by DC Malone
“Listen, the Congregation is an abstraction to me,” I replied. “I don’t know the members. I don’t know anything. Just what Luka decides to tell me. I’m not a threat, even if I wanted to be. Which I don’t.”
“And what if you decided you did? Want to be a threat, I mean. How hard would it be for you to find the people you wanted to hurt? You’re good at what you do, Meredith. And much of what you do revolves around finding things and people who don’t want to be found.”
I sighed, exasperated. “Okay, I give up. We could go back and forth on this for the rest of the day without getting anywhere. What do you want me to say or do? Are you here to kill me? Am I that much of a potential threat?
Gwen’s youthful expression returned in full force as her eyes widened. “God, no! I’m not here to kill you, Meredith.” She somehow managed to shrink back from me without leaving her chair. “I’m only here to give the Congregation the best information and advice that I can?”
“And what do you advise them in this case?”
She swallowed. “That, perhaps, you might warrant some closer oversight.”
“You want someone to spy on me?”
“Observe you. For your own sake as much as for the interests of the Congregation.”
I groaned, finally understanding what this meeting was really about. “I don’t suppose you have someone in mind for that particular job, do you?”
A bright smile lit her face. “As a matter of fact…”
Chapter 20
“Absolutely not.”
“Meredith, come on. It’s not like I’m gonna be your probation officer or anything.” Gwen wrinkled up her brow. “Well, actually, it kind of is like that. But I’ll be a nice one. We’re in this together, you know? I care about how you come out of this craziness just as much as anything else.”
“Listen, Gwen, I’m sure—”
“And before you say anything else, consider one thing. This is the gentle way of doing things—my way. If things escalate, someone more heavy-handed than me will try it another way.”
“You’re threatening me?” I could feel my frustration turning over to anger. Things were complicated enough without having to consider a tagalong or veiled threats.
“No, I am absolutely not threatening you. Let’s get that out of the way right now. I will never threaten you—I’m a thinker, not a fighter. But while the Congregation is many things, it suffers from the same problems any other long-lived organization might suffer from, and one of those things is a lack of imagination. They will try to find the simplest solution to their problem—that problem being you in this case—which, at the very least, might mean cutting ties with you altogether.”
I shrugged. It was nice having a steady paycheck coming in, and the fudged private investigator credentials were pretty helpful from time to time. But I had done just fine before the Congregation had come along, and I would do just fine when they were gone.
“It won’t be just you they cut ties with,” Gwen blurted.
I studied her closely for a moment. “I thought you said you can’t read my mind without touching me. That was a little on the nose for what I was thinking.”
Gwen offered a shrug of her own. “I can’t read you well without touching you. Some of it makes it through, though. Like the fact that you don’t care to go it on your own, but you’re not willing to throw Luka and Hiram under the bus.” She gave a lopsided smile. “I’m also getting something about a guy you have up in your apartment that you really don’t want me to know about.”
The temperature of my blood suddenly dropped a few dozen degrees. All I could do is stare back at her earnest young face with my mouth hanging open. She now knew about Carter, and soon the Congregation would, too. I could already hear the sirens blaring in the distance.
“Don’t worry, Meredith.” Gwen tried to pat me on the hand, but I yanked it back before she could make contact. She settled for amiably patting the table instead. “I’m not here to judge. That’s not what any of this is about. Your personal life is yours and yours alone—I’m not going to be reporting every little thing about your life back to my bosses. I’m just going to act as their man in the field, so to speak.”
I continued to stare blankly at her, my mouth a little less agape and my heart no longer threatening to pop out onto the cheap diner table between us. She didn’t know about Carter—just that I had some guy up there that she reckoned I was embarrassed about. That was just fine by me.
“When you do something for the Congregation,” she continued. “When you go out on a case or whatever, maybe I can tag along sometimes. Maybe I also show up from time to time just to check in with you. We can try puzzling out more of your past.”
I pulled away even further from Gwen and her mind-reading little hands, and it didn’t escape her notice. “That can come when you’re ready,” she said. “On your own time. Sound okay?”
“You’re not going to be hiding in the bushes every time I turn around, are you?” I didn’t see any way around what she was proposing. If I tried to cut out on my own, it would come back on Luka and Hiram in some way. I didn’t know how much that would actually hurt Hiram—he was only in waiting to become part of the Congregation, and maybe losing that wouldn’t be such a big deal to him—but Luka was gainfully employed by them, and losing that would likely be something he’d feel.
“Nope, nothing like that.” She pulled a phone from her pocket, some of the bubbliness returning to her voice. “Give me your number, and I’ll always call before I show up. Fair enough?”
I nodded and gave her my number. It was still an invasion and annoyance, but it was better than it could have been. Better than I had expected, really. With what she had seen inside my head, and what she had learned about me from the others, I was probably getting off easy with just a little extra oversight.
“Okay, that’s it,” she said when she finished entering my number into her phone.
