A Legacy of Daemons

by Camille Bacon-Smith

  He was already heading in that direction, so he went. Not home. He wanted no part of Donne’s legacy to taint the place where he grudgingly found comfort in Evan’s world. The book had a mind of its own anyway, and drew him to Donne’s house, built as a trap for daemons. Brad turned away, resisted its pull, and tumbled on his shoulder into Donne’s wood, still marked with police tape. The churned earth of the empty graves softened his fall, until a splinter from the overturned white crosses bit into his upper arm. He plucked it out and closed the wound. Didn’t expect company but looked around anyway.

  Long shadows crossed each other—pine and oak, hemlock and beech, sunlight shafting low between the trees. He would have picked a more comfortable place to do this, but Evan and his cursed book had left him few choices. So he found a spot under an oak tree that hadn’t been turned over and lifted the book from its case.

  It took only minutes to uncover the spells of binding in the book—Ariton found things, and the first Donne’s notes crawled across their pages like liquid fire. Centuries of Donnes had filled the pages with bindings more terrible than Evan had ever considered. No spells to free a daemon, though, which didn’t surprise him when he thought about it. People like Donne and Van Der Graf and the Simpsons never gave up their power willingly. He didn’t look forward to telling Evan, but his son was a clever boy. He’d think of something.

  In the meantime, Brad would do the universe a favor. He set the book and its wooden case in a shallow hollow where a small body had lain—a fitting place to end this legacy of torment in two universes—and knelt beside it. The wooden case went up in a flash that left the barest trace of ash behind. He could have burned away parchment and leather in an instant as well, but undoing so many years of misery woven into its magic took time. So he rested a hand on the tooled leather cover and thought of flames. Smoke curled between his splayed fingers.

  He let the fire grow naturally, according to this world, as it ate ink and parchment and oiled leather. When the cover was crackling in earnest, he leaned back, wrists resting on his thighs, fingers lightly curled over his knees, and watched the flames rise higher, dig deeper into the old parchment leaves. He couldn’t tell if the stink of burning flesh came from the book’s cover or from the empty grave, or if the corruption of the book gave off its own stench of human misery as it burned.

  He watched until the flames lapped low and then broke up the embers with a rotting twig. He’d grown accustomed to the stillness, only the snap of flame and the rustle of leaves on the trees for company, so the brush of a footstep against old pine needles brought his head up, eyes flashing blue fire, quickly suppressed—reflection of the flames dying in the grave at his feet.

  A young man, not much older than Evan but shorter, darker, with dark eyes behind aviator glasses, stood framed by two straight beech trees, watching him. In his hand he carried a good-sized stick with most of the deeply grooved bark still clinging to it, not quite threatening yet, but the thought was there. “You’re trespassing. The police will be back—”

  Carlos Sanchez had the run of the place, and he had a son and two daughters, so it seemed a good bet that this was a Sanchez.

  “I’m looking for Carlos Sanchez.”

  “In the ground?” Nervous, but a challenge. “This is private property, and a crime scene. If you want to see Carlos Sanchez, go to the office and make an appointment.”

  Sid Valentine said that the father and both daughters had disappeared. They’d brought Alba Sanchez out of Cyril Van Der Graf’s library, but that left two of them still missing. The stranger was worried about something, but not that, so he knew where Carlos Sanchez was—at least had reason to think he was alive, which didn’t mean he was on Matt Shields’ side. Maybe Alba Sanchez had been a prisoner as she said, but maybe not.

  Brad didn’t trust any of them. Someone had buried Donne’s dead, and Brad had never believed the gardener could miss hundreds of marked graves on the property he maintained. So maybe Shields hadn’t had a choice about painting houses and trimming shrubberies after all.

  With a wary eye on the intruder, he gave the ashes of Donne’s book a last stir with the stick, made certain that not a scrap of readable parchment remained, and stood up, brushing the dust off his hands. “I know it’s a crime scene. It’s my case.” Which was true as far as it went, and if he left a more official impression, that was fine. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” Brad infused the questions with a little danger and the authority of a lord of Ariton.

