A Legacy of Daemons

by Camille Bacon-Smith

  “He’s fine.” Brad met her skepticism with an even stare and tried again, opting for something she’d believe this time. “He’ll be fine. He just needs sleep. And I thought we canceled this appointment.”

  He closed the billing file in the accounting program, wished he’d used the private office at the center of the house. But Caramos was in there, playing “Battleships” on Evan’s laptop. Evan was still sleeping off the tail end of Cyril Van Der Graf’s drugs, and Brad didn’t expect to see him until noon. If he’d known Caramos hadn’t canceled the appointment, he’d have gone to Singapore. He would at least have worn a suit.

  This was going to cost his son; he just didn’t know how yet.

  Khadijah Flint didn’t remark on his shirtsleeves, however. “My office received a call from a Mr. Ray Moss.” She didn’t move, but her tone left frost on the windows. “He said that, on second thought, your offices didn’t need the help of my kind on matters of contracts. I considered whether he meant people of color, or women, or just lawyers in general. But I don’t work for Mr. Moss. If you no longer wish my services, you’ll have to tell me yourself. And since the contract language Evan asked me to review favors you and Miss Ryan at his expense, I will also have to hear that from your son, personally.”

  Brittlely formal, she still managed to say “your son” like an accusation. Brad closed the laptop for a distraction, but it didn’t work. He hadn’t expected it to. “Mr. Moss has reason to distrust lawyers,” he said. “He hasn’t met you, so he wouldn’t have known about the other possible interpretations you might put on his dismissal.”

  “Am I dismissed, Mr. Bradley?”

  “Of course not.” He really should have kicked Caramos out of the study. “I assume your current visit means the contract Evan sent is airtight, ironclad, loophole free—the cliché of your choice—it works?”

  “The cliché of your choice. I advise against it.” She found a folder in the sleek leather bag she carried and slid the contract across the expanse of antique Hepplewhite desk with an expectant cock of her head. She wanted something more from him, and he knew he couldn’t give it.

  “I can’t promise not to walk away,” he said, which was the crux of her problem with that contract and the only part that made it livable. Because he knew he would. Someday he would tire of playing respectable businessman, and he wanted a way to just go that didn’t require his son creatively dead first. Couldn’t tell his lawyer that, and she wouldn’t understand the other side of the agreement—that until he chose to walk away, Evan owned him. It made him queasy to think about it.

  She looked at him like he’d disappointed her in some profound way. “The news reports said the FBI found hundreds of bodies murdered by the people who held your son hostage yesterday. I gather he would have been the next one. Can’t this wait until he’s recovered from his ordeal?”

  “He was working, and we had him covered. He was never in danger.” Cold himself, because Evan wouldn’t appreciate being cast as the victim in this drama. He had a job. It hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but the job still got done. “It’s too late anyway. We’ve already signed it.”

  Tight-lipped, she shook her head, reached into the leather bag again and brought out an envelope. “The results of your DNA tests,” she said pointedly. “You can destroy the paper they’re printed on, but you can’t undo the information in the hospital’s database.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” He hadn’t needed tests to know Evan was his son. Every daemon lord in existence could taste it on him. Ariton grudgingly acknowledged him. But Evan’s mother was human, and she hadn’t recognized the body Brad wore now. It had seemed a small concession, and DNA was easy to match. They’d done it with a bloody handshake.

  She didn’t answer him, just looked at the walk-away contract on the desk between them, not much different from any contract the agency held with its clients, and he reminded himself that she didn’t know what it meant to Ariton.

  Daemon lords didn’t function well in solitude, and it made him uncomfortable to realize that the need for connections was so powerful in exile that he’d substituted an assortment of human associations for his absent host-cousins. He would not willingly give up those associations while he stayed here, but he couldn’t promise against his nature to keep them either.

  “This isn’t about DNA,” he said. “Evan’s my son. The tests were for his mother. And the agency is solvent.” It had been, until they’d dumped eight million dollars into Matt Shields’ strongbox. But Shields had plenty of rubies. Carlos Sanchez would not be quitting his day job, but the agency would be in fine shape as soon as they sold a few of those stones.

