Satan's Sword (Imp Book 2) (35 page)

“We’ve got someone we need to track down.” He perked his ears and tilted his head expectantly.

“Some guy has been hunting in my territory, killing my human property.” Boomer looked outraged.

“He’s human, and there will be a lot of competing scents to sort through. I’ll need you to use your special skills to pull out the human who has killed recently. It probably won’t have been an emotional kill, or heat of the moment. He doesn’t know his victims. He may feel a sense of joy and excitement at killing them, or he may feel nothing at all. I doubt he feels angry, but he might be driven by an impersonal, generalized anger. We might need to check out a couple trails until we find the right one. I know you’ll be able to find this guy for me.”

Boomer wiggled his whole body in excitement. He loved this sort of thing, and I again felt a twinge of guilt that for decades he’d been reduced to chasing rabbits and foxes. I might let Boomer make the kill. He’d enjoy that.

It was dark as we pulled up to the row houses. Reed waited outside with his arm in a sling. I was pretty sure the gunshot wound had healed by this point. Candy said werewolves healed at a remarkable rate. The sling was a good touch though. If the guy came back, he’d expect Reed to be wounded and at less than his best. He’d be wrong.

“I kinda hope you don’t catch him and he comes back here so I can have a shot at him.” Anger radiated like waves from Reed. “I like to take care of my own business, you know. I don’t like to call you in like this.”

I could feel his frustration. Reed was more than capable of handling this guy. He could probably track the guy better than Boomer, since he’d had a good smell on him. I’d be chafing, too. I remember how irritating it was this past summer when I hadn’t been allowed to kill Althean, when Gregory had effectively leashed me.

“I don’t want you running afoul of your contract,” I warned Reed. “Trust me, if I wasn’t worried about you winding up dead with angel wings on your forehead, I’d sic you on the guy. It’s personal for you, and I hate taking this kill out from under you, but Candy would never forgive me if I let you do this.”

“Even if you didn’t have a special dispensation, you’d still go after this guy,” Reed complained. “You’d take the risk and give the angels the finger. You wouldn’t put up with their nonsense, not when someone attacked you. Not when someone snatched a human you were supposed to guard and then rubbed your nose in it. I can’t stand sitting on my paws like this. I’m a werewolf. I need to act like a werewolf.”

“I’m sorry, Reed,” I told him. I meant it. “Believe me, I understand. Now is not the time to be giving the angels the finger. Wait until it’s something really worth dying for. Until then, just stay under the radar.”

Reed didn’t look convinced. I needed to talk to Candy about him. I was all for rebellion, but he really shouldn’t throw his life away on a stupid human who was foolish enough to shoot him.

“Kitty is waiting for us around the side by the canal,” Reed said.

He led Boomer and me around the block of row houses to the canal side. Sure enough, there was Kitty, shapeless in her huge green coat with the disturbing scarf ends dangling like wasted legs from her crotch. She looked me over as she had before, then performed the same level of scrutiny on Boomer.

“Sniff here.” She pointed to a corner of the eroded cement walkway along the canal.

Boomer went to where she indicated and sniffed in a loud snuffling way as he swung his head back and forth. He padded around in a square grid, widening out from the central point and sorting through the scents. He looked up at me and pawed the ground.

“Three people who have killed have been here within the last twenty four hours,” I translated for the others.

Boomer did a complicated paw, head shake and whine combination.

“The first killed with hate in his heart,” I told Reed and Kitty. “We’ll track him first since his is the strongest scent.” I looked at Reed. “There’s a two in three chance we’re wrong. Can you stay here? If he comes back, you’ve got full license to defend yourself. And I define “defend” pretty much any way you want to define it.”

Reed seemed satisfied with that possible scenario and stayed at the row houses as Kitty and I followed Boomer. We walked a few blocks and around the back of an old cannery where a tent was set up. Boomer looked up at me, and I motioned for him to catch and hold the man. My hound tore through the tent like it was butter and we heard a man’s shriek, then silence. Walking up, I pulled aside the torn tent piece to see Boomer in partial form with massive head and shoulders, hackles raised, and long beads of spittle dropping from his bared fangs. He had the man locked in place with his yellow eyed stare.

