Текст книги "Mark of the Demon"

Автор книги: Diana Rowland

Соавторы: Diana Rowland
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“I can’t help you there,” I said. The only next of kin I knew of wasn’t likely to step forward just to claim some boxes of junk. “Is there any way you can come by to let me in and let me look through the stuff?”

“I’m at work and can’t get away until late this afternoon, but if you want you can let yourself in. The key’s under the frog statue on the back porch.”

“I really appreciate this,” I said fervently.

“Sure thing. I hope it helps you out. I still can’t believe this happened. Greg was a supernice guy and a good tenant.”

“I met him only once, but he seemed pretty cool,” I said. “Of course, the neighbor across the street was convinced he was up to no good.”

“Oh, my God, that racist bitch? I swear, I wanted to rent the place out to a black Jewish gay couple just to piss her off, but then I figured it wouldn’t be fair to the black Jewish gay couple.”

I smiled wryly. “Makes me glad I live way out in the country with no neighbors.”

“Lucky you! Look, if you need anything else, just let me know.”

“You got it. Thanks again.”

The Blood Hadbeen cleaned up in the kitchen and the tile scrubbed and bleached. The cleaning crew had done a good job; there was no visible sign at all that a gruesome murder had taken place here. But it was still going to be hard for her to rent or sell the place.

The house had been stripped down to the walls, and I found about a dozen boxes piled in a back bedroom. I began looking through them and made the delightful discovery that Dana had labeled each box with a short description of its contents. Oh, I do so love this woman!

But even with the labels, it still took me well over an hour to find which boxes held pictures and then an hour more to find what I was looking for.

I sat down on the floor, holding the picture of a man in a suit standing stiffly next to a grinning teenager, arm draped awkwardly over the boy’s shoulders. The kid was definitely Greg. Even thirty years later, the grin had remained constant. And this picture had likely been taken not long before the summoning-gone-wrong—a couple of years at most. So this must be Dad. I peered at the picture. Slightly above-average height. Light-blue eyes. Brown hair. Nondescript features. Medium build. He’d be in his mid to late sixties now, I figured. I made a note to find out his date of birth when I got back to the office.

I pushed my hair back from my face, frustrated. I still didn’t have much to go on. But this has to be who the killer is. Peter Cerise. It fit perfectly. So, who the hell was he now?

I pulled my cell phone out again and called Ryan.

“Kristoff here.”

“Hiya, Agent-with-the-high-tech-resources-that-I-don’t-have. Can your peeps do an age progression on a photograph?”

“I can get it to someone who can,” he said. “Whatcha got?”

“Picture of Greg’s dad. But it’s about thirty years old. I can’t figure out who he is.”

Ryan gave a low whistle. “That’s terrific. Get it to me and I’ll send it off.”

“You got it. Where y’at now?”

“I’m out and about, but if you email it to me, I’ll forward it to my ‘peeps,’ as you put it.”

“I’m not near a computer. But I’m ten minutes away from the office.”

“I’ll be looking for it in eleven.”

I shut the phone and stuffed it into my pocket, then let myself out the same way I’d come in, tucking the key back under the statue.

As I walked back out to my car, Ms. Dailey was standing at the end of the driveway, dressed this time in a bright fuchsia velour sweat suit. I wondered briefly if her entire wardrobe consisted of velour sweat suits of varying obnoxious hues.

“Young lady,” she said with a stern expression on her face. “May I ask just what you were doing in there?” Her tone was accusatory, as if she thought I was looting the place for valuables.

What, nowthe woman was concerned about her neighbor? I closed the distance to Ms. Dailey, getting close enough that she was forced to take a step back.

“It’s DetectiveGillian,” I said through bared teeth, yanking my badge off my belt and thrusting it into the woman’s face. “I am here on official police business for the purposes of investigating a series of murders. But for you, Ms. Dailey, I have just one thing to advise.”

Ms. Dailey’s eyes widened.

“From now on, why don’t you try minding your own fucking business?”

