by Jackie May
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“Ages. Gotta be ten years ago, maybe more.”
Hillerman seems to like that answer. She nods. “What was her name?”
“She didn’t say, and even if she did, I can’t name names, and you know it. I do that, and my kind will do much worse to me than exorcism. So just go ahead and cast me out!”
“Relax.”
Ruby chomps nervously on the hookah tube, like a baby with a pacifier. Hillerman has completely broken him. She’s right—Arael Moaz was a much tougher cookie, and he was already half dead from cancer.
“How do I know you’re not lying to me?” she asks.
“Lying?”
“To get me off your back. Telling me what I want to hear.”
“But, I said it’s a woman. Is that right? The summoner you’re looking for?”
“50/50 guess it’s a woman. Not good enough.”
“She didn’t give me a name, I swear!”
“Fine. As it turns out, there’s something about her that’s just as good as a name. Something you could only know if you saw her face.”
Brenner goes on alert. Knee bouncing. “Her face?”
“I saw her face,” Ruby says, “but she was wearing sunglasses and a hoodie!”
“Wouldn’t matter, trust me,” Hillerman says.
Brenner interrupts, blurting, “Her chin.”
Hillerman’s face whips around. Her mouth is caught half open. It’s the closest I’ve ever seen her to genuine shock.
Encouraged, Brenner says, “A black stripe, starting at the bottom lip, running down the chin and all the way down the neck. Is that right?”
Hillerman’s only answer is to close her mouth. That would be a yes.
“We need to talk,” Brenner says.
Just like that, the encounter is over. Hillerman pounds twice on the roof of the car. Behind me, a tinted window rolls down to reveal an FBI agent in the front seat. Out the windshield, glittering in the alley, is a silver luxury car that I could only describe as a giant diamond on wheels. Ruby’s eyes bulge, and he spits out the hookah pipe with a sputter of shock.
“Bugatti Veyron Super Sport,” Hillerman explains. “Estimated value, 1.5 million. Confiscated during the rollup of an organized crime family in Miami. Free and clear, no strings attached.”
“No strings?” Ruby repeats. His face shines with the glow of love at first sight. Can’t pull his eyes away from the car.
“It’s all yours.”
A high-pitched squeak whistles through Ruby’s lips.
“With the understanding that the debt is now paid. You no longer have any claim on Shayne Davies or Detective Brenner. All is even between the two of you, and if I ever hear otherwise, it’s bye-bye, Bugatti. Square?”
Ruby, still unable to peel his eyes away from his new lover, makes a shooing motion with his fingers.
Satisfied, Hillerman nods at Brenner and throws the door open. “Now, we talk.”
Two empty beer bottles sit on the coffee table in front of Special Agent Hillerman. The first, she drank entirely in one breath as soon as we stepped into her usual hotel room at the Marriott downtown. The second, she guzzled as Brenner recounted his memory of the revenant with the black chin.
“They have to be related,” he says. “This revenant and the demon summoner you’re looking for.”
Now that it’s her turn to share, Hillerman pops the top on a third beer. Her black shades still cover her eyes, despite the gray darkness of the room, with only a single lamp on by the bed. For a long moment, she stares at her feet propped on the coffee table. The beer in her hand seems forgotten. She lets a long breath hiss from deep in her lungs. When she talks, her voice is thick with the beginnings of a buzz. I can tell she would be a sad drunk.
“When I was seventeen, I was abducted by a demon named Boca. He’d taken other girls. Tortured them, broken them. They hadn’t ever fought back.” She considers the beer in her hands, but doesn’t drink. “I did. Back at his place, I grabbed a knife. He had…” She gestures to her chin. “He had a messy chin. Years before, he’d been burned with acid down his chin and neck.”
Brenner trades looks with me. This is it. We’re about to get answers.
“I rammed that knife up through the bottom of his chin. The news called it poetic justice. I sure didn’t mean it that way. I had nightmares for weeks of that chin, that throat opening up, gushing blood and spilling out his tongue. Until…” She turns the bottle in her fingers. “Until they weren’t nightmares anymore. He was there, and he was real. His spirit clung to me from the Deep world, because I was the one who killed him.”
