Only Human (Kirsten O'Shea Book 1)

by Blevins, Candace

  Well, other than leaving the door open when he came in, and Smokey acting strange.

  I gave Smokey the hand sign for wait so he’d stay put, and walked across the room to close the door. I rubbed Smokey’s head and scratched behind an ear as I took my seat again, releasing him from the wait command.

  “Good morning, Jerry. How have you been?” This was a patient with a once a month appointment, so it’d been a while since I’d seen him.

  “Mr. Nelson will not be joining us today Ms. O’Shea. Let me introduce myself. I am known as Xaephan.”

  The name sounded familiar, but I didn’t immediately figure out where I’d heard it, as my mind was initially occupied with trying to figure out how he could be saying Jerry wouldn’t be here when he was sitting right in front of me.

  But, the different tone of voice and odd almost-German accent clued me in that this wasn’t my patient speaking.

  And then it hit me — the second level demon who zapped my laser. Xaephan. My heart missed a few beats as adrenaline flooded my system.

  “Ah, I see you have deduced who I am,” he said.

  What was it with supernaturals and contractions? Not using them made the jackasses sound so fucking formal. Or, maybe I was just pissed in general, feeling helpless, and striking out at whatever I could.

  “I do not intend to cause harm to Mr. Nelson’s body,” Xaephan told me. “When I am done with it I will return it to him, and will leave him with a memory of coming to see you and feeling much better after talking with you. I know you want to kill me, but you don’t want to kill Mr. Nelson’s body, do you?” He sounded nice, but I could tell he was placating me. I sat still and didn’t try to speak as I drew energy into my body as quickly as possible. He kept talking. “I merely want to talk, a conversation, and then I will leave and will return this body to its owner.”

  Fuck. He was right. I couldn’t do anything to him or I’d hurt Jerry, or rather, Jerry’s body, which Jerry kind of needed. But I couldn’t just sit here and have a conversation with a demon. Could I? And Mordecai had said I couldn’t just kill them anymore without a good reason. Maybe Xaephan just wanted to confirm that Mordecai had passed on the message about me sending demons back and not killing them. Crap, I needed to get Eileen out of here in case everything went to shit. I knew Nathan should be able to hear our conversation, and the fact he was staying out had me worried.

  Working on getting Eileen safe and me some help, I said, “While I may want to kill you, I’ve agreed not to kill anything else coming from your plane of existence unless I have good reason, and it doesn’t appear you’ve given me a reason. Yet. I’m going to pick up the phone and ask my assistant to send Nathan in, and tell her she can go home for the day. I’ll ask Nathan to sit and do nothing, but I’d like to have him in here with us, if you don’t mind.”

  He cocked his head to the side and said nothing, which I decided to take as a ‘sure.’ I was lifting the phone when Nathan opened the door and came in, looking as relaxed as always. “I sent her home. Pretend I’m not here.”

  I’m normally calm and easygoing when working, and don’t get ticked even when people are trying to piss me off. Somehow, though, Nathan can just walk into a room and anger me.

  Feeling the need to say something to him, I explained, “Nathan, this body belongs to one of my long time patients, and I’d really like it if his body stays intact and uninjured. It’s currently being occupied by Xaephan, the second level demon we ran into the other night. Xaephan assures me he’s just here to talk.”

  Nathan looked at me, his face clearly telling me he’d heard every word from the lobby, though he opened his hand to show me a throwing knife. It was below the armrest, so Xaephan wouldn’t be able to see from his angle.

  I turned my head from him to keep from shaking it to try to keep him from killing my patient. Smokey was still sitting in front of me, and I told him to lay down, which he did with a grumble to let me know he wasn’t happy about doing so.

  I slid my foot from my shoe and rubbed his hip as a thank you for doing as I’d asked. I left it there for moral support — I didn’t know if he needed it, but I sure did.

  I gave Xaephan as steady a look as I could manage and said, “So talk.”

  “You said you’d agreed to not kill us without good reason. Who did you make this agreement with?”

  “Myself, after having a conversation with someone about how I put spiders outside instead of killing them, while…” I paused as I realized I didn’t want to let him know I had family, and hoped it wasn’t noticeable as I continued with, “a friend is terrified of them and insists on killing them instead of putting them outside, since they might just come back in.”

  “You killed my people because you were afraid of them?”

  “Yes, mostly. You have to know humans are taught that demons are worse than bad. We’re taught you’re evil. Someone who’s bad might have a reason for doing bad things, but evil people and beings do bad things just because they hate good. It’s hard to explain, but humans are taught that evil must be killed, so I killed things that came from the demon plane. Now, I understand most of those things were called here and probably didn’t decide to come. Still, once they were here they were doing bad things, which takes me back to the whole evil for the sake of being evil thing.”

  He contemplated me a few seconds, but he held his head kind of like an insect and it was fucking creepy. Jerry was somewhat attractive when he was himself, but with Xaephan possessing his body, it was as if the evil leaked through and made him… not ugly, but no longer the beautiful soul I knew Jerry to be.

  “And now you are starting to think in terms of yin and yang, is that it?” Xaephan asked.

