“I just wanted to check the sacrifices tonight, Jimmy,” said Jude, trying to imitate Daemon’s manner of speaking, letting the illusion spell let the man think he was hearing Daemon’s voice tone and accent. Again, he wasn’t sure of this part, didn’t know how Daemon interacted with his lower level employees. But the man seemed to be satisfied that Jude was what he presented himself to be and nodded his head.
Jude headed toward the elevators, making the change in his mind that would be needed to get through this obstacle. He projected the resonances of Gloria Knight’s mind, picked up from the spirit he had communed with after her death. The guardian spirit of this entrance picked up the resonance and passed him, opening the elevator door. Jude hurried on and sent a request through her resonance for the lower floors, breathing a sigh of relief that her pass had not been deleted from the spirit’s database. Probably something they didn’t worry about, thought Jude. The security staff here would have thought that her soul had also been eaten, and that no one would have gained access to her codes. They would get around to changing them, but not within forty-eight hours of her being killed.
The elevator dropped fifteen floors straight down. Jude considered switching personas on the way. He hadn’t seen Gloria Knight in life, and so didn’t know how to do a thorough job of impersonating her. Plus, the staff might know she was dead, even if the dumb spirit systems hadn’t gotten the word. In the end he decided to continue impersonating the persona he was most familiar with, Lucius Daemon.
The door opened, and Jude found himself facing one of the employees who had been waiting for the elevator so she could go back up. She looked startled at seeing the man in front of her. Jude hoped it was the startlement of anyone confronted unexpectedly with the big boss.
“Good evening, sir,” said the employee, a nervous smile on her face.
Jude nodded at her with a tight smile, then walked out of the elevator as if he knew where he was going. The employee walked into the cab he had just left and the doors closed, leaving Jude alone in this section of the complex. He dismissed her from his mind and tapped into the memories he had taken from Gloria, looking over a schematic of the floor as seen through her mind. He knew from experience that the mind’s recollection might not correspond completely to reality, but it was the best he could do at the moment. He followed the mind map and took a corridor to the right. The area was marked with warning signs letting him know he was walking into a restricted area. He walked on, feigning confidence, trying to stay calm. But the resonance he was sending out, along with the code words, must have been good enough. No alarms sounded, no guards came running up to see who he was, or what he was doing here.
The signs hanging from the ceilings of the corridor indicated that he was heading for containment cells, the quarters where prisoners were held before they were harvested. Jude walked past several people coming from that area, giving each of them a perfunctory greeting as he walked on. He knew that Gloria had access to all these areas, and of course Lucius Daemon had access to everything in the building. He tried to exude calm, instead of the fear that was running through his body, and he moved toward the security desk before the containment cells proper, under the scrutiny of the guards stationed there.
“Evening sir,” said the man with lieutenant bars, sitting at the desk with a woman who had sergeant stripes on her sleeve. “Come to see how things are going?”
“That’s right, Lieutenant,” said Jude, looking down on the man. He saw what he took to be a flicker of suspicion on the man’s face, there for a moment and then gone. Jude hoped that the man didn’t have mage sight, either through study or conferred upon him by a spell. But the man might just be a naturally suspicious type, since they seemed to gravitate toward the security field. Jude knew it was too late to worry about that now. He was deep in the enemy’s lair, with no choice in his mind but to forge on.
“I’ll just go around and check on things myself,” he finally said to the man. “I have no need for a guide or escort.
“Yes sir,” said the Officer, and Jude walked past him, feeling his heart beat faster while he was under watch. He imagined the heartbeat being loud enough to hear. With those well trained in the proper form of magecraft that would have been true. He hoped it wasn’t in this case.
Jude came to the first locked door and reached out to open it, projecting his Gloria Knight resonance and the proper code word. The door opened easily and he strode into the first corridor. There were cells on either side of the hall, and he glanced in them as he walked on. They all contained a single hard looking adult, man or woman, criminals, as he had expected. He walked down the hundred yards of corridor, past what must have been two hundred prisoners, all of them looking at him with the eyes of hope, fear or despair. All wore the clothes they had brought from whatever jail or prison they had come from. All had been sentenced to die, and were waiting for their time.
Jude walked through the door at the end of that corridor and into another guard room, this with a single Security Guard who came to his feet when he saw what looked like the CEO of the company coming into the chamber. Jude gave him a smile and waved him back to his seat, then opened another door that led into a second corridor that paralleled the first. There were more cells here, with more prisoners, and he wandered down the hall until he came to the end, feeling some frustration building up in him. These cells showed all as it was supposed to be, and not at all what he was looking for. At the end of that corridor he reentered the first guard room, where the Lieutenant again looked at him closely. He ignored the man and walked to the other side of the room and through the door to another corridor.
