by Jayne Faith
I sprang away from Lagatuda, using the diversion and ensuing scramble of officials as my chance to dart across the police line. The front door had been busted open, and I ran through before anyone could stop me.
Inside, the dark mist was filling the house. The nauseating smell of brimstone and rotted flesh permeated the air, and bile rose halfway up my throat. My gaze went automatically to the sofa, but my brother wasn’t there. The blankets had been shoved to the floor.
“Evan?”
I ran into the kitchen. It was in disarray, with dishes smashed and one cupboard door hanging askew on a single hinge.
Back in the living room, the black fog seemed to be coming from the hallway that led to the master bedroom, which was where the blown window was. I went to peer down the hall and found a dozen armored Strike Team personnel lined up in formation in the doorway.
“Rogan!” I shouted.
One of the Strike guys turned at the sound of my voice, and I recognized Brady Chancellor through the visor of the helmet he wore.
“Get the hell out of here, Ella!” he shouted at me, his voice muffled.
“My brother was here,” I said, babbling in my panic. “That’s not him in there, is it? He’s nineteen, about my height, and—”
A horrible, deafening noise cut me off. It was something between a groan and a roar, and it was powerful enough to make my teeth rattle.
I looked past Brady and the rest of the Strike Team just as one of the armored personnel was jerked forward and into the bedroom. There was a scream, and the lead Strike members started firing their anti-demon weapons. After a moment the dark mist began to thin, and through it I saw a figure. A man wearing a duster.
I almost spoke Rogan’s name. But then I saw the glowing crevices in his skin, like cracks in the earth revealing roiling lava beneath the surface.
Possession.
Rogan had been possessed by a demon. Lagatuda had said they didn’t even know what it was.
When I saw the mutilated body of a Strike member at Rogan’s feet, a part of my heart died.
Strike had just lost one of their own in the line of duty. And that meant Rogan was as good as gone.
Strike Team was retreating. This was beyond their ability to contain. I got swept up in their rush to get out of the house.
I couldn’t fight. I could barely stand as my knees tried to buckle. Numbly, I watched Rogan over my shoulder as I got jostled through the living room and out the front door.
Rogan had been possessed, and he’d killed. He was beyond exorcism. He couldn’t be saved.
And Evan was nowhere to be found.
Back outside, I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. My chest hitched, and the world tilted.
A tactical team, with their grim faces and precise movements, had arrived.
I turned, feeling torn and lost, as if I’d been dropped into some alternate universe. I thought I glimpsed a Mustang that looked like Johnny’s at the edge of the emergency vehicles, which just made the entire scene even more bizarre. Maybe this was just a horrible, vivid dream.
“Ella.”
The sound of Deb’s voice seemed out of place. Just another inexplicable moment in this nightmare. I turned to find her moving toward me. Her coat gaped open in the cold, her belly too big to accommodate the zipper.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
She was pregnant. She shouldn’t be around all these guns. And who knew what was in that black mist.
“Detective Lagatuda called me,” she said. Then she reached up to wrap her arms around me and pull me to her.
“Rogan was possessed, and he killed. Evan’s disappeared again,” I choked out, my words nearly unintelligible. “I don’t know where Loki is, either.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to block it all out, but hot tears began leaking down my cheeks.
I felt like I was collapsing in on myself, but that wasn’t an option. Evan wasn’t inside. I had to believe he was still alive.
With a trembling breath, I pulled upright and dragged my hands over my face.
“You should go,” I said to Deb. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but it seemed like past the hour when she usually left for school. “I don’t want you to get in trouble at work.”
“It’s the weekend, honey.”
I tried to process that.
Something behind me caught her attention. “Is that Johnny?”
I twisted around to see my ex moving through the crowd of officials and vehicles.
“They must have called him in. Lagatuda said the demon is—” I faltered over the words and had to clear my throat. “He said it’s something new. Bigger, more powerful.”
Obviously a lot worse than anything that had come through the rip before. In Rogan’s quest to return to the in-between, he had already determined he couldn’t be possessed.
Something thorny curled up through my dazed devastation. Hours after I returned home with my brother, and some terrible new creature shows up right here? No—this wasn’t an accident or some terrible stroke of bad luck. I didn’t believe in coincidences.
A low boom sounded from within the house, and then the tactical team began trickling out. Four of them emerged carrying a metal coffin-like container by the handles molded to its sides. It rocked and bumped. Rogan—no, the thing that had taken Rogan—was still kicking inside.
The tactical team set it down in the driveway, and Johnny went through the police line with his black cases. He opened one and pulled out a familiar tablet. Standing over the metal container, he aimed the tablet at it, and then walked around to another angle and did the same.
I watched him take scans, and then Detective Barnes and her boss, portly Rusty Garcia, went up to talk to Johnny. They were hovered over his tablet and didn’t even seem to notice when the metal box was lifted and hauled toward an armored truck.
I kept my eyes on Johnny, refusing to watch the box get loaded into a reinforced vehicle that would take it to its final destination, to a facility where the creature inside would be euthanized.
