She pulled several packets of paper from her bag and spread one of them out. “Whittaker wants us to build magitek-enhanced battle robots.”
I scanned the drawings in front of me, then shifted through the rest of the paper in the packet. Schematics, specifications, and descriptions.
“These are ancient,” I said. “No one has built battle robots like these since the end of the Rift War.”
“Yeah. And robotic science has come a long way since then,” she said. “We’re going to have to design the new ones from scratch.”
The battle robots deployed in the Rift war were often called demon killers. They used tank treads for locomotion, and were armed with magitek-enhanced lightning generators and rail guns firing incendiary-explosive projectiles. I sorted through all three packets, and saw the plans were for three different sizes of machines, ranging from one that was man-sized to one the size of a kitchen table, to one the size of a truck.
“I’ve spoken to my uncle,” Mary Sue said, “and Dressler Robotics will partner with us. We supply the designs and the magitek engineering, and they’ll do the manufacturing.”
I shook my head. “I hope Whittaker understands this is going to take some time. They’ll be lucky if we can produce a prototype for one model in a year.”
“I told them that. I figure two years at least before we can start production. Dani, this contract could be worth billions.”
Taking a deep breath, I said, “Dressler needs to provide a couple of robotics engineers to work with me. That’s not my area of expertise.”
She smiled. “Done. I’ll have them contact you, and we’ll set up an office for you to work with them near Police Headquarters.”
“When do you plan to sleep?” Kirsten asked.
I laughed. “Good question.”
When Mary Sue packed up to leave, she said, “Did you hear about the poisonings in Wilmington?”
Since the Port of Wilmington had been occupied by Akiyama’s forces early in the current war, our information about what was going on there was limited.
“Poisonings?”
“Yeah. A whole barracks of battle mages at the port got some kind of food poisoning and died. Akiyama is trying to keep it quiet, but word leaked out. Hard to cover up more than two hundred deaths. And then the fanciest restaurant in the city had an incident. Dozens of high-ranking mages and other officials died. The hospital there isn’t that big, and they were overwhelmed. I wondered if it might be connected to the incident at Trombino’s.”
“Interesting. Any idea what they died of?”
“One of my engineers was in a pub near the hospital and heard something about thallium. Ring any bells?”
Chapter 18
When I met with Commissioner Whittaker for my weekly briefing, he told me, “Our spies reported that there was some kind of excitement out in Wilmington, but we weren’t able to pin down exactly what happened.”
“I suggest your spies spend a little more time in the bars,” I said.
He gave me a sour expression, then said, “I’ll make a note of that. As to your plan to go out to the church in Kensington, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Projecting a map onto the wall, he continued, “The northeast Washington area still has extensive demon activity. North of Kensington, the Akiyama forces hold a transport corridor linking their port at Wilmington to the Potomac west of Washington. Southeast of there, the Rift is still open and a lot of the area is held by demons.”
“The main church headquarters is in Akiyama-demon territory?”
“Close enough.”
“So, what do I do about all these missing people who are tied to the Harvesting Souls Church?”
“Figure out a way to investigate it that doesn’t involve putting your ass at risk in a war zone.”
I went back to my office and found Mychal dictating a report. Perching myself on the corner of his desk, I filled him in on my conversation with Whittaker and what Carmelita and I had found out about the church.
“I guess I could send Carmelita in undercover,” I concluded, “but the priest has met her. She’d have to use an illusion.”
Mychal shook his head. “I’d send in a magik detector first. Maybe even a spirit mage. You don’t know whether there are spells set that might blow her cover.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. What kind of church uses protection spells?”
“What kind of church hires demons and vampires to do construction work?” he replied.
The magik detectors who worked for the police were in forensics, and they weren’t sworn police officers. Using an untrained person as an undercover operative wasn’t a standard procedure. But Aleks had military training. Maybe I could talk him into doing a quick survey of the church. No harm in asking, so I called him.
“Aleks. What are you doing this evening?”
“Sitting around lonely and forlorn, wallowing in self-pity.”
I stifled a laugh. “Think you could take a break long enough to eat? I’m buying.”
I heard a theatrical sigh. “I guess I could be persuaded. What time?”
“Around six? I can go by your place, or, if you’re in the neighborhood, meet me at the police station?”
“I’ll call you when I get there.”
Okay, that problem solved. I opened my computer and gazed with horror at a mountain of paperwork that needed to be read, approved, signed, or otherwise dealt with. My first thought was to route it all to Louanne, but then I saw that it all came from her. It was everything she couldn’t shield me from. Nostalgia for the days of being a sergeant rose up and laughed at me. I reminded myself to be nice to Billie Cargill when she showed up the following day.
It was almost six o’clock when Aleks called. I shut down the computer, grabbed my coat, and took the elevator down to the ground floor. Looking around the lobby, I didn’t see him, but when I looked outside, he was standing there in the middle of a storm dumping huge fluffy flakes. At least six inches were on the ground already.
“Are you nuts?” I asked as I joined him. “Why didn’t you come inside to wait?”
