Deadly Curiosities (41 page)

“Which meant that once Moran recovered, he had a reason to come back to Charleston and bring the demon back, and he’d want the items from the
Cristobal
, to strengthen his control over the demon,” Teag added.

I nodded. “That accounts for the deaths near the Navy yard.” I glanced to Teag. “Could it account for the cryptomancer? The one someone was looking for on the Darke Web? Maybe Moran needed help breaking a code on the artifacts from the
Cristobal
.”

“Very likely. And if so, then the odds are good that the cryptomancer is one of the dead men,” Teag said.

“Anything useful from Landrieu’s notes?”

“Nothing as interesting as what Harrison describes. Most of Landrieu’s journal has notes about the dives his crew took – looking for the
Cristobal,
and other wrecks. Water condition and tides, longitude and latitude – the kind of stuff you’d expect.” He sighed. “Now and then, Landrieu goes on about how he hopes the
Cristobal
find will put his crew in the big leagues. But it all starts to change about three weeks before the dive.”

“Oh?” I shifted in my chair and unwrapped myself from the afghan, finally warm.

“Landrieu was afraid he was being followed. Some of their equipment got vandalized, and he started to get the feeling someone was warning him away from the
Cristobal
.” Teag shrugged. “Landrieu thought it was a rival dive team. And he sketched the man he saw.”

Teag held up Landrieu’s journal. I was not surprised that the pencil sketch showed a tall man with a withered face partially hidden beneath a broad-brimmed hat.

“Why didn’t Moran just let Landrieu’s team salvage the
Cristobal
and steal the stuff from them after the hard work was over?” I asked.

“What if, over time, something about the magic changed?” Teag speculated. “Or maybe Moran got paranoid, and was afraid that whoever had the artifact might get control of the demon?” “You’ve told me what the journals say. Does your magic tell you anything else?”

Teag thought before he replied. “It makes Landrieu’s feelings about the dive tangible. Excitement, and then suspicion, and at the end, fear. I think Landrieu knew something bad was after them. He just didn’t realize how bad.”

“So Moran called up some kind of dark magic to destroy Landrieu and the crew of the
Privateer
. Did you think he was paranoid enough to believe Landrieu was working for Sorren?”

Teag shrugged. “It’s possible. Moran and Sorren have a history. And from Moran’s point of view, Landrieu was going after something he wanted. He might have thought Sorren put him up to it.”

Until now, Baxter had been happy to curl up under the table around our feet. Without warning, he jumped up and raced out to the front door. His bark was so loud and shrill, I thought my ears would bleed.

Since the ‘front’ door on my Charleston single house really looks out on the piazza and garden, I had to go to the side window to see the street. Chuck Pettis was out there, and he was facing down an
akvenon

minion.

I didn’t take time to think about it. I threw open the door and ran the length of the piazza.

“Chuck! Hurry!” I shouted.

The
akvenon
swiveled to glare at me, and from its baleful look, I knew that Teag and I were the real reason it was stalking my street. Chuck glanced at the open door and made a run for it, moving faster than I expected. The
akvenon
followed, growling and snapping at his heels. I suspected that the creature didn’t really want Chuck: it wanted a way into the house to get at Teag and me. It was about to get a surprise when it hit Lucinda’s wardings.

And if Chuck wasn’t on the up-and-up, he’d be just as surprised.

Chuck sprinted for the door, with the
akvenon
close on his heels. The demon minion sprang at Chuck, launching its squat, misshapen body into the air. I ran forward, but Teag caught me by the arm before I could step beyond the warding.

Chuck wheeled, leveling a boxy device that looked like a souped-up TV remote control at the
akvenon
, and stood his ground. I expected to see a flash of a laser or hear an ear-splitting squeal. I heard nothing.

But the
akvenon
did.

The demon spawn minion dropped to the ground, shaking violently. Its squashed head swiveled one way and then the other, as its lantern-jawed maw snapped in fury at the air.

Chuck didn’t prolong the standoff. He gave the minion one last blast from his weapon and practically dove across my threshold.

It didn’t take the
akvenon
long to react. Howling and snarling, it reared up on its clawed feet and bounded for the doorway like a mutant Doberman. I slammed the door, waiting for the bulky minion to come crashing through the glass. Instead, it hit Lucinda’s warding. An amber glow flared and disappeared, knocking the creature back ten paces and putting him flat on his demon ass.