“That’s it?” I still felt like there was another shoe about to drop.
“Yep. Unless you have any questions for me.”
I was already up and out of my chair when I realized there was something I wanted to ask her. “Just one thing.”
“Shoot.”
“When you were researching the Old Ones, did you happen to come across anything about them having a connection to demons?”
“Demons?” Gwen’s delicate lips pinched tight, like she’d taken a bite of a rotten apple. “No, I didn’t see anything about those things. Why do you ask?”
“Just idle curiosity.” I turned and walked away from the table, leaving Gwen to find her own way out.
***
I grabbed the two bowls of rice—now cold—and a bottle of hot sauce from the counter on my way back to the outer hall and up to my apartment. The nephew hadn’t been manning the area any longer, so I didn’t bother to pay. I just counted it as one of the few perks of living above the restaurant. Plus, it was rice and hot sauce. They should have been paying me to eat such meager fare.
I balanced the bowls in one hand and worked my front door with the other. Inside, Carter’s chains were still threaded through the mostly closed door of the bathroom, which meant he was still in there or had already gone back in again. Which wasn’t so odd, I figured. All day and all night, the guy had access to two places—a futon and a minuscule bathroom. In his place, I’d probably have been in the bathroom two or three times an hour, too. It was kind of like going on a field trip. The world’s most mind-numbingly boring field trip, but a field trip just the same.
“I come bearing food,” I yelled, popping the bowls down on the table and examining the bottle of hot sauce. “Your choices are very bland or very hot. On the plus side, the very hot option might give you another excuse to spend time in the bathroom.”
There was no reply.
“Carter?”
When he still didn’t reply, I dropped the hot sauce bottle and beelined for the bathroom door. “Carter?”
I knocke
d.
Still nothing.
“Okay, man. If you don’t answer me, I’m going to have to come in. Which means if you’re actually in there, this is going to get a little awkward.” Some movement at the edge of my vision caught my attention. It was the curtains in one of the windows at the far end of the room fluttering in the wind. They only did that when the window was open.
Which it was.
I watched the natural light flood through as another gust of wind parted the light-colored curtains that covered my view of the buildings across the street and the busy street between. That window led out onto the building’s narrow, rickety fire escape.
A cold numbness took hold as I inched the bathroom door open. For about a full second, I honestly saw Carter in there, a puzzled and slightly embarrassed expression on his face. But that fantasy quickly faded, and the inevitable truth I knew I was going to find slammed back into reality.
Carter’s chains and cuffs were strewn across the floor next to the toilet. He’d somehow managed to pick the handcuffs. Given the right tools, it wasn’t all that impressive a feat—handcuffs were rather simple devices with unsophisticated locks. But I had been so careful to make sure he didn’t have access to anything that could be used as a lockpick.
Of course, it wasn’t beyond all possibility that he’d had help. The demon might have gotten bored and wanted his plaything back. It would have been a simple matter for him to send one of his brainwashed minions to scurry up my fire escape and set Carter free.
Had I not loitered one more second, I’m might have been able to convince myself of the truth of that scenario. But a small dark band laid out on the back of my sink told a different story. I took a moment to walk over and pick it up, but I needn’t have. I knew what it was the moment it caught my eye.
A single bobby pin, pulled apart and straightened, then bent again into something like an elongated L.
So, it was my fault he was back on the streets. Not the demon’s. I thought I had been so clever when I went over the apartment—thought that I had made everything Carterproof. The galling thing was that I didn’t even use bobby pins. But those blasted things seemed to pop up everywhere all the same.
Beating myself up over it wouldn’t change a thing now. If Carter decided to hurt someone out there, that was on me. And there was no way of knowing how much of a head start he had on me.
I turned and rushed back out of my apartment.
Chapter 21
It was nearly midnight when I gave up the search.
I had spent hours checking out every place I could envision Carter going. I staked out his apartment, which I learned the location of after having another all too charming conversation with Al Tompkins. I also spent a couple of hours hanging around his precinct, and I’d even gone back out to his ex-wife’s house and endured a few hours of suspicious stares from her neighbors.
I got nothing. The guy was a ghost.
And without Makayla or her new boyfriend to act as Carter’s focus, I had absolutely no idea where he might go or what he might do.
Or who he might try to kill.
So, that’s where I was when I walked into Francie’s. I was on a deadline to bring the demon a new host, which was a polite way of saying I still needed to pick someone to die. And to top it all off, I had lost my murderous cop, who could very well be out there right now picking off strangers from some belltower or whatever.
Francie was manning the bar when I took a seat. I hadn’t had a chance to talk with her since she babysat for me, and seeing her now, I was kicking myself for not trying to have her stick around a little more. I should never have left Carter alone, not even for a few minutes. I was pretty sure that was one of the first rules of kidnapping.
“I’m not even going to ask how bad it is,” Francie said as she walked over. She was wearing a red flannel shirt and black jeans. It would have made me look like a short lumberjack, but she didn’t have any trouble pulling it off.