When the three of them started walking our way, still in conversation and with their faces drawn and serious, I moved to intercept them.
“What is it?” I demanded.
Johnny looked up, distracted, and I could tell by his shift of expression that he hadn’t realized I was on scene.
Barnes paused, too, while her boss continued on. She came up to me while Johnny hung back.
“Lagatuda told me you and your brother were in the house earlier today, along with the victim,” she said. She was several degrees less frosty than usual. There was even a hint of sadness in her eyes. Maybe Deb had told her and Lagatuda that Rogan and I were close. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Is there any sign of my brother?” I asked, ignoring her question. “Anything at all?”
She lowered her eyelids and shook her head. “I’m sorry. But the good news is, there’s no indication that he was hurt.”
I raked my hair back with my fingers. “I went out to pick up food. Rogan and Evan were here when I left. I was gone for maybe twenty-five minutes, thirty tops. I heard the sirens when I was on my way back, and when I arrived . . .”
I gestured at the scene. Then I looked back and forth between Barnes and Johnny.
“Do you know what it is?” I pleaded.
I saw Barnes’s jaw twitch, and I knew what she was thinking—I wasn’t officially part of any department, and I didn’t have clearance. But she decided to throw me a bone and gave Johnny a curt nod. Someone called her name, and she turned to go.
“I’m very sorry about the loss of your friend,” she said.
I looked at Johnny, making no attempt to hide any of the misery I felt.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Ella.” His eyes cut over to the truck Rogan had been hauled into. He cleared his throat, obviously debating internally about what to say next. “What happened between us before—”
“Please, just tell me,” I cut in. I d
idn’t give a shit about the past. “Anything. Whatever you know.”
He lifted his tablet, seemingly relieved to have something to direct his attention to.
“It’s an unknown species of demon,” he said. He tipped the tablet so I could see, but I only gave it a cursory glance. I wasn’t in a frame of mind to process technical information. “It’s got some characteristics of an arch-demon, but it’s been—well, I think it’s been modified. That’s somewhat of a guess, as I don’t have a profile of a modified demon to compare it to.”
“Modified?” I squinted at him. “Like, genetically?”
“That’s my theory. Could be genetic modification using technology and magic.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t matter.
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Gregori?” I said, barely above a whisper.
He grimaced. “Very plausible. We know Jacob Gregori is the type of man who does such things. And Gregori Industries has the resources for complex and experimental magical technology.”
I looked off into the distance, as if I could see the answers in the morning sky. But I already knew—Jacob had my brother. He’d taken Evan, and he’d killed Rogan.
Anger began to knife through the heaviness of my grief.
“Thanks,” I said to Johnny and stalked toward Lagatuda.
He saw me coming, and I beckoned him away from the other officials he was talking to.
“Jacob Gregori is behind this,” I said. “He’s got my brother, and he’s going to—”
I stopped abruptly. Shit. What was I going to say, that Phillip Zarella’s zombie told me Jacob Gregori wanted to sacrifice my brother to close the rips?
Lagatuda’s brow wrinkled. “What makes you think Gregori is involved?”
I exhaled loudly. “I don’t have proof, but I know it. The thing that possessed Rogan is genetically modified. A new species. You’ve got to believe me. You have to help me get my brother.”
He placed a hand on my arm and said something probably meant to be reassuring. I didn’t think he disbelieved me. But even if he could convince his bosses, they wouldn’t be able to move fast enough. They’d need proof, a case against Gregori before they could make any accusation.
Too much red tape.
Abruptly, I wheeled around and made my way through the crowd toward the Jeep. Deb appeared at my side, doing a little skipping walk to keep up with my long strides.
“Slow down,” she said. “You’re still in shock, and you’ve got major magical depletion.”
“I’m not in shock,” I said dismissively.
“Ella,” she barked so sternly I scuffed to a halt. Her voice softened when I finally turned to her. “At least let me heal some of this.”
She waved her hand in the air around me.
All of a sudden, a big four-legged blur bounded in from the right. With a few whining yips of recognition, Loki threw himself at me, his big paws hitting my chest. I lost my balance, and I sat down hard on the asphalt, but I didn’t really care.
I wrapped my arms around his furry neck as he licked my ear and cheek. My relief at seeing him was so thick my throat closed for a moment as I fought back tears.
Deb helped me up.
I shook my head as I faced the Jeep. I’d left the door open, and I could see the sandwiches from Blossom’s Deli on the passenger seat.
“That’s Rogan’s car,” I said. “He handed me the keys, what, an hour ago?”
Deb closed the Jeep’s door and gently pulled me over to my own truck. I blinked stupidly at it for a couple of seconds, wondering how it had ended up here, before remembering that her soon-to-be ex-husband had sold her Honda. She’d driven my pickup here.
I dug in my heels, resisting her. “I have to find Evan,” I insisted.
“You’re not doing shit until you get healing,” she said. I could see the worry in her eyes. She’d recognized something in my aura or energy or whatever it was that she sensed about people. She could tell I’d pushed myself into dangerous territory.