  “Then what is it about?” Flint settled herself more comfortably in her chair. “Pardon me for prying. I don’t mean to intrude on your private life, but if you tell me what you are trying to do, hopefully, we can find a better way to do it.”

  “This way works fine. But thank you for the test results.”

  The question was closed and Flint seemed to read that, changed the subject. “Do you want me to stay while you look at them?”

  “If you wish.” Brad slit the top of the envelope and lifted out the single sheet of paper. “All the proof you need,” he said, and handed it over. “Evan is my son. Any more questions?”

  “Do you still want to go through with this contract?”

  “I told you. It was never about that.”

  Flint shook her head. “It will kill that boy if you walk away from him now.”

  “No,” he said, “It won’t.” Which made him laugh because, thanks to the contract, it was the truth.

  “Then I will have to concede that I don’t understand. I just hope that you know what you are doing. As usual.”

  Khadijah Flint got up to leave and Brad followed. “Thank you,” he said. He’d be paying weekend rates and acknowledged no unwelcome debt with the words. “I can’t say whether Evan’s mother will be pleased, but this should reassure her that we mean no harm to her son.”

  And then perhaps she could convince Sergeant Joe Dougherty, who might still pull their lives down around them because he’d owed her a favor from high school. But that wasn’t a problem his lawyer could solve, so he showed her to the door.

  Evan would be asleep for another hour at least. He was going to kick Caramos out of the study and reclaim his tapestried wing chair and his coffee and his book.

  Except that Ellen Li was waiting on the other side of the door.

  Chapter 57

  “WE HAVE TO TALK,”Ellen said, and he wished she’d sent Jaworski. Jaworski was Evan’s associate and didn’t require any effort on Brad’s part.

  “I don’t suppose you’d settle for a game of chess?” he asked hopefully. Khadijah Flint moved back into the office.

  “Maybe next week, if we can clear this up now. I need to talk to Evan—Captain Marsh persuaded Sid that I could get more out of him than the FBI. Is he all right? Mike said he left the hospital against medical advice.

  “He’s fine,” he tried that answer again, waited for the objection. Ellen just nodded her head and let it lie. She was a cop and knew the answer for what it was—not maimed, still functioning. Best you could expect for the present.

  Khadijah Flint sat back down, smiled politely though she hadn’t known about the AMA. She was their lawyer and it looked like they were going to need one even if she was angry with him. But he knew he was going to hear about it later.

  Ellen Li sat next to Flint, smiled encouragingly. It felt odd, that professional smile. He’d met at least a dozen of her smiles, over the chessboard or dinner with Harry. This was the only one that didn’t light her eyes with their own human fire. “Is he here?”

  “Sid?” Brad played for time.

  “Evan.”

  “He’s asleep.”

  “Can’t this wait until he’s recovered a little from his ordeal?” Flint’s voice carried just the right amount of professional indignation. Brad knew she really was indignant, at him f
or not protecting his son and at the police for intruding before Evan regained his feet. He couldn’t figure out why she’d want Ellen to think otherwise.

  “If I don’t come back with something, Sid will be in this office by noon. And he’s cranky when he isn’t fed regularly.” Ellen Li was Brad’s associate. He trusted her and so did Evan, which could be dangerous, but he didn’t want Sid Valentine anywhere near this house if he could help it. So he stood up with a slight nod to acknowledge the request.

  “If you wait here, I’ll see if I can wake him.”

  Once past the office door, he didn’t bother with the stairs.

  Evan usually sprawled when he slept and he usually did it naked, with at least an arm or a leg wrapped around Lily. But Lily hadn’t come home and Evan was sleeping in sweatpants, curled up tight like he was hoping to contain the damage. Even his face looked pinched, waiting for the next blow. The frown line between his eyes deepened as awareness of an intruder penetrated his sleep.

