Collateral Damage (Demon Squad Book 8) (14 page)

“Who? Where?”

“I cannot tell you, Mister Trigg.” He’d found his manners once more but his answer hit me like a hammer. Murder boiled in my guts, but I held that instinct in check. I needed to know.

Instead of exploding and demanding he tell me, I ripped a gate open behind Marcus and shoved him through it. He squawked as he tumbled between dimensions, but I cut the sound off by sealing him in Hell. Poe went red, and I felt the flicker of his mystical energies igniting, but the grim determination on my face stopped him cold.

As much as I respected Poe, he stood between me and the life I’d lost. Nothing would stop me from reclaiming it.

“Tell me about the necromancer or you’ll never see Marcus again.”

Nothing.

Sixteen

Turned out, the necromancer was the dark lord wannabe, Styg. The same little shithead I’d faced off against at Katon’s house. He was right there in front of me and I hadn’t even known it, his necromantic powers apparently taking a back seat to his other sorceries. It was a bitter pill to swallow realizing the opportunity I’d missed, but I could still fix things.

Even though I’d hated betraying Poe like I did, I’d made it worse by holding onto Marcus even after the mentalist told me what he knew about the necro and the DSI organization. I couldn’t afford him lying to me, and Marcus was my leverage against that. If there was a chance at atonement after everything was said and done, fantastic. If not, I was willing to live with what I’d done if it meant bringing Karra back to life.

I’d left Marcus twiddling his thumbs in the God-proof room so none of the DRAC folks would know he was there or what I was doing. As much as I wanted their help, I didn’t think it was right to drag them along with my mad schemes. They were safe now, finally, after being put at risk because of Shaw’s love of tormenting me. Besides, they wouldn’t want me to do what I was planning. They would try to stop me, convince me to think about what I was doing, but I couldn’t do that right now. This was a chance I needed to take. If Poe was walking me into a trap, so be it. No one else but me would suffer for it.

Waiting for my moment, I stood on the neighboring roof and stared across the street at a non-descript office building at the far edge of downtown. The place wasn’t one I’d known about but Poe had been all too willing to spill its location. Seemed the mental restraints plugged into him by Styg only applied to Shaw and the mysterious shit starter lurking behind the scenes, yanking everyone sideways. He had no issue with ratting out his fellow agents, though I wasn’t so stupid as to realize he wasn’t being altruistic by doing so. He, too, had an angle he was playing.

Should the necromancer who controlled him suddenly disappear or die in a tragic, Frank-related accident, Poe’s leash would vanish. He’d be a free man again, able to defy Shaw and the DSI and go about his business. And I was fine with that.

Nothing mattered but Karra.

I watched the building as it settled in for the night, the sun sliding behind the mass of silver and gray that made up downtown El Paseo. Security would be loose because it had been designated as living quarters for Shaw’s pet monkeys. With all their targets ensconced in Hell, and my other machinations yet to take flight, the DSI agents were essentially on call, waiting for their boss or Trinity to figure out how to get to us. Fortunately, according to Poe, Shaw had underestimated my willingness to be stupid.

She hadn’t bothered to consolidate her forces, thinking them safe from retaliation if they were spread about the city. And Trinity, it seemed, wasn’t entirely under her control, though she’d managed to circumvent that to a small degree by having Styg raise the kid after Scarlett and I killed him. Just thinking about him made me sick, but at least I’d get the opportunity to kill the fucker again. How often do you get two dishes of revenge from the same person? The second time would be hell. That I promised.

Finally, after the building closed, and everyone but the residents and the handful of security personnel on duty had left, I leapt across the intervening space between the rooftops and landed on the DSI building. Styg and whichever of his buddies were there with him—something even Poe hadn’t been certain of—were located on the 8
th
floor of the fifteen story building. My power reined in, they wouldn’t notice the tiny bit I’d used to traverse the rooftops, nor would any alarms be triggered. Poe had promised to deactivate them for the general quarters of the building. The security on the floor with the DSI folks couldn’t be so easily tampered with, or the niggling wards on the place, but that didn’t really matter. Once I showed up, it’d be too late for the cavalry to arrive in time.

