Demon Accords 6: Forced Ascent Read online

  “Chris. My grandfather is Mr. Gordon. I’m just Chris,” I said, succeeding at surprising her.

  “Ookay. Chris, did you know that homicides are up almost forty-three percent this year? That most of the murders in the city are unrelated to drugs or normal crime? Random murders involving friends and family members without much in the way of motive. Then there are those five cases that I mentioned. Like the apartment buildings where violence broke out on a mass scale among the residents. Churches are having a sudden unexplained upswing in attendance, and the clergy are getting ridiculous amounts of calls and questions about the Devil and his demons. And it’s happening all across the country; in fact, across the world.”

  “Nope,” I answered, slurping more shake. “Didn’t know that.”

  Well, I knew some of it, but the part about church attendance climbing was news to me. Maybe some deep instinct was driving humans to seek the protection of the church.

  “I don’t believe you, Mr… er… Chris,” she said. “I think the authorities call you in to fight the demons and close the gates to Hell.”

  Okay, there it was. She just dropped it out like I was politician with my hand in the public cookie jar or cheating on my wife with taxpayer-funded prostitutes.

  “So let me get this straight. You’re investigating a statistical upswing in demonic activity, and you have me pegged as some kind of spiritual consultant for the City? Who tracks demon statistics anyway? What papers are buying these kind of stories? Oh, wait, I get it. Listen, did you write that article about Bigfoot fathering children all across the Bronx? That was a beauty,” I said.

  She frowned, now smelling of anger, and leaned forward. “I don’t write that crap. My stories have substance. You’re just deflecting. I nailed it and you’re trying to make me out to be crazy.”

  Damn. She was rapidly becoming a major pain in my ass. One I was having trouble removing.

  I frowned and waved my hand a little threateningly in her direction. The fact that I was holding a cheese fry might have diminished my fearsome demeanor.

  “Then if you think I’m some kind of demon hunter, why are you so afraid of me? Why were you shaking when you sat down?”

  She looked at the cheese fry, an incredulous look crossing her face, before frowning. Then she pulled back a bit from her aggressive lean. She remembered something, getting that funny look of recall that we all have when we’re pulling memories.

  “I wrote a story last month about a kidnapping in Owl Head Park in Brooklyn. A military team took a little girl and died doing it. They were all highly trained killers, some equipped with tech straight out of the movies… armored suits and stuff. They were destroyed to the last man. There was like almost twenty of them and they almost failed because of just one unarmed man and his… wolf. You’re that man.”

  Shit. She had just stepped up to a searing pain in my posterior.

  “Miss Chatterjee, I think we’re done here. You’ve got some interesting angles for stories that inquiring minds might believe if they were high and hallucinating. For some reason, you’ve chosen to involve me in your make-believe world. But anyone can make up stories. It’s the proof that’s hard to come by. I’m just an ex-cop who consults with my old employer from time to time.”

  She raised both eyebrows. “You were a cop for all of maybe nine months. Most of that was probationary training. I don’t know a single law enforcement agency that considers that to be such a vast wealth of experience that the police commissioner would seek you out. And as far as proof, I don’t really need any for myself. You see, Chris, I was there that day in the park. I was thirty feet away when those agents killed that little girl’s bodyguards and I was right there at ground zero when you and whatever that beast is wiped those kidnappers out. I still have the clothes that I wore that day. You must know that blood doesn’t come out of clothes all that well. I don’t know what you are, but I’d be the biggest idiot in the world not to be afraid of you,” she said, sitting back and crossing her hands in front of her on the table top. Her body language had gone from aggressive to resigned. She looked up at me, afraid, but steady.

  I’m kinda slow on the uptake sometimes. Lydia says I have the emotional intelligence of a cockroach. I think she’s being a little hurtful, but I do admit I’m not all that much of a Sherlock for figuring out human emotions. It finally came to me.

  “You think I’m going to hurt you? To… to kill you?” I asked suddenly, my forward motion making her jump a little. Grim noted that the bearded guy had his hand in the pocket of his field jacket and was twitching as he watched us like he was a primed grenade.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” I asked, starting to get angry myself. “Why the hell would you think that? And why would you come here and brace me down with that load of crap, thinking I was going to… well, thinking what you were thinking? Are you insane?”

  “I saw you kill those people. Why wouldn’t you kill me? But Barry is recording this so the world will know what you are,” she hissed.

  I studied her for a moment, taking another bit of my last burger. Hell if I was gonna waste it.

  “And just what am I, Miss Chatterjee?” I asked.

  “I think you are a demon yourself… or at least part demon,” she said, defiant.

  I was too shocked to speak, but lucky for me, female laughter approached us from behind my shoulder. We both turned to look. So did most of the restaurant. A stunning blonde headed our way, weaving gracefully between tables. Tall, curvy, and beautiful, she was dressed in black leggings with a blue blouse and a brown leather designer jacket. Blue high heels that matched her blouse carried her effortlessly past the diners. Her green eyes were focused on us, and she was laughing in delight. Arriving at our booth, she shoved my shoulder lightly, making me scoot over. She slid in next to me and immediately stole one of my cheese fries.

