by T. G. Ayer
In her comms, Maya heard more laughter and then two separate voices also piping up to remind Claudia that they’d also said Maya wouldn’t fall for it.
Whatever it was.
Then Mirov’s voice cut in, shattering the banter with his terse, no nonsense gruffness. “Fido ready for deployment on your mark, Agent Romero.”
The man had delivered the update tone dead-serious, but there was only more laughter in Maya’s aunt’s eyes as the woman replied, “Roger that, Andres.” Then she looked at Maya. “Fido is the drone.”
Maya raised both her eyebrows at that bit of info, the arrival of the comms truck now making much more sense. But though she wanted to laugh at the image of bringing in a sniffer-dog to take a camera into a basement to spy on a demon, she kept a straight face and then said, “I thought that thing was decommissioned.”
Claudia’s eyes grew wide. Clearly, she hadn’t known Maya was well aware of the development of the drone, but to be fair, the project was something her parents had worked on years ago.
In the interim, city councils and governments had tried numerous times to put a stop to drone-flying within their respective fly-zones. Which made it all the more difficult to fly a drone on any mission what with having to register a flight-plan for the flying hunk of metal every time it took to the skies.
The last time Maya had heard her parents discuss the drone, Dev Rao had mentioned something about having to decommission the machine, to the chorus of her mother’s laughter. Even then, Maya had known her mom hadn’t believed the drone would really have been put to bed.
But Fido?
Where the hell did it get that name? But she didn’t want to ask because clearly Claudia was itching to tell her. And Maya found she was feeling a little spiteful.
Then she threw her hands in the air. “Okay, I give up. What’s with the god-awful name? Couldn’t you have come up with something better than Fido?”
“It’s actually an acronym,” Claudia said, giggling.
Joss rolled her eyes, unamused.
Maya folded her arms and sighed. “Do not make me guess. We have ‘deployment on your mark’ okay, so talk and let’s mark ASAP?” Maya said, maintaining a friendly tone, hoping to assuage any suspicions that she was upset with her aunt.
Laughter rang on the comms as Claudia replied, expression now dead serious. “It’s F.I.D.O It’s brilliant really. It stands for Fire In Da ‘Ole.”
Maya blinked. “In the Ole what?” More laughter crackled on the comms, this time loud enough to create a buzz of static. And then Maya slapped her forehead. With an annoyed groan, she said, “That was really bad, Claude. Fire in the ‘ole? Whose smart idea was that?”
Claudia cleared her throat and straightened, and her image shivered as though the connection was iffy. “I’m not about to divulge a confidence—”
“Never mind,” Maya lifted a hand, “I can guess. Dad seriously needs a punchline overhaul.”
Now satisfied that she’d delivered her non-punchline punchline, Claudia turned around and faced her own monitor displaying the front of the toyshop.
“Deployment authorized. FIDO is a go.”
Chapter 7
“That must not have been easy for you.” Joss gave Maya a pointed look.
Maya frowned, feigning ignorance. “No clue what you mean.”
“Maya,” Joss said, her tone filled with warning. In Joss’s enunciation of her name, she could hear her friend’s unspoken warning: they have known each other too long, Joss can read her like a book, Maya can’t hide her feelings because they both read each other way too well.
Sadly, this time Joss was right. The girl knew some of what was bugging Maya, but not enough to truly understand.
A pang of guilt lanced through Maya’s heart. She was an awful friend for not confiding in Joss completely, but when things were so dangerous that lives would be at stake, did it make sense to bring innocent people into a secret that could kill them?
Maya knew the answer to that one. Which is why she sighed and rolled her eyes and said, “Fine. Since you can see into my mind, why don’t you tell me what’s going on with me ‘cos I sure as hell have no clue.” It was cowardly to manipulate Joss, but at this point Maya simply wasn’t in the frame of mind to share.
Not to mention, she wasn’t even sure what she had to share yet. She still had to figure it out for herself.