“He haunted you?” I ask, fighting to control a shiver up my spine.
“Wherever I went. We were connected. Killing is an act of creation, same as giving birth. It creates bonds. Boca was never going to leave me alone until I joined him in the Deep. Back then, I didn’t have anyone. My parents were divorced. I couldn’t go back to school. I had to hide from news reporters. There was only one person I could…” Her voice catches, which scares me more than any gruesome detail of her story. “He was the only person I knew I could trust. I knew he’d believe me.” She wipes at her eyes beneath the shades. “Of course he did.”
After a long pause, it’s evident that she won’t—or can’t—say his name, so I do it for her. “Matthew Hillerman.” I remember his photo from the news articles I found. Tall, ripped guy, tattooed with all the same morbid designs Hillerman now sports along both arms and shoulders. Spiders and skulls and angels of death. He’s the reason why she listens to heavy metal bands.
She thumbs the wedding band on her ring finger. “Matt helped me. We found out Boca had a daughter. She was trying to bring him back, but she needed a body for him to inhabit.”
I take a wild guess. “Matt’s body?”
Hillerman nods. “They took him. By the time I tracked them down, it was too late. Matt wasn’t mine anymore.” Her voice becomes firm, as though she is hardening herself against the rest of the story. She sounds oddly detached. “Back then, I only knew of one way to exorcise a demon.”
This part of the story I already know. Brenner’s heard it, too. “You killed him.” I remember her exact words from before: It looked like Matt, and it talked like Matt, but it wasn’t Matt, so I shot him six times in the face.
“That’s right. So then, without Matt’s body, and my resistance too strong, Boca’s spirit had only one other choice for a vessel.”
“His daughter,” Brenner says.
Sitting up suddenly, Hillerman takes a long pull from the beer, then slams it down on the coffee table. “Her name is Tabitha Durran.”
“She’s the demon summoner you’re looking for?”
Hillerman nods. “She disappeared. It’s been a decade. I’ve gone to every FUA in the country. Tracked hundreds of demons. Exorcised them, provoked them, lured them out. Anything to keep my finger on the pulse of the Deep world, because eventually it will lead me back to Tabitha Durran, and when I find her…” She closes her fist around the neck of the beer bottle and squeezes. “Shayne, you once asked why I do this job. Now you know.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”
“You got something to say?”
“No, I want you to say it. Tell me what you are.”
“What I am?”
“Your necklace explains the underworld current I feel from you, but it doesn’t explain your powers. You can see the Deep. You can hear demons.”
“Maybe those aren’t powers. Maybe those are a curse.”
“Or maybe they’re signs of possession. Maybe you’re a vessel for demons. Like Ruby said, it takes one to know one.” When she doesn’t respond, I say, “Take the sunglasses off.”
She doesn’t budge. There’s a sudden tension in the room that pulls the claws from my fingertips. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Brenner take a step back. Hooking one finger around the frame of her shades, Hillerman rips them from h
er face. I’m taken aback by the eyes that stare intensely at me. They’re not demon eyes. They don’t burn with hatred. These are the eyes of a broken woman. Glossy from alcohol; puffy from emotion; red from strain; dark-circled from stress; hardened to stone from countless disappointments. She may or may not be a vessel for demons, but one thing’s for sure: She is still haunted by them.
“Hey, same team, remember?” Brenner says. “Can we hit the pause button on this for now? I’m still missing connections.”
Hillerman’s eyes remain fixed on mine, even though her words are for Brenner: “A human who becomes a vessel for demons is called a proxy. The connection between a demon and its proxy can be strengthened by sharing physical characteristics between each other. The stronger the resemblance of the proxy to the demon, the stronger the bond between them. Think of a voodoo doll. The more the doll looks like the target, the more effective the doll.”
Brenner processes the idea, coming to the obvious conclusion. “So this demon, Boca, is using Tabitha Durran as a proxy. She’s his daughter, so there’s already a strong connection. Hell, they share the same genes.”
