Sins of the Demon (30 page)

“I feel like I’ve become the Oracle,” Jill complained.

I gave Zack a puzzled look as he burst out laughing. “It’s from the Batman comics,” he explained to me. “Barbara Gordon—the first Batgirl—was shot by The Joker and paralyzed, and so she became The Oracle, a computer expert and information hacker who provided intelligence to other superheroes.”

“There was more than one Batgirl?” I asked weakly.

Zack heaved a sigh. “You have so much to learn.”

I snorted. “No, I think I’m perfectly fine not knowing how many Batgirls there were.”

“No results for any of those names,” Jill’s voice piped up. “What next?”

“Okay, so who owns
this
house?” I said. I waited impatiently as the sound of clicking keys came through the speaker.

“Company named Imperium LLC,” she said after a few seconds. “And before you ask, yes, I’m searching the Secretary of State records to see who’s behind that.” A few more seconds. “Oh, good grief,” she muttered. “Corporate name, Posterula Inc. Searching on that now.” A pause. “Crap, it may take a while to dig through all these layers.”

I stopped my semblance of pacing. “Don’t worry about that right now. Are there any other properties in this area owned by Imperium?”

“Hang on. Yeah, two others. A residence in Clearwater Estates and a strip mall on the east end of town on Oakwood Street. I’ll text you the addresses.”

“Any chance either of those are in our ‘hot zone?’ ” I asked.

“Nope. Sorry.”

Nothing about this was going to be easy, obviously. “Okay, thanks a million, Jill. We’re going to go check those two spots out. If you find out anything else, give us a shout.”

“Will do!” came the cheery reply, then she clicked off.

“Okay, kiddos,” I said, “We don’t have much time. I can’t sense wards as long as I have this on, so I’m going to be relying on y’all to point them out to me.”

“You mean Ryan,” Zack said with an easy smile, but there was a glint in his eye. “I can’t see wards.”

“Oh, right,” I said with a laugh. “My mistake.” I held his gaze for another heartbeat.
Find a way to warn me if you see something dangerous
, I thought, hoping it would come through somehow. I knew perfectly well Zack was capable of seeing and manipulating wards, and with far more skill than Ryan seemed to currently possess. Ryan
would
hopefully
be able to tell if any protections were in place, but I had no way of knowing just how far his demonic lord powers had been throttled back. With the loss of Eilahn, I was relying on Zack’s skill more than ever.

He broke the gaze, but not before giving me an infinitesimal nod. He understood.

“Let’s ditch this joint,” I said, “and hope to hell that we find something useful in one of the other places.”

Traffic was a fucking bitch, adding to the mounting frustration already plaguing us. Tracy’s threat about finding a way to motivate me haunted me, and I knew I needed to be prepared. I knew without a doubt that he needed me alive only because he intended for me to end up dead or drained or something worse. Personally, I wanted to avoid that sort of fate.

The strip mall ended up being a complete bust, but luckily not one that took too much time to check out. It helped that it stood completely empty, and through all the window fronts we could easily see that there was nothing nefarious going on there. Moreover, Zack gave me the slight shake of his head that told me he couldn’t detect arcane residue of any kind—which would surely be there if Tracy had been summoning anywhere around there.

But the residence was a different matter. It was a small single-story house in the middle of the block in a neighborhood that had probably been decently middle-class a couple of decades ago. Now shriveled grass pushed up between cracks in the sidewalk. Several of the
mailboxes had dents in them, testimony to someone’s game of mailbox baseball. Few of the yards were maintained beyond a sporadic mowing, and there were several driveways with cars in them that looked like they hadn’t been moved in a while, to judge from the amount of leaves and pine needles caught in piles against tires. A house further down the street looked like it had been broken into and vandalized a number of times—probably a foreclosure. Several windows were smashed and the door had been tagged with spray paint and other unknown substances. The house we were looking at had no cars in the driveway, and a dried brown lawn that probably hadn’t been cut in six months, but even though it looked and felt like an empty house, it remained untouched by any vandalism.

“This is it,” Ryan murmured. “There are definitely protections around this place.” I flicked my eyes to Zack, and he dipped his head in the barest of nods.