He gave me a beatific smile. “I’m enjoying it. It reminds me of home. Have you ever skied?”
“You mean strap boards on my feet and jump off the side of a mountain?”
Aleks chuckled. “I’ll take that as a no. I’ll have to take you sometime. The sensation is a lot like riding a motorcycle.”
We trudged through the snow. The streets were clear due to the magik spells laid on them, but I knew the sidewalks wouldn’t be cleared until the following morning.
“Carmelita showed me a place with great Mexican food,” I told him. “The seafood stew is to die for, and the shrimp rellenos will definitely clear your sinuses. Great beer menu.”
It was also just down the street from the Harvesting Souls Church.
As we passed the church, I gestured to it and asked, “Who can you feel inside?”
Aleks stopped, and we stood there for a couple of minutes.
“Twelve humans. Why?”
“Is there any magik?”
“One of the humans is a mage.” He was silent for another couple of minutes. “There are spells. Several on the front door, and one on all the windows.”
“What kind of spells? Can you tell?”
He shook his head. “Mage spells. But what the specific spells do, I have no idea.”
“If we walked around it, might you detect any more?”
“Probably, if there are any. What’s this all about?”
“I’ll tell you over dinner.”
I set out around the side of the church. Aleks followed me. He stopped by a side door for a moment, then continued after me. But when we reached the back of the church, where there was a door and a set of stairs leading down to a basement door, he stopped and inhaled sharply.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Demon magik.” He pointed to the basement. “There.”
The alley behind the church
was large enough for a delivery truck or a bus. Aleks walked away from me, going to the end of the alley, then back to the other end before coming back to stand beside me.
“There are veils at both ends of the alley,” he said. “I would bet that while they don’t impede people from entering or leaving, vehicles won’t be able to enter. You’ll notice there isn’t a trash dumpster in this alley. It’s down at the end on the side of the building.”
The church took up most of the block, with a few row houses behind it facing the next street over.
“Let’s go eat,” I said. As we walked through the alley, something else drew my attention. “There’s no snow here.”
“I was wondering when you’d notice.”
We found seats in the restaurant and ordered beers and our meals from the automenu.
“What’s going on?” Aleks asked.
I told him about the missing people. “The church’s main headquarters is very near the Rift and demon-controlled territory north of the Waste. And Akiyama-allied forces control much of the accesses to it from the east and north. I don’t have anything concrete I can identify, but there’s something weird going on.”
I spoke with Commissioner Whittaker the following morning, and he assigned two intelligence operatives from his mercenary military force to work with me. Both were mages—an aeromancer and an electrokinetic—young enough to look like college students, and highly trained in covert operations and weapons.
Carmelita, Mychal, and I met with Sharon and Gordon, briefing them on what we knew, suspected, and hoped to find out, then turned them loose.
I went back to my office and looked at the seemingly endless list of tasks on my computer screen.
“Captain,” Luanne called through the intercom, “Lieutenant Cargill is here.”
“Send her in.”
Billie came into my office, looking a bit unsure of herself.
“Lieutenant Cargill, thank you for coming. Won’t you please sit down? Coffee or tea?
She sat, fiddling with her uniform cap in her lap. As usual, she was spit-and-polish, shoes gleaming, uniform pressed and creased. Such a perfect cop that the department had used her photograph on recruiting posters.
“Are you happy in DC?” I asked. “That commute every day must be a drag.”
“Oh, you get used to it. Yes, I enjoy my job.”
I knew at least half of that was a lie. From her home in north Baltimore, it was a three-hour round-trip commute every day.
“I have a position open,” I said. “Senior lieutenant rank, chief administrative officer of the Arcane Major Crimes Unit. Are you interested?”
At first, she just blinked at me. She looked as though she was trying to say something, but no words came out.
“Work for you?” she finally blurted.
“Yes. I need someone to handle all the reports and administrative stuff. I don’t have time for it. And it can’t be a civilian. I need someone who understands what’s in those reports and what to do about it. Someone who understands cops, and can keep them in-line. Someone who understands what should be filed and what needs immediate action.”
“Work for you?”
I laughed. “C’mon, Billie. I’m not that bad. And I promise I’ll never again mention to anyone that you finished second. The job’s a big deal. Right here in headquarters where you’ll see the brass every day. Impress them with your performance. One step away from captain. What do you say?”
She stared at me for a full minute, then said, “Oh, hell. You’re such a slacker. You want someone to make you look good.”
“Yup, but I always give credit to the people who do the work. You make me look good by keeping up with the administrative stuff, and I’ll tell Whittaker and Jefferson how wonderful you are.”
She shook her head. “I should know better, but yes, I’ll take the job.” She was silent again, then said, “Do I have to put up with crap from Luanne?”
“Yup. As long as she’s not insubordinate. And if she is, you tell me and I’ll handle it. But she does report to you, and someone had better have a damned good reason to go over your head to me. I’ve never done that to my bosses, and I don’t like it. She said you’re cousins. Do you know each other well?”
