Ibenus (Valducan series)

by Seth Skorkowsky

  "It's quite all right, my friend. I was expecting your call. How may I help you?"

  "Well." Gerhard licked his lips. "I was wondering if you've spoken with the buyer yet, about Umatri."

  "I have spoken with the new owner, yes." There was a mischief to the old man's voice.

  "Yes?"

  "And Umatri is yours."

  "But…I…how much?"

  "No money," Alex said. "It's yours. The weapon has chosen you and you may have it."

  "What?" he asked, unable to unwilling to believe the old man. This was a joke? Some cruel payback for a late night call?

  "It's yours, Gerhard. But you must do one thing."

  "And that is?" Excited tingles danced across his skin. Surely this was a joke. But he couldn't help himself.

  "You must come pick it up. Leave in the morning for Brussels. Tell no one where you are going. You must stay one week. After that, Umatri is yours and you may do whatever you wish."

  "A week? Mister Turgen, I can't—"

  "For Umatri," he interrupted. "You can."

  Gerhard's supervisor wouldn't let him have a week off. It wasn't possible. He'd lose his job. He'd lose everything. Everything but Umatri. He'd already planned to spend his savings on it. How was this different? "All right," he said, finally. "One week."

  "Excellent. I'll pick you up at the station when you arrive."

  Chapter Six

  Victoria sat silent on the bench seat, staring out the window as they followed empty streets lined with sleeping houses. The giant black man was driving. She'd recognized his voice and that iron mace from Manchester. The other one had called him Luc. A slip. His face looked familiar, but she couldn't place it. Maybe from one of the internet videos, but she knew that wasn't it. The short-haired Englishman with the Egyptian sword had admitted he was the one who had tried to save James after leading them into that godforsaken building. Victoria had assumed that the redhead, Sam– a second slip– had been the last of their team; likely the van's driver in Manchester. If only she'd been prepared for the fourth member, the dark-haired woman now seated behind her with an unsheathed sword. Victoria had assumed there were three and, as her old IPLDP instructor had drilled into their heads, to ‘assume makes an ass of you and me.’

  They'd handcuffed her wrists in front and not behind her back, thank God. With some luck, she might be able to grab the door handle, maybe a weapon if there was an opening. They also hadn't killed her. But what of the elderly man living in the house they'd gone into? Was he dead? She'd seen him the day before when she trailed them. He looked odd with his enormous nose, but he wasn't a monster. Why would they murder an innocent recluse and keep her alive after threatening them? "Where are you taking me?"

  "Quiet," the woman behind her growled. "You're lucky to be alive right now, so shut up."

  "We're taking you somewhere to talk," the Englishman said, not looking up from his phone screen. "You wanted to talk, so that's what we're going to do."

  "Then why am I handcuffed?"

  The man turned around. He'd have looked handsome with his dark hair and sharp chin if he didn't appear so angry. "Because you pressed a shotgun against my friend's head, and I'm not going to risk you doing that to anyone else."

  Victoria ground her teeth and looked back out the window, dark images of water boards and bright interrogation lights playing through her imagination. She knew why they were keeping her alive. And once they discovered what she knew and how she'd found them, she was dead. Well, they'd never get it from her. Victoria wondered who was on the other end of that phone.

  Five minutes later, the Englishman nodded ahead. "There. That's good."

  Luc pulled the van up to a concrete biking trail alongside the river. A lone picnic table sat beside it, looking out over the water.

  The Englishman stepped out of the vehicle and opened the sliding door. He'd left his gun belt and khopesh in the front seat. "All right." He held up the handcuff key. "Let's talk, Detective Martin."

  Victoria eyed the key. James had taught her this trick. The false promise of freedom for information or to merely wear down the prisoner's resolve. She could play this. A faint grin pulled at her lips as she extended her cuffed wrists.

  He unlocked them and dropped them in his pocket.

  "Thank you," she said, hiding her surprise.

  He led her to the table and sat down. A symphony of frogs and insects droned along the riverbank. "Please," he said, gesturing to the other side.

