Destroyer of Worlds (4 page)

“
What nonsense is
this?”

I don’t want Forsyth knowing what we can do.
If he thinks these things can keep us contained, it’s going to make
it a lot easier for us to walk out at the end of the week.

“
Ah. We are tricking
him.”

The Specs looked at Forsyth. Caleb shuffled
back from the sigil, trying to appear as if he wasn’t doing it on
purpose. Why couldn’t he have been an actor instead of a
painter?

“
No need to make your guest unhappy,”
Forsyth said. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Jansen. The
guards will escort you back to your room until you’re
needed.”

Caleb went back out. As the door shut behind
him, he overheard Forsyth say, “I think you’ll agree this has been
most informative.”

It sure has,
asshole
.

* * *

Forsyth finally returned John’s calls on
Monday afternoon.

John spent the rest of Sunday arguing with
himself. He trusted Caleb, absolutely. But Caleb had never trusted
SPECTR. He’d worked with the agency only because his other option
was sitting in one of their cells. With Forsyth taking him into
custody, of course his paranoia had kicked into high gear. If Caleb
had just asked Forsyth about the smell of NHEs, he probably would
have gotten a straight answer.

NHEs aside, John was required to report a
security breach. Not doing so meant a serious violation.

And yet, he hadn’t.

Over the years, he’d developed pretty good
instincts. Those instincts had insisted Gray posed no danger to
him, even though all logic said otherwise, and they’d been right.
Now, they told him to listen to Caleb.

Too much was on the line to trust gut
feeling, though. The only other thing he could think to do was call
Forsyth. Not to report the breach, at least not right away, but to
get a feel for the situation.

When the phone rang, it startled John out of
the introspective fugue in which he’d spent most of the day.
Forsyth’s voice greeted him as soon as he picked it up. “You wanted
to speak to me, Starkweather? My secretary said it was urgent.”

“
Yes, sir,” John replied, straightening
in his chair even though Forsyth couldn’t see him. “I know you’re a
busy man, so I’ll get right to the point. When I spoke with Caleb,
he said you intend to exorcise him Saturday morning.” Which Forsyth
no doubt knew; RD had certainly monitored the call. “I’d like to
request details on the exorcism ceremony.”

Forsyth’s smooth voice held a slight warning
chill. “The drakul is no longer your case, Special Agent
Starkweather.”

“
Yes, sir, I understand. But I’d like
to be prepared if I ever run across something like this
again.”

“
Should such a thing ever happen, you
can put in a request for the information.” The chill turned
outright cold. “Until such a time, the details are on a need to
know basis.”

John’s mouth went dry. This didn’t make any
sense. Exorcism rituals weren’t classified information. Even if
they had been, surely the people in the field would be the first to
need to know them. Why wouldn’t Forsyth share it?

Unless he’d lied, and the ritual didn’t
really exist.

“
I see,” John said quietly.

“
I’m glad to hear it. Now, if you’ll
excuse me, I have other matters which need my attention.” Forsyth
hung up without waiting for John’s reply or saying
goodbye.

John put the phone back in its cradle, then
sat staring at it, as if it could open a psychic link from his mind
to the assistant director’s to let him know what was really going
on.

If Forsyth didn’t have a means of exorcising
Gray, why lie about it? Just to keep Caleb quiet for the next few
days, so RD could continue their tests? And if so, did they intend
to kill Caleb and Gray when time ran out?

Gray had smelled other NHEs there. Did they
tie in somehow?

John’s heart sped, jagged spikes of
fear-induced adrenaline moving through his blood. Caleb and Gray
were both in danger, and he couldn’t warn them, couldn’t save
them…

But they already knew the situation, probably
better than he did. Caleb wouldn’t just meekly go like a lamb to
the slaughter. Did he have some plan in mind to escape? He’d said
he would call John on Friday, but not how or from where.

Goddess, this sucked, not knowing for sure,
not being able to communicate. Being helpless.

