by Sharon Joss
CHAPTER 18
I dropped Mina off at school, but couldn’t shake the hunch that she was in danger. She would be safer in her classroom than with me, but the thought of leaving her bugged me anyway. I checked out my black and purple reflection again in the rear-view mirror. Ugh. Well, at least I had a good excuse to get out of this little caving adventure. Rhys didn’t need me, anyway. One look at my face would be enough. Then I could hang around the school until Mina got out, a much better choice.
The memory of Rhys’ kiss came back to me. Further exploration in that area was tempting, but I hadn’t actually promised Rhys I would go. He had kissed an implied agreement out of me, but he wouldn’t be expecting me to actually show up, would he? True, the memory of that sort-of promise was hard to forget, and gawd amity, he smelled good. Anyway, my ribs were killing me and I still had oozy scabs all over my knees, so crawling around in some dark bat cave with the mage wouldn’t be pleasant.
I zipped into the alley behind Mystic Properties and parked next to a shiny black pickup. I got out of the car just as Rhys emerged from the back door of the shop. He carried a box full of gear, and did a double-take when he got a glimpse at my shiner.
I blushed, feeling self-conscious.
Rhys came closer to inspect the damage. His face darkened as he examined my bruises, but didn’t ask.
“I’m not going. You don’t need me anyway.”
“Bullshit.” He walked past me and lowered the tailgate. “I can’t go without you. I can’t see the djinn. If they’re loose, I need you to spot them.”
Oh, right. “You can sense them, though.”
He threw the box into the back, slammed the gate; then came around and jerked open the passenger door for me.
“What are you mad at?” I didn’t want to go, but backing out was not going to be as easy as I thought. “How did this become my problem?”
His jaw twitched. “Does Mina see your djemons?”
I gasped. “How did you know?”
“You are not the only person in Shore Haven who is attracting djinn, Mattie. If Mina can see your djemons, chances are she’s also got enough juice to attract djinn of her own. These loose djinn represent a serious problem for the whole community. How long before Mina, or any other intuitive, start to name them? To use them? Anyone with a manifested demon is considered a terrorist in the eyes of the federal government. Demon masters don’t get tried in the courts Mattie; they’re executed. Is that what you want?”
Icy cold ran through my veins. “We have to do this, don’t we?”
He gave me a curt nod. “Your chariot awaits, my lady.”
I sighed, and forced myself to clamber up into the cab. Why men always seemed to drive giant trucks made no sense to me. I fastened my seatbelt.
“We need to make a quick stop; I’ve got something I need to take care of.” He started the engine.
“No, you’re right. This can’t wait. We do the cave thing first.”
“This stop is on the way.”
“Where are we going?”
“The hospital. They’ve got something trapped in the basement.”
“What?”
“We’ll soon find out.”
“Why did they call you?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions.”
Interesting.
We drove down Third and headed toward the hospital. Third is the main thoroughfare running through Shore Haven’s commercial district. The street veers to the east, off Seneca, and dead-ends at the Russ Meat Packing Plant in Germantown, at the north end of Shore Haven. The town founder, Helmut Russ bought much of the land in the 1700s and built a meat packing plant where Sentinel Hill meets the water.
St. Agrippa’s Hospital sat on the corner of 5th and St. Julian, which served as the dividing line between Shore Haven and Germantown. The hospital sat across from St. Peter’s Catholic Church, and was one of the oldest buildings still standing in the Shore. Not on a par with more modern hospitals, but the Russ family donated the land, and the family still funded maintenance for the place.
We parked in the visitor lot. Out of the back of the truck, Rhys grabbed a pole with a noose on one end, and a small cat carrier, which he handed to me.
I nodded toward the pole thingy. “What’s that?”
“Snake stick.”
“They have a snake?”
He didn’t answer and had longer legs than me, so I had to hurry to catch up. My ribs protested.
