Personal Demon

by Kelley Armstrong

  "Is that his?" Karl asked from the door.

  I spun, raising the shirt as if to show it off, shielding my face. "It is."

  He didn't respond. When I lowered the shirt, he was already gone. I grabbed a knapsack from the open closet, stuffed the shirt inside and hurried out. He put the jacket into a separate pouch, then wordlessly took the bag from me.

  WE WALKED TO the car in silence. I fretted that I'd upset him, but he'd been quiet since the morgue. Making a big deal out of it would only confirm that this visit had affected me. That I was still thinking of them. Of him.

  We were in the car before Karl spoke. "Sonny was at the warehouse."

  "Probably. I was too new, but Guy trusted them. He'd have taken them there or sent them for supplies."

  "I mean last night. His scent was as strong as the other boys'."

  My heart thumped. "Maybe they were keeping him there."

  "Maybe."

  "Was there any trace of...anyone else?"

  "Jasper? No." He paused. "I'm sorry."

  THE WAREHOUSE WAS on the way to the apartment where Carlos had been found, and Karl wanted to confirm Sonny's presence--now that he had scent samples--and see whether there was a trail.

  There was.

  We expected it to lead to the street and disappear. Instead, the trail meandered down alleys and back roads. Despite the serpentine route, it was obvious Sonny had a goal in mind, and was detouring around major arteries.

  "He doesn't want to be spotted," I said as we walked down a service lane. "Can you tell who he's with?"

  "No one."

  "He's alone? He must be escaping then."

  Karl slowed, then looked over his shoulder at me.

  My cheeks warmed. "I know that's not the only explanation, Karl. He could be--" I pushed the admission out. "He could have been at the warehouse of his own free will. He could be working with whoever is behind this. He could have delivered the bottle. I know all that. I just..."

  I saw their faces: Bianca, Rodriguez, Max, Tony, Guy. Twenty-four hours, and almost everyone I'd met in the past few days was dead.

  "It's just too much. I...need to hope."

  He turned, stopping me in my path, and rubbed down the goose bumps on my arms. He leaned closer, and I thought he was going to kiss me, but he just leaned in, his voice lowering.

  "I'm going to call Lucas and have them send a guard and a car. You should go to that apartment where they found Carlos, see if you can pick up anything."

  "I'll be okay, Karl."

  "I think you should--"

  "It won't cloud my judgment. I promise."

  One last squeeze. As we walked, he snuck glances my way. Looking for signs that he should insist on doing this without me.

  The trail ended at a terraced garden, with notices that confetti and rice were prohibited. Presumably a popular wedding photo site.

  Sonny's trail led across the gardens to the park beyond, which wasn't huge--maybe a couple of acres--with playground equipment and benches.

  We stood in the shadow of a storage shed beside the garden. I wished I'd brought a jacket. A chill wind blew in from the north, and the sun kept ducking behind cloud cover. Miamians, accustomed to better weather, had forsaken the park, all except a single child and her nanny on the swings, and a man slumped on a bench.

  I looked at the man. At his size. At his dark blond hair, ruffled by the breeze. My heart picked up speed.

  "That looks like Sonny."

  Karl crept to the garden railing, his head up, sampling the wind. He stepped back into the shadows with me.

  "I think you're right."

  The figure had his back to us, and was leaning against the corner of the bench, chin on his chest. "He could be sleeping."

  "Possible."

  I knew there was a more likely explanation. If Sonny had gone through all that trouble to avoid being seen, he'd hardly nap in a public park.

  "I'm going to take a closer look," Karl said. "I need you to stay here, Hope."

  "I will."

  He glanced my way. "I mean it."

  "I know. I'll wait here where I can see him, and if he moves, I'll hit my panic button to warn you."

  "Good."

  As he moved away, he stopped and looked back. His lips parted, but he shook his head. Before I could say anything, he was gone.

  LUCAS

  18

  "SO WE ANALYZED THE DNA and blood samples." Warren kept his gaze on his notes, clutched in both hands. "Let's start with the DNA. The requisition says it's supposed to be from two magicians. But, well, sir, we didn't find any sorcerer genetic markers."