Chuck looked from the warding to Teag and then to me. “Who the hell are you people?” He asked. “And what the hell is an
akvenon
minion doing outside your house?”

I
FROZE
. I
T
wasn’t like I could deny what had just happened. Chuck had run for his life from a snarling demon minion, which bounced off a Voudon mambo’s protective warding like a marble off Jell-O. So I decided that a good offense was the best defense.

“Why were you stalking me?” I demanded. Teag was next to me, and he casually fell into a defensive posture.

Chuck rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t stalking you – not really. I wanted to check you out, the way you checked me out. You don’t think I fell for that cockamamie story you gave me, did you?”

“What’s in your hand?” Teag said. Up close, the gadget really did look like a remote control, but the
akvenon
sure hadn’t liked it.

Chuck smirked. “EMF disruptor. Kind of like pepper spray for spooks. They give off an electromagnetic field. This scrambles their signal.

“That’s not exactly off-the-shelf technology,” Teag observed, raising an eyebrow. He would know.

Between the supernatural Darke Web and its mundane competitor, he had a pretty good idea of what kind of equipment was out there, legally or not.

Chuck shook his head. “Military. I told you – I was Black Ops, the
real
Black Ops dealing with the stuff that lives in the shadows, that ain’t from around here – and I mean Earth, not the old Commie Block countries or the Middle East. Terrorists, they’re the least of our worries. Hell, all they can do is kill you.

The stuff we chased could eat your soul for breakfast.”

He could have been lying, but I didn’t think so. Question was, did that make him an ally or a rival?

“You certainly can’t go back out there right now, so you might as well come in,” I said, exchanging a glance and a shrug with Teag.

“I’ll go clear off the table,” Teag offered, which meant I should stall Chuck while Teag hid Sorren’s package and the journal from the museum. Baxter had been barking like a maniac, but as soon as Chuck was safe inside, the little fuzzy turncoat toddled up, sat down and gave our unexpected guest his most adorable expression.

“Well aren’t you quite the watchdog!” Chuck said, and to my amazement, bent down and scratched Baxter behind the ears. I still wasn’t sure how far we should trust Chuck, but that went a long way toward convincing me he was a quality person. That and the fact that he made it past Lucinda’s wardings.

I glanced past Chuck to see Teag nod the ‘all clear’, and put on my best hostess smile. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”

On the way, I realized that there was a new sound, faint but unmistakable. Chuck was ticking.

“Teag – he’s wearing a bomb!”

I swept for Chuck’s legs as Teag went to pin him down. Thing was, Chuck was former military himself, and he didn’t go down without a fight.

“For the love of God! I don’t have a bomb!” Chuck said. “Get the hell off me! It’s watches. Just watches!”

Before I could stop him, Chuck ripped back the front of his jacket. I braced myself, expecting to be blown to bits. A heartbeat later when I hadn’t exploded, I looked down to see the jacket Chuck was holding open.

Beneath Chuck’s jacket, he wore a vest covered in wristwatches. The timepieces had been taken off their straps and sewn in rows onto the vest so that they covered the fabric completely. From the sound of it, they were all wound and operational.

Teag let out a low whistle. “I haven’t seen that many wristwatches being worn by one person since a guy tried to sell me a cheap Rolex in the New York subway.”

We let Chuck up, and climbed to our feet. Chuck shoved the EMF disruptor in his pocket and glared at us. “I told you, if the watches ever run down, I die. That’s the other reason I tracked you down. You’re my best bet for getting the rest of my clocks out of that godforsaken storage unit and getting rid of that damned demon.”

Flashing lights outside caught my attention, and I went to the window. “Uh oh,” I said. “There’s a police car outside.” I paused. “You two stay here. I’ll handle them.”

I straightened my hair, put on my most innocent smile, and headed toward the door. Lucinda’s warding shouldn’t affect the police, but just in case, I stepped out onto the piazza and walked toward the door to the street.

“Can I help you, officer?”

The cop looked at me, and I knew he was trying to see behind me, onto the porch. “We got calls that someone was attacked by a vicious dog?”

