by Sharon Joss
CHAPTER 30
The back door of Mystic Properties stood wide open when I arrived, and Rhys’ truck sat parked in the lot, so I walked right in. The stench of blood and licorice hit me like a blow. I froze. The place had been trashed; broken furniture, papers, and books lay strewn across the room. A large pool of blood stretched across the floor near the bathroom, and more spattered in an arc across the shredded couch and walls of the back office.
Oh my god. Nausea choked me. I squatted down and tested the edge of the pool with my fingers. Sticky, it hadn’t been there long. A bloody partial footprint from a three-toed creature led out the back door. The print dwarfed my shoe.
“Rhys?”
I cautiously made my way toward the stairs leading up to his apartment. I peered up the darkened stairwell, and sensed movement.
My heart leapt into my throat. I shouted up the stairs. “Who’s there?” I took a step back. “Show yourself. Um, I’ve got a gun. The police are on their way.”
“Don’t shoot,” a voice with a trace of an accent whispered down to me. I backed away as he descended. Out of the gloom stepped a wiry man in his late thirties, wearing baggy jeans and a faded blue t-shirt. He wore his hair cropped short, almost to his skull, and a gold ring pierced the top of each ear. His eyes, an unnatural shade of pale blue, showed a brilliant yellow halo round the pupil. He had no aura or lifeline. I’d never seen him before, yet something about him seemed familiar.
“Do I know you?”
“You are Mattie.” He looked scared to death. “I am the translator.”
I nodded. “What happened?”
“I must go. I cannot allow the police to find me here.” He tried to move past me, but I blocked his way. He stood only a couple inches taller than me.
“Wait. What happened here? Where’s Rhys?”
He stared at the chaos in the room; the blood on the floor. “I, I don’t know. I arrived just before you and found the door open. I heard you come in, and I hid. I thought whoever had done this might be coming back. I have to go.” Before I could grab him, he took off running and was gone.
A strange sense of calm settled over me. No doubt the big djemon Fontaigne had seen at Madame Coumlie’s place had gotten to Rhys. But why would he want to kidnap the mage? I started to call 911, but decided to call Porter instead. He didn’t answer. I left a message asking him to call me immediately.
If the big bad demon had Rhys, the obvious place to start looking was in the cavern. Everything started from there. I grabbed the keys off the hook by the door and had the truck heading down Third before I even thought about it. I still had an hour or two before dark.
With Madame Coumlie gone, we’d been sitting ducks. Of course she had been the one keeping the demons in line; she must have the power to overrule a demon master. How could I have been so stupid? Without her to keep a lid on things, the master and his demons would be free to act. The way Fontaigne described the old woman’s encounter with the big djemon, I had assumed that she had banished it, like I’d done with my little djinn. Apparently, that wasn’t the case. I’d been asking all the wrong questions.
We bounced along the dirt track, and I glanced over to the passenger seat to where Larry and Blix sat staring at me. I’d use Blix to lead me to Rhys. The order would make him a djemon in the flesh, but I didn’t have any choice. Porter couldn’t fit through the cave entrance, and calling the police was out. They’d just haul me in for questioning. Rhys needed my help now.
I arrived at the trailhead, parked the truck, grabbed a helmet and flashlight, and slung Rhys’ coil of nylon rope over my shoulder. All set. This time, turning Blix into a fully materialized djemon would be no accident. I would have to keep him a secret for the rest of my life. If a psychic penalty had to be paid for summoning a djemon on purpose, I was about to be double damned. Would it condemn me to hell as well as to prison? No time to think about that now. Time was wasting, I had no other choice.
“Blix, I command you to show me the way to where Rhys is. Find Rhys.” I clapped my hands.
With a little sting, Blix popped into being. He squeaked at me, and then took off running like a cottontail Chihuahua. Every few steps, he paused to look back at me with those luminous yellow eyes. I started after him, but changed my mind and went back to the truck. I might be the new Hand of Fate, but that sure didn’t make me a superhero. I didn’t want to go after a giant djemon without some sort of weapon. I searched the truck, and came up with a crowbar. I hefted the reassuring weight. That’ll work. I gave it a test swing and followed Blix into the woods, as clouds of mosquitoes surrounded me like a vampiric fog. I hoped we weren’t too late.