The Demon Pool (32 page)

Jim drowned his scrambled eggs in ketchup and used a
piece of toast to push them on to his fork. He felt as if he had not eaten in a
week. Saffi prepared a cup of coffee and sat it in front of him, next to a bowl
full of artificial sweetener packets.

“Cream?” she asked.

His mouth was full and he put his left hand up,
palm facing out, indicating his answer. He hurriedly chewed and swallowed.

“No. No, thanks. Black is good.”

Jim usually took his coffee with cream and some
type of sweetener, but during field operations, he had always drunk his coffee
black, both in the military and as a trooper. He had never given it much
thought. Just a personal quirk. Something about black coffee made him feel
operational.

Jim picked up the coffee mug and held it in both
hands, right below his nose. The aroma was rich and smooth. He blew on the
surface and watched tiny waves ripple across the top of the ebony liquid,
beating against the side of the mug. He took a sip, savoring its flavor. The
smell alone was almost enough to clear the last strands of morning cobwebs from
his brain. It amazed Jim what Saffi had done with instant coffee. He finished
off his eggs while Saffi ate some fresh melon and sipped from a cup of herb
tea.

“I just can’t seem to get my mind wrapped around
this whole occult-metaphysical thing,” Jim said. “I mean, I know some people
that believe in that crap, but belief doesn’t make it real.”

“Have you ever read the Bible, Jim?”

“I have an uncle who is a preacher,” Jim told
her. “Hard-core, Bible-thumping, fire-and-brimstone type. Stomped his feet,
jumped over pews. Scared the hell out of me when I was little.”

Jim made a face as if he had tasted something
bitter.

“He had a small church for a while and then he
became some kind of traveling evangelist. Sort of like a minor league,
hyperactive, Billy Graham.”

Jim sipped his coffee and continued, “He gave me
a King James Bible once. Told me to read it and believe it if I didn’t want to
end up in hell.”

Jim sat the coffee down.

“He didn’t tell me where to start, though, so I
kind of flipped through it and found the last book, the book of Revelation.
Looked like I might learn something about the future so I started reading.
Scared the crap out of me more than my uncle did. I had nightmares for a month.
I haven’t read too much of the Bible since.”

Saffi was quiet for a moment.

“Revelation is a scary book, especially if you
are fighting for the wrong side,” Saffi replied. “If you think about it, the
evidence for the occult is overwhelming. Otherwise, the only other conclusion
is that the ninety percent of the world that believes in a spiritual existence
is flat out crazy. I might believe ten or twenty percent of the world is nuts,
but not ninety. We do follow the evidence, don’t we?”

Jim nodded and answered, “We do.”

He tilted his head, nodded his agreement.

“Okay,” he continued. “I don’t believe that
ninety percent of the world is crazy, either. I might go as high as thirty,
thirty-five percent, but not ninety percent. However, I find it damn hard to
believe in witchcraft, voodoo, and all of that crap. If that stuff were real, a
whole lot more people would be using it to get what they want. I can pretty
much guarantee you that. I have never met anyone who claimed to have special
powers, or who claimed to be a witch or witch doctor, or any of that
hocus-pocus crap who was doing any better than the rest of us. If it doesn’t
work, what the heck good is it?”

Saffi smiled.

“I don’t believe individual human beings have any
special, occult powers in and of themselves,” Saffi replied. “However, the
Bible does reveal that the supernatural world exists. And, it’s pretty much
like you described before. God and his guys on one side, the devil and his on
the other. The Bible, and I think it’s John 4:24, clearly states that God
himself is a spirit. So, tens of millions of people believing in, and even
actually experiencing, a metaphysical world, is strong, corroborative evidence.
The Bible gives us one view of the supernatural world; other occult writings
give us a different view. Like many other Christians, I happen to believe the
Bible’s revelation is the correct one.”

Saffi paused, waiting for Jim’s response.

“All right, let’s say for a moment that there is
an occult world. That there are things that go bump in the night.”

Saffi interrupted him.

“I wouldn’t put it quite that way.”

“Okay, devils, demons, witches, warlocks, ghosts,
lost souls, whatever you want to call them. How do you stop something that
isn’t physical? I think what I have to deal with is the human element. After
all, I don’t know of any way to arrest a demon, a ghost, or a spirit, and I
doubt I could get a warrant. But even if I could, how would I get the handcuffs
to stay on?”

Jim could not resist poking fun at the idea.
Saffi’s face crinkled with disapproval. Jim rushed to finish his thought,
before he completely pissed her off.

“But I can sure as hell arrest flesh and blood
kidnappers and murderers.”

The crinkles went away with Saffi’s reply.

