“I didn’t want anything to do with it. It had gone too far. Karl assured me the ‘possession’ was voluntary, that Asmodeus did not influence him or control him. I spoke with Asmodeus and…” She shivered. “And he was charming and persuasive. I suppose I came to like him, after a while, after he proved he wasn’t here to cause havoc. He was interested in our work, fascinated with our theories on how we could bridge the boundary between our two realms. He’s very intelligent but his views of quantum physics are radically different to ours. And his knowledge of math…” Gerry trailed off with a dreamy little sigh.
Erin and I exchanged worried frowns.
On the tape, Gerry shook off the moment and continued. “It’s all about the numbers and angles, and having to encompass four dimensions. That’s what the summoning circle, the Ring of Solomon, is. It’s the result of a very long, very complex equation. I researched King Solomon. He wasn’t just the greatest summoner, but I think he may have been one of the first physicists. How he had the ability to discern and comprehend the very substance of the universe in his time is… is… impossible to understand. How he learned to manipulate it with words and symbols is beyond understanding.” With a tired shrug she concluded, “That mystery will have to go undiscovered, I’m afraid. However he discovered the ability to summon demons with the ring was irrelevant. What was relevant was taking that original equation, and expanding on it. Asmodeus challenged us. He wanted to know if our knowledge of physics was up to the task of making the circle bigger.
“You know what I’m like when I’m presented with a problem to be solved, and I’m worse when it’s couched as a challenge. So I accepted and… and I guess I lost sight of the implications, forgot that Asmodeus wasn’t human and that his desires weren’t entirely clear.”
Gerry put her face in her hands for a moment. When she looked at the camera again, she had tears in her eyes. “Rufus refused to have any more to do with it. He said Asmodeus was going too far. I agreed. But.” She swallowed hard. “But I was too caught up in what we were doing. It was like a drug. A hundred years of theories and finally, in the space of a couple of months, we’d blown them all out of the water. We had a means of opening a passage between two different worlds. How could I just walk away from that?
“So we kept working. We didn’t need Rufus anymore, either way. Hadn’t needed his help since Asmodeus had come across. He would call every week or so, demand to know if we’d stopped. He got so angry with me, and I didn’t want to upset him, but I couldn’t stop. And in the end, I did it. I adjusted the equation to create a circle that was bigger. Much bigger. Asmodeus was pleased. Then, yesterday, you attacked Karl.”
Gerry tried to look stern, but the unshed tears still glimmered in her eyes, stealing the severity from them. “It was totally uncalled for and pointless and ridiculous. I still haven’t forgiven you for not trusting me. What possessed you… Poor choice of words perhaps. What were you thinking? You know I love you. Besides, you’d left me. You shouldn’t have cared what I was doing. But, it was a wakeup call, in more than one way. You literally knocked Asmodeus out of Karl. I have no idea where the demon went but he left Karl and effectively left me as well. Without him here, I feel different. Less driven, less… comfortable with what we were doing. I looked around these offices and it was as if, for the first time, I saw what we were doing. I began looking through all our papers and I found this.”
She held up several bits of paper. And again, they were familiar to me. I’d seen those equations before, on the blackboards in Karl’s mind. Here, though, his mad ramblings were interspersed throughout the numbers. Gerry had highlighted particular words. She kept the papers up long enough for us to read them.
‘He’s here. I rule. Big holes. Don’t trust. Bring them through. Can’t rule my world. He’s always here. Suffocating.’
“I think this makes it clear that Asmodeus wasn’t honest with us. With me. He’d been suppressing Karl, I guess. Perhaps Karl could sense the real reason why Asmodeus wanted us to create a larger circle. Rufus was right. It was going too far and if it didn’t stop, Asmodeus was going to do something terrible with the developments we were making. So, I put a stop to it. Wherever Asmodeus is now, I don’t care. I won’t help him anymore and he won’t ever have access to the work we’ve done here. But I can’t destroy everything. The basis of our work, the new insights Asmodeus gave us, is on those hard drives. When he finds out, and I fully expect him to, he’s not going to be happy, which is why I’m taking this precaution. I’ve wiped the computers here. When he catches me, this copy—” She tapped her head. “—will be gone too. The only evidence will be with you, Chris. Please treat it carefully.