“All true. But there’s always room for even stronger connections, and Tabitha is committed, I’ll give her that.” Hillerman finally breaks contact with my eyes to look at Brenner. This is the part he’s been waiting for, and she wants him to comprehend. “The most unique physical characteristic of Boca was his chin. Burnt and scarred by acid.”
Brenner looks disturbed. “She did something to her chin? So she’d look more like him?”
“She used lye. Easy to get at any hardware store. Pure lye powder will dissolve an entire human body in three hours. She used a 40 percent solution, which will only do this…” She turns around and lifts up her shirt, revealing a mosaic of dark, shiny scars all over her back. She offers no explanation about how she got them, and I’m not sure I want to know. Pulling her shirt down, she continues. “Imagine scars like that, but all down her chin and neck.”
Brenner is amazed. “She poured it on herself?”
“I told you, she’s committed.”
“And that strengthened their proxy bond?”
“More than anything else could, even DNA. It’s not just the chin they share now. It’s the pain that goes with it. Pain is power.”
Brenner slides me a concerned look. I silently agree—this is insane, even for the underworld.
“Boca is a summoner demon,” Hillerman explains. “When Tabitha became his proxy, she inherited that power. She can materialize demons from the Deep. It only lasts for a moment, but that’s all it needs to possess a body.”
Brenner nods, seeing the pieces start to fit together. “A demon horde recruits necromancers to reanimate dead bodies and a summoner to materialize a demon.”
“With a necro and a summoner, you have immortality. When one body gets destroyed, they put you right into another.”
“And Arael Moaz was on his death bed,” I say, fitting the final piece of the puzzle.
Hillerman releases a long breath. “The plan was for him to go out in flames during the war with police—”
“Which we stopped,” I interject.
“—and then for his necromancer to reanimate a new body.”
“His necromancer, who we killed,” I point out.
Hillerman wags a finger at me. “King Paul was gunning for a spot in the ring, but he’s not the necromancer. We know Arael already had an active necro, because of the revenants that got to Haley. The black chin is a proxy marker. It’s an indication of their owner.”
“Like a brand?” I ask.
“That’s right. And this particular brand is unmistakable.”
“Tabitha Durran,” Brenner says.
“The timeline adds up. Ten years ago, she disappears. Ten years ago, Ruby Paizo takes an audience with a female summoner, but declines. Ten years ago, Arael Moaz gets a sudden boost in confidence. The East Side horde has a spike in fealty. Some plan was obviously coming together. I’ve been tracking it all along, of course. I knew a summoner must be at the heart of it, but I couldn’t be sure it was Tabitha.”
Brenner grunts with satisfaction. “Until now.”
Hillerman holds up a hand to tick off fingers like bullet points. “This is what we know. Arael Moaz wants to jump bodies. Tabitha Durran is his summoner. The identity of his necromancer remains hidden, but he or she is actively building a necromancy ring with young sorcerers from Detroit. And last, but not least, while Arael is out of commission, Beyona, his number-one enforcer, is commanding the East Side.”
I was following her list, all the way up to that last name, which I’ve never heard in my life. “Beyona? Who the hell’s Beyona?”
“You’ve met several times. Since you and Brenner killed her baphomet brother, ruined her dad’s big war with the cops, then killed her new young necromancer, I have to assume the both of you are now in the top spot on her hit list, which is something I would not wish on my worst enemy. Beyona’s soul is black as her feathers.”
Oh. My heart thumps once, then freezes.
Oh. Her.
My skin tingles with horror at the memory of the crow demon swooping down on me, cloaked against the black night sky. Twelve-foot wingspan. Razor-sharp beak. Talons that could wrap clear around my head. Each encounter I’ve had with the harpy—whether she was in woman or shifted form—has ended in me bleeding a lot and her getting away.
A sudden knock at the door sends me jumping three feet in the air with fright.
“Hotel security,” booms a gruff voice. “Had complaints of shouting.”
“We’re good here,” Hillerman calls out.
“Glad to hear it, but I’ll need to speak with somebody myself.”
