Everyone has Their Demons

by A. L. Kessler

  I went back into the living room to see Merick lounging on the couch. I sipped my coffee and sat next to him. "We need to find out what those runes are."

  "I've exhausted all my outlets, so unless you have something magical up your sleeve, we're still at a dead end."

  "I can use the PIB database now without raising suspicion." I smirked. "That gives us someplace new to start."

  "And if they don't have them in their database?" Merick looked over at me. "Not everything can be answered by a simple computer search."

  I shrugged. "If they aren't in there, then I start talking to some other witches and warlocks who might have some ideas on what they might be."

  "Dangerous questions to be asking when dealing with black magic."

  I gave a short laugh. "I've dealt with worse." I swirled my cup. "You said you couldn't take me to where the cult found the runes because then you'd have to kill me."

  "Or you'd have to join the cult." There was a half joke in his voice, but the words were serious.

  "Can you tell me if there was a body there?"

  "Like Clarissa's scene, we don't know what the purpose was for nor if the warlock was killed by black magic or was killed as a sacrifice."

  I didn't like the sound of that. "Okay, that's good to know. We might be dealing with the same person or group of people. Which isn't comforting, but it may also mean that it wasn't personal."

  "That's a step forward."

  "Well, had you guys shared that information before, then I would have connected dots a little bit sooner." I downed the rest of my coffee. "I'm going to go get ready."

  "I have to go handle some Cult things today, so I'll see you back here later. Stay out of trouble."

  That was always something easier said than done. I threw my coffee cup away in the kitchen then headed upstairs to get ready for the day.

  I grabbed a quick shower and got dressed in my standard PIB black shirt, black pants, and combat boots. I grabbed my new shoulder holster and holstered both guns before covering them with a jacket. I wasn't paranoid, just prepared.

  When I got back downstairs, Merick was gone already, and the alarm was still deactivated from when he left, so he wasn't far ahead of me. I walked out, pressed the button on the keypad to lock the door and arm the system, then walked to my car.

  In the last couple years, I'd gone through five cars, all destroyed in their own way. Instead of replacing them with newer cars, I'd forked over a couple grand for a car that ran. Its mismatched doors and scrapes and bumps were a bit deceiving. The engine was newer, so were the breaks, but if it was blown up, washed off a mountainside or taken out by poltergeists, at least I wasn't out of gobs of money. Again.

  I got in and started the engine. I could face work today because it meant I wouldn't be around the house thinking about Clarissa and the possible vampire trap Ira set for me. I'd just have to ignore the fact that the runes I'd be studying would be for Clarissa's case. I could do this.

  ∞

  My phone rang right as I pulled up to the downtown PIB building. I hadn't even parked yet when I answered the phone on speaker. "Special Agent Collins speaking."

  "Agent Collins." Detective Mason's voice came through the speaker with a bit of background noise. "Are you in the office?"

  "I just pulled in, what's up?" I found a parking spot and put the car in park, before picking up the phone and taking it off of speaker.

  I heard him shout something behind him that sounded vaguely like 'don't touch it.' "What do you have for me, Mason."

  "How about a body torn to shreds in an apartment?"

  "Well, you know that sounds interesting and all, and could be up my aisle, but you've got to give me something that says it's black magic now."

  He grumbled, and I couldn't help but laugh. "Okay, there's something odd about the blood patterns, there's a book on demons, and the corpse of a goat."

  Well, that sounded more like it. "Text me an address, and I'll head down that way."

  "Will do. I'm glad you're okay to come in." I didn't miss the worried tone of his voice.

  "You know me, Mason, I like to stay busy and distracted when shit hits the fan." I forced a laugh.

  His chuckle sounded just as forced. "You always have Abby, see you soon." He disconnected the call, and I waited for the address to come through in the text.

  I stared up at the big building that housed most of the PIB agents. About six months ago, it had been blown up and then rebuilt. It supposedly killed my partner at the time, but I had gotten little clues letting me know that he was somehow still alive. Part of me hoped that's how it was going to turn out with Clarissa.

  But I knew better.

  Nick had secrets. Clarissa didn't, at least not like Nick's. My phone dinged, and I looked at the address. It was only a couple miles away in an apartment complex. I pulled directions up on the phone's GPS and pulled out of the parking lot. This would be a good distraction, but it meant that I wasn't going to be able to get to the office right away to research the runes.

  I pressed my lips together and drove. If there were something in the system, Liz would have found it. That's probably why she came to me, as a last resort. That meant running them through the system probably wouldn't pull up anything. It could wait.

  I drove through the backroads since it was so close and it meant avoiding the highway traffic. I stopped at a red light and watched as a group of people shuffled across the road. I blinked as I thought I saw Nick with them. The brown hair cut looked right, so did the height, but the upturned collar blocked his face from me.

  I shook my head; I was going crazy. I was seeing what I wanted to see and not what was there. I needed to get ahold of myself before I made it to the scene. I took a few deep breaths as the light turned green and I eased my car forward to stick to the speed limit.