I turned and marched back to my car, leaving the woman behind me gaping and speechless. And, for the first time, I felt like the warrior woman in that picture.

CHAPTER 24

My good mood didn’t last long. My pager shrilled before I could make it back to the station, and I had to read it twice before the meaning of the message got through to me. It wasn’t another body. It was six of them.

A local manwho’d taken a sick day to go fishing found the bodies piled in an ugly heap about fifty feet from the shore in a rarely traveled or fished area of the lake. Trouble with the engine on his flatboat had caused him to drift into a small cove, where he discovered, to his delight, where all the fish had been hiding from him for the past twenty years. He’d reached his limit after an hour of fishing and then decided to investigate the source of the odor that had drifted to him when the wind shifted.

I had a feeling his sick day was justified now.

It might have been fairly simple to get to the scene by boat, but going by car was another matter entirely—several miles of rutted dirt roads, followed by a ten-minute hike on foot down a narrow deer trail. Fortunately, by the time I made it to where all the other vehicles were parked, some of the good ol’ boys had busted out their ATVs and were shuttling people back and forth through the woods.

I climbed off the back of the four-wheeler with a mumbled thanks to the driver, well aware that he had gone over a few extra bumps in order to get the full effect of my tits pressed up against his back as I hung on for dear life. I would be walking back, thank you very much.

To my surprise, there was already a cluster of local and not-so-local media in a small clearing on the low ridge above where the bodies had been discovered. A murdered homeless drug addict could be a decent mention on the evening news, but a mass dump of six bodies in various states of decomposition couldn’t be passed over. No, this one would probably make national news.

I saw Dr. Lanza on the ridge, standing next to a slender, leggy woman with blond hair and a lovely face. The woman wore jeans that were low-cut and form-fitting without looking painted on and a black T-shirt that showed her obvious dedication to her workouts. There was no layer of pudge above the jeans on this woman, and I found myself standing straighter and pulling my stomach in. Damn doughnuts.

Dr. Lanza caught my eye and motioned me over. “Detective Kara Gillian, this is Dr. Susan Vaughn,” Doc said when I reached him. “Dr. Vaughn is a forensic entomologist.”

I shook the woman’s hand, but there must have been something resembling a blank expression on my face. “I do bugs,” Dr. Vaughn added with a smile.

“Oh! Right.” I shrugged sheepishly. “I was either going to go for that or foot doctor, and the latter didn’t make much sense.”

“Susie … um … happened to be in town when I got the call,” Doc said, “and I’m hoping she’ll be able to help us determine how old these corpses are.”

It’sSusie? And she just happened to be in town? Doc, you dog!

Doc must have picked up something in my expression, because his lips twitched into a smug smile. Then he glanced down the ridge and all trace of humor slipped away. “Let’s get started,” he said tersely, and started making his way down the small slope, with the two of us following. I grimaced as the nauseating odor grew stronger, but even if I hadn’t smelled it, the sound of the flies would have warned me that something ugly was nearby. The buzz was constant, and any motion sent clouds of the insects swarming up, only to settle back on the flesh as soon as they could. Now I understood the need for someone who knew their bugs.

I took in the surrounding area. Under any other circumstances, it would be an idyllic setting, lightly wooded with a scattering of spring wildflowers and a beautiful view of the lake—perfect for camping or trysting. The location definitely offered privacy, and it occurred to me that these bodies could have easily gone undiscovered for years if not for the fisherman’s engine trouble. The demon had to have dumped these bodies, too, I realized. The pile wasn’t far from the water, but there was enough of a climb from the shore to make it difficult for someone carrying a body, much less six. And it was definitely a significant distance from the road. I just couldn’t see someone loading bodies onto the back of an ATV to trek them all the way back here to dump.

They were all nude, piled haphazardly and limbs splayed, swollen and black with decomposition, and rippling with a patchy gray-yellow carpet of maggots. It was difficult to tell what kind of injuries had been inflicted, due to the maggots and the state of decomposition, but there was enough evidence to tell me that these were uncomfortably similar to my other Symbol Man cases.

