I didn’t see anything that Mychal and I could do by ourselves, except get killed, so we just waited until the RR teams showed up on the scene, then we got out of the way.
Luanne grabbed me as soon as we arrived at the station and sent me to the main situation room where Whittaker and all the major department heads were monitoring the morning’s disasters.
I gave them an update from my personal perspective of the mayhem on the midtown freeway, grabbed a cup of coffee, and sat down to listen. The police, Whittaker’s mercenaries, and the private guardians of the Magi Families were battling demons all over the eastern seaboard. Demons had attacked the main police station in Atlanta, and there were reports of heavy fighting in Pittsburg, Buffalo, Toronto, and Detroit.
A number of people in the room were concerned that Akiyama might try to take advantage of the situation, but Akiyama was still trying to extract their troops caught in a squeeze between the demons and the Council forces around the DC area.
Others suggested that the Council send forces into the Waste to exterminate the demons and take out Akashrian. Such ideas were often accompanied with grumbling that the demons never should have been allowed to stay in our world in the first place.
Whittaker looked straight at me and raised an eyebrow. With a sigh, I realized that he wanted me to explain to people above me on the food chain some simple facts of life.
“During the Rift War,” I said, “we fought the demons to a standstill because our most powerful mages were directly engaged in the conflict. The police, the guardians, and the armed forces we field today are usually staffed by the Magi’s younger sons and daughters, and those who really don’t have a place in running the Family businesses. If you want to try and convince the Council members and their heirs to get off their duffs and march into the Waste along with our standard forces, then your plans might have a chance of succeeding. But otherwise, we just don’t have the strength to go up against Akashrian. I’ve seen her, and she’s far more powerful than any human mage who ever lived.”
“Then we need to lure her out and take her,” Deputy Commissioner Howard Jefferson said. “I understand that there are two humans she has a particular grievance against.”
I batted my eyes at him. “If you think I’m going to volunteer as bait, you’re living in a dream world. As far as the Findlay heir doing that, I’ll let you suggest it to Olivia Findlay.”
“You wouldn’t have to be bait,” another man said. “We just have to make her think you’re someplace she can get at you.”
I sat back and acted like I was considering their mad plan. “So, we have a creature who can translocate back and forth between dimensions, whose power is beyond our understanding, and you propose to trick her. Have I got that right? Sure, I mean, what could go wrong? And after she eats a couple of battalions of low-powered mages for breakfast, what’s your fallback idea?”
“Look here,” Jefferson said. “That’s not a very cooperative attitude.”
“Nope. I’ve used up all my cooperation for this month. I resign.” I stood up and started to leave.
Whittaker’s voice cut across the room. “Like hell. Sit back down. And the rest of you, come up with some ideas that make sense. James is right. We have to be able to throw power at Akashrian. Luring her out makes sense, but if we can do it, we have to be able to finish the job.”
By the end of the day, no one had come up with a plan that seemed workable, and Whittaker mercifully allowed me to go get some dinner.
On my way out, he drew me aside. “Talk with Lucas and see if he has any ideas.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll talk to Olivia and Osiris as well. Perhaps you can speak with Frank Novak and Jorge Domingo. They’ve fought demon lords and know what kind of power it takes. Believe me, a demon lord is a child compared to Akashrian. We’re going to need serious magik for her.”
He nodded, a grim expression on his face.
Chapter 39
While I was drinking coffee until I thought my bladder would burst and listening to a bunch of windbags try to come up with a plan that didn’t put their own asses on the line, Mychal and Carmelita had been fighting demons.
I checked in with Luanne in my office, and she said Billie was out helping to keep the peace as well. Billie was a more-than-competent pyromancer and an excellent shot, so I assumed any demon she ran into would regret it.
Against my normal better judgement, I cruised through the police cafeteria and picked up a sandwich that didn’t smell spoiled and wolfed it down. That soaked up some of the coffee and settled my stomach a little. Then I ventured out onto the street.