Jude could feel the difference as soon as he entered this hall. The guardian spirit was much more alert, much more vigilant. He sent his resonances and code words and no alarm sounded, so he was sure he had not given himself away. But he could feel the watchfulness of this spirit, looking at his every move as he walked down the hall. The first dozen cells on either side were empty, waiting for new residents. He came to the thirteenth cell on the right and almost gave himself away as he looked in.
The woman who looked back at him had a grime covered face that was wide eyed with fear. The dirty child with her, no more than five, had eyes that showed complete despair. Jude had to stop himself from running to the cell bars, to telling them that everything would be alright. But he knew that the surveillance spirit would note such behavior and sound an alert. So he hardened his heart and walked on. The cells each held a heartbreak. At least a mother and child. Sometimes whole families. The homeless, those unlikely to be missed by anyone. Dragged in from the streets to feed the magical storage cells of Daemon Corp.
I need to stop this, thought Jude, as he walked cold faced past the cells. I’m a police officer, and these are innocent victims of a corporate crime. How do I stop this?
Jude knew there was nothing he could do at the moment. If he pulled his weapons and tried to get them out of here he would be killed. Maybe even sacrificed himself to the magical net. The only thing he could do was to continue his scout, then get the hell out of here and back to the surface, where he could tell others what was going on.
Now where the hell are the little guys? he thought as he exited that hall and looked at a schematic in his head. He swore under his breath in frustration, wondering if in fact the blue guys were just the figments of several people’s imagination. He sure couldn’t just go up to someone and ask. He was the corporation president, and would be expected to know where all the skeletons were hidden in this complex. He decided he needed to see one more place before he got out, so he walked to the nearest security station, one that didn’t have the suspicious officer and looked down on the female guard who manned it.
“Which sacrifice chambers are in use at the moment?” he asked of the attentive guard, looking at the schematic in his head he had obtained from the ghost of Gloria Knight. He hoped that the schematic was close to accurate, filtered as it was through the memory of a living person, then
filtered again as that spirit crossed over into death.
“The west chambers, sir,” said the guard, pointing to a place on the map inset into her desk. “They’re processing a bunch of those little guys in there tonight.”
Little guys, thought Jude, his spine shivering. That was what he had come to find, and they were obliging him with a sacrifice tonight.
“Thank you,” he said to the guard, seeing a look of suspicion appear in her eyes, wondering if he was being too nice to a staff member in his present persona. He looked away from her, not sure what else to do, and walked away, through another door and down yet another corridor that led to the sacrifice chambers.
There was a window on the side of the hall, running the length of the corridor. Jude looked out the window that let down onto another high ceiling corridor, the floor ten feet below his own. He sucked in his breath as he saw the long line of little blue people stretching down the corridor, Daemon Corp security interspersed among them. What he had come to see, the smoking gun that confirmed the information that he already had.
Jude felt another tingling down his spine. He realized that the guardian spirit of this section had taken note of him. The spirit saw him as Gloria Knight, due to the resonances he was sending out. It was probably wondering what she was doing here when she was not scheduled to work. For all he knew it might know that Gloria Knight was no longer an employee here, not being among the living. Jude wanted to run, to fight his way through the security to the outside world. He knew that he would not be successful. His only chance lay in continuing to play the game and forge ahead.
The door opened at the end and no alarms went off, though Jude felt as if every eye on the planet was watching him. The feeling was oppressive, like a sense of doom overhanging the complex. Jude shook it off and tried to appear calm and collected, walking onto a balcony that looked down through thick windows on a trio of sacrifice rooms.
Jude leaned on the railings, looking down at the three rooms one after the other. In the left room they were removing the body of one of the little blue creatures, it looking like a child in the grasp of the coverall clad employees. In the center room they were strapping one of the blue creatures down in the chair. The humanoid was straining and fighting, every muscle rigid in defiance of his captors. But his captors were much larger and stronger, and they were able to manhandle him into the seat with ease, careful to stay away from his teeth.
There was a crackle of energy from the rightmost room. Jude slid that way and saw the blue energy of life force rising above the slack body of a blue creature. The being stared through sightless eyes up at its life force being sucked from it, a long spike on a rotating arm sticking from the top of his head.
Jude moved back to look in the center room, where the creature had been secured and the tech was chanting the absorption spell. The creature looked up wide eyed at the spiked arm that was set above him, then cringed as much as the restraints would allow when the prong fell downward. It struck the creature in the upper front of his head and thunked through flesh and bone and into the brain. The eyes continued to look up, but the light had gone out of them as the energy rose from around the wound, and was sucked into the conduits in the ceiling of the room.
Jude noticed the red energy that rose in thin tendrils among the greater blue life force. It rose toward the ceiling, then curled away to disappear through air vents spaced along the edge of the upper walls. Jude recognized that energy, from descriptions and from visions. It had to be related to the entity that had been killing Daemon Corp employees. And here was evidence of where it came from, the bodies of the little creatures the corporation was killing for their energy.
