Fallen Stars (The Demon Accords) (7 page)

I needed to see the crime scene anyway, so why not? 

“Okay, but I can’t promise any great insights.  My specialty is more of a… cleansing of ambiance type of thing.”

“Yeah, feng shui and all that.  Meet me there at eleven-thirty,” she said, handing me her business card with an address written on the back.

“Awesome.  Wait, you mentioned Director Stewart  of… Oracle?  I never heard the name of his organization before.”

“It’s actually O.R.A.C.L. but gets pronounced
Oracle
, which was, I’m pretty sure, his intention. And before you ask, I don’t know what the letters stand for,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said to her retreating back.  She threw up a hand in a halfhearted wave without looking back.

Jetta sidled around her and came over to our table, smiling brightly.  Stacia blanched a bit as the cloud of perfume hit us.  Weres' noses are even more sensitive than mine.

“I’m gonna head back to the rooms to get ready.  Meet me there?” she asked, already sliding out of her chair.  Olfactory coward.

“Sure. I’m gonna make some calls.”

She disappeared out the door while Jetta started clearing the dishes onto her big tray.  “Did you want any more food, Mr. Gordon?” Her smile was slightly larger as she watched Stacia leave.

“Ah, no. I think we’re good for now, eh boy?” I asked the hairy horse on the floor.  He picked his empty plate up in his mouth and set it on the table, which elicited a surprised laugh from the teen. 

“Wow, he’s as smart as he is big!” she noted.  “He’s a wolf, right?”

“And then some,” I agreed, watching her pet him.  The girl had been a bit wary around Granger and Jep, downright invisible around Agent Krupp and company, but was calmly petting a giant wolf and chatting with me like we hadn’t just met.  Kids.

“Your accent doesn’t quite match the local one.  Where are you from, Jetta?” I asked

“Kentucky,” she said, then paused for a split second like she regretted saying that.

“I’ve never been, but I understand it’s nice country.”

“Beautiful.  Horse country,” she agreed.

“You grew up around animals, I’m guessing?” I asked.

“Yeah, my parents owned a small horse farm.”

“They don’t own it anymore?” I asked.

“They’re dead, Mr. Gordon.  The farm had to be sold.”

“Oh, I’m very sorry Jetta. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“That’s okay, Mr. Gordon.  I think of them every day and my memories are mostly good ones, other than when they died.”
 

She picked up the tray and some part of me went ahead and asked, even though I knew it was a bad idea.  “Car accident?”

“No, Mr. Gordon.  They were murdered,” she said, edging the big tray out the door.

Chapter 8

I left a big tip on the table with the remaining breakfast mess, trusting that Granger had the tab covered.  Jetta had been an attentive waitress and I felt a bit guilty about reminding her of her parents.

Crossing the lobby, I noticed the reception desk people, a guy and girl, both human, standing near the front door, watching something in the parking lot.  Curious, I looked out.

A man had Stacia in a choke hold while another man took her car keys and started to open the rear of our borrowed Volvo.  A white panel van was stopped just behind our car, the passenger and driver’s doors open. The man holding Stacia was big and thuggish, wearing navy work pants, heavy boots, and a stained gray tee shirt.  His companion was smaller but still bigger than the petite blonde.  He was dressed in brown pants, black shoes, a black tee shirt, and a windbreaker.  As he opened the rear gate of our wagon, he appeared to be speaking to my partner.  I got all that in a brief glimpse while simultaneously noting that the guy receptionist was calling 9-1-1 on a wireless phone.

Sos and I headed out the lobby door but had only made it a couple of steps when Stacia jackknifed her body forward, holding tight to her captor’s arm.  Classic self-defense throw. Legs bent slightly, body folded at the waist, right shoulder dipped closest to the ground. The smallest victim can usually throw the biggest attacker.  But they usually don’t end up throwing six-foot men fifteen feet away.  Into their other attackers.  Hard enough to break bone.

