Read J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough Online
Authors: J.L. Doty
Tags: #Fantasy: Supernatural - Demons - San Francisco
She saw the Russian start at the sound of the first gunshots, watched him climb the steps of the front porch as more shots sounded. And when someone yanked the front door open she saw him silhouetted in it by the light from the room beyond. Then he fired his weapon and the muzzle flash spilled past him, lighting up the street. Another car pulled up and double-parked in the street as more shots sounded from within. She recognized Karpov and his thugs as they sprinted up the front steps of the house.
There were no more shots and she sensed Karpov’s flow of power as he disposed of the stupid Tertius. Then she watched the Russians bring two prisoners out, both bound and with dark sacks of some sort over their heads, one clearly a woman, the other clearly a man. She’d found her prey.
She hurried back to her car, had it started and idling before the Russians pulled away from the house. She activated a spell that hid her car from anything but the most thorough examination, and pulled out into the street to follow them.
McGowan spotted the flashing police cruisers from several blocks up the street, and as he and Colleen got closer to Katherine’s house he could see uniformed officers walking in and out of her open front door. There were four squad cars and an SFPD van parked at odd angles in the street in front of her house, their flashing red, white and blue lights illuminating the night of a normally quiet neighborhood. A few of Katherine’s neighbors were huddled in a group on the sidewalk beyond the police tape.
McGowan stopped his car in the middle of the street next to one of the squad cars. As he climbed out of the car a uniformed policewoman approached, saying, “I’m sorry, you’ll have to move on. This is a crime scene—”
McGowan interrupted her, shouting and pointing, “That’s my daughter’s house.”
She held up a hand, glanced over her shoulder and shouted, “Frank, I got a relative here. Get Lasky, or one of the other detectives.”
Sergeant Lasky, SFPD, wouldn’t give any particulars until he’d seen identification and thoroughly questioned McGowan and Colleen. McGowan told him he’d had a phone conversation with Katherine earlier, and Lasky said, “Must’ve happened just after that.”
“Exactly what happened?” McGowan demanded angrily.
Lasky shrugged. “Looks like a home invasion. Bad news is your daughter’s gone, maybe kidnapped, maybe not. And there were apparently a lot of gunshots; you can smell the burned powder. Good news is there’s no blood, so I doubt your daughter’s hurt, at least not yet.”
They wanted McGowan to walk through the place to see if anything was missing, and just inside the front door the demon scent hit him like a hammer. Two crime scene technicians, on their knees in the middle of the living room, were carefully examining a scattering of small gray lumps in the middle of a dusting of whitish ash. “What’s that?” McGowan demanded, knowing full well the answer.
Lasky frowned. “Weirdest thing. It’s a bunch of handgun slugs, must be twenty or thirty of them, deformed like we find in someone’s body, but these’re just lying in a pile in the middle of the floor with a bunch of ash around them.”
McGowan confirmed that, as far as he could tell, nothing was missing from Katherine’s home. They kept McGowan and Colleen there for another hour, took formal statements and let them go.
In the car Colleen said, “You caught the demon scent?”
“Ya,” McGowan said as he started the car and accelerated up the street. “I’m guessing Tertius caste. Someone shot it up pretty bad, and then someone put it down with a very powerful spell. And when I think of that spell I just can’t stop thinking about those fucking Russians. I know the scent of that old man’s magic, and that means they’ve got my daughter.”
They stuffed Paul and Katherine in the trunk of a car, plastic zip-ties binding their hands and feet, their hands behind their backs. Paul had landed in the trunk on his back in a rather uncomfortable position, jammed between a lot of junk there. They’d tossed Katherine on top of him, facing him, the junk preventing both of them from moving about and finding a more comfortable position.