Elation surged through me, quickly followed by frustration. We were on the right track, but now what were we supposed to do? “I can’t do anything about the wards with the cuff on,” I said. Not that I was sure I’d be able to do anything even if I didn’t have it on. There was a reason I called demons to do my heavy ward work. I flicked a glance to Zack. He answered with a faint grimace and shrug, then tapped his watch. In other words, Sure, he could probably get through them, but it would take time. And he would need to do it where Ryan couldn’t see what was going on.

I could get Ryan out of the way, but I didn’t think we had much time.

Ryan scowled. “Do you think he’s in there?”

I considered this. “No,” I finally said. “I think he’s wherever he wants me to go. He said he was going to provide incentive for me.” I rubbed my arms through the coat, then I pushed my sleeve back and narrowed my eyes at the cuff.

“When that arcane grenade-thing went off,” I asked, “what did it feel like? What did it do?”

“Hurt like hell,” Ryan admitted. “And left me super-dizzy for a couple of minutes. Could barely focus my eyes.”

I glanced over to Zack, and he nodded. “Same. Pain, dizzy, disoriented.”

I pursed my lips. “And I didn’t feel any of that. I only puked.” A smile slowly spread across my face. “Holy shit. Duh. This cuff not only blocks my own arcane, but blocks arcane shit from affecting me—which is why the drug hasn’t done much to me yet. I’m a moron. Of
course
that would make me immune to arcane protections as well. ”

“You can cross the wards,” Zack breathed, beginning to grin.

Ryan still frowned. “Won’t it still make you sick?”

“It passes. At the worst I’ll puke, but I’ll be able to get through without getting hurt.”
I hope
, I added silently.

“And what if he is in there?” Ryan asked, clearly still less than thrilled with this plan of mine.

“Then I shoot him,” I said bluntly. “He needs me alive. I have no such need of him.”

Ryan considered this for a few heartbeats, then gave a firm nod. “Okay. As long as we’re agreed on that.” He handed me the transmitter. “Just in case he doesn’t have a ward blocking the signal.” I nodded and obediently tucked it inside my collar.

Despite my confident words, my heart pounded as I approached the house. A mild queasiness washed over me as I stepped onto the walkway that led to the front door.
Those were probably aversions
, I thought as I moved forward, gun in hand though tucked inside my coat. No sense freaking out any neighbors who might be watching from behind their curtains. About five feet away from the door, a stronger wave hit me, and I had to pause and take deep, gulping breaths to get it under control.
Okay, and those are some of the actual protections.
But I was making it through. So far at least. Puking was better then being fried. Still, I hesitated before I tried the door. That’s where the strongest protections would be. Taking a deep breath, I seized the door handle.

Nothing. I exhaled in relief, then frowned in annoyance as I tried to turn it. Locked.
Great, a zillion levels of arcane protection, and he still feels the need to use a mundane lock.
Shielding the view with my body as much as I could, I broke the decorative window beside the door with the butt of my gun.

And that’s when the nausea slammed into me like a truck. I dropped to my hands and knees and lost breakfast, yesterday’s dinner, and even a few meals I didn’t eat yet, or so it seemed. After what felt like forever it finally faded but I stayed there, gasping for breath as I slowly regained control of my body.
Okay, whatever that ward was, it was definitely meant to be a lethal one.

Legs shaking, I pulled myself upright then reached through the broken window and unlocked the door. I braced myself for another layer of protections as I entered, but thankfully I seemed to have already triggered everything that was there. I glanced back. “I’m in, and
I’m cool so far,” I said. I gave a thumbs up toward the Crown Vic in case he couldn’t hear me, then closed the door behind me.

There were no furnishings or décor. Nothing on the walls. Only a tired beige carpet with obvious traffic stains. I listened carefully for any sign of life, but silence held the house in a strong grip. Breathing shallowly, I edged forward with my gun at the ready. Clearing a house of possible suspects was best done with backup—preferably
lots
of backup—but since I didn’t have that option I went slowly and methodically as I searched from room to room. Though I did pause in the kitchen to rinse my mouth out. Bile was never a fun aftertaste.