No. There was one thing he could do. He might
not be able to get them away from Forsyth and RD, but when Caleb
and Gray escaped, they would need an exorcism right away. Which
meant John had to be ready.

The phone rang, making his heart rate ratchet
up even higher.

“
Get in my office, Starkweather,”
Kaniyar said when he answered. “Right now. You and I need to have a
little chat.”

* * *

“
Sit down,” Kaniyar told
him.

John sank into the uncomfortable chair across
Kaniyar’s desk. District Chief Indira Kaniyar wore her glossy black
hair pulled tightly back from her face, as if to make sure no one
meeting her could miss the four white scars marring the bronze skin
of her face. As the story went, a therianthrope left those scars
back when she’d been a field agent.

She regarded him with dark eyes which seemed
to strip him to the bone, even though she was an exorcist, not an
empath. “I just received an interesting call from Assistant
Director Forsyth,” she said. “He seems to think my agents don’t
have enough work to do.”

Oh shit. “I only wanted to request—”

“
I don’t care if you wanted to sing him
Happy Birthday,” Kaniyar snapped. “The drakul is no longer under
the jurisdiction of this office. I will not receive any more
reports of you working on, thinking about, or expressing interest
in any case which is not yours. Are we clear?”

He wanted to protest. Wanted to tell her
something was off about the situation at RD.

But if he did, she’d want to know how he
knew. And if he told her, she’d want to know why he didn’t report
the security breach immediately. He’d end up stripped of his badge
and gun, probably prosecuted, destroying any chance of exorcising
Caleb.

“
Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“
Good. And since you obviously have too
much time on your hands, there are a few abandoned buildings in
this city which need to be checked for ghouls.”

“
You’re putting me on the ghoul squad?”
he exclaimed, caught between shock and anger. It was shit work, the
sort of thing they gave newbies to get rid of their shine. For an
experienced agent, ghoul squad was either an insult or a
punishment, or both.

“
Yes. Take McNamara and Ward with
you.”

Great. Now Sean and Tiffany would be pissed
at him, too. He took a deep breath, carefully keeping his voice
level and his hands relaxed, instead of clenched into fists. “With
all due respect, Sean and Tiffany don’t deserve it. They just
helped take down a wendigo. Putting them on ghoul squad with me
is—”

“
My decision, Starkweather.” Kaniyar’s
eyes narrowed dangerously. “You’ve always been an exemplary agent.
You’ve bent the rules a few times, but you’ve always known where
the line is. Now is not the time to forget.”

What did she mean by that? “Yes, ma’am.”

“
Good.” She sat back in her chair.
“Don’t worry about informing McNamara and Ward—I’ll tell them
myself. First thing in the morning, I want you back on the job,
ready to hunt some ghouls.”

Gray stares at the mortal in front of him and
wonders if he should have bothered manifesting after all. But he is
bored and growing annoyed. And this exorcist insists on blowing
garlic powder in their face, which upsets Caleb, and thus is not to
be tolerated.

“
I do not like you,” he informs the
mortal, in case the—man? Yes, male—in case the man might think
otherwise.

The exorcist staggers back, eyes going wide.
He smells of fear and sour sweat, and his eyes are not brilliantly
blue like John’s, but a sort of green which might be mildly
interesting, if Gray were inclined to find it thus. He isn’t.

The mortal starts chanting, shaping
energy and trying to turn it into a weapon to drag Gray free.
Foolishness.
Do these mortals not
understand yet? This will not work.

“
Forsyth said they wanted to
try, just to see.”

“
This will not work,” Gray informs the
mortal. When he had said as much to John, John had answered. This
one does not, as if he believes ignoring Gray will somehow make him
vanish. Mortals often fool themselves so.

This is tedious.
He would not have chosen to spend his last days in a living
body doing this. He would have preferred to run and jump, to feel
the delight of muscles moving with perfect ease. To memorize all
the colors in the world, to feel textures against his skin. To hunt
demons and eat them, the act elevated to one of ecstasy.

