Daemon

by Doug Dandridge

  Jude could see the flashing lights of police cars while he was going down the steps, reflected from the stonework of the nearby building. He oriented himself when he got to the bottom and headed for the brownstone townhouse building at the center of the next block. A couple of men stared at him as he passed on the sidewalk, on the other side of the street from them, and Jude wondered if it was more Secret Police scrutiny. The feeling of discomfort grew as he walked toward the building, his shoulder blades crawling with the sensation of an enemy behind that might put something between them.

  The patrolmen waved him through the cordon, and he headed up the stairs and through the townhouse entrance. A reporter tried to get near him and was waved off by the police, and Jude wondered how long they would be able to put off the press.

  “They're in the living room, Lieutenant,” said one of the uniformed cops when he entered the comfortably sized foyer. He headed down the hall, catching the glare of flashbulbs as they went off. Another uniformed cop stood at the entrance to the living room. He gave the man a head nod and walked into a tableau that was becoming an almost nightly event. Men and a few women swarmed through the room, and flashbulbs flickered from the doorway of another room. People were talking. Major Malcolm Dowdie was standing in the center of the comfortable room, talking to one of the forensics’ men.

  “About time you got here, Parkinson,” said the Major as he looked up and hustled to the doorway.

  “I told you fifteen, Major,” said the Detective. “I got here in less than that.”

  “But we weren’t able to reach you,” said Dowdie, frowning. “That’s unacceptable.”

  “I’m entitled to a life, Major,” said Jude, feeling his anger and frustration rise. “If you don’t agree I can always seek employment with the Feds. Maybe even the Magara would like to engage a man of my talents.”

  He held in a laugh as the Major’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. He had talked with Montoya before about his other options, and he knew the last thing he would do would be to go to work for the Magara. Of course the Major didn’t know that, and it might be good to let the man think he would go to work for the very people that oversaw the actions of the municipal police.

  “Just get in there and give us your impression, oh talented one,” growled Dowdie, waving away Jude’s comments.

  Jude gave the man his best smile, then walked into the room, expecting whatever was in there to wipe the smile from his face.

  The first thing he noticed when entering the murder scene was the lack of the copper odor of blood, such as had permeated the other two scenes. The next was how clean the apartment looked, no blood or other bodily fluids anywhere to be found. He could smell the sewer odor of released bowels, a sign that something had died in the apartment. He turned the corner of the room to the sunken living space and was caught off guard by the next surprise. The woman whose murder he had come to solve lay half sitting on the couch. Her eyes were wide and she wasn’t breathing. And there wasn’t a mark on her. Forensics had removed most of her clothing, and the overweight woman looked as if she might look around at any moment and scream at them for stripping her down. Nothing showed any indication of how she died. But dead she was.

  Jude noticed a small dog, one that looked like a rag doll, lying in a corner, whimpering. The dog looked up as he walked around the couch, took a sniff, then lay his head back down. The animal looked to be in fine condition, depressed, as would be expected when its master had been killed. But unharmed.

  Jude noted something different from the other interior murder scene. It took him a moment to figure out what it was, after taking some steps toward the open portal leading to the balcony. There was no glass crunching under his feet. He looked at the remains of the glass door. There were the jagged edges of broken glass, and glass shone in the light out on the balcony. But there was no glass in the living room.

  “Where’s all the glass?” he finally asked, looking over at one of the other homicide detectives.

  “Near as we can tell it's all out on the balcony, or in the street,” said the man, gesturing at the opening. “Whatever it was pulled the glass outward.”

  “Why did it do that?” asked Jude, feeling puzzled.

  “We don’t know,” said the man with a shrug. “Maybe it wanted to do something different.”

  It shouldn’t have wanted anything, thought Jude, walking to the doors and out onto the balcony. If it was a demonic force, it should have been more of a stimulus response organism than anything else. It should have reacted the same way to the same situation. He turned away from looking out into the night air and back into the townhouse.

  “Can I do my reading now?” he asked everyone in general. The other investigators nodded heads and gave assent, quickly leaving the area. He knew that many of them felt uncomfortable with this kind of magic, one reason there were so few practitioners of it. Most people didn’t really want to think about death, even those who investigated the wrongful death of others. They especially didn’t want to get into the heads of dead people, as he did.

  Jude closed his eyes and calmed his thoughts after the last person left the room. He called up the mantra, blanking his mind to all but what he needed to concentrate on. The words burned in front of his mind, glowing letters of the spell he needed to recite. He started to say the words under his breath, getting louder with each repetition, until the words were echoing off the walls, hitting him with their power. He pulled the magical energy into his body, through the grid and into his mind, feeling the energy localize and concentrate in his own eyes. Jude knelt down, perfectly aware of where his subject was despite not seeing her.

  Jude opened his eyes wide, staring into the open eyes of the dead woman. His vision went into the cornea, through the lenses and into the view behind. Images began to form, and Jude sucked in his breath as he realized he was about to see what this dead woman had seen while breath still filled her lungs. It was always sacred, it was always scary, and it never became commonplace.