  “Hey!” I said, frowning at the blatant theft of food.

  Ignoring me, she smiled brilliantly at Brystol and held one tanned hand out across the table.

  “Hi, I’m Stacia and you are one seriously funny girl,” she said, still amused.

  Brystol looked flummoxed, both anger and fear thrown out the window by Stacia’s entrance.

  “This is Brystol Chatterjee, Stacia. She’s a reporter and I’m her story,” I said.

  “Yeah, I heard what you said about Chris and almost peed myself. Really, I can’t wait to tell the others,” she said. “Lydia will literally fall down.”

  Somehow, the wolf girl who was my friend had arrived at a cordial relationship of sorts with Lydia, Tanya’s right hand and sister in all but genetics. I still hadn’t figured that one out. They weren’t friends, but they coexisted and worked together. Sort of an armed standoff with an intelligence sharing arrangement—like Russia and the US cooperating on terrorists.

  “It’s not funny. You don’t know what he is,” Brystol said.

  “Sweetheart, I know all about who he is. It’s you that has stumbled on a teeny-tiny piece of information and suddenly think you have all the answers,” Stacia said with a smile. It wasn’t as friendly a smile as her other ones had been. A hint of wolf showed through.

  “If you’re gonna ram around town and spout off about this all this supernatural stuff, don’t you think you should get your facts right? You’re just fishing right now, but tell me, do you really think a demon would let you live? Or did you feel deep down it was worth the risk to brace Chris here because he wouldn’t actually hurt you?”

  “No! That’s why I brought backup,” Brystol said, turning and pointing at Barry, who had his phone apart and wasn’t really paying too much attention. He looked up at us and jumped slightly when he realized we were all looking his way.

  “Solid choice,” Stacia said. “You’re either suicidal or, like I said, not really believing what you’re saying.”

  “He has a gun,” Brystol said.

  “And do you even know if guns work on demons? Is it loaded with special ammo like say, silver for, you know,
weres and vamps, or iron for Fae?” Stacia asked.

  A shadow of dismay crossed Brystol’s face before being shoved aside by anger. “Well then, what is he? If he’s not a demon, then just what is he?”

  “No. You don’t get to slam your way in here and demand answers. Throwing crap around. We don’t know you, and we don’t owe you. Trying to bull your way into this world will get you killed straight up. You and your backup.”

  Brystol sat back, momentarily nonplussed by the conversation. Then she shifted forward and looked me in the eye. “That your answer? To let your girlfriend fight your battles?”

  “Battle? Girlfriend? Do I look like the kind of girl that would be with him? Look at him. Okay, ignore the perfect body and the razor cheekbones and the eyes that don’t exist anywhere else on earth. Look past all that. Do I look like I would be with a guy who you claim hunts demons for a living and closes Hellgates? Who tracks down and rescues little girls from evil assassins against all odds?”

  For a moment, I thought Brystol might answer her—say something like you look like you only date rich playboys. That would have been suicidal. Stacia might have been forcing Brystol to reassess me, but that didn’t mean she would take many, if any, personal insults from the reporter. She was constantly being stereotyped by her looks, and it was a sore subject. And werewolves with sore spots are best left alone.

  Maybe her tuned journalistic instincts warned her to back off, maybe she wasn’t really all that hell-bent on suicide after all, because she didn’t say a word for a moment. She did what Stacia said and looked me over with her eyes while I could almost see her brain reanalyzing what she knew. She sat back and thought about it. Then she turned her attention to Stacia and I could see more thinking going on under that attractive face. If she was good, really good, she would see past the actress looks and swimsuit model body, past the fashion and the polish.

  “You have remarkable hearing, Stacia. You heard a ridiculous amount of our conversation from across a crowded, noisy restaurant. That doesn’t seem… natural,” she said.

  Stacia shrugged. “Good genes. Now listen, Brystol, do you have a card? Some way of reaching you? Because if you’re going to race around half-cocked, spouting off stuff about the supernatural world, you aren’t gonna live real long. To live, you’re gonna need some guidance. We might be able to help with that.”

  That surprised Brystol and after a moment, she pulled a card from her coat pocket and handed it to Stacia.

  “Okay then, we may be in touch. But right now, we gotta leave,” Stacia said, pulling on my arm as she slid out of the booth. I followed, dropping three twenties on the table to cover the bill.

  Outside, I immediately spotted our ride—a big black SUV. The three-hundred-pound black and tan wolf sitting outside the open rear passenger door was a clue. A small crowd was watching him watch for us and most of the passersby were studying him as well. But nobody approached him; they just watched, fascinated. It helped that the driver, who was one of our regular security guys, was leaning up against the vehicle only three feet from the massive wolf, casually texting on his phone.

  When we got fifteen feet away, ‘Sos stood up on all four feet, which caused a minor commotion in his crowd of observers, most of whom turned to look where he was looking. At us. The collective noise alerted the driver, who also looked up at us.

