Demon Hunt

by A. Blythe

He ignored my remark. “We will need you to answer questions, Katrien,” he said. “It’s standard protocol when a Marid enters our territory seeking sanctuary.”

  “I will do my best to serve you,” she said softly.

  Ugh. I didn’t want Katrien to serve anyone. By the gods, she’d just been freed from slavery.

  “Can you at least make sure she’s fed before you grill her?” I asked. “She’s been through a lot and I know how you operate.” If he had his way, he’d force her to answer all his questions before she was allowed a sip of water. Compassionate he was not. Prince Simdan made television police interrogations look like a child’s birthday party.

  His dark eyes fixed on me. “Miss Winters, are you telling me how to conduct business in my own court?”

  I smiled. “Consider it a friendly suggestion.”

  His lip curled again. The prince was not a man who appreciated suggestions—friendly or otherwise.

  He snapped his fingers and the badly dressed boy returned. “Please escort Miss Katrien to the Sunflower Room.”

  The Sunflower Room? That sounded far too innocuous. I’d bet a pot of gold those were deadly, flesh-eating sunflowers.

  Katrien pressed against me. “He is an ass,” she whispered. “Can I stay with you instead?”

  Okay, now I was warming up to her, but did I dare insult His Royal Arrogance?

  I considered it my civic duty.

  I cleared my throat. “On second thought, I think Katrien would be more comfortable in the circus-like atmosphere of South Street.”

  Katrien nodded quickly. “I would, Your Highness. Alyse has been so kind to me. I would feel quite comfortable with her.”

  Prince Simdan was not amused. “As you wish. But be advised that your friend’s adult entertainment shop does not share our fortress-like setting.” I wanted to do a shot every time he uttered the phrase adult entertainment store. Tops and Bottoms truly seemed to offend his patrician sensibilities.

  “We’ll manage somehow,” I said. I bit back a smile, thinking about Farah’s secret armory behind the dressing room area. The armory was warded to the hilt courtesy of Pinky.

  “Do be careful, Miss Winters. As you and I have experienced firsthand, we are never as safe as we believe.”

  For some reason, I expected a longer lecture. Maybe he was tired of wasting his breath on me. I knew I would be.

  “I don’t disagree.” For once.

  “My people will escort you home.”

  “Thank you. I expected nothing less,” I said, with a slight bow. It was the most deference I was willing to show him.

  We were whisked to South Street so quickly, my head was spinning and I doubled over, ready to vomit.

  “You might want to move your shoes,” I croaked.

  “I’ve never seen a djinni get nauseous from bending the light,” Katrien observed.

  I inhaled deeply and clutched my stomach, praying the contents stayed where they belonged. “The cuffs seem to mess with my system in all sorts of unexpected ways.”

  “A shame,” Katrien said, studying me. She turned and noticed the window display behind us. Farah had set up a Thanksgiving-inspired display where the mannequins were dressed respectively as a turkey—as evidenced by the feathers covering her lady parts—and a Pilgrim. The Pilgrim was wielding a baster.

  “I take it this is the adult entertainment store,” Katrien said.

  “Your powers of observation are still intact, I see. Welcome to your temporary home.”

  We bypassed the store and I took her upstairs to the apartment. I hoped Farah was receptive to the idea of another roommate. Shooting a guilty glance over my shoulder, I figured I’d find out soon enough.

  3

  The voice of Gloria Estefan woke me from a deep sleep. Reaching for my phone, I pushed aside the empty can of ginger ale and a plate of crackers on the coffee table to see Kenya Thompson’s name on the screen.

  “I really need to assign you a new ringtone,” I said groggily. “This one is far too peppy for you.”

  “Would you mind paying me a visit?” she asked. “I’m working on that case you so kindly dropped in my lap.”

  Case? My brain took a moment to adjust before I remembered the bank robbers.

  “What time is it?” The sun was shining. How many hours since our return from Camp Jackass?

  “Ten.”

  I squinted at the sunlight streaming in through the window. “Very funny. Maybe at the South Pole.”

