Everyone has Their Demons

by A. L. Kessler

  Take on zombies with your car once, and people never forget it. "I'll try, but I don't make any promises on the demon."

  "Abigail…" he said again, this time his voice lower.

  "Levi…" I imitated his voice. "Look, it's been a long night. I'm going to go to bed; tomorrow you can lecture me about my car and anything else. I'll be working some magic during the day before I go to the office. Tomorrow night," I looked at Mario, "I'll be ready to face Hannah by your side."

  Mario's eyes grew wide, and he looked at Levi and then back to me.

  "You're taking her with you to Hannah's?" Levi's voice was low and careful. "Into the heart of her territory for Keira's welcome home party?"

  "I thought it'd be best for the facade."

  "You didn't tell him?" My voice raised a pitch in surprise.

  "Go get some rest; I'll discuss it with him now." Mario waved his hand to dismiss me.

  Part of me wanted to stay for the conversation, but the other part of me knew I needed rest. I looked to Levi to see if I needed to leave.

  Levi shook his head. "Abigail stays. She needs to know what is at risk if she goes."

  "I've met the lady once already. I think I can survive a couple hours at a party. Of course, had you not kicked me out of the house for all the parties you threw, maybe I'd be more prepared."

  Levi closed his eyes, and I imaged he was counting to ten.

  "She's a bit snarky tonight." Mario tried to hide his smile.

  Snarky wasn't half of it. "Like I said, it's been a long night."

  Levi opened his eyes and motioned down the hallway. "To the lounge, we'll discuss this, and then you can go to bed. Your snark will get you killed, Abigail."

  "It hasn't yet."

  "You haven't been playing with the vampires long enough. Snark is not appreciated, especially from a witch." His voice was sharp, and I cringed a little bit. He said the word 'witch' almost like a curse, and it was a pretty sharp reminder that a lot of vampires thought they were better than witches.

  "Because you kept me out of that world and now I'm getting a crash course," I snapped. "So if we have to discuss this, let's do so. I'm tired. My car is destroyed. My research is gone. I'm having a shit night."

  He motioned for me to walk down the hall. I marched down with Mario at my back. We walked into the lounge. I brushed my hand over the pool table as I made my way to the mini bar to look for a bottle of wine. I opened the cooler and stared at the empty shelves. Damn it.

  I looked up to see both vampires staring at me. "Your bar is empty."

  "Shall we discuss Hannah?" Levi offered, ignoring me.

  I glanced at Mario. "I can't believe you didn't tell him. You were just going to whisk me out of the territory without saying anything?"

  "I knew that he would have told me that you couldn't go. Like an overprotective father." Mario looked at Levi. "But he knows that I am right. If we want this facade to work, then you must be with me when I go to Hannah."

  Levi nodded. "I don't like it, but we can't let Abby go in blind. Hannah's powers lean toward the sexual side, or it lies in pain."

  I sat in one of the oversized chairs against the wall. "I know, I had a taste of it while we went to speak to her about Keira."

  "It can get worse, but you have your magic to help stave it off." Mario sat in the chair next to me and stroked the top of my hand. Not long ago I would have moved it away, but I had learned that it was his strange way of trying to comfort me when he thought I was nervous.

  "You will have to depend on your magic as Hannah will probably steal Mario away from you, so he cannot protect you. Her parties are known for their sex and violence, not always mutually exclusive."

  I glanced at Mario. "Is the child vampire going to um…" I tried to figure out how I wanted to phrase it.

  He shook his head. "No, which is why I'm hoping Hannah will behave herself and not turn this into one of her escapades, but we never know."

  Well, thank the goddess for small favors. "I don't understand what the big deal is then."

  "It's your first time going to a vampire social event. It's out of my territory. And I can't do anything if Ira happens to show up or if something goes wrong." Levi shook his head. "You need to stay with Mario as much as you can. If Ira is there, you get home. Do not approach him."

  It hadn't occurred to me that Ira might show up to the event. "Ira's in town here though, and there's a current truce between us."

  Neither one of them spoke. "The truce is only for our territory, isn't it?"

  They both nodded, and I stood up. "Alright then, I'm going to bed. I got it. Stick with Mario, don't let anyone fuck me, bite me, or otherwise inflict pain, and leave if Ira shows up because apparently, we didn't think to extend the truce to other territories."

  "Only the territory leaders can okay the truce." Levi sighed. "Mario will be able to protect you."

  I had no doubt about that, but I still wasn't happy. "How do you guys manage to hide all these extra rules from the government?"

  "The same way werewolves do."

  No one talks about it, and no one asks questions. It was a really odd situation to be in as a PIB agent.

  "Got it. Good night." I walked out, giving them a small wave as I made my way to my room. The two of them started talking softly the moment I left. I had no doubt that Levi was telling Mario exactly what would happen if I got hurt the next night.

  ∞

  I woke earlier than I wanted the next morning. The clock said it was just after seven when I pulled myself out of bed. I needed to see if I could locate the demon or at least something on him. I showered quickly and went down to my chamber.