I managed to look annoyed. “Did that pit bull get out again?” I shook my head. “I don’t know who he belongs to, but he’s always getting loose. Big dog, all white, huge teeth. He chased a man down the street, but they’re both gone, now.”

The cop made a note in his book and nodded. “If you see the dog again, give Animal Control a call.

They’ll catch him and we’ll fine the owner.”

“I’ll let you know if I see anything,” I promised, certain Animal Control did not want to deal with a demon minion.

“Have a good evening,” the cop said with a nod, and headed back to his car. I watched him pull out, and then went back inside.

“I’ll make some more tea,” Teag was saying as I returned to the kitchen. I gave Chuck a level glare. “Now, where were we? Did you say, ‘demon’?”

Chuck gave me a no-bullshit glare. “You know damn right I did. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have protections set by a Class 1 Practitioner.”

“A what?” This time, the confusion wasn’t feigned.

Chuck rolled his eyes. “You guys ever hear about how Hitler wanted to collect supernatural objects?

You know, like in
Indiana Jones
?”

Teag put the kettle on to boil and came over to listen. I nodded in response.

“Yeah, well over the years, he wasn’t the only one. Every two-bit dictator and narco lord thinks he’d be so much more bad-ass if he just had a demon or two on his payroll. Or an old Egyptian artifact that makes enemies turn into cockroaches. You get the picture. Well, we were the guys they sent in to steal that shit back.”

“I’ve heard about soldiers going in to save cultural treasures and artwork,” I said. “I’ve never heard about them being airlifted in to snatch crystal balls.”

Chuck’s smirk returned. “Do you think the government gave a crap about artwork? What do you think was so valuable about those ‘cultural’ treasures?”

Magic
. It made sense. Benign or dangerous, magic was powerful, and whoever controlled the artifact controlled the magic. The Alliance couldn’t be the only group out there trying to get dangerous objects out of circulation. On the other hand, the Alliance destroyed or bound the objects. Governments were likely to want anything with special powers for themselves. So did groups like the Family, which employed the likes of Corban Moran. So hard to tell, sometimes, who the real good guys were.

“What happened to the items after you ‘liberated’ them?” Teag asked. I figured he had come to the same conclusions I had.

Chuck shrugged. “You know how everyone talks about Area 51? The place where they think the government hides all the UFOs out in the Nevada desert? The stuff we stole went to a place like that, only they still don’t talk about it.” He crossed his arms over his chest, daring us to contradict him.

“Is that who you’re working for? The military?” I asked. That could pose real problems. I didn’t much fancy being locked up in a secret facility until government researchers figured out what made me tick, and I figured Sorren would be even less thrilled about the prospect.

Chuck shook his head. “Nah. I don’t trust those guys. They said they were locking the stuff up but, they work for the politicians, you know?” He leaned forward. “So why are you so interested in going into a place any sane person would leave the hell alone? I don’t think you’re urban explorers, and I don’t think you’re ghost hunters. Someone paying you? What’s in it for you?”

I exchanged a glance with Teag. I really wanted to say that if I told him, I’d have to kill him, but that was a little too close to the truth. “We work for a global organization that gets dangerous objects off the market,” I said carefully. “It’s kind of a public service. The objects are either destroyed or bound so they can’t hurt anyone. They don’t get funneled into anyone’s arsenal.”

Chuck gave me a look like I was the biggest sap in the world. “Huh. I used to believe that kind of thing, too. But it’s a nice thought.”

I wasn’t going to argue with him. “Something brought you here, Mr. Pettis. I don’t think you were entirely surprised to run into a bad spook. So why did you come?”

For all Chuck’s curmudgeonly manner, there was something very vulnerable about him. Whatever he had seen in the service had scarred him, broken a piece of him, and now that the wife and children I had glimpsed in my vision were gone, those old horrors weighed on his mind.

“I want my clocks. That’s part of it. But some of it’s for Jimmy,” he said, and I knew he meant Jimmy Redshoes. “I saw what killed him, Jimmy and the other men.” He lifted his chin defiantly. “I knew better than to try to tell the cops. Hell’s bells, they’d have locked me up and probably charged me with the murders if I told them I saw a demon flay those men.” He leaned forward. “But I think you’ll believe me. I think you already know that.”