Demon Lord 4: White Jade Reaper (28 page)

Vlad bowed formally.  “I will see what can be managed.”

Rasputin spun on me, the red light kicking up again in his eyes.  “You shot me in the back.”

“I needed to get your attention.  What’s the big deal?  Everything worked out all right.”

Rasputin took a slow, menacing step my way, very theatrical. 

Gasping, Grace lunged and grabbed me.  The next moment, I was whisked into the ghost realm, leaving Rasputin to stare through me without comprehension as I vanished from his perspective.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“When searching dungeons, one needs disposable

friends to help find the hard-to-find traps.”

                                     —Caine Deathwalker

It was time for a strategy session.  So of course we invaded an all-night donut shop near the hotel.  I staked out a window table.  Grace went up to the displayed pastries and pored over the many trays, trying to limit her choices to a number of donuts her figure could live with. I called up Lysande and let her know Drac was heading out of town, and chances were good she’d escaped notice in recent events as a player.  At this point, vampire vengeance because of her father’s machinations was unlikely.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“Reasonably so.”

“Are you coming over?”

“Can’t.  There’s another situation I need to handle, a little mass murder.”

“Oh, who are you killing?”

“Why does everybody think I’m the bad guy?  I keep chaos from boiling over and consuming civilization, and that’s the thanks I get,” I ranted.

“It’s just that we know you.”

“Fair enough.  How are the cactus demons working out?”

“Pretty well, except the hounds keep trying to pee on them.  I’ll keep the guards around a few more days, then send them home.”

“I’d keep them on a small retainer though.  You never know when you’re going to have to come up with cannon fodder on short notice.”

“Good idea.  I miss you.”

“Missing is bad.  Better use a sniper’s scope.” 
Damn.  An endearment.  She’s starting to get clingy. “
Gotta go.  Later.”  I ended the call and turned my phone to vibrate.  By then, Grace was heading back with a white bag and a cardboard carrier containing two lidded cups.  She placed the bounty on the table and slid into the chair opposite me.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“The lady I was with at the auction. 

“She was pretty.”

“Yeah, that’s my type.”

“Gee, shallow much?”

“Hey, it’s an effective way to go through life.  If I were the dependable, steadfast type, people would be importuning, me every chance they got.”  I pitched my voice high like a girl’s.  “Caine, can you kill my ex-boyfriend for me?  Caine, will you take care of my Rottweiler while I run off to Vegas?  Caine, can you change this light bulb.”

She pulled a cup out of the holder and slid it over.  “Here.”

“Not going to argue with me?”

“No, there’s some validity to what you say.”  She opened the white bag and looked in.  “I got a maple bar, two plain cake, and a devil’s food.  Whatcha want?”

“Everything.”

“I’m talking about the donuts.  Ask your inner dragon.  Maybe he has a preference.”

I felt a fluid stirring in the shadows of my mind.  My inner dragon surfaced, touching thoughts with me. 
It’s about time someone bothered to ask.  This is obviously a highly intelligent girl.

I picked up my drink and removed the lid.  The steam off the white chocolate mocha was delightful.
So, how long until you finish absorbing these wings? 

I’m surprised you don’t want to keep them
.

I’ve spent a lot of time and wealth on my wardrobe.  It wouldn’t be convenient,
I said.

Grace said, “Here.”  She slid the devil’s food donut over to

me on a white paper napkin.  “I think this is appropriate for a demon lord.”

I took a sip and set down the paper cup, glad we had the storefront all to ourselves for this discussion.  “All right, that music conservatory seems to be the key to helping the ghost girl haunting me.  There are weird things going on there.  Onyx and Madison are going in with me tonight to do some snooping.”

“What about me?”

“I’ve got a more important job for you.”

“Good, ‘cause I can definitely handle myself.  All I need is a chance.”

“Tomorrow is that special concert they’re putting on to raise money for the school.  We know there’s a supernatural threat in that theater.  It seems predatory so my guess is that it’s biding its time, waiting at the waterhole, so to speak.”

“I ran into something like that recently in another dimension.  Enough ghosts get together, and they fuse into a mindless force that is all hunger.  It can be awfully dangerous.  A world almost died when the spirit force tried to eat the lifeforce of the planet.”

“You see, I’m not just fobbing off some lame job on you.  I think you need to call in your mother and her Preternatural Response Team.  Hundreds of lives are at stake.”

It gives me an opportunity to earn some points with the Feds, and takes one job off my plate that I’m not getting paid for.

Grace’s eyes were shining.  She leaned over her drink, clutching it in both hands.  “It means a lot that you would trust me with something so important.  My mom still sees me as a kid who needs protecting.”

