“Oh, goody. I love springing surprises on people. You don’t suppose there’s a washroom handy? One with a towel?”
Fifteen minutes later, rumpled but dry thanks to my aeromancer partner, I met with Mychal and Thomas Whittaker, who had shown up after all the shooting was over.
“I want you and Mychal to supervise a thorough search of this place, not just the house, but all the outbuildings, the village, the airfield, marina, and every single tree. We need evidence of wrongdoing. I think you know that none of the Family will ever spend a minute in court, but Frank Novak and George Findlay want a magisterial tribunal. Take all week, if you need to, but find me what I need to prosecute these people.”
I agreed it was doubtful that any of the Moncrieffs would ever appear in a court of law, no matter what outrages they perpetrated, but a magisterial tribunal—the court of the Magi—could levy hefty fines and order restitution. If we could prove they held Sarah Benning captive, her father could demand an accounting. Also, if the families of those girls we recovered from Hiroku’s plane had any social standing or financial clout, they could press a suit. As for Hiroku, just the ages of those girls and the fact that he planned to take them out of the country was enough to land him in hot water.
Chapter 52
Because of Mychal’s and my Family connections, we could gather evidence and testify for a potential tribunal. But we were also trained to conduct a proper investigation, which many Family members were not.
I would have never admitted it to anyone—except, perhaps, Kirsten—but rummaging through the private rooms of Courtney and Karolyn was fun. The two women had tortured me all my life, not to mention my suspicions that one of them paid to have me killed. I came away with plenty of writing and DNA samples to definitively nail down who had given my address to the ifrit Gecid.
Unfortunately, although both women kept diaries—a stupid practice if you’re engaged in criminal activity—both diaries were spelled. I doubted whether the spells could be broken, but I logged them into evidence anyway, just to irritate them.
I also found plenty of evidence to tie both women to romantic relationships with Karl Rudolf. That wouldn’t find its way to any tribunal, but I was sure my grandmother would use it to gain concessions for her niece who had unfortunately married the scumbag. I also looked forward to the reactions when Rudolf’s activities became known to all members of the family.
I struck gold almost immediately when I started questioning the servants. I quickly discovered that at least half of the human servants weren’t there of their own free will. They were slaves who had been trafficked. Even for members of the Hundred, that was an absolute no-no and enough to send David and Courtney to the Magi prison in Gettysburg.
The assistant head housekeeper took me to the room where Sarah had been held. I was able to take hair samples and fingerprints, proving the girl had been there. The two girls we recovered from Akiyama’s airplane had been kept in adjacent rooms. The forensic team from Arcane Division bagged up all the linens and clothing we found.
“What happened to the girl?” I asked the housekeeper when she first showed me Sarah’s room.
“She was taken away, just before all the commotion started,” was the answer.
“Taken away where? By whom?”
“I don’t know, Mistress. Lord Akiyama and that demon came up here, bundled all the girls up, and took them downstairs, and put them in some cars, and drove away.”
“Demon?”
“Yes, ma’am. Fearsome, he was.”
“What did this demon look like?”
She shrugged. “Like a demon. Taller than the door, with red skin and black horns and a face that was terrible to behold.”
“Did anyone say a name? Does Ashvial ring a bell?”
“As a matter of fact, that Sarah girl did say that. I didn’t realize it was his name, she just said, ‘Ashvial’ when she saw him.”
We knew that neither Ashvial nor Sarah had gotten on that airplane. The spelled helicopter was still sitting at the airfield. But after I questioned a few other servants and guardians, I knew that Akiyama, a demon, three girls, and the rest of Hiroku’s retinue had boarded four cars and left in a hurry. Three of those cars reached the airfield.
I called Kevin Goodman, the police forensics leader on the scene. “Kevin, I need someone to take a look at a helicopter parked at the Elk Neck airfield. It’s blocked with some kind of ward, and I need to know if the magik is demonical.”
“It is,” he said. “We’ve already checked it out.”
I took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t happen to know if a demon in a car could drive right through a blockade of armed guardsmen, would you?”
“Depends on the demon. The one who spelled that helicopter? Probably. They are masters of illusion, you know.”
Damn. Ashvial wouldn’t be driving, but he could cast the spells while a human took the wheel.
I called Kirsten. “Do you have any charms that would allow me to see through illusions? Demon illusions?”
“Hello, Dani. How are you? How is your day going?”
“Sorry. I haven’t slept since I saw you last.”
“Dumbshit. Yes, I can whip you up a charm or potion to do almost anything. Within reason. If you’re asking, can I help you see through an illusion cast by a demon lord, I’m afraid that’s out of your price range. But give me another fifty years to work on it, and I might be able to come up with something.”
I sighed.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m pretty sure that Ashvial has Sarah Benning. He evidently spirited her out of the Moncrieff estate under everyone’s noses just before all the shooting started.”
“She’s still alive?”
“She was last night. Okay, talk to you later.”
“Wait, you’re not going to—” I hung up and turned my phone off because I didn’t want to listen to a lecture.
Chapter 53
I hitched a ride down to the airfield and commandeered a helicopter and its pilot to take me to Baltimore. I had him drop me on the roof of Police Headquarters, where I took the elevator to the basement parking garage and grabbed my car.