  "They're human?" Paige said.

  "Um, we aren't sure." He laid the pages down, his gaze lifting as high as my cheekbones. "We're running more tests. I wasn't comfortable bringing you preliminary results, but I thought..."

  "I'd want to know this right away. Yes, thank you. So we have two samples, from possible supernaturals--"

  "Probable, sir."

  "Probable. Of one or more unknown types--"

  "One, I believe. They share over 50 percent of their DNA in common."

  "They're brothers?"

  Paige pushed her chair back, getting to her feet. "Over 50 percent means full brothers, right?" She opened my satchel and took out a file folder. "Then I'd say we somehow got the wrong samples, because genetics can do some wonky things, but there's no way these two guys--" she put the kidnap photo on the table, "--are full brothers."

  Beside it, she set the close-ups of their faces that I'd requisitioned from the computer lab. Even if one looked past the obvious coloring and ethnicity differences, there was nothing in the two young men's faces to suggest familial relationship.

  "Hey, that's Jason." It was the younger of the researchers. She turned to the other woman and poked a finger at Jaz's picture. "Doesn't that look like Jason?"

  The older woman glanced at me first. Only when I nodded did she walk over. She peered at the photo, then, after another glance at me and a reciprocal nod, she picked it up and studied it.

  "It looks like him, but the eyes aren't right. Or the mouth. And the hair's curlier."

  The younger woman took the photo. "Yeah, I see it. This guy's even hotter than Jason." An embarrassed giggle as she handed the photo back to Paige. "Sorry."

  "Who's Jason?" Paige asked.

  The younger woman opened her mouth, but her colleague beat her to it. "He worked in the library. Grunt work mainly--running books and reports around, filing them back on the shelves. Then he was transferred to..."

  "Security division," the younger woman said with a sigh.

  The other woman cast a knowing look at Paige. "Some of our younger staff were quite taken with him. Not that it did them any good. A sweet kid, but he kept to himself."

  "Do you remember Jason's last name?" Paige asked as she swiveled her chair to the computer behind her.

  "Dumas. But he isn't here anymore. He left about six months ago."

  Paige paused, the human resources directory on the screen, and looked over at me. I was already on the phone. As I spoke to the HR department, I typed in the proper access codes.

  A moment later, Paige was sending a page to the printer. She retrieved it and set it in front of the women.

  "Is this the guy you knew as Jason Dumas?"

  They nodded. The staff photograph showed a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, with a somber face, dark eyes and dark wavy hair, fashionably long.

  This man was not Jaz. But there was little doubt he was a relative. A close one.

  I moved the two head shots side by side. "Jasper and Jason."

  "Jaz and Sonny," Paige murmured. She picked up the kidnap photo of Sonny. "But there's no way, even with prosthetics, that this guy could be--" She pulled over her laptop. A minute of frenetic key tapping. "The answer isn't in there--" She waved at the books littering the table. "It's in here."

  I moved behind her. On the screen was the interracial council database.

 
; "Armen Haig," she said.

  "Armen...?"

  "I have to call Elena."

  HOPE

  TRUTH

  I stood as close to the railing as I could get without stepping from the shadows. I caught glimpses of Karl as he circumnavigated the park, approaching from the side opposite the playground. A couple of times he looked my way, even shading his eyes once, and I'd lifted my hand, but I could tell he hadn't seen me. The next time I'd slip into the light just long enough to reassure him. That is, if the sun would cooperate. It had gone dark again and--

  "Hello, Faith."

  My chest constricted at the voice, but I didn't move. Another auditory hallucination. Being here, seeing Sonny, triggered the memory, the voice, the words.

  "You don't answer to that anymore? Hope, then. I think I like Hope better. Nuh-uh. Don't reach into your pockets. Hands up where I can see them, as the cops say."

  As I pivoted toward the voice, I kept my eyes half closed. Bracing myself? Or denying the obvious as long as I could? Even through half-lidded eyes, though, there was no mistaking who stood before me, though his curls had been cut to just below his ears and his face was devoid of expression in a way I never imagined it could be.

