The Raven had been a Baltimore fixture for centuries and was still run by the original owner’s descendants. It had been a hangout for me and my friends when I was a university student. Just enough off the beaten track to be less rowdy than the bars nearer to the harbor—gentrified enough that you didn’t have to go armed.
Gordon had taken a seat at the end of the bar, and I slipped onto the stool beside him. The barman brought me a beer and a menu, I made a quick choice, and he left us alone.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“The Harvesting Souls Church is planning a special festival the weekend after this one,” Gordon said. “They’ve contracted thirty buses to haul their worshippers down to Kensington, starting Friday night. The big event is scheduled for Sunday, and they’re calling it a ‘mass ascension.’ A guy we befriended in Annapolis told me. He’s all excited about it.”
“How many people are expected to attend this religious extravaganza?”
“I was told about a thousand.”
“And this is going to happen at the temple?”
Gordon shook his head. “Rock Creek Park.”
The northern end of the Rift extended right to the edge of the park. Before the wars, the area surrounding it had included some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the DC area. After DC was nuked the first time, the rich had moved out in the country, so they weren’t around to witness the original appearance of the Rift in DC. Currently, the park was wild and overgrown, its major inhabitants being feral shifters.
“I don’t want you and Sharon anywhere near there,” I said.
He chuckled. “Don’t worry. We’re planning on disappearing a couple of days before all this goes down. Pass the word on to the Commissioner. I’m taking a trip up to Montreal with my fiancée to go skiing, and I think Sharon and her roommate are planning a trip to a beach in Mexico. We don’t want to get inadvertently caught up in anything. I’ve seen the Rift, and it scares the crap out of me.”
I nodded. “Good plan.”
“I have a present for you.” He held out his hand and dropped one of the charms Carmelita had seen into my palm. “Don’t put it on, it’s loaded.”
“I was hoping you could get hold of one of these,” I said.
We ate our lunches, then I paid, thanked him, and we went our separate ways.
Back at the office, I checked with Whittaker’s secretary and made an appointment for late in the afternoon. Then I called Mychal and Carmelita into my office and briefed them on what Gordon had told me.
They agreed with me that the easiest way to prevent a slaughter would be to prevent the buses from picking up the church’s congregations in the first place. As a magitek, it would be easy for me to prevent the entire bus fleet from even starting their engines.
We could also close the roads leading to DC. Or we could just bust the churches before their plans progressed that far. That option was most appealing to me, but I doubted Whittaker would go for it.
I was right. Whittaker didn’t like any of the options I presented.
“We need to catch them in the act of doing something illegal,” he said.
“Such as?”
“If you can prove those pendants have a coercion spell, or that people are being forced into the Rift, that’s illegal.”
“Gordon supplied me with one of the pendants. I’ll have Kirsten look at it tonight.”
Chapter 30
Kirsten and Aleks rode with me out to Mom’s place. Kirsten had to be there to remove her ward, and Aleks said he went just to get some of my mom’s cooking. I could tell he was lying and was feeling masculinely protective. I found I didn’t care. The venture I was embarking on was as scary as anything I’d ever done.
We arrived at Mom’s a little after noon. She fed us lunch, and then we went out to my workshop. I dissolved the ward set in place through a magitek device and opened the door. A closet in one corner had the same kind of magitek protection, along with a heavy lock and a ward that Kirsten had set. We opened that, then removed two more sets of wards to unveil the wooden box, about a foot square and a little over two feet tall.
I carried the box out to Mom’s truck, and we drove down to Gunpowder Falls. We pulled off at the turnout, and I carried the box to a small clearing in the woods near the river. We cast wards around it and sat back to wait.
We had about an hour until sunset, but I wanted to be set up when Besevial arrived. Hidden in the trees were two hundred elven warriors armed with bows and swords. I carried the new magitek projector I had built, Aleks had his spirit magik, and Kirsten simply sat on a large rock, cast a ward around herself, and complained she should have brought popcorn.
I paced, nervous as a girl at her first dance. My mind raced with all the things that could go wrong. What would happen when Besevial actually took possession of the avatar? And what were the odds he would really fulfill his side of the bargain? Would I actually get my father, alive and whole, or would I get a corpse, or a demon wearing my father’s shape? That was the one that scared me the most. I’d get Dad back, but he’d be possessed, not really Dad at all.
The sky lit up as the sun sank in the west, and I stood fidgeting over the box. Without any fanfare or warning, I realized I wasn’t alone in the clearing. Besevial stood ten paces in front of me, a leering grin on his face.
“Is that what I seek?” he asked.
“Yes. Where’s my father?”
“In my world. I must have the avatar to bring him across.”
I backed away from the box and cast my magik at its lock. I drew my Raider while holding the energy projector with my other hand behind my leg.
“It’s yours,” I said.
His grin widened. “You don’t trust me.”
“Not as far as I can throw you.”
He made a tsking sound as he approached the box, then he bent over, and lifted the box, revealing the avatar sitting on its base.
“Ahhhh.”
He set the box aside, then lifted the avatar. He held the statuette against his chest and turned around so his back was to me. I didn’t hear anything, but red light—I assumed from the avatar’s eyes—shot out like a flashlight across the clearing. The air shimmered and seemed to part.
