My phone buzzed when I was about half a mile from my house, and I grimaced. It had to be work if I was getting a call this early in the morning. I was a detective with the Beaulac Police Department, working violent crimes and homicides. I’d been back at work for only a week after being on medical/administrative leave for nearly a month, thanks to the serial killer known as the Symbol Man. I’d closed the case but had not escaped unscathed—even though I didn’t have a single scar to prove it.
My caller ID showed that it was from my sergeant’s cell phone. I hit the answer button. “I’m not on call and my shift doesn’t start until ten today, Crawford. Leave me the fuck alone.”
Cory Crawford laughed. He’d been promoted to sergeant a few weeks ago when my former captain was appointed chief of police. That appointment had left an opening, which created a reshuffling all the way down the line. I’d had a few issues with Crawford in the past, but, to my surprise and relief, he’d become a completely different person after his promotion.
“Nah, it’s not work. I was just wondering if you could do me a favor since you live out in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
I grinned. My house wasn’t quite in the middle of nowhere, but it was far enough away from Beaulac—and most civilization—that I had a heaping portion of privacy. And since I summoned demons in my basement, privacy was pretty damn important to me. “What do you need?”
“I need you to swing by Brian Roth’s place and wake him the fuck up. His shift started at six this morning. He still isn’t in yet, and he has a meeting with a witness at eight.”
I continued past my driveway. Brian lived in a gated subdivision just a few miles from where I lived, on a sprawling piece of land that was almost as wonderful as the ten acres I owned. “He’s not answering his cell?”
“Would I be calling you if he was?” he said with asperity. “But the witness is a friend of the captain’s, and if Brian doesn’t show I’m gonna have to write him up.” I could hear the reluctance in his voice.
Brian and I had started in police work at about the same time and had even been teammates when we were road cops. Then we’d both been promoted to detective within months of each other, though he’d gone to Narcotics while I’d been put into Property Crimes. I glanced at my watch. Almost seven-thirty now. Brian would be pushing it to get to work in time to meet the witness. It took me nearly half an hour to make it in from my house.
“I’m almost there. I’ll bang on his door and then call you back.”
“Appreciate it.”
The gates to his subdivision were closed, but they swung open obligingly after I punched the police access code into the little keypad. A few minutes later I pulled into the driveway to his house—two-story with white brick exterior, faux columns by the front door, a double garage, and decent landscaping. It was the kind of house that would be impossible to afford on a cop’s salary, but his dad was a judge and his stepmother was a lawyer, and they’d supposedly purchased the house for him as a wedding present. I’d heard rumors that he tried to refuse it and had reluctantly accepted it only after his dad showed the house to Brian’s new wife. It didn’t surprise me that he might have refused it. Brian was a decent guy who worked hard, and I didn’t see him as the type to be comfortable accepting such a large gift, even from family.
A red Ford F-150 was parked in the driveway next to a gold Ford Taurus with public plates—Brian’s department-issued vehicle. That told me that he was most likely at home, since I knew the pickup was his personal vehicle. But a shiver went through me as I approached the house, and I paused, trying to capture the fleeting sense of unease that had drifted by me. My gaze fell on the door and my eyes narrowed. It was pulled mostly shut, but the latch hadn’t caught and it was ajar approximately half an inch. I quickly retreated to my car and grabbed my gun and holster out of the glove box, then returned to the door, clipping the holster onto my belt and holding my gun at the ready position. I couldn’t see any sign of forced entry. Maybe he just didn’t pull the door all the way shut? I wanted to believe that, but the continued sense of unease nagged at me.
I nudged the door farther open with my foot, staying behind the jamb. “Brian?” I called. “It’s Kara Gillian.”
Silence. Not even the brush of movement on carpet. If he was in there, he was being awfully quiet. I gave the door a soft kick to push it open all the way, then took a quick peek in.
It took me several seconds to register what I was seeing. At first my mind insisted that he’d fallen asleep on the floor in front of the TV. Then it finally processed the thick pool of blood surrounding him. “Oh, shit,” I breathed, even as grief and horror knotted my throat. I wanted to rush in to see if he was still alive, but I forced myself to use proper caution. There was no way to know what had happened, and I sure as hell didn’t want to end up like Brian. I edged in cautiously, scanning and covering the area with my Glock as I fumbled my phone out of its holder with the other hand and dialed 911.
“This is Detective Gillian; I have an officer down. Brian Roth. I’m at his residence.” I rattled off the address. I barely heard the dispatcher’s acknowledgment as I got close enough to see that there was no way Brian was still alive. Not with the skull pieces and brain matter spattered across the floor and wall. “Fuck. Be advised that—fuck. It’s a 29.” A signal 29 was a death. It was easier to say, in more ways than one.
“Are you code 4?” She was asking if the scene was safe.
“Unknown. I’ll need backup units to clear the house.” I continued to scan the living room, doing my best not to disturb any possible evidence. A piece of paper in the middle of the coffee table drew my attention, and I glanced down at it. Then I read it again when I realized what it was, dismay and dread twisting at my gut.
I never meant to kill her. It was an accident. I loved her. We just liked to play. I’m so sorry.
