“That’s near Frawley Circle, where I battled the Demons last night.” I felt my features tighten. “No way are these Demons going to get away with what they’ve been doing to paranorms.” And what they did to Jon.
I ground my teeth as I added, “We’ll do whatever it takes to destroy every last Demon.”
CHAPTER 7
Olivia, T, and I arrived at almost the same time in the Upper East Side neighborhood where the NYPD officer’s family had been murdered. We parked a distance from the home—couldn’t get any closer due to the large number of emergency vehicles.
At least four police cruisers, three ambulances, a fire truck, and two unmarked vehicles had arrived at the scene. Standing outside the fringes of the crime scene tape and police barricades were neighbors, most still in their bathrobes.
Everyone and everything was motionless. Frozen.
Thanks to a Soothsayer’s power to control air and the minute water particles in it, the moment an onlooker happened by, that person instantly “froze,” too. The Soothsayer also would use an air spell to put a glamour over the entire block.
Of course, the spells excluded paranorms and a few norms like Olivia.
A strange scent came from the house and I grimaced as Olivia, T, and I walked toward the scene.
Burned flesh and the additional sickly sweet scent of burned sugar.
I’d seen dead bodies before. Lots of them. But with each step I took, my back and arms felt tighter. I had to bite my bottom lip to hold back a powerful retch.
There was more here than dead bodies. Something else. Something ...
Evil?
I shivered as I walked. I tried to remind myself that there was no such division as good and evil.
Only dark and light, and all the shades in between—-but that was my Drow mind talking. The human part of me definitely wanted to scream and run away from this place.
Crime scene tape remained as motionless as the people. We made it to the front door of the home after dodging our way through motionless NYPD officers, an FDNY response unit, paramedics, and continued on past crime scene investigators, including a photographer and a sketch artist. Our Soothsayer would have to take care of them later, when she wiped their memories of the paranormal parts of the crimes.
The lurch of my heart was no less painful than the churning in the pit of my belly when I saw four body bags outside the home, two of the bags small.
The moment I entered the home, the stench hit me even harder—along with a sick, slithering feeling of something wrong, something unnatural and more terrible than I could put into words.
The smells and sensations were absurdly followed by the Soothsayer’s gardenia scent, along with a hint of vanilla candles that must have been lit when the humans were attacked.
Olivia came up beside me. “Here comes Tinker-bell.”
Great, the Soothsayer standing away from a chalk outline was Lulu, and she flexed her fingers at the sight of me and Olivia.
I was so not in the mood to be frozen. But I’m sure Lulu wasn’t in the mood to be tracked down afterward and face my fist.
All Soothsayers were Doppler, and Lulu’s form was a Manx cat with a bobbed tail. Funny as hell, but she still should have been a rat instead.
When Lulu saw T, her manner changed completely, and she turned her petite nose away from Olivia and me.
Olivia smirked when she met my gaze. “Oh, brother.”
Lulu smiled and practically drifted over to T like the air carried her on a royal carpet. The beautiful beyond beautiful Soothsayer wore her hair in golden ringlets and had on a frilly, long, iridescent dress (give me a break) that made her look like a Disney fairy princess.
“I’m Lulu.” She actually fluttered her eyelashes. “Who might you be?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. Honestly. But I couldn’t help it.
Score one for T because he didn’t fall all over herself to introduce himself. He gave a simple nod.
“Torin.”
Lulu raised her chin and immediately had a miffed expression. No doubt because T hadn’t referred to her as “my lady” and bowed, or showed any other formalities to please her enormous ego.
I looked around what was apparently the living room. Experts had been dusting for fingerprints while other police officers were obviously searching for clues.
And there was Adam, frozen in a crouch, his back to me. his muscles tight, radiating a bleak, guttearing energy I had never felt from him before.
Immediately my heart started pounding, from excitement at the sight of him, but right now more from worry. I left T and Olivia behind and went to Adam and crouched beside him.
