Ibenus (Valducan series) (6 page)

He clutched Umatri in his hand, his only companion is this deserted world, and the only one he'd ever crave. The smooth wood seemed to move beneath his grip like a flexing muscle. The movement continued up along the wavy blade. It flowed with serpentine grace, undulating back and forth, back and forth.

Mesmerized, he held the weapon before him, eyes transfixed on the slithering blade. The rippling movement suddenly ceased. The edges bristled into serrated thorns. Umatri stretched and bent to the side like a sapling in a strong wind.

Following its curve, Gerhard turned to see a bat-headed thing leering out from an open door. It shrieked, revealing crystalline fangs, like broken glass, and the monster charged.

Gerhard wheeled to face it. The beast raced toward him, claws extended before it. He ducked the hungry claws and thrust the keris up, missing his mark, but the blade bent midair and plunged into the beast's chest. The bat-headed creature howled. Light swelled beneath its dark fur and it came apart, dissipating into a luminous cloud of vapor.

Umatri's blade moved again like a dowsing rod. Gerhard turned to see another monster charging on all fours. It looked more dog than human. Behind it, a skeletal thing crawled out from an open sewer grate.

The dog-thing leaped and Gerhard sprung to the side, lashing the keris toward it. The blade shifted like liquid metal into a L-shape and speared the monster straight through the ribs. Before he could withdraw the weapon from the still airborne corpse, the monster exploded into more glowing mist.

Snarls and howls sounded through the now growing fog, but Gerhard was not afraid. He had Umatri and, together, they would conquer all. The skeletal creature loped toward him. A greasy black ball of worms or eels writhed within its yellowed ribcage, slithering between the bones. With a scream of exalted fury, Gerhard lunged. He thrust—

Gerhard awoke to darkness. His sheets were soaked in sweat. Panting, he rolled over to check the bedside clock, the damp sheets clinging with the movement.

1:57.

He let out a long sigh, hoping to still his pounding heart. The dream lingered in the back of his mind like the afterglow of a bolt of lightning imprinted on the watching eye. Gerhard rolled from bed and padded naked across the cool laminate floor. He crossed to the window and opened the shade.

Directly opposite the street, stone and brick façades of luxurious houses stared back at him with haughty indifference. Gerhard confessed some mild amusement that his own apartment building was what they had to see, nothing like their manicured shrubs and twisting cast iron railings. Above their roofs he could just make out the treetops of the park beyond, a park those wealthy enough to afford such luxuries could gaze out upon. Did those within their walls appreciate such a view? Not so long ago he had coveted such wealth, such decadent possessions: a house, a luxurious automobile, inlaid redwood floors buried beneath oriental rugs. Did they appreciate them? Would Umatri's anonymous owner appreciate him? Or would they merely hang him on a wall, another bauble coveted away from those who could appreciate it?

Gerhard closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the glass. Had Alex relayed his message to the buyer? If so, why hadn't he called?

Probably not enough time yet
, he answered to himself, but it didn't satisfy the nagging question. The dreams before, when Gerhard hadn't yet touched the keris or known its name were only that, dreams. In the two nights since, they had evolved into something else, so vivid, so real that he could still feel Umatri in his hand as together they slew monsters.

He opened his eyes. Below, a single car cruised the empty street, riding the line between the envied and the envious.

Gerhard looked to the phone on the table, its green LED pulsing as it charged. Alexander Turgen's crisp white card rested beside it, its face stark, marred by nothing more than name and phone number in raised sans-serif type.

Maybe I missed a call
, he hoped, picking the phone up. The screen only verified what he already knew. Without giving himself time to think, he called the old man's number.

Fear seized his chest as it rang. What was he doing? It was two in the morning. He wanted to hang up, but Caller ID would have already betrayed him.
He won't answer. I'll just leave a message
.

The ringing stopped.

"Hello?" a husky voice asked.

"Uh…Mister Turgen, I'm sorry…but—"

"Gerhard," he said with an audible smile. "Please, call me Alex."

"I…I didn't mean to disturb you, Alex. I apologize. My phone…"

"It's quite all right, my friend. I was expecting your call. How may I help you?"