  I licked my lips and swallowed hard, trying to conjure up enough moisture to form words.

  "Jaz."

  The mask shattered then. He smiled, and it was that same smile I knew, slow and sexy, his eyes lighting up. Jaz.

  My chest tightened again and my gaze slid down to his hands. To the gun pointed at me. He pulled it back, as if to hide it.

  "Sorry, but I figured you might need a little incentive. And I might need a little protection. You may be tiny, but you're fast."

  That jaunty tone was so familiar, so Jaz, that my fists clenched and I wanted to fly at him, to pummel him until I couldn't recognize him. The thought, the hate in it, made my bile rise.

  "You're upset. I get that and I don't blame you. So here's what we're going to do. First, hand me your purse."

  I did.

  "Now, empty your pockets."

  As he stepped toward me, my fists flew up, but he caught my arm and yanked me into the shadows.

  "Let's back up," he said. "You saw Sonny out there, right? He's not sleeping. He knows exactly where your friend is, courtesy of my play-by-play into his earpiece. Last time I spoke to him, he set his watch for three minutes. If he doesn't hear back from me by then, he's putting a bullet through the werewolf. It's not silver, but I've heard that doesn't matter."

  There was no animosity in his voice. No threat. Just Jaz, chattering away as always. Bile filled my mouth. I forced myself to swallow it.

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Let me empty your pockets. Don't attack me or run. Then we'll walk that way." He jerked his chin toward the rear of the gardens.

  "And then?"

  "You're coming with me."

  He sounded surprised that I'd needed to ask. As I lifted my hands, he stepped so close I could smell the citrus notes of his aftershave, and feel that low-level thrum of chaos, that aura that always surrounded him, that had drawn me in.

  I took a deep breath and let him empty my pockets. When he finished, he paused a mere inch away, and I looked up to see his face over mine. His lips curved in that same almost shy smile that had set my pulse racing. I wanted to spit on him. But if I opened my mouth, I'd probably throw up instead.

  I lowered my gaze. "Please, you don't need to do this, Jaz. Or whatever your name is."

  "Jaz." His fingers slid under my chin, tilting my face up to his. "It's Jaz."

  I looked into his eyes and, for just a second, that chaos sucked me back in. So pure. So absolute. How had I overlooked that? No, not overlooked. Dismissed. Seen what I'd wanted to see.

  "Kidnapping me isn't--"

  "I'm not kidnapping you." That easy smile. "I'm just taking you along. We have a lot to talk about and this isn't the place to do it."

  "They won't care, Jaz. As hostages go, I'm useless. An employee, and an expendable one--"

  He tapped his watch. I stopped.

  "Sorry," he said. "I probably should have told him longer, but we're on a schedule. If I don't meet it..."

  An apologetic shrug, as if the consequences of failing to make that call would be nothing more than mildly inconvenient. I glanced over my shoulder. Karl couldn't be more than a few yards from Sonny. Maybe he'd spring in time. Even if he didn't, could Sonny catch him off-guard? Karl already suspected Sonny was no innocent victim. If I--

  "Hope." Jaz's fingers closed on my arm. "Fifteen seconds."

  I couldn't risk it. I followed Jaz to the mouth of the alley. He took out a radio and told Sonny to hold off.

  "Hold off?" I said. "You promised--"

  He lifted his hand. "Sonny's going to walk away now and head for the street. We have one minute to meet him at the car. If we don't, he goes back and kills the werewolf."

  Not "takes care of him" or "finishes things." Kills him. Blunt and unapologetic.

  I let him lead me to the car.

  LUCAS

  19

  PAIGE HAD JUST STARTED HER CALL when my cousin Javier, VP of technology, came to tell me the Nasts were getting impatient...and the St. Clouds had joined them. I checked my watch. I'd said thirty minutes, and it was going on thirty-five.