  “Rafael Sanchez.”

  The son, and no surprise there. He frowned, measuring Brad with a quick glance at the grave where smoke still rose from the ashes. “I work here.”

  “Your employer’s been dead for three years,” Brad pointed out and wondered briefly if Donne were really dead, though it seemed unlikely that he would hand his possessions to the state if he were alive.

  “We have a contract with the state, minor upkeep and lawn maintenance paid out of the estate until they sell the place for taxes.” It made sense as far as it went—Evan had said something about it when he’d first checked out the house—but the state had very little to do with Sanchez’s presence in the wood today. “You’d know that if you were the police. What are you doing here?” Then the pieces came together behind his eyes.

  “ Are you Bradley, Ryan, or Davis? Not Davis. Alba called, she said the FBI rescued them and sent Evan Davis to the hospital. Is Matt all right?”

  “Seemed fine when I left him.”

  Sanchez nodded, processing the news. “When Matt found the ad, I thought you were con artists. But he seemed sure you were legit, and then Marina found you on the Web, mentioned in the newspapers for a high-profile case in Vancouver.” Marina Sanchez. The other sister—the one still missing. “So I thank God they were right, and I’m glad you’re helping Matt, but that doesn’t explain why you are trespassing on a crime scene.”

  “I’m a detective,” Brad said, with a twitch of his fingers indicating the graves around him. Sanchez clearly knew more than he’d told the police, but Brad recognized that combination of shock and sorrow that humans reserved for their great tragedies. He may have planted them, but he really didn’t seem a likely candidate for membership in Donne’s cabal.

  “Murder isn’t my specialty,” he added, pushing a little. “But I can hardly ignore it when it turns up on a job. I can’t believe you ignore it when murder turns up on your job either.”

  “I never killed anyone. Most violent thing I’ve ever done is set rat traps in the garden. For rats. Haven’t done that in ten years or more.” Which didn’t entirely answer the question.

  “Maybe not. Grayson Donne and his friends may have killed them, but he didn’t bury them. His kind never do. Leaves his gardener as the most likely candidate.”

  “I’m not his gardener. I run a contracting company. You want a new wing on your house, you call me. You want a petunia border for your driveway, you call somebody else.”

  “Your father, then. Did he run from Donne’s cabal, or from the police?”

  “My father stayed alive. We helped when we could. Mostly we just stayed alive.” Sanchez headed back through the trees, toward the house. He stopped, half-turned to add, “I wasn’t lying about the police coming back. Unless you want to have this conversation with them, you’ll get out of here now.”

  The book was gone, and it had started to rain, a scattering of fat drops with rumbles of thunder in the distance. Brad waited until Sanchez was out of sight and headed for the house on Spruce Street. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that the Sanchez family knew entirely too much about the business of Princes.

  Chapter 55

  THE DOCTOR DIDN’T BELIEVE he’d been clean for four days, let alone four years. Sid Fucking Valentine got the drugs and doses out of Joad before they police took him away and the EMT called them ahead. So the doctor was waiting for a comatose patient when they wheeled him in still arguing because he wasn’t an invalid, damn it. He needed to be on his
feet, hated being vulnerable to attack with fight or flight clearing a lot more slowly than Van Der Graf’s drugs in his system. The doctor came to the obvious conclusion, asked Jaworski to wait outside, then tried the conspiratorial approach anyway when he wouldn’t leave—all just drug addicts here, must have been cut for shit on the street, man, ’cause that stuff could put a horse in the ground. We all just want to help—ignore the policeman in the corner; he’s a good guy. Not arresting users today, right?

  Evan’s drug history was four years out of date and he didn’t really know what Mac had put in his scotch or directly into his veins back then. He didn’t care what the doctor or the uniformed policeman waiting in the hall outside the curtains believed about him. But Mike Jaworski stood in the corner with his professional face on and Evan had thought he might have had a friend there, for a while at least.