The man looked terrified. I couldn’t tell if he regularly wet his pants, or if he’d done so in response to Boomer’s snarling appearance. He was tall and unexpectedly well-fed for a man living in a tent behind an abandoned cannery. His personal hygiene left a lot to be desired though. His beard and hair were matted and streaked with grey amid the dirt. His hands were practically black. The only clean things were the whites of his eyes.

“Hold him Boomer. Good boy.” He wagged his tail, which looked odd with his ferocious front half. “Is this him?” I asked Kitty.

She peered at the man. “Can I touch him?”

I nodded, and Kitty went over to run her hand down his cheek and across his mouth. Her hands blurred slightly as they touched his skin, becoming slightly transparent and disappearing when she pushed against his matted hair.

“Cold,” he said, shuddering slightly. Softly, she chanted something, then again ran her hand over his face.

“No.” She shook her head with regret. “This man has murdered. He killed a man in the group he used to camp with. The man slandered him, stole his belongings, and would set traps to hurt him and make him look foolish in front of the others. He planned for many weeks and killed the man, leaving his body in the woods and taking his belongings before he left. He has only killed the one man.”

I sensed the man’s alarm at this revelation of his darkest secret. I’m sure he thought he would soon be dead. I didn’t care about his crime. It wasn’t my problem. I wasn’t an angel of justice. Let someone else deal with the dude’s actions.

“Okay. Sorry about your tent buddy,” I told the man. “Boomer, let him go. Let’s try again.”

The guy collapsed against the floor and this time he did pee his pants as Boomer let him free. We walked out and headed back to the row houses, making sure we flagged down Reed, telling him that we’d hit a dead end.

“Two more to go.”

Boomer once again sniffed the ground. He’d reverted to his regular Plott hound form as we left the cannery. He was a fierce looking hellhound and very attractive, in a horrifying way, when he was in partial form, but I really admired his glossy brindle coat and lean athletic form as a dog. His thin tail swung like a whip back and forth, and his jowls puffed in and out as he inhaled the scents. I hoped he continued to choose this form now that he had the freedom to change. I rather liked it.

Boomer looked up and did the complicated head and foot movements again.

“This one killed with no emotion at all.” I translated for the others.

I didn’t tell them everything though. Boomer had indicated that this murderer somehow felt it was his right to take life at will. As if he were entitled. I remembered Kitty’s words from before and felt a chill of anticipation. This had to be our guy.

“I don’t think this is the guy,” I lied. “But we should follow it up anyway. Reed, can you stay here again?”

Reed looked suspicious. I was a terrible liar. He nodded, though, and headed back to the front of the building to make his security rounds. Kitty grinned at me.

“I thought you guys were supposed to be good at lying?”

“With all the practice I’ve had you’d think I’d be good at it. Unfortunately, I truly suck.”

We followed Boomer as he trailed along, nose to the ground, in a convoluted pattern throughout downtown and across the park. At the end of the street, Boomer indicated that the guy had gotten into a car.

“Are we at a dead end?” I asked him, frustrated.

Boomer grinned and shook his head. In a blink, a two-headed hellhound stood in front of me. Drool dangled in long threads from shiny fangs and his yellow eyes glowed. He was so beautiful with his sharp rough spikes of brindled fur and massive shoulder and hip joints. His paws were the size of dinner plates and his heads came to my shoulder. One head sniffed the air and the other sniffed the ground. It sounded like a freight train. I looked over at Kitty. She was unfazed at Boomer’s new appearance.

Boomer began trotting and I broke into a jog to follow. I wasn’t sure how Kitty managed to keep up with her voluminous layers of clothing, but she managed, almost floating above the ground as she ran. I made sure I kept Boomer on the inside of the traffic, where his interesting appearance would be partially screened, but I wasn’t terribly concerned. Internet videos of a two-headed dog jogging in the night weren’t high on my list of worries right now.

We trotted past the military base, past several new subdivisions, and outside the city limits before Boomer turned up a side road into the mountains. The road wound around the wooded properties and became gravel. Finally, the hellhound stopped and looked up an obscured path. There was an area on the side of the road where the brush had been cleared and tire tracks indicated a regular parking area. It was empty of car or truck.

