by Reine, SM
Elise paused. “Go home, Ed. Enjoy the day.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. His shark-like mouth split into a grin, and he loosened the top button on his Craven’s-branded polo shirt. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“And stop calling me that,” she yelled over her shoulder as she jogged away.
Even at five in the morning, the casinos hadn’t turned off their lights, so gold and green and red strobes splashed on the sidewalk beneath her pounding feet. She dodged patches of black ice as she crossed the street and headed down to the river, which was never quite empty. Not since the economy had crashed and dumped the jobless onto the streets. They made their camps on the path that ran the length of the Truckee.
Elise slid down the embankment to the trail, careful not to disturb three men sleeping under heavy jackets and reflective blankets.
She didn’t see the trail beneath her feet as she ran. Her mind was back in the manager’s office.
Exorcise me?
Zohak wasn’t the only demon that had visited the city with unsavory intentions. Everyone knew that there was no overlord left in Reno. Elise had been forced to quash a few other uprisings, none of which had been very effective.
Was the shadow another demon moving in to conquer? And what the hell was she supposed to do about an enemy that could take out Zohak’s army of fiends, and was impervious to exorcism?
The morning didn’t seem quite so bright after that.
She continued running until the path narrowed and the sun rose. Elise angled herself to return downtown.
North of the city, in a suburb built around golf courses, James was falling asleep again. He had been sitting awake in his kitchen since she had rejected his calls, but his head was drooping. James hadn’t been sleeping well, either. She knew this for a fact because she often saw his dreams. He dreamed of the same things she did—pillars of towering white bone, cobblestone streets, and a blond woman with a gunshot wound in her forehead.
Sensing her attention, he yawned and spoke aloud, his gaze fixed on a cup of tea. She heard his voice as though he stood beside her.
“Are you okay?”
She replied silently. I’m fine.
“Do you need help with anything?”
No.
“What are your plans for the day?”
She sighed. His persistent attempts to have a chat were wearing down on her.
It wasn’t that Elise didn’t want to see James—she did. Really. But he had a way of steering the conversation toward Betty, and wanting to address Elise’s “feelings,” and she could only put up with so much of that before it became too much. And she wasn’t going to talk to him in the house he shared with Stephanie.
I’m busy, Elise said shortly, and then she blocked him out.
Sirens wailed in the distance, breaking the stillness of the morning.
An ambulance roared up the street, blew past Elise, and cornered hard. It was followed less than ten seconds later by a police car.
She didn’t think much of it until she saw two more police cars approach from the opposite direction and turn down the same street.
Never a good sign.
Elise followed the sirens and found herself in front of Rick’s Drugstore.
Or at least, the place where Rick’s Drugstore had stood the night before. It had been a tiny shop on the corner of West and Second that should have been condemned for fifty years.
But the shop was gone. All that remained was the tiny alley, half of the sign, and the frame surrounding the door Elise had shattered.
It appeared to have collapsed. It was an old building, after all—everything that had been built around it was newer, stronger, and untouched by the destruction. But when she stepped around the police car to peer over the wall, she could see that it wasn’t just the floor and walls that had imploded. The basement had collapsed, too, and the hole it exposed was deep enough to disappear into darkness.
It led straight down into the Warrens.
A police officer blocked her view. “Move along. It’s not safe to be here.”
“What happened?” she asked as she backed up.
“Sinkhole. Looks like a mineshaft. We have to evacuate the street until we determine whether the substructure is safe.”
“There aren’t mines this close to the surface in downtown Reno.”
He took off his cap and ran a hand over his bald pate. “I said ‘move along,’ didn’t I, sweetheart?”
“Sorry,” Elise said, and did as she was told.
III
It had taken three months, but James’s home office was finally exactly the way he liked it.
Six constant weeks of burning frankincense and lavender had purged all the preexisting energy from the air, leaving him a clean workspace. Now he had filled two of the walls with bookshelves, which reached from floor to ceiling. He had a permanent altar by the window leading into his greenhouse.
He also carved a circle of power into the floor, so all it took was a touch of salt to prepare for a spell. James even had a cage of mice ready as small sacrifices for the most powerful magic.
And he had charms that could keep everyone—including Stephanie—out of his office.
That wasn’t the thing that completed his office, though. It was the futon he placed under the second window, which he had been sleeping on every night for the past week. He could fall asleep doing his research and continue working as soon as he woke up.
He hadn’t slept in the bed he shared with Stephanie since he had put the futon in his office. Of course, he hadn’t shared the bed with her more than a handful of times since they had moved in anyway, as she worked nights at the hospital.
The rising sun beamed light directly through the greenhouse window, spilling onto his circle of power and rousing James from his restless sleep.
He sat up, letting the book he had been reading drop to the floor. Resting it against his chest all night had broken the spine, and it flopped open on the page he had been reading. The heading said, “Mythologies of the Islamic World,” and he had left crooked highlights on two lines before losing the battle against sleep.
