Realm Walker rw-1

by Kathleen Collins

  “Norris.”

  “It’s me,” answered a low, smooth voice.

  Jeremiah Grace was Juliana’s screener with the Agency. All Walkers had one as there were a lot of cases and a relatively small number of Walkers. The screeners went in, assessed the situation and decided whether the Walker needed to be called at all or if it could be handled by the lower level agents. In her case, it was precisely why Jeremiah was the first point of contact. Juliana had a tendency to think no one else could do the job and take on everything herself. He was objective enough to know when that was true and when it wasn’t. Not that she couldn’t take a case on if she wanted to anyway, but she rarely overruled Jeremiah. There was no quicker way to piss off a screener than to constantly ignore their opinion on cases.

  “Give me a second.” She put the phone down and swung her feet off the couch. Once she was in a sitting position, she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, struggling to wake up. When she thought she could have a coherent conversation, she grabbed the phone. “Talk to me.”

  “Fresh victim. Warehouse six at the pier.” His voice pulled her back to the present. “Have you eaten?”

  She looked at the clock again. “It’s 4:30 in the morning. What do you think?”

  “Don’t,” he said and hung up without waiting for a response.

  Chapter Four

  Juliana slid to a smooth stop outside warehouse six as a cold rain began to spit from the sky. Each icy drop stung like a needle prick against her skin. The crisp morning air tingled in her lungs. The scent of diesel was already mixing with the brine of the ocean as traffic on the waterway increased. She climbed off her bike and nodded a greeting to the familiar faces that patrolled the perimeter of the building.

  She turned in a slow circle, taking in the surroundings. Darkness reigned except for the periodic orange glow from an unbroken streetlight. Warehouses and office buildings comprised most of the pier’s real estate.

  Cameras hung outside a couple of buildings, but even if they worked, none of them pointed at the warehouse. Regardless, the tapes might show something and she made a mental note to have them pulled. Unable to delay any longer, she walked to the door, took a deep breath and swung it open.

  Immediately blinded by the incessant glare of the techs’ work lights, she stood still to give her eyes a chance to adjust. As she did, the acrid scent of cinders and ashes filled her nostrils. A demon. The only Altered without a signature, the only being she couldn’t track her normal way. The techs working the scene wore masks, but she doubted it was due to the demon stench. Only a few Altered could detect the smell. She was one of them. Lucky her.

  Jeremiah appeared beside her, offering her a mask of her own. She waved him away. The odor had already permeated every cell in her nose. The mask wouldn’t help now. Besides, it covered up the more mundane aromas of death. She’d take cinder and ashes over blood, sweat and urine any day.

  “You know I can’t track demons,” she said. She looked past him into the room, keeping her eyes diverted from the victim for the time being.

  “That’s not true,” he argued. “You just can’t see them. Until now, we were only guessing that’s what the perp was.” He sounded so sure in her ability that she studied him from the corner of her eye. At six-foot three he stood a good six inches taller than she did. His red skin was unblemished and his eyes were as black as a raging vampire’s. He looked straight ahead waiting for her to take the lead, to do what he’d called her there for.

  They stood at the edge of an empty room with a few boxes scattered around and a small office off to one side. Judging from the grime and cobwebs the building hadn’t been in use for some time. She settled her eyes on the body. Demons rarely killed clean and this victim was no exception. Thankfully, she listened to Jeremiah and hadn’t grabbed a bite to eat on the way out the door.

  A mound of flesh, indiscernible as male or female, lay in a pool of congealing blood in the middle of the floor. Arterial spray decorated the area surrounding it along with bloody chunks she could only assume were once part of the poor bastard in front of her. The body had been literally ripped apart. She could only hope for the victim’s sake that it was after he was already dead. The amount of blood told her that probably wasn’t the case, but she’d let the M.E. decide.

  One lone drop fell from the ceiling to add to the gore below. She glanced up to see something wet dangling from one of the beams above her head. She smacked Jeremiah on the arm with the back of her hand and gestured toward her find.

  He looked up and grunted before yelling to one of the techs.

  The tech frowned, hands on his hips. “How, by all the gods, am I supposed to retrieve that?”

  “Not my problem,” Jeremiah said with a small smile as he shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. He fell into step beside Juliana as she moved farther into the room. She crouched at the edge of the blood, careful to keep her boots out of it. Agency standard issue, they were enchanted to avoid crime scene contamination. They would leave nothing behind, not even a print, and they wouldn’t pick anything up either. That didn’t mean she relished the thought of standing around in body fluids.

  A tech dangled a pair of gloves in front of her face. She snatched them away and put them on, snapping them into place. “Is he done?” She gestured to the photographer standing at the perimeter of the room.

  When Jeremiah nodded, she began cataloguing what she saw. From this distance, the gender became easier to determine. “Based on the clothes and hairstyle, I’m guessing the victim is male.” Jeremiah recorded every word so there was no need for her to write anything down. “There’s not enough left of either the chest or the face to make a determination based on physical attributes and I’m not checking anywhere else.”

  A stifled laugh came from her left. The corner of Jeremiah’s mouth twitched as he tried not to smile.

