28. Dante
Dante
M y home is teeming with people. Top men and women from the other demons chatter in hushed tones throughout the house. English, Spanish, Russian, French—languages I don't recognize among them as well—all with one singular goal: stopping the war. Finding my wife.
Crushing the Seraph.
Roman looks up at me from the kitchen counter where he's gathered a handful of grizzled and scarred men and women.
They will be the forward operating team.
Well, as soon as we find somewhere to storm.
Three more false positives popped up throughout the week, all of them ending empty-handed and empty-hearted.
I haven't slept, not really, in days. My body is exhausted, but my mind won't quit racing. Images of Melody huddled up in pain pervade through the night, through the day, through any time I'm even a little bit conscious. Roman keeps watch over me like a hawk, which I gladly welcome.
Sometimes, being a man is knowing when to ask for help.
Knowing when to accept help. And right now, I cannot afford to lose precious moments due to my own idiotic pride.
I need help. I've begged for help. And in the cold, lonely night, I beg for my wife back.
I beg and plead and scream to any god that might listen.
My prayers have gone unanswered.
I cannot fault the Goetic Consortium, though.
True to their word, they supplied as much manpower as I asked for and more.
The Eligos descended on that filthy gas station like vultures, scraping up every last piece of evidence they could find.
The Paimon's whisper networks are keeping watchful eyes on Detective Ella's position at all hours.
Strangely, though, she disappears at times.
She enters her home on the far outskirts of the city, descends into her basement, and doesn't reappear for hours. I don't like it. The Paimon doesn't like it, either. One of his slipperiest men attempted a covert break-in, but the Seraph underlings swarmed the place within minutes.
Ella, it seems, is more powerful than we thought. I dislike that even more—the lack of knowledge regarding their power structure eats at me like a parasite. They operate much like we do: outside of the law, in shadows, but they prefer making their moves in silence.
To be fair, so do we—but with a bit of a flair for the dramatic.
According to the general public, we in the Goetic Consortium are simply business associates.
We hold galas. We donate to fundraisers.
We sponsor children's education. And we certainly don't have a collective name.
Through all the layers of our secrecy, though, no one would ever guess that we reign over an underground empire.
Sometimes, the greatest cloak of all is publicity.
Yet I have not gone public with my wife.
I have not told the masses that she is missing, nor have I said she even exists.
Until she is safe, she will stay in the shadows with me.
It's not like sleazy tabloids were knocking down my door before I married her—I've always been the least media-friendly of the Goetia.
My name pops up every few months or so, but mainly within the financial sector. I aim to keep it that way.
Besides, no one needs to know that the wife of Dante Lyons has a penchant for murder.
"Sir," Roman calls from the kitchen. "Sir, we found something."
" I found something, he means," The Paimon's assistant says with a glare. Leanne is a shrewd woman I've come to respect. Her fiery mane of vibrant red hair frames her cherubic face. One would never suspect that she could kill without breaking a sweat.
"Yes, of course. Leanne found something," Roman mutters with a nod.
"Ground-penetrating radar. Heard of it?" she asks, pointing to her computer.
"Vaguely. Let's assume it does what it says, yeah?" I rush over and stare at the grey lines and smudges on the screen.
"Precisely. We flew a drone at a low altitude around Ella's house and dropped a few probes about an hour ago." She switches to a satellite image, circling three map pins with her cursor. "See this line? It doesn't match up with the sedimentary layers. She has a tunnel."
"She has a fucking tunnel?" I growl and slam my fist on the granite countertop. "Why the fuck are we only hearing about this now?"
"Because someone keeps shooting down our surveillance, asshole. Calm your shit before I calm it for you!" Leanne shoves her finger into my chest, fury in her eyes.
"Where does it lead? How far? When can we get there?" I'm already sprinting towards the door, pulling on my boots and snatching up my gun.
"We don't know yet! We just found it, but from what I can tell, it leads towards the Poconos. And it's long . She must be using something small to traverse it—electric bike, maybe?" Leanne taps her sharp red fingernails on the counter. "Go. Stay in contact."
Roman grunts and follows me out the door. I swear to god, if this leads us to the same shitty shack that we destroyed days ago, I'm going to murder The Paimon and Leanne both.
"Keep going. Follow the same road until I tell you otherwise," Leanne says over the phone mounted to the dashboard.
I lean my head to the window and look up, watching her team of tiny drones stream through the gray sky above us.
We still don't know exactly where we're going.
But it can't be to the destroyed hut. I don't recognize the area.