Paul could feel Katherine’s breasts pressed against his chest, and under other circumstances he might’ve enjoyed the close proximity of a beautiful woman. But trussed up, with black canvas bags tied over their heads, gags stuffed in their mouths, and guilty thoughts of Suzanna filling his head—
Paul had realized rather quickly he couldn’t dislodge the gag, though he tried. But he could hear and feel Katherine moving desperately, and when she spoke he realized she’d had some success with the gag, though her words were garbled so he knew her success was only partial. “Pauw, can wou ge woofe?”
His vocabulary was rather limited. “Huh uh.”
“Amyfing?”
“Huh uh.”
“Fuffer-fuckurs!”
Paul closed his eyes and tried to get comfortable. The car beneath them swayed a little, hit a bump now and then, but the driver drove cautiously. There was nothing he or Katherine could do until the Russians decided to retrieve them from the trunk. But in their forced intimacy, fully in contact from chin to knees, every bump or turn jostled him and Katherine together, like two horny teenagers engrossed in some heavy petting in a car. Paul tried to keep a tight rein on his imagination, but when he attempted to think about something else his thoughts always returned to Katherine and the kiss they’d shared in Faerie, and he started to get an erection.
Katherine had apparently had more success spitting out the gag because her words were less garbled. “Gee, Conklin, should I be flattered.” She laughed and the erection disappeared.
The Russians lifted them out of the trunk almost kindly. They cut the zip-ties binding his ankles so he could walk, and with someone supporting him on both sides they hustled him along. He had no sense of direction or place, but eventually they forced him to sit on some sort of chair. They cut the zip-ties binding his wrists, attached both wrists and ankles to the chair with new zip-ties, then yanked off the black canvas hood.
It was clear the Russians didn’t have much imagination. They’d tied him to a chair in the middle of a room underneath a light hanging directly overhead. The light lit up a circle of empty floor about him, beyond which he could see nothing but darkness. It reminded him of every cliché in every gangster movie he’d ever seen.
Joe Stalin stepped out of the darkness, untied the gag and pulled the wad of cloth out of Paul’s mouth. The Russian grinned unpleasantly, and from down in his throat a deep rumble emerged, like the quiet growl of a large bear happily anticipating a meal. Behind Joe, Karpov stepped into the light with the ugly blond at his side. They approached Paul and Joe Stalin stepped to one side.
“Mr. Conklin,” Karpov said. Again he said meester, not mister. “You are a curiosity to me, to many of us.” He glanced to one side at Joe Stalin and said, “Well, not to Alexei here.” He patted Joe on the cheek. “Alexei don’t have much imagination.” All three of them chuckled as if at some inside joke. “When Alexei here sees something doesn’t add up . . .” Karpov looked at Paul pointedly. “ . . . he just removes it from the equation. Then he don’t have to be curious about it.”
Paul asked, “Where’s Katherine?”
There was a sudden struggle behind him and to one side, and he heard Katherine’s muffled grunts. They’d obviously tied her to another chair and replaced her gag.
The ugly blond leaned down close enough that Paul could smell onions on his breath. His accent was even thicker than Joe Stalin’s. “Mr. Karpov asks questions. You answer.” He looked up at Karpov. “Ve can make him talk, boss.”
Paul had a wild, hysterical thought. The blonde’s accent reminded him of an old cartoon show in which the antagonists were a couple of comic, Russian spies. In a heavily clichéd Russian accent, one of them always said something like, “Ve go make beeg trouble for moose and squirrel.” Paul couldn’t stop from thinking of the ugly blond as
Boris
, and a little hysterical laugh escaped his lips. Boris didn’t like that.
“Mr. Karpov,” Paul said, trying to be as polite as possible. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but I don’t think I know anything you want to know. This is all new to me.”
Joe Stalin growled, “You’re lying.” He lifted a fist the size of a sledgehammer, but Karpov put a hand on his elbow and stopped him.
“Don’t damage him. Don’t break anything. Not yet.”
