Demon Dance

by Brian Freyermuth

  She closed her eyes, and my ears popped. It wasn’t the drowning feeling that came with Michael and his rage, but there was a familiarity to it, as if her magic was Michael’s fifth cousin removed. I looked around and watched as the dozen or so people inside the library suddenly rose as one group and headed toward the exit. They didn’t walk like zombies, but instead chatted with each other, read newspapers as they walked, and a couple walked front to back, the boy with his arms around his girlfriend. Soon the library cleared of everyone but us three.

  “There we go,” Fay said. “I’m glad it worked. I hate leaving those poor people out in the cold, but the little one is in danger.”

  As she rambled she stabbed swiftly like a cobra, drawing blood from Thelma’s palm. Thelma sucked in a breath with a hiss.

  “So here we go.” Fay bent over the tapestry and poked at a corner with her knitting needle. The blood stained the broken thread, and Fay poked at it some more. When she freed a few strands, she took hold of the thread and pulled the strands out in long jagged lines.

  I almost felt bad, watching her take apart something so exquisite. Her thin hands worked, pulling this bit, tugging that one, and cutting another with her needle. Soon she had a pile of thread sitting off to the side and only a small piece of map left.

  I looked at it. “Mercer Island,” I said.

  “We’re not done yet,” Fay said. “We’re getting close though.” She then put the needle down and flipped open an atlas on top of her desk, handing it to me. She had it open to Mercer Island.

  “Follow along now,” she told me. She motioned to Thelma, who winced as Fay dipped the needle in her bloody palm. “Sorry about this, honey,” Fay apologized. “If there was any other way…”

  “Just find them,” Thelma said through clenched teeth.

  Fay nodded and once again used the blood and the needle to pull at the corner of her tapestry. She began to whittle away the island again at a much slower pace. As she took pieces away, I mentally kept track on my own map of what remained.

  Finally she whittled her thread down to an area the size of a quarter. “This is as far as I can go without drawing notice.”

  I pinpointed the area on my own map and took note of the street names. “Hyde Street,” I said. “That figures. So we have a place to look.” I closed the book and handed it back. “Thank you.”

  “Remember our deal,” Fay said. “One day I’ll call in this favor, and you might not be so thankful then.”

  “Story of my life,” I said simply. “But thank you anyway. Now we have to go.”

  Fay took hold of Thelma’s injured hand one last time. Thelma winced, but the older woman clutched it gently. Fay then took her hand away, and Thelma lifted up her unblemished palm in astonishment. There wasn’t even a mark.

  “Go and save the child,” Fay told us. “The future is blocked to me now, so it’s up to you, Nick. You might feel like a pawn in this war of the Ancients, but remember that even a pawn can checkmate the king.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better. The crowd began to filter back in, so I simply nodded to Fay. With a deep breath I looked at Thelma, looked at all the questions going around in her head, and knew I didn’t have any answers. But Fay was right. It was time to go after the king, no matter what the cost.

  “Let’s go,” I told Thelma. With Fay’s warning rattling around my brain, I led the way back to the car and toward whatever unknown future the night held.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Adam and I stood next to one of the fortifications that surrounded the mini-castles of Mercer Island. The rain had stopped, leaving a slick veneer on the rough stone. Moss hung over the iron spikes across the top of the barrier, with ivy trailing down to the sidewalk. Silence drenched the night air.

  The wind blew my hair around my face, and I felt slightly naked without my usual jean jacket and baseball cap. I needed another image tonight, and Seattle slacker wasn’t it. So I wore a long black trench coat I bought years ago and dark clothes underneath.

  A chill that had nothing to do with the icy breeze prickled my skin. The wall was the same from my dream with Cate. I’m not one for premonitions, but I knew enough to be careful.

  The street ascended into the rolling wooded hills of the island. Thick conifers lined the street, protecting the estates and their secrets from prying eyes. Three blocks up, the walls simply ended and the woods took control. The trees served as a buffer, dividing Senator Helms’s estate from the rest. The rest of civilization ended half a mile away, as if the houses were fearful of getting too close.