Hillerman barks back, “It was just a movie. We turned it down.”
Another burst of knocking sends Hillerman stomping for the door, muttering obscenities. Just then, I realize that a warning buzz of energy in my gut accompanies the thumping of my heart.
Not only is that an underworld current I’m feeling, but one that I recognize with dread.
Snatching two fistfuls of Hillerman’s shirt, I jerk her away from the door just as it explodes with a rash of bullet holes.
The barrage of gunfire is deafening. Multiple automatic weapons spew a continuous stream of bullets through the door and wall. I’m sprawled at the foot of a couch. Hillerman scrambles across the floor to a set of drawers by the bed. Through a torrential rain of paint chips, shattered picture frames, and drywall splinters, I spot glimpses of Brenner trying to keep himself covered behind a mini fridge that is turning into swiss cheese. I cover my ears and scream at him, but nothing can be heard over the thunder.
Suddenly, there are muzzle flashes to my left, and my heart bottoms out with the thought that we’re surrounded—they’ve somehow come through the back of the hotel room. But no, it’s just Hillerman, returning fire with her service pistol. The effect is immediate. All firing halts. The ground stops shaking, and the world goes mute, except for a dull ringing in my ears. Hillerman sprints for the tattered door, literally jerks it from its hinges, and chases after the receding footsteps of our attackers.
Brenner starts after her, but I tackle him. “No, Jay!”
“She needs backup.”
“You’re shot, Jay! Look at you! Stay down!”
His chest is soaked with a sticky, dark stain. Terror stops my brain from functioning. I can’t think straight. It’s so much, he’s covered in it. He’ll bleed out in seconds.
“—not blood!” He shouts, finally getting through to me. “It’s not blood, Shayne. Look!” He points to the top of the mini fridge, where a single beer bottle remains intact. The rest have been shattered to bits. Fizzy beer suds cascade down the side of the fridge. I paw at Brenner’s shirt, searching for wounds. I don’t find any. The tiny fridge is pockmarked with two dozen dents, but Brenner is untouched. It’s a miracle.
“I’m fine, Shayne. Hillerman can’t go after them alone!”
&
nbsp; He stands, but I pull him back down to the floor. “No, Jay! With what? Sticks and stones? We’re not armed. And I know what’s out there, Jay. I felt the wolf. The silverback. It’s East Side, which means her. She’s out there, just waiting for us, I know it.”
To my relief, Jay finally stops resisting me. “The harpy?”
“Please, Jay, just stay here with me. We’ve done enough, haven’t we? How many times have we dropped everything and gone running after them? We deserve to sit one out, don’t we?” I grasp desperately at his collar. “Don’t we?”
He regards me with soft eyes. This isn’t like me, and he knows it. I don’t think I like that look on his face. It could be sympathy and understanding, but it could also be disappointment, loss of respect.
“They won’t just go away, Shayne.”
“No, but they have, Jay. I heard the screech of tires. They’re half a mile down the road by now.”
He frowns at me. “You know what I mean. This will never end, until one side or the other is dead. It’s them or us.”
I spread my palm on his chest, savoring the feel of his heartbeat. He’s right, of course. The time for cuddling up in a warm bed and hiding from the world under our covers is over. This means war. “It’s them, Jay. I promise you, it’s them. We win this thing.” I jab my pointer finger at his chest. “I keep you.”
His eyes kindle with a fire to match my own. With the tenderest of touches, he sweeps a lock of red hair from my forehead, and he says, “I keep you, too.”
I’d kiss him if we weren’t covered in drywall dust and beer. So instead I just say, “And we keep this mini fridge.”
Brenner smiles at my now-predictable attempt to ease the tension.
“Seriously, Jay. I demand that you keep this mini fridge with you at all times.”
A noise out in the hallway shuts my mouth. Somebody’s coming. There’s angry shouting and thumps against the wall from a struggle. I pull Brenner behind me, but he resists, trying to position himself in front of me.
“Get behind me,” I hiss.
He puts me in a headlock. “You get behind me.”
I bite his arm. “I can take a few bullets, and you can’t!”