Loki leapt into the bed of the truck and watched us through the back windshield as I slumped into the passenger seat and Deb got in behind the wheel. She started the engine but had to wait because the armored truck was pulling away.
Coffin. I might as well accept what that metal box riding inside really was.
Demon control specialists would take it to one of their facilities where the body in the coffin would be incinerated. It would use a combination of flash-incineration and highly controlled obliteration magic to wipe Rogan from existence.
I watched the truck roll by, and the ache in my chest took my breath away. Deb reached for my hand. After the truck was out of sight, she pulled out and made a U-turn.
I stared dazedly out the windshield without really seeing anything. At home, she took me inside and made me lay down on the bed.
“I’ll work quickly, I promise,” she said and then began performing a healing ritual.
It wouldn’t be enough—I needed to see a more powerful healer—but it was better than nothing.
As she chanted quietly, I felt myself wrapped in numbing warmth. She’d probably woven something into her healing for soothing emotions. I didn’t want to be numbed. I wanted to feel the hard edge of grief over Rogan, the hot flashes of fear and anger at Evan’s abduction. But it would all come crashing back soon enough, so I let myself drift.
Some time later, I sat up. Deb had finished and had left me alone to rest. I was drained, but at the same time newly energized. In a strange reflection of my own sensations, I felt the reaper stirring.
The presence of the reaper grew more agitated until the pressure in my chest became alarming. My heart thudded, adding to the discomfort. Small tendrils of panic began creeping through me. Had Deb’s healing given the reaper too much strength? Oh, shit . . . had it knocked loose the spell that kept the reaper in check?
I tried to get off the bed and stand up but nearly fell on my face. I doubled over, groaning and pinching my eyes closed. I wanted to call out for Deb but couldn’t even manage the words.
Then all at once the pressure released. I took a breath and opened my eyes, and found I was in the gray of the in-between.
And I wasn’t alone.
Chapter 23
MY APARTMENT BUILDING existed in the in-between, but none of my furniture carried over to this realm.
There was someone in the bedroom window. At least, there had been.
I went through the living room and out the front, where there was no door in the frame. Loki was there in his hellhound form, and he followed me.
And there, standing next to the in-between version of my truck, was a skeletal, hooded figure. There was nothing in particular to distinguish this specter, but I knew who it was immediately.
“Rogan,” I breathed.
The figure raised a hand in greeting.
I took a shaking breath, trying to smile. After all, this was what he’d wanted. He was free, and there should be a measure of happiness in that. Maybe someday I’d feel it, but my own loss was still too painful.
He half-turned, as if ready to stroll down the sidewalk, and then extended his hand and curled his fingers, beckoning at me. My eyes wide, I approached him. He began walking, his movements silent. The only sign of his passing was the slight swirling of mist around his ethereal cloak.
My reaper stirred, and I sensed it was displeased and longed to put distance between us and the other reaper.
“Get over it, Xaphan,” I muttered.
I remembered what Rogan had told me about his former life, that reapers were solitary creatures and instinctively avoided each other. Their lives were so isolated they had no need for speech.
We walked side by side through the mist, with Loki loping along ahead of us. I was tempted to glance back toward home. Had Deb discovered I was gone? I didn’t want to worry her. But I sensed this was important.
We walked into a ghostly version of downtown, stopping at intersections to wa
it for phantom driverless cars to pass. Rogan led me through my former Demon Patrol beat until we reached a corner that was only a few blocks from my old station. It was a spot I’d passed hundreds of times. There was a large square-tiled fountain that had been there for decades, and next to it a non-descript brick office building with an attached parking garage.
I looked at Rogan in question. He moved to the edge of the fountain and waved me over. We peered down into the water pooled there. He reached out a skeletal hand and trailed it through the water. He tipped his skull-like face up and pointed at his temple, tapping it twice. Then dipped his fingers in the water again.
The surface of the water shivered as if disturbed by a breeze. Then it flattened, and in the reflection, I saw the front of Rogan’s house.
In the next breath, Rogan, Loki, and I were standing in the driveway.
I turned a full circle. Apparently he’d just used some sort of reaper teleportation to move us two miles from downtown to his old house. But why were we here? Was he trying to give me a clue to my brother’s whereabouts?
“Is there something here I need to see?” I asked.
He shook his head, and my brow furrowed in confusion.
Tipping his face back, he almost seemed to sniff the air. I imitated him, inhaling, searching for . . . what? I turned again, slowly this time, kicking up puffs of mist with my movements. For the first time, I noticed that the gray mist seemed to have a scent. Left undisturbed, it settled low to the ground, but motion stirred it up. It was akin to kicking through dry leaves and sending up the moldy, earthy smell of them.
The mist had a chill, slightly mineral note. Like the smell of cool water bubbling up from deep in the bedrock.
Water . . .
I could smell water nearby. Rogan and I looked at each other, and then silently started off in the same direction. We ended up a block away in front of a split-level house. It looked vacant here in the in-between. We went around to the back yard where we came upon a pond. Rocks at one end formed a cascade for a waterfall to trickle down, but either it wasn’t turned on, or such things didn’t work in this realm.
