Ryan parked and let us out directly in front of the house—a thoroughly non-tactical position, but we wanted to give Tracy the impression we were clueless about him. Meanwhile, Zack was parked around the corner, with a good view of Tracy’s back yard in case he made a run for it in that direction. Jill was still at Tessa’s—after she and Zack nearly got into a knock-down drag-out fight over the fact that she was pregnant and didn’t need to be in the midst of the action.
Taking a deep breath to settle my raging nerves, I walked up to the house and knocked on the door. A few seconds later I heard footsteps, and then Tracy Gordon pulled the door open.
I watched as he took note of us as well as the car out front. Then his eyes crinkled in a smile. “Two beautiful women on my doorstep. My lucky day.”
I flashed a grin. “I sure hope you think so after I ask you the big favor that I want to ask you.”
He gave a deep chuckle and stepped back. “Come on in. I’ll at least let you get warm before I dash your hopes.”
I caught a glimpse of Ryan’s frowning visage before Tracy closed the door. Eilahn set the carrier down and crouched by it. Fuzzykins hadn’t reacted yet. And if it turns out she loves him, does this mean he’s not a summoner or does it mean that she’s simply an ornery beast?
I did a quick scan of the house. Neat as the proverbial pin, and no weapons out in plain sight. The place was simple and ridiculously tasteful—somehow perfectly suiting a single man living alone. The walls of the living room were painted in a dark rust, but the hallway that led to the kitchen was a light tan, which helped keep the room from looking gloomy. A few bookcases lined one wall, and décor pieces like fossils and agates were interspersed with books, mostly non-fiction and classics. Though I did see one shelf of science fiction—Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, James S.A. Corey, to name a few. On the opposite wall a widescreen TV was mounted above a gas fireplace, though both were off now. A dark oak coffee table with a dish full of decorative stones of assorted colors was centered in front of a brown leather sofa. No pictures of any sort that I could see. If there was any possible way that this could turn out so that he was not our bad guy, I was totally going to invite him over to my house to help me decorate.
“Well, Eilahn and I are going out of town for a few days, and I was wondering if there’s any possible way you could cat-sit for me?” I flashed him a pleading grin as the demon pulled the cat out of the carrier.
Wary curiosity flickered in his expression. “Seriously?”
“Seriously!” I cheerfully lied. “Here, meet our cat!” I said as Eilahn thrust the feline into his face.
To my utter delight, Fuzzykins reacted as if she’d been confronted with a slavering Doberman. With a snarling yowl, she lashed out with all claws. Tracy yelped and backpedaled, only barely avoiding losing an eye.
Eilahn stooped and stuffed the cat back into the carrier in a swift and smooth move, while I pulled my gun from the holster in the small of my back and trained it on Tracy. He went still, eyes on the gun.
“Kara? What’s going on?”
“Cut the bullshit, Tracy,” I said. I wasn’t smiling now. “I know what you are.”
His eyes flicked from Eilahn to the cat and then back to me. “What I am?” he echoed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Raymond Bergeron,” I said, oddly pleased when he jerked in surprise at the name. “You’re not going to deny you’re a summoner, are you?”
He wilted and sank to the couch. “No,” he replied, voice unsteady. “I won’t deny that.” Then he buried his head in his hands. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand plenty,” I said, scowling. “Cuff him, Eilahn.”
The demon was grim-faced as she moved to him, handcuffs in hand. Tracy lifted his head and dropped his hands to the table, fingers closing on one of the rocks—
Eilahn realized it before I did. She dropped the handcuffs and shifted to dive at me, tackling me to the floor as Tracy flicked the rock in our direction. I fired, but the shot went wild. The rock hit the carpet and flared brightly, and even with the cuff I could feel the shock wave of power. Nausea slammed into me. I instantly lost what little food I had in my stomach, dimly aware that the syraza was beside me, pale and shaking as she struggled to get to her hands and knees. Whatever that rock had been, the cuff seemed to have shielded me from the worst of its effect, even if it had made me puke in reaction. I struggled to get control of my stomach as my hand curled tight around my gun.