James sat on the side of the futon and scrubbed a hand through his hair, heaving a sigh. He reached for Elise out of habit—a quick probe to make sure she hadn’t gotten killed while he napped. But there was no response. The wards on his office really were powerful enough to block everything, including his kopis.
He shuffled to his altar and opened a wooden box that was seated between images of the Goddess and the Horned God. Inside, a cloud of colorless magic was beginning to resolve around two gold rings. He reached through the haze to tap one of the bands.
The magic sang up his arm. Almost done.
A teapot’s whine broke through the air, muffled by the wall.
He closed the box, stuffed his feet into slippers, and passed a hand over the protective charms on his doorway to disable them. As soon as he crossed the threshold, Elise’s consciousness blinked into the back of his mind again. She was still alive. Small miracle.
James yawned as he staggered into the kitchen. The crock-pot that had been cooking steel-cut oats overnight had been turned from “low” to “warm.” He grabbed a bowl out of the cabinet and was searching for a spoon when arms wrapped around him from behind.
“Good morning, handsome,” Stephanie purred, nuzzling her face into his back. “Long time no see.”
When was the last time he had seen his girlfriend? One week? Two? “Good morning.” He turned to drop a kiss on her upturned lips.
She didn’t release his arm as he served the oats. “Have you been doing a new workout at the studio? Lifting weights? You look very good.”
He set down the bowl, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. “Pardon?”
“I was just saying how much I want you to take advantage of me,” she murmured into his ear.
He responded without thinking about it. “Right now?”
Her nails bit into his shoulders for an
instant before letting go. “Not if it would inconvenience you.” She stabbed the button to start the espresso machine.
“I’m sorry, Stephanie. I didn’t mean to suggest I don’t have time for you.”
“It’s been so long since we’ve had any private time together. When I’m home, you’re always locked in your office, or I’m asleep.” She rubbed her hands up his biceps. Fondling his muscles made that angry glare soften. “Clearly you’ve been finding time for yourself, if not me.”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
James angled to study himself in the hallway mirror. He turned to the side and lifted an arm. It was hard to tell under his long-sleeved shirt, but there did seem to be more tone than usual.
He lifted the hem. He had dropped a couple notches on his belt, but had thought it was because he had been too distracted to eat. That didn’t appear to be the case. His reflection was hardly a man shrinking from work-inflicted starvation: his stomach was flat, his psoas were more pronounced, and his abs could be best described as “chiseled.”
“It must be the new routines I’m doing,” he said faintly, but he knew it wasn’t true. He hadn’t had abs like that since his twenties. And he had only set foot in Motion and Dance twice that month: once to drop off paychecks, and once because Candace asked him to meet the accountant who was replacing Elise.
Stephanie squeezed his bicep. “Maybe you’d like me to help you practice? These routines must be magic.”
“Something like that.” He dropped the hem of his shirt. “That reminds me—could you humor a strange request?”
“Of course.” A naughty smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Her fingers drew a line from the cut of his abs down his navel. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Could you order a karyotype test for me?”
“Drawing blood? Kinky.” Her smile faded. “What would you be hoping to find, exactly?”
“An overall profile would do. I’m just… curious.”
“Weird curiosity,” Stephanie said.
He massaged her shoulders. “I told you it was a strange request, didn’t I?”
“You did.” She stretched up on her toes to plant a peck on his lips. “Visit me at work tonight. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you,” he said.
Their kiss lingered. He found himself glancing at the clock over her head, and Stephanie didn’t miss his distraction.
She pushed him off. “Really?” He didn’t bother apologizing. She grabbed a small coffee cup, slammed the cabinet door, and poured her espresso into it. “Fine. Go back to working on the almanac. I’m going to shower—I have an early meeting with the board.”
“Try to have a good day.”
Stephanie sniffed and left.
James returned the oats to the crockpot before ducking into the bathroom and stripping off his shirt. He turned to one side and then the other, studying himself in the mirror. The change was most pronounced in his upper chest and shoulders, where he had never been bulky. He tilted his chin to the side. His neck was thicker, too.
He would be turning forty in February, and he didn’t keep weight off as easily anymore. Yet he suddenly could have passed for ten years younger.
“This can’t be good,” he told the slimmer, more muscular version of himself in the mirror.
His concern was enough to trigger the bond. Elise’s consciousness nudged at his.
For an instant, he felt like he was sitting on a barstool in a dark casino cafe. It smelled like coffee and cigarette smoke. She sat at the bar with an empty shot glass and an omelet that hadn’t been touched.
Her thoughts drifted past.
What’s wrong?
The question irked him. He knew she had been doing something the night before—something that made her bring out the exorcism charms—but she had blocked his every attempt to check on her. And she had the nerve to ask if he was okay?
“Eat your omelet and mind your own damn business,” he said, turning from the mirror and tugging the shirt over his head. He saw a second shot glass set in front of her before their shared consciousness ended, and he couldn’t resist making a comment. “Tequila? With breakfast?”
Her annoyance was an electric pinch in his forehead. Mind your own damn business.