Dr. Vaughn stepped closer cautiously as she pulled on latex gloves, her heavy fall of blond hair swinging forward as she peered at the maggots and flies. I couldn’t help but think that she looked a lot more like a member of the Swedish Bikini Team than a bug expert. “A lot of injuries here,” she said, utterly unperturbed. “Maggots tend to cluster around orifices”—she gestured at the maggot-filled nose and mouth of one body—“and also any break in the skin.” Her gaze traveled over the nearly unbroken mass of maggots. “This is unbelievable.”

“Can you tell how long they’ve been dead?” I asked.

Dr. Vaughn nodded, pursing her lips. “Oh, yes. Or, rather, I can tell you how long the bodies have been out here.” She flicked a finger at a fly. “These are blowflies.” She glanced over her shoulder at the lake. “And out here in the open like this, flies are going to find these bodies almost instantly.” She looked down by her feet, then picked up a number of tiny black pellets. She peered at them, then held them out toward me. “These are the egg cases, and these,” she poked at a few of the pellets that looked as if one end had been cut off, “have already hatched.”

I looked at the egg cases and then up at her. “Okay.”

Dr. Vaughn met my eyes. “Give me a few minutes and I should be able to give you a time frame.”

“You got it. Just don’t make me pick up any bugs.”

Dr. Vaughn gave a throaty laugh. “Deal.” She turned away and crouched, examining the insects on the bodies with what I privately thought was an insane amount of interest.

Heck, who am I to judge?I thought, wrinkling my nose. She does bugs, and I do demons.

I moved to the side to keep out of the way of both doctors as they examined the bodies and conferred with each other in hushed voices. Finally Doc turned to me. “Crime Scene has taken pictures of the pile already, so I’m going to have them start moving the bodies, unless there’s anything else you want to look at.” He nodded toward three men in striped outfits who were clambering down the slope—trustees who would get extra “credit” for helping to remove bodies on this scene.

“Go for it,” I replied. I could feel only the faintest flickers of the arcane, and with all the insect activity I couldn’t even tell if the symbol was on any of these bodies. It would seriously suck if these were notSymbol Man victims. Two serial killers would be more than we could handle. Hell, one is more than we can handle.

Doc flicked his fingers to dislodge a stray maggot, lip curling in disgust. “As soon as these guys get the bodies off one another, I’ll be able to tell more.”

I didn’t have to wait long. As the first body was pulled away from the others and turned over, I could clearly see the symbol that had been carved onto the chest. Okay, so we’re still dealing with the same killer, I thought with strange relief.

The trustees staggered by me with their grotesque burden as they carried the body to a clear area to lay it out. I began to step back to avoid the stench, then froze as a faint sensation of arcane resonance rippled over me. I shifted quickly into full othersight, reluctantly stepping closer to the body. It’s the symbol, I realized. The symbol is arcanely protected. I hadn’t noticed it on any of the Series Two victims because they’d been found relatively quickly and there were still arcane traces all over them. But on these, most of the residual arcane energy had faded to nothing—except for the potency twined into the symbol itself. No wonder the symbol had always been recognizable, even on the badly decomposed bodies. I gave myself a mental head-smack. I should have thought of that earlier. Chalk that one up to inexperience, I thought with a small sigh.

For the next hour, I discovered it was impossible not to breathe in the stench of rot. I didn’t have any trouble with nausea, but one of the trustees was not so fortunate and had to lean over a bush several times to heave. Jill was there, taking pictures of the entire process as the bodies were removed and laid out, face grim and pale as she worked.

I crouched next to the two doctors, making notes and listening to their observations as they examined each body as it was removed from the pile. Six bodies, each with the symbol carved into the flesh and positioned so that the symbol wouldn’t be exposed to air and insects. Make it last longer, even with the arcane protection. It’s important to whatever he’s doing.