I froze at the feel of a gun barrel against the side of my head. “Don’t, Kara,” Tracy said, voice utterly calm. “Let the gun go.”
My pulse slammed as I loosened my grip and pulled my hand back. I still had my backup piece in my ankle holster, but I knew I’d lose several precious seconds getting to it, and Tracy only needed to tighten his finger.
He kicked my gun under the couch. “I don’t know how you’re fighting the drug,” he said. “But it’s pissing me off. I want to finish this shit up.”
Where the hell were Ryan and Zack? Surely they’d heard the gunfire? “What shit?” I managed, fighting to get enough control of my gut that I could function.
He chuckled. “No, not playing that game. Just stop fucking around. Otherwise I’ll have to provide some extra incentive.”
“You need me alive to find it,” I said, lifting my head to stare down the barrel of his gun. Holy fuck, but pointed at me that thing looked big enough to crawl inside and take a nap in.
“I already know where it is,” he said, mouth curving into something resembling a smile. “But yes, I need you alive to make it work.” Then before I could even twitch, he shifted his aim to Eilahn. “But not her.” He fired twice, and I jerked in shock as the sound slammed through the room.
My ears rang as I scrabbled for my backup gun, but he turned and ran, and was out of the room before my gun even cleared the holster. I spun to Eilahn. Her eyes were wide as blood tracked down her chest from two neat little holes.
“Hang on, Eilahn.” I grabbed the couch throw and pressed it to her chest to try and stop the bleeding. “You’re gonna be fine. I’ll call an ambulance, and you’re gonna be fine!” I fumbled my phone out of my pocket but her hand seized my wrist.
“No. No time for that,” she rasped, and my gut clenched at the bubbles of blood in her mouth.
“No, no, no, it’s just blood,” I gabbled. “If it was fatal you’d be…you’d be leaving.”
She gave me a wavering smile. “It is coming. I can sense it. I am sorry I cannot protect you in what is to come.”
“I’ll summon you back,” I said fiercely. “You can’t get out of this that easily!”
She gave a small nod. “It will take time before I return to my world. But when I do, I will find you. You will not get rid of me so easily, my friend.” Her grip loosened on my wrist, and her arm dropped to her side.
“Stand back, Kara,” Eilahn whispered, then her head sagged to the floor. I looked down to see that the bleeding had stopped, and light was beginning to stream from the two punctures. I retreated a couple of feet, breathing raggedly as the light increased to near-blinding levels. A few seconds later a ripping crack filled the room, and she was gone—even the blood. Nothing left but a smell of sulfur and ozone and a faintly discolored patch on the carpet.
I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at that dark patch, but it was probably only seconds later that Ryan burst in, gun at the ready, gaze sweeping the room.
“He’s gone,” I said. I swallowed. “Eilahn’s gone too.”
A heartbeat later I heard the sound of splintering wood from the back door, and then Zack was there as well. His eyes went to the stain then widened. “Fucking hell.”
“What happened, Kara?” Ryan asked. “Are you all right?”
“What happened to you?” I demanded, rounding on him. “Didn’t you hear us? What happened? He shot her! She’s gone!” I was shouting, and the next thing I knew he’d holstered his g
un and had grabbed me by the shoulders.
“We didn’t hear anything,” he said, face twisted in pain. “The signal grew garbled as soon as you went inside. Zack and I were coming up to the house to abort the mission when suddenly there was some kind of…surge that knocked us flat.” His hands squeezed my shoulders. “I’m sorry. We got here as soon as we could.”
I let out a shuddering breath. “He threw a rock…some kind of…fuck, like an arcane grenade. Made me puke, but she could barely move. He said he needed me alive, but not her.” I fell silent, and when I spoke again my voice shook with anger. “He shot her. Didn’t even hesitate.”
I pulled away from him. “And now we’re going to tear this fucking house apart.”