I went to the stairwell door and yanked it open. Though I couldn’t be sure a silent notice hadn’t been triggered somewhere, no obvious alarm went off, just like Poe had promised. I started down regardless, sensing the barest tingle of the interference wards being triggered. It was too late to turn back. At least Poe had been true to his word so far.

Better still, he’d been an excellent source of intel, though I guess holding his
boyfriend
hostage helped to promote sharing. Still, I wasn’t too proud to take what I could get in my current situation. There was shit I needed to know beyond what Styg was capable of. Poe had filled in most of the blanks.

Down and down I went, doing my best to keep from making too much noise on the metal steps. If anyone was in the stairwell with me, they’d hear me coming floors away. Luckily, I made it to the 8
th
without running into anyone. That was when shit got real.

The door to the agents’ floor was reinforced so much that it stuck out from the wall by a couple inches. It must have weighed a ton. On top of that, it was secured with a camera and keypad off to the left side. I’d yet to slip into the camera range but there’d be no hitting the door without being seen. It would have been great if Rachelle could have helped but no one was gonna be teleporting or gating in or out of the building as long as the wards were up. I’d just have to keep doing things the hard way.

I drew in a steadying breath and bolted across the walkway, my power swelling as I went. Bolts of red energy ripped from my hands, striking the security door at the top corners, on opposite sides. Sweeping my hands downward in the shape of an X—and yes, I crossed the streams—I cut the door from top to bottom, gouging smoldering trails in the cement floor. As alarms erupted all around me, I put my foot into the center of the door and punted the pieces of it inside. Four roughly triangle-shaped hunks clattered into the hallway beyond, taking out the two human guards who’d been on duty there. Thy crumpled without resistance beneath the slabs of heavy steel.

I was in.

Poe had drawn me a map to where I’d find Styg’s room and the basic layout of what was essentially a penthouse stuffed into the middle of an office building. The thing he couldn’t know was where everyone would be inside the suite, if they weren’t in their rooms. I’d have to figure that out on my own. Turned out to be easy enough.

After I’d gone halfway down the long hall, which led to the living area, a familiar face appeared around the corner. Venai, Shaw’s Nephilim sidekick and all around bitch of prodigious proportion. She wiped sleep from her eyes as she assessed the situation, and I damn near fell over in terror.

She was butt-ass naked.

A mountain of muscle that loomed somewhere near six-foot-six, her sandy-blonde bob cut nearly scraping the roof, she stood there glaring, her fists clenching as she recognized me. I kept running at her, but my lizard brain felt the need to analyze every shameless detail, much to my regret.

It was like some plastic surgeon with a bad case of the abstracts felt the need to slap a pair of double-d tits on Lou Ferrigno’s ugly twin sister. Mind you, there wasn’t any sag on the woman, and I could applaud her for that, but her nudity wasn’t anything I’d ever wanted to experience firsthand. As I closed, I could see the turtle shell tightness of her abs and the shaved valley beneath, her legs spread in a fighting stance.

I wanted to cry.

I went to hit her instead.

My mother would have kicked my ass if she could see me now, but I didn’t have much of a choice. Besides, it wasn’t like Venai hadn’t earned a good beating for what she did to Scarlett a while back, not to mention all the bullshit she’d been a part of since she joined up with Shaw and the DSI. She deserved to be punched in the face.

So I did.

“No fucking way,” she managed to spit out before my fist collided with her jaw. She hurtled backward into the living area, taking out a couch and a coffee table along the way. Her back crushed the latter when she landed, and her legs shot straight up in the air.

And I got to see everything, and I do mean
everything
.

Venai’s puckered starfish would forever remain seared into my memory.

