” I paused, trying to make sense of what I had seen.

  “It’s not human, the thing that’s killing them. It’s never been human,” I said. “And it killed him somewhere else. There wasn’t enough blood.”

  Sorren nodded. “Anything else?”

  I was shaking, but I pressed on. “It’s gathering strength for a purpose,” I said slowly. “I don’t know what that is, but whatever’s killing those men isn’t at full strength yet.”

  “God help us,” Teag muttered. He refilled the glass of wine in my hand, and I took a gulp, not a sip, trying not to think about that mangled body.

  “We didn’t get to all of the locations on the map,” I added. “But we found several worth going back to.”

  “And we found this,” Teag said, digging in the pocket of his jeans. He held out the button on the flat of his palm.

  “You can do this another time, Cassidy,” Sorren said, giving me a worried look.

  I shook my head. “No. People are dying. There isn’t time.” I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and took the button.

  “It’s Jimmy Redshoes,” I said. ‘Jimmy Redshoes’ was the name downtown regulars gave to a gregarious panhandler who always wore a beat-up pair of red sneakers. He’d come home from a couple tours of duty overseas in the Army, but part of him broke over there and never got fixed. After that, he slept where he could and raised money the only way he knew how. Sometimes he played his guitar for coins, and he was good enough to draw a crowd before the cops shooed him away for performing without a permit.

  Around the holidays and during city celebrations, Jimmy came up with costumes and posed for pictures with tourists, many of whom were happy to drop some money in his hat. At other times, he could be found selling an ever-changing assortment of kitschy junk just out of the watchful gaze of the police. He was harmless and charming, and the knowledge that he had met such a pointless, painful death made me angry.

  I frowned, trying to make sense of the jumbled images. Jimmy’s thinking was full of angles and sharp corners, and it was difficult to piece the bits together. “He’d glimpsed the danger before,” I said.

  “Something kept bringing him into the area, and he knew it was dangerous. He’d been chased, but he came back anyhow.”

  “Why?” Teag asked.

  I searched the impressions I received from the button, but the answer wasn’t there. “I don’t know,” I replied. “But it was something he thought was important enough to take the risk. And it killed him. He was truly terrified and running. Whatever it was clawed him… lots of pain and there it ended. The button must have popped when he was struck.” I loosened my grip, and the button slipped out of my hand onto the table.

  Just then, the timer sounded, and I went to get the pizza out of the oven. I brought it back and set it on the table, but I had lost my appetite. “What were those things that attacked the car?” Teag asked.

  Sorren leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “They are akvenon, minions of fear,” he replied.

  “Dangerous, but not nearly as deadly as their master.”

  “Who is?” Teag prodded.

  “A full Asmodius-level demon,” Sorren replied. “The akvenon are just attack dogs, doing their master’s bidding.”

  “Does Moran control the demon?” I asked.

  Sorren opened his eyes. “Moran may think he controls the demon,” he said. “But in the end, demons best their would-be masters.”

  “I still don’t get it,” I said, beginning to pick at the pizza. Teag had already downed three slices. “Why the murders?”

  “When a demon is first summoned, it’s weak,” Sorren replied. “It needs to feed in order to gain power, and it feeds on pain and death.”

  “So the murders, you think they’ve been feeding the demon?” Teag asked.

  Sorren nodded. “Almost certainly.”

  “How does any of this connect to the opera glasses and the haunted objects at Gardenia Landing?” I asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Sorren said. “But I think it all connects somehow.”

  “We know that Moran was hanging around the B&B,” Teag said. “Maybe he could feel the magic in the haunted objects.”

  “Captain Harrison, the man who built Gardenia Landing, went down with his ship after delivering part of the pirate’s cargo from Barbados,” I added. “And now there’s another salvage team missing.”

  “Interesting about the salvage team,” Sorren said. By ‘interesting’ I was pretty sure he meant ‘bad’. I looked at him sharply. “You think they found the pirate ship?”

  “It’s possible,” Sorren said. “The question i
s: what was onboard that ship that someone wanted badly enough to kill for it?”

  “As soon as I get back to my computer, I’ll find out,” Teag said. “And I’ll see if there’s any link between Harrison, the salvage team and the Navy yard.”

  “We’ve got to go back there,” I said, swallowing a bite of pizza. “The Navy yard. Somehow, it’s tied up with this whole thing, but I don’t know how.”

  Sorren nodded. “We’ll go back – together,” he said, fixing Teag and me with a stern gaze.

  He turned to look at me. “On a more mundane note, don’t panic when your car disappears. Someone will be by shortly to take care of things. Can’t leave it sitting around in that condition for anyone to notice.” He paused.

  “And I’ve been remiss,” he continued. “You need more protection than that necklace can give you. All well and good that you and Teag have martial arts and weapons training, but that doesn’t do much against magic. I need to find better defenses for both of you – magical ones.”

  “What does it want, the demon?” I asked.

  Sorren looked down. “What Moran wants, we don’t know yet, but we’ll figure it out. But what the demon wants, that’s easy.” He met my gaze. “The blood of every living being in Charleston.”

  “This is the biggest thing we’ve been up against since Teag and I came on board,” I said. “Can’t the Alliance do more to help? I mean they can fix my car, but can’t take care of a demon?”

  Sorren leaned back in his chair and laughed before taking on a serious tone. “The Alliance isn’t fixing your car, Cassidy. I am. I’ve had the need over the years to keep special services on retainer for just such emergencies. The Alliance isn’t some kind of shadow military organization, or something like the CIA,”

  he said. “That’s not why it was created.”

  He crossed his arms. “Less than one hundred years before I was turned, a book was published, the Malleus Maleficarum. Have you heard of it?”