  “Victim is approximately five-foot seven and lean. Has...” She reached forward and grasped a chunk of hair, twisting it in the light to ascertain the color. “Blond hair. Dressed in ripped jeans and black sneakers. Also wearing a T-shirt, appears black but with the amount of blood I can’t be sure. Denim jacket.”

  She had a brief flash of someone watching her house, someone without a signature and she shook her head to chase the thought away.

  “What is it?” Jeremiah asked.

  She started to explain, then shook her head again. “Nothing.”

  “It’s never nothing with you. Talk.”

  “I thought someone was watching my house earlier, but when I went outside to find them, they weren’t there.” She looked up and met his eyes. “No signature, nothing.”

  His eyes widened. “Was it our vic?”

  “I didn’t get a good look and I’m not sure there’s enough left to identify even if I did,” she said.

  “So what made you think of it?”

  “I’m not sure. The signature thing maybe. My innate paranoia most likely.” There was no reason for a demon to be watching her house. None at all. She clung to that and focused on what she knew; she had a dead body that had been killed by a demon.

  Peeling off her gloves, she stood and stepped away from the body, wanting some distance. She put on her glasses and opened her mind, letting her gift flare to life. The body had no signature, but nothing truly dead did, so that wasn’t a surprise. Her gaze darted around the room, searching, seeking. She picked up a signature that didn’t belong to anyone in the room. It was faint, but there. “Any dark fae been in here?”

  He frowned in thought. “No one besides you.”

  “Either the victim was one or the demon jumped from the victim into the dark fae. Either way one was involved. I’ve got the signature.”

  Demons preferred to stay with one host as long as possible, but they could jump from host to host as often as necessary to avoid detection or capture. Unfortunately, their hosts sometimes ended up looking as bad as the victims did.

  Despite her conjecture tha
t the victim was demon-ridden at some point, it was possible he left the trail after the demon jumped. Unlikely, but it was important to examine every possibility. The fae would have to possess a large amount of power for the signature still to be visible. The demon wouldn’t voluntarily leave a host with that much power. Unless it found something better.

  Even if the demon had jumped into the dark fae, knowing it wouldn’t help them much. Dark fae were as varied in their appearance as the beasts of the animal kingdom. Some had teeth and claws, wings or antennae and others looked as human as Juliana. And there was no less variety when it came to abilities and power. Some could barely summon a light orb to see in the dark and others had nearly toppled kingdoms.

  Unless they cleaned up after themselves, it wouldn’t take long for someone to come across the summoning circle. That would be when they’d get their best information, their best leads. If she could figure out who summoned the demon and why, she’d be able to find it. “Find out what the vic is for sure. If he’s not fae, start canvassing for the new host.”

  Jeremiah ran a hand over his bald head. He was a fire elemental and the natural heat of his body kept hair from growing anywhere on it. He didn’t even have eyelashes. “It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

  “I told you, I’m no good with demons.”

  “You’ve got the best record against them of anyone in the Agency.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any better.” She’d faced exactly two demons. The past incident hadn’t ended well for her or the host.

  He grinned and white teeth flashed against red skin.

  She shook her head. “Not that you need me telling you how to do your job, but I assume you have underlings out looking for witnesses?”

  “Not that you need me telling you how to do yours, but you should have asked that as soon as you arrived,” he chastised. “And yes. They’re out. For all the good it will do. We’re in the middle of a commercial and industrial area. No one ever sees anything anyway.”

  “I’m going home. Let me know when there’s something to hunt.” She stepped out of the warehouse and into the rain. More mist than drops now, it made her shiver when it hit her skin. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back and let the moisture coat her face. It’d been a hell of a night.

  For the moment she’d done all she could by identifying the perp as a demon and naming a possible species for the current host. If anything else turned up, Jeremiah would let her know. The skin at the base of her spine tingled. Someone was watching. She ran a hand over her face and flung the moisture away before straddling her bike. After a discreet adjustment of the mirrors, she could look behind her without being obvious. A small figure crouched at the edge of a roof. Her gift was still on but she saw no signature, not even a faint one. “Great fricking canvas, guys.”

  She pulled out her phone and called Jeremiah. “Stroll out here and have a word with me for a moment.” She kept one eye on the figure in the mirror as she slipped the phone back into her pocket. It didn’t take long for Jeremiah to step outside, his shoulders hunched against the cold mist.

  He hurried over, keeping his head down.

  “We’ve got company,” she said. “Behind me to the right. On the roof.”

  “Spectator?”

  “Think I’d call you out here for that? Unless it’s got an extremely weak signature I can’t pick up from here, I’d say it’s our demon.”

  He frowned. “Why is it still here? Kill’s done. What does it want?”

  “Why don’t I go ask it? You know the drill. I’ll go up, make contact. You get a perimeter set up on the ground.”

  He pressed something into her palm before stepping away. She glanced down to find a clip in her hand. “Blessed ammo,” he said with a crooked grin.

  She patted the side of the bike. “Drop me off at the alley.”