I blinked, silently begging for a bottle of bleach to scour the image from my scorched retinas, and bolted left down the adjoining hallway toward Styg’s room, my senses not quite recovered from seeing Venai’s lady bits and back doorway. Still, I figured it was best to secure Styg first, then worry about scrubbing that image of her away later. I just hoped the necromancer had the good sense to slip on some tighty whities before crawling into bed. I didn’t think I could handle seeing the emo dye job he no doubt had performed on the boys below.

Venai raged behind me, scrambling to her feet, as I continued down the corridor, coming across the door to Styg’s room. He whipped it aside just then—only the door, thankfully—and went pale(r) at seeing me standing there. At least he had the dignity of wearing pants.

They were spandex, mind you, and all too damn revealing at that, but at least they were black.

“Way to stay in character, buddy.”

He didn’t get a chance to say anything before I punched him, too. Unlike Venai, however, his jaw wasn’t made out of scrap metal from the Titanic. He went out like Michael Bisping getting hit with the H-Bomb. His neck went rigid, tendons standing out against his skin as consciousness took a vacation. Styg’s legs went stiff as boards, and he fell back as if he were part of a trust exercise. He clearly didn’t have much faith. Good thing because no one was there to catch him. He hit the ground with a thump and stared at the ceiling with blank eyes.

Venai crashed into me while I admired my work.

She tackled me to the floor and slipped immediately into mount, straddling me while raining down punches. First, I’d see a fist, knuckles slamming into my face, and then she’d pull back and treat me to the glorious sight of her giant boobs bouncing right in front of me, and then she’d hit me again. The whole time she was pummeling me she was grinding her crotch into mine. It was all so terribly confusing.

I think if I hadn’t been so blinded by my loss I would have suspected Venai was hitting on me, not just hitting me. Thoughts of why I’d come there in the first place reasserted themselves, and I bucked Venai off, using the wall to help me get to my feet. She jumped up ready to clobber me some more, but it was time to end it.

She came at me swinging. I sidestepped her punch, grabbing her wrist as it flew past, and twisted. Momentum did the rest. She stumbled forward, falling to her face on the carpet as I bent her arm behind her. The
pop
of her shoulder as I yanked it out of socket reverberated through my hands. Venai screamed but a half-dozen follow up shots to the side of her grounded face shut her up.

Whatever else I thought of her, she could take a punch.

I stepped over and collected my prize, tossing Styg over my shoulder like a sack of emo potatoes, and ran out of the room, avoiding the Nephilim once more in case she was playing possum. Then I had an idea. I went back and knelt beside Venai and grabbed her uninjured arm. She didn’t make a sound as I triggered my magic. A few seconds later I was done.

Mission accomplished, I bolted for the door. No one else had popped up to take a shot at me so I had to assume Styg and Venai were the only two agents in residence or the others slept like grizzly bears in the winter. There was still a chance I’d run into security on the way out, but I’d rationalized that possibility coming into the building. The soldiers working for the DSI were assets of my enemy. I didn’t want to kill any more humans than necessary—or any at all, for that matter—but the line had been drawn in the sand. I couldn’t afford to let anyone pass it without response.

Fortunately, no one stood between me and freedom. I reached the door and slipped into the stairwell, bolting toward the roof to the sound of stomping feet running up from below. I grinned and ran harder, ignoring how Styg’s unconscious head jumped around like a kid in a bouncy balloon. The city’s skyline appeared a moment later when I burst through the top door and stumbled out onto the roof, feeling the interference wards give way.

I opened a gate a heartbeat later and dove through it, taking my necromancer hostage with me. And for the first time since before Trinity had come to my home and murdered Karra, I felt a real, honest sliver of hope worming its way past my sorrow.

It was about goddamned time.