As I started the engine, I remembered that things had been a little weird the last time I was downtown. I pulled up the screen on the dashboard and logged into the police network to get a status update.
Work clearing the rubble at the Palace of Commerce was still in progress. The police had finally contained the rioting downtown, although the area was essentially under martial law. The demon army advance had stalled south of Annapolis. Five thousand guardians and mercenaries dug in along Highway 50 had penned the demons against South River on the east, Beard’s Creek to the south, and the Waste to the west.
Basically, the entire Mid-Atlantic region was drowning in chaos, but at the moment, I was sitting in what amounted to the eye of the storm.
I checked all my weapons, then pulled out onto the street. It was eerily quiet, and there was a cop in riot gear on almost every corner. I lit up the car’s rooftop and door panels that showed I was a cop, just to make sure no one got excited about me driving around.
Out of a sense of duty, I took a swing by Kirsten’s shop and noted that it appeared to be intact. A few buildings on her street showed some damage, and nothing was open. Of course, it was still fairly early in the morning. I took the car up in the air and circled over the shop. The greenhouses didn’t have any broken glass.
Satisfied that I could calm her fears when I saw her next, I took the car above all the buildings and turned toward Lucifer’s Lair. Circling over the nightclub, I saw that the flat roof had a helipad on it. There were chains across the entrances to the parking lot, and about a dozen cars were parked inside, including four limos. There were also at least twenty demons hanging around the building. They didn’t look like they were guarding the place, but demons didn’t do formal guard details or act official and military.
I brought the car lower until I could fe
el the magitek boxes I had affixed to the building’s electrical and water systems on my previous visit. There weren’t any demons on the roof, so I set the car down on the helipad.
The last time I ventured into Ashvial’s domain, I was lucky to make it out unscathed. I doubted he would be so beneficent about me confronting him after the assault on his allies at Moncrieff. Even though I was wearing my Kevlar corset, I didn’t think that was nearly enough protection. Opening the trunk, I got out a full-body flame-proof suit and pulled it on, including the hood and a facemask. The ballistic-cloth fabric would also protect me against demonic claws and fangs.
The door to the interior of the building was locked, but a spell took care of that. Taking a deep breath, I accessed the magitek enhancers, turned on every light in the building, and set off the sprinklers of the fire-suppression system. The laser rifle in one hand and my Raider in the other, I pulled open the door and started down the stairs.
Pushing open the door at the bottom, I stepped out into chaos in the open third-floor party room. The sprinklers were pouring water, the red light that demons preferred was drowned by the white emergency floodlights. Demons were running around, shouting and generally acting like humans would when something weird happened and no one could make sense of it.
I sidled my way around the room, hugging the wall and trying not to draw attention to myself. My goal was the area where I’d found Ashvial the last time. But when I found his place, he wasn’t there. The huge couch where he entertained his human victims was empty.
There were two stairways leading to the second floor. I headed toward the one where I hadn’t previously destroyed the stairs. Painstakingly making my way around the room to the stairs leading down, I descended to the next level and checked his office. He wasn’t there either, but the dragon-headed woman statue was. Her eyes followed me.
I doubted he had Sarah on the main level where the bar and the dancefloor were, so I headed for the stairs to the basement.
At one point I stopped and scanned everything around me. I had the uncanny feeling that I was being watched, but the bright lights illuminated every cranny, and I couldn’t see anyone. The water from the sprinklers continued to drench everything. I wondered if there were drains in the basement.
I had never been down there and discovered the stairs came out into a room with hallways leading to my right and left, and a door directly in front of me. I opened that door and found myself in a large room with a number of different kinds of apparatus. Some I could identify, some I could guess their nature, and some were mysteries. Whips and other torture instruments hung on the walls. No Ashvial.
Backing out, I randomly took the hall to my right. It had doors on both sides set at about ten-foot intervals. The first door opened into a small room with a gurney-like bed and a rack on the wall. It had its own collection of whips and torture devices. The rest of the rooms were similar. The water in the hallway was ankle deep by the time I checked the last room and headed back.
As I passed the door into the large room, I heard a sound and stopped. Stepping into the room, I noticed there was another door at the rear, partially obscured from view by a large frame with handcuffs set high on its surface. I carefully crossed the room, and as I came closer to the door, I heard more sounds. Soft moaning, punctuated occasionally by sharp cries.
The door wasn’t locked. Taking a deep breath, I turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open.
Sarah Benning, in all her naked glory, with a pair of fluffy pink cuffs around her wrists, dangled from chains in the middle of the room. Her toes touched the floor, but I could tell that at least part of her weight was supported by the chain. Ashvial stood in front of her, his back to me, also nude. From the way the girl writhed, I could tell he was projecting some kind of emotion at her.
He held a long, slender switch, and occasionally he would flick it at her. Her nipples and other parts of her body were bright red from the abuse. He flicked her nipple, she cried out, and he sighed in pleasure. The girl was a projective empath, and obviously Ashvial was enjoying her emotions.
“Back away from the girl!” I shouted in my best authoritative cop voice.