A hole formed in reality. The light on the other side was red, the same red as I had seen in demon dens. Akashrian stood there, and in her hands, she held a human. The man had snow-white hair, and he was very thin.
She reached through the portal and sat him down on his feet. He had my father’s face, though it was much older and more worn than I remembered.
“Daddy?”
“It’s me, Dani,” he said. I heard it both with my ears and through my implant.
“Oh, God!” I rushed past Besevial. Dad took only two steps before I reached him and threw my arms around him. I tried to say something, but all that came out were sobs.
And then my mother was there, taking his face in her hands, staring into his eyes, and then kissing him.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and turned my head to see Besevial carrying the avatar through the portal into his world.
“Hey, wait!” I shouted.
Besevial didn’t turn, but my shout caused half a dozen archers to loose their arrows. His back looked like a pin cushion, but he didn’t seem to notice. A white ball of spirit energy staggered him, however. And then the portal closed, the last rays of the sun disappeared, and we were left in darkness.
My mom was crying. I had never seen her cry before. Dad held her and stroked her hair.
The elves melted back into the forest, and after a while, the five of us who were left got into Mom’s truck, and I drove us home. When we got there, Mom and Dad sat on the couch, holding each other and speaking in low tones while I helped Kirsten fix something for us to eat. She was a great cook, but I knew how to operate a kitchen powered completely with elven magik.
After our meal, we sat around, and Dad told us of his twenty-two years among the demons.
“E
veryone thought you were dead,” I said. I winked at him. “All except for three irrational females who refused to accept it. Mom and Grandmother still tend to speak of you in present tense rather than past. What happened?”
He took a sip of his wine. “You have no idea how good that tastes. Well, your Uncle Richard and I were on our way to a meeting with representatives of the Akiyama Family at the Palace of Commerce when we were ambushed. Our lead car hit a mine in the road, and the car we were riding in crashed into it. At that point we were attacked by demons along with some human mages. I took a knock to the head, and when I woke up, I discovered I had crossed the Rift and was in the possession of the demon goddess Akashrian.”
“So, you didn’t see anything about the attack?” I asked.
“Oh, I saw enough. I assume Richard didn’t survive. He was shot. And I did recognize the men who captured me.”
“Akiyama,” I said.
He shook his head. “No, two of Moncrieff’s assassins. Tell me, is Cousin Courtney still as big a bitch as she was back then?”
“Worse. But why take you across the Rift?”
He drained his glass. “You wouldn’t happen to have any more of this, would you?” We were drinking Mom’s peach wine.
Mom started to get up, but Kirsten hopped to her feet. “I’ll get it.”
He waited until she came back from the kitchen and poured wine for all of us. He took a sip, then said, “Well, I assumed I would be tortured and killed. I was half right. You know that demons feed on emotions. Fear and anger are two of the strongest emotions, and Akashrian is a very needy goddess. Anyway, one of her underlings, a demon lord named Ashvial, got the idea that a magitek could help them to understand technology. Help them to build magitek devices that used demon magik. He convinced her to keep me as a pet.”
Dad shook his head. “It didn’t work. At first, she suspected that I was purposely sabotaging my efforts. Giving them bad information. Eventually, she figured out that demons are just not able to comprehend how technology works. Like a human with no talent can’t understand magik. But by then, she had become—I guess the word would be comfortable with me—and she enjoyed playing with me. So she kept me around.”
I remembered my dreams and didn’t ask what he meant by ‘playing with him.’ I really didn’t want to know more.
So, I switched the topic. “Do you know anything about what they call an avatar? A little statuette of Akashrian about this tall?” I held out my hands two feet apart.
“It’s how she controls her minions in this world,” he said. “It also conveys some of her powers to them. You saw how they used it to create the portal so I could cross.”
“But why would they take it back across?” Mom asked.
Dad shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t trust you and were afraid you’d take it away from them? Or they plan to use it somewhere else? Or for something else?” Taking another sip of wine, he asked, “How did you convince them to let me go?”
“I had the avatar,” I said. “I traded it for you.”
“What?” He sat bolt upright.
Mom turned to him. “Ashvial ruled demons in the Atlantic Seaboard. I killed him, and Dani stole the statuette and hid it.”
I chuckled. “The demons actually think I killed him, but it was really Mom bailing me out of a tight spot. When Besevial came looking for the statuette, I told him I’d trade it for you. That was the first time that I really knew you were still alive, because they agreed. Before that, I always wondered if my dreams were real.”
I had to explain why Dad couldn’t just waltz over to Findlay House to see Olivia, but before we all went to bed, I called my grandmother in Ireland.
“Grandmother? Are you sitting down?”
“Why? What have you done now?”
I handed Dad the phone.
“Mama? How are you?”
I heard only his side of the conversation, but it was very emotional. As they talked, I realized that with my father back, I was no longer her heir. That made me feel almost as good as having him home.
Chapter 31
The following morning, I called Luanne and told her I was taking the day off. Kirsten called her assistant and told her the same thing, and Aleks cancelled a meeting. Mom fixed breakfast for everyone, then we hiked up to the dam.