  The house was eerily quiet as I made my way to the basement. The chamber was a stone room that was magically enhanced not to let any magic out. Levi had it built when I was a young witch so that I had a place to practice magic without risking everyone in the mansion. It was a good call on his part.

  The room held a desk against the wall with a chair and drawers that held pretty much anything I needed for a spell. On the ground was a circle etched into the stone. This was home to me.

  I grabbed a map out of the drawer and demon skin out of my bag. I'd never tried to track a demon before, so I wasn't sure if this was even going to be possible. I sat in the middle of the circle and placed the map in front of me. Closing my eyes, I summoned my magic. The warmth of it moved through my body and reached out until it found the circle around me. When it closed, a little zap of electricity went through me, and I opened my eyes.

  I pulled the demon skin out of the bag and laid it on the map. I pricked myself with the tip of the knife and let my blood drop on the map while whispering in Latin. The blood soaked into the map and disappeared.

  The skin spun and jerked wildly around, never settling in one spot for too long. I waited for it to stop, to show me where the demon was, but with a little pop and a puff of smoke, the skin disappeared.

  I stared at the map, waiting for a trail of my blood to show, but nothing happened. It was like I had cast a dud of a spell.

  Well fuck. I ran my hand through my hair. This wasn't really what I was expecting, but now I was out any physical connection I had on the demon. I leaned back on my hands and looked at the map. Nothing showed up; it was as if my magic had just stopped.

  How the hell was I supposed to track the demon then? I was going to have to return to good old fashion foot work. I closed my eyes and pulled my magic back into me to let the circle down. I needed to go into the office and work on research and talk to Liz about what happened last night. I walked out of my chamber, giving one last look at the map. Sadly, nothing had changed.

  The house was still silent when I grabbed the keys to the Hummer and went to the garage. I smiled at the yellow Hummer sitting in the garage. It looked freshly washed, and the tires were new. I unlocked it and climbed into the driver's s
ide. It took me a moment to get everything adjusted before pressing the garage opener.

  I slowly backed the giant vehicle out and headed to the highway.

  I drove to the office to see a construction crew repairing the parking lot. I wondered what people thought happened since most of PIB had been empty when the demon attacked. I parked the Hummer and headed into the office. The receptionist gave me a small wave as I passed her desk and went to the stairs. I took them up to the third floor and went to my office.

  Swiping my key pass I let myself in, I stopped when I saw my doll had been moved to the other side of my desk. What the hell? I didn't feel any magic in the room, which was what the spell on the doll was supposed to prevent. The flamingo was still where it was supposed to be.

  I sighed and moved the doll back to the corner where it belonged, and a note fell from underneath it. There was only one person I knew who could get into my office undetected, and that was my uncle. I hadn't seen him since Levi accused him of trying to kill me.

  I picked the note up and looked at the chicken scratch. It wasn't my uncle's handwriting; no his was always nice and neat. This was a mess.

  'Came to see you for lunch, sorry to miss you. Liz'

  I let out a sigh of relief. At least it wasn't anything creepy or ominous. I didn't think I could handle that today. I put the note on my desk and went to try and boot up my computer. Nothing happened, and I assumed that IT hadn't gotten to it yet.

  I went to haul my laptop out when I heard a knock on the door. I saw Mason through the window in my door. I got up and let him in. "What's up?" I stepped to the side so he could get in.

  He walked in, and I shut the door behind him. "I have the identities on the bodies, it took us a bit, and I have their records here." He held up a packet.

  "Couldn't have e-mailed them?"

  "Wanted to go through them with you."

  I stepped aside so he could come in. "That makes me nervous."

  "As it should, they've both been suspects on serial murder investigations."

  That caught my attention. "Do you happen to have a list of who else was a suspect?"

  He nodded. "Why do you ask?"

  "There was a case five years ago with the same type of death. I want to know if that victim was also a suspect." I motioned for him to sit down in the chair in front of my desk.

  Mason sat down and opened the file, spreading out papers in separate piles. "Our first victim was originally living in Oregon, where the murders first started about six years ago."

  I sat down, and he flipped a picture to me. The man staring back at me was still young, so six years ago he would have been maybe twenty. His head was shaved, and a small scar crossed under his left eye. "Nice to see his face when it's not shredded to bits."

  "We were correct in his name is David Long. The association he has with our other victim, Scott Treble, is that they were both suspects. They were associated because of location from the time of the murders." He turned another picture around, and I looked at it.

  "Okay, where's the list of suspects?" I started flipping through the papers on the desk.

  "To your left, third paper down. Though it's the murders I'm interested in."

  I raised a brow. "Why?"

  "Because we just had one that came through the human side of things that matched the details."

  I took a deep breath. "Possibly a copycat?"

  "No, these details weren't released to the public." Mason put a paper in front of me.

  I glanced through the report. Everything seemed pretty simple until I got to the cause of death. Slit throat, slit wrists, and the back of the knees were sliced, the last two done postmortem. I frowned. "The PIB agent in me wants to pin this on a vampire."

  "They hadn't been drained of blood."

  I nodded. "Maybe I'm just paranoid. Which things were released to the public?"