He flicked the switch between her legs, then languidly turned around to face me. There was a glassy look in his eyes, just as there had been when he played with me.
“Ah, my little elf girl. Have you come to join us? Probably not. You prefer a different game, don’t you?”
“Back away.” I looked around, trying to see if there was a way to lower the girl, but there wasn’t a switch or anything. Just the chain running through a pulley set in the ceiling.
Without any warning, I found myself flying backward through the air. I crashed hard against one of the apparatus in the outer room and sprawled to the floor.
“You need to learn your place, little one,” Ashvial said as he stalked toward me. “You are not in charge.” He grinned, his teeth as frightening as his erection. “Sarah had delusions of being in charge, but she’s learned that there is far more pleasure in submission. Perhaps you need such a lesson.”
Crawling to my hands and knees, I scrambled away from him. I had dropped the laser rifle but still had my Raider holstered at my hip. Putting a rack between us, I drew my pistol. The rack lifted off the floor and flew across the room. I fired at his chest. The bullet hit the ceiling above his head. At that moment, I realized that I was totally screwed and turned to run. He helped me out, picking me up with his magik and slamming me through the door and into the stairwell in the hallway.
My head was spinning, and sharp pains jolted me in a dozen places, but I crawled forward, up the stairs, finding my feet and running as best I could away from him. When I reached the top of the stairs, I spun around and backed away. I managed to unzip one of the side flaps on my suit and reached in my pocket. Holding my father’s cube in my hand, I activated the electrical shield mode.
Ashvial’s head appeared at the top of the stairs, and I fired the Raider three times. One of the bullets managed to graze him along the side of his head, and he roared. He launched himself toward me, flying through the air in a leap no human could possibly make. I fired again and again as I scrambled away from him, one of the bullets hitting him in the shoulder.
I managed to duck away when he landed, although he knocked me down with a swipe of his arm. I rolled and came up to my knees, aiming the Raider at him and hoping I still had bullets in the gun.
He came to his feet and roared at me again. Black demon blood poured from his head and shoulder.
And then a golden arrowhead emerged from his mouth like a strange tongue, and he froze in place, swaying slightly. He turned his head, and I saw the fletching end of an arrow sticking out of the back of his head. Beyond him, about thirty feet across the room, my mother stood, calmly knocking another arrow to her elven bow.
Ashvial began to shimmer, and then melt, and then he was gone. The elven arrow lay on the floor where he had been.
“How?”
She gave me a sad smile. “Kirsten called me. You really should know better than to go into this kind of situation alone. Are you all right?”
“I think so. I’m probably going to be really sore tomorrow.”
“I think you’re right. Did you find the girl?”
“Yeah, she’s downstairs.”
“Do you need my help to retrieve her? Or should I stay here in case any of his minions come down?”
I took a deep breath and took a careful inventory of all my appendages. Everything hurt, but it didn’t feel like anything was broken. “I’ll go get her.”
“Good. My car is outside.”
Chapter 54
“Cracked ribs, torn cartilage where your ribs meet your sternum, probably a concussion, and then there’s the bruising. Otherwise, you seem to be okay. Drink this.” Kirsten’s assessment was very businesslike, but her first exclamation when I took my clothes off was, “Oh, dear Goddess.”
I drank the potion she handed me and clenched my ja
w as she wrapped my ribs. They really didn’t hurt unless I moved, whereas the bruising that covered about ninety percent of my body hurt when she touched me.
The worst part was the expression of worry and disappointment on my mother’s face while she stood watching over us. I knew the worst pain was yet to come—the pain when she cast an elven healing spell after Kirsten finished her ministrations. I’d suffered through such spells in the past, and while I always felt much better afterward, the magik flowing through my body to stimulate healing was not for the faint of heart.
When Kirsten finished, she gathered up her potions and salves, leftover bandages, and tools, and stepped aside. “She’s all yours, Amelie.”
Mom approached me, placed one hand on my head and the other hand on my ribs, and a rune appeared in the air between us. The rune sank into me with a blinding flash of pain that stole my vision and my breath. I always imagined that’s what it would feel like to be dropped into a volcano, but it only lasted for a few seconds.
“There,” Mom said. “Take it easy for about a week, if you can manage to stretch your attention span that long.”
“How’s Sarah doing?” I asked.
Kirsten answered me. “She’s in rough shape. Not physically, but she’s going to need extensive therapy. Between the mages and the demon, they were conditioning her to be a play toy. Stimulate feelings, sensations, and emotions in her, and then receive the feedback amplified. They rewarded her for pleasing them, either with her favorite foods, drugs, or by cessation of whatever they were doing to her. Pretty sick.”
“What about the other girls, the ones Hiroku tried to take with him?”
“They’re also empathic projectors, though not as strong as Sarah. They’ll need lengthy therapy as well. Deputy Commissioner Whittaker said that they’ve found the girls’ families.”
Mom had taken me and Sarah to Findlay House after she retrieved us from Lucifer’s Lair. We turned the girl over to my grandmother, and then Mom and Kirsten had taken me to my room, stripped and bathed me, and doctored me.
Magitek (The Rift Chronicles Book 1) Page 26
