I pulled around the back and parked. Retrieving a couple of small magitek boxes from my saddlebags, I attached one to the main electrical circuit box, and the other to the controller for the fire suppression system. Even though Ashvial was a fire demon, he still had to conform to building codes and have a working sprinkler system.
I used magik to unlock the back door and entered the building. The club didn’t open until evening, and everything was quiet, but I knew there were demons in the building. At least two dozen were registered as living there, including Ashvial. I had never visited the dungeon in the basement, and if I was lucky, I never would. His office was on the second floor, so I headed in that direction.
The demon guards who always stood at the top of the staircase leading to the office were absent. I cautiously walked down the hall and stopped in front of the closed door. There wasn’t any response to my knock, even after I waited and knocked again. The door was locked, and I didn’t try to open it.
I exited the hallway and turned up the stairs that led to the third above-ground level. I suspected that was where the living quarters were located. The closed door at the top of the stairs was locked, so I unlocked it. I unslung the laser rifle and pushed the door open.
The light was red and, I suspected, went deep into the infrared. The entire floor was open as far as I could see. What looked like furniture, including couches and beds, was spread around, as were tables of various shapes, sizes, and heights. A fountain bubbled off to one side, the water running down a small waterfall to a pool. A demon party room. I wondered if that was how they lived in their own dimension.
Demons walked around, lay or sat on the furniture, and several off to one side were engaged in what I supposed was multi-gender sex. A few humans and vampires were there, all of them objects of demon attentions. None of those present wore clothing. I had been in a demon den before, so I came prepared. I pulled a pair of goggles over my eyes and gave them a burst of magik. The scene in front of me immediately lit up in white light.
No one paid much attention to me as I began scouting around the room, looking for Ashvial. I encountered three demons as large as he was, but they weren’t of the breed I associated with demon lords.
I found him near the fountain, on a chase lounge with two human women. I couldn’t tell if they were breathing or not, but they weren’t conscious. When I first saw him, we were about fifty feet apart, but he was already aware of my presence. He stared at me, and I could almost feel his eyes, glowing red like lasers. He lay on his side, his head propped up on his elbow.
“This is a very dangerous place for you to tread without an invitation,” he rumbled.
“You lied to me. You said Johansson sold Sarah Benning to Akiyama Benjiro. But he hasn’t been in the Mid-Atlantic in at least three years.”
Ashvial sat up. “I did not.”
“I want to know what happened to her. The whole truth.”
“Ah, certainty. Your race is so literal.” I felt him project lust at me, but the distance between us helped me to mute it. “As I told you, Martin took her. He played with her a while in my basement. When he finished with her, I brought her up here. After I enjoyed her for a while, I knew she was one who Benjiro would like. I sent word to his minions, and they came for her the following night. After he viewed her through one of your people’s screens, and watched her perform, he and I agreed to a price. You know, for a human, she was quite satisfying. Almost as enjoyable as you.”
“You ordered Johansson’s death,” I said.
“Oh, no. I did provide the vampire for a price, but it was someone else who wished his death. She felt that Martin had overstepped by taking a mage’s daughter.”
He was trying harder to project lust at me, but Kirsten’s charms were working, and I managed to ignore it.
“Is she still in the country?”
Ashvial shrugged. “I have not been told. She might be. She no longer concerns me.”
“Human trafficking is illegal. We might overlook a lot of your activities, but not that.”
“Of course, you have no proof, and my little tale might be all fiction. I shall consider myself warned. But, as long as you’re here, come join me.” He patted the couch next to him.
Among other things, the two unconscious women already lying there sort of put me off.
“I don’t think so. I think you have enough company already. How about the demon who killed four people at Findlay House? He was an employee of yours. We could hold you accountable.”
“You probably could, but I’m just a businessman. Someone wished to hire one of my staff. Is it my fault that I didn’t inquire about the task? If Alakshel had survived, I could punish him for breaking one of your laws, but he is now out of my reach. Danica, I held no animosity toward those people.”
“Who did? Who hired him?”
“What kind of businessman would I be if I divulged my clients’ secrets? Shall we say that I have done a lot of business with one of the local Families recently.”
He projected more lust at me and stood up. I couldn’t help but look at his massive erection, and that was enough to kill any erotic feelings I might have had. I raised the laser rifle and pointed it at him.
“Don’t come any closer, and don’t try to stop me from leaving.” I backed away, glancing quickly over my shoulder to make sure there was a clear path behind me.
“And you really think that weapon would stop me?” he asked with a leering grin.
I swung the muzzle to the side a little, projected magik into the rifle, and pulled the trigger. I didn’t know if he could see the red laser light, but he could definitely see the daylight through the two-foot hole in the wall forty feet away. He froze, looked at the hole, then returned his attention to me.
I grinned. “I’m fairly certain this will even the odds of me leaving here.”
Sidling away from him, I worked my way around the room to the door where I had entered. From there, I took the stairs down to the next level. Turning around, I saw Ashvial watching me from the top. I pointed the laser and destroyed the stairs between the two floors. I didn’t know if that would stop him from following me or not.