Finally the last of the remains were zipped up into body bags and Doc stood up and stripped off his gloves. “Four men and two women,” he said, mouth set in a firm line and a thin beading of sweat on his upper lip. “All with ligature marks around their necks and notches at their elbows and ankles, in addition to various other signs of torture.”

Dr. Vaughn rolled her neck on her shoulders. “For now I’m going to say that there’s nothing older than two months and nothing fresher than three weeks.”

I did some quick mental calculations, then took out my phone and pulled up the calendar. “So that would fall between these dates?” I showed my phone to Dr. Vaughn, pointing out the dates.

The entomologist looked at the screen and nodded. “Yes, that would work.”

“Thanks, both of you.” I turned and jogged back up the slope, slowing as I saw Ryan climbing off the back of an ATV.

“Hey, Kristoff. Check this out.” I showed him my phone.

He looked at the screen, a faintly bemused expression on his face. “You have all the phases of the moon on your calendar?”

“Yeah, like, duh. And now it’s finally useful. Doc and the entomologist think that these victims were killed between the last two full moons.”

He looked at me with a So what?expression.

I gestured to the row of black body bags at the bottom of the ridge. “I think these are last month’s victims.” I took a steadying breath. “I think he attempted the summoning last month and it didn’t work.” I rubbed my palms on my jeans, unnerved. I didn’t want to think about what we’d be facing right now if he’d been successful.

Ryan blew out his breath. “Fucking lucky for us. I wonder what went wrong.”

“I don’t know, but he’s not giving up. He’s trying again this month.”

A sickened expression passed over his face. “And he’s going to keep doing this until he succeeds in this summoning.”

I chewed my lip. “The convergence will begin to taper after this month. It’ll still be enough to summon higher demons, but my bet is that pulling an unwilling Demonic Lord through will be damn near impossible after this next full moon and for about another eighteen months or so.”

“So, we have just this month to catch him,” Ryan said.

I nodded. “And he’s going to throw everything he has into this summoning. He knows it’s his last chance for a while.”

Ryan moved to the top of the slope, looking down at the scene of the body dump, anger and dismay in his eyes. “I guess there’s no doubt that these are Symbol Man murders?”

I shook my head. “They all have the symbol, all have signs of torture, all killed by ligature strangulation.”

He was silent for several heartbeats as he looked at the activity at the bottom of the slope. “I wonder why he’s killing all his victims the same way now. The Series One victims were killed in different ways.”

“Well, I have a theory about that.”

“Share?”

I took a deep breath. “I think that the first murders were practice. It explains why those victims were killed in a variety of ways and had varying amounts of torture and damage done to them. The last two werestrangled.”

Ryan scowled. “He was trying to see what kind of death would give him the most zing and found that strangulation worked the best.”

“That’s right. And I think he was probably also figuring out how to store that potency for later use. To build his little Demonic Lord prison.”

“And then he had to stop for three years …”

“Because the sphere that holds the demon world diverged from ours …” I trailed off, looking away from the lake.

“What’s wrong?” Ryan followed the direction of my gaze.

“The victim at the wastewater plant. I think that was from last month’s attempt as well.”

Ryan frowned. “What makes you say that? And what are you looking at?”

“See that fence?” I pointed at a tall wooden fence barely visible through the trees. It was probably about a mile away, and only the fact that we were standing on a slight rise allowed us to see it at all. “That’s the back of the wastewater plant.”

I watched his face as comprehension flashed across it. “The broken bones … She wasn’t dropped from the top of a vat. The demon was flying her body here and dropped her.”

I nodded. “You’re pretty smart for a Fed.”

“I missed a bunch of questions on the entrance exam on purpose so that I could get into the agency,” he retorted, smile flickering at the corners of his mouth.

“So it was an accident that the body was found so quickly.”

“But the others …” His expression grew more serious. “He’s been trying to find out what he can about you. He knows you’re a summoner.”

I nodded, feeling the prickles of cold sweat along my spine. If he knew that, then he knew damn near everything about me.

Meanwhile, I knew his name, and not a damn thing else.