  “Ten in the morning, Alyse.”

  I bolted upright and noticed the blanket draped across my lower half. I must have fallen asleep on the couch. I’d told Katrien to take my bedroom and then never made it to Farah’s room.

  “I’ll be there in half an hour,” I said.

  When she gave me the address, I realized I wasn’t headed to the precinct.

  “It’s a secret location,” Thompson said, “so try to keep it that way.”

  Quietly, I rose so as not to disturb Katrien. She needed her rest. On the way to the bathroom, I noticed Farah seated at the kitchen table.

  “You’re here,” I said, not bothering to hide my surprise.

  “Yep.” Her fingers pounded the phone screen.

  “That’s a frustrated text and I didn’t even read it,” I said.

  She flipped the phone over and grimaced at me. “Rocco. He keeps texting me. The whole time I was at the club, my phone kept pinging. He seems to think he can change my mind.”

  “Can he?” I didn’t have time to sit and chat, but since I was about to ask for a huge favor, I knew I needed to let her vent first.

  “No,” she said firmly. “He was a lot of fun, until he decided our relationship was serious business. He didn’t like the way I looked at other guys. He told me my clothes were too suggestive.”

  There was no doubt the bloom was off the rose.

  “Anything I can do?” I asked.

  She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “No. Rocco is my problem, not yours.”

  “Speaking of problems,” I said, mustering a needy smile.

  She glanced up at me. “Are you referring to Sleeping Beauty in your room?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What happened to Prince Simdan?”

  “She showed a shocking degree of good judgment.”

  Farah pressed her lips together. “Are we inviting trouble by letting her stay here?”

  “Probably.”

  “Okay then.” Her phone buzzed again and she buried her face in her hands.

  “I need to go and see Detective Thompson,” I said. “Will you be here when Katrien wakes up?”

  “No, I’m going downstairs to the store, but I’ll leave her a note.”

  “Thanks. You’re the best.” I hurried into the bathroom to shower. I was curious to see what information Thompson’s interrogation had yielded.

  Half an hour later I arrived at a nondescript office building that I’d probably walked past a hundred times and never noticed. It didn’t surprise me that Thompson had a secret place to conduct supernatural investigations. She could hardly parade healers and seers through the precinct. Although some of them appeared normal enough, plenty of them didn’t.

  I rang the buzzer and waited on the front step. The door clicked open, so I walked inside. The hallway was quiet and empty. Odd for a typical weekday morning.

  “In here,” Thompson called.

  I followed the sound of her voice to the third room on the left. She stood at a glass wall, observing a man and a woman on the other side of it.

  “Magic mirror?” I asked.

  Thompson nodded and sipped her coffee. “There’s an extra bagel on the table,” she said. “Poppy seed.”

  “No thanks. The seeds always get stuck in my teeth.” I watched the woman press her fingertips against the man’s temple. “Who’s the mage?”

  She looked to be about twenty-five with rich, brown hair that cascaded down her back.

  “Melania. She helped wipe the
memories of the witnesses at the bank. Now they only remember a run-of-the-mill attempted robbery.”

  “How boring for them. How long has she been working on our robo-robber?”

  “About an hour. I tried to question him first. She spent yesterday working on emptying the minds of the bank customers. Now she’s spending today trying to refill the minds of our robbers.” She set her coffee down on the nearby table. “I called you last night, but the phone wouldn’t connect.”

  “That was probably thanks to Prince Simdan,” I replied. His Royal Control Freak. “I had to pay him a visit last night.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “So have we learned anything about the robbers?” I asked.

  “You were right,” she said. “They were definitely under a spell. Every question I asked them seemed to fry their brains more and more. I had to stop interrogating them before I turned them into vegetables. That’s why Melania is working so slowly.”

  “Hmm. We’re not dealing with a novice then.”

  “Not at all. When they snapped out of it, they had no idea what they’d done.”

  “How did you snap them out of it?” I asked. Thompson had some admirable skills, but magic wasn’t one of them. That was why she had a phone filled with supernatural contacts.

  “No clue. Melania handled that part.”