  She took the seat and the brunette with the scimitar sat down beside the man, her sword still in her hand.

  "Don't worry about the sword," he said, catching Victoria's gaze.

  The woman gave a wicked little grin. Her left eye had swollen a little since she'd peeled off her mask. A little memento from their fight. "It keeps you from screaming."

  "No," the man said, a scolding edge to his voice. "It prevents anyone from hearing you scream. But you're not going to do that, and we're not going to hurt you." He gave a cold look to the young woman. "Are we?"

  The sound of rolling tires drew Victoria's attention. The girl, Sam, parked Victoria's car behind the van. The blue LED of a phone's headset glowed from her ear and she was speaking. How many people were they talking to?

  The bench creaked as Luc sat down beside Victoria, but he kept his distance.

  "You said you wanted answers," the Englishman said. "Ask."

  Victoria swallowed, her mind stumbling as the ten thousand questions all raced to the front. But the most important, the simplest, pushed itself out first. "Who are you?"

  "We're demon hunters," he said plainly.

  "Demons," she repeated, eying his tactical attire. "You don't look like priests."

  "Not that kind of demon. We kill monsters…physical manifestations of demonic possession."

  "Monsters? Like that thing that attacked me?"

  He nodded.

  "And that's what was in that house tonight?"

  Sam approached and handed Luc a computer tablet without even looking at Victoria. She walked back to the car as he scrolled through the screen.

  "Yes," the Englishman said, ignoring them. "That was a tengu. It's a…different breed."

  "I don't understand. How is a monster a demon?"

  "It's…" He sighed and ran his finders through his dark hair. "There are thousands of monsters in folklore from all over the world. Most of those are just superstition, but some of them are real. They're demonic spirits, that when they possess a host, human or animal, they transform them into a monster. That's what we kill."

  Victoria nodded, remembering the witness reports and fuzzy photographs, the insane ramblings of internet nutters now making sense. "Why the weapons?"

  He shared a moment's look with the brunette, as if debating how much to reveal. "Demons can only die from a holy weapon. Guns and other weapons can't hurt them."

  "And just to get this straight," she said. "We're discussing monsters like werewolves and vampires, ghouls, goblins."

  "Correct." He gave a little smile. "Except for goblins. Those aren't real."

  Luc grunted a chuckle.

  "So tell me, if a holy weapon is the only thing that can kill them, why haven't they just taken over?" she asked, channeling the most common naysayer mantra from the websites. "Infected everyone?"

  "It's not like that," he said. "It's not some disease that passes around." He rubbed his fingers, as if trying to articulate the thought. "Let's say a demon bites you…well, it doesn't have to be a bite necessarily. Some use sex, or some other type of domination. In that act they mark your soul, and that means they can take you over. But that's all it means. A werewolf bites a hundred people, there's not a hundred werewolves, there's only a hundred potential werewolves, but there's still only one."

  Victoria chewed her lip. It made sense. About as much as everything else did. Then she saw the hole in the logic. "All right," she said carefully. "You say normal weapons don't
hurt them?"

  "Correct."

  "They killed those baby-faced things just fine. How was that possible?"

  Luc offered the tablet to the Englishman, showing him something. The Englishman nodded. "Those weren't demons. Those were…minions."

  Victoria raised a brow.

  "Some demons can imbue their power into other creatures. Sometimes as a familiar, which is essentially human, but under the demon's control. Others times they can do it to a corpse. Those screamers you saw in Manchester were made from dead vermin. Those you can kill with mortal weapons."

  Screamers, she thought, the memory of the doll-faced bugs sending shivers along her neck. Fitting name. "So that's why you carry guns?"

  He nodded. "Partially. But certain elements can also harm a demon's body. Shoot a werewolf with a silver bullet and you can kill its host. The spirit moves to another, unharmed, so we try not to do that unless we have to. Which brings up a point." He leaned closer. "How exactly did you come to know there was a demon in Amiens? It's not like it even matched the description of the one that attacked you."

