Life Cycle (8 page)

“So why isn’t she dead yet? You’ve had plenty of
time alone with her. You didn’t take the opportunity to take
her?”

“I did.” Yet again he was glad for the invisibility
that cloaked them. He couldn’t tell anybody this if they could see
his face.

“And she’s not dead because....”
Luc seemed to be taking Cain’s decision to kill her well,
especially since she was Anna’s best friend. In the end, Luc could
be a pragmatist if need be, and he was always interested in the
greater good. And they
were
brothers. Despite their differences, there were
some issues they were one on.

Cain fought with himself over whether to share the
next bit, but the need to tell somebody won over the inner voice
that urged him to keep quiet. “Lucien, she’s two thousand.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Nevermind.”

They both materialized, hidden behind a copse of
trees a few blocks from the small town Montana crime scene.

“No, tell me what this is about,” his brother
said.

Cain looked off into the distance. “She’s just
unique, all right? And she’s strong. Did you know she can resist my
thrall even with her shields down? Not a lot, but enough to make
snarky commentary.”

Luc laughed, the pieces coming together. “You want to
keep her.”

“No! I do not want to keep her. She’s the enemy. I’m
not you. I don’t fall for my food. I don’t get involved with
witches. I’m just... not bored with her yet. She can’t come in and
demand I release her from what she is. I don’t get that option. Why
should she? Why should she get to do some magic of her own free
will that makes her immortal and not have to deal with those
consequences? I should torture the hell out of her for even
asking.”

Luc snorted. “Please. She’d drop your ass with that
energy ball magic she does. You can’t take her if she doesn’t want
to be taken, and you like that. I know you. You like a
challenge.”

“Can we please stop psychoanalyzing me now? I
shouldn’t have said anything.” He couldn’t imagine spilling his
guts to one of the other demons, not even Daria or Jackson. Daria
would just blab. That succubus could be such a gossip.

Luc clapped a hand on Cain’s back. “No, I’m glad you
confided in me. It makes it feel more like old times between
us—before I was trapped in the house, I mean. Not old times when we
were human.”

The demon leader laughed, the memory of their human
days fuzzy by now. “I don’t know why I cared so much what the man
upstairs thought about me. You know if it was down to him and you
again, I’d pick you.”

“I know.”

“Don’t tell Anna about any of this. That’s an
official order.”

Luc’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to give me an
official order. I won’t say anything.”

With that off his chest, Cain went invisible again.
Luc followed suit, and they made their way through the trees to the
house with the police tape around it. A group of reporters had
gathered and were furiously taking notes, their cameras
recording.

Cain moved around the perimeter far from the
mechanical eyes. Sometimes human cameras caught things—not a full
demon, but moving streaks or balls of light, or what humans who
were into ghost hunting liked to called orbs. Who knew why a demon
should show up as light on a human camera? One would think it would
be puffs of dark smoke or something else sinister, but if this
thing was going where the TV reports he’d seen so far suggested,
they didn’t need more clues to fuel the fire.

The two of them passed through the wall into the
house from the back, and made their way to the room where the body
had been. The investigators were in the hallway.

“Great, the body’s already at the morgue,” Luc said,
not at all happy about it.

“Probably not much of interest on the body, anyway.
Let’s just search here. We might find something to give Anthony at
the meeting tonight.” He hated working with a half-breed. Hated it.
But the winds were changing. It felt as if something dramatically
bad was about to happen. As much as he loathed the idea, he
couldn’t afford to be too good to work with a vampire.

The investigators in the hallway talked for a few
more minutes, then went outside to face the reporters, locking the
doors behind them. When they were gone, the demons
materialized.

“I’ll check this room,” Cain said. “You check the
rest of the house.”

Luc gave a curt nod and went into the hallway. Cain
was glad for the peace. Maybe telling his brother had been a
mistake. Of course, Luc was going to see it differently from how he
meant it. He didn’t even know how he meant it. If he’d waited, in a
week Tam would be dead. Nobody would have had to know about any of
it. But it was lonely keeping everything to himself. Luc was the
one demon he could confide in without feeling weak.