  Brad considered waking him, but hesitated. Some wounds Evan carried like a “fuck you” to the world, and some he hid for the weaknesses they were. Brad remembered the photographs that Mike Jaworski had shown him, paintings from the walls of Grayson Donne’s house. Remembered the mad, defiant boy he’d dragged out of a bar in the East Village. Those sweatpants hid more than his son’s body. They hid wounds he was in no mood to deal with at Khadijah Flint’s hourly rate.

  He considered stopping for a jacket. Ellen would notice, so he didn’t, but he did stop at the study. “If Evan wakes up, tell him Ellen Li is here to see him,” he said when Caramos looked up, from a game of solitaire now.

  “I could be Evan,” he offered, which would have been tempting if Brad didn’t want to live here tomorrow.

  “It can wait.”

  Caramos shrugged and went back to his game.

  Ellen Li and Khadijah Flint interrupted a discussion of a judge they all knew when he rejoined them. He didn’t have to tell them. Ellen took one look at his face and laughed, gently, like he’d proved something to her she’d known for years. “You couldn’t wake him.”

  He didn’t answer—didn’t have to.

  “Mike is worried about him too. I can give you names if he’ll accept help.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Brad assured her, and didn’t think about Evan coiled up tight in his sweatpants. “Was there anything else?”

  “Thanks in some part to the efforts of this agency, the FBI safely recovered Alba Sanchez, but Carlos Sanchez and his older daughter, Marina Sanchez, are still missing. If you have any—”

  “I don’t have them here. I don’t know where they went. The agency would help if we could, but I suspect that Sid would find our efforts intrusive.” Sid was still angry that they’d solved the theft of the Dowager Empress treasures. Angrier now, Brad figured, and he was right, but not for the reason he’d expect.

  “That never stopped you before. Apparently isn’t stopping you now. The FBI in New York found recent ashes in one of the overturned graves on Grayson Donne’s estate. They questioned Rafael Sanchez, who was on-site at the time. Sanchez said he found someone from this agency burning something in one of the graves. He identified you from your license photo. Sid thinks you were destroying evidence. Were you?”

  He didn’t answer, felt the pull of associations, his resistance to them as well. Khadijah Flint leaned forward. In the hierarchy of furniture, she had the better chair and Ellen Li did not. “Are you here to arrest my client? Again? This time, we will sue.”

  Ellen waved away Flint’s question. “No one thinks Mr. Bradley is involved in these murders, not even Sid. But would your client destroy evidence to protect his son’s past from being dragged through the courts? There’s not a soul who’s ever worked with this agency who’d expect anything else. Even Sid has that figured.”

  “It was nothing,” he said. “An offering for the dead.” In a way, it was true.

  “My client is innocent.” Khadijah Flint straightened her spine where she sat. She supported him coolly, but he was not her favorite flavor today. Brad wondered if she believed him. No question Ellen didn’t.

  “The FBI will be analyzing the ashes. By Tuesday they’ll know what he burned.”

  Which was the point of this discussion, really. He had until Tuesday to solve the case and put it to bed, then he’d have, at minimum, an obstructing justice charge to deal with.

  A noise at the door made them all jump a little, settle again with an embarrassed ruffle of feathers. “Evan,” Brad said. “You’re awake.”

  “Sorta.” Evan took a sip of his coffee, and Brad wondered if Khadijah Flint could win a case for justifiable homicide if he killed him for it. More of that must have shown on his face than he’d intended, because Evan handed over the big blue mug with a cautionary, “Leave some for me.”

  Their audience pretended—broadly—not to notice as he handed the mug back. “Ellen wants to ask you some questions. Are you up to it?”

  “I’m fine.” Evan looked fairly disgusted at his choice of chairs, but he took the spindle-backed reproduction. “Has the FBI exhumed Grayson Donne yet?”

  Chapter 58

  EVAN STARED INTO HIS NEARLY EMPTY mug. He wasn’t exactly in withdrawal from yesterday’s drugs, but he couldn’t quite shake a lingering hunger for a little something to take the edge off. It heightened his awareness of the bottle of scotch in the credenza.

