Demon Master Read online

  “I’ll see if Tante’ Jean is taking appointments today. Should I ask for a nighttime visit? We would have less exposure.”

  Risa was nothing if not careful. We usually went in two vehicles for the quick exit, but if the house had anything of value that we wanted, it made sense to leave as small a footprint as possible. Given that hustlers were notoriously leery of banks and taxes, it stood to reason that we would have to comb her property for her loot. Frauds preyed on the working class in a complicated dance. They could steal, but not to excess from one mark, opting to steal by small measures. I suspected Jean would be a textbook huckster with a stash taken from locals. I intended to find those funds for our own crusade. The karmic balance would ultimately end in our favor.

  Risa called and spoke briefly to the talented Jean, her voice oozing hope and a hint of desperation. She ended the call and smiled. “Eight o’clock. I’m the last appointment of the day. I think that we’re about to become quite close with Jean—close enough to know secrets, like where she learned how to place a spirit into an innocent man.” Risa’s tone did not bode well for her newfound psychic advisor.

  “I plan on finding her loot. I could use a new purse or three for spring.” Wally’s tone was even less forgiving.

  Wally and I waited, observing the local traffic at a convenience store two blocks away, while Risa kept her appointment with the netherworld, courtesy of Jean. Through the beauty of online real estate deeds, we found that Jean’s actual name was Yohanna and that she was a Canadian. Apparently, her only true otherworldly quality was the appalling concrete statues that littered her yard.

  “Who decorated her yard, a circus?” I asked.

  “It’s tasteful. For Vegas,” Wally said.

  I couldn’t imagine what décor she had selected, but I knew we would see it soon enough, after Risa had taken out Miss Jean. We had decided that some of Yohanna’s stolen funds would finance the art department at the elementary school up the street from our place. They had been hawking baked goods door to door, and their financial shortfall had infuriated Risa. So, we made a note of their teacher’s name and decided an anonymous donation was in order.

  The air in the car was stale with waiting, so I opened the door and asked Wally if she wanted anything from the store. I had a craving for some sort of beef jerky, but she just shook her head and leaned back, her earbuds streaming a soccer game from our satellite radio. Walking in between two cars, I saw a battered tomcat holding one paw slightly elevated. He meowed sadly at me, and I leaned down to see if he could be picked up or if he was too skittish. I can’t stand to see hungry animals, let alone injured hungry animals, and he arched his back and began to purr as soon as I laid my hand on him. I was absorbed in scratching his wide, scarred head—too absorbed, it would seem, because I felt two thin fingers brush my cheek, and instantly my mouth and gut were awash with a burning that made my breath leave my body in a shuddering wheeze. I went to one knee, a piece of the sun searing through my ribs and stomach in a merciless wave, tears washing my sight into a curtain of smudged colors and light. A woman’s voice, her tone light and mocking, was at my ear.

  “Compassion is so human, and so risky. A pity, that,” said the woman.

  I heard heels echo on the concrete and collapsed against the nearest car, my head crashing against the door panel with a meaty thump as the hot metallic bile began to fill my mouth and nose. I bit my tongue as my teeth met with a hard clack and felt the grit of the parking lot on my face. With my hands scrabbling against the ground, I felt my strength leaving like water through sand, and in a moment, I felt nothing at all.

  12

  Florida: Ring

  I awoke to darkness and a cool, professional touch on my forehead. A young woman spoke to me in a brisk but friendly tone. “I have your eyes bandaged. You broke massive amounts of blood vessels in them from strain. I’m going to remove the patches and let you adjust to the light. It’s nearly dark, but squint at first or the tears will make your eyes irritated all over again.” Her fingers were busy on my face, carefully peeling tape from my cheek.

  “Where am I? Who are you? Where are Risa and Wally? Is Gyro okay? What’s today?” My questions were a flood. “Did Risa see that charlatan, Jean? What was in the house?” I finished for the moment, inhaling deeply. I felt reasonably well, if a bit weak, but disoriented, and my neck was stiff. I sensed that I had been still for some time.