  The Ducati purred to life beneath her. After making a slow u-turn, it sped down the street stopping at the opening of the narrow alley between the buildings so she could hop off. The bike disappeared from view, and she found herself wishing she was still on the back of it. She’d see it at home later. The darkness enveloped her as she made her way for the door at the far end of the alley. Leaning against the wall beside it, she replaced the clip in her gun.

  Regardless of what she’d told Jeremiah, she hoped to find a gawker with a weak signature. Then she could go home and go back to bed. Without her blade, she was ill equipped to handle anything but a low-level demon. Unfortunately, she left it in the armory when she returned from the troll hunt, too tired to clean and sharpen it herself as she usually did. She sincerely hoped her laziness didn’t come back to bite her in the ass.

  The small door didn’t budge when she tugged on the handle. She ran her fingers over the lock. “Open.”

  The click of the mechanism echoed through the alleyway. She eased the door open and stepped inside. Soft lights illuminated the hallway, giving her just enough light to see and casting just enough shadow for something sinister to hide in. She listened for any sound to indicate she wasn’t alone. Nothing.

  Stairs ascended into the darkness at the end of the hallway. She kept her back to the wall as she eased toward them, checking doors as she passed. All locked. She wasn’t going to take the time to unlock and search rooms. Her target would vanish from the roof long before she arrived if she stopped to check every office on the way up. She continued to scan for signatures with her gift.

  She reached the stairs and started up, ignoring the paranoia that swamped her at leaving her back exposed to the blackness below. She was too old to be afraid of the dark, or at least too old to admit to it. At every landing, she paused to listen for any sound. Nothing but her own breathing reached her ears. When she reached the access door for the roof, she ran her fingers over the lock, willed it to let her pass.

  She opened the door trying to make as little noise as possible and quickly realized she needn’t have bothered.

  An insect-like fae with skin the color of moss sat cross-legged in the middle of the roof watching the door. Small in stature, almost the size of a child, the fae possessed a set of four emerald green wings. It lacked any sort of signature.

  The door shut behind Juliana and she took a deep breath. Cinder and ashes. Fear settled in her belly like a lead weight.

  “Hello, Hound,” the fae said in a tinny, high-pitched voice. Their prey often called them hounds, stripping the respect the title Walker commanded. The creature smiled, flashing sharp teeth. Definitely dark fae.

  “Demon,” she returned the greeting, wishing her nerves were as calm as her voice. She kept the gun pointed at the fae’s head. “Don’t suppose you want to come out of there? Go back to where you came from?”

  The demon laughed, deep and rich, a sound at complete odds with the voice. “You’re funny. I like you.”

  “Oh, goody.” She shifted her aim from the head to the torso. They always tried to save the host, but usually couldn’t keep from injuring them in some manner. Acceptable collateral damage according to the Agency. If she inflicted enough pain maybe she could get the demon to leave the host. She fired three shots without warning. Only the first hit the target. The rest sliced through empty air as the demon jumped to the roof of the next building.

  She bit back a curse as she followed, dropping to her knees with a grunt when she hit. Scrambling to her feet, she regained her aim on the demon.

  It moved to the ledge on the far side of the roof. Green blood dripped from the bullet wound in its chest. It grinned, flashing pointed teeth. “Very good, Juliana Norris. You may prove a worthy opponent after all. But you really should learn to pay more attention.”

  A blur of motion shot toward her from the right and she swung her weapon in that direction. Flames of pain burned through her arm as massive claws struck it, ripping into flesh and the muscle beneath. With a yell, she fell to her knees. She dropped her gun into her left hand, twisted, and fired off the rest of her clip in the direction of the blur.
/>   Dull thuds told her several of the bullets hit their target. A howl cut through the air and made her hair stand on end. A werewolf bounded over to stand beside the fae. A werewolf that looked familiar aside from his complete lack of signature. Nathaniel. Her chest tightened and her stomach dropped. Two demons working together and one of them rode her friend. Her night just kept getting better.

  The fae moved toward her, but froze when a door opened on the roof of the building behind her. Footsteps pounded against asphalt.

  “Halt,” Jeremiah said. He didn’t agree with Juliana’s shoot first policy.

  The fae’s lips twitched in the semblance of a smile. “Be seein’ you, Hound.” Both hosts leaped off the side of the building to the street five stories below, probably breaking several bones in the process. The demons could heal anything short of death, however, and the hosts would be up and gone in a matter of moments.

  Jeremiah started barking orders into his radio, telling the units below where the suspects had gone.

  “No!” Juliana took a breath and reined in the panic in her voice. “Tell them to follow, but not to engage.”

  “What? Why?”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. “They’re both demon-ridden and that wasn’t just any wolf. That was Nathaniel.”

  Jeremiah’s eyes widened as he radioed her instructions.

  Nathaniel in the control of a demon. She never thought she’d know a host. Never thought she’d feel this weight of responsibility to save him if she could. And if she couldn’t...well, that didn’t bear thinking about. She had no choice. There was no alternative.

  On her side, Nathaniel was cursed hard to kill. She counted on that fact to keep him alive until she figured out how to get the demon out of him.

  Chapter Five

  Juliana and Jeremiah met back up at street-level in front of the buildings. He gestured to her arm. “You okay?”