I ran down the stairs to the ground floor. Half a dozen demons awaited me there, and they didn’t look friendly. I glanced toward where I had seen Ashvial last, and he hadn’t moved.
Pointing the rifle at the floor between the demons and me, I burned a hole in the floor, sweeping the laser back and forth, opening a chasm more than ten feet wide. Then I turned and ran toward the back door.
The sound of large feet pounding behind me let me know that my delaying tactic hadn’t worked. I reached the hallway leading to the exit, turned around, and fired. Three demons who were closing in on me lost major pieces of their anatomy. I didn’t wait to see if it slowed down their buddies but resumed my run for the door.
I made it outside, slung the rifle across my back, and jumped on my motorcycle. The engine came to life at the same time as another demon stuck his head out the door. Drawing my Raider, I fired two shots at him, and gunned the throttle. The bike sped across the parking lot and took me out into the street.
Chapter 49
When I got home, I told Kirsten to close her wards, and then I called Thomas Whittaker.
“I think I know where Sarah Benning is being held,” I said when he answered. “I know you’ve got a lot going on right now, but I don’t think she’s going to be there much longer. I think they’re getting ready to ship her to Japan.”
“I can’t spare any personnel right now,” he said, “but I’m sure Justus Benning has guardians who can back you up. Where is she?”
“I’m about ninety percent sure she’s at the Moncrieff estate at Elk Neck.”
I heard him suck air. “That gets tricky.”
“Yeah.” The estate would be heavily defended, not to mention invading a Magi household would ignite a feud.
“Call your buddy Osiris,” he said, “and let me see what I can put together.”
Whittaker and Novak were allied with Benning, but Findlay wasn’t. At least not yet. But we had ties to Moncrieff through Courtney’s marriage, even though Moncrieff was allied with Akiyama. It was enough to give me a headache or drive me to drink. Maybe both.
I called Osiris and told him what I’d told Whittaker.
“You’re sure?”
“As sure as I can be, considering my source was a demon. We know Hiroku was staying out there. Something else that Ashvial let slip was that it was a woman who contracted Johansson’s murder. He also said he’d been doing a lot of recent business with a local Family. That was in the context of Johansson’s murder and the demon at the ball.”
His next question was unexpected. “Kirsten doesn’t have her shop open, does she?”
“No. It’s crazy down in that part of town.”
“Then come up here and bring her with you. Plan on staying here until things settle down. I’ll talk to your security teams.” Then he hung up, giving me no opening to argue.
I went into the kitchen where Kirsten was in the process of baking brownies.
“Osiris wants us to move up to Findlay House until things stabilize,” I announced.
She didn’t react, but proceeded to pour batter into two baking dishes, then put them in the oven. Wiping her hands on her apron, she finally looked up at me.
“Can we have someone check here and at the shop occasionally?”
“I’ll see what I can do. If it’s safe, yes. If there are fifteen hundred hungry demons hanging out in the harbor area, probably not.”
“Fair enough. The guardians can take our luggage in their vans, can’t they?”
I thought that her reaction was a pretty good indicator of how seriously she took the present situation. We both packed a couple of bags, and the guardians took them out to the vans. Then I had a couple of the guys haul half of my arsenal, as well as my tools, out to the vans. I figured I might end up bringing it all back unused, but better safe than sorry.
Finally, they loaded our motorcycles in the vans. Kirsten took the brownies out of the oven and warded the house.
We set out with the two vans sandwiched between the four guardians mounted on motorcycles. We barely made it half a mile when the demons ambushed us.
Demons really are a different form of life. Not only are they hard to kill, but humans have never settled the question of whether the demons actually die when we kill them, or they just go home to their own dimension. Which brings up the question of whether they are physically here in the first place. I’d seen the damage they do and the people they kill, so I left the philosophical questions to others.
Several demons appeared in the roadway. One of them stuck out an arm and clotheslined the rider on the lead bike. The other motorcycle in front swerved to avoid them and opened up with the machineguns attached to the bike. A demon—a large black oni—jumped in front of the lead van. He might have done some serious damage to a normal car, but the armored Findlay vehicle ran over him, and the armored van behind it bumped over him like a speed bump.
The demons launched fire and giant icicles at us, but the drivers just accelerated.
“Wait!” I shouted. “What about the guy that went down?”
“Jimmy will pick him up,” the van driver said. “If he can’t transport him, he’ll throw an air shield around both of them and wait for help. Standard operating procedure.”
We made it to the main road and turned north. After a mile or so, I saw two helicopters painted in Findlay colors fly past us toward where we were ambushed. A couple of minutes later, a third helicopter showed up and flew above us the rest of the way to the estate.
“I feel special,” Kirsten said, craning her neck to look up at the helicopter through the window.
Our driver chuckled. “I think Lady Findlay-James considers you a good influence.”
“That’s the first time anyone has called me that,” Kirsten replied. “Would you like a brownie? I think they’re cool enough to eat now.”
I glared at the driver. She pretended not to notice but got a big grin on her face. Both the driver and I took a brownie.
