Night Call (Book 2): Demon Dei (12 page)

“Only to those who have it.”

I agreed with a nod. “Any ideas about what it was I faced last night?”

She drained her sake. “By continuing this conversation I am by no means trying to encourage your belief that these creatures are real.”

“Standard procedure.”

“There is a growing theory that all the various beings called demons throughout the ages do actually exist. Along with other, traditional mythological animals, such as unicorns, mermaids, faeries and so on. With the increasing talk in scientific areas about different dimensions running alongside each other, some people are suggesting that all the things of myth come from one or more of these other dimensions.

“Demons can be summoned using magic, religious prayer or ritual. People used to think they were summoned from Hell. Perhaps they were actually being drawn through from their dimension to this one. There are scientists who think that we will be able to observe these other dimensions within the next several decades. And science has generally always been running second to nature. Who’s to say that people who’ve summoned demons in the past haven’t been opening portals between the dimensions?”

I set down my fork. “Now that is an intriguing idea.”

“It’s pure speculation.”

“You’re only saying that because a demon hasn’t tried to blast you with blue lightning. How does one go about summoning a demon?”

This time I didn’t imagine the annoyance. It narrowed her eyes and clenched her teeth, but for a moment only. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly and offered me a small, apologetic smile. “As I said before, magic, prayer or ritual are the most commonly recorded ways. But all agree that you must have a name to summon it by. There are many named demons on record.”

“And that would hook me an angel type demon?”

“I don’t know. Possibly. You’re the one claiming that there are also imps. Maybe that’s all you’d get. Then it’s likely you’ll only end up with the spirit of the creature and not the physical being. I would hazard a guess and say that it’s harder to bring a big, solid body through as opposed to a flimsy bit of spirit. That’s what most demons on record have been, a spirit possessing another’s body.”

There wasn’t much else to say, apart from a short discussion over who paid the bill. We ended up splitting it and left the restaurant. Outside, we let our eyes adjust to the brightness.

“I don’t know if I was much help to you, Matt.” In sunlight, her hair shimmered with blue highlights.

“On the contrary, you’ve given me lots of stuff to think about.”

Those full lips curled upward nicely. “And yet I feel as if I’ve been talking to a brick wall for an hour.”

“Not the first time someone’s likened me to a brick wall.”

She put her hand on my arm. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“None taken.” Her skin against mine was very, very lovely.

“I just meant that you’re so firm in your convictions nothing I could say would convince you otherwise.”

I smiled, a touch bitterly. “Blue lightning. Not as easy to forget as you might think.”

“I guess so. While I’m not convinced what you experienced last night was truly a demon, I would like to know how you handle it if you encounter it again.” Her hand slid up my arm, her fingers curling around my shoulder. “It might help me to expand my knowledge.”

“Then you don’t think I’m crazy and projecting my subconscious fears into a being that seems physical to me?” I shifted without thought so we were closer together.

Her laugh was husky and did interesting things to my chest region. “If you’re crazy, then it’s a charming crazy. I hope you don’t think I’m being too forward.”

“Of course no–”

She kissed me. And it wasn’t just a quick, friendly peck on the cheek like she’d greeted me with. Not at all. Her lips were soft but insistent, her tongue a fleeting pressure against my mouth and she tasted like sake. Before I was cognizant enough to realise what was happening, her body was moulded against mine like we were a matched set. Arms slipped around my shoulders.

Forward?

Who cared.

I gave in and kissed her back.

I opened her mouth and really tasted the sake. My hands found her hips and tugged them a little closer. Lila moaned and her fingers tightened around the back of my neck.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, she broke the kiss. Panting, she leaned back in my arms and stared at me.

“Well,” I muttered, unable to take my gaze off her lips.

“Are you busy this afternoon?”

Was I? Hell, I was having trouble remembering my name.

“I’m being awfully aggressive,” she said, “but come home with me.”

“That is awfully aggressive.”

Lila ran her fingertips down my jaw, smiling at the tickle of the stubble I hadn’t shaved off that morning. Which made me think of Erin and how I’d been more than a little shocked to see her on my couch, to realise she was the reason I hadn’t woken up with my boots on and uncovered. Mercy didn’t think about things like that. If she was the one pouring me into bed, she rarely remembered to actually get me as far as the bed.

“Too aggressive,” Lila murmured.

I realised I’d pulled back from her, my hands only lightly resting on her hips. My heart beat a frantic Morse code on my ribs for ‘Are you mad?’ but I managed to ignore it.

“Don’t get me wrong, Lila. I like aggressiveness. Perhaps a little too much sometimes.”

She caught her breath hopefully.

“But,” I said it as gently as I could, “this is probably too fast.”

Lila sighed. “I understand. But I will be checking up on your progress with the demon.”

“I look forward to your check up.”

She smiled with a mischievous glint in her blue eyes. “Be safe.”