I took out my rage on the walls, smashing through the drywall in the living room with a sledgehammer I’d found in the garage. As much as I wanted to gut the house into a pile of rubble, my strength gave out before my fury did, and after about ten minutes I let the sledgehammer drop while I panted for breath and swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand.
Ryan leaned the sledge against the wall then drew me into a hug. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice low and rough.
“For what?” I muttered, petulant and depressed. I leaned my head against his chest, listened to the steady thump of his heart.
He let out a soft sigh. “I’m sorry you lost Eilahn. I’m sorry you have to go through all this. I’m sorry you seem to be in constant peril. And I’m sorry I can’t fix it all.”
“It’s okay,” I said, then pulled back and swiped at my eyes again. “Thing is, all that shit sucks, but y’know what the worst part is?” I didn’t wait for him to say anything. “The worst part is that I don’t trust my judgment anymore. I’ve been wrong over and over, and I’ve been wasting time and energy chasing down hunches and suspicions. I even thought Roman was a summoner.” And I’d liked Tracy. Jill was wrong—I wasn’t a hunk magnet. I was a men-who-would-fuck-my-life-up magnet. “And now my stupidity got Eilahn shot.”
“You did what you thought was best,” he said, giving me a chiding scowl. “And you’ve made progress. You found out that Tracy was the summoner, yes? Now, are we going to simply tear this place apart, or do we have some sort of idea of what we might be looking for?”
Straightening my shoulders, I did my best to throw off the cloud of despair. “Anything that might give me an edge in finding him and figuring out what this is all about,” I said, gaze sweeping the living room. “I figure that when he ran away he took his grandparents’ notes or books and stuff.”
“Or maybe he came back for all of that after his dad died,” Zack suggested.
I nodded. “Either way, I want to find any notes or papers or anything that we can. If I know what we’re up against, we might stand a chance of being able to stop it.”
“And you don’t think this unknown thing we’re facing is something nice and tame, I assume.” Ryan’s mouth twisted in a sardonic smile.
“Call me a cynic,” I replied.
We started searching again, this time with a touch less rage. First was a quick search through drawers and closets, but, as I’d expected, Tracy hadn’t left any useful information out where anyone could easily find it. But I’d been on enough search warrants to know that there were a lot of places to hide stuff, especially if the stuff was only papers or a notebook. I let the guys bash walls in, and I focused on pulling every one of his books out of the bookshelf and riffling through the pages.
Two hours later there were holes in all the walls, the books were all over the floors, the mattresses had been slashed, and we were still completely empty-handed. And exhausted.
Ryan looked around as we slouched on what remained of the couch, a slight frown pulling at his mouth. “Sure hope he’s not renting this place. If so, I don’t think he’s getting his deposit back.”
I burst out laughing. “Sucks to be him!” Then I stopped and frowned. “He’s not doing his summonings here. So where the hell is he doing them?” I straightened and looked to Zack. “Ask Jill if she can check the property tax rolls to see if Tracy owns any property in the area.”
The blond agent grinned and pulled out his phone. Impatient, I stood and began pacing, though it proved to be difficult with all the crap we’d strewn all over the place.
“Jill says there’s nothing in that name,” Zack said after a brief moment.
I chewed my lower lip as I stepped over detritus. “Have her try Raymond Bergeron, just for giggles.”
“And his dad’s name too,” Ryan suggested.
“Right!” I turned to Zack. “His parents and his grandparents. See if there’s anything current.”
Zack relayed the info, then said, “How about I just put her on speaker phone?” He pushed a button on the phone and set it on the coffee table.”
“I feel like I’ve become the Oracle,” Jill complained.
I gave Zack a puzzled look as he burst out laughing. “It’s from the Batman comics,” he explained to me. “Barbara Gordon—the first Batgirl—was shot by The Joker and paralyzed, and so she became The Oracle, a computer expert and information hacker who provided intelligence to other superheroes.”
“There was more than one Batgirl?” I asked weakly.
Zack heaved a sigh. “You have so much to learn.”
I snorted. “No, I think I’m perfectly fine not knowing how many Batgirls there were.”
“No results for any of those names,” Jill’s voice piped up. “What next?”
