by Gary Starta
“I didn’t even know you cast one.” I didn’t hear any mumbo jumbo in Latin.
As if Briana heard my thought, she responded.
“We don’t need to vocalize our spells. I simply evoked it with my mind.”
“So, what did you hear?”
“Breaking and entering. It’s an individual, and he’s disarmed the alarm. I hear his footfalls on the floor. Caitlin, I want you and Bastet to follow him; the front door is open, that’s how he got in.”
“Do you have any idea, what he is? His species?”
“No. So let Bastet lead. Don’t worry. She’ll know what to do.”
That’s what I feared. “I just want to make sure we’re clear here. We need information from this demon; I don’t want Bast to make him her midnight snack.”
Briana just gave a look that told me to stop talking and start walking. I had seen it before, on my dear Geoffrey’s face. Apparently I can exasperate FBI partners in two universes.
As Briana stated, the front door swung open easily enough. Unlocked and everything, demons sure are bold here. Not even bothering to tinker with a back entrance. I let Bastet lead as instructed. She mewled, sniffed and merrily went about her pursuit. “Go on, Bast,” I encouraged. “Bring Mommy that nice big rat.”
A simple enough plan, we would flush the demon out of the building and hopefully straight into Briana’s waiting arms. She had also cast another spell--a temporary one--to prevent the demon from exiting the building through any other window or door than the front entrance. Additionally, she cast some temporary force fields along the street to steer any civilians away from the scene. I had to admit I did admire that piece of magic. After all, police are supposed to protect the innocent.
While I was lost in thought, Bastet chugged far enough ahead to lose me. In the middle of chiding myself, I heard a growl. Apparently, Bastet had transformed into that panther creature. Now I hoped she wouldn’t confuse me with the suspect. I crept along walled cubicles, unable to see Bastet or her prey. Suddenly, a whoosh knocked me backwards. I flailed my arms to keep balance but eventually toppled. A reddish child size thing nearly stepped on me in his panic. Still on the floor, just about to raise my head, I saw a blackish blue blur whiz over me. Good I had stayed down. I withdrew my gun to help me feel like a detective, although I had failed miserably to act like one. I realized if we hadn’t brought along Bastet I would have botched the stake-out. As cases go this was a free lunch because the criminal worked alone and had targeted a company on an alphabetized listing. His actions screamed “arrest me!” But why was this so? I asked my humbled self this question as I made my way back to the building’s entrance. AD Grant had been right. It’s all about sending a message, not to lift merchandise. For goddess’s sake, the demon probably traveled here on foot. No way could he have stolen anything larger than a mouse--a computer mouse that is.
As I exited the building, I found the panther on top of the struggling demon. He cried for mercy, lying in parking space reserved for the handicapped. Briana, in no hurry to free him, had begun asking some questions while the being just continued screaming at her. “Okay, okay. I’ll talk. Just get this thing off me.”
Bastet transformed, shrinking in a blur. The next thing I knew, the tiny Tonk proudly pranced on the demon’s chest claiming victory. A true smack down if you asked me.
“So,” I said. “I hope you’re ready to talk, because if you were bluffing, this cat can change again.” I felt I had to say something to strike some fear in this tiny red man. Bastet, losing interest in her prey, had already begun sniffing out a nearby dumpster. “She’s mean,” I added. “You don’t want to cross her.” To add emphasis, I pointed my Browning at him.
He just held up his tiny red hands to me, still flat on his back like an overturned turtle. The only sound I could hear was Bast’s purring. “Come on, I know you can talk,” I said, more as a distraction.
“Don’t harm me. I can explain.”
“Please begin by stating how much you were paid to do this, because if you ask me it wasn’t enough; you all but used an alphabetized listing to spread your terror.” I waved my gun mockingly at him to emphasize the lack of terror in his attacks.
“You don’t understand. I’m a victim here. Nobody paid me. They threatened my family. I had to do this.” He looked at his shaking clawed hands as if they were listening to his diatribe.