“You’re a funny guy, Jim Demore,” Saffi said.
“Look, there is no doubt that we have to deal with the human element, I can’t
argue with that. The human element is what my lab is all about, but I don’t
think we can afford to ignore the spiritual side either. At least not when it
manifests itself as tangible evil. Let’s assume, for the moment, that the
Bible’s view of good and evil is true, and that we are dealing with something
that goes beyond the simple human element and beyond something, as you put it,
that goes ‘bump’ in the night.”

“Okay,” Jim injected. “Demons and wizards it is.”

He was sure that Saffi could not have missed the
subtle mocking in his voice. He couldn’t resist.

“It’s actually demons and angels, Jim. At least
that’s the Biblical part. Evil has an occult source beyond our fallen, human
nature. Jesus and the apostles drove demons out of many people, but nothing in
the Bible says that the demonic world suddenly went away.”

Saffi’s voice became serious. “If we’re dealing
with something demonic, then it is also very old and probably very wise, at
least in comparison to us. Imagine a millennia-old network that knows every
human achievement and every human weakness, and sees everything we do or say.
They would know your successes and your failures, your strengths and
weaknesses. Every secret sin you ever committed. At least the ones outside of
your mind. The ones they could actually see or hear. The one thing they cannot
do is read your mind. Otherwise the devil would have never made the bet with
God over Job.”

“Who’s Job?”

Saffi laughed.

“Okay, now I believe you when you said you
stopped with Revelation. Job is another book in the Bible. The short version of
the story is that the devil told God that Job only loved him because of the way
God protected and blessed him. Satan argued that Job would curse God to his
face if God took away those protections. God basically told the devil to go for
it, just don’t kill him. The devil went to work, and Job had a lot of questions
about why his life suddenly turned to crap. So bad, in fact, that Job’s wife
told him to curse God and die. Some wife there. But, Job never blamed God. In
the end, God gave Job back more than he had started with. God knew Job’s heart,
Satan did not. The devil is powerful and he knows a lot, but not more than
God.”

Jim gave Saffi a thoughtful look.

“Well, I really don’t know too much about that,
but if God is the good guy you say he is, then I’m pretty sure we’re on the
right side, regardless of what I believe about the occult. I hope that is
enough.”

Saffi smiled and held Jim’s gaze.

“If we add prayer and faith, I think it will be.”

Kat Connors knew something about dingy, redneck bars
like the Pit Stop. Her mother had met her father in one in Port Tampa. Her
father, a truck driver and itinerant mechanic, had died outside of one in South
Georgia, fighting over a cocktail waitress while her mother was home, pregnant
with Kat.

Her first stepfather was a biker, who flashed a
lot of cash and sold meth and was another patron of the Port Tampa bar. He was
currently doing 25-to-life for shooting and killing an undercover cop.

The Pit Stop was a local’s bar. Located a short
distance off the interstate, south of Ft. Myers, it attracted a motley
assortment of characters — NASCAR fans, cops, local yokels, and the occasional
biker.

Kat had taken the Viper and left Bruce, which had
caused him to sulk, complain, and generally piss her off.
Poor stupid Bruce.
You’ve outlived your usefulness.

She parked at the far end of a row of pickup
trucks and cars that looked fresh from the “buy here, pay here” car lot. The
Viper looked decidedly out of place.

She entered The Pit Stop and scanned the joint.
She had never seen de la Garza up close. Her eyes swept the lounge.
There.

A voice in her head, that apparently only she
could hear, guided her. Her eyes stopped on de la Garza.

He is the one.

Pedro sat alone, away from the bar. Kat watched
him for a moment. She knew that de la Garza had spent the night with Jim Demore
at the apartment in Ft. Myers. She had scoped out the location of that
apartment, before going to the estate to get Bruce’s car.

Unfortunately, the spirit helpers who now
assisted her had not been able to enter the apartment. Something had kept them
on the outside. A power greater than the power of the disembodied spirits that
were now at her disposal. A power they were not yet able to overcome.

Regardless of that failure, the power Kat had
tapped into proved to be useful. The network informed her of Pedro’s previous
interviews with Demore. The spirits that hovered around the periphery of de la
Garza’s life were more than happy to share their knowledge.

One spirit, who specialized in depression and
hung around Pedro like an old, comfortable blanket, had much to say about the
weaknesses of Pedro de la Garza.

Her spirit helpers, her heretofore-unknown network
of metaphysical observers and messengers, provided information that, she could
never have known by herself. While candle magick had given her a new level of
power to control others, it had not made her omniscient. Not yet, anyway.

***

Bright sunlight flashed through the bar’s dim interior.
Pedro picked up the cold glass of soda, ready to wash down the first bite of
the best fish taco in Southwest Florida. A beer would have been better, but he
valued his commercial driver’s license.

He looked toward the door where an exceptionally attractive
woman had entered the bar. She stopped and looked around. Pedro immediately
felt that something was wrong. A powerful, almost overwhelming feeling of
dread. A chill walked up his spine, unnatural in the hot summer air.

