Night Call (Book 2): Demon Dei

by L. J. Hayward

  I wanted to kiss her but I couldn’t. Whatever I felt for her, be it true attraction and not just some misguided desire for someone who had even a slim chance of understanding me in all my muddy glory, was not returned. If it had ever been there, perhaps a spark ignited by the first time we laid eyes on each other, before she knew who I was, it was gone, burned away by the flamethrower of my best-policy policy.

  What was there was understanding, honesty, a willingness to stand by me. She knew the breadth of the threat from the Old World, from other worlds; she knew it wasn’t going to go away just because she didn’t look it in the face. She would walk by my side into the night, to help me, to protect her friends and family from the things they didn’t know about, didn’t believe in, but when the dawn came, she would walk away from me. She would go home to the man she loved.

  I still wanted to kiss her.

  I leaned toward her, her grey eyes never leaving mine, accepting of whatever I chose to do. I kissed her, on the forehead, quickly so I wouldn’t have to discover the true emotion driving her dark aura, so I wouldn’t have to possibly discover everything I’d seen in her eyes was right—or wrong.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  She smiled and we stepped away from each other at the same moment.

  Back in the outer office Erin fiddled with the coffee machine while I fell onto the couch and tried not to think about where we could have been at this moment if I had given in.

  “Coffee?” Erin asked, then added, “Sorry. You’re off it, aren’t you.”

  I contemplated that for a soul revealing moment. “Time to end the farce. Make mine a double.”

  She chuckled, weary but honest and the sound eased the tension in my chest. This was what we wouldn’t have had if I’d kissed her in any other way than I had. Not quite best friends, but not enemies either. Within moments the scent of rich, dark coffee did a good job of smothering the lingering odour of ghoul that, sadly, clung to us both.

  “Ewing Family of tumours,” Erin said as she passed me a mug of heaven.

  “Pardon?”

  Sitting down, she blew on her steaming mug and stared into the middle distance. “William’s cancer. The tumours form around bones. Right at the moment, chemo and radiotherapy have managed to keep it localised to his left leg, but the doctors don’t hold much hope it won’t go metastatic soon. They even think it might have already, but the new tumours are too small for them to find.”

  “I’ve not heard of that type of cancer before. How did you find out he had it?”

  “He got electrocuted. He’s an electrician and was doing some work with another company when one of the apprentices didn’t switch off the power to the house they were working on. It wasn’t bad. He was out of hospital within a day with minor burns on his hands. Then his leg started hurting. His doctor said it was due to the electrocution and that it would go away.” Erin shrugged. “And it would go away, but then come back, worse, periodically. Finally they sent him for a bone scan.”

  I sipped the coffee, waiting to see if Erin would carry on. She lifted her mug to her lips but didn’t drink.

  “Does your family help out?” I asked.

  Erin snorted and lowered her untouched coffee. “I don’t have any family left. Aunts, uncles, cousins in England but my parents moved out here when they were first married. I was an only child and never got to meet the family in the ‘Old Country’. William’s family is in Melbourne and they don’t like me, or William much anymore, so they took a step back and left us to ourselves. His mother calls every now and then and his sister sends presents at Christmas, but that’s it.”

  Desperate for something good, I asked, “Friends?”

  Realising it was silly holding onto the mug, Erin put it on the table beside the coffee machine and leaned back, eyes closed, hands curled into fists on her thighs.

  “It’s tough keeping up with friends when every spare moment of your life is spent worrying about infections and illnesses and struggling through the next bout of chemo. Even when William’s feeling good, he can’t physically keep up with most people these days. He’s in near constant pain from the tumours, can’t walk long distances, run, ski, any of the things we used to do. Even going to dinner is hard because he can’t sit at a table for long periods.” She sighed. “It doesn’t feel worth it anymore.”

  “If there’s one thing I learned as a paramedic, it’s that this can’t be done alone. You need a support network and I can’t believe I just said support network seriously.”