  “Maybe. Do you know who is killing people using a metaphysical weapon?”

  “Yes, and I can give you that information. For a price.”

  Nathan jerked a little, but even without his feedback I wouldn’t have agreed. “Sorry,” I told Xaephan, “I’m not making any deals with you. If you want to give me the information because you’re glad I seem to be seeing things your way without you having to take the time to convince me, then great. However, I won’t agree to anything in order to get information from you.”

  And then I tried to do what I’d been teaching Lauren to do — look into his heart and see if I saw good or bad. He immediately realized what I was doing, and I was looking into Jerry Nelson’s heart instead of Xaephan’s. I already knew what was in my patient’s heart, so I pulled my awareness back and focused on the physical cues I could pick up from my foe, since he wasn’t going to let me look metaphysically.

  The demon didn’t look angry though, he looked thoughtful. “I will give you a little bit of information because you are trying to see me as an individual, instead of just seeing a demon sitting before you. However, I have much more information if you wish to offer me something for it.”

  I didn’t say anything, so he continued. “I was given a nice dose of your abilities when we last met. The last time I felt energy such as yours, it came from someone who was a god... with a little g, but still, a god. Humans are not to have these abilities, and yet you do. It is believed humans are not advanced enough to have such power without using it to rule the world, possibly even destroy the world.” He considered me a few more seconds and added, “You humans don’t live long enough to gain the knowledge needed to responsibly wield such power, but your talk of spiders tells me perhaps you are up to possessing such weapons responsibly. So here is your information: There’s a pattern to the killings, and if one has information from all of them, one can figure out the pattern and decipher where and when the next will happen. Ask your friends to get you all of the information, and not to try to shield you from any of it.”

  Nathan didn’t move, but I could feel his unhappiness with this statement. I ignored him though, and kept focused on the demon. Xaephan looked about as friendly and helpful as possible as he said, “I don’t know if you can stop the killer or not. You’re powerf
ul, but so is he, and he has thousands of years of experience wielding his weapons. You do not.”

  I wasn’t being shy, I had a notepad and pen and I used them to take notes as he spoke so I’d be sure I got it right later. I also had my recorder going. I don’t often use it, but have it in case I feel the need to protect myself legally. In this case, I needed to be sure I remembered everything he said.

  “Have you given me any information that’s true, but is meant to mislead me?”

  He smiled, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he was impressed. “Yes.”

  “But you aren’t going to tell me which piece, or pieces, of information, are you?”

  He was still smiling; he was enjoying this way too much. “No.”

  “Is our conversation over?”

  “I believe it is. But Mr. Nelson’s session isn’t up yet and I’d hate to shortchange him.”

  I really wanted to slap the cocky-assed look off his face, but I worked to keep my facial expression neutral as I told him, “He isn’t here, you are. And you aren’t paying for the session.”

  “Under what circumstance would you feel you had a reason to kill one of my people?”

  “If they come here on their own, without being called, and cause problems, any problems, then I reserve the right to kill them. However, if they are called and are here against their will, I agree this changes things, so I’ll be much more likely to send them back. This doesn’t mean I won’t still kill under those circumstances, it just means I won’t do it lightly and without a very good reason to do so.”

  “And what might that reason be?”

  “I’m not going to let you push me into an agreement to only kill under specific circumstances.”

  He didn’t like that, and I saw a flash of anger before his face went back to neutral. “We shall see how this agreement works out. If I’m not satisfied with the results, we will speak again, Kirsten O’Shea.”

  “We do not have an agreement. I’ve merely told you my intentions.” He didn’t look happy, and I stood as he did. Smokey also stood, but thankfully Nathan remained in his seat. I looked back to the demon and used my most firm voice to say, “Good day, Mr. Xaephan.”

  “Not mister, just Xaephan.”

  And he walked out the door.

  I looked at Nathan and said, “Call Aaron, I want him here, in my office, with every scrap of information he has about every single one of the killings.”

  He leaned forward, his face blank, as always. “We should go to him. He has a strategy room set up at the office, with all the information up on the chalkboards and bulletin boards.”

  “Fine, call him and let him know we’re on the way, and make sure he knows we have Smokey with us.” I thought about it a minute and added, “I don’t think the chalkboards will help, I need to look through the files. If what he’s written on the chalkboards would help, he’d have figured it out.”

  Chapter Twenty

  When we arrived at the Drake Security building Smokey and I followed Nathan, since I had no idea which room we were headed to.

  Aaron had bought a beautiful old school built around one hundred years ago, and the only thing he’d really done to modernize it was completely redo the electrical wiring, and gut the bathrooms and changing rooms for a modern renovation. And, of course, a state of the art security system had gone in when it was rewired. The hallways and repurposed classrooms have been painted, but that’s about it.

  Which is why they use chalkboards and bulletin boards instead of white boards.

  The old cafeteria/auditorium is now set up like your basic work out club with lots of weights and equipment. The old gymnasium no longer has the bleachers, in their place are a few boxing rings and a bunch of mats set up for sparring rounds. The court surface is still open for basketball games.