The important thing to remember about beautiful, petite werewolf women is the werewolf part.  Stacia was likely three times stronger than the bruiser she had just bruised.  She was also multiple times faster, a fact she demonstrated by jumping forward and kicking the downed men viciously.

The smaller guy pulled himself out of the mess of arms and legs and yanked a revolver from behind his back.  That’s as far as he got ‘cause a furry bundle of steel-hard muscle that I recently weighed in at 275 pounds smashed into him at well over thirty miles an hour.   The gun went flying, the man went flying, and the wolf started forward. “Hold, ‘Sos!” I said, loud enough to be heard.  The giant wolf stopped, stiff legged and snarling.

The big one scrambled away, his left arm hanging limply, his right clutched to his ribs.  The other guy crab-walked back, away from the angry wolf and the angrier girl.  Jumping to his feet, he dove into the van, his partner falling in his haste to get in the passenger side.  The van peeled out.

“Fucking pricks!” Stacia snarled, furious.  “Why did you call him off?”

“Because the hotel staff called 9-1-1 and right now, you and fur-face are heroes.  Another five seconds and
those
two would have been the victims,” I said, holding a hand to my right ear in listening mode.  Distant sirens were getting louder.

She was still fired up, adrenaline racing, breathing heavily to flood her system with oxygen for a fight that wasn’t going to happen.  It had the effect of making her chest heave. Impressively.  I had trouble keeping my eyes on hers, which was plainly obvious to her because her anger changed to something else, something that was amused by my distraction, something that smoldered in her green, green eyes and found its way into her slow, sexy smile. I gulped a little but couldn’t seem to look away from her face. The pattering sound of running feet finally broke our moment. 

“Are you okay?”  It was the female receptionist, her buddy right behind her.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Stacia responded, holding my gaze a second longer before turning a bright smile to the staff.

“That was amazing! 
You
were amazing!” the guy blurted.  “And your dog was incredible!  I’ve never seen anything move that fast!”

“He’s not keen on bullies,” I noted, listening as the cop cars pulled onto the street, then into the parking lot.

After that, there were several dramatic retellings by the staff, a statement by Stacia, who explained away her self-defense prowess by mentioning a cop uncle and, from myself, a license plate number and detailed description of the van and attackers.  The officers took our statements, then spent a great deal of time making sure Stacia was okay.  Probably more time than your average victim would get.  They checked 'Sos’s dog tags, which I had produced upon their arrival, took copies of the hotel’s exterior camera footage, and left with many assurances of doing their best to apprehend Stacia’s attackers.  Me, they mostly left alone, which was fine because it let me look over the Volvo.  The only thing in the car was the sealed fire safe with the witch book in it.

After the cops left, we took the safe into our room, covering it with a blanket so it didn’t look weird for me to be carrying the eighty pound lump like it was a shoe box. 

“What did the guy say to you?” I asked.

“He asked where the book was, then his partner noticed the safe in the back of the car.  I was just swinging by the Volvo to see if I left a pair of boots in the back.”

I sliced the safe open with a mono-edged finger and we looked in at the silk-wrapped lump.  Books are normally good things.  Sources of knowledge or a comforting chance to escape reality.  They’re, generally speaking, not black holes of despair and misery.  This one was.  It gave off an oily feeling of pressure that simultaneously made me fear it and want it.  It also made me painfully aware of the supernaturally sexy girl who was practically leaning against me as we both looked in at it. 

Less than a week away from Tanya and I couldn’t keep my eyes or thoughts off Stacia.  Now granted, she’s a phenomenally beautiful girl, but I’m just not like that.  Tanya was for me and I was for her… period.  But the feeling in the room now was hot.  Not temperature hot but sex hot.