A poorly maintained road is all that separates me from my wife. I have a feeling, and my gut is rarely wrong. Roman curses under his breath and swerves around cracked potholes. Every bump in the road, every whirr of the motor blends together into one word.
Melody. Melody. Melody.
I'm about to get my wife back, and I'm about to put a bullet through Ella's head.
It has to be her. It could only be her. The psych profile The Eligos provided points directly to that woman: a deep need to be at the top and a ruthless lack of conscience, meaning she'll do anything to get her bag.
If circumstances were different, I'd respect her.
But she took what's mine, and for that? She's going to fucking die.
Bang!
The rear window cracks and shatters. Roman curses and grips the steering wheel hard—we skid along the road for a split second before he regains control. "Get down, sir!"
I slide down to the floor and check my rifle's magazine. Full, exactly how I left it. Good. I feel a devilish grin slide across my face. "Keep driving, Roman. I'll take care of this."
"I would highly—" Bang! "—fuck!" The SUV shudders with the flip-flopping of our rear tire. "Never mind. As you were, sir."
"Thanks, Ro." I cock the gun and roll down my window. A shiny black coupe is gaining on us—some kind of sports car. I can't tell what it is at this angle, but it doesn't matter. Anchoring myself with one leg in the footwell and the other kneeling on the seat, I poke my head and gun out the window.
Aiming is not on my mind at this point. I let loose a spray of bullets and laugh when the coupe's windshield erupts in a spiderweb of cracks.
Whoever's driving isn't doing a very good job, or maybe I hit them already.
Doesn't matter. I fire another handful of rounds and shout with glee when blood red blooms against the cracked glass.
"Got 'em!" I yell out, and Roman laughs. The black coupe swerves and dives off the road before finally crashing against a cattle panel fence.
"We have to stop, sir. We're driving on rim." He looks over at me with apologies behind his eyes. I grit my teeth and nod. Within seconds, we've pulled into the grassy shoulder of the backwoods highway—if it could even be called a highway.
"I'll pay for a replacement, of course," I assure him as I help lug the full-size spare tire from under the cargo space.
"There wasn't a doubt in my mind, sir," he grunts.
Together, we have the ruined tire off and the new one on in record time. The rim is absolutely shot. Deep scratches mar the surface. What was once a perfect circle is now oblong and folded. "Damn. It really wasn't going to hold on for even a second longer, was it?"
"Nope." Roman scurries back to the driver's seat and grabs the phone. "Sorry about that, Leanne. Had to take care of a situation."
"You're going to like what I found," she practically giggles, ignoring Roman's apologies. "The end of the tunnel. You're about… oh, six miles or so?"
"Let's go!" I yell and slap the dashboard. "Leanne, directions?"
"Keep going straight until you come to Pimrock Drive. Hang a left. Follow it until the very end. Oh, hang on," she trails off with a mumble.
My phone vibrates in my pocket at the same time an alert flashes across the top of Roman's screen. In the background of the call, I hear a cacophony of notifications. Pings, buzzes, and melodic trills fill the air as everyone gets the same notification at the same time.
Unknown Number
TURN ON THE NEWS
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I grumble as Roman clenches his jaw and slams down the accelerator again.
Fumbling with my phone, I tap on the local news app's icon.
A livestream takes over my screen, and my heart stops.
A gaggle of newscasters surrounds a run-down shack, not dissimilar to the one we destroyed plank by plank.
The blonde newswoman stands in a station-branded jacket, smiling blithely as red and blue flashing lights reflect from her face.
"If you're just joining us now, this is Katie Allan with Alert 7, coming to you live from the Poconos.
Local detective Rafaella Angelo has apprehended a six times over murderer, Melody Crawford.
She's been missing for the past year after the gruesome death of her stepfather.
Presumed dead, it appears that Miss Crawford has been hiding out in the foothills—with either a hostage or an accomplice.
" The newswoman, Katie, turns to the side.
"Here they come! Let's see if we can get a word in. Detective Angelo!"
My blood runs cold as I watch in horror.
My wife, my beautiful wife, is covered in dirt and blood—she looks pale, sickly, and her face is noticeably gaunt.
She's only been gone a week—hasn't Ella been feeding her?
Melody's head lolls to the side as she stumbles to a police SUV.
Ella herself holds her hands in cuffs and shields the back of her head as my wife plops into the seat and slumps over.
Ella shuts the door and slaps the car twice, waiting, watching until the SUV revs its engine and peels down the dirt road.
In the distance, I hear the wail of sirens. We were so close. But we failed.
I failed her.