Mainly, he wishes they could have passed the
time copulating with John. Even though it would not be wise to
manifest during the act, he could at least watch and feel, hovering
just beneath Caleb’s skin. To be held after, and perhaps, very
quickly, peek out through Caleb’s eyes and touch John’s face, after
they were both deeply asleep.

“
You did?
Creepy.”

Only once.

“
Still creepy.”

But instead he is here, and there are demons
here, so there is that, at least. Perhaps he will have one final
chance to feed with Caleb, if they are lucky.

“
Not really my idea of
luck.”

And this is not mine.

Enough. The exorcist looks even more worried
than before, and the stink of fear is sharper. There is no point to
any of this.

Gray folds himself back inside and leaves
Caleb to deal with them.

* * *

John pulled the big, black SPECTR SUV up to
the curb in front of one of the addresses Kaniyar gave them. The
place lay close to where he’d met Caleb and Gray, just one more
reminder of the hole which had opened up in his life.

He worried about them constantly. Whether
they were okay, and if he’d ever see either of them again. Beyond
that, he simply missed them, like someone had amputated a part of
his body, leaving behind only phantom pain in the form of an empty
house and cold bed. He’d slept like crap and resented every minute
spent working on shit like this, instead of trying to find the
right exorcism ritual, the one which would finally work.

But if he took the week off, Kaniyar would
get suspicious. He never took personal time, and ducking out now
would surely result in her looking closer into his business than he
wanted. Maybe he’d get away with calling in sick on Friday, but not
yet.

“
I can’t believe this bullshit,”
Tiffany said, tossing her braided hair back. John gritted his
teeth. As if the rest of his life falling apart hadn’t been bad
enough, Tiffany took her sudden demotion to ghoul squad exactly the
way he’d predicted. “I swear, Starkweather, I should’ve set you on
fire back in school, when I could blame it on lack of control of my
abilities.”

“
It isn’t John’s fault,” Sean snapped
from the back seat. “Kaniyar got her ass chewed out over the
drakul, and now she’s taking it out on us.”

Tiffany’s full lips twisted in annoyance. “Of
course it’s his fault. He’s the one who couldn’t keep his dick in
his pants.”

“
Fuck you, Tiffany.” He needed to set
an example as the agent in charge, but to hell with it. He’d had
enough of being responsible.

“
Not your type,” she replied.
“Thankfully.”

“
Gray saved your life,” he said, hands
tightening on the steering wheel until his knuckles showed white.
“The wendigo would’ve torn you to shreds and eaten whatever it
could fit in its mouth, if not for him.”

“
He’s
not the
one I’m blaming,” she shot back. “Screw this. Let’s just get it
over with.”

She climbed out of the car, slamming the door
behind her. Sean leaned forward to put a hand on John’s shoulder.
“Ignore her. Kaniyar will get over things in a few days and let us
off ghoul duty. Tiffany will still be a bitch, but at least she’ll
be a bitch we won’t have to put up with every day.”

“
Yeah.” Sekhmet give him strength, John
didn’t know how he would get through this. “You’re
right.”

He unsnapped his seat belt and climbed out of
the SUV. Tiffany waited impatiently near the entrance. The ugly
cinderblock building had probably started life as some kind of
business, but the area went south long ago, and only liquor stores,
pawnshops, and the occasional off-brand fast food joint remained
open. Iron bars still covered the windows, but scratches around the
door suggested someone had broken inside that way. The scratches
didn’t look particularly new; no telling how long ghouls had
infested the place.

Assuming they did. Gray would know. Hell,
Gray would probably have already charged in and eaten half the pack
by now.

How was he holding up in captivity? Better or
worse than Caleb?

“
Are you coming?” Tiffany asked. “Or do
I have to do this by myself?”

John swore silently. He needed to focus.
Unlike creatures such as wendigos or therianthropes, ghouls were
low-level NHEs and generally ate only carrion, but they’d fight
back if cornered. Their teeth, made for shearing through bone,
could take off an arm. If John let himself get distracted, the
whole team would be in danger.