And she walked away.

When I could pry my gaze off her amazingly displayed legs I looked around only to realise our little, eh, exchange had been witnessed.

I’d been caught in worse situations in this very mall before. A few voyeurs to a very public display was nothing.

Somehow, I made it back to my car, thought briefly about going up to the office of Sol Investigations and then just drove home. Spent the whole way remembering Lila’s kiss and alternating between cursing and congratulating myself for resisting her offer of more.

It’d been a while. A long while. There’d been a couple of near misses in that time, but for whatever reason, both of those times had been tied very closely to circumstance not conducive to the continued wellbeing of my mortal self. I don’t know, maybe it’s something about me. So the offer of good old fashioned sex was a hard one to turn down. And here’s the million dollar question… why did I turn her down?

Well? Why?

I could have been wiling away the afternoon in consummate pleasure, learning if all of her skin was as soft as that of her face, if the grey lace bra came with matching knickers. I could have got lost in her. I could have broken the bad run. But no. I mooched around the house grumbling to myself, took a cold shower and shaved. I spent a while kicking the stuffing out of a punching bag. I massaged my left knee—shattered several years ago in a car accident, long story, not good. I cooked a mess of spaghetti and ate too much.

Finally I was clear headed enough to sit on the back patio, watch the sunset creep up on the water in waves of orange, red and gold and think. Stomach percolating over the load of carbs, my mind made similar motions with what Lila had said.

It was hard to steer clear of the obvious religious overtones connected with demons, and despite a desire to do just that, I found I couldn’t. Fallen angels or creatures from another dimension? Which would be preferable? Either one required a leap of faith and there was little I took on faith these days. Too many hard lessons in cold, merciless reality for me to quite believe in something I couldn’t see, touch or shoot. Just like ghosts.

But I had shot it. Mercy had touched it. We’d wounded it and had been wounded in return. I did not for a moment believe it was dead. One fake out is more than enough for me to never trust to appearances again. But,
Primals to the side, things that could be wounded could be killed. Imps weren’t partial to salt and I was willing to bet that this mega-demon wasn’t, either. Detouring down the religious track for a moment, salt was a major component of Holy water, and hence might be why Holy water was traditionally seen as a weapon against demons. It was something to work on, at least. I’d add the paintball rifle loaded with Holy water paintballs to my arsenal again.

I was pretty certain I could fight this demon now. Bullets, Holy water slash salt and some old fashioned grit and determination. Knowing I could fight it didn’t answer the question of why I had to fight it, though. Was it my anti-imp antics of the past months that had sparked this attack? Or was this more along the lines of that saturation point Aurum had suggested?
Aurum’s proud father act at the end of the Veilchen affair might have caused the local Old World creatures to skip town, but it might have also pushed me that last little distance across the line from annoyance to threat. Was the demon attack a hit job? If that were the case, I couldn’t rely on even Aurum’s half-arsed mentoring this time. I’d passed the test, got my bronze medal and now it was time to sink or swim.

The other thing I’d learned back then was just because something seemed inconsequential, didn’t mean it was. A kid was killed because I’d paid him lip service instead of delivering a serious response to his concerns, all because I’d decided a 300 year old vampire firing pot shots at me was more important than a kid’s weird dog story. In light of the demon attack, of the very real, very dangerous threat it posed to me and Mercy, it would be easy for me to forget Carson’s girlfriend issues and the Davis murder.

But I’d promised and I’d made a vow not to break any more promises.

Well, at least try to not break them. Or most of them, anyway.

Somewhat settled, I went and woke Mercy up.

She groused and resisted until I hauled her out of bed and tossed her into the shower. She emerged awake and hissing. As a result, I had little say in her wardrobe choices.

The jeans were new, but artfully torn in all the wrong places, and the top was little more than a bra. I tossed her a jacket and she snarled but put it on. Score one to me.

Then, for some unknown reason, I grabbed the keys to the motorbike.

Mercy cheered. “Can I drive?”

“No.”

I slung on a leather jacket over my usual attire of cargo pants and black t-shirt and we went for a ride.

I love my car but the bike, a Moto
Guzzi 1200 Sport, is something altogether different. You get to experience the speed first hand, feel the pressure of the wind resistance against your face, get up close and personal with the power roaring through the engine. There is a real appreciation of the weight of the machine and how that weight is used as a positive, not a negative, as it is in many cars. Trust me, you’ve never lived until you’ve leaned over so far into a corner that your knee has all but kissed the dirt and trusted to the speed of the bike to get you upright again.

There is no environmental control, no recycled air-con to keep you cool and blissfully unaware of the world roaring past. You smell the diesel exhaust and the road-kill, but you also smell blossoming flowers, freshly cut grass, a bakery early in the morning. Rain is a thousand, fleeting kisses all at once and the wind is all of your own making. On a bike you get it in all senses, all on overload.