“Love you.”
The video ended. Dawn had occurred sometime and light peaked in through the closed blinds behind us. Erin and I stared at each other.
Beep.
Both of us scrambled to pull out the drawer of TV screens. Erin cycled through the images until we saw movement.
“Holy crap,” I breathed as we watched a cleaner enter a PIN into the garage elevator keypad.
Erin sagged back into Ivan’s chair. “Well, that answers some questions.”
“The cleaner?”
“No. The recording. Gerry knew she was in danger.”
“Except it wasn’t Asmodeus who got her.” I leaned against the desk.
“Don’t know if you remember, or if you were even conscious at the time, but when Asmodeus broke the bond between you two, he said he’d get someone else to find Gerry’s killer.”
“I heard it.”
Erin grabbed the notebook we’d used earlier. She tore off the pages of our hasty planning and taking up a pen, she began jotting down names and facts, much as I had done.
“Maybe she read him wrong. Do you think Asmodeus wasn’t angry with her for tossing the research?” she asked as she considered her notes.
“I think he is angry. It isn’t revenge for Gerry he wants.”
Erin sighed. “You’re probably right. He doesn’t seem the sort to be concerned for a human life.”
“He’s a demon.”
“So’s Amaya.”
I stalked to the table with the coffee machine. “Your point?”
“My point is she at least has some redeeming qualities.”
“Like?”
“She felt guilty about hurting me. She doesn’t want to do what other people force her to do.”
“Other people,” I muttered.
“Oh, get over yourself. You’re not the only one she fooled.”
A half dozen or so responses lined up for rapid fire, but not one of them sounded even slightly mature, so I sent them packing and decided silence might work better for the time being.
“Okay, so what do we know?” Erin began pacing. “Asmodeus voluntarily got caught in their circle. He negotiated his way into possessing this, what was his name? Karl. Who is he anyway?”
“Karl Roeben.” I quickly filled her in on the whole sordid mess.
When I was done, she made a few more notes, studied them and then nodded.
“Asmodeus is in Chris Davis.”
“Huh?”
“It’s obvious. When Chris hit Karl, Asmodeus was forced out and he had to go somewhere quick or fizzle up.”
“Karl’s wife was there too. Asmodeus could be in her.” Though I had a tough time imaging that. I doubted Mrs Roeben would have been a push over.
“But that doesn’t fit the facts. Asmodeus said he’d have to get someone else to discover who murdered Gerry. That would indicate you were his first choice.”
“It was Ivan who came to me, though. Not Chris.”
Erin gave me a patient look. “And who put the idea in his head? Chris came here the day before Ivan called you. He came to find out if we knew anyone who might have a ‘different’ means of looking into the case.”
She had a point. A very good, and probably correct, point. I carefully kept my mouth shut on the thought perhaps that was a big part of why sh
e’d been grumpy with me that first day. Passed over right in her own office—twice.
“So how did Asmodeus know about you, and how did he link you to this firm?”
My hand shot into the air. “Oh, miss, I know this one.”
Erin wasn’t as amused as she should have been. Arms crossed, eyebrows raised, she waited for my answer.
“The supernatural community is as gossipy as a CWA meeting and Kermit is the biggest mouth around. All that stuff with Veilchen, Martínez and the werewolf was like verbal crack for a while there. You, me and Merce were legends. A few questions here and there and Asmodeus would have had all the information he needed.”
Erin looked more than a trifle horrified.
“And,” I continued, my brain kicking into high gear, “that would explain how he hid himself that night at Ivan and Brad’s.”
“Hid himself?”
“The whole reason I risked bringing Mercy was so she could sniff out any potential wackiness around Chris. All she got was garlic. Once Mercy got a whiff of that, she backed off. Didn’t get close enough to scent anything more.”