  “You certainly wake up inquisitive. I’ll answer what I can as I clear your eyes. I am Boon’s sister, Suma, and you’re in their studio apartment. Your friends insisted that we move you here because of safety issues.” Seeing me open my mouth to speak, she interrupted me. “And your enormous dog is fine. Risa said that would be the first thing you asked when you awoke, so be silent and let me answer your endless questions.” Satisfied, I leaned back on the pillow as one eye was now cleared of bandages. I could see a modest bedroom with tan carpet and what seemed to be an enormous amount of medical equipment. Leaning against a wedge pillow, I stretched on a bed that had white sheets and little else. A thin blanket was drawn off the side, where Suma leaned over me. She was a slightly smaller version of Boonsri, but with shorter hair and an intense expression.

  “I’m an internist in Orlando, and I was on my way to visit. Risa did not see that woman Jean, and she never will. She’s dead. Now sit back and be still. I need to speak, and you need to listen. Jean was found murdered in Toronto, where she was originally from. Risa found the newspaper article while searching for her after bringing you here. Wally went by her house, and, as you can guess, it was empty. It seems she was a run-of-the-mill con artist, and her past caught up with her. But enough about that. You are still capable of suffering further harm, and I need information.”

  At that pronouncement, I eased back, shocked that I was still at risk. I didn’t even know what I was at risk of, so I obeyed.

  “You were poisoned in a manner well outside my experiences, and by a toxin so unusual that it caused me to pursue alternative methods to aid you in healing. What was your last sensation outside the Quikstop?” she asked, pausing to let me speak.

  “I felt a thin hand, a woman’s hand, or fingers, rather, brush my mouth, and then a horrible bitterness, then heat and pain. God, the pain was—it was instant, and it was so complete and violating. I heard a woman’s voice mocking me, and I remember feeling the asphalt on my knees. I touched a smooth car handle, I think. Light became a blur, and then I tasted metal and bile. I felt like my whole body was melting and that my guts were leaving me. Thought I was dead.” The speech exhausted me, and Suma held a glass with a straw to my lips. Even my brow twitched with the effort to stay present, but the water was cold and had a hint of something earthy in it. She pulled the straw away and stroked my forehead, compassion filling the simple gesture.

  “I am a woman of science, so what I am seeing is unsettling, to say the least. I found pollen on your mouth and neck and shards of tree nuts in your teeth. You were poisoned, presumably, by the same woman who killed that man three weeks ago . . . yes, stay still. You’ve been here for twelve days.”

  My alarm was immediate. “Twelve? Days?” I asked, stunned. The enormity of what happened to me muscled into my psyche, an unwanted reality that I found frightening and humbling. I knew now that I had nearly died and that only my magical nature had saved me. That fact also told me something about the murderess that nearly ended my life. She was probably unaware of how Risa, Wally, and I had gleaned, in small doses, the very traits that made her so lethal. As Suma looked at me, I decided that I would heal. I would be a good patient, and I would have to bring Boon and Panit, as well as Suma, into our inner circle, at least in terms of trust, in order to fully explain why I was so thankful for their intervention. They deserved the truth, no matter how it disrupted their world. They needed to know how dangerous their surroundings could be.

  I also decided that whoever this woman was, we were going to kill her, without remorse or hesitation. And I was going to enjoy
every second of her agony.

  13

  Florida: Ring

  “Wanna go home?” Wally asked. It was a clear Thursday.

  “More than anything,” I managed. I was still tired and sore, but better. She drove, and the act of riding in a car tired me out. I was still weaker than a kitten.

  Exhausted and a bit shaky, I wobbled to the couch.

  “Lay down. We’ve got the house and Gyro will stay by you. You must sleep more, I think, Wally said.

  “I like sleep. Hate the dreams, though,” I said.

  “Tell me of them,” Wally said, then Risa came into the room holding a glass of orange juice. Her eyes narrowed at the word dream.