  Ridiculous to care what anybody thought, though, when the truth would earn him a 72- hour stay in the psych ward. He tried the logical lie instead. “He must have made a mistake. I’m fine.”

  The doctor didn’t believe him on either count, told him he was lucky to be alive as if he didn’t know that already, that the drugs were clearing on their own, but he needed to be under observation. But he was the victim here. They couldn’t arrest him, and they couldn’t hold him against his will, and he was sick to death of hospitals. So Evan promised to call for the results of his tests and to come back if they found something unexpected in the blood work—wouldn’t do either, but he said what they wanted or he’d still be arguing—and he just walked out, a signed release, AMA—against medical advice—in his pocket and Mike Jaworski dogging his footsteps, still not saying a word.

  The ambulance had brought him in through the back, a covered level for emergency vehicles only, but the uniform led him out through the front. Jaworski was still with him, still not talking. He knew where he was now—cobbled drive, gardens full of impatiens and low shrubberies—they’d taken him to Cornell. He’d never made it to a hospital the last time—Brad and Lily had taken him back to Philly and detoxed him in an empty house on Spruce Street. They’d bought it just ahead of an open house and wound up living there—but he wouldn’t have ended up here. Hadn’t lived in the high-rent district then.

  Clouds had moved in, so it was dark in spite of the hour. Quieter than he’d expected, all things considered—a few more police around than you might expect, but none of them looking their way. Jaworski led him to a nondescript black sedan illegally parked in front of the door. “I’ll take it from here,” he told the uniform and walked around to the driver’s side. “The news vans followed Van Der Graf’s ambulance. By now they know you’re not there and they’ll be on their way, so if you’re not going to stay put like a sensible vic, we’ve got to get out of here now.”

  Evan slid into the passenger seat, relieved at his escape—from Van Der Graf, and from the hospital. Jaworski was talking again so he let him; tried to pay attention, but he needed sleep, his own bed and a long walk along Boat-house Row after: river and grass and quiet to think. But he wasn’t going to get it.

  “Your father seems to have disappeared.” Jaworski glanced over, knew right away Evan wasn’t surprised. “He’s going to have to talk to Sid again when he turns up. Lily’s downtown now. That’s where we’re going. The FBI wants to know why that box is worth thirty-five million dollars, and why Van Der Graf and his cronies would risk a federal kidnapping charge over an empty pine box that doesn’t even open. So do I.”

  “Oak,” Evan corrected him, rubbed gunk out of his eyes. Long day, and they were heading into more trouble. Sid Fucking Valentine, when every muscle he had quivered with the need for sleep. The need for something. “Oak and Iron.”

  “Oak. That makes all the difference, I suppose.” Dry as old bone.

  “The provenance makes the difference. It’s always the provenance,” Evan explained, and wished he hadn’t.

  Jaworski didn’t look over this time. Kept it cool. “Provenance. So where’s it from?”

  “France.” Anyone with a catalog knew that much already. Evan pointedly closed his eyes. Hoped it would discourage more questions he hadn’t figured out safe answers to. Hoped Sid didn’t know the right questions.

  When he opened his eyes again, it was raining, and the car had pulled up in front of the house on Spruce Street.

  “Make some notes before you forget anything,” Jaworski said, “Then get some sleep. Sid can wait until morning.” Evan wondering how he was supposed to forget any of the afternoon. But he didn’t have to think about it now. Could, at least, try not to let it drive him crazy.

  The car pulled away, left him standing alone in the rain. Ellen Li would assign somebody for the night shift, but nobody else in the police department had access to the house. He could look forward to a night interrupted only by his own nightmares.

  The streetlamp on the corner gave him enough light to navigate the office, but not enough to see the medallion in the carpet or the pentagram above it. He felt its presence, though, an easing in his shoulders under its protection. Didn’t see the daemon lord sitting in his high-backed leather desk chair.

  “You made the evening news, but not in a good way. You looked like you’d been dragged backward through a neutron star. They are calling it a Satanic murder cult, complete with pictures of Grayson Donne’s graveyard. And you have messages.”