He wouldn’t know 1 was there until I touched him, but I could see in his deep brown eyes pain that made my chest ache.
His expression told me everything I needed to know.
These were his people, a cop’s family. He was taking this as personally as I took the death of a fellow Tracker. Seeing these innocent people slaughtered was as bad for Adam as me watching Demons demolish what was left of Jon.
I braced one knee on the polished wood floor and touched the sleeve of Adam’s worn leather bomber jacket, unfreezing him. “Adam,” I whispered, overcome by his sadness.
“This blue looks like fresh paint—” Adam stopped and glanced at me. “Nyx.”
He seemed both pleased to see me and angry at what had happened. 1 gave him a sad smile.
Adam moved his gaze to the man on the other side of him. who was still frozen. “Christ, I wish your Soothsayers wouldn’t do this freezing sh—crap. It makes everything harder.”
When he shifted his weight from one knee to the other, I caught his leather, coffee, and masculine scent, and wanted to wrap my arms around him. I leaned closer so that I could breathe more of him in, and hoped that he might take comfort from my presence.
He looked around and saw Lulu, who had her hands on her hips. Humans were the lowest of creatures as far as she was concerned.
“Oh, lighten up,” Olivia said, moving away from T and intercepting Lulu before she could fire any smart remarks—or nasty spells—in Adam’s direction. “Finding lipstick on your teeth is about the only thing worse than being sent on paranormal cases involving humans, isn’t it, Lu-lu?”
Olivia emphasized the name as she pushed aside her Mets sweat jacket to rest her hand near her Sig.
The slogan on Olivia’s navy blue T-shirt said it all: People like you are the reason People like me need medication.
Lulu’s voice snapped like one of those firecrackers kids toss around during the norms’ Fourth of July celebration. “Hurry and do whatever so that I might leave this Goddess-forsaken place.”
She looked away, her nose in the air, and Adam and I glanced at each other, both of us trying to hide a laugh.
While Olivia started her part of the investigation, T came up and crouched on the other side of me. I worked to keep my attention fully on Adam to let him know I was there for him, that I understood how bad this kind of thing felt.
A few moments later, I felt T’s awareness move to Adam, too, and Adam’s turned to T.
“Boyd.” Adam got to his feet and held out his hand to T.
“Torin.” With a slight nod, T stood at the same time I did. He reached across me and shook hands with Adam.
“Definitely a paranormal crime,” Adam said to me after he and T released their grips. “You won’t believe some of the shit we found.” He gestured toward what I knew wasn’t paint, but blue blood.
“This isn’t the half of it. Think it could be those Demons you were telling me about?”
I took a good look around me. “I don’t think that underling Demons could possibly do this.”
“Why not?” Adam said.
“After fighting the underling Demons for a while, I just can’t picture it.” The total destruction of the home was almost overwhelming. “The power it would have taken to do this was as if a cyclone was contained within this house.
“Could be
the major or master Demons Rodán told you about.” I gripped my Dolce & Gabbana purse as I continued. “No one knows what they’re capable of. Yet.”
I made an absentminded sound of acknowledgment as I caught sight of more blue spots. They were on the carpet that lay over a portion of the wood floor. “The Demons do have blue blood, and there are more scattered droplets.” I pointed. “Right there.”
“Looks like paint,” Adam said as we walked toward the spots of blue that hadn’t fully dried.
“It’s possible the major Demons or master Demon also have that same color of blood,” T said.
“Did your Proctor tell you anything?” Adam cleared his throat. “Do you think Officer Crisman was, uh, eaten or something?”
“It is possible but we really don’t know,” I said. “Hopefully we’ll find more clues than this blue staff.”
Somewhere in my purse was my XPhone, where I kept my notes on every case. I dug through my purse and came up with it. Adam watched me as I jotted down a few notes with the stylus.
