Realm Walker rw-1

by Kathleen Collins

  She clenched her teeth, ignoring the blazing pain and her blood dripping onto the pavement. “Wonderful.”

  Another agent ran up to them. “We lost them, sir.”

  She hadn’t really expected them to be able to keep up with the demons, but she’d hoped they might at least get a good idea where they headed. “What about the harpies?”

  The Agency used harpies for air surveillance. Jeremiah laid a hand against his earpiece. Juliana didn’t wear one. She couldn’t tune out the constant barrage of chatter from everyone working a case. If anyone needed to get hold of her, she had her phone and Jeremiah was usually within shouting distance.

  Jeremiah shook his head. “They trailed them to a building several blocks from here. Ground search turned up nothing.”

  Of course it did. Juliana closed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair, gripping the ends. She tugged slightly, the pain helping her focus. Scenarios ran through her head of how the situation could pan out. None of them good.

  “Um...ma’am?”

  She cracked open one eye to glance at the agent who looked like he was about twelve years old. She flashed her gift on long enough to read his signature, ignoring the stab of pain it brought with it. Selkie. That explained the youthful appearance. “Yes?”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  She arched a brow. “That’s very astute of you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Astute. Means observant.”

  “Just because you’re upset about our wolf doesn’t mean you get to pick on the rookies,” Jeremiah chastised.

  He was right, not that she was willing to admit it. “Whatever.” She blew out her breath in frustration. Stretching her head to the sides, she attempted to loosen up the muscles in her neck.

  The medic approached and she held out her arm. She didn’t have time for this, but it was a necessity. It wouldn’t do any good for her to walk around leaking blood wherever she went.

  They needed to find Nathaniel before something else happened to him. Something more permanent than being demon-ridden. And they needed to find the demons before they got further into their rampage. And they would, they always did.

  Ignoring the medic while he worked made it easier for her to pretend it didn’t hurt. That’s precisely what she did until he lifted a large needle from his bag. She jerked her arm away, grimacing when pain ran straight up to the base of her skull. “What, by all the dark gods, is that for?” she asked, pointing at the syringe.

  The medic frowned. “This? It’ll numb your arm so it won’t hurt while you heal.”

  She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I need it to be able to function.”

  “Why?” Jeremiah asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

  She blinked. “We’re going to Nathaniel’s apartment.”

  He studied her for a moment before nodding to the medic. “Put it away. But give her something for the pain. Something that won’t affect her mobility.”

  Irritation slithered up her spine. “Seriously? You don’t get to make the decisions for my medical treatment.”

  Jeremiah grinned. “Actually, I do. Ben gave orders.”

  It sounded like something their boss would do. She looked at the selkie and medic standing side by side. They both nodded. First Thomas, now Ben. Cursed overprotective men always trying to take control of her life. “Just give me a couple of low-grade pain meds,” she instructed. “I need to keep my wits about me.”

  Jeremiah nodded again and she growled. The rookie turned his laugh into a cough and stopped completely the instant she turned her glare on him. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

  “Um...yes, ma’am,” he stammered and hurried off.

  The medic finished wrapping her arm and handed her two pills. “You’ll be okay for a bit, but that really needs to be examined at the Agency. The pills should take the edge off the pain, but shouldn’t make you tired.”

  Yeah, she’d see about that. Nothing ever affected her the way it was supposed to. She popped the tablets in her mouth and swallowed them dry.

  Jeremiah cringed. “I hate when you do that. They’ve got water, you know.”

  She shrugged. “Get us a portal.”

  He called for one with his earpiece and moments later the blue glow appeared. They stepped through, emerging in front of Nathaniel’s apartment building. Fourteen stories of cold glass and concrete. Juliana had always hated the complete lack of character.

  A dozen agents stood in front of the doors. “We’ll be doing a door-to-door sweep. Two per floor, two floors per pair. It’s early, so hopefully we’ll catch people at home,” Juliana told them. “We need to know about anything odd or out of place in the past twelve hours. Ask if they know Walker West and how well. Also find out the most recent time they saw him and where.”

