Demon Master

by Daniel Pierce

  Stacia, a well-groomed woman in her forties, would sit across from him and introduce small questions. Did he dream? Did he remember them? Did he cry, and how often? She paid close attention to whether or not he could answer her honestly.

  He could not. She was fine with that, and pressed no further, leading Don to trust her with more.

  He came out of his shell in small ways. Progress was being made. He complimented Stacia’s necklace, a single green stone. Green was Janice’s favorite color, and she had loved to feel feminine. She would have loved the piece. I know, said Stacia.

  “Do you mind if I speak now?” Stacia asked him one day. It had been almost a month of therapy, and Don was ready to listen. He said yes.

  So for a day, he listened to her talk about his soul, and then she asked him a question.

  “In that large body, you have a small but pure soul. Knowing this, are you ready to tell me, in full, how Janice loved, lived, and left you? The pain? And now, perhaps, hope? The after, so to speak? Can you do that?” she asked, her gaze maternal and warm.

  He folded and unfolded his large, bony hands. He looked at the lines and scars of a lifetime of hard work. He nodded.

  “Don, you should speak. It is time to let go,” she urged.

  He was aware of her becoming very still, like a hunter fearful of spooking game. He began from his first memory of Janice, and then he felt Stacia take his hand, her warmth and caring urging him on. Through dates, and their first child, to the war and two years of wondering do I die today while choking on rain a world away . . . he told her all of it. And, eventually, the tears rolling freely now while he had to cut off a yawn, he dove into the blackness of the day that the doctor said simply, “The cancer is back.” He recalled the hum of the fluorescents. The light scent of urine and cleanser on tile, rustling lab coats, and the faces carefully ignoring him as he led Janice, staggering, to the car to weep together, crying without end for the entire world to hear. Stacia stood behind him now, rubbing his wide, bony shoulders and leaning on him, his yawns growing wider and longer, his focus fading.

  “What about the last day, Don? Did she move at all? Tell me . . . tell me about her eyes. Did she know it was close?” And now her voice was low, guttural, fat with pleasure. He felt a delicate probing of his body and then her messenger tendril twisted from within her and twined around his ribs and heart. It pulsed like a gorging snake.

  She fed on his grief.

  Inside his body, nerves fired and went black as she drained him of his life. His memory. Her eyes flickered under her lids in concentration. He had a vivid mind. She laid her cheek against his head and asked him, while his heart hammered, “Do you want to join her? Do you love her that much, Don?”

  Oh God how he did and he would tell her if he could just keep his eyes open. He became aware of a slight erection and moved his hand to cover it, but his arm only rolled weakly.

  He was so tired. So very tired. His lips kept moving as Stacia whispered again and again, “Tell me about her. About the sadness, Don.” And then, finally, the tendril made of more shadow than light uncoiled one final time from his chest and retreated into her body, now flushed and glowing. She was drunk with his memories and more than a little high on the depths of his pain. Sweat covered her cheeks and forehead. His rugged frame had been very strong, and she had expended an intense effort to feed freely of it. His brain pan was filled with blood. He was stone dead, and Stacis had done it.

  She kissed Don’s head, which now rested on his long forearms that were folded inert on the table, and stretched once. All of his fear and love made Stacia giddy with the feeding.

  Mother was right. One cannot overstate the importance of being a good listener.

  30

  Florida: Ring

  Fat raindrops woke me in the morning, hammering our aluminum shutters. Smelling coffee and eggs, I moseyed to the kitchen. Risa was up and had been productive. She was on the couch, lolling a bit next to Gyro, who occupied three cushions to her one. Wally was missing, so I filled a mug and took it to her door, tapping lightly and entering.

  Wally was partially nude, in a tangle of covers and limbs that needed to be bordered by crime scene tape. She slept as if dead, and, like any good corpse, she cared little for her position. There was a slight stirring as I sat on the bed and a thin glint from her right eye betraying a state of awareness, so I wordlessly held the cup to her. Grumbling, she accepted.

  “Give me ten minutes before I report. Mmmm. Caffeine,” she said.

  “Agreed. See you at the table, gorgeous,” I said.

  Wally came out to the living room, moved Gyro over, smoothed his ear and sipped her coffee, grimacing. Risa and I waited until she pulled the cup away. “Clashes with toothpaste,” Wally grunted, but she kept drinking. “So, I found our unlucky caterer. He was rather smart, actually. He’s pre-med. He was also sober the morning he found the body. I think he looked it over a bit before he called the police. Quite talkative, that one.”

  Wally was a master at the hair-twisting, eye-batting method of gathering intel. Yazin, as it turned out, was not immune to her charms. He told Wally more than he realized he knew.

  “Yazin not only found the body, but he gave me a general description of the killer without realizing it. I’m not even certain the police are aware of the connection, but he worked the charity event and the cleanup crew that came in the next morning to break down tables and load the truck. Yazin is Moroccan, and he swears he heard a Moroccan woman speaking French at the party. Her accent was very faint, but he described it as a woman of the upper classes who spoke French as her second language, probably after Berber. He was very specific. Physically, she was thin, dark hair, striking. Yazin caught an impression of money; it was something he couldn’t quite articulate, but he felt certain.”

