Chapter 10 #2
“Give me the name of the person who sent you here,” I said flatly. “You might just escape with a year or two of prison time rather than the rest of your life.”
He stared at me for several long minutes and obviously decided I was not shitting him. “Fine,” he said with a sigh. “But I honestly don’t know who’s behind the contract, because the job came through my agent, and she never tells us stuff like that.”
“Thugs have an agent?” Ginny asked before I could.
“The brighter ones who want regular work do. They have all the contacts and handle all the contract details for a twenty percent fee. Works out well.”
“And is your agent the one who will kill you if you blab?”
“No, it was in the contract. Kinda standard for these sorts of things.”
The stuff you learn.
“If it was Lanie who did the contracting,” Ginny said to me, “she may well go after the agent next, just to ensure there’s no trail leading back to her. She’d have known things went south here.”
I nodded and lightly kicked the man’s boot. “Agent’s name and address.”
He hesitated, then complied. Ginny immediately contacted Betty and asked for an identity and location check to be run.
I turned and walked back to Monica, rechecking her pulse and making sure the stomach bandage remained in place, then rose and returned to the other room.
The shadows had indeed gone, and they’d apparently taken René with them, because he was nowhere to be seen.
Atticus was sitting on the kitchen counter, idly pushing things off and watching them smash to the floor.
“Seriously?” I said.
Bored now.
“Then go find a mouse to hunt.”
I would rather hunt she who called demons. Are we going soon?
“Love to, but I haven’t a car.”
Should have brought your own car then.
“Yes, but then I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of riding in the sports car.”
The only thing you want to ride is its owner.
Atticus! Seriously.
He casually batted a saltshaker off the bench. It was metal, so didn’t break, but it did make a serious amount of noise on the tiles, which seemed to please him immensely.
I note you do not deny it.
Thankfully, I was saved having to reply by approaching voices and walked over to the remains of the front door. The ambulance officers arrived first, then a Society team to collect our prisoners. Sienna and Janice were the last to arrive.
“How many dead this time?” Sienna asked in a somewhat resigned tone.
“None, but this place belongs to our chief suspect, Luke Marlowe, and we did have a transport fog and a couple of demons here.”
“Did we?” Janice said. “How exciting.”
“Not really,” I said wryly. “They’re the sort who love to tear still-beating hearts from a body and consume them while still warm. Can I borrow your car?”
Sienna blinked. “What happened to yours? Car, I mean, not heart.”
“Long story, but it got left at the beach. We need to go interview our thugs’ boss before she’s taken out.” I held out my hand. “I’ll get Lowell to send another car here for you.”
“Why not just call a cab or Uber?”
“Because they’ll take time to get here, and that might be the difference between saving a life and losing it.”
She rolled her eyes and handed over the keys. “Just don’t dent it—the mechanics tend to get narky about things like that, and they’ll clap back at me rather than you.”
“No promises,” I said with a grin. “Where is it parked?”
“Directly out the front—small white van.”
“Thanks muchly. Ginny? We’re out of here.”
Atticus, I noted, was no longer knocking things off the counter, but had instead jumped down and was stalking toward the still-open sliding door. Neither Sienna nor Janice paid him much heed, so maybe they thought he belonged to Luke.
And maybe, he said, I do not wish them to see me.
I frowned. But you’re visible, so how does that work?
I walk between worlds, and I’m clever when it comes to witchcraft. You are not.
I’m hoping you mean magically, I replied dryly.
You may hope.
I rolled my eyes and headed out of the apartment. Ginny caught up with me as I neared the stairs.
“The medics don’t think the damage done to Monica is too serious, but she’s likely to be kept in hospital for observation,” she said. “Lowell’s apparently requested an HCI protective detail be placed on her.”
“And our bloodied thug?”
“One of the ambos was still examining him, but apparently, neither his nose nor his cheek is broken despite all the blood.”
“I’ll have to try harder next time.”
It was drolly said, and Ginny laughed. “They’ll be transported to headquarters and seen by Society doctors before they’re questioned.”
I nodded and headed down the stairs. “Did you ask about a protection detail on Tane? He’s likely to be the next target.”
“If Tane killed Orion’s family first, I’m thinking Orion’s revenge will play along the similar lines—take out the family, then get the prize.”