Curiosity gnawed at me. “I’m not scared of snakes or anything, but I wasn’t exactly expecting to be wrangling anything today, that’s all.”
I hustled through the main lobby after him and we waited for the elevator. People eyed Rhys and the snake stick, me and my black eye and crate, and kept their distance. Nobody got into the elevator with us, so our ride down to the 3rd level basement went uninterrupted.
The janitor is waiting for us,” Rhys said. “All you need to do is hold the carrier for me and be ready when I drop the whatever inside.”
The doors opened, and we faced an overheated forest of ductwork, pipes and furnace. Rhys seemed to know where he was going and turned to the right, heading down an aisle framed by massive plumbing and machinery. In the distance, heavy metal music screamed over the drone of generators. Dim fluorescent lighting gave the place a hellish glow.
A few turns later, we arrived at a tiny office where a guy sat with his feet up on his desk, reading a car racing magazine. The guy did a double take when he saw my purpled face and turned down the tunes.
“Hey, that was fast.” His shirt had an oval patch with the name, Terry, embroidered in red letters.
Rhys introduced me. “This is my assistant, Mattie.”
“Hi,” I said, and like a dope, held up the cat crate. He nodded, and led us through the warren of the engineering room to a metal stairwell, which led to a lower level.
“It’s not a rat,” he said to Rhys. “And something has been chewing on the electric cables. I’m worried about fire.”
We followed Terry down the stairs to the sub-basement. The thrum of machines seemed quieter here; the lighting dimmer too. We walked past row after row of metal file cabinets.
“I was afraid it was going to chew its foot off and get away, so I covered him with a garbage can.”
“Good thinking.” Sure enough, at the end of the row, a metal garbage can sat upended on the cement floor with a big hunk of iron pipe sitting on top.
Terry slapped the side of the can, and the trapped creature inside responded with the sound of scrabbling and hissing.
Terry grinned. “Pretty pissed off, huh.”
“Thanks Terry. We’ll take it from here.”
“Fine by me. Swing by the office on your way out. I’d like to know what it is.”
Rhys nodded, and Terry didn’t wait around. I began to worry about what was under the garbage can.
“So is it a snake or a rat or what?”
Rhys removed the heavy piece of pipe, holding his hand firmly on top of the can as the scrabbling inside increased. “We’ll wait a few minutes for it to calm down a bit.”
“What are you going to do?”
“You worried?” He grinned.
“No. Maybe. A little.”
We waited for the angry sounds underneath the can to quiet down. He motioned me a few feet back, and with the snake stick in one hand, he tipped up the edge of the can just a teeny bit.
Instantly, a black nose and a pair of needle-like claws appeared and scrabbled to get out.
I gasped. “What the hell is that,” I asked, but I already knew the answer.
“Get ready.” He tilted the can, and the jaws and head of the thing squeezed through the gap. Rhys lowered the rim, trapping the head just behind the ears. The ugly thing hissed and wiggled, but Rhys applied enough pressure to hold it in place. He slipped the noose-end of the pole over the creature’s exposed head.
I opened the plastic crate, and moved as clos
e as I dared, holding the open cage in front of me.
“Set the carrier on the floor with the door open at the top,” he instructed. “Get those gloves on, and have the towel ready. When I pull him out, he’s going to be fighting mad. I want you to wrap the towel around him, and help me lower him into the crate. When I tell you, shut the door and lock it, but not until I tell you.”
I nodded and did as instructed. The thing screeched like a banshee, its anger directed at the towel in my hands.
“Here we go.”
Rhys pushed back the trash can, and lifted the thing up by the noose around its neck. The creature was a dusky black in color, save for a ring of yellow around his black pupils, and a few bristly grey sprouted hairs, but the overall impression was nasty opossum road-kill. The creature thrashed furiously, whipping the air with a long naked tail, a large rat trap attached to one of its front feet. Its fury filled the basement.
“Its not going to fit,” I said.
