whiskey witches 01 - whisky witches

by S. M. Blooding

  Scott raised his hand to shield his eyes and stepped out of the glare.

  “Who’s the fed?” Dexx asked.

  “Special Agent Jack Scott.” Paige ran her hand over her face. “He sees people die. Balnore says he’s clean.”

  Dexx narrowed his eyes at her, his expression pained.

  “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  He relaxed his brow and nodded once. “Details on the first body you found. It was left in town?”

  “Malika apparently killed her. Put the woman in her own dress, then tied her to a light post in the middle of town.”

  “Security cameras?”

  “Probably. We’ll have to see.”

  “Small town.”

  “Hopefully not that small.”

  “Witnesses?”

  She shook her head and meandered toward the dead male.

  “Then how’d you get so many details already?”

  She gestured to Scott. “He saw it in a vision.”

  “Seriously.”

  “And the details he had were solid. I’d say he was in on it, but Balnore vouched for him and I have to believe good people are out there.”

  Scott ducked his head and chewed the inside of his cheek.

  Paige winced. Just how calloused had she become? “Malika left love runes and conch shells on the ground at her victim’s feet. Some kind of message for Jones?”

  “A love note, maybe?” Dexx’s face contorted in an expression of gross.

  “It’s sick.” Though, with these two, it was a real possibility.

  “They’ve been killing people together for weeks. This is a little lame, don’t you think?”

  That wasn’t the word she’d have used. “Then this guy. According to Agent Scott, Mike strangled him, then left him here with a mirror and a wreath of wheat.”

  Dexx’s expression went flat. “Wheat? Are you fucking kidding me? First a protection mandala and now a wreath of wheat.”

  “Just goes to show that the power is neutral until warped by the hands of the user.”

  “Wheat.”

  “I know.”

  Scott’s eyes bounced between the two of them as they volleyed. “You two speak in a weird sort of half-language.”

  Paige shook her head and turned away from the body.

  “We used complete sentences,” Dexx said.

  “No. You really didn’t.”

  “Really? I’m sure we did.”

  “No.”

  “As cute as both you boys are,” Paige interrupted. “Shut it.” She rubbed her mouth. “There’s probably evidence we can actually follow here.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Scott said.

  “No. I need to get to Sven and I can’t do that if Malika and Jones are locked up in jail.”

  Agent Scott stepped into her line of view. “You think these two murders were plants so they could get caught.”

  It made sense. They’d been several steps in front of her this entire investigation. This would be like thumbing their nose at her, reminding her she still didn’t know what needed to. “Sven’s hiding. And my globe stops working now? No. Somehow, he knows the only way I can find him is through those two.”

  “Who is Sven?”

  Dexx walked to Jackie and propped himself against her hood. “A demon, and a pretty bad one at that.”

  Scott stretched his neck. “A demon. As a real one.”

  Dexx chuckled. “No, numb nuts. A guy who thinks he’s one. Demons don’t really exist.”

  “Like I can’t see people die before it happens?” Scott gestured to Paige. “Also she summoned a demon, Balnore, to see if I was okay.”

  “Pea. Really?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I was tired of playing.”

  “I knew you had some kind of ability when it came to demons.” Scott spread his hands. “It’s the only thing that made sense. A lot of your cases had the same footprint.”

  Same footprint? She’d never had anyone study her before. It felt a bit creepy.

  Raising his chin, Dexx pursed his lips and folded his arms over his chest. “This is too weird, Pea. First the chief. Now a fed.”

  “May I remind you who brought Brian in.”

  He quirked his lips and flicked his eyebrows. “Right. Anyway, yeah. She summons, as you know. She can do it practically at will.”

  “And that’s it?” Scott asked. “If that’s the case and Sven really is a demon, then summon him.”

  Paige bit the inside of her lip.

  Dexx unfolded his arms and thumped Jackie’s hood. “That’s a good point. Why go through all this if you can just summon him?”

  Summoning someone like him now? It was too soon. She still felt raw from the possession. “He’s too powerful. I just got my gifts back. Yes. I can summon demons I’ve summoned before. Balnore for example. But more than that? I’d have to know his true name.”

  “How would you find that?” Scott asked.

  Dexx shrugged. “I have books and books with demon names.”

  “No.” She stared at the stars blinking out overhead. “Those are just letters and sounds. A true name is so much more. It’s a twinge in the gut. It’s a twist in the heart. It’s a collage of images.”

  “So when someone without your ability creates the circle,” Dexx said, gesturing with his hands as if recreating the act, “and goes through all the pomp and circumstance—”

  “A demon isn’t forced to come when someone summons like that.” Paige propped her foot on Jackie’s bumper. “The salt circle is to protect the summoner, but the real protections have to do with names; the true name of a wall, the true name of a door.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  “And your gift,” Scott said, “comes with understanding these names.”

  “Kind of. I guess. I hear walls speak. I hear see memories, watch them play. It’s like being able to see beyond the veil of time, to see all the timelines together.”

  Dexx’s face screwed up in confusion. “How does that help you find a name?”

