A Devil in the Details

by K. A. Stewart

  19

  The promised high pressure (or low pressure? I can never keep that straight) front moved in overnight, and Friday didn’t so much dawn as slink in with promises of tantrums forthcoming. It reminded me a bit of Paulo. The thought amused me, but Mira didn’t get the joke when I told her. Oh well.

  I slipped out of bed and dressed quietly with the intention of letting Mira sleep as long as possible. She didn’t even stir, which attested to her exhaustion.

  I went through my morning katas in near darkness. Though the sun remained firmly imprisoned behind gathering clouds, it wasn’t cold. The presummer warmth lingered, and the air tingled with electricity. I could smell rain on the faint breeze. The world seemed to be waiting on the verge of something momentous. Even without seeing a weather broadcast, I knew we were in for some nastiness.

  My right leg hated me. I wasn’t sure if it was the changing weather or still the strain from my spill on the wet linoleum, but the muscles twitched and spasmed despite my considerable warm-up. I pushed myself to overcome the hesitancy in my movements, and in retrospect, it was probably not my smartest decision. By the time I finished, my calf was on fire. As much as I hated to admit it, I was going to have to curtail the physical exercise for the next two weeks, or I’d never be in shape to fight for Kidd’s soul—if I wasn’t in jail by then. How the hell do I get myself into these messes?

  Thankfully, Axel didn’t make his usual morning appearance. The chess set hadn’t been touched since the last time I looked at it, so he hadn’t even dared to come by when I wasn’t looking. I wasn’t sure what to say to him, anyway. “You’re a demon!” Well duh, genius. I was the only person shocked by that little revelation. And the worst part was, at one point, I had honestly thought we were friends—in a semihostile, wary sort of way.

  I pondered having Mira ward the boundaries of our yard, but if he could find me anywhere, anytime, what was the point? I’d never been a man to hide safely behind walls, even magical ones. I believed in me, above all else. I would protect the people I cared about.

  I took some time to tend to my garden before I went back inside. That usually consisted of raking my rock path and straining the algae out of the little pond. The pond itself was the easier of the two tasks. There hadn’t been enough sun and warmth to truly turn it into the swamp it could be, if I didn’t stay ahead of it. The rock garden, however, was a larger project.

  Even with my leg gimped, I found the process soothing. I changed the patterns occasionally, altering the design to fit my mood and meditations. The smooth river stones made pleasant little clicks and clacks as I raked them into order, the tan pebbles forming a sinuous stone stream through the creamy white. The black ones I scooped into tiny mounds, obstacles for my river to flow around. I thought it fitting.

  My little bonsai shrubs were still recovering from their winter indoors, but I retrieved the clippers to nip off a few stray growths that didn’t fit with the shape I was cultivating. I took the new greenery as a sign that they were still healthy plants.

  The house smelled like bacon, and Mira was cleaning up the breakfast dishes when I came back inside. She paused to catch her breath every few moments, but had that stubborn set to her jaw that said her mind was made up.

  “I would have done that, baby.”

  She just shrugged, her back to me. “You were busy. I’m fine.”

  I snagged a piece of bacon off Anna’s plate, earning the five-year-old’s lecture. “That was mine, Daddy!”

  I winked at her but watched concerned as Mira fumbled with the flatware. “You’re not going to the shop today, are you?”

  A handful of silverware jangled as it slipped from her hands onto the floor. She sighed, hanging her head in resignation. “No. I will not be heading to the shop today. I will be staying home to watch Anna, while Dee watches the shop for me.”

  “I was gonna take Anna with me when I went shopping today. You can get some rest.” I was, really. I even remembered promising to do that.

  “No, you’re not. Because Kristyn just called, and she had a no-call, so she needs you to come in.”

  My heart sank. “You have got to be kidding. I’ll just tell her no.”

  “You can’t do that, Jess. She wouldn’t call if she didn’t need you. You know that.” Mira raked her wet fingers through her hair with a frustrated sigh.

  “I’m sorry, baby.” I slipped my arms around her waist. “I’m a screwup.”