Joss snorted as she settled on the desk beside Maya, eyes fixed on the monitors on the opposite wall. “You really need to figure this thing out with Claudia. Before it becomes a problem,” she said as she and Maya redirected their attention to the monitor to watch the deployment in much the same fashion as one would watch a space-shuttle launch. Sadly, the event amounted to little more than a live feed focusing on bare sidewalk at first before the concrete fell away as Fido became airborne.
Maya’s eyes flicked to the comms in Joss’s ear, but her friend rolled her eyes and said, “It’s off. So is yours. What do you take me for?”
Maya didn’t reply, instead removing the comms and double-checking that the broadcasting light was off. She slid the switch to off position just to be sure, then tucked the device into her pants pocket.
Joss sniffed, though she didn’t seem offended that Maya hadn’t trusted her enough. Instead, she continued, “Having that conversation sent across the comms like that was careless and reckless, Maya.”
“Not as if I wanted to be publicly disrespectful,” Maya said softly out of the side of her mouth. On the monitors, FIDO was sailing across the street and lowering itself toward the store’s air-conditioning exhaust vents. She waited until the camera was broadcasting only white screen as it descended down the piping system to the basement, before continuing, “It just came out. I’m not used to these devices, you know. Neither are you.”
Joss raised an eyebrow. “Those are all excuses, Maya. Now, talk to me. What’s the deal? I thought you’d figured out a way to keep your worries about Claudia to yourself?”
Maya scratched a spot on the heel of her hand absently. “I thought so too, but it’s just been a little harder to deal with lately. She did try to kill me.”
Joss’s lips turned down, probably recalling the details, but then she nodded slowly. “She helped someone try to take your powers. There’s a difference.”
Maya wanted to roll her eyes when Joss came down on what Maya would define as Claudia’s side, but she held herself in check. Joss was playing devil’s advocate as she always did. “Well, split hairs all you want, but I almost died. And why are you suddenly coming to her defense? I didn’t even know you were a fan?” asked Maya, her tone far too snappy, and her words entirely unwarranted. And it was too late to take it back.
Joss’s cheeks darkened, anger, maybe a little bit of hurt, coloring her face. Maya regretted the words immediately but before she could apologize, Joss nodded at the screen as Fido exited the ducting and hovered in the corner of the brick-lined basement.
Joss said, “You all agreed to put the past behind you. If your parents could do that, then what’s holding you back?”
Maya opened her mouth to reply, then sucked in a breath and folded her arms. “Look, I’m not sure what’s going on. With me, or with my parents. Something’s happening with the three of them, they aren’t telling me anything. It’s all just words of assurances. Just words.”
“You think there’s friction between Claudia and your mom?”
Maya bit the inside of her lip. Joss had hit the nail on the head and Maya wasn’t sure she wanted to say the words aloud. Especially when the drone had shifted focus to the circle of magic in the basement, with Claudia’s voice drifting toward them from the monitor as she confirmed target in sight.
“I think so,” Maya said quickly. “She hasn’t come by in a while. Maybe I’m overthinking things, but I feel like there’s this tension between them and it’s definitely not just me transferring my personal reservations to what I think is happening.”
Joss reached out and squeezed Ma
ya’s arm, then retrieved her hand to fiddle with her comms. “If it’s bothering you this much there must be some element of truth to it. We all know that with you, where there’s smoke….” Joss winked.
Maya rolled her eyes and reached for her comms, fitting it into her ear. “Very funny,” she said, before flicking the on-switch, ready to tackle the demon on the screen across from her.
When it came to demons, Maya found the living breathing ones were easier to kill. The internal, existentially rooted ones though were a little harder to kill.
She took the scene in fast, filing away her emotions for another time as she studied the screen. In the center of the basement was a perfect circle, drawn in glistening red. She scanned the demon, the teenager who’d likely summoned the creature and was now paying the price with the very blood in his veins, the five kids all sitting unmoving at equidistant locations around the blood circle. Each sat cross-legged, open palms filled with blood and a few other items Maya didn’t care to think about. She was just glad that only one of these teens was in danger of losing his life.
