Demon Driven (5 page)

Deckert and Benson were just reaching the top
step of the stairwell, Sig Sauer .45s drawn. The security team was
licensed for full carry anywhere in the Big Apple.

“Status?” Deckert asked, his eyes scanning
for threats.

“Adult male, early thirties temporarily
incapacitated. Adult female with two male children shocky but
uninjured. Causative agent dispersed,” I replied.

“Huh?” Benson asked.

“He knocked out the father, banished the
demon and the wife and kids are copasetic,” Deckert translated. No
dummy, that Deckert.

I heard two SUVs pull up outside and the
distinctive voices of my team filled my ears.

“Mr. Deckert, my team has arrived. Would you
relay to Stevens to relay to them that it’s all clear up here?
Please.”

The stocky ex-Force Recon major nodded and
spoke into in his throat mike. Benson was looking a little
wide-eyed.

“Mr. Benson? Would you be so kind as to cuff
the father with my handcuffs and hang near him until my guys get up
here?”
He looked at me in question.

“It’s really much better for me to disappear
from the family’s sight. Less questions,” I explained.

He nodded, took my pre-offered cuffs and
slipped into the apartment. I headed downstairs, meeting Sommers
and Gina on the stairwell. I paused to fill them in, then continued
down to the street to hide in the tinted safety of the Mercedes.
Gina would take charge, smooth over the wife’s fear, council the
husband when he awoke and liaise with the beat cops when they
inevitably arrived. Me, I would hide and let the victims forget me
as quick as possible. The husband would be easy, he barely caught a
glimpse of me. The wife got an eyeful, but the human mind is an
incredible machine, capable of amazing feats of rationalization.
With Gina’s considerable help, the young woman would find easy to
believe reasons for everything that had happened. It’s the way we
humans choose to ‘overlook’ the supernatural world. More comforting
to ignore and pretend.

As usual with these kind of things, the
aftermath took longer than the action did. I told Deckert, Benson
and Stevens that I was fine with my people there and not to hang
around. I was holding them up from their downtime.

None of the three were even slightly
interested in leaving me alone. Part of it was their sense of
professional ethics, part was knowing they would have to report to
Arkady that they had left me alone after assuming responsibility
for the 'Young Queen's' mate. But I think the biggest part was
simply curiosity. Benson had been present when I had taken out a
Hellbourne that attacked the Demidova household in broad daylight.
Deckert had been in the house but not a direct witness. Stevens had
heard the stories. Now they had another story to add to my mystery
and they were loath to let it go. Benson wasn't shy about asking
questions and Deckert did nothing to shut him up, indicating his
own level of interest.

“So where do these visions come from?” Benson
asked.

I shrugged. “I don't have a clue.”

He looked at me for a moment, before finally
speaking, “C'mon! You have to have some idea?”

I smiled, “Well, some of my priest and rabbi
associates feel the visions come from God. I like to argue that it
could just as easily come from Old Scratch.”

“The Devil? Why would
he
send you a
vision of one of his own?” the big security agent asked.

“I don't know, maybe, he doesn't like them
roaming around on their own,” I said.

“You really believe that?” Deckert
interjected.

“Well, truth be told, I sorta favor the
Heavenly message theory, myself, but my point is that we just don't
know for certain,” I admitted. “It would be bad to get suckered
into believing the visions are Heaven sent only to be misdirected
by Hell.”

All three ex-military operators nodded.
Deckert spoke all their thoughts aloud.

“Yeah, lure you in with solid intelligence,
then misdirect you at the last and most important moment,”

he said.

“If you don't mind me sayin', you don't seem
like a real bible thumping type,” Stevens observed from the front
seat of the car.

“I'm not. I don't get along real well with
Himself,” I said, pointing my finger skyward.

“Well, I get what you're saying about false
intelligence and all that, but frankly, the feeling I got when you
did whatever it is you did to that
thing
upstairs, was that
God was looking over our shoulders and nodding his head,” Benson
said, looking a little uncomfortable, but certain.