  “Sometimes.” She sighed and leaned her head against my shoulder.

  “I wanna hug, too!” Anna squirmed between us, and there was nothing to do but let her. I gathered my girls close for a group hug.

  “I’ll get my mom a present when I’m on break from work today. You and Anna just have a play day together, okay?”

  Mira nodded, withdrawing from the embrace to turn back to the dishes. “If it storms like they say, we’ll probably go to Dixie’s.”

  “Yay, cookies!” My daughter was off like a shot, no doubt to pack her bags for the big move across the street.

  Mira sighed, trying to find the humor in the situation. “Great, she’ll be bouncing off the walls on a sugar high.”

  “She’ll sleep well tonight, at least.” I traced her cheek with one finger, marveling at how soft her skin felt against my calloused hands. “I really am sorry, baby.”

  “I know. It can’t be helped.” She caught my hand and kissed the scarred knuckles. “You’d better take a shower before you go in to work.”

  “Are you saying I stink?”

  She smirked at me, a trace of her usual fire underneath all the weariness. “You’ll be lucky if that’s all I say about you. Git.”

  I got. Or gat? I don’t know. I’m not a linguist.

  On the way to the shower, I made a detour into Mira’s room to fire up the ancient computer. Part of me wished the thing had a couple of Tesla coils and a big rusted power switch so I could cackle and say, “It’s alive!” I’ve always wanted to do that.

  Clever me, I muted the speakers before Viljo’s WatchBot could announce to the world that I’d logged on. Ha, take that! I slipped the headphones on as the webcam window popped up.

  “That you, Jesse?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  Viljo chuckled. “I do not know. I have nightmares of your beautiful wife logging on by mistake, and me saying something highly inappropriate to her.”

  “I’d kill you, you know.”

  “Not if she killed me first.” He stretched in the grainy window and shook his head. “So, I have learned some strangeness, if you are interested.”

  “Hit me.” I cringed as windows started appearing on the screen. “Just tell me, okay? I don’t need a full-color presentation.”

  Viljo just chuckled. “Ivan pays me to be the best. Enjoy the show.”

  More windows popped up on the screen, and the computer took on a labored wheeze. “Hey, Vil? Remind me to have you look at this thing later, okay? It doesn’t sound so good.”

  “Shoot it. Bury it. Let me build you a new one. In the meantime, I have messages from Sveta, and Father Gregory, and all is well with them.”

  “Father Gregory?”

  “The senior member of the Ordo Sancti Silvii. It turns out, he is a very pleasant man, and he said to thank Ivan for the consideration.”

  “Well, that’s good.” Yay for diplomacy, I guess?

  “And in the bad news, I did confirm that the phone number is a prepaid cell phone. Nothing useful there.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Indeed.” Windows vanished, others reappeared, and the computer whined plaintively.

  “Seriously, Viljo, stop with the windows. I don’t think this thing’s gonna handle it much longer.”

  He frowned at the camera. “That bad? Strange . . .” Still, the windows shut down immediately, and the noise in the tower subsided a bit. “I was very disappointed about the phone, as you may guess, but I have discovered something else that may redeem me.”

  The im
age on the webcam got choppier, and I couldn’t even make his mouth match up with the words I was hearing. I frowned, fiddling with the buttons on the monitor in the vain hope that it would help. It didn’t. “Well, what is it?”

  “Miguel’s credit card was used, one week ago, in Del Rio, Texas.”

  “Say again?”

  “Miguel, or someone with his credit card, used his card in Texas.” Even his voice over the headset was starting to hitch. “They booted me out once. I am still looking for another back door so I can get more specifics.”

  “Viljo, man, you sound like a drive-through intercom. What’s up with the connection today?”

  He peered into the camera, giving me a close-up of his nose for a second, as if he could see across the distance between KC and Colorado. “Did you get a second computer?”

  “No . . . why?”

  His frown was very clear, even in the grainy feed. “Because . . . there is something. . . .” I could hear his keyboards rat-a-tat-tatting as his fingers flew over them, and Mira’s computer gave a strained whine.