And then she was gone.
The doorbell rang before he could return to his office. He listened for the telltale footsteps that would tell him that Stephanie was answering the door, but the house was silent.
“Stephanie?” he called. She didn’t respond. When he stepped into the hall, he could hear the shower running. The doorbell rang a second time. “I’m coming! Just a moment!”
He ran a hand through his hair to attempt in an attempt to flatten it before opening the door.
The man on the other side didn’t belong in James’s neighborhood of manicured lawns, white picket fences, and golf courses. He wore a black polo shirt with a white “UKA” logo on the breast, black slacks, black boots, and a black patch over one eye. His hair was buzzed short. He was missing an earlobe and had a pistol in a shoulder rig.
He grinned a familiar grin.
“Jimmy!”
James realized his mouth was hanging open. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“What, don’t recognize me after ten years and a thorough mauling?” He flipped up his eye patch. The socket was scarred closed. “Oh, come now. You wound me. And that should say a lot!”
That accent. That irritating friendliness. James dredged a name out of the dim depths of his memory.
“Malcolm?”
James dressed quickly and joined Malcolm in his SUV before Stephanie could see the company he had attracted to their neighborhood. The houses on their street were split between young families and retirees, neither of whom would take well to a visit from a man with an eye patch and an exposed sidearm.
“I should probably warn you,” Malcolm said as they got on the highway heading east, “I’m not working alone these days.”
James frowned at the equipment on the dashboard. There were two monitors: one with a map of the area and blinking blue dots, and the other with scrolling lines of text. “I see that.”
Malcolm flipped a master switch behind the wheel. The dashboard went dark. “I’m with the Union of Kopides and Aspides. Heard of us? We’re trying to unite all the demon hunters under a single banner, and we are all about the high-tech.”
“Yes. I’ve heard a lot about the Union.”
Elise and Anthony had a run-in with the Union at the end of the summer. She definitely hadn’t made any friends from it.
In the last real conversation Elise and James had shared face-to-face, she had warned him that the Union would probably show up soon, although she refused to tell him why. Given that she had used very colorful language in describing the Union, he knew it wouldn’t be for a good reason.
As if he could detect James’s train of thought, Malcolm said, “Hopefully you’re hearing positive things.”
“Not at all.”
He laughed. “The Union’s earned a bad reputation. Their preferred methods of recruitment are… shall we say, blunt? But now I’m a commander, and when I’m in charge, we do things the nice way.”
“They made you a commander?” James couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice. “Great show of character judgment.”
Malcolm’s good eye flashed, but not with mirth.
The Union had moved into an abandoned warehouse on I-80 between Sparks and Fernley. Malcolm had to flash two different forms of identification and swipe his thumbprint to get the SUV through the gate. The compound they entered was a sprawling affair with barbed-wire fences, spotlights mounted on towers, and men carrying guns.
James also had to sign a nondisclosure agreement on a sheet of UKA stationary before he could leave the vehicle. He barely skimmed it before dashing his name off at the bottom. It wasn’t worth worrying about the particulars; there was no way the Union’s contracts could be enforceable in
a court of law that didn’t recognize their existence. He had no doubt that they had ways of keeping people obedient—but it wouldn’t be through litigation.
Malcolm parked the car and jumped out. James followed him. They were near the river, and the back fence was shaded with trees covered in dazzling golden leaves. The wind carried the bite of winter.
“Are you hungry?” Malcolm asked, striding toward the open garage.
“Not particularly.”
“Mind if I get some breakfast?”
He moved on without waiting for an answer.
They walked together through the garage, which housed an entire fleet of black SUVs. There were also two large RVs, each the size of a semi truck. And there was a tarp at the back of the room covering a vehicle that looked suspiciously like a tank.
“This is the fleet assigned to my team. We’re ready for anything—all-out war against the local demons, if need be,” Malcolm said casually, as if having a tank was no big deal. “We’ve got a helicopter coming this afternoon, too.”
“A helicopter?”
“You know, a flying metal thing.”
James tried not to grind his teeth together. “I’m just surprised that you have one.”
“Union HQ has placed the highest priority on our mission in Reno.”
“And that mission is…?”
He winked. “I’ll get to that once I’m not so hungry.”
They had constructed walls inside the cavernous interior of the warehouse stacked five floors deep. James and Malcolm emerged on a walkway above the highest level. Most of the Union’s building was underground, and he could look down on it from their vantage point.
James had expected Malcolm to be in charge of a single unit, but he spotted at least two dozen men walking the wings, which totaled at least four units. Not a small operation. “How long have you been here?”
“A couple of months.” He silently counted, ticking off his fingers. “Yeah, about eight weeks. Since the end of the summit. Come on, mess is this way.”
The path down to the mess conveniently routed through one surveillance room—complete with oversized monitors, computers, and beeping equipment that resembled NASA’s ground control—and an armory, where several rows of body armor and guns were hanging in lockers. Malcolm was showing off.