I took a deep breath, which was clouded with Stacia’s scent (so not helpful), and flicked the silk open enough to see the book’s cover.  Cursive writing in what looked like German graced the cover.  The cover was made of a pale, soft leathery material that made my skin crawl.  I snapped a picture with my throwaway smart phone, rewrapped the book, and slammed the safe door shut.  After re-welding it with bursts of well-placed aura, I placed a call.

“
Copper Top Cabins. Erika speaking.”

“Hi Erika. it’s Chris Gordon.  Is your mom there?”

“
Ooh, hi Chris!  How are you?”
she cooed into the phone.  A strong mental image of a blonde bombshell popped into my head.  A Swedish bombshell, at that.  Across the room, Stacia raised her eyebrows at the girl’s tone, werewolf hearing following both sides of the conversation.

“Wouldn’t you rather talk to me, Chris?”
Erika Boklund asked, sugar sweet.  Stacia’s eyebrows went ever further north.

“I need your mom’s expertise Erika.  Is she there?”

“
Yes, I’ll get her,”
the girl said with a sigh.  Then her bad-girl impression came back full force. “
But I think you’d get more from my area of expertise,”
she said archly.

Despite my focus on the problem at hand, another image of the curvy blonde sprang unbidden into my mind.  I shook my head to clear it.

“I really need to talk to your mom, Erika,” I said, eyes clenched shut, trying to blank my internal video display.  What was with me and blondes lately?

“
I’ll have to take the phone outside.  It’s really hot here today and we were all swimming in the pond.  Lucky I heard the phone at all.  I was getting ice for drinks.  Now I’m standing here in my wet bikini, dripping all over the floor.”

The image in my head changed, losing most of its clothes, left in a skimpy black bikini and beaded with water.

“Ahh, okay,” I mumbled, looking away from a frowning Stacia.

“
Here she is.  Oh, and Chris?”

“Yes?”

“
My bikini is white, not black,”
she said. Next I heard fumbling sounds as the phone was handed off.

“
Hello? Mr. Gordon?”

“Ah, hi Mrs. Boklund.  I was hoping you could help me with a problem I have,” I said, still trying to get her daughter’s steamy image out of my head.

I outlined the situation to her, keeping the details short.

“
Generally, every Summons creates a small, one-time portal to the realm of whatever it is that’s been summoned.  An open portal such as you’ve described would be theoretically possible but would take enormous power to create.  I don’t see how three pre-teen girls with no training or help could do it.”

“I don’t know for certain that the book is at faultm but the whole thing happened not long after the book was found walled away in the basement.”

“The book was found in a wall?  Who owned the house?”

“A man named Scott Lloyd.  The house is bad, twisted.  I believe Mr. Lloyd was into the spiritualist scene and that some pretty dark stuff happened at that place.”

“Scott Lloyd?  I’ve heard of him.  Power for spells can be stored, as you do with your stone figures.  The house could have enough retained energy for something like that.  Send me the photo you took and I’ll see if any of my group know of the book.”

She gave me her email address and I sent the photo as soon as we said goodbye.

Stacia was still frowning at me.

“What?”

“A whole family of witches?” she asked.

“Well, the mom and twin daughters.”

“What do they look like?” she asked.

“I tell you about three Swedish witches in Northern Michigan and you want to know about their appearance?”

“I’m guessing they’re very pretty and that they’re blonde.  Also, the one you spoke to, Erika, has a major thing for you, right?” she asked, arms folded over her chest.

“Yes, yes, and I guess yes,” I answered, frowning at her.

“When you were speaking to Erika, you had a pretty detailed mental picture of her, didn’t you?  Including a bikini.”

“Ah, what are you talking about, Stacia?” I asked, shocked that she knew that—and more than a bit embarrassed.

“How, Chris, could she know you were thinking of a black bikini?  From your thunderstruck expression when she said it, I knew she was dead on.  But how does a teenage witch know what you’re thinking, Chris?”

I hadn’t really caught that when Erika had said it, my mind had been busy changing the black suit to white and I had been… caught up in the details.