The safety of their minds, though, was another thing entirely. Who knew what this rakshasa would have already done to their psyches by now? There was no telling how long they’d been joined with her through the circle which had summoned her.
“Approach with utmost caution,” said a familiar voice over the comms. “And do not allow her to get out of the circle. The magic has summoned her but will also keep her there until she is freed. If she’s feeding on the boy, then it’s likely she’s intending to find a way out once she’s stronger.”
“If she kills the boy then won’t she be sent back?” Maya asked her dad softly. She tensed and glanced over at Mirov, worried she’d overstepped by speaking directly to Control, but the agent appeared to merely be listening with interest.
“She only needs him alive,” Dev replied. “A heartbeat is the only essential requirement. She could feed on him until he is almost bled dry and still remain on this side of the Gates.”
Maya swallowed her sigh, then glanced at Joss as she asked, “What can we expect? I mean, how will she attempt to get out? She has to damage the circle so can’t she just drop a body onto it and walk the human bridge?”
A moment passed as Dev thought it over. “Not really. The magic of the circle is like a wall that spans the planes from end to end.”
“So, it’s like a column of magic she can’t get through,” Joss said, tapping her lip while Maya nodded slowly.
“Exactly,” Dev replied. “The wall of magic is broken only if the spell is broken and that only happens when the circle itself is broken.”
“She can’t touch the circle, but she can just smudge it with a toe or something,” Maya said, her tone dry.
“Really, Maya?” said Joss, shaking her head.
Maya sighed and avoided looking at Joss who was now probably rolling her eyes. “Okay, fine. So, what’s the plan. We go in, get the kids and banish this witch back to the hell she came from?”
“Nope. Not as easy as that,” Dev said. Maya had expected him to say that. “If you move the boy, the demon goes with.”
Scowling, Maya replied, “But wait, didn’t you just say she can’t leave the circle?”
“Yes. Not unless the boy leaves. If he gets up and walks out of there, she’ll go with him. The circle is meant to summon the demon and bind her to the summoner. If the circle is damaged the magic is also damaged and the demon can be freed, even from the summoner.”
Maya pursed her lips as she said, “And if the summoner leaves the circle intact and goes off into the sunset, the demon goes along for the ride.”
“Leaving the rest of the kids to keep the circle going?” Joss added.
“Yes.” Dev’s voice crackled on the comms and Maya hoped they wouldn’t lose the connection. Though he wasn’t up to fieldwork yet, her dad’s brain was a bottomless well of supernatural information.
And now it was all the more important that they get this mission right. All those kids’ lives were on the line, not only the boy whose life was almost drained from him by now.
“If that’s the case,” Maya said slowly, her brow furrowed, “then why is she draining him of all his blood? Wouldn’t she need a functioning host if she’s interested in exploring this whole new world?”
“It’s possible she doesn’t know how that works,” Dev said.
“That’s a little too easy.”
“You’re right. I was just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Nice try, but no cigar. Now, what’s the real deal here, Dad?” Maya paused. “I mean, Director Rao, sir.”
Maya’s dad ignored her smart mouth and instead replied briskly, “If I said this demon is a vampire, would that help?”
Maya gulped. “Err. I get the picture loud and clear.” She shook her head. “I’ve dealt with a vitala or two, but they’re the follow-my-nose-and-burn-in-flames sort of demon. I never would have thought I’d be facing down a vampire-demon with this level of power. Not in a million years. Why was this not in the manual?” Maya spoke rapidly, her voice sharper than she’d intended.
Dev only laughed in response, not taking her tone to heart. “Trust me, you knew this in your previous life, Maya.”
Hearing her dad say those words wasn’t exactly comforting.
Still, it made her feel strange at the knowledge that her parents had both known her when she’d lived her previous life as Mother Radha--one of the reasons she was often on edge when they talked about the Mother.
It was totally convoluted and strange.