"Well." Gerhard licked his lips. "I was wondering if you've spoken with the buyer yet, about Umatri."

"I have spoken with the new owner, yes." There was a mischief to the old man's voice.

"Yes?"

"And Umatri is yours."

"But…I…how much?"

"No money," Alex said. "It's yours. The weapon has chosen you and you may have it."

"What?" he asked, unable to unwilling to believe the old man. This was a joke? Some cruel payback for a late night call?

"It's yours, Gerhard. But you must do one thing."

"And that is?" Excited tingles danced across his skin. Surely this was a joke. But he couldn't help himself.

"You must come pick it up. Leave in the morning for Brussels. Tell no one where you are going. You must stay one week. After that, Umatri is yours and you may do whatever you wish."

"A week? Mister Turgen, I can't—"

"For Umatri," he interrupted. "You can."

Gerhard's supervisor wouldn't let him have a week off. It wasn't possible. He'd lose his job. He'd lose everything.
Everything but Umatri
. He'd already planned to spend his savings on it. How was this different? "All right," he said, finally. "One week."

"Excellent. I'll pick you up at the station when you arrive."

Chapter Six

Victoria sat silent on the bench seat, staring out the window as they followed empty streets lined with sleeping houses. The giant black man was driving. She'd recognized his voice and that iron mace from Manchester. The other one had called him Luc. A slip. His face looked familiar, but she couldn't place it. Maybe from one of the internet videos, but she knew that wasn't it. The short-haired Englishman with the Egyptian sword had admitted he was the one who had tried to save James after leading them into that godforsaken building. Victoria had assumed that the redhead, Sam– a second slip– had been the last of their team; likely the van's driver in Manchester. If only she'd been prepared for the fourth member, the dark-haired woman now seated behind her with an unsheathed sword. Victoria had assumed there were three and, as her old IPLDP instructor had drilled into their heads, to ‘assume makes an ass of you and me.’

They'd handcuffed her wrists in front and not behind her back, thank God. With some luck, she might be able to grab the door handle, maybe a weapon if there was an opening. They also hadn't killed her. But what of the elderly man living in the house they'd gone into? Was he dead? She'd seen him the day before when she trailed them. He looked odd with his enormous nose, but he wasn't a monster. Why would they murder an innocent recluse and keep her alive after threatening them? "Where are you taking me?"

"Quiet," the woman behind her growled. "You're lucky to be alive right now, so shut up."

"We're taking you somewhere to talk," the Englishman said, not looking up from his phone screen. "You wanted to talk, so that's what we're going to do."

"Then why am I handcuffed?"

The man turned around. He'd have looked handsome with his dark hair and sharp chin if he didn't appear so angry. "Because you pressed a shotgun against my friend's head, and I'm not going to risk you doing that to anyone else."

Victoria ground her teeth and looked back out the window, dark images of water boards and bright interrogation lights playing through her imagination. She knew why they were keeping her alive. And once they discovered what she knew and how she'd found them, she was dead. Well, they'd never get it from her. Victoria wondered who was on the other end of that phone.

Five minutes later, the Englishman nodded ahead. "There. That's good."

Luc pulled the van up to a concrete biking trail alongside the river. A lone picnic table sat beside it, looking out over the water.

The Englishman stepped out of the vehicle and opened the sliding door. He'd left his gun belt and khopesh in the front seat. "All right." He held up the handcuff key. "Let's talk, Detective Martin."

Victoria eyed the key. James had taught her this trick. The false promise of freedom for information or to merely wear down the prisoner's resolve. She could play this. A faint grin pulled at her lips as she extended her cuffed wrists.

He unlocked them and dropped them in his pocket.

"Thank you," she said, hiding her surprise.

He led her to the table and sat down. A symphony of frogs and insects droned along the riverbank. "Please," he said, gesturing to the other side.

She took the seat and the brunette with the scimitar sat down beside the man, her sword still in her hand.

"Don't worry about the sword," he said, catching Victoria's gaze.

The woman gave a wicked little grin. Her left eye had swollen a little since she'd peeled off her mask. A little memento from their fight. "It keeps you from screaming."

"No," the man said, a scolding edge to his voice. "It prevents anyone from hearing you scream. But you're not going to do that, and we're not going to hurt you." He gave a cold look to the young woman. "Are we?"