  Victoria tongued her cheek, her gaze passing over the graffiti-etched table. "I started by looking for those but didn't find anything more than what I already knew. But it led me to a lot of cryptid websites and forums. Mostly rumors and questionable photographs of Loch Ness and Black Shuck."

  "Any particular sites?"

  She brushed at a mosquito buzzing in her ear. "Not especially. Mostly useless, except that they turned me on towards monsters in general. So then I thought about the weapons. At first I assumed that they were for silence, but then I thought, 'Why those weapons?' A khopesh isn't exactly a normal choice. Why not a fire axe or crop knife. So I started searching for unsolved killings or monster sightings related to primitive weapons." She met his eyes. "That got results."

  "Websites about us?"

  "No." She shrugged, hiding the lie. "Nothing so organized. But I found some rumors, other weapons, more bad photographs. But that led me to broaden my search. More than once a sighting was followed by an unrelated murder or fire and then no more sightings. So I decided to keep the search up for new sightings, try to figure out which ones might be real and not just some prank or cry for attention, and go check it out."

  "You lost your job after the attack?"

  "Yes."

  "Because you told them about what you saw?"

  Victoria chewed her lip, biting back the anger. "A good man died."

  "I'm very sorry that happened." He drew a breath, about to say more, but turned as Sam approached.

  She pulled the headset from her ear and offered it to him. She mouthed something. Durgen? Turgen?

  He quickly accepted it and hooked it onto his own ear. "Yes?" He held up a finger to Victoria, and stepped away, speaking low and his back to her.

  There was no need to question who they were discussing. What, was a different matter. She turned, looking up at Luc. "I have another question."

  He nodded.

  "Why the secrecy? You know these things are real. You know they're killing people. Why are you hiding it?"

  His jaw tightened, the muscles rippling. He appeared as though he wasn't going to answer, but finally he spoke. "How do you propose we tell people?"

  "Well, you start by telling them."

  "Oh." The corners of his mouth tightened into that little smile you give a child that excitedly tells you something obvious. The black void of a missing tooth at the corner ruined the line of white. "And they'll believe us? Tell me how. Demons change back to human when they die, leaving no trace. No blood. No DNA. Nothing someone can hold up and show as real. Footprints? Photographs?" He shook his head. "Those can be faked."

  "But they are real," she said, hearing the weakness in the statement as she said it.

  "Prove it. That's what they'll say." He opened his broad hand. "Look at alien conspiracies. You were a police officer. Would you believe those without proof?" He shook his head. "But let's pretend. We'll say that people do believe. What will they do when you tell them that there are monsters living among us? That there's no way to prove who is human and who isn't? What would happen if police said that there was a psychopath living in a community, someone who would eat them and their children?"

  Victoria turned from his gaze and looked out across the black water, its ripples crested with moonlight. "They'd panic."

  "Panic?" He gave a humorless chuckle. "They'd go insane. Begin searching for any telltale signs. Then the accusations. Old hatreds would surface. Now they're not just the wrong race or religion or just different, but not even human. No guilt to be had by getting rid of them. Don't think that won't happen. Hatred thrives on justification.

  "Now let's tell them that the only way to kill these monsters is with a holy weapon. What then?"

  She didn't answer. The buzzing mosquito returned.

  "Holy weapons would become celebrities," he said. "Everyone would know them and their owners. Reporters would follow them. Do you think we could just show up in a city without anyone knowing? Everyone would know and then the demon would simply jump to a new body and escape.

  "But that's just the beginning. If holy weapons are the only true way to rid ourselves of demons, then holy weapons become national security. Nations will fight for them. A new arms race. Everyone will want one, and they'll want to have the most. There are more countries than holy weapons and people will come for them. So now you have Russia, China, the United States all sitting on their stockpiles and other countries will have to beg for their protection. Now the politicians can say, 'No, you didn't sign this trade agreement, or we don't like your policies, so now your people can get eaten and die without help.'" He held her gaze. "Don't tell me it can't happen."