CHAPTER 25

We headed back to the station in silence. I swiped my ID card at the door and pushed in with Ryan following behind me, but I’d barely stepped through the door before Captain Turnham leaned his head out of his office, looking down the hall at me.

“Chief Morse wants to see you, Gillian.”

I groaned. “Now?”

An expression of regret crossed his face. “Yes, now.”

I hesitated, then glanced at Ryan. “You can wait in my office if you want.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll wait,” he said with a nod. He turned and headed to my office as I continued down the hall to the chief’s. I didn’t have a good feeling about this. The captain looked like he’d been handing me a death sentence.

The chief’s secretary was gone, so I knocked on the inner office door.

“Detective Gillian!” I heard the chief snap from inside. “Get in here.”

Yeah. That didn’t sound good. I took a settling breath as I entered. “Sir? Captain Turnham said you wanted to see me?”

Chief Eddie Morse stood behind his desk, scowl blackening his expression. Fuck him, he’s only my boss, I tried to tell myself in an effort to keep some semblance of composure, but it wasn’t working too well.

“Detective Gillian,” he said, voice tight and clipped, “since you have shown yourself to be clearly incapable of handling this investigation, I have informed Captain Turnham that you are to be reassigned and replaced with someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing.”

I stared at him in utter shock for a heartbeat, then I struggled to recover. “Sir, you can’t do that!” I blurted out.

He glared at me. “ Tenmore bodies have been found since you were assigned to the case. It was a gross mistake to put you on as the lead. I don’t see any progress being made, and all I do see is you spending a great deal of time with Agent Kristoff.”

I felt hot and cold all at the same time. I drew a shaking breath, fighting the urge that screamed at me to respond with an outraged denial of the barely veiled accusations of misconduct. It was one thing to get ribbed by coworkers. This was completely different. “Agent Kristoff and I are merely assigned to the same task force,” I said, struggling for calm though I could hear the tremor in my voice. “And a great deal of progress hasbeen made,” I continued as the chief glowered at me. “We have a strong lead on who the killer is, and now we’re working on locating him.”

The chief leaned forward, placing his fists on the desk. “I think you’re full of shit, Detective Gillian. Crawford and Pellini will replace you on the case.”

“Sir, wait. We’re really close. I know it! Give me twenty-four hours and I’ll have something to show.” Twenty-four hours?I bit back the urge to groan. What on earth had possessed me to spout that tired cliché? On the other hand, twenty-four hours was all I really needed.

Chief Morse narrowed his eyes at me, flat gaze piercing me like an eagle sighting on its prey. Then he straightened. “Fine. You have twenty-four hours”—he sneered the words—“to show me some goddamn results, or not only will you be off the case but you’ll be back in Patrol.”

I willed calm with everything I had to keep my anger and dismay in check. “Yes, sir.” I didn’t dare say anything more. I had no idea how I was supposed to explain my conviction that the murders were all for the purpose of gathering arcane power, but in twenty-four hours the Symbol Man would be starting his ritual, so it was probably a moot point anyway. I would either stop the summoning or I wouldn’t. And if I didn’t, losing my job would be the least of my worries.

Chief Morse sat down, glowering. “You’re still in way over your head.” When I didn’t respond, he waved a hand at me. “Get out. Twenty-four hours or you’re through. Remember that.”

I nodded again, then pivoted and exited as quickly as I could. I slunk back to my own office and shut the door behind me, then sat heavily in my chair and dropped my head to the desk.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,” I moaned.

Ryan cleared his throat. “I take it you were on the receiving end of an ass-chewing?”

“I think I dropped two sizes. Does my ass look smaller? It feels smaller.”

He snorted and I lifted my head, sighing. “I am apparently completely incompetent, and I am to be removed from the case. However, I successfully begged for twenty-four hours to prove that I deserve to remain a detective.”

“In twenty-four hours it’s not going to matter,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, no shit.” I opened my notebook to pull out the picture of Greg and Peter Cerise. “Here,” I said, handing the picture to him. “Here’s the killer. Go wild.”