I walked up the block to the ruins of the Palace of Commerce, where a battle between some standard demons and some of Whittaker’s soldiers was providing the entertainment. From there, I swung by Aleks’s apartment building, where private guardians had two machinegun nests set up in front of the building. Out of curiosity, I wandered around the back, was challenged twice by guardians who were a little too jumpy for my taste, and found another machinegun nest guarding the backdoor of the property.
The machineguns were fifty-caliber, firing explosive incendiaries similar to those in my Raider. Satisfied that they had the situation under control, I continued toward Enchantments.
Other than true demons, destroying property and fighting with the police and soldiers, there weren’t any Rifters on the streets. No sex demons or minor demons, such as devils and imps. No vampires. And all the ‘legitimate’ demons, who owned businesses or had jobs, were staying out of sight.
Whittaker had told me the situation was a scaled-down version of the Rift War. The police were operating on wartime rules. Any demon we ran into was assumed to be hostile. As a result, when a demon emerged from an alley and faced me, I shot him without calling a warning. Then I turned around and shot his buddy who was rushing toward me from behind.
Kirsten had chosen a different means of dealing with the situation. A sign on the door instructed customers to call, and she would lower her wards to admit them. I also noticed that she was running specials on demonbane, anti-demon charms, and a number of other defensive spells. I didn’t bother to call. She had my DNA and always exempted me from her spells.
When I entered the shop, she was sitting behind the counter with her feet up reading a book.
“Land office business today?”
Her response wasn’t very ladylike.
“Why stay open? Go home and lay around there,” I said.
“After all the trouble I had getting here? I’m putting off the drive home as long as I can. Maybe I can talk someone with an aircar into giving me a lift.”
“I have to go up to Loch Raven. Want to go?”
She tossed the book onto the counter, dropped her feet to the floor, and pulled her coat off its hanger. “I thought you’d never ask.”
We walked back to Police Headquarters to get my car and had to shoot only one demon on the way. But when we drove out onto the street, I almost crashed avoiding a demon who either thought she was invincible, or was trying to commit suicide by jumping in front of us. I took the car into the air as soon as I could.
The cops had closed the north-south freeway, and the mess Mychal and I had seen that morning still wasn’t sorted out. The wreckage had mostly been towed away, but the roadway was completely blocked with abandoned cars. Ambulances were parked at both ends of the blockage, and we could see emergency personnel searching for injured people and bodies.
“That’s just incredible,” Kirsten said. “Thanks for giving me a heads up. Even taking surface streets, it took me three times as long as usual to get downtown.”
I brought the car down on Loch Raven Road, and the elves waved us through a new checkpoint they had set up at the edge of their veil. We drove up to Mom’s house and parked. When we walked inside, my nostrils were immediately alerted to fresh-baked bread.
“Banana bread?” Kirsten asked, her nose up in the air like a hound stretching for a scent.
�
�Yup. From an old elven recipe handed down from my ancestors,” Mom said.
Joren, sitting with Dad at the kitchen table, snorted. “I didn’t even know what a banana was until I crossed into this realm.”
Mom dropped a couple of fresh loaves on the table, poured tea for everyone, and sat down.
“To what do we owe this visit?” she asked.
“Demons,” I replied.
“Oh, lovely. I’m afraid I don’t have any good recipes for them. Are you sure they’re edible?”
I chuckled. “Doubtful. I’m not sure how you’d purge the sulfuric acid in their blood.” I went on to outline the issues presented at the meeting that morning.
When I finished, Dad said, “You’re definitely right about the kind of power it would take to defeat Akashrian. And you’re probably right about what it would take to lure her into an ambush. The problem is, she would know it was an ambush, and she’s so strong that she wouldn’t care. Her mindset is that she would walk into a trap to punish anything that dared to challenge her.”