  Victoria shook her head. Over Luc's shoulder she saw the Englishman click off the phone. He walked back and slid into his seat as Luc started speaking.

  "Good," Luc said. "But why stop there? Now your country has a stockpile and can kill the monsters. Now the monsters can become your weapons. You can control them."

  She snorted. "No. I don't see that."

  "Really?"

  "No. Not if they knew that much about them. That's too big of an assumption."

  Luc shrugged. "History says otherwise. You ask me why we don't tell the world the truth? The reason is because humanity can't afford it."

  "That's right," the curly-haired brunette said from beside her.

  "But keeping innocent people ignorant of the threat leaves them victims," Victoria said. "How many lives might be saved if people only knew what was out there?"

  "Now there's one less." The Englishman set his hands on the table, one atop the other. "You wanted answers. There they are. That's all we can give you."

  "Wait." She straightened. "That's it? That's all you're going to tell me?"

  He nodded and checked his watch. "We need to leave."

  "But I have more questions."

  "I'm sure you do." He licked his lips. "So, you can go back home with the answers you have and do whatever you like with them." He leaned closer, his brown eyes peering into hers. "Or…you can come with us and I'll teach you to be a hunter."

  "What?" the curly-haired girl and Victoria blurted in unison.

  Luc stared at him, brows creased in some dire, unspoken question.

  "You've lost your job. And no police force is willing to hire you. You've dropped off social media. Your bank accounts are nearly depleted. There might be something in private security, but—"

  "Stop." Victoria clenched her teeth at the feeling of being violated. They'd gone through her accounts, her life, and the wreck they'd become. "Are you…offering me a job?"

  "I am, yeah. You've experienced something terrible and nothing is going to change things back to how they were before. You've seen what's going on so I'm offering you a chance to look further, to do something about it." He shook his head with a little smile. "You tracked us down. There's a lo
t we can learn from you and there's a lot I can teach you."

  Victoria studied his face. He seemed sincere.

  "Of course if you don't wish to, that's all right. We can—"

  "No," she blurted. "I'm interested."

  "Good."

  "Just one thing, though. I don't know your name."

  He smiled and offered his hand. "Allan Havlock, protector of Ibenus. And I'm happy to accept you as my student."

  Chapter Seven

  Gerhard watched out the rain-streaked window as the train glided alongside the platform into Brussels-South station. Running a hand along his bristled cheek, he regretted that he hadn't shaved before leaving. In the excitement and rush to pack after speaking with Alex, he'd forgotten about it. Only after boarding did he realize that he'd also forgotten his phone charger. No matter. Both were easy to correct. Though the untidiness irked him, if Alex could forgive a 2 a.m. call, then surely he could forgive a little stubble.

  Passengers erupted from their seats as the train stopped, instantly flooding the aisle. Gerhard remained seated, waiting for them to pass as he scanned the platform for Alex or his Russian assistant, or bodyguard, or whatever he was. The five-hour ride from Stuttgart had afforded him ample time to ponder Alex's intentions. What exactly was Gerhard to do for Umatri? What services was he expected to provide over the next few days? Surely the old man required some compensation for such an artifact. Whatever it was, Gerhard would complete his payment and in a week's time return home, the keris his. He'd told his supervisor he had a family emergency, naming an aunt he hadn't spoken with in the three years since his mother's death, and he hadn't been sacked. His job secure, his savings again safe, Gerhard looked forward to when this strange adventure would be but memory. With a hopeful smile, he slid from his seat and made his way to the exit.

  The noise of shuffling bodies and a thousand conversations in Belgium-accented French and German accosted him as he stepped off the train. Rain pelted the metal ceiling above. Gerhard looked around, and spotted Taras, dressed in a tight, gray T-shirt tucked into jeans, headed toward him, a paper coffee cup clutched in one hand. Bright tattoos of monsters sleeved one arm down to the forearm. Their snarling faces and bloodstained fangs stirred a shiver, reminding Gerhard of his dreams.