And she was sure it would never come to a stage of feeling right. Not until she figured out for herself how she felt and how she was going to compartmentalize her two lives—if that were at all possible.
Problem was, both her parents were always running on the assumption that Maya was cool with casual talk of her previous existence in a public setting.
Like on the comms for all the team to hear.
She supposed it served her right for her earlier conversation with Claudia.
Chapter 8
After the outer door was opened expertly by Agent Mirov, the two girls, with Sabala blending into the shadows, slipped inside Dolly’s. Mirov had decided on essential bodies only, and Maya had thought that wise. From what they’d seen on the feeds, they were walking into possible mortal danger.
She’d momentarily considered requesting Joss stay behind as well, then thought better of it. She didn’t need more issues to deal with, she already had plenty without also having to face Joss’s distinct brand of angry.
The door to the shop shut in silence and Maya’s grip around the magic detector tightened as it began to pulse faster. The low beeping increased its pace on their comms as well, and even though they all knew what lay ahead, the sound of the device seemed to put them all on a tense full-alert.
The interior of the shop was stuffy, the smell of dust and plastic, and old wood macerated in a day’s worth of sunshine, permeating the air. Maya’s nose twitched, teased by the urge to sneeze, but she forced the itch out of her mind.
Perhaps it was the strangely colored darkness on her night-vision eyewear that made the place twang her creepometer, but Maya was pretty sure even her parents would have done a one-eighty and walked straight out of the shop had they ever visited this place with her.
Even Sabala’s ears pointed heavenward, lips curling every so often as if to say, ‘Something bad is near and I don’t like it.’
Ever since her fire power had awakened, Maya had worked hard. She’d honed her fire to fight back and eliminate demons and other creatures, and of course to heal. She’d fine-tuned her blood senses in order to track down demons, making her essentially a human bloodhound. She’d learned the way inside a person’s mind and how to read their thoughts, though none of her subjects had been alive, which meant she could speak to the dead.
And something else had been developing along with all those abilities. What had been an instinctive sense
of either good or bad, had grown slowly into a sort of telepathic awareness, a weird uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach that set her on edge at times when she’d been out investigating and killing demons.
And the magic-finder she’d often laughed off as a joke had just enabled her to draw parallels between her heightened awareness and the functioning of the device. Now, with the throbbing of the magic-sensor in her hand and the alarm beeping steadily in her ear, she understood for the first time, what she’d been sensing all along.
Maya had the power to sense magic.
As she held the magic detector in her hand, as it worked in tandem with her inner senses, she began to come to terms with it. The stronger the magic grew, the faster the beeping became, and the faster her heart began to beat. That rapid heartbeat was also accompanied with a belly-deep feeling of nausea. Not the I’m-going-to-throw-up-take-cover kind of nausea though. More I-feel-queasy-don’t-talk-to-me kind of pukiness.
Now, Maya tried to put the nervous awareness of her discovery aside and focus on the scene awaiting the team below the store. The black-and-white montage of images they’d seen on the drone’s feed was haunting enough and she knew nothing good lay in her immediate future.
Other than saving innocent lives of course.
Shadows dogged their steps as they crept along the aisles where baby dolls and fairies and teddy bears watched, faces transformed into macabre specters, lifeless eyes tracking the team’s progress to the interior threshold. The door hung a few inches open and Sabala bumped Maya’s knee in his hurry to poke a nose into the space.
The magic detector thrummed in her grip, having steadily increased to a constant vibration not unlike the average hand-held massage machine. Maya swallowed down the nausea and focused as the team paused inside the square vestibule, finding doors to the right and up ahead, and a stairwell to the left that offered a flight up or a flight down, both swathed in shadows as if to say ‘Choose with care, no take-backs.’
At the top of the descending flight of stairs, Mirov glanced over his shoulder to meet Maya’s eyes, expression firm and determined. She responded with a sober nod despite her discomfort. Mirov led the way down in silence and Joss followed slowly. Maya paused though, swallowing hard against the fullness in her throat.