Kirsten spoke up. “What I don’t understand is, demons are intelligent, and they feel pain. From what I’ve seen, they’re being slaughtered without really making any progress. I mean, it’s shutting down the economy, and people are terrorized, but what’s the purpose?”
“That is the purpose,” Dad said. “Demons do eat people, other beings, and animals, but the main thing that sustains them is strong emotions. Fear, anger, and pain are far more satisfying for them than anything they can put in their bellies. And Akashrian is soaking up those emotions through all of her minions. But demons don’t fear death. I’m not even sure if they have a concept of death like we do. They do fear her. I saw Akashrian torture a demon lord for years. He was begging to die, but evidently the emotions were so enjoyable that Akashrian kept him alive.”
I nodded. “The demon lord who used to rule here was addicted to the emotions projected by human empaths. In the end, that’s what got him killed.”
We batted ideas around for a couple of hours, then Dad and I went out to our workshop while Kirsten helped Mom fix dinner.
Chapter 40
Over breakfast the following morning, my grandfather had some disturbing news.
“You were followed yesterday. Humans wearing Moncrieff-Findlay guardian uniforms have taken up posts on all the roads leading out of here.”
“I doubt we were followed,” I said. “We flew in most of the way.”
“But you were followed the night you killed that witch woman over at the estate,” Dad said. “They’ve probably put surveillance on the roads in, waiting for you to show up again.”
That made sense. I had fled to the closest place I knew I’d be safe, but in doing so, I had given my greatest enemy a location to target. And I preferred to take off from a straight road without any trees around. That didn’t describe the narrow, twisty roads around the reservoir.
Joren shrugged. “We can take them out, but it could get messy if they have drones watching and we don’t have the element of surprise.”
“Or we could try that idea we talked about last night,” Dad said.
Deciding it was worth a try, Dad, Joren, and I hiked over to the dam. From the top of the dam, Joren pointed out where Courtney’s guardians were stationed. It was a good place for an ambush. Minebank Run, a tributary to the Gunpowder River below the dam, ran under the road.
“Anything we do needs to leave the bridge unharmed,” I said. “That’s the only way a large truck can bring equipment to the dam.”
My father nodded, then took the drone we brought with us, and sent it toward the bridge. He turned to me and asked for my lightning box. I gave it to him, and he gave me the drone’s controller.
We trooped down inside the dam to the generators. As Joren and I watched, he coupled the lightning box to one of the huge enhancers that multiplied the electricity the generators produced.
The drone didn’t show the two groups of men Joren said were hiding on both sides of the bridge.
“They cast shielding illusions,” he said, “but there are about a dozen men there altogether.”
My dad nodded. “Well, shall we see what happens?”
He triggered the lightning box, and an enormous bolt of lightning lanced out across the three-quarters of a mile to the hollow on the west side of the bridge. The thunder was deafening. Before the echoes faded away, he triggered the box again, and another lightning bolt struck the hollow on the east side of the bridge.
My ears ringing, I zeroed the drone’s cameras on the hollow. The illusion was gone, and I could see sprawled and twisted bodies lying around. Shifting the camera to the other side of the bridge, I saw more bodies.
“I don’t know if they’re alive or dead,” I said turning the screen so Joren and my dad could see it, “but they’re clearly incapacitated.”
Dad grinned. “I love it when an experiment is successful.”
“I’ll send some warriors in to check it out,” Joren said. “You should be able to safely head into town.”
Unfortunately, the dam was too low, and we didn’t have a direct line of sight to the areas where Courtney’s guardians had set up on the other roads leaving the reservoir. On the way back to Mom’s house, Dad and I discussed possible designs for a magitek device that could jam Courtney’s drones. He said that he’d do some experimenting and let me know his results.
I met with Whittaker that afternoon after I got back to the office.
“Dad says that the odds of luring Akashrian out using him or me as bait are about as good as you or him getting pregnant,” I said.
My boss laughed.