“I was her baby sitter when she was little. She had a smart mouth even then.”
I chuckled. “She hasn’t changed much. Welcome aboard.”
With that done, I turned my attention back to the other cases on my desk. I requisitioned a couple of drones and set them to watching Findlay House for any movement by the Mid-Atlantic Produce truck that had been stolen. None of the constant surveillance of the estate showed the truck, but I knew there was a large underground parking garage.
I spent the rest of the day whittling away at the mountain of paperwork—stopping briefly at one point to wonder why we still called it paperwork when it was all done on the computer. When I finished, I wandered around the bullpen, harassing the detectives working for me and getting verbal briefings on the progress of their cases. Eventually, my stomach signaled that it was going to rebel if I drank any more coffee, and I called it a day.
Aleks had flown out to Atlanta that morning, so I walked over to Enchantments to see what Kirsten was doing for dinner. Passing by our favorite candy store, I decided to duck in and pick up some chocolate to share with her.
The incubus standing at the counter didn’t really capture my attention, but the face of the shopgirl did. Blank and wonderous, breathing heavily, and her eyes sparkling, she didn’t look normal. I stopped and watched as she took all the money out of the cash register and put it on the counter, smiling at the incubus the whole time.
I walked up behind him and stuck the muzzle of my Raider against the base of his skull. “Put your hands up, and give me all your money,” I said.
He stiffened, and looking over his shoulder, I saw the girl’s expression change.
The incubus slowly raised his hands, and I grabbed one, snapping a handcuff on it, then grabbed the other and finished the job.
“On your knees.”
He complied, and I pushed him over so he lay prone on the floor. By that time, the girl’s expression had changed to one of horror as she stared at us and the pile of money on the counter.
“You should put that away,” I said to her, “and then call the police.” Then to the incubus, “You’re under arrest for entrancing a human and grand larceny.”
It took about five minutes for a couple of uniformed cops to show up. I turned the incubus over to them, bought some chocolate, and continued to Enchantments. For the first time that day, I felt as though I’d accomplished something.
Chapter 19
Two weeks after I assigned Gordon and Sharon to go undercover at the Harvesting Souls Church, they contacted me. We set up a meeting at the Kitchen Witch Café that evening.
I didn’t have much time to worry about what they wanted since it was Lieutenant Billie Cargill’s first day in the office as the new Senior Lieutenant in charge of Administrative Affairs for the Major Crimes Division, and I got busy. It really wasn’t a promotion, except in the sense that she was at Police Headquarters instead of a district sub-station. And the title was completely bogus because I made it up. But I had managed to get her a small raise and wrangled an oversized broom closet for her office. Whittaker had signed off on everything.
I spent the day orienting Billie, getting her computer accesses all set, introducing her to Mychal and the other detectives, and making sure she knew her limits. At five o’clock, I took off and drove up to Hampden to meet with my church spies.
They arrived before me and were sitting in a booth in the back. I sat down, saw they were eating fish and chips with beer, so I ordered the same when the brownie waitress came to take my order.
“So,” I said, “what have you found out? Am I crazy?”
“You aren’t crazy,” Gordon said, and Sharon emphatically shook her head. Gordon continued, “The church preaches an apocalyptic message. The
demons were sent to punish humanity for its sins.” He raised an eyebrow. “And evidently the greatest of those sins is allowing the evil Magi to subjugate and control them.”
“HLA?” I asked.
Sharon said, “I don’t think so. The message and the talking points are different. And here’s one you probably didn’t expect. Salvation can be found in the Rift.”
“Huh?”
The brownie came back with my order and set it in front of me. I took a pull on the beer and said, “Run that one by me again?”
“The Rift is actually a stairway to heaven,” Gordon said. “That it is dangerous is part of the Big Lie the evil Magi have been telling you. But only the pious, those truly dedicated to God, can cross. You have to give up all your worldly possessions and dedicate your life to holiness, and then you can ascend.”
“You’re joking.”
They both shook their heads.
“I couldn’t have dreamed that one up no matter what kind of drugs I was doing,” Sharon said. She leaned closer. “The catch is, we haven’t seen a single, solitary thing they’re doing that’s illegal. It’s all clothed in the Bible and Christian orthodoxy. The clergy are all human. There’s nothing to identify it as a Rifter religion.” She shrugged. “I’m not an expert. Maybe you and Whittaker can figure out some loophole to shut them down.”
“May not be illegal but definitely subversive,” I said.
Gordon chuckled. “Oh, certainly. But they aren’t advocating the overthrow of the Council, or sending their followers out to murder Magi in our beds. Just quietly give your wealth to the church and escape to paradise. You don’t even have to drink any Kool-Aid. Just step into the Rift.”
“And what’s your current status with them? I mean, this isn’t what they tell someone the first time they walk through the door, is it?”
Gordon grinned. “They’re fairly aggressive. They use language that’s coded. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what they’re talking about. As to our status, I’m sold. Ready to jump on the horse and ride, whereas—”
Soul Harvest (The Rift Chronicles Book 3) Page 10