  The front door required no code or key, so she walked in leaving the others to trail behind. Her head spun and she honestly wasn’t sure if it was the pills they’d given her or if anxiety was taking its toll. They were so close to Nathaniel’s home. To some possible answers. If luck were with them they’d find something that would tell them why the demons were summoned and how they could get rid of them. Otherwise, they weren’t any better off than when she first saw the demon on the roof.

  A lone guard sat at a small desk in a lobby just as plain as the exterior of the building. His thick glasses and pudgy frame didn’t give Juliana much confidence in his abilities. She showed him her ID. He at least examined it thoroughly before handing it back.

  “We need access to Nathaniel West’s apartment.” She gestured behind her. “These agents will be doing a sweep of the building.”

  The guard peered over his glasses. “I suppose that’s okay provided they don’t harass any of the tenants, but I’ll need a warrant for the apartment.”

  Jeremiah pulled out his phone. She put a hand on his arm to stop him and motioned the other agents to start their search. “I’m listed to have full access to his apartment in case of emergencies, if you’d check. Trust me, this is an emergency.”

  The guard frowned for a moment, then turned and typed something in his computer. His moustache twitched as he studied the screen. “Juliana Norris, yeah, got it right here. I’ll get the key from the super.”

  She nodded and leaned on the edge of the desk while they waited for him to return.

  “Why didn’t he just give you a key?” Jeremiah asked.

  She wiggled her fingers. “Don’t need one, remember? Figured we better keep this all above board as possible.”

  The scuff of a shoe sounded behind her and she looked over her shoulder. The guard was back, key in hand. They followed him around the corner to the elevator. Juliana would have preferred to take the stairs, but wasn’t sure their escort could make it without needing to stop every flight. When the doors opened, they stepped inside. The scent of old urine enveloped them, causing her to eye a stain in the corner suspiciously. Classy place Nathaniel lived in. She didn’t remember it being this bad last time she was there.

  She stood in the corner opposite the stain as they rode up the six floors in silence. When the elevator arrived at their destination, they went down the hall to their left. The guard stopped at Nathaniel’s apartment and unlocked it. Juliana stopped him before he opened the door. “Thank you. We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”

  He looked between the two of them for a moment then shrugged and pocketed the key. She watched him amble back down the hall.

  Jeremiah drew his gun and she followed suit. Pain twitched in her palm, complaining at the grip on the weapon. The gun jerked. She shifted it to her left hand and cradled her throbbing right arm against her chest.

  Jeremiah frowned but turned the knob and pushed the door open when she nodded. Warm light spilled into the hall. At least they didn’t have to worry about anything jumping out of the dark at them. They stepped into the apartment and she froze. There was no sign of any altercation, nothing out of place. The giddy sense of anticipation tha
t had been with her since she stepped through the portal vanished faster than an imp in a rainstorm.

  Despite her certainty they wouldn’t find anything, they still had to search the apartment. She fired up her gift and pain lanced from ear to ear. She shoved the discomfort aside and got to work. The kitchen was right inside the door to the left and the living room opened before them. A short hallway with three doors ran off to the left.

  The first door they came to led into the bathroom. A quick inspection behind the shower curtain and in the linen closet revealed the room to be empty. She exited and nodded at Jeremiah. He opened the door directly across the hall. Nathaniel’s office. Jeremiah stepped inside and she headed to the bedroom at the end of the hall. She checked under the bed and in the closet. She put her gun away and turned off her gift. Nathaniel wasn’t here, and neither was anything else.

  “Have you seen this?” Jeremiah’s voice drifted down the hall.