  "Just the throat."

  Interesting. "If it were a copycat, it would have been someone who worked on the case."

  "Or a spouse who could have gotten information. The crew on it is looking into every possible angle."

  I flipped over to the suspect list. "Did they bring all the suspects in?"

  "The last two were killed in the same manner."

  Well, that would keep them from being brought in, but that also removed them from the suspect list. "Alright, I'll start searching the PIB database and see what I can find through that."

  He moved the images away and sat another paper in front of me. "This is the list of the serial killer's victims. They didn't catch him, but he disappeared off the radar."

  "Until now. Are we sure they are male?"

  "The DNA we found at the crime scene says yes, but there's no match in the database for him."

  But they had the DNA on file which would be helpful. "Okay, well, this takes us further down the rabbit hole, but at least there's something other than a demon to work with."

  "What happened in the parking lot, by the way? I saw your car."

  He reminded me that I needed to have it towed away. "A demon."

  He just shook his head. "Remember how we talked about you retiring early?"

  "And how I said no? Yeah, I remember." I grinned at him. "Thanks for all the information, it gives me more to go on."

  He nodded and gathered everything back into the folder. "You can keep these copies to look through. The crew on the newest case has orders to call you in if they find something to connect the demon case with it."

  I didn't like working with other teams because they weren't as trusting as Mason was, but Mason and I had worked a lot of cases together. "Okay, I'll make sure to let them know what I find as well if it can help with their investigation."

  "Thank you, Abby. I've got to go. Keep me updated."

  I was already looking through the file again. "I will. Stay safe."

  "You too, watch out for those demons."

  His voice was only half joking. I waved him away, and he let himself out while I started to study all the papers he had brought me.

  I looked over the papers and made notes until my alarm went off telling me it was time to go home. I had set it with enough time to shower and get ready before Mario would be there to whisk me away to some horror show of a party.

  I didn't want to admit it, but the nerves had started tightening in my stomach making me very well aware of the consequences if I screwed up tonight. I took a deep breath and gathered the papers up. Instead of leaving them at the office, I slid the file into my bag and headed out. I wasn't going to chance someone stealing more information. Even if the demon case wasn't related to Clarissa's…though if that was true, why had the demon showed up while Liz and I were working on Clarissa's case?

  Doubt started to fill me. Was the research really what they were after? Or was the demon there by chance? I shook my head and headed out of the office.

  ∞

  It'd taken me nearly an hour to get ready between the shower and taming the curls of my hair. I pulled out the red dress that I had stopped and gotten the day after Mario told me I needed it. I slipped into the dress and found my heels. They were a pair I'd bought with Clarissa for another event. My heart fell a little bit. I didn't have her anymore to help me out with things like this.

  Had it been a real date, and she was alive, she would have been over in a heartbeat to help me out. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Once I was sure I wasn't going to cry, I walked out of my room to find Merick standing there, one hand poised to knock on the door.

  "I just want to make sure you know what you're doing." He met my gaze. "Going with Mario to this may be dangerous, and I don't want to see you hurt on behalf of making him feel safer."

  "Just part of the facade Merick. It'd hurt this whole dating thing if I didn't show up for an important event like this." Of course, it hadn't escaped my thoughts that Mario had seemed scar
ed of me not wanting to go when I noticed that he was scared of Hannah.

  Merick nodded. "If you say so. I'll be here searching through what information we do have on the runes."

  "Don't wait up," I said as the doorbell rang.

  Merick wrinkled his nose, and in a moment he'd changed back to his Sphynx form. I carefully went down the stairs and let Mario in.

  He stood there wearing a red button up shirt and slacks, there was something a little bit darker in his eyes tonight, and it set me on edge.

  "Princess." He grinned flashing teeth, but the teasing didn't quite reach his eyes. He lifted his hand up and cupped my cheek, leaning in for a gentle kiss. His cold lips touched mine briefly and then pulled back. It was something I was getting used to; a faux greeting people would expect any time they saw us.

  Osiris meowed behind me and then let out a soft hiss before trotting off.

  "You ready to do this?"

  He let his hand drop to his side, and then as if he remembered he was going to have to take us, lifted his hand to me. "No, but again, I can't refuse an invite from my maker."

  I took his hand and nodded. "Well, hopefully, we make it out of this alive."

  He didn't respond, but the world around us changed and shifted, bringing nausea to my stomach. When it finally reknitted itself around us, we were standing in Hannah's sitting room. Though sitting room didn't quite match up to what it was.

  Red and black furniture and pillows were strewn about the room, many of them with humans laying on them with signs of being fed from. Last time we were here, it was just Hannah that came to greet us, but this time there were other vampires silently standing there, with Hannah standing in the middle, listening to a familiar sounding vampire.

  My breath caught in my throat as the vampire turned around. His charcoal suit reminded me of a business con man, all he was missing was a briefcase. His hair was pulled back at the base of his neck with a leather tie, leaving the burn marks on his face clear.

  The burn marks I had caused.

  "Ah, Mario and Abigail, right on time," Ira's voice grated against me, and I went for my gun that I didn't have.