Seventeen

Styg woke with a start, finding me grinning at him in our own private nook of the God-proof room. Forty dread fiends hugged the walls to keep us company. He’d been out for most of the night, dawn on Earth only a few hours away. Hadn’t meant to hit him that hard but everything was a waiting game at this point, so, though it was frustrating, it wasn’t a big deal. We weren’t going anywhere until the stars aligned anyway, figuratively speaking.

As for Marcus, I’d exiled him to another part of the room and sealed him off from the rest of Hell, making sure to provide him with all the necessities: a bathroom, food, and plenty of booze to keep him relatively compliant. He was still pretty pissed that I’d kidnapped him and kept him from Poe, but that was just the way it had to be. I’d let him go when I was done and no amount of bitching or complaining was going to change that. Didn’t stop him from trying, though.

The little necromancer, on the other hand, seemed to understand his predicament better than Marcus ever would. Once his eyes popped open, he glanced to his hand and noticed I’d taken the ring he and his teammates used to teleport. I smiled wide as I held it up, twirling it about my pinky.

It was a sweet little device crafted by the girl Kit who’d shot my ass at Katon’s place with the cannon she made. According to Poe, the ring needed to be programmed for an
external
location to be accurate, but they had several built in, default destinations for emergencies. They were also very limited in power since they were powered by the girl’s magic, only able to be used twice, three times before they lost their charge. That’d been why the holy rollers were slumming it in the government taxi. All their flitting back and forth had drained their batteries.

Styg looked from the ring to the army of sub-demons filling the room, and promptly wiped the slate of his emotions clear before looking back to me. His face was a blank slate as he got to his feet, rubbing at his jaw. There was none of Marcus’s aggression or disrespect. Styg knew his place and the price of stepping out of it.

“I presume there’s a reason I’m still alive,” he said.

Ding, ding, ding!
“You know it, Necrolicious. Want to play the Guessing Game?”

He shook his head. “Not particularly, no. How about we skip to the part where you tell me what it is you want, and then I can decide whether or not I want to risk life and limb defying you.”

Fucking mercenary, this guy. I liked his attitude. “Well, my reasoning for kidnapping your precious little ass is twofold really,” I answered. “You worked a rather unfortunate reversal on a certain biblical psychotic that my cousin and I went to great pains to put down like the shit-spewing scumdog he is.” I waggled a finger at him. “We can’t have that happening any more. Those three need to stay dead once we put them there. You understand that, right?”

He nodded, though it was obvious he didn’t give a damn what I said or wanted him to do. Or not do, for that matter. The guy was a survivor. After everything was said and done, he planned to crawl out of the wreckage and dust the past off his sleeves and keep on keepin’ on.

“And?” he asked, taking it all in stride as if being captured by a pissed off demon was the most normal thing in the world.

“Then you’ll put your voodoo to work for me,” I said. “Do what I ask you to do, without giving me any grief, and you’ll go on about your business with my blessing. Fuck with me and…”

A narrow grin flickered at his lips, and he raised a hand to stop me. “And you make my life a living hell, I presume.”

“Close enough, though I can offer up specifics if you feel they’re necessary. Charts, graphics, video if you like.”

“No, don’t believe I need examples, Triggaltheron.”

I sighed. “Okay, first things first, don’t
ever
call me that again. Second, I’m curious about
your
name. Is Styg the one you were born with? It really rolls off the tongue like a wet cat turd, I have to say.”

“It’s short for Stygian, thank you very much. Stygian Darkness if you must know, and no it’s not the name my mother graced me with. It just seemed to fit my inclinations growing up, so it stuck. Who am I to question the wisdom of my Heavy Metal peers?” He almost sounded sincere.

I threw him the horns, my estimation of the guy clicking upward a few notches. “So what is your real name?”

He rolled his eyes. “This necessary?”

“It so is, buddy.”

He sighed, conceding without a fight. “It’s Tim, if you must know.”