  Juliana wandered out and found him still in the office. His weapon holstered, he stood with his hands on his hips gaping at one of several floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Nathaniel was a book freak. His entire office, including the closet, overflowed with them. Every available area was crammed full of volumes of various sizes, formats and subjects. About the only thing they had in common was they all bore heavily creased spines. He not only read them, he read them and reread them, over and over again. He said the magic was all in the way the words flowed across the page, the dance they made to tell the story. Knowing the ending didn’t ruin that. Seeing his treasures, her heart ached. She had to get him back.

  She inhaled deeply. A blend of sandalwood and cedar invaded her nostrils. Nathaniel’s favorite scent. No acrid aroma of cinder and ashes tainted it. The demon hadn’t been here.

  She clenched her jaw and swallowed the tears she felt building. Nathaniel would be pissed if she cried for him. Instead, she leaned against the doorframe. “Totally blows the image you had of Nathaniel out of your mind, doesn’t it?”

  Jeremiah nodded but kept his eyes on the collection before him. “Shakespeare, Austen, the original Grimm’s, Verne... the boy’s got some of the greatest works of literature here and they’ve all been read. Every one of them.”

  Nathaniel had an inane theory that women didn’t like well-read men. Juliana thought only stupid women didn’t like well-read men, but he’d never asked her opinion so she hadn’t given it. Nathaniel would think what he wanted so very few people saw this side of him. In fact, he kept no books in the living room or in the main part of his bedroom. It was silly, but she understood the level of trust he had in her that he’d shared his secret. She’d revealed it to no one until now.

  “You can’t tell anyone,” she said. “He’d be heartbroken if his image was ruined.”

  Jeremiah shook his head and faced her.

  “What about the stuff on his desk? Was he working on anything?” she asked, stepping over to the desk. Other than the laptop, it was bare. She pressed a couple of buttons but the monitor stayed dark. She shoved down her disappointment, uncertain of what she’d been expecting. It wasn’t like she was going to find a document titled How I Became Demon-ridden by Nathaniel West. It would have been nice to get some sort of clue, though.

  She headed back to the living room. All the electronics were off. A foray into the kitchen revealed a plate with a few crumbs in the sink. A glass with milk residue sat beside it.

  Juliana scanned the room looking for anything out of place, anything that caught her attention. Her arm still throbbed, but she did her best to ignore it. She gestured with her good hand to the tennis shoes on the mat by the door. “His shoes are still here. His boots are in the closet, too.”

  He only owned the two pairs of shoes that she knew of, so wherever he’d gone, it was somewhere close. Most likely in the building. Her brow furrowed in thought. There was only one place she could think of.

  She’d kept him company while he washed his clothes more than once. She went back down the hall to the bedroom. His hamper and detergent were gone from the closet. Jeremiah waited for her in the living room and she gestured for him to follow as she left the apartment. She shut the door and ran her fingers over the lock. She wasn’t leaving Nathaniel’s apartment open for whoever just happened to wander by. It wouldn’t take anything much for her to open it again if she needed to anyway.

  They got on the elevator and Juliana pressed the button for the basement. The apartment had a hookup for a washer and dryer, but Nathaniel had never bothered to get them. He said he just hadn’t found a set he liked. More likely, he didn’t want to take the space away from the books.

  “Not that I wouldn’t follow wherever you chose to lead, but where are we going?” Jeremiah finally asked, pulling her from her thoughts.

  The corner of her mouth curled in a smile. “Sorry. Laundry room.”

  The elevator dinged and they stepped off into a well-lit basement corridor. The laundry room stood in front of them. Juliana walked through the door and the aromas of fabric softener and mold immediately assailed her. Chairs ran back-to-back down the center of the room. Washers and dryers alternated the length of the two side walls. A bottle of detergent sat on top of one of the machines. Directly across from it a book lay open on a chair, the pages face down. She picked it up.

  “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” She turned the cover so Jeremiah could see the illustration. “Why does that seem particularly fitting right now?”

  He leaned against the doorframe, his dark eyes watching her.