  “What kind of dreams?” Risa asked, too.

  I exhaled, trying to form the sliver of memory into something that made sense. “There was a forest, and a woman with a long braid. Some kind of lodge, or wooden castle. Then bits of a man in a dark suit—he looked like a mortician, very serious—holding a metal box. I think there was velvet in it, and shiny things, and then a woman told him to close the box.”

  “A deposit box?” Risa asked.

  “Yeah—I think—yes. A bank, maybe. Serious guy. The woman wore gloves. Felt like I was there, watching, or maybe just feeling her. And him. The forest was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Huge trees, towering. The lodge looked old. Hell, the room with the metal box and the banker looked old,” I said.

  “So not here, and not a dream,” Wally said.

  “No?” I asked.

  Risa leaned forward, her eyes bright with curiosity. “Anything else? Flashes, like in the forest maybe?”

  I thought about it, sifting the memory form when I was out, and there were images waiting for me. “There were—people. Hunters, I think, in rough cloth, with spears. Animals I’ve never seen before, too. A huge kind of a bull, and maybe a bison? A buffalo? But in the forest, being hunted by people with spears. Then more people, but with—guns? Old guns. Very old.” I saw a final flash, thinking of the sounds and sights that flickered past like an old film. “War. I saw many wars, and then nothing. Just the lodge, and then the bank. The woman isn’t human, I don’t think. She didn’t move like a human.”

  “A demon or something else that you felt from your condition,” Risa said.

  “Evil,” Wally muttered, stroking my hair.

  “I don’t recognize a lot of it, but I know the feel,” I said. The taste of being hurt and in the fever dream was bitter in my memory. “I have a question. Wait, not a question. I have something we need to do, sooner rather than later.”

  “What?” Risa asked, suspicious.

  “Boon and Pan. We need to have a talk with them about the real world,” I said.

  “Fucking immortals,” Wally cursed.

  “Exactly. And Boon and Pan need to know, if they’re at risk—and you know they are. We all are,” I said.

  It seemed that sooner was preferential to later regarding an honest discussion with Boon and Panit. Once Wally and Risa left me alone, I called the Butterfly and asked Boon and her family over after they closed.

  I had a great deal to say, and they had a great deal to learn.

  After the restaurant closed, Boon and Pan came to visit. The air between us was thick with tension, which was unnatural.

  Panit and Boon sat uneasily on the couch, the kids outside with Gyro in the yard. Risa and Wally hovered, and Suma was present, as well, watching me with an accusatory stare. She intimately knew my wounds, and she wasn’t happy about me sitting up.

  I turned and asked Suma, “Did I speak while I was in the bed? Did I say anything that seemed even more detached from reality than you anticipated?” My tone was cautiously bland. This was new to all of us, and I was not only exposing myself to risk, but Risa and Wally as well.

  Risa intervened as I deliberated how to begin. “You know I am a realist, yes?”

  When Boon nodded, Risa went on. “Ring was attacked by a woman who is not entirely a woman. She is . . . she is a person, a being, very evil. I couldn’t tell you what she is, exactly, but what is important right now is that she is not alone. She is a type of killer who is or was human at one point, but something changed her body into a new form. This new form regards us as glorified cattle. Pan, every story you’ve heard as a child, be it a spirit or beast or something else, they are here. They have always been here, and Wally and Ring and I seek and kill them. No matter what shape or name they take, we’ve always believed that the three of us were too strong, clever, fast, or even lucky, to ever be seriously harmed. In fourteen years of this life, none of us have been scared for more than a second. Until now. I can see it on Ring’s face. I know him more intimately than a lover, and I can tell you know. The things that we hunt? In the night, the day? This is different in a bad way, and, simply by knowing us, we are fearful that you may come to harm.” Risa paused and looked intently at their faces.

  Suma had a question on her tongue, but Boon silenced her with a gentle touch on the forearm.