“Difference is, Tane wasn’t being hunted by the Society back then. Orion is, and may just decide to cut to the main prize. If, as I suspect, that’s the case, then Tane will need protection. No matter how powerful he is, Orion is a man without a soul and in league with a demon of unknown power.”
“Well, apparently after Tane told them he had neither the desire nor the need of protection, your brother had words with him. The detail is now in place.”
I grinned. “Michael does have a way with words.”
“The thing that confuses me about today,” she said. “Is why would they decide to kill her now, and in Luke’s apartment? That makes no sense, either logistically or practically.”
“Had the same thought, but maybe this attempt has nothing to do with Luke or even Lanie. Maybe it’s this mythical Stephan no one can find a trace of.”
“Even that makes no sense, not if he’s after the same thing they are.”
“Given we have no idea of his motives beyond the fact it was implied in that USB conversation that he was in charge, we can’t be certain of anything when it comes to him.
” Hell, for all any of us knew, he was actually a Libertine operative, and this whole thing was nothing more than another means of unleashing their chaos.
“Or maybe he simply decided they were all fucking morons and not worth the trouble.”
She snorted. “On that, I think we all agree.”
By the time we got back outside, dark clouds were scooting across the sky and the day had turned decidedly cooler. I hoped the storm held off, because both my coat and my sweater were sitting in the back of the Toyota.
“Where’s our car?” Ginny asked as I beeped open the van.
“Back at the beach.” I grimaced and motioned toward the Mercedes. “I came here with René in that beast.”
“Oooh, classy. Like the man, really.” She climbed into the van and did up her seat belt as I started the engine. It really, really didn’t hold a candle to the sound of the Merc’s engine. “Speaking of René, where is he?”
“Off chasing demons, according to Atticus.”
“You haven’t contacted him?”
I pulled out of the parking spot, then glanced at her. “He’s a big lad—”
“He certainly is, if the gossips are to be believed.”
I rolled my eyes. I seemed to be doing that a lot recently. “Mind out of the gutter.”
Words you should live by, Atticus said.
I glanced around. He was sitting in the back of the van, casually cleaning himself. Feel free to take yourself and your comments elsewhere.
Make me.
“Seriously, though,” Ginny was saying. “What happened to him?”
“You know that demon-infested fog in the mall I mentioned? It was in that apartment. He went into it after a couple of demons.”
“And didn’t come back out? That surely isn’t a good sign.”
He retracted the magic back to its source, Atticus said. Unless the demons were specifically told to hunt him, he will be fine.
“Unless, of course, whoever conjured them in the first place is also at that location,” Ginny said.
The éan olc are not hard demons to raise or control. René should have no problem besting their master should he or she remain. I doubt it, though.
“Why?” I asked.
Because the éan olc were not fed, and that breaks the agreement.
“Meaning they’ll go after anyone in the vicinity?” Ginny asked. “Again, that can’t be a good thing, especially if René is the only person there.”
Given the witch behind their summoning would have felt his interference and undoubtedly fled, that is a likely scenario. However, as I have already said, the éan olc would not go after him unless a new contract is drawn up.
Ginny, who had the address up on Google Maps, directed me to the left, then said, “So what happens to the demons?”
They will kill the witch responsible for summoning them, but if he or she cannot be found, they will either attempt to find a new practitioner willing to deal or return to the hell from which they were drawn.
Ginny made a vague hand wave to the right; I flicked on the blinker and went that way. “Why would they trust another witch again?”
They may not, but they are owed hearts and souls, so it is in their best interest to deal with someone.
“Who, if not the witch responsible for bringing them here?”
René, possibly.
I frowned. “He’s a blank canvas, remember.”
Which does not mean he has no dealings with demons. Remember who—and what—his father was.
It was an unsettling thought.
“Hey,” Ginny said into the brief silence, “if transport spells are a thing, why aren’t they used more often? Hell, they’d be easier than damn flying everywhere. For you earthbound lot, in planes, I mean.”
“The type of magic it requires and the toll it can take on the body means they are impractical to most,” I said.
She guided me into another street, then frowned. “Meaning it’s a darker magic?”
“Yes.”
“Then how are Lanie or Luke creating them?”
“We’re not sure they are—remember, we think Orion is pulling their strings.”
She grunted, and we drove on through the maze of Brisbane streets to what could only be described as a seedier-looking neighborhood.
Our target was incongruously situated between a wheel and tire place and a massage parlor.
There was no parking out front, so I swung left into a side street to park. We both climbed out.