  The image formed of the living room, looking at the clock on the wall. He looked down at his glass, then up at the clock again, seeing the hand strike midnight. The image darted over at the dog, which had jumped off the couch and run around toward the glass door, agitated, its mouth moving as if it were barking. The image moved again, the woman’s vision changing as the aspect got higher and turning toward the glass door. Jude knew that the image revealed the woman standing up and looking. And seeing the red energy heading toward the glass doors. The image shifted to the dog, then up to the red energy, not moving like a vortex as it had in the last two killings, but more like a wall of fog. The glass doors cracked, then buckled, then disappeared as they were shattered and the glass pulled out into the night. The dog continued to bark frantically, trying to drive off the thing that was invading the apartment. What happened to the magical barrier, thought Jude, not seeing the blue field fighting the red as he had on the first murder. He had not noticed it when he first saw the field. Had it been lowered, or circumvented in some other manner?

  The red cloud moved through the opening, enveloping the still barking dog. The dog moved around inside the cloud, showing no ill effects. And then the cloud swept over Gloria, and everything that Jude could see had a reddish tint. The aspect of the view changed, the owner of the vision turning around and getting lower, as if she was sitting on the couch. The image began to fade, going to gray, then black, then gone.

  It was almost peaceful, thought Jude of the death vision of the woman. No violence beyond the shattering of the glass doors. No harm to the innocent animal. Almost as if it didn’t want to harm the dog, and so entered in such a way as not to hurt it. And then discovered that the woman it came to kill was not deserving of the terror it normally meted out. Still deserving of death, but not in the horrific way it had brought death to the others.

  Jude opened his eyes, looking back over at the dog, sleeping from the effects of its own trauma. Jude concentrated on the room, trying to pick up a
ny energy that might be left in the room, and came up with his second shock of the night. There was still an organized source of energy in the room. One that the mundane police would not have been able to pick up. The soul of Gloria Knight was still in the room. It had not been consumed as had those of the other victims. Jude waved the other police back into the room and was about to announce that fact when something in his mind told him to keep his mouth shut. There might be something here that would help him solve the case. Or there might be something here that would bury him.

  Jude pulled out his notebook and began writing what he had seen in the woman’s eyes, leaving out the part about feeling her soul. If it was discovered later by someone else he would just say that he hadn’t detected it. That was not unheard of, even with experienced mages of his level of talent.

  “I want to see her,” said a familiar voice from the outer hallway. Moments later Lucius Daemon came storming into the room, a couple of detectives trying to talk to him and calm him down. He shot them both fiery glances that sent them on their way, then walked into the living room, his eyes locked on the body of his employee. His face paled and he looked shaken for a moment, but pulled himself under control with remarkable rapidity. He looked over at Jude with a question in his eyes.

  “How did she die?”

  “The same thing that killed the others killed her,” answered Jude, keeping his voice under control.

  “But why is she so different?” asked the Mage, looking back at his employee. “She’s not spread all over the place like the others.”

  “I’m not sure why,” said Jude, looking down into his notebook. “I looked into her eyes and saw the attack on her, and it was almost gentle in its lack of violence. Do you know of any reason she might have been treated differently?”

  “Almost gentle,” said Daemon, his face reddening. He thrust his face into Jude’s, like a dog about to attack. “Gentle. The woman is dead. How do you consider that gentle?”

  Jude backed off a bit, then calmed himself and returned the man's gaze.

  “The entity did not smash her window in but pulled it out,” said Jude, ticking off the events on his fingers. “It did not harm the little dog we found here, while the vision showed that the dog had gotten into the way of the entity. And it killed Ms. Knight without any of the rending and dismembering it had displayed in the others. Compared to those other killings this was gentle. So what was different about her? You employed her, so I thought maybe you might have a clue.”

  Daemon lowered his head for a moment. Silence hung over the room, no one wanting to speak after the way the Detective had asked the powerful man about the woman. Finally Daemon looked up with a hint of tears in his eyes.

  “She was a very gentle woman,” said Daemon, his voice cracking. “She really wasn’t suited for her job. At least her temperament wasn’t. But she was technically proficient.”

  And she had been sleeping her way to the top, hadn’t she? thought Jude, keeping his expression neutral.

  “I want you to find whoever was responsible for this, Detective,” said Daemon, gripping Jude’s jacket with both hands. “You find them, no matter what it takes. Bring them to justice, and I will forget our other run ins. And I will forget about your little woman friend.”

  Jude felt the chill run through him as Sarah was mentioned. He couldn't believe the man would be so arrogant as to make a threat like that to a policeman, on the scene of an investigation. And he was sure he would do anything he needed to do to protect her from this man. Even if it came to an open battle that he was sure he couldn't win.