  Hyde Street led right up to a shiny new gate, with double spotlights and who knew what else. I couldn’t see much, even with my enhanced vision. A shadowy form passed under the harsh lights and disappeared to the left of the gate.

  “This is your last chance to back out,” I told Adam.

  Adam’s intensity burned into the back of my head. I turned to face him. His black hair hung loose, framing his face like the mane of a particularly nasty looking lion. Not a pleasant thought. Around one shoulder he held a thin coil of rope.

  “You know why I’m here,” he said softly, “but this plan you have, it’s reckless.”

  “It is,” I said, smiling thinly.

  “Then why do you do it?” he asked with his gaze still boring into me. “You said yourself they will not follow if you left. You know my reasons, but I cannot figure out why you risk it.”

  “I made a promise that nothing bad would happen,” I told him. “I keep my word.”

  “But how will we find them?” he demanded.

  “We won’t need to.”

  Adam’s ice-blue eyes dug into my own. The boiling storm of his thoughts flashed across his face. I could see the fear and anger inside, and his mistrust of me. A nasty little hunch began forming as I watched him weigh his options. It had begun back at my apartment and was slowly growing. Not a nice hunch either.

  Finally he nodded and looked away. I realized I’d been holding my breath, and I let it out softly. There’s nothing like poking the lion with a nice little stick.

  “So we begin,” he whispered. He hitched the coil of rope onto his shoulder.

  “Yup,” I told him back, “let’s go be bad guys.” I took a deep breath, and my hand went into the pocket of my jacket and clutched the object there. It was a gift from Jake, and I only hoped it worked the way he said it would.

  I strode forward with all the confidence I could muster.

  Someone once told me that no matter how strong you are, no matter how fast or virtuous or wicked, you can never match a good legend. Power wasn’t about being the best. It was about making everyone think you were the best.

  I walked right up to the main gate as if I owned every single person and object there. Two cameras mounted on top of the gate swung toward me as I stopped. The harsh light spilled over Adam and me, and I squinted against the glare. It took a moment for my night vision to cool down, and when it finally did I saw a guard striding toward us.

  I looked up at the camera and waved.

  “State your name and business,” the guard said as he came up to me. He was about my age, although he seemed to be pushing forty a little harder than me, with a slight double chin and pasty skin. Not part of the Codex then. I wondered where the real guns were hiding.

  “My business,” I said softly. “That’s a good one.” I drew out my right hand and held it out to him with my palm up.

  The guard stepped forward, and his frown deepened when he saw a small chicken wing adorned with a tiny red bow. I pressed my thumb against the bone and smiled again.

  The guard stepped back, and his hand went to his gun just as two actions happened simultaneously. I snapped the chicken bone in half, and the lights above us flared like tiny supernovas and blew out.

  I didn’t waste time. Instead I snatched the barrel of the guard’s firearm as he pulled it out. He yelped as I yanked the gun out of his grip, spun it around, and pointed it at his face.

&nbs
p; My night eyes flared in the darkness, and my senses sparked like wildfire. “Hands on your head and turn around,” I whispered.

  He whimpered as he complied, and I forced his right arm behind his back and pressed the gun against the back of his neck. The guard’s sweat stung my senses as I leaned in close. “Don’t yell. Don’t even blink.” The gun was a nice Beretta M9 handgun, with a convenient silencer at the end. Definitely not standard issue for the Secret Service, let alone a couple of rent-a-cops. Someone wanted their men fully loaded, even the lower-end ones like my guy here.

  “Now,” I told the man as I moved him toward the gate, “how many others are out here?”

  “Just me,” he stuttered, “and one out back. The others…I don’t know where they are.”

  “OK. Does the good senator have a basement?”

  “Yes, but why‒”

  “Does he keep it locked?” I asked with a bit of pressure on the gun. The man winced.