To my relief, the helicopter carrying the injured guardian arrived at the mansion before we did, and I was told he was doing well. My grandmother and Marjorie came out and took charge of Kirsten and our luggage, while I was whisked away to the security annex.
Henri Novak and Osiris were the only ones present when I was ushered into Osiris’s office.
“Taking action against another Family on a demon’s word is chancy business,” Osiris said as soon as I took a seat.
“Yeah, I know. But it’s not just the Benning girl. I’m positive that Moncrieff was behind the attacks on me and Lady Findlay-James, not to mention the assassination at the ball.”
Novak spoke up. “By Moncrieff, you mean Courtney Findlay-Moncrieff.”
“And her husband. I also think Karl Rudolf is involved, and possibly their daughter Karolyn. Ashvial told me that the same Family responsible for Johansson’s murder was also responsible for the fiasco at the ball. In addition, I have evidence that someone in that Family was responsible for an attack on me.”
Novak and Osiris stared at each other for a couple of minutes, then Novak said, “All right. If we don’t find the girl or evidence of their conspiracy, I think we can still make the excuse of ‘troubling times.’ We just need to be as clean as possible, and try to avoid casualties.”
“Agreed,” Osiris said. “Let’s go tell the others.”
“Can’t you just take Courtney and her family into protective custody?” I asked. “You know, things are very unsettled right now, we’re circling the wagons, and want to make sure all of our Family are safe.”
“I like that,” Henri Novak said. Osiris grinned at me and nodded.
Waiting for us in Osiris’s conference room were five men and three women. All wore the colors of either Findlay, Novak, Benning, or Whittaker guardians.
“General,” Novak said to the man in Whittaker colors, “we want a surgical strike on the Moncrieff’s Elk Neck estate with as few casualties and property damage as possible.”
The general chuckled. “Nothing difficult, right? Well, let’s get to it. What is our intelligence on the target? What kind and how many troops do I have to work with? And is there anymore coffee?”
The Whittaker Family’s mercenaries were considered elite, and the Novaks’ connection to them was one of the things that kept the Novak Family on top. Having one of Whittaker’s top generals plan and direct things gave me hope.
Chapter 50
The alliance put the Moncrieff estate under tight surveillance, and the assault was scheduled with forty-eight hours of preparation. Smaller operations were staged against the Akiyama and Moncrieff offices in Wilmington. Quietly, Findlay patrol boats deployed across the Chesapeake south of the Elk Neck peninsula to intercept any boats or ships that might try to escape.
They put me in charge of a team of twelve magiteks. I wanted to ask, “Why me?” but dual glares from Osiris and Tom Whittaker shut me up. When I met the other magiteks, I realized why. The lack of imagination was astounding. I spent the time between meeting my team and the time we deployed explaining how to disable various kinds of motors and electronics. I wished they had given me some juvenile delinquents instead of trained technicians.
My team was sent out to Elk Neck with the surveillance teams in small patrol boats, and we came ashore in inflatable landing rafts. A large part of the peninsula had been a public park back before the wars, but in the aftermath of the Rift War, the Moncrieff Family had taken possession of the entire area and declared it theirs. It occupied a very defensible position about halfway between the harbors of Wilmington and Baltimore, and the Family had built a marina and a small airport within the estate’s boundaries.
That night, accompanied by a force of Whittaker commandos, we were landed into a forested area near the airfield. I split my team, taking ten commandos and the three men a
nd one woman who seemed the most intelligent and capable to the marina. I set them up there with orders to use their magik to disable all the boats.
I headed back to the airfield with a commando sergeant named Crossno, but we ran into a security patrol.
“Stop! Who goes there?”
We didn’t think Moncrieff was aware of the impending invasion of their territory, but I could understand why guards might think people skulking around near their airfield at one o’clock in the morning was unusual.
“Just a little stroll in woods,” I answered, trying to sound my sweetest and most feminine.
“Come out so I can see you,” the guard ordered.
I motioned the sergeant with me to circle around, then answered, “Hang on a minute. My boyfriend and I need to put our pants on.”
The two guards burst out laughing.
Taking off the black face mask and the watch cap I’d been wearing, I unbraided and shook out my hair, then picked my way through the woods in the direction of the guards’ voices.
“Hey, I didn’t realize we were doing something wrong,” I said as I stepped out of the trees onto the path. The new moon didn’t shed much light at ground level. I could vaguely make out two figures standing in front of me. “We just wanted to get a little privacy and fresh air.”
“The airfield is right over there,” the guard who was doing all the talking said. “Don’t you have a room of your own?”
“His wife is kinda nosey.”
More laughter.
I moved closer. “You wouldn’t want us to get in trouble, would you?”
A loud thump was accompanied by the man in the rear slumping. Reaching out to the closest man, I touched him with my father’s box and triggered a light shock, causing him to stiffen, then shake and drop his rifle. He fell convulsing to the ground. I used my handcuffs to restrain him, then stuffed a handkerchief I found in his pocket in his mouth.
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