  One wing of the old school is used for storage and stays locked up — rooms and rooms of guns, knives, explosives, rocket launchers, and other things used to kill people, along with extra bullet proof vests and no telling what else. So, of course, this wing was top-level secure, and it was here Aaron had used an empty classroom to lay out all the information about the murders. He was there when Nathan and I walked in, and I started speaking the instant I saw him.

  “I want the times and dates of each murder, and the addresses of their houses. Dates and times first.”

  I sat at the conference table, pulled my notepad from my bag, turned to the first blank page with my pen in hand, and looked at him expectantly.

  Smokey took a look around the room and settled in front of the door.

  Aaron started pulling folders and giving me dates, I ended up with:

  October 9, 1:00 a.m.

  October 10, 11:30 p.m.

  October 12, 1:30 a.m.

  October 15, 12:30 a.m.

  October 16, 11:30 p.m.

  October 17, 10:00 p.m.

  October 20, 11:30 p.m.

  I figured the number of days between and came up with:

  1

  2

  3

  2

  2

  3

  Not a pattern. But if we could look at it and know when, then there should be a pattern. I looked at the times of death, all estimated to a half hour. Hmmm, what if....

  “Some of these people were found far after the fact, right?”

  “Yes, in some cases a few days later”

  “So the time of death may be off.”

  I figured it again, just looking at what night each had likely happened and not the exact date listed, and I wrote the number of days since the last murder out to the side:

  Oct 8/9

  Oct 10/11, 2

  Oct 11/12, 1

  Oct 14/15, 3

  Oct 16/17, 2

  Oct 17/18, 1

  Oct 20/21, 3

  Bingo, a pattern, and it meant the next murder would happen on the night of October 22/23. Monday night. Tonight.

  Now to figure out where, so I asked Aaron to read the addresses off to me:

  2304 Apple Drive

  14 Chestnut Drive

  1806 Balsa Circle

  8614A Dogwood Lane

  1267 Figgy Way

  4347 Elm St

  5824 Gingko Street

  I was looking at the street numbers for a pattern when it hit me that the names of the streets were all organic. They were all plants. Except Figgy, and a fig is a what, fruit? So, even Figgy.

  “What does gingko grow on?”

  “Trees,” Aaron said. “Gingko Trees”

  “Then all of the names of these streets are tree names.”

  “What was the last name of the person on Gingko Street?”

  “King”

  “Is that an Irish name?”

  “Yes, though not obviously so.”

  “I guess it was a stretch to find an Irish name on a tree street.”

  As I kept looking at the names I realized all of the street names were from the first part of the alphabet.

  I wrote:

  A

  C

  B

  D

  F

  E

  G

  And I saw it, clear as day.

  “The next murder will happen tonight. Find someone who is single, with an Irish last name, who lives on a tree named street that starts with the letter I and we can stop this bastard.”

  “Kirsten, these happened all over the place,” Aaron reminded me. “Fort Oglethorpe, Lafayette, East Ridge, Collegedale, Chattanooga, Jasper, Scottsboro. I’ll get my people on it, but we may not figure it out in time.”

  I wasn’t listening, I was unlocking my tablet so I could research trees that start with the letter I. Aaron walked out of the room to get his people started on it, and I heard Nathan chuckle.

  “What?”

  “Aaron flew over Smokey instead of asking you to get him to move.”

  I grinned and went back to searching the internet on my tablet. Some part of me recognized Nathan didn’t normally chuckle around me, muc
h less make that sort of comment — he spoke to me only when he had no other choice. I didn’t have time to ponder it right then, though, so I dug into my research.

  When Aaron came back he said, “We’re coming up short on trees that start with the letter I.”

  “The Ironwood tree. It isn’t an official designation, but it’s the only one I’ve been able to find. Get some of your people started looking for a street with that name. I haven’t found one yet.”

  “Maybe I should put you on my research staff.”

  “Sorry, I already have a day job.” And then I found it, and exclaimed, “There’s one in Soddy Daisy, Iron Wood Trail, three words. I don’t think I can cross reference to find who lives on that street, but I’m betting your people can.”

  Aaron sighed and picked up his phone. “Lou, do you have anything yet?”

  “Yes, I know it’s only been a few minutes, but Kirsten has found an Iron Wood Trail in Soddy Daisy, and she tells me there is an Ironwood tree. Look to see if there are any Irish names on that street. Even better, get me a list of the people who live there, and double-check the other surrounding cities to make sure there isn’t another Ironwood street or drive or whatever somewhere else close by.”

  “And make sure there aren’t any other trees that start with I,” I said, sounding more like an order than a suggestion, but I didn’t have time to be nice right now. I gave him my serious look, and said, “Do not tell me there isn’t time to figure this out. I’m going to go home and have dinner with Lauren and Xiaolan, and help my daughter with her homework. When I return I expect you’ll know the location and will have some sort of plan. I will be there tonight when we nail this bastard.”

  Aaron must have talked to Nathan, because he quoted Xaephan from earlier today. “You are powerful, so is he, he has thousands of years of experience wielding weapons. You do not.” He gave me a few seconds and added, “He also told you this is someone who used to be worshiped as a god. No way are you going with us tonight.”