It was only half a mile, and not much of a climb, but Dad had to take several stops to rest.
“I didn’t get much exercise,” he told us, “and the food…well, let’s just say the food wasn’t very good. They fed me enough to keep me alive, but that’s about it.”
“Don’t worry,” Kirsten said, “Amelie won’t let you go hungry.”
I didn’t ask what they had fed him. I didn’t want to know. He looked as though he’d aged a hundred years.
But his mind was sharp, and he wanted to see the turbines and the enhancements I’d made while he was gone. We also talked about the Cerberus factory, and he sounded very interested in what Mary Sue and I were doing.
“Maybe I could help,” he said.
“I’m sure you could. I could really use some help with the design work on those battlebots.”
On our way back to Baltimore that afternoon, Kirsten said, “I hope he’s all right. He doesn’t look too good.”
“It’s been an incredible ordeal, but he’s with one of the foremost healers in the area, and there are a couple of other healers in the elven village,” I said. “I think we’ll have to give it some time and see how he does.”
“And what about the demons and that statuette?” Aleks asked.
“You don’t suppose having the avatar is necessary for their grand ascension, do you?” Kirsten asked.
Ah, back to reality. “What did you learn from that pendant I brought you?” I responded.
“It appears to be a suggestion charm rather than a charm carrying a coercion spell,” she replied. “It’s more subtle, but more difficult to break because it doesn’t force a person to do something. Some people might call it a persuasion spell. You know, the person who gave you the charm says, ‘It would be so joyous to ascend to heaven with all your friends.’ Which is a lot more subtle than, ‘Jump in the Rift so a demon can eat you.’”
I sighed. “Any chance of a spell that neutralizes a thousand of those charms at once?”
“Nope. And even if someone takes it off, depending on how long they’ve worn it and how much suggestion has been used, they may have internalized those suggestions. So, even if the charm is removed, the person probably still has those thoughts.”
When I spoke with Whittaker the following morning, I told him about Kirsten’s analysis of the charm pendant.
“The difference between a coercion spell and a suggestion spell sounds like splitting hairs to me,” I told him. “I think we should bust the churches and toss all the leaders in the clink.”
He sighed. “Let me think about it. In the meantime, we’ve had another poisoning. This time it got into the food shipped to my troops assigned to contain your aunt’s imperialistic ambitions. Almost three hundred soldiers of the regiment dug in west of Findlay House.”
“Any idea how it got into their food?”
“Mychal and Carmelita have arrested three people, all soldiers working for me. They think the suspects were bribed.” He leaned forward. “Dani, we have to do something about this. I thought you said Susan Reed was dead. Who else is distributing this stuff?”
I thought about it. “”You notice the target is a little different this time. Courtney probably has Susan’s supply of thallium. Drop a nuke on Findlay House. Order your troops to take the place.”
Whittaker shook his head. “I wish it was that easy. You and Osiris made that estate one of the most secure and well-armed fortifications in the world. Nothing we’ve tried can breach the magitek shields, and the lightning generators are huge. Where did you get that much power to feed them?”
I didn’t want to explain that I had built cut-outs at the reservoir so that Findlay could override the en
tire Baltimore electric grid if necessary. I didn’t think my grandmother would appreciate me revealing one of Findlay’s deepest secrets.
On the other hand, I could disable that cut-out at the dam. Findlay House also generated its own power where the Gunpowder River flowed into the reservoir. Two run-of-the-river turbines were installed there, and the output from them didn’t feed into the main power grid. One generated electricity for the Findlay estate, and the other sent electricity to the Findlay shipyard in Wilmington.
I wanted to slap myself. I had the ability to cut off all of Akiyama’s power in Wilmington as well as Findlay House. But before I suggested that to anyone, I wanted to talk to my dad about it. He had installed those generators, as well as the electrical lines to their destinations. And while I had maintained the generators in his absence, I had never dealt with the power lines. I wasn’t even sure exactly where they went, or how much branching they did. Could we cut off power to Findlay House or the Wilmington shipyards selectively?
Realizing that Whittaker was waiting on me to stop woolgathering, I said, “So, what do you want me to do? I don’t have a magik wand that will stop people from eating thallium. Aren’t there some kind of metal detectors or chemical tests people can use on their food shipments? Kirsten gave me a charm that tells me if my food is safe or not. That’s what I would do if I were you.”
He pursed his lips, and I could tell he was unhappy with me.
“We did distribute the antidote widely to our troops,” he said. “We had only a handful of deaths.”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to test the salt in the kitchen?”
His glower deepened. “Yes, it would have been. Someone would have to think about doing it though.”
I wanted to say that should have been pretty elementary. Kirsten had started testing all of the food she bought after the Danner family poisoning. I did realize that checking a bag of groceries was easier than doing the same thing for truckloads. But, discretion being the better part of valor, I just shrugged and excused myself. I glanced back as I slipped out the door. Whittaker was already on the phone and I heard him say, “Why in the hell aren’t we scanning food shipments to our troops?”
Soul Harvest (The Rift Chronicles Book 3) Page 16