I looked sharply back at the body and saw the Beretta by his hand. “Shit. Looks like a suicide,” I said. “And I think he killed his wife.”
The dispatcher said something to me, but I didn’t hear it. My gaze stayed locked on Brian’s body as a wave of nauseating horror slammed through me. Images of dead nutria swam through my head as I desperately shifted into othersight, praying that I was wrong about what I was sensing.
But I wasn’t wrong. I could see the arcane fragments left behind, like sinew on a gnawed bone. Brian’s essence had been consumed just as thoroughly as the nutrias’ had been consumed by the demon.
Chapter 2
THE ILIUS WAS MY FIRST PANICKED THOUGHT. THEN, NO. No. That’s not possible. I dismissed it. Didn’t I? My gaze stayed locked on Brian’s body as my mind whirled. It wasn’t possible. I had dismissed it. I was sure of it.
Then what had consumed Brian’s essence?
Doubt clawed at me as I pulled my eyes away from the gruesome sight of Brian’s body. The note. His wife. Focus on that now, instead of the horror that I was faced with. I tried to remember his wife’s name and failed. I’d met her a few times, but we’d never had more conversation than, So nice to see you again.
They liked to play … Shit. That implied some sort of accident during sex play.
It was risky, but I went ahead and did a quick sweep of the house. There was always a chance that she was still alive. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if it turned out that I’d sat back and waited for backup while she slowly strangled or bled out or something. Maybe Brian had been wrong. Maybe he’d only thought she was dead.
But I couldn’t find any sign of her. I returned downstairs to Brian, unable to bring myself to look at the body again and see that ragged hole where his essence had been torn away. Had the demon somehow escaped being pulled back through the portal? And would it have fed on a human?
I shook my head sharply. None of that made any sense. Even if the demon had somehow slipped my control, the place where I’d dismissed it was an hour’s drive from here. But they’re fast, and it could have beaten you here.
But
why? I asked myself again in a mental wail. Why the fuck would it come here?
I took a shaking breath as I forced myself to logically consider possibilities. Perhaps the ilius had been drawn by the feel of the violent death and had escaped my control to consume Brian’s essence after death had loosened his body’s hold on it. Or perhaps there was something about suicides that attracted them—the willingness to die somehow making the essence easier to consume. I had no idea if that could be true. There was much that I didn’t know about the demonkind.
My mouth felt as dry as the Sahara as I tried to come up with something that made sense. Luckily, the sound of approaching sirens distracted me from further mental flailing.
I stepped outside just as two marked units and an unmarked came screaming up the driveway, and I felt a sudden spasm of guilt for worrying about the demon. It suddenly slammed home that a fellow officer was dead. Someone I’d worked with and joked with had decided to shove a gun against his head and pull the trigger. I scrubbed at my face as two officers rushed up, dimly surprised to see that my hand was trembling.
“I did a quick sweep to see if I could find his wife,” I heard myself saying, “but the house hasn’t been properly cleared.” Good, the professional part of me was keeping it all together, doing what needed to be done. I could fall apart on the inside and no one would know it. I looked past them to see Crawford’s stout form as he ran toward the house from his unmarked. I glanced back to the officers. “Please take care of it. I need to tell Sarge.”
The two officers acknowledged me and entered, guns at the ready. Just because there was a suicide note didn’t mean it was a suicide, and there was always that outside chance that a bad guy was hiding somewhere in the house.
I could see the anguish in Crawford’s eyes as he came to a stop before me, breathing harshly. “Kara, is it … is he …?”
My throat tightened up and I gave a jerky nod. His face crumpled into stark grief, and I could see that he was holding on to control just as hard as I was.
“Looks like he shot himself, Sarge,” I said, my voice coming out in a ragged croak. “But that’s not all.”
His expression was a brittle mask. “Dispatcher said his wife might be dead too?”
“That’s what the note says,” I said, then I shook my head. “But I did a sweep and I couldn’t find her.”
We fell silent in shared grief and pain until the two officers came back out a few minutes later. “Anyone else inside?” Crawford demanded.
They both shook their heads, faces tight and eyes haunted. “No one else,” one said. “House is clear.”
Crawford blew out a gusty breath as he moved to the door. I stayed on the porch while he entered and moved to within about five feet of Brian’s body. I watched him take in the sight of the blood and the gun. The hard professional mien was in place. He was doing the same thing I was—doing what needed to be done and promising himself that he could fall apart later. He peered down at the note, then came back outside and looked to the two officers. “All right. String tape up, please, and get a scene log going.” After the two departed, he looked back at me. “I’m sorry I did this to you.”
“Not your fault,” I said with a shrug I didn’t feel. “Someone had to be the first to find him.” I glanced at my watch. It had been only ten minutes since I’d found him. It felt like an eternity. “I don’t think he’s going to make that meeting with the witness.”
“Fucker,” Crawford said, a ghost of a smile on his face. He knew I was trying to break the awful tension. “I’m gonna have to write him up after all.” We both gave stupid little giggles, then in the next breath Crawford had me enveloped in a big man-hug. I returned the embrace, knowing he needed the comfort as much as I did. A heartbeat later we stepped back, neither one of us the slightest bit embarrassed about the display of emotion.