  I caught enough to know Paige was asking Elena about the time she and other supernaturals had been kidnapped and studied by humans. While the Cabals had claimed no knowledge of the project, the Nasts had business ties with the financier--the late software tycoon Tyrone Winsloe--and none of the captives had been Cabal employees. Suspicious, but unrelated to the concern at hand which, from Paige's conversation, seemed to involve another captive, a man named Armen Haig who'd died before the escape.

  I longed to stay a few minutes longer, but Paige and the council didn't need me and the Cabal did. A strange twist of priorities. An uncomfortable one.

  I interrupted long enough to tell her where I was going, then followed Javier out, making the call to my mother on the way.

  The meeting went exactly as I could have predicted. The Nasts and the St. Clouds offered their help in our time of grief. We only had to tell them what we needed. Of course, in telling them, we'd reveal our weaknesses, which is what they really wanted to know. It turned into a thirty-minute mutual reassurance session. Thank you so much for the kind offer, but we're doing fine. No, really, we're fine. No, I mean it, we're fine. Thirty minutes with my cell phone vibrating nonstop, messages piling up.

  "I'm sorry," I said finally. "But I really do have to get back to the investigation. My father has put me in charge--"

  "Of finding your brothers' killers?" Thomas Nast, the CEO, snorted. "Does he want the parties responsible found?"

  Sean murmured something to his grandfather, who waved him off, making a face. But he didn't continue. Thomas had never been known for his tact, yet he was only saying what the others were thinking.

  "Seems your father is putting you in charge of a lot," Thomas's son Josef said. "The Cabals are concerned about that. Investing so much power in someone who'd like nothing more than to see this institution collapse..." He tugged at his tie, clearing his throat. "It has us questioning your father's state of mind, Lucas. He's suffered a great trauma. There are provisions in the inter-Cabal manifest for this sort of thing, should a CEO be incapacitated and no one able to step into his place--"

  "Nice try, Josef."

  My father's voice came from the doorway. I stood to vacate his chair, but he waved me back down. When I hesitated, I could feel all eyes on me. I sat, but edged the chair to the side, giving him a place to stand at the head of the table.

  Condolences filled the room. Any other time, my father would have received them graciously. He was better at this game than anyone. But today he cut them off in midsentence.

  "As you can see, I'm not incapacitated. I have placed Lucas in charge of the investigation, using my staff and my resources. I expect when the situa
tion is resolved, you will call an inquest into the proceedings, and I will fully cooperate. As for daily operations, those are also under Lucas for the time being, but all his decisions are being forwarded to me for final approval. Is that acceptable?"

  He gave the final word a twist of sarcasm. The younger members shifted in their seats, casting glances at their superiors, who knew enough to remain stone faced.

  "It seems you have the short-term situation under control," Thomas said.

  My father's hand tightened on my shoulder.

  "However," Thomas continued, "it is the long-term one that concerns us more."

  "I'm burying two of my sons tomorrow--"

  "And I buried one of mine four years ago. My heir. With nary a hiccup in the progress of daily operations."

  "Have you felt a hiccup, Thomas? Because if you have, I'd love to know about it."

  "We want to know your intentions, Benicio. As regards the naming of your true successor."

  "You show me yours, I'll show you mine." My father's voice had slid into a faux breezy tone that for anyone who knew him served like a rattler's warning. "Who have you named heir in Kristof's place?"

  "I have made my decision--"

  "But won't tell a soul, because the truth is, you haven't made any decision." My father circled the table, walking behind the men. "It should be Josef here, who stepped up to the plate after Kristof's death and filled his shoes admirably...if incompletely. But you won't make it official because you're still holding out hope for young Sean, who shows every bit of his father's promise but, well, there's that touch of disillusionment settling over the boy. He's not quite sure this is where he wants to be. Not quite sure he believes in the Cabal anymore." My father clamped both hands on Thomas's shoulders and leaned down to whisper, loud enough for us to overhear. "I know what that's like."

  He straightened, hands still on the old man's shoulders, fingers digging in.

  "While I've enjoyed this chance to air our reciprocal concerns over succession, I have to wonder why the topic was broached at all. I've already named my heir. I did it years ago, as you well know."

  I fixed my gaze on my father's chin, expression impassive.