  “No…It’s just his wine cellar…” His voice squeaked.

  Trust me, I actually felt bad for scaring the poor guy. He obviously wasn’t professional enough to be a Codex man. But I had to keep the image going, so I pressed the gun behind his ear and leaned forward.

  “Is there any place you aren’t allowed to go? Somewhere off-limits?”

  “Uh,” he stammered, “the bedrooms upstairs, and the guest house out back.”

  My hunch was right. “Why the guest house? Is there someone living there?”

  “No, it’s just storage, but they told us‒”

  “Good,” I interrupted. “Take us there. And if I hear anything I don’t like…let’s just say I get cranky when that happens.”

  “Who are you?” he croaked.

  “Ignorance will keep you alive, my friend. Now move.” I glanced back and saw Adam staring at me with hooded eyes. He then hitched up his coil of rope and followed.

  I walked the man up the driveway. The mansion gave off the illusion of being old, with a fake stone façade and tall, pointed gables over the windows, even though the building itself wasn’t more than ten years old, if that. Not a shadow stirred in the darkened windows upstairs. A huge plate-glass window looked into a shadowy living room downstairs. No movement there either.

  We made our way up to the right side of the lawn, still deep in shadows. The house might be modest compared to its neighbors, but the grounds were huge. I could barely make out the stone parameter with my night vision as it stretched off into the darkness.

  As we rounded the right side of the house, I maneuvered all of us closer to the wall. We risked someone seeing us through the windows, but with no moon and no lights on in the house, the odds were in our favor again.

  We passed the kitchen window, where little herb gardens decorated the window sill. Trash cans sat like servants waiting for the trash man to whisk them away. I had to steer the guard through the darkness to make sure he didn’t stumble, with Adam close behind shadowing my every footfall.

  When we reached the corner that led to the back of the house, I turned the guard around until he faced the wall. Keeping him sideways, I moved the gun a little off to the right of his head and side-walked him out into the open.

  Another guard sat on the porch not ten feet from our little group. He lounged in a cushioned lawn chair, and when we came around the side of the house he jerked up and automatically reached for his rifle. “Don’t be a hero,” I told him as the barrel of my gun leveled on him.

  Unlike the gate guard, the other man’s face was all crags and hard angles, with dark eyes under a severe buzz cut. He froze in place, and I could see him calculating the odds in his mind. His eyes went to the barrel of my handgun and then up to my own gaze. What he saw made him raise his hands slowly.

  “Drop the rifle and kick it over here. Slowly, and don’t make a sound,” I told him softly. The man flicked his eyes to the right and left, but the flat marble porch left no cover. The glass doors leading into the house were closed and there was nothing but the darkness of the backyard to his left. So he dropped his weapon and kicked it over.

  “Adam,” I said. Adam came forward and picked up the wicked-looking assault rifle. It was military issue like the handgun, probably an M16. He slung it over the shoulder that didn’t hold the rope and pointed the gun at our second captive.

  “Military grade,” I whistled. A push sent my captive stumbling forward, until both men stood in front of me. Out of the two, the newcomer had the hard edges of a military man, so I addressed him. “Your employer bought the best. Just like you, right?”

  The guard didn’t say anything, but watched me with angry eyes. “OK,” I told him, “listen carefully, because I won’t repeat myself. I want both of you in front of us, with your hands on your heads, while you take us to the guest house. Either of you makes a sound and you’ll be dead before anyone hears you. Understood?”

  “Fuck you,” Military Man said.

  Damn, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. Without breaking eye contact, I strode over to him and struck him across the face with the side of my pistol. The impact vibrated up my arm as he jerked and stumbled. I didn’t give him a chance to regroup. Pointing the gun at him, I told him calmly, “This is a silenced M9, but you know that. You’ll be cold before anyone in the house wakes up. So go ahead. I’d feel safer with only one captive.”

  I stretched out my senses and smelled the man’s fear creep up.