  Erin gave me a tiny smile. “Neither can I.”

  “Whatever sort of jargon you want to use, it is true. When things get bad, you need someone you know you can rely on. But even more so, when things go good, you need to be able to share that as well. I know it can be hard maintaining a normal social life when your personal circumstances are troublesome, but you should try.”

  “Like you try?” she asked sarcastically.

  “My situation is different.”

  “Is it?”

  “William’s not likely to rip out someone’s throat when he’s hungry.” I said it flatly, trying not to let recent close calls tip me over into a screaming breakdown.

  Erin watched me and I could see things moving behind her eyes. The cool, considering evaluation of an investigator.

  “Your face?” she asked.

  “She didn’t mean it.” It sounded defensive, even to me.

  “Just like the demon didn’t mean this?” She waved at her own face.

  “Are we going to have this discussion again?” Please say no. The last time didn’t end so well.

  “I suppose not, Pot.”

  “Pot?”

  Erin held her hand out to me. “Hi, I’m Kettle.”

  “Oh, ha ha. Maybe we could be each other’s support network.”

  With an indelicate snort, Erin reached for her mug. She clicked our drinks and said, “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. Now what’s it for?”

  “You’re close to wrapping your first case. You did well.” She shrugged. “For a beginner.”

  I gazed into my coffee. “Yeah, I’m not so sure. A lot of it just seemed to fall into my lap.” After a long swig, I had the bolstering to admit, “And I had a lot of help from… other parties.”

  “What do you think detecting is? It’s not the solitary gumshoe chain smoking and drinking his way through a series of fem fatales. Most of what I do is over the phone, calling sources in various places. I spend more time in that office going through mountains of paper than I do out on the streets.”

  “That shatters all my fantasies.”

  She patted my knee in a totally familiar, but platonic, way. “You’re tough, you’ll recover.”

  Beep.

  Both of us looked toward Ivan’s desk, then slowly looked back at each other.

  “It’s the security alarm,” Erin said, getting up and going to the desk.

  Beep.

  “Shit.” I followed, leaning over Erin as she cycled through the camera images.

  “She’s not inside.” Erin pointed to an external shot, over the front doors. “I think she was there, banging on the doors.”

  “How did she find us?”

  “How does she do anything she does?”

  “Fair enough.” I looked into Erin’s office. “The windows.”

  Those blinds were closed in record time and we retreated to reception. Erin turned off the lights and we crouched between the wall and Ivan’s desk, watching the cameras.

  Amaya was good. She never let herself be fully seen by the cameras, but she set off the alarms by testing each access to the building. About five minutes in, the phone on the desk rang and scared the living shit out of me.

  “Erin McRea,” Erin answered, breathless. She listened for a moment. “I’m just here doing some catch up work. I have no idea what’s going on outside the building.”

  It was about then I realised what it meant that we’d been caught on camera coming in. Cat
ching up on work didn’t sound so convincing when you showed up with a shirtless man.

  Erin spent a while talking the security guys down. I agreed with her desire to keep them away. Amaya hadn’t started the night in a very happy mood. No telling what sort of rage her summoner had inspired her to now. Chances were she’d lost the sense of guilt hurting Erin had given her.

  “I don’t think they believed me,” Erin said. “Drunk teenagers just don’t make it as a cover story anymore.”

  “Hopefully Amaya will steer clear of them if they do decide to show up.”

  Yeah, Erin believed that one about as much as I did.

  “If she goes for them, we’ll have to distract her,” she said.

  “No question.”

  “At least she’s stopped testing the doors.”

  The alarms had fallen silent, which was worrying more than reassuring. Sure enough, a moment later, something dark moved outside the office window. It’s shadow could just be made out on the blinds. Indistinct but very few things of that size could hover outside a twelfth storey window. I stopped breathing. I think Erin did too.

