Fury of the Demon

“Someone’s on my property?” she asked with alarm, all sleepiness gone from her voice.

“Zack says not anymore, but we don’t know if they left any surprises behind.” I double-checked to make sure my seatbelt was securely buckled as Zack hit the gas. “Stay put.”

“Shit. Okay, I’m getting dressed.”

“Stay inside!” I insisted.

“Did I say get dressed and go outside? Nope.”

I made a frantic grab for the oh-shit handle as Zack took a turn on two wheels. “Okay. Good. Call if you see or hear anything weird.”

“You know I will,” she said and hung up.

I closed my eyes for part of the drive. I trusted Zack’s demon reflexes and senses, but that didn’t mean I needed to see how close we came to obstacles, ditches, and other cars. I finally reopened them as we got near and kept a sharp eye out for anything unusual, but it was tough to see much.

Zack slowed, then pulled into her driveway. He cursed as the headlights passed over a suspicious lump on the lawn.

“That’s not good,” I muttered.

Zack backed up a bit and turned so the headlights lit the front yard fully. I sca

Zack exited the car at a more sedate pace. I noted his eyes flicking here and there, likely picking up information from his wards.

“We clear?” I murmured.

“All clear.”

I moved forward into the wash of the headlights, confirmed it was indeed a body on the lawn. White male, naked, probably in his early twenties, long and lean with little muscle tone. I stopped, shifted to othersight again and looked for any sign of arcane activity on the body. I remembered the near disaster with the arcane trap on the body of Idris’s sister, and didn’t want a repeat scenario.

Everything appeared normal, but that didn’t reassure me. “Zack, you see anything on it?”

“Hold on.” He moved up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. An instant later a shimmer of blue and gold sprang up between us and the body, and with his free hand Zack lobbed a tightly coiled sigil. Upon contact with the victim it flashed in an expanding ring of light, then dissipated.

Zack exhaled, tension easing from him. “All clear. If there had been a trap, it would have triggered.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “Like throwing rocks into a minefield.”

“The analogy fits.” His hand dropped from my shoulder. “I didn’t detect the trap on Amber’s body, and I apologize for that. The rakkuhr is alien and devious.”

“No apology needed, demon-man,” I told him with a reassuring smile.

Still with my gun at the ready, I cautiously moved forward then crouched. The victim lay twisted on the grass, partially on his back, his limbs in a haphazard tangle. Something rested on his chest and I eased closer, peered at it.

Sick nausea knotted my gut. A security company patch had been cut from a shirt and nailed to his left pec. Apex Security, a lesser branch of the StarFire company, reserved for more menial security details. Last time I’d seen one of their guards was—

Shit. I shifted my gaze to his face, but it was too battered to be recognizable. Then I saw how weirdly long his arms were in proportion to the rest of his body. “Sonofafuckingbitch,” I muttered. It was the security guard who’d shot Bryce.

I didn’t touch anything, stood and looked back over my shoulder. “Zack, you need to call this in,” I said, then shook my head. “No, Jill needs to call this in. That way we can say we’re here for moral support.” I glanced to the front window of the house, certain Jill was behind it, watching. I spread my pinky and thumb of my left hand, held it to my ear in the universal sign for making a phone call. With my right hand, I pointed to the body, held up three fingers then made a zero, confident she would know I meant a thirty, our area’s law enforcement code for a murder.

Zack snorted, and I glanced over to find him watching me in amusement. “I could just go tell her.”

I rolled my eyes. “And what would be the fun in that?”

“All righty then. Charades over?” he asked with a smile. “Looks like it worked. I can see her on the phone.” He moved up beside me. “What do we have?”

I peered down at the corpse. Deep ligature marks on the wrists, flesh flayed in gruesome strips on abdomen and legs, bruising on the torso, various ugly blotches in different locations as though he had been struck repeatedly with a blunt object. “It’s a goddamn message from Farouche,” I said in a tight voice. “He’s telling me this is what he can do, and that he knows where our friends are.” I shook my head, teeth clenched. “I’m getting really sick of bodies being used as messages. Don’t the fuckers have email?”

“Sure, but it doesn’t have the same uumph.”

Jill emerged from the front door, phone in hand. “What the hell?”

I moved to her. “It’s the security guard who shot Bryce.”

She stared at me. “Why would he be killed, and why would he be dumped here?” Her eyes went to the grotesque form on her lawn.

“Courtesy of J. M. Farouche,” I said, glowering. “He wants his people back. He wants me to know what he’s capable of, and that he knows where the people close to me live.”

“Shit.” She pressed close to Zack as he slid his arm around her. “Now what?”

I gave her a sweet smile “Now you move in with us willingly so that we don’t have to go through the hassle of kidnapping you.”

“Yep. That’s what.” Zack looked down at her, gave her a squeeze.

Jill drew a shaky breath, exhaled forcefully. “All right. All right. I get it.”

I heard sirens in the distance. “Okay, chick, you need to deal with the cops. And best not to mention Farouche.”

“What do I tell them?”

“Easy,” Zack said. “And it’s true, kind of. I couldn’t sleep and called you, we were talking. You heard a noise out front, looked out the window and saw the body. We came over for moral support.”

She eyed him dubiously, then shrugged. “Close enough. Let me at ’em,” she said and headed down the drive toward the street to meet the arriving units.

I stayed put, looked over at Zack. “I had a thought. Because you know she won’t want to stop working, despite how dangerous everything is now.”

Zack folded his arms across his chest, his eyes on me. “What’s your diabolical plan?”

“What if Jill had her own syraza bodyguard?”

Zack regarded me for a long moment. He drew breath and released it slowly. “It is certainly a possibility.”

“I was thinking of either Zimmek or Steeev.” Both syraza dwelt primarily in Mzatal’s realm, and I had a friendship-type relationship with each.

“Neither has spent time on Earth,” Zack noted. “Steeev is better suited. Far older.”

I smiled. “He has a good sense of humor too. I think Jill would like him.”

“Yes,” Zack agreed, his eyes on Jill and the cops. “I think he’d be amenable.”

“I should be able to do it sometime later today.”

“You’ll need to ask Mzatal about it first,” he said. “Let me go be all moral supportive for Jill.” He stepped off the porch and headed for Jill and the two cops.

I stared at his back, mildly unsettled by the instruction to ask Mzatal. Was it to ask his permission to summon the syraza? Or to give the syraza permission to come here? I shook my head. Best to wait and hear what Mzatal had to say before going too far down that path.

When the detective’s car pulled up, I headed that way. Pellini emerged, surveyed the scene. He looked over to me as I approached. “This one weird?”

I dodged the “weird” question. “I’m not here on official business,” I told him. “I came over to give Jill moral support.” I gave him the basic information, but left out our suspicion that Farouche was behind it. Until we had a handle on the Idris situation, I didn’t want anyone else stirring that hornet’s nest.