CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“This is beyond egregious! Blatantly unlawful. Disrespectful. Blasphemous!”
Hero picked at the bandages on her hands while Chief Dewey listed her crimes one by one, wanting to be anywhere else but in his office getting a dressing-down. He was red faced and practically shouting at her. She sighed. This was not her idea of a good time.
“You opened the Gate to the Underworld on sanctified ground! You endangered your partner and threatened the integrity of our entire case!”
Especially with Liam Franke observing from the corner, grim and stiff-backed, his arms crossed over his chest, staring down his nose at her.
Judging her. At least he didn’t look smug.
That was something. Apparently his leave had ended and he was back to full-time duty.
Maybe her mother had died? The thought perked her up and she straightened from her insolent slouch, letting her hands fall to her sides.
They would heal better without her picking at them, anyway. But the bandages itched.
The bandages were unnecessary, but she’d let the young medic who’d responded to the scene put them on her, more for his comfort than for any accelerated healing effect.
His older partner had been busy seeing to DH Keen.
Her hands might have looked horrific – blistered, raw, bleeding – but they would be fine in a day or so.
Keen, on the other hand, had real wounds, and human flesh didn’t heal like half-demon flesh.
The teeth marks and gashes on his arms and back and one lean thigh – his uniform was in absolute tatters, too – were deep and bloody.
The elder medic had her hands full tending to them.
For Keen’s part, he sat in stoic silence as she worked, an occasional grimace the only sign of his distress. The medic had wanted to load him into the ambulance right away, but Keen had refused, wanting to give his report first.
Selfishly, Hero was glad he’d stayed. Their report would sound half mad as it stood. Coming from her alone, the PKs might dismiss it as demonic folly.
Sister Agnes had called the authorities when Hero and Keen had crawled up from the catacombs, singed and bloody. Keen’s wounds had been so obviously of demonic nature, the poor nun had woken up several of her sisters with her shrieking.
Now, a gaggle of half-dressed sisters stood watching beyond the PK lines, fervently praying and extolling the grace of the Goddess, armed with blessed water and silver prayer beads – the weapons of their order.
The revered mother herself appeared almost immediately and insisted she accompany the PK officers who entered the catacombs to investigate Hero and Keen’s story.
“I’m not surprised to find you at the center of this travesty,” the mother said, stopping by Hero’s side before descending with the other officers.
Her sparrow eyes landed on Hero’s ragged hands and narrowed.
“You’ll heal,” she said dismissively. But then a moment later, to Hero’s great shock, she made a sign of blessing over the wounds.
Those bright eyes of hers met Hero’s burning gaze.
“As you tread through the shadows, may the Goddess light your way.” And with that, she spun away and stalked to the mausoleum and the waiting PKs, leaving Hero to wonder if she’d read the odious nun as wrong as Keen thought.
Unfortunately, neither the mother nor the PKs found anything below but Keen’s discarded saber surrounded by burned and bloody brickwork. None of them, all fully human, could sense the shield, and if the revered mother scented the elemental demons, she certainly didn’t speak up about it.
So now the PKs were throwing Hero suspicious looks while the medic bandaged her hands, as if they thought she might be responsible for Keen’s wounds and all the talk of demon protection spells and dark power lurking beneath Bright Renewal Academy was a farce.
Keen did his best to back her up during the subsequent interrogation by the responding officers – Hero wasn’t insulted by their questions; she would have done the same if the situation were reversed – but the interview came to an abrupt end when he inconveniently fainted.
Promptly thereafter, she was escorted back to the station in a PK meat wagon like a Goddess-damned criminal.
They didn’t go so far as to make an accusation, though they stuck her on a back bench with shackles on the floor beside her, claiming there was no room for her to ride up front – an intimidation tactic, no doubt.
It hadn’t bothered her much. She’d busted out of meat wagons a time or two in the past, even while chained.
Shackles on her were like the bandages: simple window dressing.
Instead, she’d spent the ride considering their discovery, such as it was. Keen’s recollection of what he’d seen beneath Bright Renewal was sketchy at best. A vast cavern. A deep pit. A dark presence. Then the elemental demons had attacked him.