“You know, I don't, as a habit like to agree
with army types,” Deckert said, poking his thumb in Benson's
direction. “But I had the same feeling.”

Now I was uncomfortable with the
conversation. I had never thought that anyone near me during one of
my
experiences
felt anything at all, until Gina had filled
me in on the phenomenon. She had said much the same thing, which
led me in the whole religious God type direction, one path I hated
to go down. I hadn’t forgiven Him for sacrificing my family. Where
the conversation would have gone next I'm not sure, but just then
there was a knock on the window and I lowered it as fast as I could
hit the button, grateful for the distraction.

Gina's pretty features filled my view, her
face reflecting fatigue, but she still had a small smile.

“Chris, we're all done here. Why don't you
head out and I'll see you in the morning,” she said.

“Right, the Inspector's mystery meeting. Any
new ideas on what that's about?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing new. Good night
Chris, I gotta get home myself.” She nodded at the three men in the
car and turned away, heading back into the dark.

“She married?” Stevens asked from the front
seat.

I nodded, but Deckert spoke. “What, did you
somehow miss the rings on her fingers?”

“Frankly, boss I was too busy looking at her
face to notice her hands. Pretty tough to have to work with someone
who looks like that every day, ah Gordon?” he said with a wink.

“Gina's been married for ten years, husband
teaches here in one of Brooklyn's public schools. They have a
four-year old daughter.” I provided.

“A school teacher?” Benson questioned in
disbelief.

“First of all, Roy is a real good guy. Most
cop marriages don't make it past the fifth year. But he's real
patient, understanding about her odd hours and stable as hell.
Second, Gina has an unreal ability to read people. She can tell
when you're lying about ninety-eight percent of the time, Roy is
fine with that.” I said.

That sank in for a minute or two, then
Stevens shuddered.

“Right, okay, so she might not be my perfect
woman with that little trait. Still a looker though.”

Chapter 6

Deckert and his men dropped me back at my
place. Tanya would be up till dawn and I needed some sleep before
the early morning meeting that Roma had called. I ate a late night
snack and hit my futon. I still need sleep, but I seem to thrive on
only four or five hours now, unless I’ve been hurt or used too much
power. I can also offset lack of sleep with more food, but my diet
is already ridiculous enough and I’m trying like hell to keep the
small amount of weight that I’ve managed to put back on. It’s not
much of a protection against my overwrought metabolism consuming my
own body, but it’s something.

The morning dawned bright and fresh, a
classic example of spring in the Big Apple. I made it to the
squad’s offices in the underground section of Police Plaza well
before eight AM. The lights were already on in Roma’s office and I
could hear him talking to someone but even my hearing had
difficulty with his sound proofed walls. Fran DeMarco, our Medium,
was already in. She waved to me through the glass wall of her
office. Aikens, Sommers and Brian Takata, our close combat trainer,
all filed into the conference room, helping themselves to the
coffee carafe and the Dunkin’ Donuts box in the center of the
table. Out of habit, Chet fired up the big LCD wall monitor and got
out his wireless keyboard and mouse. At two minutes till eight,
Roma's door opened and the Inspector emerged, followed closely by
Briana Duclair, the head of Homeland Security's Directorate of
Anomalous Activity, as well as her second in command, Eric Adler
and lastly, Gina.

Roma moved to his usual spot at the head of
the table, but remained standing. Duclair stood right next to him
and the flash of annoyance that slid across his face indicated that
she was pressing on his personal space. Based on the aggressive
federal agent's personality, this was most likely on purpose.
Always keep the other guy off game.

His face once again resuming its professional
set, the Inspector greeted us.

“Good morning everyone!”

Like a well practiced choir we all responded
with a synchronized “Good morning boss.”

“First of all, good job to everyone involved
in the Eleventh Street incident last night. Well done!”

Duclair raised an eyebrow as she heard this
and I knew she would be tracking down the particulars of that
event.