  So Melania was multi-talented and pretty. “I don’t remember her from my dealings with the Enclave,” I said. “How did you link up with her?”

  “Captain Reed, of course. He’s like the supernatural mayor. He knows everyone.”

  Reed. One name I was actively avoiding.

  “Oh?” I asked, as casually as I could.

  “Don’t worry,” she added with a vague smile. “He’s not here.”

  “I’m not worried,” I said, a little too quickly.

  Thompson shot me a knowing look. “He told me what happened between you two.”

  I shushed her loudly. “Nothing happened.”

  Thompson fixed me with her interrogator’s stare. “That’s not what your accomplice says. He rolled over, Alyse. You may as well come clean.”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “When you say nothing happened, do you mean before or after you kissed?” She kept her gaze locked on mine.

  “It was a heat of the moment thing,” I blurted. He’d chosen to fight in the Colony Games by my side. How could I not melt a little? There was a human heart beating inside my chest, after all. “He carried me off the field. I almost died, you know!”

  Damn, she was good.

  Thompson pursed her lips. “If you say so. Anyway, you don’t need to explain it to me. I’m here to catch criminals, not play matchmaker.”

  Wise words. “So I guess the question is—who put the spell on those men and why?”

  Thompson leaned against the wall. “We know why. Valuables.”

  “Have they said why they wanted the vault in particular?” I asked. They would have been in and out with less violence and fanfare if they’d settled for cash. “Were they looking for something specific?”

  “We haven’t been able to get that out of them,” she said. “They seem programmed to keep the details to themselves.”

  Like who put them under the spell in the first place.

  “Have you talked to the bank manager?” I asked. “Is he aware of anything in the vault of extremely high value?”

  “You were there,” she said. “Did you notice anything?”

  “Lots of metal drawers and bank tellers with attitude,” I said. “We were dropping off a ring. That’s all we saw before the alarm went off.” I hesitated. “How’s the guard?”

  “He’ll recover.”

  That was a relief.

  “Do the three men know each other?” I asked.

  “Two of them are brothers and the third man is unrelated. Complete stranger, in fact.” She nodded toward the man in the turtleneck. “That’s Gary Henshaw.”

  It didn’t surprise me that they were strangers. “Did you retrace their steps?”

  “The last place they remember being is 30th Street Station. They all had train tickets. The Motley brothers were headed to New York and Mr. Henshaw was headed to Baltimore.”

  I felt sorry for them. One of them was responsible for shooting the guard. Thompson was going to have to figure out the best way to handle it. If she could find the supernatural responsible, then they’d be charged with the crime instead.

  “Do they remember if anyone approached them? Offered them a coffee?” A coffee laced with magic.

  “No. Whoever’s responsible made sure their memories were scrubbed clean. Melania said it was expertly done.”

  We were definitely dealing with a professional. “We should ask the bank for an inventory of the vault.”

  Thompson arched an eyebrow. “Who is this ‘we’ you speak of?”

  “Come on, Thompson. You and me? We make a good team. Even Luciano Bendetti thinks so.”

  Thompson snorted. “That guy was a trip, but you know I don’t have any money in the budget for a consultant, Alyse.”

  “Do you know Luciano sent me a copy of 48 Hrs.? He was very eager to get me to watch it.”

  “He’s very eager to get you to like him,” Thompson corrected me. “Seems to be an epidemic around here. Have you always attracted this much male attention or is it something to do with those cuffs?”

  I laughed. “I promise you. There’s no love potion mixed in with these.”

  “Whatever your secret is, you need to bottle it and sell it,” she said. “I could use a little romance in my life.”

  “No boyfriend?” I’d never heard her mention one, but we didn’t often make small talk.

  “Too busy. Who has time to wade through the trash?”

  “Call the bank manager, Mr. Moyes,” I said.

  She glanced quickly at me. “The thin mustache guy? Sorry, he’s not my type.”

  I laughed. “Not for you. For the inventory. See if you can persuade him to let us go through the contents of the vault.”