  The daemon read from a lined tablet, though he hadn’t turned on the desk lamp. “Three of them wanted interviews, all local. The FBI hasn’t released your name, but they recognized you from local cases. I asked for money and hung up.

  “Your mother called. I do a very good you, by the way. She said to come home, you can find a job in the school system. Making all that money is pointless if you don’t live to spend it, talk, talk, talk, you never did listen to sense, but let her know if you need anything.”

  Caramos. Caramos had talked to his mother? Once his heart started again, Evan pushed the thought aside for later. He’d have to call her, but not yet. Couldn’t cope with the well-meaning concern when he was feeling this raw and really didn’t want to face the fallout from her conversation with a daemon lord. God. What had Caramos said to her?

  Unfortunately, there was more. “Your lawyer is not happy that you’ve been getting yourself damaged again, or that members of this agency may have been talking to the FBI without counsel, or, and she stressed this particularly, with the agency contract you sent her to review. She said that you must not sign it, because it puts you at risk for full liability, including for the thirty-five million dollar box she saw on the television, if your partners decide to walk away from the business. Are your partners likely to walk away?”

  Too late not to sign the contracts, but they’d worked—his father had Donne’s book, Lily had the box, and they’d all walked away from Van Der Graf’s traps.

  “If they walk away, I won’t be alive to worry about the business, so it won’t matter.” That was his life all right—so screwed up that thirty-five million dollars was the least of his problems.

  “True. You might want to cancel the appointment tomorrow, then. I penciled her in for ten.”

  “Tomorrow is Saturday.”

  “She’s charging you extra for that. Someone named Lieutenant Li called for Badad—Brad. Said—” Caramos tilted the tablet, gave up trying to read his own handwriting. He knew it all by heart anyway. Daemon lords never forgot anything. “Said that somebody named Carlos Sanchez has fallen off the radar and they haven’t found his older daughter at all—if Brad knows anything, she wants to hear it. Did he kill them?”

  “Did Ellen—Lieutenant Li—ask that?”

  “No. I was just wondering.”

  “Wonder about something else. He didn’t, and we don’t need to raise any more suspicion that we have already. Why are you still here anyway?”

  “You made a deal with Paimon. Host-debts are at stake. ” Judgment blurred his features, a fuller version of his father’s face lit by the unearthly
blue flames that he raised around himself.

  “I’m here to guarantee the contract you made with a foreign Prince, one way or another.” I hope it goes well and we can all celebrate with a hot fudge sundae and go home. But I protect Ariton’s interests in this matter.”

  One way or another.

  Evan knew the minds of daemon lords. Caramos was called the Joyful One, but it didn’t make him any less dangerous than Anader the Cruel. So he knew what that meant.

  “You’re here to kill me.” He backed away, both hands raised to stop him, though Caramos hadn’t moved and couldn’t enter the circle of the pentagram in the ceiling.

  “Not me.” Caramos set down the tablet with its messages scrawled in the dark. Fire smoldered in the pits where his eyes had been. “I want to help you.”

  “Get out of my house. I abjure you.”

  “If things go badly, you don’t want it to be your father, do you? That’s why he’s here—it’s been his appointed task from the day you met him. But I like you, Evan, so I will do this one thing for you. If you cannot fulfill the contract, your father won’t have to kill you. I assumed you would want that for him. And you will have your memories of Lily for comfort when the time comes.”

  “I want you out of my house.” Evan didn’t give an answer, or wait for one. He needed to sleep off the last of Cyril Van Der Graf’s drugs, but he lay awake, staring up into the darkness, for a long time. Lily didn’t come home, and just this once, he was glad.

  Chapter 56

  “I HAD AN APPOINTMENT WITH YOUR SON, but you’ll do.” The furniture was out of order in the front office—someone had dragged in one of the comfortable chairs from the waiting room and Khadijah Flint homed in on it, settled herself for a long stay. “Is Evan all right? I saw him on the television last night—they were putting him in an ambulance.”