“Even if there had been no personal connection between Gerry and Ivan, he would have come here.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to escape this madness… ever.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” she said with more than a touch of irony. “What now?” No irony there, just grim determination.
I looked at my watch. “I’ve got an hour or so before I have to be at the airport. I’m thinking breakfast, a shirt and a taxi home. Not necessarily in that order.”
“You can’t go home and get back to the airport in any amount of reasonable time. And just because the sun’s up doesn’t mean you’re protected from Amaya.” She grabbed the car keys and headed for the door. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
Chapter 37
While Erin was gone, I made good use of her phone and the bathroom at the end of the hall. By the time she returned, I had a good portion of the day sorted out.
“Eat,” Erin said, plonking a take away bag of hash browns and muffins in front of me. “Dress.” A pile of clothes was shoved into my arms. “And hurry. If we leave now we can beat the traffic to the airport.”
I dressed first. Jeans that were about the right length but bigger in the waist than I was. There was a belt to fix that, thankfully. I’ve already been through the indignity of talking to police in a public arena sans pants. The ensemble was completed with a dark blue chambray work shirt. ‘Bill’s Electrical Services’ was embroidered over the pocket. The Ls were lightning bolts.
Felt more than a little strange wearing Erin’s husband’s clothes, and to make it worse, Erin wouldn’t look at me for longer than a second or two at a time. The ride down to the car park was, understandably, tense. The drive to the airport was not so tense. Erin let me eat in the car and then demanded her half of everything.
“We’re still missing something,” Erin said, licking hash brown crumbs off her fingertips.
“Coffee?”
“No. Information. What is it Asmodeus wants?”
“The research. He wanted me to find out who killed Gerry because he thought that person was the most likely suspect to have stolen the research.” As I spoke I realised just what Erin was getting at. “But why did he help them in first place? He’s not an altruistic soul.”
Erin twitched her left shoulder where his mark was. “Not in the least. What do we know about his past?”
“He’s the Lord of Lust and... I’m tapped.”
Glancing at me, Erin muttered, “Get yourself a library card. An hour of reading yesterday and I know more about your enemy than you do after three days.”
“Okay, Ms Bigshot Detective, let’s hear it.”
Bristling, she said, “The first knowledge of Asmodeus was in ancient Persia, where he was known as Aeshma. In Persia, he was one of their archangels. In Hebrew, he was part of the seraphim, the highest order of angels, before he fell from Heaven. When the Christians adopted him, he became the third deadly sin, lust. All in all, he was one nasty character, breaking up marriages, inspiring jealously and anger wherever he went. Then,” she said with storytelling amounts of portent, “Beelzebub betrayed him to King Solomon, who bound him and had him flogged and tortured.”
Solomon. So that’s why Amaya kept harping on about him. He could draw demons into our realm bodily and when he’d had Asmodeus, he hadn’t treated him well.
“He seems to have bounced back well,” I muttered.
“Oh, there’s more. Solomon got cocky, going on about how powerful the demons under his command were, but that he, a mere man, was their master. Asmodeus tricked Solomon into releasing him and Asmodeus kicked Solomon so far out of Jerusalem it took him years to get back. While Solomon was trying to get home, Asmodeus ruled in his place.”
Things clicked into place with resounding, fatal clunks. “That’s what he wants.”
“What?”
“To rule. Kermit said demons are bound by the hierarchical laws of their realm. Run of the mill demons don’t challenge the Lords, and the Lords don’t challenge the King. Asmodeus can’t go upward—”
“So he goes sideways,” Erin finished, her fingers white around the steering wheel. “He’s here to take over the world.”
On that happy note, we reached the airport and found Nick Carson waiting for us out the front. When I say waiting, I mean he was happily surrounded by a group of young girls, grinning and signing autographs.
Erin and I watched for a moment. Then we checked the photo, certain this was some international mega super star, not a shark researcher. It was him.
“Nick Carson?” I called out as we approached, just to make absolutely certain.
“Hey, Matt, right?” He glanced at my chest. “Or is it Bill?”
“It’s Matt. Borrowed shirt.”