“Okay, so who owns this house?” I said. I waited impatiently as the sound of clicking keys came through the speaker.
“Company named Imperium LLC,” she said after a few seconds. “And before you ask, yes, I’m searching the Secretary of State records to see who’s behind that.” A few more seconds. “Oh, good grief,” she muttered. “Corporate name, Posterula Inc. Searching on that now.” A pause. “Crap, it may take a while to dig through all these layers.”
I stopped my semblance of pacing. “Don’t worry about that right now. Are there any other properties in this area owned by Imperium?”
“Hang on. Yeah, two others. A residence in Clearwater Estates and a strip mall on the east end of town on Oakwood Street. I’ll text you the addresses.”
“Any chance either of those are in our ‘hot zone?’ ” I asked.
“Nope. Sorry.”
Nothing about this was going to be easy, obviously. “Okay, thanks a million, Jill. We’re going to go check those two spots out. If you find out anything else, give us a shout.”
“Will do!” came the cheery reply, then she clicked off.
“Okay, kiddos,” I said, “We don’t have much time. I can’t sense wards as long as I have this on, so I’m going to be relying on y’all to point them out to me.”
“You mean Ryan,” Zack said with an easy smile, but there was a glint in his eye. “I can’t see wards.”
“Oh, right,” I said with a laugh. “My mistake.” I held his gaze for another heartbeat. Find a way to warn me if you see something dangerous, I thought, hoping it would come through somehow. I knew perfectly well Zack was capable of seeing and manipulating wards, and with far more skill than Ryan seemed to currently possess. Ryan would hopefully be able to tell if any protections were in place, but I had no way of knowing just how far his demonic lord powers had been throttled back. With the loss of Eilahn, I was relying on Zack’s skill more than ever.
He broke the gaze, but not before giving me an infinitesimal nod. He understood.
“Let’s ditch this joint,” I said, “and hope to hell that we find something useful in one of the other places.”
Chapter 22
Traffic was a fucking bitch, adding to the mounting frustration already plaguing us. Tracy’s threat about finding a way to motivate me haunted me, and I knew I needed to be prepared. I knew without a doubt that he needed me alive only because he intended for me to end up dead or drained or something worse. Personally, I wanted to avoid that sort of fate.
The strip mall ended up being a complete bust, but luckily not one that took too much time to check out. It helped that it stood completely empty, and through all the window fronts we could easily see that there was nothing nefarious going on there. Moreover, Zack gave me the slight shake of his head that told me he couldn’t detect arcane residue of any kind—which would surely be there if Tracy had been summoning anywhere around there.
But the residence was a different matter. It was a small single-story house in the middle of the block in a neighborhood that had probably been decently middle-class a couple of decades ago. Now shriveled grass pushed up between cracks in the sidewalk. Several of the mailboxes had dents in them, testimony to someone’s game of mailbox baseball. Few of the yards were maintained beyond a sporadic mowing, and there were several driveways with cars in them that looked like they hadn’t been moved in a while, to judge from the amount of leaves and pine needles caught in piles against tires. A house further down the street looked like it had been broken into and vandalized a number of times—probably a foreclosure. Several windows were smashed and the door had been tagged with spray paint and other unknown substances. The house we were looking at had no cars in the driveway, and a dried brown lawn that probably hadn’t been cut in six months, but even though it looked and felt like an empty house, it remained untouched by any vandalism.
“This is it,” Ryan murmured. “There are definitely protections around this place.” I flicked my eyes to Zack, and he dipped his head in the barest of nods.
Elation surged through me, quickly followed by frustration. We were on the right track, but now what were we supposed to do? “I can’t do anything about the wards with the cuff on,” I said. Not that I was sure I’d be able to do anything even if I didn’t have it on. There was a reason I called demons to do my heavy ward work. I flicked a glance to Zack. He answered with a faint grimace and shrug, then tapped his watch. In other words, Sure, he could probably get through them, but it would take time. And he would need to do it where Ryan couldn’t see what was going on.
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