  “What are you doing, Viljo?” I’m not even sure he heard me the first time. “Viljo? What’s up, man?”

  “Shit!” He vanished from the webcam’s view for a few frames, but I could still hear him. “He’s . . . in your . . . -chine!”

  Who was what? I watched in fascination as the geek’s choppy image flitted around his little control room frantically. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Hack- . . . in . . . machine. Catch this . . . -ther fucker . . .”

  Meanwhile, the computer was making a horrible roaring noise, like a jet engine about to take off. I eyed it warily, wondering if something evil was going to jump out of it at me. Stranger things had happened. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Nothing . . . -got it . . .” There was a pause, and then he added, “I think.”

  I could only watch, and I had a crappy view as it was. Viljo seemed to be teleporting around the room, so badly did the image jump. One moment he was at his usual keyboards, the next he was in the back of the room fiddling with something, and then he was front and center again, a snarl on his geeky little face.

  Though I had no idea what he was doing, I saw the moment it all went wrong. There was a look of absolute horror on Viljo’s face. “Shit shit shit!” He vanished again; then his silhouette appeared in the rear, yanking cords out of equipment willy-nilly.

  I lost the visual feed and the sound at the same moment, Viljo blipping out of existence. Then my monitor went black, and Mira’s computer gave one last ominous pop and was silent. Blue smoke trickled from the tower in a stench of burned electronics. “Oh shit.” What the hell just happened?

  The phone’s ringing nearly jarred me out of my seat, and I snatched the cordless before anyone else in the house could get to it. “Hello?”

  “Jesse?”

  “Viljo?” He sounded different on the phone. Younger, maybe. “What the hell?”

  “Shut your machine down. They were hacking through your security clearance.”

  I eyed the now-smoking ruin. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. Did you get him?”

  “No, dammit. I threw everything I had at him, and he walked through it like nothing. I had to use the air firewall.”

  “The what?”

  “You know—yank the cords out of the walls. No Net connection, no hack.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t get anything?” I could hear Mira coming down the hallway, no doubt drawn by the aroma of charred motherboard. I was doomed.

  “I do not think he did. It is going to take me a bit to be sure. Tell Ivan, until further notice, Grapevine is off-line.”

  I groaned. Ivan was going to chew me a new asshole, as soon as Mira was done throttling me for nuking her computer. “I’m a dead man.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. You gotta get it up and functional again, Viljo. We need a way to keep an eye on everyone, and you’re it right now.”

  I could almost see him straighten up, emboldened by his sworn duty. “I will. A day, maybe two. I need to put some extra security in place. It will take equipment I cannot get easily.”

  “While you’re at it, order the stuff to build Mira a new computer.” I sighed, shaking my head. “This one is toast.”

  “Ouch. You are a dead man. I will call when things are up again.”

  “Take care of yourself, Viljo. And here, talk to Mira about her new computer.” I tossed the phone at my startled wife as she entered the room, then fled toward the safety of the shower.

  I stayed under the running water until I was certain that Viljo had time to talk Mira out of any retaliatory rages. I also ran out of hot water.

  The shower eased my aching muscles, but the right calf still wasn’t sound. Testing it as I moved around the bathroom, I kept thinking that they used to shoot lame horses. The thought of two weeks, two weeks beat inside my skull like a bass drum. I had two weeks to get better again. Two weeks to keep Mira from ending up a widow, and Annabelle from going fatherless.

  As I limped out of the bathroom, I could hear my cell phone ringing in the den. “I got it!” I did my best to run down the hall with a towel draped around my hips, grabbing the phone just before it went to voice mail. “H’lo?”

  There was a puzzled pause, then, “Dawson?”

  “Ivan!”

  “I am to be interrupting? You are to be sounding out of breath.”

  I flopped into my chair, keeping my weight off the right arm lest I wind up sprawled on the floor. “Nah, you caught me in the shower is all. What’s the word?” Water dripped from my hair to puddle around the castors of my chair as I talked.

  “I was wishing to ask you the same question. What news are you to be having?”