  She swigged her cooling coffee and continued. “Yazin didn’t remember seeing the victim at the party, but that’s hardly surprising given the high wattage of the attendees. From the pictures I’ve seen, the trophy wives were stacked in layers. With all that silicone and Chanel No. 5, it’s miraculous that he didn’t sprain his neck staring. He’s practically a kid but observant, and with a great memory. He was able to give me even more details about the condition of the body. And here’s where his medical training really comes into play. The body was buried in the sand. Intentionally. When he checked for a pulse, he noticed two visible wounds. One was in Arnaud’s navel. Clear fluid ringed the hole, and there was irregular swelling. There was a bit of blood running down his chin, and when Yazin looked in, he saw a round puncture right through roof of his mouth. He had been buried like he was being . . . saved. For later.”

  Risa said, “I can’t read Berber, but I can read French. Let’s see if the Moroccan news has any footprints left by this killer. And then, let’s bury her and see how she likes it.”

  31

  Database Entry

  From Risa’s Files:

  Broward Sherriff’s Office Records 911 Transcript

  911: What is your emergency?

  Kenneth Myall: I’ve been robbed, I think. And I’m hurt.

  911: What’s the address? Who hurt you?

  Kenneth Myall: I’m at the Lauderdale Beach Club . . . *unintelligible* move my, my hands

  911: What apartment, sir? Who hurt you? Can you tell me the number?

  Kenneth Myall: She’s gone, she left the door open, the water is running

  911: Are you in the water? Are you inside? I have police on the way. Are you inside?

  Kenneth Myall: She made me sleepy, and now I’m, the water is coming up, please

  911: Police are in front of the building. What floor, sir? What number?

  Kenneth Myall: *unintelligible* bit me and put me in, in the water, I, I,*unintelligible*

  911: Sir? Sir? Please talk to me, stay with me, sir . . . sir?

  Kenneth Myall: (sound of water running and footsteps)

  911: Sir?

  Kenneth Myall: 911? This is officer Callister
. We are administering CPR to the victim; he drowned in the tub, or he bled out, trying to get a pulse. Send ambulance. He has a . . . bite wound.

  911: Bite wound? Ambulance on the way, Officer.

  32

  Florida: Ring

  “Look at this.” Risa said. She had a small stack of printed sheets.

  I glanced at them. They were written in French. “I assume you’ll translate?”

  She nodded and waved me over to the table. The sun was at zenith and she looked like she hadn’t slept all night. Wally was nowhere to be seen, but Gyro’s leash was missing, so I knew I slept through her taking the beast out for a walk. I poured orange juice and sat down. Risa frowned slightly at the top page, continuing her translation internally. I waited.

  “These are three different news items from French language papers in Morocco. Two of them are nearly identical, with one exception.” She paused and pulled a one-page map of Morocco from under the newspaper articles.

  “We start in Rabat, north of Casablanca. I know you’re disappointed, but that’s where I found something unusual.” Risa knew my love of the classic film bordered on insanity.

  “Rabat is the capitol. So, like the unfortunate Arnaud, a doctor was found murdered, partially buried near the beach. The reason this crime was deemed newsworthy was that he was a visiting Frenchman who had been very well received. He was free with his care and took a special interest in sick children. He was successful, too, so when he was found with puncture wounds, it was assumed that he had been stabbed. A swift manhunt was conducted by a local Imam who thought highly of the doctor, and a suspect was caught and beheaded. Then another suspect was caught and beheaded a week later.”

  “I take it there was no trial?” I asked, imagining that justice of that speed would be a bit more streamlined than I was used to seeing.

  “Correct. This brings us to our next lucky contestant, in the city of Tangiers. This time it was a French shipping magnate who was known to be one of the most skilled smugglers in the area. He had half the city on his payroll, and the other half trying to buy their way on. You guessed it—he was supposedly stabbed and buried, face up, in the sand in between two pilings where fishing boats anchored. This time, there were no suspects, although that may have been due to the frenzy of crime that followed his death as local criminals rushed in to fill his highly profitable shoes.”

  She was handing me the pages as she finished her translations. She slid the last sheet across the table to me, and I noticed she had her own copy of the same newspaper. This page was in Spanish, something we could both read.

  “Read this and tell me what you make of it. I’ve read it, and I want to see if you see what I see.” Risa was excited. I knew that look. It boded well for our efforts.

  I took several minutes to read the item, carefully making mental notes at points that practically screamed look here to my investigative nature. Our killer had gone across the strait to Spain. She had seduced and attacked a wealthy, elderly glass importer and led him to the beach. She was, according to the hysterical language of the victim’s son, a demon of some sort.

  But the old man had lived. He was Moroccan, a widower, and had a single child. His son, a vain, jealous man, followed them to protect his father, not from altruism, but greed. He saw women as a threat to his inheritance. That is how, in the dying light on a Spanish beach, the son watched his father be mounted by a woman with a dagger extended from her stomach, poised to drive it into his gut. The son stalked up behind her and brained her with a wine jug, splitting her head and then freeing his father. The old man was unable to walk and remained so for three days.