“Basically,” I continued, “do you care if one of the worms from your private bait shop escapes?” Whittaker was an avid fisherman, part of why his Family estate sat next to a river.
“So, that line of thinking leads to a dead end,” he said with a sigh.
I grinned. “Not completely. Bait is in the eye of the beholder. He suggested that the one thing she does care about is competition. Akashrian is one of three demon queens with interests in this realm. Lakasvian controls the demons in Europe, and Delevidat controls the demons in Asia. If one of them were to encroach on her territory here in North America, she would react.”
“And how would we invite one of these other demon queens to grace us with their presence?” Whittaker asked. “Strikes me as a stupid thing to do.”
“Indisputably,” I answered. “But Joren thinks we can create a doppelganger for one of them. The only problem is to make the illusion feel like a demon queen to another demon queen. How to give it evil magik, if you will.”
He leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtful. “And if it worked, how would we deal with her? I heard you yesterday, even if everyone else was more concerned with talking than listening. I fought through the Rift War. The idea of facing a creature who scares demon lords is not something I relish.”
I winked at him. “My dad and I think we have an answer.”
That evening, Kristen, Mychal, and I brainstormed ideas over a couple of bottles of wine.
“Aren’t there traditions where witches create straw men, or mud men, or some kinds of dolls and give them some kind of pseudo life?” I asked.
Kirsten rolled her eyes. “I think you need something a little more complicated than a voodoo doll.”
She jumped up and got her phone off the table in our foyer.
“Hello, Mom? Are you and Dad going to be home tomorrow night? Oh, good. Do you mind if Dani and I drop by? We have some questions about some rather esoteric forms of witchcraft.”
Their conversation went on for about half an hour before Kirsten said, “Sure, we can make it for dinner. See you then.”
Kirsten hung up, dropped the phone back on the table, and came back to the living room. “I’m pretty sure some traditions of witchcraft involve simulacrums, I just don’t remember which ones. But if anyone knows who the experts are, Mom and Dad are the ones to ask.”
; Chapter 41
I reported to Whittaker that I was working on a solution. He looked disappointed but didn’t press me. It shocked me that he actually expected I might come up with something overnight. Hell, humanity had been dealing with the demon problem for almost a century.
And the demons were a problem. The assaults continued. Citizens were upset. The media was ecstatic, sticking a microphone in front of anyone who had a story or a rant.
Kirsten had switched over to delivery, taking orders online, and paying a courier service. She told me that Julie, her assistant, was boxing up orders while Kirsten spent her time in her laboratory creating the charms, potions, and protections.
“Hell, Dani, I’m making almost as much as I was before all this happened, and I don’t even have to put up with my customers in person.”
But almost two-thirds of her orders had to do with protection from demons.
She closed up her shop early, Mychal escorted her from the shop to Police Headquarters, and we took my car down to her parents’ place in Annapolis Junction.
Kirsten’s parents were two of my favorite people. Aileen was an older version of her daughter—blonde, beautiful, a bit curvier, and brilliantly intelligent. Blair looked typecast as a dark warlock—dark hair, dark eyes, swarthy skin, over six-feet tall and husky. He always dressed in black and rode a motorcycle.
Blair swept me up in a hug. “Dani, more radiantly beautiful than ever. When are you going to make my dreams come true and join my harem?”
Aileen laughed as hard as I did. “You’re too old for me! Hell, you’re as old as my father!”
“Like fine wine. You don’t know what you’re missing,” he said as he set me down on my feet.
“I think I’ll survive.”
We made small talk for about fifteen minutes, until the doorbell rang. Aileen answered it and admitted one of the oldest-looking people I’d ever seen. He was dressed all in black, with a black wide-brimmed hat, and his white hair and beard were very long, as were his sidelocks. He was hunched over with age, but I could tell he’d never been a tall man.
Soul Harvest (The Rift Chronicles Book 3) Page 20