  By the time I saw the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles and the press vans, I had calmed down and reminded myself that if Nick wanted me to find him, I would have. I parked about a block away and walked to the apartment complex. The crowd parted, and I noticed that my least favorite person was missing. I was glad that Stephanie wasn't there, or I might have gone apeshit. I didn't want to deal with the woman at all today.

  I ducked under the PIB crime scene tape and walked up the couple of steps that led into the apartment complex. Mason was standing there with an officer talking. They both paused when I got there.

  "Please don't tell me it's a basement." I glanced down the steps that led to the bottom apartments.

  Mason shook his head. "Nope, second floor."

  Well, that was a first. Normally all the crazy stuff happened in basements, mass graves, living dolls, the likes. Who would summon a demon on the second floor? Apparently, they didn't get the memos about the basement thing.

  I motioned to the stairs leading up. "Lead the way, oh fearless leader."

  "Go on up; I'll join you in a minute, first door to your right as soon as you get up the stairs.

  I moseyed up the stairs. The second floor spread out at the top of the staircase, an apartment to my left and one on the right, between them was a laundry room with a wide opening allowing me to see the coin-operated machines.

  Following Mason's instructions, I went to my right and walked through the open door of the apartment. I nodded to the officer standing guard and looked around. The entryway led into an open layout with the living room being front and center. I knew exactly what I was looking at the moment I walked in. The upside-down pentagram held runes that were meant to not only summon a demon but trap it within the circle. It had burned itself into the floor of the living room; the charred black lines were complete, telling me that it hadn't been broken.

  But that didn't mean there wasn't a demon on the loose.

  A couch and recliner had been moved against the far wall to make room for the magic, but other than that, t
he room was empty of normal things people filled their living rooms with. I pressed my lips together and looked at where a goat corpse was lying next to the circle; its throat cut and the blood gathering in a bowl under its neck. I walked further in, the smell of blood made me wrinkle my nose. Blood normally dried quickly, unless there was a massive amount of it.

  The start of a dried blood trail touched the edge of the circle and led toward the single hallway in the apartment. I followed it, careful not to step on it, dry or not I didn't want to disturb the evidence.

  The lines became thicker, and instead of dry and crusty it was semi-dry and tacky at the bigger spots. It was still a fresh scene. Interesting.

  "Mason, who called this in?" I called over my shoulder.

  He didn't answer me, but he might not have been able to hear me since he was downstairs. The trail took a curve into the bathroom halfway down the hall. I covered my mouth as I gagged. A middle-aged male hung from cuffs to the shower bar, and the body looked like someone took a shredder to it. Blood still dripped down off the strips of flesh.

  I tried not to throw up. Blood splattered the bathroom, dried brown marks all over in sprays. I closed my eyes. Holy cow.

  "Special Agent Collins?" Mason's voice caught me off guard.

  I opened my eyes and looked at him. He stood there with another officer at his side.

  "I have a feeling there's a demon on the loose."

  "How much do you know about demons?"

  I pressed my lips together. "I've seen a lower-class demon summoned by an Ouija Board, it could hop bodies, and it was easily dealt with. But this…" I motioned to the body. "I'm not sure what happened here."

  "What do we need to look out for? How do we know if it's on the loose or not?"

  "I can tell you that if this is the person who summoned it, it wasn't put back where it belongs." I turned away from the body. "You watch out for attacks that seem out of the ordinary, things like this, with no motives attached to it."

  I went back to the living room and moved a set of books that had been sitting on the table. All demonology books, how to summon them, how to control them, making deals with the devils. "We find out more about our victim and see if that can lead us to what kind of demon he was trying to summon. Who called this in?"

  "Maintenance man. Said he was helping the neighbor with a problem and they heard the screaming."

  I flipped open the book on summoning a demon. "And how long until you got here?"

  "We were on scene within ten minutes."

  So everyone barely missed the demon. "Well, it looks like I have some research on demons to do." I wasn't going to admit it out loud, but I was feeling a little in over my head.

  Mason looked over my shoulder at the book. "I feel like summoning a demon would leave a nice black smear on your aura."

  "Yes, it would. Do we know anything about this guy?" I shut the book. The living room didn't hold any pictures, so I didn't know what he even looked like, other than a shredded hundred or so pounds of human flesh. I gagged again.

  Mason raised a brow. "Weak stomach?"

  "Can't get the image out of my head. ID?"

  One of the officers came up and handed me a wallet. "This was found in the bathroom."

  I looked at the bloodstained leather and took it from the officer. I flipped it open and looked at the ID. "David Long." I flipped it shut and handed it back to the officer. "Get Jason out here and see if he can get any confirmation on that." I looked down at the books again and over at the runes again. "Have forensics send me the pictures they take, and I'll see if we can get down to a rune base to see if there's a coven involved in this." The runes weren't the same as the ones at Clarissa's crime scene, but the base did seem similar. If they were related, I'd be off this case too. I pressed my lips together and hoped that wasn't the case.

  "Do you think it was the local coven?"

  I shook my head. "No, different rune base and no one would bring this kind of attention to it."