“Who threatened you?” Briana asked.
“I don’t know.” Too scared to turn his neck, he just stared into the black night sky.
“That’s not a very satisfying answer. How about a time out? The kind where you’re locked in a jail cell with plenty of time to contemplate,” I said. I had to admit it felt kind of good, standing over a thug, gun pointed. Feeling empowered, in control. However, the sad look in the demon’s eyes threw me. He stopped arguing. His face filled with resignation. I could feel his despair without using any empathic abilities.
“Can you help lead us to the people threatening you?” I asked, crouching down to indicate I desired a give and take.
It worked. He nodded. Then he grinned at me and said. “You’re not from this world, are you? I saw you in the gym. I knew you weren’t the agent’s twin sister. I just knew it.”
I stood up. “Are you playing me? Do you think you’ll continue playing me?” I feigned some anger, kicking a stone with my sneaker.
“I can help you,” he said. “I can help you get back to your home--if you let me get back to mine.”
Suddenly the give and take had turned into a negotiation, one I was fast losing. I scrunched my face into a scowl and turned to Briana begging for some assistance. I thought I would be good cop here, but I was losing patience. I now depended upon Briana to play that good cop and to allow the demon to talk because if I continued this interview I might resort to pistol whipping. Not that I ever did that, mind you.
“What have you got to offer?” Briana asked gently, taking my cue perfectly.
“I have an orb. I found it when I bought my house. We bought all the furnishing too. It had been left in the attic.”
“Can you describe it?” Briana asked.
“It’s a small glass ball with some runes written on it. I think it’s a key to opening the portal. You can have it. Just let me get back to my family. If you don’t, they’ll know I betrayed them and then they’ll slay my family.”
I began shaking my head, contemplating his offer. If he spoke the truth, he was being blackmailed. It did make sense in a way. A small fish left hung out to dry. I said we could consider letting him go on the condition he maintain contact with his blackmailers. He explained that the blackmailer had been disguised in a ski mask, so he could not give a description. Yet, he felt the being to be human.
I paused for a long moment before finally speaking. I had to make it look like I was offering him the world. “We’ll let you leave. On the condition you maintain contact with us and give us your home address.”
He nodded. “I can do better than that. I’ll take you to my house myself, right now, so I can give you the orb.”
“If you were threatened, why didn’t you go to the police?”
He told me they nearly laughed at his story. They charged that he was just some money grubbing minion looking to make a quick buck on a lawsuit. So that’s what he was, a minion. Hmm.
He continued. “They said they wouldn’t help me file a discrimination lawsuit and that demons should know better than to move into an all human neighborhood. But I know my rights. It clearly states in the Fair Housing Act that a realtor cannot refuse a sale to anyone based upon race, creed, color or species.”
“But,” Briana said, “It doesn’t state that neighbors have to treat you with respect either.” She stared at me, giving me a living example of human bigotry.
“We’ll take you to your house now.”
He still looked despondent. I helped him to his feet and said, “Don’t worry about betraying them. Our report will state the building had been
broken into, vandalized and that the perpetrator had fled undetected. Now, you’ve got to live up to your deal. Wait for their next instructions. When they contact you, become demanding. State that you’re risking your life for their cause and that you need to know who they are to carry on.”
“But my family…”
“I’ll try to finagle some manpower to keep watch on your house, discreetly.”
“You must be really hot to nail these bastards. If I were you, lady, I would take the orb and return to your home.”
“How did you know I wasn’t a twin?”
“I have enhanced olfactory senses. I can literally smell that you’re not from this world. Now I don’t know how you ended up here, what’s more I don’t care--I just want my family protected.”
We escorted the minion to his home. He even volunteered his name--Josef Yilosk--probably hoping it might soften us to provide greater protection for his family. I took the orb, but didn’t look upon it as a bribe. I would have aided the demon either way. Still, I wondered if it could help me return home to my sister Tara. That is, after I apprehended Mollini.