  She ran her hand over the cover. “This is Nathaniel’s favorite book. He says there’s been a whole study of whether Stevenson was a shifter. A lot of people think he wrote the book about himself.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Jeremiah’s voice broke her from her reverie. It was no time to be maudlin.

  She walked over to the dryer and laid the book next to the detergent. She opened the door and pulled out a sock. The clothes were still wet. Whatever happened occurred before he even had time to start the machine. She tossed the sock back in and frowned at Jeremiah. “Unless he got a phone call telling him to go somewhere else, whatever we’re looking for is down here.”

  He pressed the earpiece. “The two teams closest to the basement report there immediately.”

  She moved past him and out of the room. There were four more doors in the short hallway. The first door on the left opened onto a rather dingy bathroom and she made a mental note to go upstairs if she needed to use the facilities. The other door in that direction bore a padlock and a large yellow sign proclaiming Danger. Probably the boiler room. She left it for now; she could always go back if she needed to.

  Jeremiah leaned against the wall next to the laundry room waiting for the agents to emerge from the elevator. Just beyond him was a marked stair access. The remaining door stood at the end of the hall—Storage emblazoned on it in thick black letters. Trepidation dogged her steps as she approached the room.

  The smell hit her when she was still a foot away. Cinder and ashes mixed with blood and death. An aroma she’d smelled too much of that morning. The elevator announced the arrival of the other agents with a ding as she drew her gun.

  “Get some techs down here,” she said to no one in particular. She twisted the knob—locked. She looked over her shoulder at the other agents. “Go to the other end and check out those rooms.”

  As soon as their backs were turned, she ran her fingers over the lock. There was no reason for everyone to know doors weren’t always unlocked like she stated in her reports. A glance back showed Jeremiah purposely looking away from her. He couldn’t comment on what he didn’t see.

  She already knew she wasn’t going to like whatever awaited her in the room. She took a deep breath in through her mouth and swung the door open. The full impact of the odor was like an ogre punch to the gut. She snapped her head to the side as she gagged. Her eyes watered. She coughed as she holstered her weapon and covered her nose with the neck of her shirt. It didn’t help much. Her
eyes flicked around the room taking in the whole scene, but avoiding the details for the moment.

  Two bodies, a summoning circle, candles, blood...lots of blood. The shreds of a shirt to the side indicated where Nathaniel shifted into his half-form. Juliana fired up her gift and the room swam in the black of the summoning magic mixed with the orange-yellow of the spell caster. A witch.

  “Gods damn it.” She spat the words.

  “What?” Jeremiah asked as he moved up behind her.

  She glanced over her shoulder to find him smearing vapor rub under his nostrils. He held it out to her and she snatched it gratefully from his hand. It didn’t completely obliterate the smell, but it helped. She jerked a thumb in the direction of the circle. “Would-be mages.”

  His forehead creased. “Witches summoned a demon? Idiots.”

  She nodded her agreement. More witches died trying to do magic beyond their ability than anything else. Humans with some magic ability were witches; they could be male or female. Mages, however, were Altered and their signatures leaned toward reds or pinks. Witches scanned orange and the weaker their magic, the more toward human-yellow the color.

  She stepped into the room to get a better look at the circle. Drawn on the floor in thick, charcoal black strokes, it took up most of the room. Several symbols around the perimeter—four larger than the others—caught her eye. Icy fingers of fear crawled up her spine and dampened her palms. This was dark magic they played with, even for a summoning. She stepped into the center of the circle and spun, viewing the room as the demon would have when it answered the summons.

  It was times like this that she wished she’d undergone formal training for her mage abilities. She’d picked up a trick or two along the way, but not enough to be of any real help. She had studied enough about magic, both for her job and just out of sheer curiosity, to know what she was looking at, however. She pointed on the symbol on the floor between her and Jeremiah. “Master.” She spun clockwise pointing to each of the larger symbols in turn. “Witness. Summoner. Sacrifice.”

  “Sacrifice? How did they get someone to agree to that?”