Jude knew that he had seen enough and needed to get out. There were still no alarms, but he hadn’t liked the reaction he had gotten from some of the people down here. And Lucius Daemon could actually show up, which would really spoil the party.
“An interesting view, isn’t it,” said a voice that sent a chill up Jude’s backbone. “Sir.”
He turned slowly and found himself looking into the smiling face of Steiner Stark. Jude almost panicked, but pushed the fear down deep and continued to play the role.
“It’s always interesting to see the harvesting process. And the new subjects are such a boon to our civilization.”
“Yes they are,” said Stark, his eyes boring into Jude’s. Several doors opened and a number of security guards came out onto the platform. Several of them held batons in their hands. “Especially when one is seeing it for the first time. Eh, Lieutenant Parkinson.”
Jude felt his heart in his throat as Stark pronounced the words that ended the deception. “How did you…”
“I have been gifted with mage sight, like so many in my profession,” said the man. “Among other gifts.”
Jude reached with a quick motion into his jacket and pulled out a revolver, aiming the pistol at Stark as his left hand reached for the second gun. He leveled the right hand pistol and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in his hand and sent the forty-five caliber slug at the chest of the Secret Policeman. Jude turned his attention to the guards that were coming in from his left and fired his left hand gun into the closest one. The bullet struck and knocked the man to the ground in a gout of blood. Jude glanced back at Stark just in time to see the man swing an arm and hit him in the wrist. The obviously uninjured Stark followed through on the hit and knocked the gun from Jude’s hand. Jude swung the left hand gun to point at Stark and pulled the trigger again. This time he saw the result as his bullet smacked into something invisible in midair and fell to the floor.
“Inertial field,” said Stark with a smile. “Another gift from Mr. Daemon.”
Jude cocked the hammer again, hoping he could overload the shield and get the round through. He couldn’t complete the motion. A stun baton struck him in the back just over his kidneys and sent him falling in agony to the floor. He tried to push himself up against the pain, knowing that to stay down would mean his doom. He reached behind him for one of the small automatics that was attached to his belt. The stun baton came in again, striking his kidneys. He screamed out, then caught sight of a boot heading toward his face. He felt the impact and the world went black.
* * *
Jude awoke to the muffled sound of voices talking. His head felt like it had been hit with a wooden bat, and he remembered the foot coming toward his head. Might as well have been a bat, he thought as his head pounded. He tried to bring his hands up to his head, but something bit into his wrists and his hands would not comply. He opened his eyes a bit, squinting into the bright lights of the room.
“Our boy is awake,” said a voice that Jude recognized, but in his dazed condition could not place. A blurred face appeared in front of his, and he blinked his eyes, trying to clear his vision, as a second face appeared beside the first.
“It’s about time,” said a second, also recognizable, voice. “I have more important things to do than wait for someone who is of so little importance to regain consciousness.”
Jude blinked his eyes again, and his vision cleared enough for him to recognize the visages that looked down at him. Stark was to the right, while the other face that glared at him with cold eyes belonged to Lucius Daemon.
“Did you learn what you wanted to learn, Detective?” asked Daemon, reaching out and grasping Jude’s chin in his hand, turning the Lieutenant’s face up to his. “I’m sure that your spirit will enjoy going over the information in the afterworld.”
“You can’t kill me,” said Jude in a weak voice. “I’m a cop.”
“You can disappear just as easily as anyone else,” said Stark, grinning.
“How did you imitate Gloria Knight?” asked Daemon, twisting Jude’s face with his hand. “I can understand the illusion involving my physical appearance. But how in the hell did you get a handle on poor Gloria.”
“Her spirit wasn’t eaten,” said Jude, his lips twisting into a smile. “She gave me the information I needed to get in here. And so di
d one of those boys you sent to get me at my apartment.”
“Isn’t that unethical?” said Stark after a short laugh. “Querying spirits for your own purposes.”
“Screw you,” said Jude, then spit at the leering Magara agent.
Stark stepped forward, his face reddening, raising his hand to strike Jude.
“Stop,” said Daemon, stepping forward as well. “Don’t touch him. Yet.”
Daemon looked into Jude’s eyes, and Jude was reminded of the tales of snakes hypnotizing the animals they preyed on. Daemon’s eyes had that same kind of hypnotic quality, and Jude found himself falling into the gaze. He tried to resist, to call up the powers of his own mind that he had unlocked when he had taken his training. But he was not in the same league as the Archmage, and his resistance broke down quickly.
“He’s telling the truth,” said Daemon, looking away and giving Jude back control of his mind. “He found out the information just as he said. And he told no one else. Though he did put an envelope with the information in a post office box, addressed to the Herald.”
“That will be easy enough to get,” said Stark, reaching over and pinching Jude on the cheek. “So the story will go into the grave with you.”
“I will haunt whichever one of you kills me,” said Jude, calling up a spell that he barely remembered. “In the location you kill me in. Not even you can stop such a spell from taking effect, Daemon.”
Daemon Page 17
