Authors: Diana Rowland

Secrets of the Demon (27 page)

BOOK: Secrets of the Demon

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I sighed and shifted into othersight, confirming what I’d felt from the top. I looked across the ditch. From my crouched position I could see gouges in the opposite bank.
He tried to climb out and was pulled back down.
I let my gaze travel over the body. He was wearing his Magnolia Fitness Center T-shirt with TRAINER on the chest, long athletic pants, and sneakers—on his way to work.
He came out of his apartment and went to his car,
I mused,
then saw the golem, took off running.
That would explain why he was so far away from the complex. But the golem could be fast. I’d seen that for myself. And Roger hadn’t been running in a while, so he probably wasn’t as fast as he might have once been.
It was dark and maybe Roger didn’t see the ditch, or perhaps he thought he could gain some time by going through it?
Either way, the golem caught up with Roger and dragged him back down, then simply held his head under the water until he stopped struggling.

I swiped my finger across the mud on Roger’s shoulder, then rubbed it between my thumb and finger. A faint flicker of the resonance seemed to prickle my fingertips.
It melted a bit as it held Roger under. But not all the way.
This mud had a clay-like consistency, and the dirt in the ditch seemed to be mostly sandy. There were a couple of glops of the mud scattered in the vicinity, but nowhere near enough to account for a whole golem. Or even a decent-sized piece of one.

“Fuck,” I muttered, then stood and clambered back up the bank with help from Gordon and Scott. Brushing mud and dirt off my pants, I scanned the area for Knight. I finally spotted him at the edge of the complex parking lot. He was crouching and looking at something on the ground and I headed his way.

“You find something?” I asked as I approached.

He pointed. “Keys. I’m betting they belong to your victim.”

“That’s his car.” I indicated the dark blue Chevy Nova parked a few spaces away. “The golem was here,” I said, feeling the by-now-familiar prickle of resonance. “Several hours ago, though, I think.”

Knight stood. “It must have been waiting for him—came after him as he was coming out to his car.”

“And Roger told me that he has a five A.M. client, which means it was still dark.” I shoved my hand through my hair. “He probably didn’t see it until it was right on top of him ... tried to outrun it, but he didn’t have a chance.”

We both remained silent for several heartbeats. Marco didn’t say anything meant to be encouraging like
You’ll catch whoever’s doing this
or
I have faith in you.
I kinda appreciated that. Especially since I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have believed him anyway.

Finally I turned and walked back toward the scene.

Jill had arrived while I’d been talking with Knight and was already down in the ditch taking pictures. There wasn’t a whole lot to do other than take pictures, so I waited patiently by the side of the ditch and gave her a hand out once she was finished.

“Thanks, chick,” she said. “Once the CO gets here I’ll take more pics of the body.”

“You rock, as always,” I said.

“This one’s like the others?” she asked, voice lower even though there was no one within a hundred yards. She started walking back to her van and I fell into step beside her.

“Yep,” I replied. “And it’s starting to piss me right the fuck off, too.”

She gave me a sympathetic grimace. “Isn’t there some way a demon can ... I dunno, track it down or something so that you can find who’s making it?”

“I have absolutely no idea if that’s possible, but it’s a hypothetical exercise at this point anyway, because I don’t have enough power to do a summoning right now.” And even if I did, I’d be using it to call Rhyzkahl so that I could tell him about the summoning attempts. But Jill didn’t need to know about any of that. “Right now I’m forced to do my investigation using only
mundane
tactics.” I gave a mock shudder and she laughed.

“Oh my god, the horror!” She cast a sideways glance at me. “Seriously, though, is anything popping?”

“Too much, if that makes sense.” I made a sour face. “A bunch of strange little details and links, and I’m not sure what fits together or how. Plus, there’s stuff that looks intriguing to me but might have absolutely nothing to do with why anyone was killed and is only managing to distract me.”

To my surprise she wrapped an arm around me and gave me a companionable squeeze as we walked. “You’ll figure it out,” she reassured me. “You’re too much of a bitch not to.”

I jabbed my elbow lightly into her ribs. “Takes one to know one!”

She laughed then lifted her chin toward my car. “Who’s that?”

I looked to see that Knight was leaning against the hood of my car, arms folded casually across his chest. “Oh, that’s right, you haven’t met him yet. He’s part of the task force when we do New Orleans stuff.”
And he freaks Pellini right out, which earns him extra points in my book,
I thought, masking a grin. By this time we were close to the car. “Jill this is Marco Knight. Marco, this is Jill Faciane, our crime scene goddess.” I glanced at Marco. “Jill, um,
knows.
”

Jill snorted. “Yeah, I
know
that you’re totally weird,” she said to me, then she stuck her hand out to Knight. “Nice to meet you. I take it you’re weird too?”

A lazy grin crossed his face. “Quite so,” he said, taking her hand. To my surprise his grin abruptly slipped, an expression of shock and sadness flickering there before he released her hand and smiled normally again. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said quietly.

Jill merely nodded, brow faintly furrowed, then she turned to me. “I’ll be right back. I want to put my camera away and check the pictures.”

“Sure thing,” I said, then watched after her as she strode to her van at a brisk clip. I gave Knight a questioning look but his gaze was on her as well. After a few seconds he gave a soft sigh then looked back to me.

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, giving me his usual lazy amused grin. I smiled back, but I’d seen that brief flash of ... what had it been? Pain? Longing? Grief? It had been too quick to identify, but I knew the lazy grin to be a mask now.

But I felt no driving need to tear it away. I murmured something inconsequential and then moved off a short distance and pulled my cell phone out. I needed to let Ryan know what was going on ...