  “Now we’re going to stand up and begin walking. You’re not going to try anything, are you, hero?” I asked.

  He glared at me, but then shook his head. Blood trickled down from his torn cheek.

  I pushed the men forward, and we made our way from the house.

  The marble porch stretched the length of a football field before dipping into an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Paper Chinese lanterns hung from a dozen posts, dappling their luminance on the still water. It had the coldness of ancient Greek palaces and the decadence of one as well.

  We led the guards along the side, staying far from the lights. My gaze crept back to the house. If the senator’s daughter happened to wake up and look out her window the whole plan would explode, but no alarms sounded as we reached the end of the marble palisade.

  The grounds continued with nicely manicured grass to the edge of the hills, and as we approached the tree line, I saw that a lit path led farther into the darkness. I strained and made out the faint outline of the guest house. Unlike the main house, this one was fully lit. A little midnight gathering, except this wasn’t the neighborhood book club.

  “OK, this is as far as you go,” I told the guards. The one from the gate gulped in air like a fish. I motioned them toward the nearest pine trees.

  “Have a seat,” I told them. They ducked under the needles of a particularly monstrous pine. With our guns still trained on them, I had them sit on either side, legs straight out, hands still on their heads. Adam deduced my plan, and while I held my gun on Military Man, he unhitched his rope and quickly wound it around our captors. After securing their torsos to the tree, he had them lower their arms. This was the tricky part, just in case one of them had a concealed weapon. I stared at Military Man, willing him not to be stupid. He glared back at me, but didn’t move as Adam secured their arms to their sides.

  They weren’t going anywhere.

  When Adam finished, he leaned back on his heels and after a moment of contemplation pulled off the guards’ shoes. After pulling both pairs off, he threw them into the woods behind us and then proceeded to yank a sock off each foot. It took a moment, but when he had the sock freed he shoved one into each of the guard’s mouths.

  One thing I had to give my partner, he sure could improvise.

  “I am sorry about this,” I told them. “Especially the whole sock thing.”

  If a gaze could melt flesh I’m pretty sure I’d be doing an impersonation of the wicked witch of Oz right about now. Military Man glared at us in silence as Adam and I stepped back on the path.

  “Is
that it?” Adam asked with a nod to the lit house in the distance.

  “Looks like it.”

  “So we just walk up and hope to catch them by surprise?”

  I shook my head. “There’s no surprise. They know we’re here.” I started up the path.

  “Risky indeed,” Adam said as he followed.

  I had to shut down my night vision as we approached the guest cottage. A dozen small yard lanterns lined the path to a quaint single-story place. Of course “quaint” was still five times the size of my apartment. At least three bedrooms, maybe more. Like the main house, fake stone siding and arched gables made it seem older, like a desperate kid using a fake ID to buy a keg of beer.

  “You play the bad guy rather convincingly,” Adam remarked as we neared the cottage.

  “My partner would always play the good cop,” I said with a thin smile. “When we had to interrogate people she always buttered them up, and I’d work the angry, tense angle. Ann always said I played it a little too well.”

  “Ann?”

  I didn’t answer. Instead I walked up to the front door of the house. The lights were all on, including a porch bulb that glared at us above the door.

  “So we go in?” Adam asked.

  “Not yet.” I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed Jake.

  “You ready?” I asked when Jake answered.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be. The circle’s tight,” Jake said. His voice sounded stretched and thin.

  “Good. And Thelma’s in there with you as well?”

  “No, she’s serving coffee and doughnuts to all the nice hipsters downtown. Of course she’s in the circle with me.”

  I took a deep breath. “I’m going to put you on speaker phone. I’m stepping into the hornet’s nest, so don’t make a peep until you get the signal from me.”

  “Got it. Adam still with you?”

  “Yeah, he’s here.”

  “This is crazy, you know.”

  “Of course it is, and that’s why it’s going to work. But Jake…thanks. And tell Thelma thanks as well.”