  “The name of a location, of a wall, of a door, is the culmination of all those memories, all those voices, all the people who left their mark.”

  “Hmm.” Dexx glanced at the victim still tied to the caboose behind Paige. “So how do you get a demon’s true name?”

  “Research them. Pull up all their information. Collect their details.”

  “So do that.”

  “Sven died, Dexx. His paper doesn’t exist.”

  Scott pulled his head back. “Demons die?”

  “Like anyone else. He died hundreds of years ago and no one’s heard from him since. He could have been born again as a human or as a bear or as a tree.”

  “Now you’re pulling my leg.”

  “I wish I were.” This was well above Paige’s understanding. She’d never even asked many questions about this. She’d never had to. “Demons have souls. Angels have souls. When they die, they go back into the same soup we all do.”

  “So no matter what you believe, you’re going to be reborn.”

  Paige shrugged. “It’d be an awful waste of energy, don’t you think?”

  Dexx released a puff of breath and glanced at the bandage on her chest. “How are you feeling, anyway? It’s been less than a day since you were abducted and possessed.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you? What about when you’re around demons?”

  “I’m fine.” And she was, surprisingly. She’d always been a quick healer, but this was a new fast for her. She’d had symbols carved into her. She’d been beaten and drugged, and she was just a little sore.

  “Okay. So, what’s the plan?”

  Paige scratched an itch at her temple, the sun piercing the night with delicate swords of light. “This is big and getting bigger.”

  “We can’t allow Malika and Mike to go free,” Scott said fiercely. “We need to catch them.”

  “I hear you.” But they had bigger fish to c
atch. “We’ll gather the evidence first and then review it.”

  “We already know who did this.”

  “And if it were just us, that would be enough. You with your visions. Me with my demons, but this is a big scene right now, Special Agent Scott. I don’t know how you do things, but with me, when humans are involved, we let the law handle them.”

  He gnashed his teeth.

  “This is the first time you’ve worked with someone who didn’t think you were crazy, isn’t it?”

  He pulled his lips back, then settled them in place in a relaxed, settled expression. “Yes.”

  She’d seen it before, mostly with “psychics” who couldn’t tell a stick from a tree. When they tripped onto people who didn’t immediately assume insanity, they latched on, felt the rules no longer applied. “If the evidence points to Jones and Malika, we bring them in. We try them on the evidence they present.”

  “And everything else we know?”

  “We use to guide us to the evidence they wouldn’t otherwise have provided.”

  Scott dropped his gaze to the ground and released a frustrated breath.

  “It’s not fun. Especially when we know what’s going on.”

  “I’ve seen you bring people in with no evidence at all.”

  And she had.

  “So let’s bring them in now. Get them in custody while we’re processing the evidence.”

  “Then how do we find Sven?” Dexx asked.

  Scott raked his teeth over his bottom lip and turned to the victim behind him. “That man had a name. He had a family. He had friends.”

  A wave of guilt and regret washed over Paige like a bucket of acid. “He’s one man.”

  “And the woman from earlier?”

  “Is one woman.”

  “And the three they killed before?”

  “Were three more.”

  Scott shot daggers from his gaze.

  It was time to share with the fed what the real issue was. “Sven is after a key that opens the Gate to Hell. It’s in three pieces. We have no idea how many pieces he has. We have no idea if it is working. We only know he has been successful in opening the gate for a short period of time. Things got loose. Things got free.”

  Scott’s eyes widened.

  Finally, she had his attention. “If he gets his hands on all three parts of the key and then uses it? Imagine how many thousands, how many hundreds of thousands, millions, billions of lives will be affected then? Demons, running around loose. Damned souls. Angels. Worse.”

  “What could be worse?” he asked, his voice low.

  “You don’t want to know.” And neither did she. She didn’t know what could be worse. She’d never faced it before. It could be Satan. It could be Jesus. Hell, it could be God. Who knew? One thing she did know.

  That gate had to remain closed at all costs.

  Five bodies was a small price to pay.

  THEY SPENT THE better part of the morning collecting evidence from the three scenes. Brian eventually allowed three of his officers to assist, but Duke wasn’t one of them. He remained suspiciously absent.

  Paige should ask why, but she didn’t care. She did, but didn’t. Too many other things, bigger things, were more important at the moment.

  Like sleep.

  Then, figuring out how they were going to catch Sven.

  Dexx closed the door behind them, dropping his keys on the table next to the door.

  “How are we going to catch Sven?” Paige asked, kicking off her boots.

  “We’ll figure that out in the morning.”

  “It is morning.”

  “Your clock is drunk, Pea. It’s seven o’clock. You’ve been possessed. I’ve been up for two days? The two hours I slept before discovering you’d disappeared don’t count because the freak-out nullified any sleep I got. We need rest.”

  She sank onto the edge of the bed. Her mind fought to remain awake, alert. People were dying. It could get much, much worse. She didn’t want to close her eyes, to delve into her subconscious.

  Her mouth fell open in a huge yawn that kept going and going and . . . When it finally released her, all her energy to remain awake evaporated, and the only thing she could think about was going to sleep.