“Tim, huh?” I said, sounding the name out in my head. “Tim, Tim, Tim, Timmy Tim Tim, Tim, Tim, Timaroo, Timarino.” I shook my head. “Nope, that doesn’t work for me. I can’t help but picture you with curly red hair and a ukulele, belting out a horrific falsetto. I guess I’ll stick to Styg then.”

“Fabulous.”

“So what do you need to perform your special kind of magic?” I asked, getting back to the business at hand.

“Well, I don’t see a body anywhere. That does present a challenge to my abilities of returning one to life.” His gaze wandered the room, the move exaggerated.

“I’m working on that. It’ll be here soon enough. Until then, enjoy the fragrant company and work out a list of what you need to get the job done. You can give it to one of the fiends when you’re finished.” I slipped his teleport ring into my pocket and headed for the door, pausing before I opened it. “I don’t need to mention what happens if you try to leave this place without my permission, do I?”

“No, sir,” he said, bowing to me with a sarcastic flourish, like a LARP player in full faire mode. “I relish the opportunity to work with you and your glorious, foul-smelling pets. I’ll play nice. Promise.” Styg grinned, throwing a wink in there for good measure. I’d have bought a used car from him.

Comfortable that I had him under my thumb, I left him to his imprisonment, sealing the room behind me. Now the hard part started: waiting until the shit hit the fan.

On the bright side, it wouldn’t take long.

#

“Please tell me you had nothing to do with this, Frank,” Rahim asked, jumping up to confront me the moment I stepped into my chambers.

He waved a freshly printed newspaper in my face, the thing a blur before my tired eyes. I finally had to snatch it from his hands so I could read it. I let out an amused chuckle at seeing the headline:
The Monsters Have Come!
The grin on my face must have given me away.

Rahim’s head lolled back on his neck a little, and he rubbed at the base of his skull. “Do you have any idea what you’ve set into motion?”

“I most certainly do, my good man.” Some of Styg’s politic sarcasm seemed to have rubbed off on me.

Rahim stared at me for a quiet moment, and I cracked beneath the weight of it.

“Come on, man, I didn’t do anything the DSI hasn’t done to us.”

“You’ve sicced the vampire and lycanthrope nations on the government, Frank.” He was only about a decibel or two from shouting. “How did you think that was a good idea let alone even manage that?”

I shrugged. “They’re in the shit just as much as we are. Mind you, it helped that I dangled the possibility of the DSI killing or capturing me before either of them could. That seemed to motivate the little buggers. They’re still very pissed at me.”

“I wonder why,” Rahim groaned.

I guess ruining the plot to take over Heaven and establish the vamps and fur-fuckers as the alpha dogs of Earth kind of poo-pooed their plans. Can’t blame them for being pissed, but I had enough grief with my vampire and werebear companions that I certainly didn’t need the world being run be those fuckers.

“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”

Scarlett sighed.

“You look great to me,” Katon called out from his chair. “I love the way the blackness complements the blur that is you.”

“I’m a blur now? Good to see you’re starting to recover.”

“Not soon enough,” he grumbled. “Listening to you without the benefit of being able to see Scarlett to offset the ugliness of your voice is sheer hell, let me tell you.”

“Now’s probably a good time to put your clothes back on then, Scarlett.”

“At least we’d know where you were if she
was
naked, Frank,” Rahim said.

“Aaaaah, don’t say that word.” Images of Venai popped into my head unsummoned. They might be great to have in the spank bank for a day when I’m feeling unusually adventurous or masochistic, but I hadn’t reached that point yet. Right now, Venai’s chiseled physique was the last thing I wanted to think about. “So, how about them Bears?”

Scarlett turned her head like a confused puppy. Katon just chuckled.

“Back on track,” Rahim cut in, saving me from more Nephilim flashbacks, “I’m curious to know what you think you’ve accomplished by bringing the other factions into the fight.”