I looked up at Adam. My human half didn’t like to ask these kinds of questions. “Were the bodies mutilated?”
It was obvious to me that Adam was trying to keep his professional cop-cool. “Their faces are— hell, I don’t know what you’d call it. Mutilated and burned off would be the closest thing I can come up with.”
“Goddess.” I glanced to T, who frowned. I moved my gaze back to Adam’s. “That’s definitely not underling Demon behavior.”
T shook his head in a slight movement, his frown deepening. “Impossible.”
“So you think we’re probably dealing with another type of Demon or Demons,” Adam said.
“Right now the only thing I know for sure is that a Tracker and a human law enforcement officer were attacked the same night, in the same vicinity.” I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “May I see one of the bodies?”
Adam studied me. “They’re pretty bad.”
“I need to get a look at them.” I rubbed my fingers lightly over my Drow collar, which always gave me a burst of strength and confidence. “Olivia and I need to.” I glanced at T. “Oh, and him, too.”
T scowled.
Adam started toward the body bags. “I know you’ve seen some pretty crappy things, Nyx, but this— like I said, it’s bad.”
“Stop babying her,” Olivia said as she came toward us with her XPhone and stylus gripped tight.
“She needs toughening up.”
As if.
Adam nodded and I walked beside him to the largest of the bags. “From the ID we found in the house, apparently this is the grandfather.”
He inched down the zipper. A very much human gag reflex came over me as I breathed in the even stronger smell of burned sugar and flesh.
And saw the face-—or what was left of the man’s face.
It wasn’t like the flesh had been seared. No part of the skull was exposed. Instead it was like something had taken a big stamp and flattened the flesh, so that it was as if the face was a wax blob and not human.
A shock went through my elemental energies, nearly stealing from me my ability to breathe. The haze in my mind was like I’d drained nearly all of my powers.
“Holy shit,” Olivia said.
T grunted.
My Drow half was screaming for me to draw blades at the sight. I could hardly keep my own cool.
“Do you need to leave?” T said in an arrogant tone.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said in a voice so harsh it didn’t sound like my own. The words weren’t even my own. They were deeper, more primal, as each sensation hit me.
“Nyx.” Olivia’s voice came through the haze in my mind. “What are you sensing?”
“I don’t know.” I swallowed down the desire to vomit, scream, and ran like I’ve never ran before.
“I think we’d better get you out of here.” The concern in Adam’s voice was unmistakable and protective. It was so different from T’s asinine tone.
Even though I felt my energies draining, I forced myself to study the face. I had to be professional.
But all I wanted to do was flee.
Calm down. Calm down, Nyx.
I scanned the horrific image. It took a moment, but then I made it out. A pattern had been “stamped”
into the flesh.
“What the hell is that?” Olivia said, but like Adam maintained her professional cop-cool.
My gaze traced the strange lines and whorls. I couldn’t speak.
T stood. “Let’s see the others.”
I looked at Adam and, even though all of my muscles felt weak, I managed to talk. “Believe me, it’s the last thing I want to do.”
He paused. Nodded. “Okay,” he said quietly.
Olivia, T, and I checked the other bodies, and each time the human half of me wanted to throw up.
Only my Drow half kept me from losing it.
Each face had the same symbol distorting the darkened flesh. A sort of cone or funnel. The symbol was like nothing I’d ever seen.
Pretending that the horrible images I was looking at were just on wax dummies and not on real people, I used my XPhone to photograph the faces.
Just in case the symbol wouldn’t photograph well, like the Demon had put some kind of sick spell on the faces, I used the stylus on a blank screen to copy the pattern. My artistry isn’t the best and I could barely keep my hand from shaking as I did it, but I managed a fair rendering.
I started to get up, but what T did next brought me to a complete halt. With slow purpose, he moved his hand over the face of the fourth victim. The nightmarish look of the face vanished and was replaced by the face of a sleeping child. The bad energy vanished around the child’s body. She’d been dressed in pajamas. Hopefully she’d been asleep and hadn’t woken when it all happened.