  “Are you out of your supernatural mind? You know as well as I do that the bank isn’t going to let us rummage through its clients’ valuables.”

  I knew she was right. The dual-key system alone would make a search impossible without client cooperation.

  “What about a search warrant?” I asked. “Could we get a judge to sign off on it?”

  Thompson considered the suggestion. “Might be a challenge, but that won’t put me off. I’ll make the call when Melania and I finish up here.”

  Melania knocked on the glass and gestured to the door. Thompson opened it from our side and let her in.

  “How’s it going?” Thompson asked.

  “Slow and steady wins the race.” Melania’s gaze shifted to me. “You’re Alyse Winters.” I couldn’t tell from her expression whether that was good news or bad news.

  “I am. I understand you’re Melania.” I extended my hand and she shook it so gently that I barely felt her touch.

  “Captain Reed told me all about you,” she said.

  My brain immediately went to the kiss. “He did?”

  “Well, I was subjected to every gory detail of the Colony Games.” She rolled her eyes skyward. “Good grief, I drank a lot that night.”

  “You weren’t there?” I asked. The Colony Games were a huge deal. If Melania was a local mage, she should have been in attendance.

  “I’ve been working in Japan, helping the Enclave over there. I only recently returned home.”

  “She’s worked with me in the past,” Thompson said. “I was only too happy to hear she was back.”

  Melania smiled at her and I noticed the dimples in her cheeks. Oh gods. She was adorable. And she and Reed were strictly platonic?

  I cleared my head and steered the conversation back to business. “Can you tell us anything about the spell used on Henshaw?”

  “There’s more than one at work,” Melania replied. “The first one is basically hypno
tism. The second spell is more complex and involves erasing the memories when probed for recall.”

  “And does that spell have a name?” I asked.

  “Fatal Recall. If you push too many buttons, then squish. Alphabet soup brain.”

  I hadn’t heard of it before. “How experienced of a mage would you need to be to perform magic like that?”

  “Pretty experienced.” Melania cocked her head. “I’m surprised you haven’t come across any djinn who can do it. I saw it used a fair amount in Asia by both parties.”

  “I’ve seen plenty of memory wipes,” I said, “but they’re more of the tabula rasa variety. The spell didn’t react to questions. They just erased the specific memories, plain and simple.”

  Melania picked up the last bagel from the plate and took a bite. “I’m starving. Magic is hungry work.”

  “Do you need coffee or tea?” Thompson asked. “Alyse will run to Wawa and get you one.”

  I arched an eyebrow. She expected me to fetch coffee like some kind of errand girl?

  “I’m fine, thank you,” Melania said and rubbed her hands together. “Time to get back to work. There’s a chance the spellcaster wasn’t thorough. Any mistake, no matter how small, can help me extract information.”

  “Good luck,” I said.

  I watched her return to the robber. His eyes remained closed and he sat perfectly still. I wondered if he had any idea what was happening to him. What had happened to him. Gary Henshaw had been someone’s pawn and he didn’t retain the slightest memory of it.

  I shuddered, thinking of Katrien. She likely remembered every minute of being someone’s pawn. The worst part was that she couldn’t forget, even if she wanted to.

  Sometimes, ignorance truly was bliss.

  4

  I stared at the birthday card until my eyes watered. I couldn’t understand a single letter. Not one.

  “You are reading that card like it is a book.” Katrien appeared in the living room after a long nap.

  “It’s in a language I don’t recognize,” I told her.

  “Why would this person not send you birthday greetings in your own language?” She settled beside me on the couch.

  “It’s…” I struggled with whether to confide in her. In the end, I figured the card wouldn’t reveal anything about me she didn’t already know. “It’s from my handler. He often used cards to pass me information.” That was an understatement. Usually the ‘information’ included the orders for my next Shadow Elite mission. The details were stored in the sound card tucked in the back of the birthday card. This card had been different. It had contained my orders, but also a handwritten note from Jamie. I knew it meant something, but since I couldn’t decipher it, I had no idea what to make of it. Now that he was dead, I was more desperate than ever to figure it out.