  He had been injected with something. In his mouth.

  When the police went back to find her body, it was gone, presumably with the tide. The son said the dagger was attached to her, somehow, and looked like the stinger on a bee. With this tale, the details of Arnaud’s horrific death were becoming clear. Done with my read, I asked Risa, “What does this last line describe? I can’t translate it.”

  “The old man recovered and named the woman who attacked him. He said she held a needle in her mouth and poisoned him. And he saw the ‘arrow’ protruding from her body. He was never taken seriously, but when he was able to speak well enough, he called the woman al-Ribat. The Archer.”

  “That’s an apt name for her. Have you found evidence of this al-Ribat anywhere else, other than here?” I wondered why the immortal was moving.

  “Oh, yes. And that’s what makes me think there is much more to the story than one immortal killing lonely men on beaches. The last sheet has mention of her being named as a person of interest in the disappearance of an antiques dealer in Marseilles. It isn’t by name, but it’s her. I know it. But you need to see one more thing.”

  Risa rearranged the papers. She tapped the top corners of each. “One other thing. Look at the dates of these reports.”

  I whistled softly. If there was ever any doubt of who we were dealing with, it was gone in that second. The first murder, 1947. The second, 1948. The third attempt in Spain was in 1948, too. But the story in France was from less than a year ago.

  I closed my eyes, thinking. I could sense Risa watching me.

  “There are only two reasons for such a drastic move. She was either on the run from something—” I started.

  “Or she was being called home,” Risa finished. “But by whom?”

  33

  Florida: Ring

  While I was online reading, the Baron called. He was wearing glasses perched on the end of his nose and a yellowed newspaper article lay on the desk, folded crisply.

  “Ring, good evening. I hope I’m not interrupting . . .” He trailed off, mannerly to a fault.

  I was glad he had called and told him. “We’ve made progress in the past day. It seems that there is movement among certain immortals that we believe are tied to murders here in Florida. I’m not the analytical type, but I am curious. A killer from Morocco has crossed the Pond, so to speak, and is operating here. She’s different. She isn’t anything we’ve seen before.”

  “How so, may I ask?” The Baron raised a brow.

  “She works near the coastlines. She’s a predator, no doubt, but she doesn’t feed on women. She has been altered, physically, in a way that is new to us. Her nickname ‘al-Ribat,’ along with her description, is unsettling. I can’t decide what she wants other than death.”

  “The Archer? A very specific nickname.” It didn’t surprise me that the Baron understood the term. He seemed brilliant.

  “This woman, she preys on men. Yet I have information that refutes your belief that she wants to kill,” he said as he unfolded the old, ragged news cutout. “This is from a French newspaper. Printed in 1948—such a busy year for the world, don’t you think?” he asked, smiling.

  It had been a chaotic year. The world had not taken a sober breath after the Second World War.

  “A woman was charged with assaulting a gem trader over a disputed purchase. The victim was a known cheat, so it isn’t surprising that he would receive some form of comeuppance. “

  “Was she prosecuted?” I asked.

  “No, sadly. She escaped after the victim died. He survived the initial assault but was unable to speak or move. He lingered in a Lisbon hospital, dying in silence after three days of agony.” Cazimir glanced at the clipping, refreshing his narrative.

  “Does it mention a cause of death?” I had to know.

  “It does. You see, there was only one visible wound on the victim, Senhor Lorea. His navel had been violated. And when he died, as a man of questionable breeding and character, he had no family to claim him. So an inquisitive physician named in the article cut him open.” Cazimir paused, his mouth a grim line.

  “What was inside him?” I wasn’t certain I wanted to know.

  “Three stones. Unremarkable, gray in color. Of no value at all. They were coated by his body in a furious attempt to expel the alien objects, like an oyster making a pearl. They crumbled upon ex
amination by the investigating doctor, a Senhor Coelho. He said that they were soft, more like dried leather mixed with dust.”

  There was something about the doctor’s discovery that disturbed me at a visceral level. It was the idea that something had been intentionally inserted into the man and the victim further degraded by having objects left behind. Like he had been colonized.

  “Cazimir, is there anything else of note in the article?” I asked, hopeful.

  “Most certainly, Ring. I am confident you will find one fact fascinating. You see, she was charged, but she escaped after charming a youthful jailer into an unplanned release.” A mirthless smile curled his lips. “But bureaucracies can be useful at times, and the record of the allegations remains. I’ll email the newspaper, as well as the court documents, but you may begin with the most important fact of all—Sandrine DeStot. Her name.”

  And with that, the search for Elizabeth narrowed in our favor.

  34

  Florida: Ring

  Saturday night arrived, and the girls began their usual preparations for a special kind of evening out. Dressed in demure attire, they wore little makeup and jewelry. Their hairstyles were modest, and their heels were low.

  They were going to evening Mass at St. Maurice’s on Stirling Road, as they did on occasion. The reasons for attending were varied, but in Wally’s estimation, legitimate. An inveterate sinner, Wally’s Germanic and Latin heritage demanded that she atone for her foul language while driving. Risa, a caring friend, chose to support this decision by attending a Catholic Mass, despite not having a gentile bone in her body.