I stared down at the phone, hesitating before dialing Ryan’s number. I’d managed to forget the shock of last night for a while, but now it all came rushing back in.
Zack’s not human. And Ryan can summon.
Though Zack hadn’t said that Ryan was a summoner, merely that he had the ability to open portals. But if Ryan had never summoned before, what on earth could a human do to be labeled a
kiraknikahl?
Zack had said that his punishment was dire and just. And part of that punishment had to have been something that changed his memory or took it away.
But Ryan can do that,
I reminded myself.
I’ve seen him change people’s memories.
Did he do something to a demon or a summoner? Maybe that was why—

I jumped and bit back a yelp at the touch on my arm. I whirled to see Marco standing beside me, a questioning look on his face. “Does it do tricks?” he asked.

I gave him my best stupid look in response. “Huh?”

His lips twitched with a whisper of amusement. “You’ve been staring at your phone for several minutes now. Figured you were waiting for it to do something.”

I flushed and shook my head. “Sorry. Got lost in thought there.”

He flicked a glance to where the coroner’s office van was pulling up, directed to the ditch by Gordon. “Understandable. You got a lot to think about.” He met my eyes. “You’re caught right smack in the middle of some powerful forces.”

I controlled the shiver that wanted to slide down my spine. “Pellini told me to watch out for you,” I said before I could think about it. “Said you know shit,” I lowered my voice in quasi-imitation of Pellini, “and that you fuck people up ... telling them things.”

The smile faded from his face and he looked away, into the distance. “I made some mistakes. Hurt people who didn’t deserve the hurting they ended up with.”

“Pellini?”

His head dipped in a whisper of a nod. “He was one.”

“Do I need to watch out for you?”

His gaze returned to me. “I think maybe it’s the other way around,” he said, amusement brightening his eyes. He leaned against the car and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then tilted the pack my way, smiling slightly when I shook my head. “You gonna go talk to Miss Lida now?”

I blinked, feeling as if I’d been in some sort of bizarre thrall. “Um, yeah. I want to let her know—”

“And see her reaction,” Knight finished with a nod. He lit a cigarette and took a long draw on it. “I wouldn’t mind tagging along again, especially if you don’t want to bother the agents.”

The shimmer of relief at his suggestion surprised me. “Yeah,” I said slowly. “That would be cool.” I lifted my phone again, then thumbed in a text message.

Adam Taylor’s computer was wiped. Am out on another murder scene—Roger Peeler. Det. Knight is w/ me and we’re going to talk to Lida. Will touch base w/ you after.

I hit the send and looked up to see Knight’s eyes on me. I expected him to give me another amused or sardonic smile, laughing at me for ducking out of having to talk to Ryan, but he merely looked completely understanding. Was he telepathic? Or merely incredibly perceptive or understanding?

“I’m not telepathic,” he said, then grinned when I raised an eyebrow at him. “I promise, I’m not, but I could tell you were wondering that.”

“So what are you?” I challenged. Enough of being kept in the dark.

He shrugged. “I can sense things. It’s hard to explain.”

“Clairvoyant?”

He shook his head, then shrugged again. “I dunno. I get vibes from people sometimes. Can sense if something’s eating at them or if they’re grieving or missing something.” He looked away again, and I wasn’t sure if he was looking at the distant figure of Jill. “Sometimes I can tell what caused it.”

“Sounds awful,” I blurted before I could stop myself.

He turned back to me. “Yeah.” He dropped the half-burned cigarette on the ground and twisted it out with his foot. “Shall we go talk to this singer of ours?”

Chapter 24

A complete stranger answered the door at the Moran house—a young woman about Lida’s age who clearly shared similar tastes in clothing and style with the singer. She was short and petite with pale blond hair pulled up into a high ponytail, heavy makeup, and numerous piercings in both ears. Worry filled her eyes as she took in our badges and official bearing. “Y’all are here to talk to Lida?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied. “And you are ... ?”

“I’m Nikki. I’m a friend of Lida’s.” She stepped back and opened the door to allow us in. “She was super freaked out last night after she heard about Adam,” the girl continued as we entered, closing the door behind us. “She called me up and asked if I could come stay the night with her since her uncle’s out of town.” Nikki shuddered. “I mean ... she was
in the building
when her manager died and she never realized it.”

“It was a tragedy,” I said. “Is Lida here?”

The blond ponytail bobbed as she nodded. “She’s upstairs. She’s been crying most of the night. Kept saying that if she’d gone to check on him, maybe she could have helped.” Nikki’s lower lip quivered.

“You were here with her all night?” I asked.

“Yeah. I tried to keep her distracted ... ordered pizza, watched pay-per-view, that sort of thing.” She bit her lip. “You really gotta talk to her now? She’s a bit of a mess.”

“I’m sorry,” I said gently, “but it’s very important.”

The worry in Nikki’s eyes deepened as she searched our faces. “It’s more bad news, isn’t it? Should I ... Can I stick around if it is? I don’t think she should be by herself.”

“It might be a good idea for you to stick around,” I told her.

Her face fell. “God. The poor thing.”

“It’s only the two of you here?” Knight asked. “Where’s her brother?”

“Trey came by and picked him up last night,” Nikki said. “Michael doesn’t know about Adam yet. He’s gonna totally lose it when he does find out, but Lida didn’t need to be dealing with that last night. Luckily Trey’s really good with Michael.” She let out a sad sigh. “I’ll go get Lida.”

She turned and climbed the stairs. A couple of minutes later Lida descended the stairs, with Nikki hovering anxiously behind her. I could believe that she’d been crying. Her face was puffy and blotchy, and her eyes were red and swollen as she turned them to me.

“Hi,” she said, voice thin and wan. “I’m a mess. Sorry. I think I’ve been crying ever since the other two cops left last night.”

That would have been Ryan and Crawford “It’s understandable,” I said. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

BOOK: Secrets of the Demon

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