I would also have to lie on my field report. Something I’ve done in the past, but only because my bosses didn’t believe in the supernatural. This time the lie would be for a different reason. I could see Yilosk had softened me. As I drove home with Briana and Bastet, I excused myself for my earlier behavior. I recalled my demand that all demons be arrested. Well, here was my first opportunity and I balked. I might have bartered with a human in the same predicament. Nevertheless, I had come one step closer to understanding this reality. That it’s not always the demon you need to fear, sometimes it’s the humans. My premonition that humans were behind the attacks was just a hunch, yet nonetheless a valid one. I would seek to prove this by meeting PI Doug Sweeney. He agreed to an immediate rendezvous with one call.
~ * ~
He looked just like my Sweeney, except for his slicked backed hair and tailored suit. Behavior wise, he carried himself confidently, spoke with a hint of arrogance; no, definitely not my nerdy friend who spent the lion’s share of his off time writing fantasy novels.
He flashed his PI license. I flashed my ID in response.
Professionalism. I already admired him.
Well, until he started talking.
He described his client, Claude Brahms as a silly old fool. Not a very nice thing to say.
“Why do you feel this way?”
“Gee, well let me think. His son’s a mass murderer and he thinks a reunion is going to be all handshakes and tears. Well, maybe the tears part… but come on now. The man you know as Mollini was definitely brought back to this world for a reason. We both understand this. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To glean his purpose?”
“Yes. And he did try to harm his father. But any parent would have done the same”
“Again, more tears… sob… sob.” He balled a fist to his eye in mockery. “If a parent’s silly enough to invite that kind of wrath upon himself then who am I to judge? I just take my fee and do my job.”
“That’s what I was wondering about. How did you do your job? How could you have possibly known about this thing I only know as a wish demon? And how did you track it?”
“Those are trade secrets, my very special agent. Even if you paid me, I wouldn’t disclose them.”
“So this is about money.” I fumbled in my purse for Diggs’s money. I felt cheap and guilty doing it; but if this man had to be bought…
My fumbling brought the crystal orb into Sweeney’s view.
“What have we got here?” he said this with a facetious smirk plastered across his smug face. At this moment, I really wanted to use this orb for something other than inter-dimensional travel but restrained myself; don’t ask me how. I pushed it back into my bag.
“Don’t worry,” he continued. “I won’t judge you. Oh, wait I already have. Well, I promise to stop judging you further, although you reek of desperation. You’re not from around here, are you?” he stated-more than asked, spreading his hands to encompass the sky.
“Uh. Of course I am. I showed you my badge, didn’t I?”
Again the smirk and again the consequent urge to smash the ball over his smug head.
“Well, okay then. I really don’t care where you’re from. But lady, if you made a deal for that you’ve been screwed--and not in a good way I might add.”
My face flushed. Damn. I had confirmed his suspicions. Now I would have to hope he would keep his mouth shut. “Here,” I said, reopening my bag. “I’m going to hire you to find some answers. And you’re going to keep your mouth shut about where I come from.” I held out several bills to him.
Apparently, they spoke volumes. His facial features relaxed, a grin began to take form. “You’ve got a deal,” he said.
I scribbled my name and number on the back of his business card and handed it to him. “Here’s how you can reach me.” As he took it, I practiced my most nonchalant speaking voice. “So tell me, Mr. Sweeney. Why do you have doubts about the authenticity of my orb?”
He folded his arms and leaned against his vehicle, a blue Porsche.
“It’s probably authentic. It just won’t work. Everybody knows that.” He cupped a hand over his mouth and whispered: “Even private dicks.”
“Look, I just hired you. To provide answers. Not to mock me.”
“A special incantation is needed to activate the orb. You’ve probably seen the runes on it. They light up when the right words are said. Thing is, nobody knows them. Anybody who did has already been killed. Quite horribly, I might add.”
“By whom?” Okay. I knew this question really intimated my full-blown ignorance of this reality.
“Probably the same ones who originally made them: The Knights of the White Temple. However, that’s just an educated guess or what some might call an urban legend.”