Normally, an attractive woman like this would
have brought out a bit of the wolf in Pedro. He still missed his wife, even
after all these years, and he was not too old to be exempt from the normal
needs of a healthy man. The woman who entered the bar was more than enough to
stir up those needs, and probably a couple of abnormal ones as well.

However, this woman, as beautiful as she was,
gave him the same sense of impending danger he had experienced just before a
Viet Cong ambush. The bite of fish taco he still had in his mouth did not taste
good anymore.

Pedro swallowed and decided not to wait around to
find out why this woman made him feel so peculiar. He reached into his pocket
and pulled out some bills. He peeled off a twenty for a six ninety-nine tab and
threw it on the table, then hustled out a side door and into his truck. He did
not notice the Dodge Viper parked at the far end of the line of trucks and cars
as he roared out of the parking lot and onto the frontage road.

***

Baalzaric, peering through Kat’s eyes, watched Pedro almost
sprint out the door. In spite of the man’s current weaknesses, Baalzaric knew
that de la Garza had once been a warrior. He had been a fighter. A man who
could kill his enemies without hesitation. While de la Garza might seem like a
minor threat, Baalzaric would take no chances. On the journey to immortality,
there would be many small steps. The death of Pedro de la Garza would be one of
the smaller ones.

Kat left The Pit Stop, walked back to the Viper,
and slipped behind the wheel. Baalzaric provided the prompts as she drove out
of the parking lot and followed Pedro. She drove for miles, staying well behind
him as he headed south toward the Everglades.

With Kat keeping a discreet distance, Baalzaric
watched as Pedro turned off the road, his truck disappearing behind a wall of
brush. Kat slowed until she reached the point where Pedro’s truck had vanished.

She followed onto an unpaved road that was little
more than a wide trail covered by a layer of crushed shell, flanked by a jungle
of moss-covered oak trees, shrubs, and wild vines. Kat steered the Viper
through the dense, jungle-like landscape.

The crushed shell covering the road crunched under
the weight of the Viper. She drove slowly, trying to minimize the racket, and
followed the trail as it curved to the south. The jungle abruptly ended at a
clearing where Kat stopped. She kept the Viper’s nose inside the jungle wall
and turned off the engine.

***

Pedro unlocked his front door then froze for a second
and listened. He heard a noise, but it was not insects or wild animals or any
of the normal sounds he heard day and night, close to the Everglades.
Something
else?

He listened as he quietly unlocked his front door.
He heard a deep rumble followed by faint popping sounds. The noise had come
from the trail leading to the cottage.

He looked over toward where the trail emptied
into the clearing. The sun was now high and hot and the humid air shimmered at
the edges of the clearing surrounding his house.

Pedro shivered as cold sweat rolled down his
back. He squinted toward the trail and thought he saw someone standing in the
shadow of the mossy overgrowth.
Saw or imagined?

More cold sweat beaded up on his forehead and
slid over his eyebrows, forming drops that rolled around his eyes, down his
cheeks, and then splashed onto the porch. He wiped his face with his hand. His
keys jangled, breaking the now surreal silence. He looked back at the jungle
and this time saw no one.

The insects began talking again. The hot sun
pushed its warmth down on Pedro, but it was not warm enough. Cold fear followed
him into his little house.

Once inside, he locked the front door, walked
quickly to his bedroom, and opened the closet. Sitting at the back of the
closet, pushed up against the back wall, was an old olive drab, Vietnam-era
footlocker. Attached to the front latch was a modern, heavy-duty combination
lock.

Pedro knelt down and pulled the footlocker toward
the front of the closet and worked the dial of the lock. In a few seconds, he
had the lock off and opened the footlocker. A neatly folded, military-issued
blanket covered its contents. Pulling it back, Pedro exposed a long object
wrapped in an oil-stained sheet. He unwrapped the covering revealing a
well-cared for Chinese-type 56 version of the Russian AK-47.

Pedro removed the rifle and stood it against the
wall next to the closet. He removed a second blanket, uncovering a bottom layer
of gear.

Pedro removed an ammo can and took two magazines
out of a canvas bag. He loaded each twenty-round magazine with fifteen 7.62 mm
cartridges, careful not to overload the magazines’ spring mechanisms.

It had cost Pedro two-hundred dollars to get the
rifle and magazines back to the United States from Vietnam. A lot of money in
those days. He had not fired the rifle in more than thirty years, but Pedro
knew that the AK-47 clone was an amazingly reliable assault rifle. Once or
twice each year, he took the rifle out and wiped it down with a light coat of
gun oil, checked the operation of the bolt, and then put it back in the
footlocker.

Of course, an automatic assault rifle was now
illegal as hell unless registered with the feds, but he had never bothered to
register the gun. Until now, it had been little more than a relic, a tangible
reminder of a kill-or-be-killed reality that he had hoped never to revisit.
So
much for hope.