Of course there’s the danger, the vulnerability, the exposure, the heart-stopping realisation that driver coming through the intersection hasn’t seen you. You have to have something of a reckless turn to your nature to embrace the danger, to welcome it as a release for the part of yourself you keep chained in the dark.

But, what it comes down to in the end are two main things. One, it’s cheaper than a car, and two, watch any dog with its head hanging out a car window and you’ll be watching a sublimely happy dog.

Of course, it did make answering the phone a bit tricky.

The phone vibrated in the thigh pocket of my pants and I remembered that I’d promised to call Erin. And hadn’t.

Mercy, perched casually on the back as if Newton’s Third Law didn’t exist in her own private world, leaned forward and reached into the pocket. She pulled out the phone and answered.

How she or the caller heard anything I’ll never know, but after a moment, Mercy’s voice came into my head via the link.

“You forgot to call Erin.”

“I figured. What’s happening?”

“We’re meeting her at the office.”

Oops. Hope she didn’t want a ride.

Thankfully, Erin’s BMW 530i was parked outside the office building when we got there. Erin stood on the footpath, mobile glued to her ear. She saw us pull up and waved for patience, then turned her back on us.

“Hospital,” Mercy announced.

“Don’t eavesdrop,” I chided.

“I didn’t mean to.”

I pulled off my helmet and waited while Erin finished her call. She hung up and took a few deep breaths, then faced us.

“Ready?” she asked.

“S’pose,” Mercy muttered.

“Everything okay?” I asked Erin.

“It’s all good.” Then she scowled at me. “You said you’d call.”

“Sorry, got distracted.”

“He got propositioned,” Mercy announced.

Erin’s eyebrows shot off the top of her head. I’m hoping it was shock at Mercy’s lack of tact, and not sheer disbelief that someone might think I was sexy.

“Mercy, we’re going to have to repeat that little talk we had about what’s appropriate and what’s not.”

It was pretty dark and the footpath was only faintly illuminated by the lights of the building behind, but I thought there was a tinge of colour to Erin’s cheeks. She ducked her head and scrounged through her bag for car keys.

“We should hurry. Courey won’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Lead on,” I said gallantly.

Erin got into her car and lead us out of the CBD and toward Toowong.

We ended up outside a large, fenced in building not far from Karawatha Forest. An unmarked car was already parked outside the gate, a lean, older man lounging against it. One look at him and I sent a silent request to Mercy. She complied by taking the Barretta Cougar from the back of my pants. Don’t know where she concealed it but I would bet this Detective
Courey wouldn’t think to look there.

I parked beside Erin and took my time taking off my helmet. Mercy followed my lead. We waited until Erin and
Courey had greeted each other and had time for a few personals and then wandered over.

“Miles, this is Matt Hawkins and Mercy
Belique,” Erin said. “Guys, Detective Miles Courey.”

Courey
was a very fit looking guy in his early fifties and his handshake was aimed for crippling. I took it like a man and like to think I gave back as good as I got. He didn’t seem to notice. The detective looked Mercy over and then subjected her to the same handshake. She’d learned long ago to not shake back as hard as she was capable of.

“The same Matt Hawkins who’s house got shot up six months ago.”
Courey said it like there had never been any doubt.

“Yeah.”

“Never did find out who was responsible.”

I shrugged. “It’s a mystery. Not had any trouble since.”

He looked me over again. “You carrying?”

Bingo. “Sir, I have a conviction. I’m not eligible for any sort of firearm permit.”

Courey lifted one eyebrow. “I am aware. But, are you?”

“No.”

For a moment I thought he was going to pat me down. I almost wished he would. For her part, Erin looked on with no expression.

Courey
grunted and turned to the gate. He dialled a number on his phone and said, “Courey here. We’re ready.”

A moment later, a door opened in the building and a security guard walked out to meet us. He and
Courey exchanged professional nods and we were let in.

“You got an hour, max,” the guard said to
Courey, politely ignoring Erin, Mercy and me. What he made of us I have no idea. Let’s face it, we weren’t exactly a professional looking mob.

“No problem.”
Courey dropped back to walk beside Erin. “Looking tired, McRea.”

“It’s tough being this good all the time.”

“Yeah, gets me down sometimes too.”

The security guard let us into the building and returned to his desk.
Courey led us down a long hallway.

“The lab Davis was working in has been locked down,”
Courey said. “It’s still classified as a crime scene, though, so you won’t be allowed to touch anything once inside.” The last was directed at me even though he didn’t look at me. Amazing ability that. “Just what sort of consulting do you do, Mr Hawkins?”

“Fashion, usually, but I’m doing this as a favour to a friend.”

Courey’s entire response was a quick glance at Mercy and a very eloquent grunt.

“Best policy,” Erin murmured to me.

“I consult in esoteric matters, Detective,” I said.