“I need to make some phone calls,” he said with a sigh. “Crime lab’s already on the way.”
“And we need to find his wife. Does anyone know where she worked? Does she have family around here?”
“We’ll find all of that out,” he said, the growl in his voice a promise. Then he stepped away to make his calls.
I was saved from slipping back into agonized ponderings about Brian’s missing essence by the sight of the crime-scene van pulling into the driveway. It parked behind Crawford’s car, and Crime Scene Technician Jill Faciane hopped out—a petite woman with short red hair and an elfin face, dressed in blue fatigue pants and a Beaulac PD T-shirt. She headed toward me, pausing only to scrawl her name on the crime-scene log before ducking under the tape that had been hastily strung.
“I hate to say it,” I said when Jill reached me, “but I’m really glad you’re the tech on call.” We’d worked together extensively during the Symbol Man case and had become friends in the process. I’d grown up fairly lonely and isolated due to my penchant for summoning demons, so having a female friend was something new and rewarding.
She gave a sharp nod of understanding. “You okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
She shook her head, blue eyes dark and angry. “I hate it when one of our own dies. Even when it’s some sort of stupid accident at home.”
I knew what she meant. Police were a family, a brotherhood—no matter what the gender.
Her scowl deepened. “But a suicide. God damn it.”
“The note says that he killed his wife,” I said, voice grim.
She jammed her fingers through her hair. “It’s just so hard to believe. I’d heard they were having some problems, but shit. Everyone goes through rough patches.”
I shook my head. “The way it’s worded makes it sound like it was an accident, but I did a quick sweep and couldn’t find her.”
“And so he killed himself? How the fuck could he do this to us?” I could hear the anger in her voice, and I understood it.
I sighed. “It’s been a long time since we’ve lost anyone.” Then I winced. “I mean—”
“Other than you,” Jill said quietly. “But at least you came back.” She shivered and rubbed her arms. “Those two weeks were awful.”
I didn’t know how to respond. After the showdown with the Symbol Man, it had been assumed that I was dead. There’d been plenty of evidence to support that assumption, including eyewitness accounts of me being eviscerated and a few gallons of my blood on the scene—though no body. A cover story had later been spun to explain my disappearance and surprising reappearance, but there were only two people in this world who knew what had actually happened, who knew that I really had died. For two weeks, at least.
“But your funeral,” she said, forcing a grin, “man, that was some shit! The procession was five miles long!”
I made myself return the grin. “Everyone just wanted to get out of work.”
Jill snorted and thwapped me on the arm. “You are so stupid.” Then she gave a sigh. “Well, lemme get my shit so I can start processing this scene.”
Crawford walked back over to me as Jill trotted to her van. “The rank will be making their way out here in due course, and the search is on for Carol.” He gave me a penetrating look. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m doing fine.” I lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I’ll let myself feel it all later.”
His lips twisted. “I know what you mean, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, how are you doing? I know you’ve only been back at work for a week.”
I wiped a trickle of sweat away from my temple. The heat was beginning to ramp up as the morning progressed. “I’m all right. There’re a couple of people who are being weird about my, um, disappearance, but they’ll get over it.”
Crawford turned and stepped off the porch, motioning with his head to follow. He walked past the crime-scene tape to the meager shade offered by a scraggly oak tree, then took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his jacket pocket. “I’ve been a cop a long time, Kara. I thought I’d seen it all.” He pulled a cigarette out and lit it, took a heavy
drag. He’d stopped using chewing tobacco and taken up smoking instead, which made no sense to me. He’d also shaved his mustache, which had really thrown me. On the other hand, he still dyed his hair brown and wore dull brown suits with wild and garish ties. So I guessed some things never changed.
“Anyway, I’ve seen enough weird shit to be willing to accept that there’s a lot of weird shit out there,” he continued. “I don’t believe that story about you having to go so deep undercover that everyone had to believe you were dead, but I figure if there really is another story, it’s probably best that no one knows it.” He shrugged and blew out smoke. I resisted the urge to move so that I was more upwind of him. He was surprising me with this apparent willingness to accept the inexplicable. I still wasn’t about to tell him what had actually happened during those two weeks, but I had the oddly comforting feeling that if I was to ever tell him, he’d be fairly accepting.
Crawford shrugged. “I guess I’m saying that if you need anything, let me know.” He looked over at me. “Any change with your aunt?”
I shook my head stiffly. My aunt Tessa was in an extended-care facility—a place that catered specifically to neurological disorders. I knew that Tessa hadn’t suffered any sort of brain injury, but I still needed to have her body cared for. She was missing her essence as well, though hers had not been consumed the way Brian’s had. It was just … missing. Temporarily mislaid, I hoped. I’d hated to put her in a home, but at least I could console myself with the knowledge that she had no awareness of where she was.
“No,” I answered. “No change. I’ve been trying to go through some of the stuff at her house, get it cleaned up a bit, just in case …” My voice broke, and I couldn’t continue.