Joe Stalin looked at his fist, then opened his hand to expose a large flat palm. He swung it out in a wide arc and slapped Paul with his open palm. Paul heard the impact like a remote, distant thing happening to someone else, his head rocked to one side and he almost lost consciousness. The slap felt as if someone had hit him in the face with a frying pan. His face burned and smoldered, and he heard Katherine struggling and trying to shout through her gag. Another frying-pan of a hand hit the other side of his face and he did lose consciousness for a moment. But while he drifted in another place his thoughts focused on Joe Stalin’s hand and where it had made contact with his face. The contact had been like the contact between the demon’s clawed hand and his throat. And he thought there might be a conduit there, a channel through which he could draw power. But then he realized what he was contemplating and he recoiled mentally. He’d be feeding on another human being. He’d be no better than that monster he’d faced earlier.
The room drifted back into focus and he looked up at Joe Stalin, the floor spinning and tilting sickeningly. Helplessly he watched Joe raise his big bearish paw for another hit, but Karpov raised a hand, stopping him. In the background Katherine was struggling frantically, and Karpov said, “Let’s hear what the little witch has to say.”
A couple of his thugs carried her chair, with her still tied into it, into the circle of light and put her down a few feet from Paul. She glared at Karpov with smoldering, hard eyes as one of them removed her gag and pulled a large wad of cloth out of her mouth. “You idiot,” she shouted. “He had a serous concussion only a week ago. Beating him like that could cause hemorrhaging in his brain and he could die on you. I know. I’m a doctor.”
Boris marched over to her and raised a hand to hit her. Karpov yelled, “Stop.” Boris froze and Karpov added, “Don’t harm the old man’s daughter. He’s a colleague after all, a powerful one, a dangerous one, so out of professional courtesy you’ll not touch the young lady.”
Karpov turned on her. “And you will speak to me with the respect I am due.”
She said angrily, “I’m telling the truth. If you want to kill him, just put a gun to his head and blow his brains out. You won’t be killing him any faster that way.”
Paul wanted to disagree with her on that, wanted to tell them all he’d prefer to take his chances with the beating rather than having his brains blown out all over the room. The bullet-in-the-head thing seemed awfully final, awfully quick, but sarcasm wasn’t going to buy him anything here so he kept his mouth shut.
Without taking his eyes off Katherine, Karpov held out a hand palm up. “Alexei, your gun.”
Joe Stalin pulled out his howitzer and put it in Karpov’s hand. Karpov very slowly and dramatically pulled back the hammer on the big revolver, allowed them all to hear its cocking mechanism click into place. Then he lowered the gun and put the muzzle against the side of Paul’s head, his eyes still fixed on Katherine. “Then you tell me what happened last week. And the minute I think you’re lying, I will blow his brains out.”
Katherine considered Karpov carefully, then spoke slowly and gave them a heavily edited version of their sojourn in the Netherworld and their adventures in Faerie, all completely true, but not complete. She left out the thing about the demon calling Paul
Dragon-stink
. She left out the fact that Paul had been enthralled by a Secundus caste demon, and possibly broken that enthrallment. She gave them the impression her father had penetrated the barriers between the Mortal Plane and the Netherworld, and given them a portal through which to return. And of course, since neither she nor Paul was anything close to as powerful as her father, neither of them knew how he’d accomplished such things. That was for really powerful wizards and sorcerers like her father and Karpov.
She told them about their abduction by Cadilus, their audience before Magreth, Paul’s cell, and how the leprechauns had helped Paul escape. And when she finished, Karpov raised the gun and lowered the hammer carefully. He walked to Katherine, handing Joe Stalin his gun on the way, leaned down to her and said, “You told me the truth, but not all of it. But that’s ok for now. I’ll get the rest of it eventually.”
A cell phone rang. Karpov reached into his coat, pulled out his, opened it and said, “Karpov.” He stepped into the darkness that lined the edge of the room and Paul heard him talking, though too quietly to make out any words. Then he stepped back into the light, putting his cell phone away.
To Katherine he said, “Your father wants you back, and I can’t really keep you so he can have you. We’ve arranged a meeting.”