“Sure he will.” He pinned the creature’s head to the cement floor and its squeals escalated to an ear-splitting volume. “Throw the towel over his back and grab him. Hold him down.”
Yikes. Adrenaline pounded through me. I took a deep breath and flung myself on top of the thing, trapping it mostly between the towel and my hands. Two-inch claws and serrated teeth tried to reach me. If I let go, no doubt I’d be slashed to ribbons. The tail whipped around frantically, as the body squirmed beneath the towel. With one hand, I gripped the thing across the back, just in front of the front legs, and with my other, I grabbed it just above the tail at the haunches. It was so thin, I had no problem holding it securely. The feverish heat of its rage soaked through the towel.
“I’ve got him.”
“You ready?”
“Yeah.”
He lifted the thing up by its head with the pole, and I followed his movements, holding the writhing body over the open carrier door.
“Tail first,” he said.
Stiff-armed, I forced the lower half of the thing into the plastic crate. I let go, and Rhys pushed the rest of the creature inside, holding it down with the snake stick. I closed the wire door against the catch pole.
“Okay, be ready to slam it, I’m going to loosen the noose.”
“I got it.”
I kept the pressure on the door, and Rhys released the noose and drew the pole out of the box. I slammed the door and turned the lock mechanism. We both stepped back as the thing continued to fight and scream.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Whew, I’m glad that’s over.” My arms stung where the naked tail slapped welts across my bare skin.
Rhys picked up the towel that had fallen to the floor and draped it over the opening to the carrier. The opossum-thing quieted down right away.
“Bollocks.” Rhys stared at a spot over my head. An identical opossum creature glared at us from on top of one of the file cabinets, two rows away.
I flinched. “Look, there’s two of them.” I pointed to another one, peering out at us from end of the row. “We’re going to need more, um stuff.”
Rhys swore and picked up the cat carrier, being careful to keep the towel over the front. I followed, carrying the snake pole and the rest of our gear. We stopped by Terry’s office on the way out, and Rhys told him that we’d be back to set more traps. Terry paled, and nodded.
“I suggest you keep people out of the records room for a while,” Rhys said.
“Shouldn’t be a problem. What are they?” Terry’s question echoed my own.
“Rats,” Rhys answered. “A non-native species from Micronesia. Don’t know how they got here, but maybe somebody’s pet, or escaped from the zoo.”
“You’re saying they’re somebody’s pets?”
“Oh sure. People are crazy for these exotics. Then they get tired of them, and let them loose. Don’t worry, we’ll get ‘em taken care of for you, no problem.” Rhys headed toward the elevator, and I scurried along behind, not wanting to stay a minute longer. The sounds of machinery drowned out Terry’s protests.
We rode the elevator in silence, ignoring the stares of the curious as we headed through the reception area and out to the truck. Rhys put the cat carrier on the bench seat between us. I waited until we exited the parking lot before I said anything.
“That is not a rat.”
“And we have a winner,” he said, grinning at me. “Care to try for double Jeopardy, where the prizes are even bigger?”
“It’s a materialized djemon, right?”
“Yep.”
“So this thing has a name? Could it hurt someone? Could it kill?”
Rhys didn’t answer right away. “Well, they’re quick and stealthy; they have unnatural strength for their size. This one and the others we saw are still pretty small, but I think a sedated person in a hospital bed wouldn’t have much of a chance.”
The thought gave me the shivers. “Remind me to never wind up at St. Agrippa’s. Why did they call you?”
“Mystic Properties has a contract with the hospital for vermin control. You did a good job back there, Mattie. Thanks.”
I basked in the compliment. “This isn’t the first one you’ve caught.”
“Nope.” Rhys turned right at 6th Street, which rimmed the lower edge of Sentinel Hill. The road rose before us, the pavement eventually giving way to packed dirt. We bounced along, and the caged demon hissed with each jolt. Rhys stopped the truck in front of a locked gate stretching across the road. He got out and pulled a large ring of keys from his pocket, selected a key, and unlocked the gate. We drove through and continued our drive up the hill, after he locked the gate behind us.