“I lost Carter.”
“What!?”
I filled her in on the lovely episode I had with Gwen and the cherry on top that was Carter’s escape. I also caught her up on the rock and hard place my demon friend had put between.
“That’s a lot,” she said after I had finished my long-winded rant. “Ignoring the demon host thing for a minute, do you think Carter is still dangerous?”
“I think he’s still being influenced by the demon, so I guess that makes him dangerous. At least Makayla and her guy are out of harm’s way. I’m not sure where Luka took them, but I know he’s got a handle on the situation. Which is more than I can say for myself.”
“You couldn’t have known he’d escape.”
“I did know, though. If you look in the dictionary next to flight risk, you’d see a picture of dear ol’ Carter right there in black and white. Sure, Gwen showing up threw me, but I should have been more careful. If something happens now—”
“If something happens, there are about three layers of guilty parties before we even get to you. You’ve got a demon, a priest that released said demon, and even Carter, to some degree. You’re doing your best, and you need to stop being so hard on yourself all the time.”
I shrugged. I still felt responsible for what was hanging in the balance, but I doubted anything would change that. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Now you’re talking some sense.” Francie offered a reassuring smile. “So, what’s the plan from here?”
“Well, I figured I’d start off with a couple of my usuals and see where that takes me.”
Francie’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean you’re not going back out there?
“But you just said.”
“I said not to beat yourself up if something happens. I didn’t say to add your deadweight to my bar and give up entirely. You’ve got a murderous cop on the loose and a demon who wants to be a real boy. I’m pretty sure this is the worst possible timing for a bender.”
“But I’m tired,” I whined, “and I really want to go on a bender. Plus, I have looked all day for Carter. That guy is either long gone or hiding under a rock somewhere. Either way, I’m not finding him.”
“Alright, alright,” Francie cooed. “You do deserve a break.” She started preparing my gin and tonic, and the citrusy aroma of the lime made my mouth water. When she was finished, she pushed the tall glass of fizzy ambrosia across the bar to me.
As soon as the cold glass touched the edge of my lips, Francie said, “But just this one. It’s about half past midnight now. I’ll close up early, say one, and then we can get back out there together and see what we can figure out. Demon or no demon, Carter is going to have to sleep, which means he’ll need somewhere to sleep. Maybe that’ll mean he’ll eventually show back up at his place, or maybe he’ll check into a local hotel. If it’s the latter, we can call around to a few places and see if he checked in under his real name.”
She was using her stern schoolmarm voice, so all I could do was continue to chug at my drink and nod my agreement whenever she paused for breath. And maybe she had the right of it anyway. The drink was already taking a little of the edge off of the brutal day I’d had and having Francie by my side for a second go-around would certainly make things a lot more bearable.
“Alright, boss. I guess that sounds a little better than my plan to wallow in guilt and self-pity until I’m too drunk to care anymore. What’s your take on the other part of my problem?”
“The demon wanting to stick around?” she asked. “My take is that you can’t do it. That’s your take, too, right?”
“Uh.”
“Meredith, you can’t seriously be thinking about taking a person to that demon so it can kill them and take over their body. Actually, scratch that. Even ignoring how wrong that would be—and it would be very wrong—let’s just focus on the part where you’d be giving an actual demon a free ticket to stay around forever.”
I kept my glass firmly between me and Francie’s laser stare. I wasn’t sure how she was
managing it, but she was doing a bang-up job of judging me for something I hadn’t even done yet. “I haven’t committed to anything just yet,” I muttered. “And it’s not so clear and simple as you’re making it sound. If I don’t do what he wants, there’s going to be a lot more killing.”
“Sure, and what was causing the killing that started all of this mess in the first place?”
“I feel like you want me to say the demon.”
“Yeah, you feel that way because it’s the truth, Meredith. And what exactly do you think is going to happen when you make that thing a permanent resident of our not-so-happy little world? Did you think about that at all?”
“Yeah, I thought about it, mom. But I figured I might be able to handle that particular problem when it happened. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment.”
“And you’re going to have a lot more on your plate if you trust that demon.”
“Ah, demons,” a reedy, baritone voice said from somewhere behind me. “That seems like the only topic I’ve been hearing about lately.”
Francie and I both looked up to see Hiram’s tall, willowy form loping toward the bar. Engrossed in our demon talk, neither of us had noticed his approach. He was wearing typical Hiram clothes—a dark gray blazer over a black button-down shirt with dark gray slacks—and was sporting his perpetual world-weary scowl.
“Where on God’s earth have you been?” I asked as he took a stool next to me. “You were supposed to come over to my apartment this morning. Instead, I got saddled with a new parole officer, and I lost a prisoner in the balance.”
Hiram shrugged with his hands. “I got held up a little this morning, but I still made your place by nine. You were the one that was a no-show.”
“That’s because my—Carter—escaped. I’ve been trying to find him all day. Why didn’t you just call?”