  Erin reached up to the desk and felt around. A package tumbled down. I caught it before it could hit the floor. Erin and I stared at each other, eyes wide. Then we looked to the window. She was still there, doing what, we had no idea. Again, Erin reached for something and this time, found it. She scribbled something in the notebook and passed it over.

  ‘Can she sense us?’

  I shrugged. ‘Doomed if she can.’

  ‘Cheerful thought.’

  No matter the strength of the tempered glass, I was certain Amaya could have cracked it with a flick of one finger. That she didn’t was either testament to my summoning circle theory or she was the world’s biggest, meanest tease. The wait to find out which was true was agonising. Could she, couldn’t she? Would she, wouldn’t she? Did she sense us? Could she hear the frantic beating of my heart? I would have bitten my nails down to the quick if I hadn’t been busy passing notes.

  We tried to formulate a plan for if and or when the demon got sick of playing and attacked. Most of them were ridiculous and in the end we settled for simply running for it. I made the choice to avoid the elevators though, to which Erin agreed whole heartedly.

  Had to give Amaya points for stamina. It was four a.m. before she left. By that time, Erin was nodding off, leaning against my shoulder, presumably because I was a tad more comfortable than the desk.

  When I was certain Amaya was gone, I nudged Erin. “We made it,” I said gently. “She’s gone.”

  Erin rubbed her eyes. “Your idea worked.”

  “Must have because I think she’d be one hell of a hide and seek champion otherwise.”

  “My butt’s gone to sleep.”

  I resisted the urge to offer my assistance in waking it up.

  “What’s this?” she mumbled, picking up the package she’d knocked down.

  Turning it over revealed a consignment note from a courier company and a giant CONFIDENTIAL sticker. It was addressed to Erin personally, not Sol Investigations. Erin tore open one end.

  Several external hard drives tumbled out, followed by a USB stick with ‘Play me’ written on it and a folded piece of paper.

  “What the…?”

  Erin picked up the paper and read it, her jaw dropping.

  “Something interesting?” I asked.

  “And sometimes,” she said as she handed over the note, “detecting is just plain, dumb luck.”

  I read, “Erin, you don’t know me, but Brad has told me a bit about you. I got the sense you’d be the best person to send this too. Of course, I hope you never have to read this, but if you do, then it’s because I’m dead. I gave strict instructions to the couriers to only deliver this if I didn’t call them at an appointed time. I hope that if you do receive this, you will be able to use it to help my family.

  “Regards, Geraldine Davis.”

  Chapter 36

  Geraldine Davis didn’t look like a physicist. Though I have to admit my preconceived image of female physicists came from those uptight-accademic-woman-learns-to-let-her-hair-out-of-that-tighter-than-tight-bun type movies. Either way, Geraldine looked like the Gerry people called her. She wasn’t classically gorgeous, but she was pretty in that low maintenance, wash my face, brush my hair and off I go way. Her face was clean of makeup and her hair was shoulder length, loose and touched in places with grey.

  She sat in the offices at Hamilton. Behind her were white boards of equations, much like I’d found in Karl Roeben’s head. It disturbed me a little, but not as much as what Gerry said into the camera.

  “Between the Many Worlds theory, String theory and the dozens of interpretations of these and other theories, scientists have spent decades trying to prove the existence of other worlds. Parallel dimensions, multi-verses, however you want to label them. I won’t go into the science behind what I, and Karl, were trying to do here. All that’s explained on the hard drives. It’s a backup of every equation, every supposition, every discussion, every argument…”

  Gerry sighed and leaned back in her chair. She looked tired, and perhaps a little scared.

  “It’s all there, anyway. Do with it what you please, but I urge you to be careful. Perhaps things would have been better if someone had shot this Pandora before she even thought about opening the box.” A wry smile twisted her lips. “But because I am what I am, I can’t see all this work go to waste. Maybe, with what we’ve accomplished here, someone else with more smarts than either myself or Karl can use our discoveries in a better way. Please, think carefully before passing this research on. Make sure it goes to someone with strong morals. Maybe Long. I always thought he was too soft for what he did, but perhaps that makes him the best person to deal with this.”