I hit pay dirt in the master bedroom. The floor had been stripped to bare concrete and painted black, and on it a complex diagram had been carefully inscribed in white and red chalk. Black bookshelves lined two wall, and a long low chest made of a lighter wood rested against a third. Books and scrolls and papers filled every shelf, but unlike my aunt’s library these were all placed with nearly pathological precision.

But all that was nothing compared to the sight of the
reyza
crouched against the far wall, casually paging through a book in his wickedly clawed hands. The twelfth-level demon looked like a living gargoyle made of burnished copper, with a bestial face, massive leathery wings, and a sinuous tail that coiled around his feet. I knew that if he were to stand he’d tower over me by several feet, and even crouched as he was he seemed to fill the room.

He lifted his head, and I dared to smile. “Greetings,
Kehlirik,” I said as I holstered my gun. It would be useless against him if he wanted to attack me.

He bared his teeth in his version of a smile and lowered his book. “Greetings to you, Kara Gillian,” he rumbled.

I didn’t move into the room, merely stayed just beyond the doorway. “Does your current bargain prevent you from answering questions regarding the reasons you have been summoned and the circumstances regarding said summoning?”

The demon tilted his head as if considering the question. “There is nothing in my current bargain that prevents or precludes me from answering questions.”

I thought for a moment. I could ask questions until the cows came home, but unless I offered him something in return, I wouldn’t get any useful answers. “I have no suitable offerings on my person,” I said, “but would you be willing to accept my promise of a jar of popcorn kernels— payable the next time I summon you—in exchange for information about the reasons you are here?”

He snorted, nostrils flaring. “I would.”

I grinned. He’d developed a fondness for
papcahn
the last time I’d summoned him. “Who summoned you?”

“The summoner who names himself Raymond Bergeron.”

“What have you been tasked with?”

The demon lifted his head and settled his wings. “I am to guard this focus point.” He dipped his head toward the diagram on the floor.

I frowned as I peered at it. At first glance it looked like a fairly normal summoning diagram, but then I realized that there were several crucial differences—at least
a half dozen sigils coming off the center portion that flowed into each other with exquisite and intricate beauty. “If I enter this room, are you honor bound to attack me?”

“I am.”

Well, that was pretty much what I figured. Damn. I had no doubt that all his grandparents’ notes were in this room. Once this whole thing was over I intended to come back and take every last scrap of paper in here. “This focus…is it connected to the other portals?”

The reyza gave a low rumble. “Not at this time.”

Perfect. “Is it intended to be?”

“Yes.” His eyes seemed to glow, and I had the unerring feeling he was enjoying this tremendously.

I skimmed my gaze over the diagram, annoyed that I didn’t dare enter to get a closer look. Each of the sigils no doubt referenced a portal, which meant there were some that he’d either already known about or had found by some means other than killing people on my Do Not Like list. The detective in me itched to call Doc and find out if there’d been any other stroke deaths in the past year where the body had been found in a seemingly random location. But the summoner in me knew that would be a waste of time. I wasn’t going to be able to pin these deaths on Tracy/Raymond anyway.

“What is Raymond Bergeron’s plan?”

The
reyza
set the book down. I saw with amusement it was one of the Harry Potter titles. “He wishes to open a gate that will allow him to summon at will, without need to store potency.”

“Holy shit,” I breathed. That was a summoner’s wet dream. I loved and cherished my storage diagram—
which I intended to rebuild as soon as possible—but even that had its limits. At the most I could summon every few days, unless I wanted to wear myself out, constantly channeling power into the diagram. But to have unlimited access to the demon realm.…Anyone who had that would end up pretty damn powerful. “How did he learn about this?”

“From papers left behind by his grandsire and granddam—instructions given to them by the demonic lord to whom they were sworn.”

A cold chill of foreboding went through me. “You mean Szerain, right?”

Kehlirik nodded.

“What were Szerain’s plans?”

“I am oathbound. I cannot answer that question.”

I tucked my thumbs into my pockets and nodded. I was getting used to this sort of questioning. “Would his plans be detrimental to this world?”