Cain went through doors and closets, shuffled through
some papers on the dresser, and took in the room in general. A
Victorian-style lamp had been knocked over. Blood coated the bed.
He moved closer. Something was off.

“Luc!”

The other demon yelled from down the hallway,
“Yeah?”

“She wasn’t killed here. It was somewhere else, then
she was transported.” In this neighborhood, how would he have
accomplished it? It wasn’t as if the house were isolated. Some type
of cloaking spell or glamour maybe? “I’m going to talk to the
neighbor next door. You keep looking here.”

Cain dematerialized and went back through the wall
where he’d come in. The investigators didn’t seem to realize the
body had been moved. The difference in how the scene would appear
was subtle, but he’d seen thousands of years of human barbarism.
Given the ritualistic nature of the killing, the blood patterns
would have been different. It was a good misdirect, though. It
would fool a human.

The killer had brought her in, arranged her, then
messed up the room to make it look like the struggle had happened
here. Given how convincing the scene was, who would assume a second
location? The more locations, the more chances of getting
caught.

Depending on time of death, anything that had
happened more recently at the house might not have been considered
important—assuming the police had worked their way through
canvassing the neighborhood. Since they’d just finished with the
house, interviews may not have started yet.

He slipped over to the house next door, noting the
investigators dealing with the media out front. Cain rang the
doorbell.

An older woman, maybe mid-seventies, answered and
looked past him, confused by her empty front porch. “H-hello?”

The demon pushed into the house, his hand clamping
down over her mouth. “Shhhh, I’m not going to hurt you.”

But his words did no good. Who wouldn’t be terrified
of an invisible being grabbing them? When the door was shut, he
materialized and put the whammy on her. It was better than a
polygraph test.

“Are you alone in the house?”

“Yes. I live by myself since Joe died,” she said,
relaxed, her eyes glassy and unfocused.

“Has anyone been by to question you yet?”

“Only you.”

Good. “Did you see anyone next door at any point
today?”

“A delivery man. I was going to check my mail, but
something made me stay inside. I looked out the window and there he
was. He scared me for some reason, so I didn’t go out.”

Perfect. Cain couldn’t read minds exactly, but the
vampires could. Anthony could go directly into her mind and
practically get a photograph of The Cycler. If that was the
delivery man’s true identity. They could ask Tam for a description,
of course, but Jack had no doubt changed his look over the years.
What the woman had seen would be most accurate.

His eyes fixed on the old woman’s. “You will sleep
until I come for you. You will not wake up otherwise, no matter
what happens.”

The woman went unconscious, and the demon caught her
before she hit the floor. He took her back to her room, laid her on
her bed, and locked the front door before going back to the crime
scene.

“Cain? Is that you?” Luc called from downstairs.

“Yeah. You won’t believe my luck. I found a possible
witness...” As he spoke he moved toward his brother’s voice.

A door popped open with stairs leading down to the
basement. Luc’s eyes were wide when they met his. “I hit the mother
lode.”

Cain followed his brother downstairs. It wasn’t an
exaggeration. The basement was filled with magical accoutrements of
all sorts and an impressive array of books, some of them clearly
from other dimensions. A few looked like some Cain had in the
libraries of his own dimension.

“When I first got down here, it was just a musty old
basement, but then this all appeared. Who do you think put up the
glamour?”

“It had to be The Cycler,” Cain said. “Any glamour
done by the deceased would have dropped as soon as she’d died.”
Glamours took a lot of energy to maintain. It seemed a waste of
good magical energy for the occupant of the home. “Why would Jack
bother if he wants to reveal the truth to the world?”

Luc’s eyes lit with excitement. “Because he’s having
two different conversations. He left this clue for us. Maybe not us
specifically, but someone from Anthony’s group. I’d put money on
it.”