I held my hand to my mouth. As I looked at that small, angelic-looking girl I would have cried if I could. Whatever T had done made it all the more real.
“Maybe he’ll be useful after all,” Olivia said.
I watched as T did the same to the other three faces so that they looked normal and human, and peaceful with their eyes closed.
Even the odor of charred flesh had vanished. Only the smell of burned sugar remained. I no longer felt a hint of the darkness remaining in the bodies, and my own energy started to flow back into me.
I stared at T for a moment when he was finished. “How did you do that?”
He studied the room. “We should start looking for clues.”
Adam and I exchanged looks.
“Thank you,” Adam said to T. “It would have been pretty damned bad for their extended families to see them that way.”
I nodded. It was hard enough having the images burned into my own mind.
People were still frozen around us and we had to dodge police officers and others as we searched for any kind of clues. I walked slowly around the house, checking each room and looking around furniture.
Then I found it.
“Hey.” I stared at the same image that had been on the faces, but it was much clearer on the wood floor of the dining room. It looked like it had been lasered into the wood, then painted with blood.
Smelled like it, too. “Get over here.”
They reached my side at almost the same time. Adam whistled through his teeth as T and Olivia crouched beside the symbol. I took a few pictures with my XPhone.
I lowered myself so that one of my knees was on the floor. I used my thigh to brace the pad so that I could do my best to sketch the symbol again, this time a lot more clearly and with more detail—at least the best I could with my limited artistic talents.
The symbol started with a flat, bumpy surface. It spiraled down, like a cone, but was jagged and uneven in what looked like layers.
“What does this thing mean?” Adam crouched beside me so that all four of us were down, examining the strange symbol.
“Not sure.” I shook my head. “I’ll have to check with my Proctor to see
if he has any idea. Derek, James’s partner, is an occult expert. I’ll scan and e-mail the image to Derek right away.”
I could see Olivia’s mind working overtime as she appraised the symbol. “We’ll do an Internet search to see if we come up with a match.”
“We can check a few symbol books, too,” I said. “I have some, and Rodán has a good-sized library. Then there’s always the public library.”
“Sure.” Olivia smirked. “Good ol’ New York Public Library. I’m sure it’s up to date on the latest Demons that escape through well-guarded Demon Gates.”
T’s voice came from my other side. “We have more on our hands than random acts by a rogue Demon.”
A chill ran through me, even though I’d been thinking the same thing. All I could do was nod.
Adam’s expression went from his usual calm to furious. “I’m going to get the fucking sonofabitch who did this to the kids, whatever it is.”
The fire in his eyes and the fact that he’d forgotten to watch his language in front of me like he normally did gave me a pretty good idea of just how angry he was. And how angry he’d keep being until we shut down the creature or creatures who committed these atrocities.
“I think this Demon is taunting us with this clue,” I said as I stuffed my XPhone into my purse.
T’s strong features seemed strangely impassive. “It wants to let us know what it can do. And maybe that it can’t be stopped.”
With her brows narrowed and her lips twisted into a frown, Olivia got to her feet. “We’ll find the sicko, whatever this Demon is, and it won’t have time to wish it could go home to Mommy.”
Adam had clear meaning in his eyes when he met my gaze. “I’m not letting the sonofabitch get away with this.”
He had so much courage and determination to fight whatever paranormal creature was evil and involved humans. And he was a mere human himself.
He’d helped me solve paranormal crimes against humans, but I’d never given him the chance to eliminate the threats. With my Drow abilities, I always managed to slip away from him and take care of business myself, at night. Vampires, Brownies, a rogue Werepack, Metamorphs. Because all of the cases had been so easy for me and Olivia to eliminate, there had been no need for additional backup—human or paranorm.
Demons Not Included: A Night Tracker Novel (Night Tracker Novels) Page 6