“I think the guy might not be home,” I told Kitty, pointing at the tire tracks. “It is his normal hunting hour. We might have a long wait ahead of us.” She nodded and we both followed Boomer up the narrow path.

I’d expected to see an old trailer, or a tent, or some dilapidated shack. I was surprised, though, when the path opened out onto a nicely mowed lawn and an attractive brick rancher. There may have been a driveway at one point, as indicated by the small garage attached to the house, but the asphalt had been ripped out long ago and nothing marred the green lawn and woods surrounding the house. This dirt path appeared to be the only access.

Boomer did quick surveillance while Kitty and I remained out of sight at the wooded edge of the lawn. He returned and indicated that our guy wasn’t home.

“I’m going to break into his place and wait for him inside,” I told Kitty. “You may want to stay hidden. I’m not sure what we’re going to find in there, or what will happen when he gets home and finds us inside.”

Kitty nodded.

“Of course, since you’re already dead, he can’t exactly kill you.” I was taking a guess here. I’d never met a ghost before, and wasn’t exactly sure.

She grinned at me in confirmation, her teeth jagged and blackened. Then she turned and vanished into the trees, fading away to nothing at the edge of the woods. It was an impressive trick, especially for a homeless woman in a huge coat, even if she was a ghost.

Boomer and I walked right up to the front door. There were four locks on it. The standard handle lock, two deadbolt locks, and a sliding bar lock. Gritting my teeth, I sent tendrils of awareness in and around the door to explore further.

This summer, I’d had my hand melted and come rather close to death from touching a hex. The experience left me rather wary of sticking my personal energy into houses and doorways. Still, it was the best way to examine the entrance. I’d assumed the guy was just a human, but I wanted to make sure. No sense in stumbling in to find a witch, a sorcerer, or another demon had put unexpected traps on the entrance. I felt nothing but the physical barriers and proceeded to unlock them. It would have been quicker to just melt the locks, convert the mechanisms into putty or dust, or to blast the door open, but it would have ruined the lovely surprise I was planning.

I was so excited. Would he be like Ted Bundy? A genius killer with the soul of a poet? Would there be heads in the freezer, or bodies buried under the crawl space? What amazing things would I find behind the door?

Once inside, I carefully set the locks back in place and surveyed the house as best as I could in the dark. The guy had left no lights on at all. With the neighbors so far away, any light I turned on would shine like a beacon.

The house was unremarkable, but I kept looking, sure there would be a freakish lair somewhere. I peered at the pictures and books on the shelves beside the wood stove. Some popular mystery paperbacks and a few romances. A Bible, various magazines, and puzzle books. The pictures showed an older aged man and woman, one of a black Labrador, and a rather nice sunset on the beach. Maybe Boomer was wrong? This didn’t look like the house of a killer.

I picked up the phone and called Wyatt. “Hey, Sam,” he said. “How’s your hunt going? Is Reed ok?”

“Yeah, he’s just pissed that he’s stuck behind while I’m doing the hunting,” I told him in a hushed voice. “Any sign of Sobronoy?”

“None so far. I’ve got everything locked down tight and a camera on the road coming in.”

Good. Maybe we had some time. This back-to-back killing was starting to wear me down a bit.

“Hey, do me a favor and check out this house? Boomer says this is it, but it just looks too normal.” I gave him the address and heard him tapping in the background.

“It’s not in the city limits, is it?” Wyatt said, half to himself. “If you went out past the army base, it’s got to be closer to Yellow Springs. But there’s nothing with that house number on that road. Let me try the roads branching from there and see if maybe the name changed at one point.”

Wyatt chatted on in one part of my mind, while another looked at the dining room and the kitchen. A silk floral arrangement was on the table, along with a decent amount of food in the cabinets. I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and tossed the cap into the trash. Might as well indulge while Wyatt was checking things for me.

“Ok, I’m looking at satellite images now, and I can see the house, but it doesn’t appear to be on the postal registry. Let me overlay the satellite images with older street maps and check the last twenty years of census and tax records and see what I can find.”