The best part, the only shining light she could pinpoint, was her battle with that despicable shield. It had bent beneath her onslaught. If she had more time, more preparation, more tools, she might be able to–
“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”
Hero blinked, coming back to the present.
Ah yes, she was being torn a new one “I followed a hunch, Chief,” she said simply.
“And I was right. That so-called academy is a hotbed of demon activity. It isn’t my fault your PKs are too blind to see the evidence.
Surely someone at this station must have the slightest sensitivity?
” She cast a glance at her brother. “You were particularly sensitive as a child, Liam. I recall that much. Or did Mother beat it out of you after she got rid of me?”
Liam jerked, coming to life at last. He turned bloodshot eyes on her, his mouth hard with anger. His cheeks were unshaven and sunken and his uniform was askew, very unlike his usual professional appearance. Grief? Her spirits lifted.
“You know nothing about me, Inspector,” he said sharply. “You’ll not drag me into your madness. Not this time. You made your bed, now lie in it.”
“Better than lying in a fog, Lieutenant,” she countered.
She faced Chief Dewey, exasperated. “How can you not feel the hex you all are under? Don’t you have protocols?
I know this is a small town, but you are peacekeepers – professionals, supposedly.
Why, a half-grown demonhunter has you all outclassed.
At least he broke himself free of the spell. ”
“Spell?” Dewey echoed, his face screwed with confusion. “What are you on about now?”
She scowled. “Find your center, man,” she admonished.
Suddenly, he seemed to deflate, his jowls sagging. He ran a shaking hand through his dark hair, his brow furrowing. His eyes stared at nothing for a moment and his mouth worked as if he was trying to speak and couldn’t.
Eagerly, Hero stepped forward. “Chief,” she said. “I need your help, sir. This case is far bigger than I knew, far more dangerous. I need your PKs. I need to get into Bright Renewal Academy!”
“Enough about Bright Renewal!” Liam snapped. “There’s nothing wrong with the Academy. It’s a grand place, a place of hope for desperate parents. You wouldn’t understand how important their work is for the community. What would you know about community?”
She turned on her brother. “Oh, you’re right, Liam.
I know nothing about community except how to be excluded from one.
But I do know this so-called Academy didn’t exist until maybe a year ago.
” At his furious glare, she struggled to change her tone, to try a softer approach.
Her brother looked on the verge of something – of what, she had no idea, but it wasn’t good.
“We grew up together, at least for a while. I – I know you remember our childhood. We share the same history. This place, this Academy – it is something new, something dangerous. Hidden in plain sight.”
“You cannot target Bright Renewal Academy,” Dewey interjected, but his voice was a monotone.
The words held no conviction. “It is an esteemed institution.” He blinked, looking startled, as if he couldn’t believe he’d just spoken.
His hands lay on the desk before him, shaking like those of a drunkard coming off a bender.
But Liam nodded along, oblivious to the chief’s strange behavior. “That’s right,” he declared with a sneer, a most uncharacteristic expression for him; he was usually so dour and serious. What’s going on here? “Would I have sent my own daughter there if I thought it was dangerous?”
The air left the room. “You… you sent Molly to Bright Renewal Academy?” Hero said, stunned, her mind whirling.
She barely knew the girl, hadn’t even known she’d existed until a few weeks ago, yet horror gripped her.
That girl, that little girl, had no idea what true evil could do.
And she was in the belly of the beast. Why?
To what end? Who had sent her there, really?
The air seemed to go out of Liam too. His bloodshot eyes grew wide and agony painted his face. “She was getting into trouble. All the time. Something had to be done before it was too late. Before she was lost to us entirely.”
“Getting into trouble?” Hero thought back to the interview, remembering a girl who comported herself with modesty.
So meek and frightened. Of course, looks could be deceiving sometimes, and Molly wouldn’t have been the first child to fake an air of innocence, but Hero trusted her instincts.
She was sure she’d read the girl correctly: Molly was an innocent, just a girl caught up in something awful.
Like so many others I’ve known. Like me.