  Well, let’s see, I had a Mohawked demon stalking me, a blue car tried to run me off the road a couple times, someone just blew up Mira’s computer, there was probably a warrant out for my arrest, and I was gimpy as hell in one leg with a fight coming up. I told him none of these things.

  “We have a problem with Grapevine. Someone tried to get in again today, and Viljo had to take the whole system off-line to keep them out.”

  A string of Ukrainian curses flowed from my phone, and I waited patiently for the flood to subside. “Was any information to being compromised?”

  Viljo hadn’t really said, but I was willing to elaborate on his behalf. “No. Viljo shut it down before they got to anything.” I hoped.

  “Is there any news that is not to being bad?”

  “Well . . . the phone number was a prepaid cell, as he thought. But right before the system went down, he said that Miguel’s credit card was used a week ago in Del Rio, Texas.” I mentally cursed the mysterious hacker who had interrupted that conversation. “If he found anything else, he didn’t get a chance to tell me before everything went haywire.”

  “Then we are to be having two choices. Either Miguel’s brother has taken the card or . . .”

  “Or? Miguel was dead a week ago. It has to be the brother. He either grabbed the machete and went demon hunting or . . .”

  “Or?”

  “Or he’s running, Ivan. I mean, he’s seventeen, and his family expects him to take up the mantle next. I wouldn’t have wanted that job at seventeen.” I still didn’t want it.

  “We are only guessing that the boy has taken Miguel’s weapons and armor. What if Miguel has them still? What if he is traveling . . . somewhere?”

  Hope is a cruel, cruel thing. I ruthlessly crushed even the first glimmer. “Without calling Rosaline or checking in?” He was grasping at straws. Calling him on it probably made me a bastard, but it was easier to believe that Miguel was dead. It was better than having the hope crushed later, when the worst was confirmed.

  “Tak. You are right, of course. Most likely, it is Estéban.” The old man sighed wearily. This thing was really getting to him. “I am to be taking an airplane to Kansas City in two days, to be dealing with your contract.
I will continue investigating once I am to be releasing you from that.”

  “I told you no.”

  “I am to be ignoring you.”

  Ugh, the man was infuriating. I wanted to bang my head on my desk. “Ivan, I really don’t like the idea. . . .” There were too many ways to screw up, too many ways to hang yourself. There was too much at stake.

  “I am not to be asking permission.” Yeah, he’d definitely been military at some point. It never occurred to him to expect anything other than absolute obedience.

  And really, what was I going to say? “Sorry, Ivan, I’m just gonna go get my ass killed on my own, thanks.” “Yessir.” The champions were loosely associated at best, but when Ivan snapped, we all jumped.

  “God to be blessing you, Dawson. I will be there soon.” He hung up in my ear. Once again, I mentally vowed to stop doing that to people.

  Much to my own annoyance and despite my misgivings, I felt better knowing that Ivan would be on the scene relatively soon. It was much akin to the relief felt when, though you knew you were in deep crap, your father showed up to talk to the angry man whose window you just broke.

  I had my own little lake pooling on the floor when I stood up. It was amazing how much water my hair could hold even as short as it was now. After fetching another towel to mop that up, I went to get dressed. The T-shirt of the day read IT’S ALWAYS FUN UNTIL SOMEONE LOSES AN EYE. THEN IT’S FREAKIN’ HILARIOUS! Mira hated that shirt, but it always got rave reviews at It.

  “Gimme hugs, button. Daddy’s gotta go to work!” The redheaded imp came barreling down the hallway to squeeze my knees tightly, and I bit back a wince. “Be extra good for Mommy, okay?”

  Anna nodded solemnly. “I will, Daddy. I promise.”

  Passing through the kitchen, I gave Mira a quick kiss. “You gonna be okay today?” She nodded. “Did Viljo get the computer issue worked out?”

  “He says he’s going to put green lights all over it. Why do I need green lights on it?”

  I had to chuckle. “Honey, by the time he’s done, you’ll be able to pilot the Space Shuttle from it.”