“Ah, right. Just a moment.” Nick said quick goodbyes to the girls, which included several hugs, and while they reluctantly left, he picked up his bag and looked around. “Which car?”
Erin pointed to the BMW. He headed for it.
“What a flight. I should travel at this time of day more often. Hardly anyone else on the plane. Got a whole row to myself. Never been to Brisbane before. Is it always this muggy so early? Should have packed more shorts.”
“He’s babbling,” Erin noted, proving her credentials as an investigator.
“I guess it’s not every day some guy rings you up to tell you your dead girlfriend is really a demon and you’re the only one who can stop her from going on a mad killing rampage.”
“I guess.”
“Who were the girls?” I asked Carson as we piled into the car.
“Shark groupies.”
“Shark groupies?” From the tone of Erin’s voice, you could have been forgiven for thinking she hadn’t just spent the night in the company of a vampire, a ghoul and a couple of demons.
“Yeah, you get them. Don’t know that they’re really into the sharks, though. More into the guys who are. You know, the danger aspect. It’s a real turn on for some.”
And it probably didn’t hurt that Carson was good looking in a daredevil, boyish, roguish way with a strong hint of swashbuckling thrown in—the ship and all. At least, that was how Erin had described him. Not sure I saw it, personally.
“So, you were saying on the phone that you’ve found Amaya,” Nick said, his tone casual. “She’s not dead, not a poltergeist and apparently a demon. I mean, she can get fired up sometimes, but I never would have gone so far as to say demonic.”
Erin glanced at me as she stopped at a round-about. Her expression clearly said ‘denial.’ I grimaced in agreement.
Needless to say, Nick and I argued. By the time Erin had turned off the Inner City Bypass she’d declared that if we didn’t shut up, she’d stop and we’d have to walk the rest of the way.
At the Mentis Institute, Doc Angelshire was on the steps waiting for us. I introduced hi
m to the others and he led us inside. It was well before visiting hours so we got a few strange looks from staff as we headed up to Karl’s room.
“This is highly unusual,” Angelshire said to me. “I wouldn’t normally allow so many strangers in the room with the patient.”
“I understand, doc.”
He looked at Erin and Nick over his glasses. “Bodyguards. Indeed. I do trust that such a pair of thugs as yourselves will behave. We have many sensitive cases on this floor. Any undue fuss will upset their progress. Hmm?”
My pair of thugs nodded. Erin looked amused, Nick a combination of confusion and resentment. He didn’t believe his presence would stop his girlfriend from ripping my head off. Of course, he was close to performing said deed himself. Whether he would stop her or cheer her on was a touch and go subject.
Angelshire insisted on staying in the room with us.
“I feel I must restate the fact that, even with Beatrice’s approval, I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I felt you hadn’t had a substantial effect last time,” he said as I settled into a chair by Karl’s bed.
The last time I’d seen Angelshire, he’d been well on his way to rationalising away the image of a winged, loin-clothed man. Even though he retained his dry, academic tone as he spoke, there was a haunted touch around his eyes that said he hadn’t been successful. Still, he was steering clear of mentioning the D word and I would respect that.
“Understood. I hope that, with what I learned last time, I’ll be able to have an even better effect this time.”
“I do too. Proceed with your…” He waved vaguely. “Treatment.”
“Treatment?” Nick hissed to Erin. “What’s going on?”
“Shut up and watch,” she hissed back.
Blocking them out, I concentrated on Karl. It was before breakfast today, so there was no porridge. No tears either. Maybe I had made a difference last time. Or perhaps I’d driven him so deep that tears were impossible. Here’s hoping for the former.
I fell into Karl faster than before and found myself back in the time-space warp room. There was a couch this time, not a tight fitting lecture-hall chair. I lounged on the couch while Karl went on with his endless equations. The same resistance was there when I stood and headed toward him, though it felt weaker. I didn’t test it too far, veering toward the blank boards again. Thanks to the early morning phone call I’d put in to a sleepy Mrs Roeben, I had what I hoped was a better plan of attack this time.
Night Call (Book 2): Demon Dei Page 33