  “Mr. Daemon,” said another voice that Jude recognized and wished he didn’t.

  Steiner Stark walked up to Daemon and shot Jude a withering look. Jude was thankful that the Secret Policeman was not a high level mage, because if looks could kill it might have been a basilisk’s gaze.

  “I would suggest that you don’t bother Mr. Daemon with questions that are not germane to what killed this victim,” he said to Jude, poking a finger in the Detective’s face. “And I suggest that you find out who is responsible for the killings, so that your own motives aren’t questioned.”

  Jude felt both anger and fear as the Magara agent stared at him. He felt sure he could beat the man in a magical duel, though Stark might be his match in a physical confrontation. Stark just stared at him coldly, then turned away, presenting his back as a sign of his total disdain for Jude.

  “Find them Detective,” said Daemon, pointing a finger at Jude’s face. “Find them and let me know who they are. I will take care of the rest.”

  The Mage turned away and followed after Stark. Jude still wasn’t sure what was going on. He knew it was more than what was apparent. More than he knew about, or thought he knew. He wiped the sweat from his brow, wondering what that had been about. It seemed like they wanted him to solve the crime, prevent new ones, but not learn too much about the operation of the company. But he would learn all he could tonight, when the area cleared a bit.

  * * *

  Am I fucking crazy? thought the Detective Lieutenant as he stepped over the police tape.

  The apartment had been emptied, the body removed to the morgue, the dog taken to the shelter. There was still the smell of death about the place, the sickly smell of released bowels and newly rotting flesh. The apartment itself was still brightly lit. No one would chance that Shadows might roost here, to take the opportunity to grab a victim in the inhabited sections of the city.

  I may very well be, thought Jude, grimacing. He had decided to go it alone. He really needed someone he trusted to look out for him while he made contact with the soul. But with Montoya gone there was no one in the department he really trusted, so it made the choice moot. I've just got to hope no one comes in and knocks me over the head while I’m doing this, and then get out of here ASAP.

  Jude checked the door and the foyer, using his magic sense to see if anyone had left anything behind that might track his entrance. There was only the standard police detection spell that had been placed by a mage well beneath Jude's ability. A thought and a few words and that spell was blocked. Jude walked softly through the foyer and down the hall, nerves on edge, using his standard animal senses, listening for anyone who might be lying in wait. He could hear nothing, and hoped that meant the townhouse was indeed empty. If there was anyone there, he just had to hope he could act like he was supposed to be there and was performing a duty.

  Jude walked through the door of the living room and around the corner to the sunken conversation pit, trying to look like he wasn't skulking while he was. Breathing out his held breath when he saw the room was completely empty, he extended his magic sense and detected no spells or devices. Let's go for it, he thought, taking once last glance behind.

  Jude opened up his feelings, sensing the presence of the spirit in the room. It was not as strong as most he had felt at murder scenes. But it was there, which was more than could be said at the other scenes this entity had visited.

  Jude sat on the couch, placing his hands on his thighs and making himself comfortable. He cleared his mind of all the maelstrom of events swirling through it. He repeated a mantra over and over, clearing out each item until his mind was calm and composed. He then switched from mantra to spell, repeating the words while concentrating on the symbol of the magic, as he had been taught years before.

  A fleeting thought intruded on his thinking, not enough to throw him completely off task, but enough to slow the process. He remembered when he first joined the force, just out of the Army, and was assigned to business and licensing. His job had been to inspect the operations of the Mediums in the city, to make sure that their Séances were legitimate, and not a means of imparting false information on relatives in order to suck money out of said gullible loved ones. The spell he was using was very similar to the one used by Mediums, with a few significant differences. His spirit was a trapped audience, and his spell was not on as high level as one needed to contact a spirit which had already
departed the veil.

  Jude pushed the thought from his mind and concentrated on the task at hand. He could feel the connection with the spirit strengthening, becoming more real. He could feel the flickering feelings of the spirit, and then the barrier dropped and he was immersed in those same feelings.

  Spirits were like young children. Very little intellect, poor memories except for things that were very salient in their lives, impulsive, and a mass of emotions. The emotions broke on Jude as strong contact was established. There was fear and anger of course. Those were strong emotions in anyone who met their end in a wrongful death. There was the sorrow of being dead, of the spirit knowing that it would never again engage in any of the activities of life. And the sorrow of knowledge that loved ones were gone until they too died and crossed the veil.

  But with this spirit the overwhelming emotion was guilt. Waves upon waves of guilt, intermixed with portions of self-loathing and self-anger. More than he had ever felt in any other contact. This woman had done something that she thought was heinous, and was willing to punish herself for the rest of eternity for her crimes.

  I killed them. I killed them. I killed them, echoed the thoughts of the spirit through his mind.

  Killed who, he thought back into the link, sending out calming thoughts at the same time, trying to control the single minded frenzy of the spirit.

  The innocents. The innocents. The innocents, said the distraught remnants of Gloria Knight.