  Boon turned to me. “Spirits, bad things from stories? They are”—she waved vaguely—“all around us? And you kill them? How? Why?” It was a reality so divergent from five minutes ago that her voice was soft with shock. Pan sat mute, his eyes flicking to the yard, where the kids sat with Gyro between them.

  Wally followed his gaze and spoke up. “They are safe here, Pan, just as they are when they are with you.” He shook his head lightly as if to clear a fog.

  Suma recovered quickest and asked, “Ring, if these beings are supernatural, how did you discover you could kill them?”

  I eased back on the cushion and considered how to tell the story, then decided on the simple truth. “I was twelve. My mom and dad brought me here for vacation, to a little hotel over on the Intracoastal. I would fish while they read or napped, and I was on the water’s edge when I heard someone approach.”

  “Were you alone?” Boon asked.

  “Yes. Trapped by the water, too. There were big rocks that blocked my path, and then the man blocked the way up. He waved at me with his fingertips, and every nerve in my body told me he was—bad. Wrong. Something wasn’t right, and I knew it,” I said.

  “Did he say anything?” Boon asked.

  “He asked me what I was doing so far from home, and then he started moving toward me. He was in his 50s, with white hair and deeply tanned. He moved strangely, and then I smelled him. He smelled like death, down there under the Australian pines and the salt water. I grabbed my knife—you know the one, the fishing knife that my uncle gave me—and when he charged me, I buried it in his chest. He wasn’t alive, but the knife killed him anyway. I think part of the reason it stopped him was me. I wasn’t afraid. I was just—”

  “Doing what was natural?” Risa asked.

  “Yeah. It felt natural. I felt the shock of the blow go up my arm, and then he slid down the rock. His face was torn up by the coral rock, and he was wearing makeup. His flesh was white. A ghoul, I think, and when he rolled down to the water, he dissolved. Like ashes,” I said.

  “Did you feel the change afterward?” Risa asked.

  “Change?” Boon said, her brow drawn in confusion. “What kind of change?”

  Risa let a breath trickle from her lips, then rubbed her hands together, thinking. “These undying? Immortals? When we kill them, their, ah—their power comes to Ring. And then he shares it with us, and we are—well, we’re becoming different.”

  “But not evil?” Pan asked.

  “No. Not at all. You know us, Pan,” I said.

  He shrugged, practical as ever. “Then good. The dead things are dead, and you are not. I see no problem with this.”

  Boon nodded, even though I knew they would have to process the entire revelation more, but for now, their faces were tolerant, if not accepting.

  “If you killed the dead thing and found out you could fight them, what happened next?” Boon asked.

  “I left my childhood under the pines. But I kept my knife,” I said.

/>   Boon smiled, her eyes cutting toward her children. “Good.”

  It was full dark when we were done talking, and Wally cleared her throat in dismissal. “I know that there may be more questions, but they can wait. Ring is tired. Risa, you go to your room. I will stay with Ring. In the morning, we will talk again. For now, rest.”

  Her tone crackled with authority, and she slid past our friends who filed obediently from my room, saying their goodbyes in various degrees of thoughtful shock. Risa patted my arm and asked Wally if we needed anything.

  Wally placed a bottle of water next to the bed, but it wasn’t for me. Wordlessly, she disrobed, then put on a t-shirt and climbed into bed. She rested on an elbow, looking at me softly. “We will not allow this thing to happen again, you know. We will be too vigilant, and Risa is smoldering with her anger. You know this.”

  I nodded, drifting with the weakness borne of healing. “We take care of each other. Thank you for staying.” It didn’t seem adequate, even to me, knowing how close we were. The bond superseded normalcy and edged into a connection that was forged rather than grown. We had seen too much and disguised our fears with glibness and play. That time was gone.

  Wally cocked one coltish leg on my stomach and began dragging her fingers across my brow. It was intimacy and caring in the purest state. Her hair lay on my shoulder, like a breeze of spun gold. She kissed me softly, lifting a brow as if to ask if I was well enough to go on.