  “Hey Stevens, lining up a hot date?” I asked as we closed the distance.

  “Not my fault I’m in high demand with the ladies. Well, actually it is,” he chuckled. “Right, Hot Stuff?” he directed at Stacia.

  She sighed. “I see you’re itching for a rematch. Happy to oblige Stevens,” she said, sliding past all of us and into the backseat. Stacia had joined sparring practice and the ex-military guys had gone from laughing lust to humble awe.

  I squatted down and ruffled Awasos’s thick neck fur. “Hey buddy, I missed you,” I greeted him. He’d had to stay behind for the morning’s meeting, and neither of us liked it. I still didn’t remember his birth, or my rescue or raising him, but he fit my life so closely that I couldn’t imagine him not being in it.

  “Hey mister, is that a real wolf?” a voice asked.

  A boy of about ten or eleven, standing with his family, had blurted the words out, much to the chagrin of his parents. His older brother and younger sister just looked fascinated as they waited for my response.

  “Yes he is. His name is Awasos and you can pet him if you like,” I said, keeping my arm around ‘Sos’s massive neck. Mom and Dad started to protest, but all three kids had jumped forward before their parents could stop them.

  “He will be absolutely fine with them,” I assured the parents. The kids had frozen now that they were up close and personal with him so I grabbed the middle son’s hand and put it on ‘Sos’s neck, letting him feel the thick, soft fur. ‘Sos turned his neck like the kid had found some magic itch spot or something, and that broke the spell. The other two crowded close, petting the beast that weighed more than all three of them together.

  “He’s breathtaking,” the mom said, eyes wide.

  “Now you’ve done it. You’ve complemented him,” I said as ‘Sos moved forward like a furry boulder to shove his head against the mom’s leg. She laughed and started to pet him as well. I looked up at the crowd, who were all suddenly talking and exclaiming, and spotted Brystol and Barry, standing just outside the restaurant. Both were staring wide eyed at us and this time it was Brystol who was snapping a picture with her phone. Seeing how ten other people were doing the same, it didn’t seem right to close down her phone. But it was time to go.

  “I’m sorry, but we have to leave,” I told the family and at my words, Awasos turned and flowed up into the back of the SUV like water running uphill. The heavy duty suspension jiggled under his mass.

  I slid into the backseat next to Stacia and gave the group a little wave as Stevens pulled us out into the New York traffic.

  “That will be all over Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter in the next two minutes,” Stacia said.

  “Not to mention Instagram and Vine,” Stevens said from up front.

  “That’s so not gonna help you hide from the government,” Stacia said.

  “As demonstrated by the three cars that just pulled out behind us,” Stevens said. “You’ve got your work cut out if you expect to elude the combined intelligence services while still shutting down demon shit.”

  “And a demonic Brianna DuClair and whatever help she brought back from Hell, as well as Girl Reporter back there,” I said, sinking into my leather seat and into my thoughts. “Hey who stuck you with picking me up? Deckert?” I asked Stacia.

  “No, Tanya,” she said, looking out the window and leaving me wondering if that little piece of info was, in fact, the first sign of the Apocalypse.

  Chapter 7

  When we got back to our current home, I headed straight for my quarters. Home these days was no longer the swanky hotel I had come back from the South to, but instead it was a lower level of a factory that was owned by a textile company that was a subsidiary of a holding company that was owned fifty-eight percent by an industrial conglomerate and forty-two percent by a retail sales chain that specialized in discount clothing. Both of those were owned in the majority by an offshore company whose shareholders were Tanya, her mother, Lydia, and fourteen trusts that all listed some combination of the three as beneficiaries and trustees. Tanya had started the process while we lived in the hotel. She had multiple factories with excess space, along with empty rooms in apartment buildings and office buildings, all renovated to provide a dizzying array of hideouts for us all over New York City, parts of New Jersey, and even Philadelphia and Boston. Some, like this unused lower level, were very large, easily able to house a whole bunch of us. Some were much smaller, just sized for a core group. The properties were owned by a maze of corporations, holding companies, foreign entities, and off-shore shell corps. It was a tangled web that was constantly being shifted by involving Coven members and corporati
ons from around the world. The plan was to shift residence at random intervals, which would be decided by Tanya and her vampire chief of security, Arkady.

  I entered our four-room suite to find Tanya already sleeping on the king-sized bed, looking tiny by comparison. It was now almost three in the afternoon, but a couple hours of naptime would go a long way. Stripping to boxer-briefs, I slipped in beside her, curling my larger frame around her. Once again, I was at odds with the federal government. Add to that the new threat of DuClair and a fast-approaching Halloween, an attempt on Toni, and the media. About the only thing left that hadn’t blown up was the damned witch’s grimoire, which was safely tucked away.

  Six and a half hours later, I woke when Tanya moved to slide out of bed. The sun was long down and I could feel through our bond that she felt like she’d overslept. I clutched one slim wrist as she slid across the sheets, both my eyes still shut. She stopped moving and I opened one eye, staring up at her perfect features.