I smiled, but there was a grim tightness to it as I was reminded as to why I’d set that particular ball in motion. “We’d been on the receiving end of it since Trinity hit my home and killed Karra,” I answered. It was getting easier to say, but it still left a fiery ball of fury simmering in my guts each time. “Even though we managed to give them a little of their own medicine, it didn’t stick.”

“What do you mean?” Scarlett asked, glaring at me.

“The kid we killed has been resurrected.”

The room filled with frustrated groans and complaints.

I waved them to silence after a moment. “I’ve managed to curtail that from happening again in the future but…”

“Do I want to know?” Rahim stared at me with dark, disapproving eyes.

“Probably not, but that adventure has opened up a couple new avenues of investigation. But don’t worry, Rahim, I didn’t kill anyone.” Well, maybe my libido. May it rest in peace.

Rachelle drifted in the room then. She walked slowly, carefully, one eye focused intently on the almost invisible pinhole that floated along with her, while the other gazed at us. “El Paseo is in chaos,” she said. “More than twenty government offices and military installations have been assailed overnight. The damage is immense, and it would appear that it’s not going to slack off anytime soon.”

“It will,” I said. “The vamps will shut down before dawn since they don’t have Katon’s sunblock app. The furries will likely vanish around then, too. Can’t see them sticking their necks on their own.”

“They’ll be back come dark,” Katon said. “Of course the army will be ready for them then.”

I grinned. “Which is fine. It means they’re not dumping rounds onto DRAC properties nor are they hunting us down. Who cares if a bunch of vamps and furries die? Present company excluded, of course.”

Eyes narrowing, Rahim glanced over at me. “It also means the same locations we might have found Trinity and Shaw are now doubly reinforced by the Army and National Guard.”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “The vamp coalition—which was easier to say, not to mention the fact that we all knew the vampires ranked over the weres—have limited intel on what properties the DSI maintains. They’re hitting the most obvious ones, and tacking on whatever targets of opportunity present themselves. I suspect a number of banks and post offices have been hit as well.”

Rachelle nodded, confirming my thoughts.

“Won’t Shaw and her people just be on high alert now?” Scarlett asked.

“Most definitely. My raid on one of their living spaces last night assures that.”

Rahim groaned.

“Then what are we supposed to get out of all this, Frank?”

“The clock is ticking” Katon answered for me. He stared in my direction, the barest flutter of an appreciative smile brightening his face. He turned to the wizard and went on.

“Hostilities will end shortly, forcing Shaw and her cohorts to reassess and move their game pieces across the board. They’ll be reactive, and priorities will have changed because of the new threat they face.” He chuckled. “I can’t believe
you
did all this on your own, Frank.”

“Did what?” Scarlett asked while I grinned, frustration growing in her voice. For all her intelligence, Scarlett was about as tactical as a pit bull when it came to the big picture.

Katon reached out and grabbed her hand, wrapping it up in hers. “It means, my dear, that Shaw is no longer calling the shots, or is, at the very least, being relegated to advisor. She’s lost control of the situation and her superiors will either scapegoat her or make her a martyr dependent on how things turn out. Either way, she’ll be desperate.”

“Which means,” I jumped in, “she needs a win to remain relevant.”

“So we’re provoking her?” I could see Scarlett scrambling to find my point.

“Exactly.”

One of her eyes twitched as though she were having a seizure. “I really don’t understand how any of this helps us.”

Rahim sighed, not pleased to have figured it out. “All of it pushes Shaw to do something quick, something rash or foolish if she wants to come out on top. Still, like Scarlett, I’m not sure this does more than up our chances the tiniest bit.”

“You’re not thinking big enough, guys,” I said, waving my arms around as I spun in a quick circle. Tension, baby. Gotta love it. “Up to now, Shaw and Trinity have been unpredictable, coming at us on their schedule. Once we all gathered in Hell, there was nothing for them to do but plot and prepare. Given their resources, they’d come up with something eventually, and then we’d be screwed. But now they have to act without the time to concoct a foolproof plan or move all their assets into place.”