He turned and strode toward the darkness, saying, “Alexei, stay with the man, and soften him up a bit. I still have some questions, and I want him in a talkative mood when I return. The rest of you bring the woman and come with me.”
“Well?” Colleen asked as McGowan hung up the phone. They were in his office, he seated behind his desk, she seated in one of the wingback chairs in front of it. McGowan looked tired, and Colleen felt for him.
He leaned back in the chair behind his desk and rubbed his eyes. “He’s got her, couldn’t deny it once I told him I sensed his magic at her house, says he rescued her from a demon attack.”
“From what we saw at her house, that’s probably true.”
“Ya,” McGowan said angrily. “But he denies any knowledge of young Conklin, says he only has Katherine.”
“Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps the young man wasn’t there. Or perhaps he escaped separately.”
McGowan shook his head. “That old Russian bastard’s a lying shit. Conklin was there and he’s got him.”
McGowan picked up the phone again, dialed a number, listened for a few seconds then said, “Clark, it’s Walter McGowan. I apologize for the late hour and the lack of notice, but I need your help, right away, tonight.”
McGowan listened for a few seconds, then said, “It’s the Russians. They’ve got Katherine and I need backup.”
Again McGowan was silent while he listened. “Great! I really appreciate it, Clark.”
He hung up the phone and retrieved a notepad from a drawer in his desk, wrote something on it, tore off a sheet, leaned forward and handed it to Colleen. She glanced at it and saw an address written there. McGowan continued. “I’ve agreed to meet Karpov to pick up Katherine, but you don’t need to be there.”
He nodded at the piece of paper he’d handed her. “That’s the address of Karpov’s little hideout. I’d like you to go there and retrieve Conklin. If Karpov stays in character he’ll bring a lot of muscle to deliver Katherine; it’s an image thing for him, a big show of strength in front of a rival wizard of similar power. He’ll probably only leave a few thugs to guard Conklin, the kind strong on muscle, weak in brains and arcane power. Nothing you can’t handle on your own, though if I’m wrong and there’s any talent present use your own judgment about whether or not to abandon Conklin.”
Colleen shook her head. “I won’t abandon the young man.”
“Damn it, Colleen!” McGowan snarled, leaning toward her. “Don’t get all motherly on me. Conklin’s not worth you getting hurt.”
She smiled at him dismissively, knowing that would irritate him. “I’m no inexperienced child, Walter. And there’s too much concerning young Mr. Conklin that doesn’t add up to leave his fate in the hands of a bunch of hoodlums.” She nodded toward the phone. “And I’m glad you’re not going to meet Karpov and his army on your own. Who’s the backup you called?”
McGowan looked like he wanted to argue with her, then gave up the thought. “Friend of mine named Clark Devoe.”
“Will just the two of you be enough?”
McGowan grinned unpleasantly. “I trust Clark implicitly. And even the younger Russians, the ones filled with piss and vinegar, even they’re afraid of him.”
“He must be quite scary.”
“Not if you’re his friend.”
They’d left Paul alone, though for how long he couldn’t guess. He struggled at the plastic zip-ties binding his hands and feet to the chair, was trying to crane his neck downward hoping to get his teeth on one of them and bite through it. He’d twisted into an oddly contorted position, but his teeth were still a good six inches from the zip-tie. Then a sledgehammer slammed into his ribs without warning, pain shot through his chest and Paul threw his head back and cried out. His eyes filled with tears and he gasped for breath as Joe Stalin back stepped away from him, massaging his right fist with his left hand. Joe spoke in his thick accent. “Don’t be stupid, shit head.”
Joe began pacing back and forth, his eyes locked on Paul. Every few seconds he’d grumble something inaudible, though it sounded less like human words and more like the growl of an angry bear. As he growled and paced, Joe’s eyes narrowed intently, clearly trying to think something through, something probably beyond his limited mental capabilities. “Mr. Karpov says I can’t hit you in the head,” Joe said as he paced. “Said we can’t take a chance the witch was telling the truth. He doesn’t want you dead . . . yet.”