The sound of rolling tires drew Victoria's attention. The girl, Sam, parked Victoria's car behind the van. The blue LED of a phone's headset glowed from her ear and she was speaking. How many people were they talking to?

The bench creaked as Luc sat down beside Victoria, but he kept his distance.

"You said you wanted answers," the Englishman said. "Ask."

Victoria swallowed, her mind stumbling as the ten thousand questions all raced to the front. But the most important, the simplest, pushed itself out first. "Who are you?"

"We're demon hunters," he said plainly.

"Demons," she repeated, eying his tactical attire. "You don't look like priests."

"Not that kind of demon. We kill monsters…physical manifestations of demonic possession."

"Monsters? Like that thing that attacked me?"

He nodded.

"And that's what was in that house tonight?"

Sam approached and handed Luc a computer tablet without even looking at Victoria. She walked back to the car as he scrolled through the screen.

"Yes," the Englishman said, ignoring them. "That was a tengu. It's a…different breed."

"I don't understand. How is a monster a demon?"

"It's…" He sighed and ran his finders through his dark hair. "There are thousands of monsters in folklore from all over the world. Most of those are just superstition, but some of them are real. They're demonic spirits, that when they possess a host, human or animal, they transform them into a monster.
That's
what we kill."

Victoria nodded, remembering the witness reports and fuzzy photographs, the insane ramblings of internet nutters now making sense. "Why the weapons?"

He shared a moment's look with the brunette, as if debating how much to reveal. "Demons can only die from a holy weapon. Guns and other weapons can't hurt them."

"And just to get this straight," she said. "We're discussing monsters like werewolves and vampires, ghouls, goblins."

"Correct." He gave a little smile. "Except for goblins. Those aren't real."

Luc grunted a chuckle.

"So tell me, if a holy weapon is the only thing that can kill them, why haven't they just taken over?" she asked, channeling the most common naysayer mantra from the websites. "Infected everyone?"

"It's not like that," he said. "It's not some disease that passes around." He rubbed his fingers, as if trying to articulate the thought. "Let's say a demon bites you…well, it doesn't have to be a bite necessarily. Some use sex, or some other type of domination. In that act they mark your soul, and that means they can take you over. But that's all it means. A werewolf bites a hundred people, there's not a hundred werewolves, there's only a hundred
potential
werewolves, but there's still only one."

Victoria chewed her lip. It made sense. About as much as everything else did. Then she saw the hole in the logic. "All right," she said carefully. "You say normal weapons don't hurt them?"

"Correct."

"They killed those baby-faced things just fine. How was that possible?"

Luc offered the tablet to the Englishman, showing him something. The Englishman nodded. "Those weren't demons. Those were…minions."

Victoria raised a brow.

"Some demons can imbue their power into other creatures. Sometimes as a familiar, which is essentially human, but under the demon's control. Others times they can do it to a corpse. Those screamers you saw in Manchester were made from dead vermin. Those you can kill with mortal weapons."

Screamers
, she thought, the memory of the doll-faced bugs sending shivers along her neck.
Fitting name
. "So that's why you carry guns?"

He nodded. "Partially. But certain elements can also harm a demon's body. Shoot a werewolf with a silver bullet and you can kill its host. The spirit moves to another, unharmed, so we try not to do that unless we have to. Which brings up a point." He leaned closer. "How exactly did you come to know there was a demon in Amiens? It's not like it even matched the description of the one that attacked you."

Victoria tongued her cheek, her gaze passing over the graffiti-etched table. "I started by looking for those but didn't find anything more than what I already knew. But it led me to a lot of cryptid websites and forums. Mostly rumors and questionable photographs of Loch Ness and Black Shuck."

"Any particular sites?"

She brushed at a mosquito buzzing in her ear. "Not especially. Mostly useless, except that they turned me on towards monsters in general. So then I thought about the weapons. At first I assumed that they were for silence, but then I thought, 'Why those weapons?' A khopesh isn't exactly a normal choice. Why not a fire axe or crop knife. So I started searching for unsolved killings or monster sightings related to primitive weapons." She met his eyes. "That got results."