In the center of the room, on a weathered wooden
table, was a rolled out scroll of parchment. A magic book at the
top and bottom of the scroll held it open and flat. It was a list
of the members of Jack’s coven with a line drawn through each name
and a date beside it. The names were listed in the order they’d
been killed, with the newest addition at the bottom: a woman named
Naomi.

Underneath Naomi’s name were the
names of the two remaining cyclers besides Jack. The last name on
the list was
Tamar.
Little hearts had been drawn beside Tam’s name in blood—no
doubt blood from the latest victim. Cain growled. Why were hearts
beside Tam’s name?

“Go look for a plastic storage bag in the
kitchen—the kind that zips,” he ordered.

While Luc was gone, Cain took in the rest of the
basement. Would more investigators be by to find this? He couldn’t
imagine how someone wouldn’t stumble upon it eventually. The
basement had to be cleared out, especially the more esoteric
books.

Most of the other things looked like your average
occult-shop fare. Though, with the possible outing of the
preternatural world, a complete absence of occult objects would be
safer. When Luc returned, Cain carefully rolled up the scroll and
sealed it in the bag. Then the two demons dematerialized, slipped
out the back of the house, and woke the old lady.

“You’re a very nice looking young gentleman,” the
old lady said, her fingertips trailing over Cain’s cheek when he
woke her. “I bet you have a lot of lady friends.”

The demon chuckled. “Ma’am, you don’t know the half
of it.”

Chapter Four

When they got back to the demon dimension Cain said,
“Take her straight to Anthony so he can get a picture of who she
saw. I’ll be there soon.” He’d been in too many time zones today,
but he was sure sunset would arrive soon in Cary Town. Either way,
Luc could hold her at the penthouse until the vampire king
rose.

Luc led the old woman away, and Cain stopped off in
his tent and wrote down the crime scene address. When he returned,
about fifty demons waited with expectant looks. It was nearing
feeding time, and some of them lived in the human dimension, so
getting this many together had been a near miracle, courtesy of
Daria.

He handed the paper to the succubus. “Go to this
address and make sure you go in invisible. We don’t need any
witnesses. The victim’s basement is filled with occult tools and
books, some of them highly sensitive. Clear out the basement and
bring it all to my tent. I’ll deal with it. It’s too dangerous for
the humans to find. I don’t want so much as a sage stick or jar of
salt left behind. If any humans discover it, wipe their memories
and relocate them, but don’t kill. We don’t need more
attention.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” She turned to the
assembled demons. “Let’s move out.” The others followed her to the
dimensional portal.

Cain moved with purpose to Tam’s tent, the ziplock
bag clutched in his hand, careful not to damage the parchment
inside. The tent was empty, but Jackson and Mace stood guard
anyway.

“Where are they?” he snarled at Jackson as he fought
with the tent flap to get out.

“Anna went to Cary Town for the meeting. I don’t
know where Tam is.”

Cain felt the glow come to his eyes as the fire rose
up in them. “Do you understand the concept of what a guard does?
Nobody goes in or out without my say-so.” He had half a mind to put
them in the caves, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Jackson
was loyal. It wasn’t like him to defy orders. Cain took a deep
breath and closed his eyes, willing the glow to go out of them so
he could think straight.

“Believe me, the last thing I want to do is cross
you, but she’s too strong. We can’t control her. She threatened us
with energy balls and curses. I could have rounded up more demons,
but then we would have ended up hurting her, and you said not to.
We figured it was better to let her wander and burn off some steam.
She can’t get out of the dimension.”

Cain looked to the other demon, who only nodded to
confirm the story. “If she comes back before I find her, tell her
to stay put. I need her for something.”

He wandered the desert for over an hour, moving at
full demon speed but coming up empty. She couldn’t have moved
faster or covered more ground in the time he’d been away. Had Tam
somehow gotten a demon to help her? Because she wasn’t in his
dimension. If she was out, The Cycler would find her and they were
all fucked.