“Secondly, I've called you in this morning as
Agent Duclair has some information to share with us about a
potential threat. Additionally, she has asked for our help and I
have approved it in a related matter. I'll let her explain. Briana,
go ahead.”

Tall, blond and athletic, Briana Duclair
moved with arrogant confidence. She stepped just slightly forward
and tossed a thumb drive to Chet.

“Good morning everyone. Chet, would you open
the file marked Loki on that for me,” she said, crisply.

While Chet slotted the drive and prepared to
open the requested file, Duclair surveyed the rest of the squad,
her sharp eyes lingering on me for a moment or two longer than the
rest. She had been trying to recruit me to her team from the moment
we met. A tad Machiavellian in her approach to obtaining her
ambitious career goals, Duclair was tenacious in getting the best
of everything and everyone for her team. Without knowing much about
me, she had attempted to lure me to the federal group, simply on
the basis of the value that Inspector Roma placed on my
contributions. She had been completely unsuccessful for two
reasons. One, her team traveled the country, which would play havoc
with my relationship with Tanya, and two, her brassy style annoyed
the crap out of me. My lack of interest did nothing to dissuade
her, but only spurred her to keep trying.

She moved around to stand under the monitor
as the presentation opened.

“The information I'm about to share with you
is sensitive and not for dissemination outside of this room,” she
warned. “The FBI MS-13 National Gang Task Force has been tracking a
relatively new group based in New Mexico for the last four years.
Their threat assessment for this gang has gone off the charts in
the last year and they have lost contact with five undercover
infiltrators during that time.”

The monitor showed a photo of a group of
motorcycle riders sitting and standing around their bikes somewhere
in what looked like the southwest. Dressed in typical leather and
torn denim, they were all markedly young. One with his back to the
camera sported the outline of a wolf’s head emblem on the back of
his leather vest. At least four of the seven gang members were
sneering at the camera in contempt.

“This photo of a small group of Loki's Spawn,
as they call themselves, was taken by telephoto lens at
approximately seven hundred yards. The photographer, a trained
sniper, was completely camouflaged in a sniper blind. Yet as you
can see, the gang was well aware of his presence. Odd, yet
potentially explainable,” she said. “Next picture, please.”

This shot showed in graphic detail, the
bloody remains of something that might have been human at some
point, but you would be hard pressed to convince anyone of that. I
was still trying to figure the photo out when she continued.

“This, believe it or not, is the pelvis and
torso of one, Armand Cuirez, a rancher in Arizona. This photo,
ladies and gentlemen, and seven more similar ones are the reason my
team is interested in Loki's Spawn,” she paused for effect. Chet
automatically flipped each of the other photos across the
screen.

“The autopsies of each killing indicate death
by animal mauling. Wound marks conclusively match the fangs and
claws of wolves, mountain lions and bears. And each killing showed
signs of all three animals!” Duclair said.

She let that sink in for a moment. The odds
of three completely separate species of carnivore simultaneously
attacking a human were astronomical. The odds of it happening eight
times were crazy. I had a better chance of growing wings and flying
to the moon.

“These attacks occurred in eight different
locations in four different states. The only thing in common was a
group of Loki's Spawn happened to be nearby each time,” she
said.

“I haven't seen anything on the news feeds
about these,” Chet commented.

“And you won't. The Bureau squashed it and
following protocol, passed the autopsies on to us as soon as the
first one was conclusive,” Duclair said. “ Now that I have your
attention, I don't suppose any of
you
are puzzled by our
interest in this group?”

“They're all weres!” Steve Sommers responded.
“Which explains the first photo. They smelled the
photographer.”

“Yeah, and it explains why the Fibbies keep
losing agents. Can't fool a wolf's nose!” Chet said.

Briana nodded at each of these comments and
then went on.

“The reason we're here this morning is
twofold. First, Loki's Spawn members seem to be moving in a
northeastern direction, with quite a few members already visiting
New Hampshire and upstate New York for various motorcycle
events.”