“I’m asking for an explanation here, Rhys. At least two more of those things are running loose in the basement of St. Agrippa’s. How did that happen? Does the FBI know? Wait a second.” The hairs on my scalp prickled. “Could a djemon made flesh be the serial killer?”
“That’s what I think, although the djemon would have to be much larger than the one we caught today. If the killer is a demon master, he’s had that djemon a long time. It takes decades for one to get big enough to do any real damage. My guess is that the big one has gotten too powerful to control. In that case, the master may have started naming new demons.”
I felt sick. “Have you told Porter?”
“Of course. He was with me when I caught the first one. Let’s just say the local field office doesn’t think much of Frank Porter or his theories.”
I sat back in my seat, stunned. We’d stopped at another gate, this one merely a locked chain across the track. Rhys unlocked this one too, and we drove through, and again, he locked the chain back into place behind us.
“One of the first victims found was a registered demon master. So was the most recent, Joanne Reynolds. But all the most recent victims were individuals known in the AI community to have unregistered demons. All the paranormals and supernaturals want this guy caught, but they dare not expose themselves to federal scrutiny, so as far as the FBI is concerned, the two demon master deaths aren’t significant. But I think the Night Shark is using a demon to kill demon masters.”
“I thought the FBI kept track of all the demon masters.”
Rhys smirked. “The FBI doesn’t know everything Mattie, and the anomalous community here in Shore Haven wants to keep it that way. Most demon masters keep their identity, as well as their demons, a secret. Law enforcement in this town is particularly suspicious and antagonistic toward the supernatural, and the AIs cannot afford to risk exposure.”
“Didn’t you show them the djemons?”
“Sure. They said the same thing you did. How can something so small be dangerous? And to be honest, the first one we caught was about half the size of this one here. None of the injuries on any of the victims found so far match up with the bite radius of any known djemons. If the killer is a djemon, it’s big. The FBI insists the marks on the victims are man-made, but they can’t identify the tool y
et, and so far, no DNA has been found. But djemons don’t have DNA. They’re animated, but not alive. There are no skin cells, saliva, or hairs shed.”
Goosebumps rolled up my arms.
Rhys stopped the truck and turned off the engine. “From here we walk. Come on, I’ve got coveralls and gear in the back.” He grabbed the cat carrier and I stepped out into the sultry wilderness on Sentinel Hill. The forest dripped with moisture, a mist of sweat flies surrounded us.
Rhys handed me a set of white coveralls, a pair of scuffed leather gloves, and knee pads. “These belong to a friend of mine. She’s about your size.”
They were clean, at least. I tried to get them on over my jeans, but they wouldn’t button. I told Rhys not to look, and hid on the other side of the truck, while I took off my pants and put on the coveralls. They were still snug on the bottom, and way too big on the top. I had to roll the pant legs up four times. The giant cavewoman must be built like Barbie. Great.
Rhys passed me a miner’s hardhat and showed me how to work the headlight, then slung his daypack over one shoulder, and grabbed the cat carrier.
“Come on, it’s not far.”
I followed him through wet woods toward the entrance of the cave, a million questions poised on the tip of my tongue.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Been here a few times.”
“Shouldn’t Agent Porter be with us?”
“Frank’s a big guy. He can’t fit through the entrance. That’s why he gave me the keys.”
Sweat trickled from my hair into the collar of my coveralls. Rhys set a brisk pace, and I had to trot to keep up with him. Ten minutes later, we emerged into a rocky clearing.
“Here we are.” Rhys rummaged around in his pack until he came out with a couple of small flashlights and handed one to me.
“You ready?”
I looked around, but didn’t see anything. “Where is the entrance?”
Rhys pointed to our feet.