  She gave herself a little shake and sat forward again, face serious. “The purpose of this isn’t to talk about the science. Do you remember that discussion we had when we first met at the shooting range? My shot went wide and I couldn’t figure out why.” Gerry smiled and held up a hand. “No. I hadn’t yet figured out why. I would have eventually. You know, that’s the only time I haven’t pursued a problem through to a reason. All because you said sometimes shit happens. You said that sometimes, science can’t explain why things happen, or predict an exact outcome.” The smile faded. “Well, you were right. Long story short. We did it. Karl and I worked out how to reach across to another world. And I guess, shit happened.

  “The maths allows us to speculate that these other dimensions are out there, that they’re viable worlds separate from ours, but very intimately linked. To go to the next step and actually prove it takes more than math. You could call it a leap of faith. Trust that the parachute will open and jump. Karl was the one with the faith. It was his idea. He has this theory that perhaps myths and religion, or rather, what the various religions purport, aren’t of this world. What if these supernatural beings, the Christian God, Allah, Zeus, Ra, Odin, all of them, what if they’re real beings living in a parallel world? What if the human subconscious is able to sense these other worlds, in a sense see these beings and the fantastical things they can do in these strange places, and build a myth around them? That was Karl’s idea. I wasn’t convinced. I read the books he gave me to support his argument. Books by philosophers and psychologists, murky, convoluted sciences at best.”

  My stomach gave a little quiver as Gerry diverted into a one sided argument about why no one could trust psychology or philosophy. All I could think of was Lila’s explanation for demons. Then I got annoyed I was still thinking of Lila as a real person. But, as Gerry wound down, coming to perhaps, maybe, possibly admitting there might be, at a stretch, a vague truth behind what some psychologist had to say about the human subconscious, I felt a little bit better about what Lila had said. At least she hadn’t been lying to me.

  “Anyway,” Gerry said after a short pause to catch her breath, “this was Karl’s idea. Pursue this thought humans had been
in contact, one way or another, with these other universes pretty much constantly since apes stood upright. It was Karl’s idea, but I found the means. This.”

  She held up a piece of paper to the camera. On it was the now familiar circle for summoning a demon.

  “I didn’t want you to ever find out about this, but shit happens. I was sorting out the washing one day and found this in Rufus’ jeans. When I asked him about it, he told me it was just something harmless. Something he did for fun. It wasn’t illegal and therefore you couldn’t come down on his back about it. He summons demons. Of course, I didn’t believe it at first, but as I kept reading the books Karl gave me, I began to see where Rufus’ demons were just another part of Karl’s theory.”

  Erin gave me a sick, horrified look. I nodded in total agreement. Any other parent would have been disgusted that their child—even step-child—was doing such a thing. But Gerry simply saw the means to an end.

  “Rufus came to our offices and showed us how he did it. It’s very simple. I even managed to summon a demon. It was a slimy little creature, consumed with hatred of all things. Of course, when I say ‘creature’ I mean entity. We never saw these demons as anything other than what Rufus called their spirit form. A coloured, gaseous substance. None of them lasted long. One said it was because their spirits are volatile in our atmosphere. To survive they need a host body.” Gerry put the paper down and twisted her hands, not looking at the camera. “We argued over this for ages. I didn’t want to do it but Karl did. He was fanatic about this new means of research. He wanted to offer a host to a demon of sufficient strength so it could remain in our world and tell us everything it knew about the different realms. In the end, Karl did it without me. He summoned the strongest demon he could and made his proposal. And that’s when the shit really happened.

  “The demon he summoned refused but gave him the name of another demon that would accept the offer. A demon who could not only tell us about the other realms but help us with our original research. The demon’s name was Asmodeus. None of us were strong enough to summon him, but he came voluntarily at Rufus’ call. Karl offered himself as a host and Asmodeus accepted. I only discovered this after the fact.