  He’d filled the hole he used to pour the booze into—didn’t need it to kill the night terrors or dull the questions about what made him what he was or whether it would kill him someday. It still might, but at least he knew why now. Knew where the flames in the mirror came from. His mind had that figured. His body, though, still wanted the feel of the bottle in his hand, the scent of the scotch and the slide of it down his throat. He craved the numbness that followed the fire in his gut, and set it up again . . .

  Coffee wouldn’t do much, but it was something to hold, something to pour down his throat, and the kick of caffeine hitting his bloodstream would have to do. He considered going back to the kitchen for the coffeepot and a few more mugs, but figured the faster he answered Ellen’s questions the faster he could get the police and his lawyer out of the house. Then—well, then he’d take it one minute at a time and let the case distract him until his hands stopped spasming around an imaginary bottle.

  He sat down, rested the mug on the desk, stuck his sneakered foot on the corner, and tilted his chair onto the two back legs. He was wearing a loose pair of Dockers with a Penn sweatshirt—had considered changing into work clothes when Caramos gave him the message, but it was Saturday, and his skin felt like Cyril Fucking Van Der Graf had gone over it with sandpaper. So they’d just have to deal.

  At least he’d gotten Ellen Li thinking down the path he wanted her to go.

  “Grayson Donne was over ninety years old when he died. Do you have any reason to believe he was murdered?”

  “Not that one.” Though he wondered, now that he thought about it. Matt Shields had said he’d done everything he could to keep Donne alive. He’d never said why his efforts finally failed. “The younger one. Donne had plans for his son. Van Der Graf said that the cabal had some kind of breeding program. But Alba Sanchez said her sister was in love with him, and Grey Donne wanted to marry her.”

  Grayson Donne’s breeding program involved a captive daemon. Matt Shields had said that the son had refused, and so the father had raped the daemon—Carlos Sanchez had said her name was Kady—repeatedly, in an unsuccessful effort to impregnate her, until she’d gone completely insane. Then he’d died and left her trapped in a box. Evan still had to figure out how to release her without turning the planet into shrapnel, but he had at least until tomorrow for that.

  He couldn’t tell Ellen Li, of course, but he could point her in a useful direction. “So maybe the son had an accidental fall, or maybe somebody murdered him over his life choices. Maybe it wasn’t premeditated—he was no good to any of them dead—but given t
he number of murders the police uncovered in Donne’s woods, I wouldn’t bet anything in the family mausoleum died of natural causes either.”

  “That’s not in the transcript of any of the Sanchez interviews.” But Ellen looked like she believed him, and she didn’t talk to him like he was about to crack. He needed business as usual, and she gave it to him. “As it happens, the FBI agrees with you about not assuming natural causes for any of the deaths related to the Donnes or their cult. Yesterday they filed orders to exhume both of them—father and son.

  “But there is one person who might have gained by the death of the younger Donne. Sid thinks that’s why Carlos Sanchez ran, that he decided to stop both of the Donnes the only way he knew how, and that your client helped him. He’s ready to have your client arrested as an accessory, at least, and possibly for the murders of both Donnes if he can’t find Sanchez.”

  It was sort of ironic that Sid could get that close and still tag Shields for the wrong murders. They knew Donne had orchestrated the deaths that filled his graveyard, but the tooth and claw marks on the bodies, the strength it took to tear them apart while they struggled and breathed, remained a mystery to their forensics experts. They’d never seen Matt Shields take on the monstrous form summoned by Donne’s spell.

  Brad interrupted then. “Sid always confuses the victim for the suspect. I’m not surprised he’s done it again. As for Carlos Sanchez, we have no evidence that he ran from anything. He may have been kidnapped, like his daughter. He may be dead. Or he may wisely have gone into hiding until the police neutralize Donne’s group. You spoke to his son—what does he have to say?”

  “He said he doesn’t know.” She didn’t believe it.

  Neither did Evan. “Sanchez is a political refugee. His daughter was kidnapped by Donne’s cronies. It’s the same old nightmare back to haunt his family again.” The police would already know that, but they hadn’t seen Carlos Sanchez staring down the threat of Donne’s house of horrors. Which didn’t speak to his innocence, but maybe explained why he’d gone to ground.