  Dexx gave her a tired nod, his eyes half open. “Pea, let me sleep in the bed. I’m begging you.”

  She was too tired for anything to happen and she trusted that man with her life. She nodded. “Just, don’t snore in my ear.”

  He took off his green button-up—that hadn’t even been buttoned—and shucked his pants, leaving him only in his blue briefs, green t-shirt, and socks. He fell into bed on the other side and covered his eyes with his arm. “I make no promises.”

  “Will the protections hold?” She flopped an arm at the Sharpie marks on the door jam.

  He reached under his pillow and pulled out a gun. “If not, this’ll slow ’em down.”

  Wasn’t much else she could do. She shuffled to the window and drew the curtains closed, then hobbled to the door, slipped the chain, checked the deadbolt, and shoved a chair under the doorknob. Feeling mildly secure, she thought about it for two long seconds, then removed her pants, slid off her socks, and reveled in the freedom of having no bra.

  With the warm comfort of Dexx lying beside her, she was asleep before her head did more than kiss the pillow.

  She woke to Dexx breathing softly in her ear. His arm was thrown over her midriff, one leg nestled between her own. Her bladder screamed at her to get up. To move. To find relief.

  Paige toyed with the idea of staying up as the toilet flushed, reviewing the case files again, trying to get a feel for Sven and who he was, but Dexx had been right. She was beat. The past few days had really taken it out of her. She returned to bed, Dexx curling around her as though she’d never left, holding her tight, surrounding her in warmth.

  When she woke again, light streamed through the cracks in the heavy curtains. The shower played a song to her bladder she couldn’t ignore. They’d never been intimate, and to walk in while he was showering to take a piss? No. Not happening.

  As soon as the water stopped and the door opened, she plowed past him, shoved him out of the room, and took complete advantage of the room.

  He was dressed and writing down notes when she emerged, showered and a great deal better. He grabbed her wrist and tugged her into the chair next to him. “Let me check your wounds.”

  She sighed and let him. She hadn’t removed the bandages and they were more than a little damp. She should have removed them, probably, or attempted to protect them from water, but there’d been a lot of not-caring involved in her shower. A blatant disregard for caring, actually.

  The bandage on her chest peeled away easily. He froze, his brow furrowed.

  She glanced down with a slight belch. The only thing that remained of the mark carved into her flesh was a slight, pink scar. “I heal fast.”

  “That fast?”

  No. “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What about yours?” She reached for his shoulder.

  He kept it out of arms reach. “I just dressed it. It’s fine.”

  “You’re a baby.”

  He shot her an angelic expression. “Yes. I am. I’m going to check in with Brian. You stay here behind the protections. I won’t be gone long.”

  “Fine.” Time to figure out what she could piece together on Sven.

  His mark, his calling card had to be on the victims. Malika and Jones were his puppets. Not to say they couldn’t come up with a few details on their own. Jones didn’t seem like the kind of guy who followed blindly without bucking the system a bit here and there, but the Gates of Hell? He wasn’t that kind of genius.

  What did Sven want with the gates open? That question could lead to a considerable part of his name. What was the end game? What could arise from having the gates opened?

  Demons would flood through. They’d wreak havoc on the world of mankind, have all kinds of fun at Man’
s expense.

  Payback on God for casting them out of Heaven, maybe? That seemed a bit farfetched, but everything from the Bible did. After all, it claimed the world had been made in seven days. Seven. Days. And depending on which version of the Bible one worshiped from, depended on whether or not Jesus was a man or a god. All very confusing. Whatever. Biblical reasons seemed contrived.

  So, what if this was more like a personal vendetta?

  Against who?

  How about the person who’d killed him almost two hundred years ago.

  Two hundred years ago.

  Hadn’t Lucius been killed around that same time?

  “We need to talk.”

  Paige nearly jumped out of her skin as she spun toward the open door of her room. “Bal, it’s good to see you, too.”

  He sighed and leaned against the door. He looked a lot better than he had the last time she’d seen him. His face was healed. His violet button-up shirt was immaculately tucked into his grey slacks.

  “Aren’t you coming in?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Well, at least close the door so Fanny isn’t eavesdropping.” She headed toward the door.

  Balnore backed away from her, his hands raised.

  “What’s going on?” She stopped as her stomach twisted. Something had been off with him ever since he’d helped extract Lucius.

  “We have a problem.”

  Paige pursed her lips, trying to buy time. Time for what, she didn’t know. She had a feeling, though, that she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “Tell me something I didn’t already know.”

  “You’re an open wound.”

  “You’re looking good too, Bal.” She knew something was wrong. She could feel it in her blood, as if it were boiling in her veins the closer he got to her. But she didn’t want to admit what it could be. She had a guess. A scary one. “Is it your hair? I bet it is. You did something different. No, wait. It’s your face. You did something different with your face.”

  “Every time you get close, I am—” He stopped.

  She raised her eyebrows. “If you’re trying to tell me you’re secretly attracted to me, let me say that I see you more of a father figure and that’s just gross.”

  He winced. “No. I—I’m being sucked into you.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Come again?”