  "Alright, I'll have them send the pictures over. Are you going back to the office?"

  "Yeah, as soon as I take one last look around. I want any clues on where the demon might have escaped the closed circle." I walked up to the circle and knelt by it. The smallest crack in the circle could have broken the seal, but there wasn't as much as a hairline break. The burn pattern was perfect.

  I pressed my lips together trying to think of how to handle this situation. Had he drawn a physical circle before burning it into the wood? Did he maybe make a mistake? I wasn't going to try and recreate it to find out. I knew better than to play with demons.

  Mason left me to do my looking around, and I assumed he was going to talk to the various teams around the crime scene. I pulled away from the circle and back to the books. I took quick notes of the titles on my phone so that I would be able to look them up later.

  I followed the blood pattern again, noting where it looked like the body was dragged versus carried. The whole thing reminded me of a bad horror novel, and I waited for a demon to just appear out of nowhere and shout 'boo.'

  It didn't happen. Which was probably a good thing.

  The body hadn't changed in the last few minutes. It still hung there in strips, almost like a curtain. I found myself hoping he hadn't been alive when he was torn apart, but I knew better. Chances were the screams the witness heard were his. I shuddered at the thought and turned away from the body. There was nothing else in the bathroom that I needed to see. I walked out and went down the other half of the hallway to find the bedroom to my left. It was a decent size room, but the bed took up most of it. The crumpled blankets were squished more in the middle of the bed than to one side.

  I paused at that fact. It looked like two people slept in the bed. Pillows on each side of the bed, two subtle dents in the mattress, and two night stands. One was suspiciously empty. Interesting.

  The dresser drawers were pulled open and half empty, the closet was also half empty. So either the person managed to have time to leave after the death, or left before. I doubted someone could clear out in less than ten minutes. I walked over to the bed and noticed a suitcase sticking part of the way out from under the bed.

  I bent down and pulled it out and found the clothes and items haphazardly shoved in the case.

  "Agent Collins?" Mason's voice came from the doorway, and I turned around. "Have we talked to the landlord about the tenants yet?"

  "Tenants? Multiple?"

  I nodded. "From the looks of it, yeah. And a girlfriend was most likely planning on leaving him." I motioned to the case. "We need to find them."

  "This could have been a lover scorned kind of deal? Hired a demon to kill an ex-lover? Or soon to be ex-lover?" Mason shook his head. "I feel like that's a lot of work to go through."

  I stood and took a step back. "No, you don't summon demons for something like that. But you're right; if you summon a demon, it's most likely to kill someone in the most painful way possible."

  "The demon you dealt with before, who did they kill?"

  "It terrorized a book fest. Luckily, we got it under control before it killed someone." And it was luck. "I need to get back to the office and do some research. I'll talk to the landlord on my way out."

  "I'll call you if anything else shows up."

  I gave him a short nod before I left the room. I made my way out of the apartment and headed toward the leasing office just across the parking lot. I hadn't seen anyone on the scene that looked like a civilian, so I assumed the landlord was in the office trying to handle things from there.

  I opened the door to see a lady on the telephone, looking just a little bit pale in her red blouse. She put her hand up as I flashed my badge, telling me to wait a moment. I put my badge away and took a seat in the wingback chair that was against the wall. I could patiently wait as she finished up her phone call.

  "I understa
nd, but I have no information at this time." She paused. "Yes, I'll make sure to keep everyone informed the best I can." She hung up the phone and took a deep breath before plastering a fake worn out smile on her face. "How can I help you, officer?"

  I stood and held my hand out. "I'm Special Agent Collins, and I need to talk to you about the tenants in the apartment."

  "What do you need to know?"

  "Can you tell me who was living there?"

  She nodded and turned to the computer and typed a couple things. "There are a David Long and a Starla Porter that signed the lease, but all the checks came in under David's name."

  Maybe she was just a girlfriend that was planning on leaving him. "Do you have a contact number for Starla?"

  She nodded and grabbed a sticky note, then jotted the number down. "That's all I have for her. If she shows up here, I'll let her know that you need to speak to her."

  "Thank you." I took the sticky note and put it in my bag. "Did you know much about David?"

  She shook her head. "No. They've been living there for about three years now. Quiet, kept to themselves, always paid their rent on time. There's not even as much as a maintenance request on their account."

  Of course, the people summoning demons were the quietest, because they didn't want anyone to know what they were doing. There was one thing I was curious about though. "Did anyone complain about a goat?"

  Her eyes widened a little bit. "We got a complaint this morning that there were goat noises, but we assumed it was a television because we couldn't pinpoint what apartment it came from."

  "Thank you for your time. If I have any more questions, I'll give you a call Miss?"

  "Linky." She nodded. "I'm the office manager."

  "Thank you, Ms. Linky."

  I walked out of the office and back to my car. I walked around it once to make sure there wasn't anything hanging off it. The spell on it told me no one had messed with it, but I always liked a visual confirmation.

  Getting in the car, I mentally went over my next steps before heading back to the office.