“Great. Case solved. Go home.” He took the picture from me and examined it closely, then looked up at me and shrugged. “It could be anyone. I’ll scan it and send it to my ‘peeps,’ as you refer to them.”

“Well, there’s one piece of good news I can give you,” I said. “One of the Narcotics guys recognized his arrestee as one of our potential victims. Michelle Cleland.”

His eyes widened. “That’s fantastic. So she’s in jail?”

“Yep, and I told her not to bond out. Jail is the safest place for her.”

“No kidding. How did she feel about staying in jail?”

I gave him a mirthless smile. “Well, once I explained the possible alternative, she reluctantly agreed to it. Of course, it helps that she can’t afford the bond.”

“Good. That’s very good.” He stood up. “Well, at least we know that one of them is safe.” He rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. “Your company is scintillating, but I need a shower. I’m going to scan and send the picture to Quantico and then go crash for a bit.”

“The full is tomorrow night.”

Ryan looked pained. “I know. I’ll tell the imaging guys to put a big rush on the age progression. We’ll find a way to stop him.”

I couldn’t even find it in me to nod. Would we? Just over a day left, and we still didn’t have much to go on. “Go shower. Get some rest.”

“You need to sleep too,” Ryan reminded me.

“I will,” I lied. “I just want to go over a few more things before I head home.”

“I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Do that.”

He turned and left the office, and I lowered my head to the desk again, groaning under my breath. It was going to happen tomorrow night. Would he succeed this time? Judging by the estimated times of death of the pile of bodies, he most certainly had made an attempt on the last full. He was probably summoning at the exact same time that I was summoning. Too bad there wasn’t some way for me to find out where he was by tracking the portal he was opening….

I lifted my head and turned my pencil end over end, musing on that. Perhaps someone who had far fargreater skills in the arcane than I could do that sort of thing. It would probably be well beyond the ability of any human. Would a Demonic Lord even be able to track a portal? If they were actually being summoned, yes, of course, but by then it would be too late. But what if the portal could be—

I sat bolt upright, sucking my breath in through my teeth. The Symbol Man hadtried to summon this past full moon. And he hadtried to summon Rhyzkahl. And he had failed.

I began to laugh, knowing there was a trace of hysteria to it. He had failed because I’d been attempting to summon Rysehl, and Rhyzkahl had used my portal to escape. Holy crap, Ididn’t fuck up the summoning. The wash of relief that went through me was so great I could feel tears leaking down my cheeks. I hadn’t screwed up. Rhyzkahl had hijacked my portal to save himself from being summoned by someone who had the ability to bind him. Stupid blind happenstance. And that’s why he didn’t slay me or take me, I realized. Even though it hadn’t been my intent, I was still his means of saving himself. Once he realized that I wasn’t the original summoner, his honor wouldn’t allow him to harm me.

And he seduced me because he figured he’d use the opportunity that he’d been presented with. He wanted me to trust him just so that I would later call him to this sphere. That was not as welcome a realization, and I was shocked to realize how much it hurt, even though deep down I’d suspected it. Not desirable, not interesting, just a convenient summoner. I scrubbed at the tears that continued to trickle down my face, choking back the thick knot in my throat. I’d never been pursued, wooed, or seduced before, and it had been nice—so very nice—to believe that there was something about me that attracted that sort of attention. I’d wanted to believe it so badly. Too badly. He would have done the same to whomever the summoner was, I thought, with more than a touch of misery. Not necessarily sex but some manner of seduction, whether it was power, or wealth, or whatever else he could have offered to gain the summoner’s interest.

He had read my needs, my secret aches, and played upon them. Demons were utterly self-serving, and I hadn’t truly accepted just how deeply that ran.

I took a shaking breath, wiping my face one more time. Fine. Whatever. I don’t have time to wallow in self-pity. But at least now I knew how to buy more time to catch the Symbol Man. I guess I’ll be summoning tomorrow. Let’s see if Rhyzkahl can save himself twice.

But this time I wouldn’t trust him any further than I could throw him.