“If they made them, why don’t they use them?”
He laughed, snorted, and then cackled for good measure.
“Lady, you’re too much. You really aren’t from this dimension are you?”
He explained--after the humiliating laugher--that the Knights, in their quest to spread Christianity, ironically infected this reality with its first demons. “They came in through the portal; the first ones, sometime in the Twelfth Century. Nobody knows where the demons came from, but the Knights let them in. Serves them right; the arrogant bastards. Thinking they could spread their crusade throughout the universe. So after infecting the world with aliens, the Knights went about the task of destroying what has become to be known as their grail: The orbs. Hundreds had been made. They probably believed they would open doors to numerous dimensions. What they ended up achieving was something entirely different--a crusade against themselves, in their own world. Now rumor has it, the Knights exist in splinter cells, scattered throughout the world in a futile effort to keep their cause alive. But everyone knows the score. The demons have already won. Game over.”
“But not all the orbs were destroyed?”
“That’s right. They couldn’t find them all, so what they did was eliminate anybody who knew the incantation. It is believed they willingly killed members of their own order to ensure the portal couldn’t be opened again. However, here again they seriously erred. Even though humans were no longer capable of opening the portal, most demons had no problem. Ironically, most demons have no desire to access the portal anymore. They live in this world in peace, for the most part. But not everyone believes in this cohabitation, if you get my drift.”
I nodded. So these Knights of the White Temple could be behind the terrorist attacks. I might have broken the case with this knowledge. Yet, I didn’t feel like celebrating. It led me no closer to understanding Mollini’s motives. A demon had been used to open the portal to free Mollini. I doubted anybody who carried so much hatred for demons would get into bed with something they could only liken to pure evil.
“I appreciate the tutorial, Mr. Sweeney. However, I
have a more pressing case. As you know, I need to stop Mollini. Can you help me dig for information that might clue me into who hired the demon that freed him? I’m willing to pay you as long as is necessary.”
“You speak my language. Glad we’re on the same page.” He shook my hand. “You’ve got a deal. I’ll be in touch when I have Intel.” He hopped into his car, gunned the engine, and left.
I stood there for a long moment, befuddled, watching his Porsche disappear from my sight before I moved an inch. When I returned to my car, actually Brahms’s car, I recalled the Knights Templar from my reality. They had splintered into small groups over time to avoid persecution. They had launched a crusade only to see it turn upon themselves, just like these Knights of the White Temple. I sat in the car a while longer before starting the engine. The thought that this order still existed in my reality disturbed me. All those signs on the highway I had seen as a kid, fraternal brotherhoods; all possibly linked to the original crusade. I thought these people simply hosted fundraisers for charity. Man, did I have it wrong.
Fifteen
A fool… Could that be my mission? To serve as one in this altered reality?
Yes, I’m being sarcastic.
Nonetheless, I could go on with a whole laundry list supporting why I felt this way. The way Mollini played me at the portal--both times. My continued association with Judge Manners, the sleazy incubus who could conveniently flitter between two worlds, also ranked high on the list. Yet more recently, I paid an investigator, a smart ass PI named Doug Sweeney, to do my job. I had worked as both a Bureau agent and a PI. Why was I subcontracting my job? I tempered some of my anger at myself on the fact I did not have a clue as to how this universe operated. To some extent, this excuse merited some validity.
However, I could not overlook the one little thing I had done which could have quickly blown into holocaustic sized proportions. I had continued to drive Brahms’s car all around the DC area during the past two days. Might as have well launched a flare to tell everyone who is any demon where to find that quirky professor Brahms, the apparent number one enemy of soul stealer Aldo Mollini. Why he--Mollini--bartered with me at the portal to take Agent Diggs in place of Brahms is still an enigma. Reference above reasons for me being a fool I suppose. And while I don’t think Mollini would necessarily track his dad with a license plate, I had to believe whoever freed him would be aiding the manhunt for his father. As a consequence, maybe they--whoever, they were--had followed me the past few days.