“I wouldn’t know about mothers.  Never had one.”

She was silent a moment.  It even seemed like she was getting misty eyed.  “That explains a few things.”

*   *   *

It was 2:00 in the morning, the day of the impending concert.  My wings were finally gone.  We were back at the Branden Music Conservatory, parked at the edge of the music hall lot that was closest to the modern school building.  A short walk down a path would get us there in a minute or less. 

Onyx sat up front with me.  He had on a black suit made of his own shadow substance, a garment copied from the cover of a GQ magazine he’d seen somewhere.  His shirt, socks, and shoes were equally black, equally illusion. 

Madison sat in the back of the Mustang.  She wore infrared googles on a strap, the lenses perched on her forehead, ready to slide down over her eyes when needed.  She wore a black nylon bodysuit, boots, and leather coat with a Celtic cross design on back.  Her flaxen hair was in a ponytail, and she had a leather pouch hanging at her side with various pieces of slayer gear she thought she might need. Her eyes met mine in the rearview mirror.  They were piercing blue, determined, the eyes of a warrior.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked.

“Onyx goes ahead to scout the way and keep us clear of guards and any dorm students wandering around where they ought not to be.  He’ll go under locked doors and open them for us from the inside.”  It would be faster than picking locks.  “We go to the President’s office, and check out the secret room I discovered there.  If we need to bail, Onyx will blackout the area around us, keeping anyone from getting a good look at us.  We need to be able to come back here tomorrow if Grace needs backup, and not have the cops called on us.”

“What exactly is it you hope to find?” Madison asked.

“The answer to a mystery.  A serial killer maybe.  We’ll see.” 

I opened my door and stepped out.  The others followed.  I locked up and activated the car’s security system.  Onyx flattened to the ground, becoming two dimensional.  He stretched ahead, a river of black swallowing the flagstone path.  We walked across him, our steps raising no sound, all noises consumed as they were made. 

There was no sign of anyone as we reached the lobby door.  Madison stepped to the side and peered in through a window.  She looked back at me and said, “Clear.”

The darkness shot under the door, all of it, leaving us on a concrete apron.  After a moment, one of the doors swung outward.  Onyx was back in human form, holding the door open.  Madison went in.  I went in next, easing the door shut behind me.  Every sense strained for some sign a guard was on our floor. 

“I’ll take lead,” I said.  “I don’t need to see to retrace my earlier path to the President’s office.  Onyx, blackout the area around us as we move so the cameras show nothing, and nudge Madison along so she stays with me.”

“And don’t get fresh,” Madison added.

Onyx grinned and puffed out in billowy folds of pitch black that stole all light.  Moving through the inky murk, one hand on a wall, I made my way toward the offices, counting steps.  This kind of thing was automatic.  While other children played on swings and slides, or built forts in the woods, I was being trained by the Old Man in various hell dimensions to survive and thrive through all kinds of adversity. 
Some of the trials nearly killed me.  Some of them left me broken and bleeding.  I hated it all.  And yet I am the sum of all those experiences—stronger than my human side knew it could be.

It wasn’t long before I reached the office I wanted.  My sense of touch told me that the door had been repaired and was locked.

“I got it,” Onyx’s voice was deep as eternity in this form, reminding me that the human was the illusion with him, not this current form.  I reached out and pushed the door.  It swung easily to my touch.  I assumed his black, living substance had soaked into the keyhole and manipulated the mechanism.  I went in and moved to the side, waiting.  After a moment, the lights came on.  I saw Madison inside the office with me, the door closed behind her, and Onyx back in GQ condition. 

“You know,” I told him, “you have a hell of a career ahead of you as a cat burglar.”

He looked at me quizzically.  “Is there much of a market for stolen cats?”

“Not really,” Madison said.

“I’ll pass, then,” he said.

I went to the side of the office with all the fancy shelves and collectibles.  There was a gap in the items where the doll used to be, the doll I’d stashed inside Onyx’s shadows for safekeeping.  “Onyx, do you still have that doll I gave you before?”

“Huh?  Oh, sure.  Want it?”

“Not yet.  Soon, maybe.”

I went to the waist-high Chinese urn, its red glazed finish smooth as I turned it.  I heard the click of some hidden mechanism buried in the floor.  A section of shelving swing into the office, revealing a gaping hole. 

“Yeah, that’s suspicious all right,” Madison said.  “Make sure you look for traps as you go.”

I smiled at Onyx.  “You can go first this time.”

“That’s nice of you, but I wouldn’t want to steal your glory.”

He’s catching onto my wily ways. 
“I just thought it would give you something to impress Grace with, but if you’re afraid—”

He hurried to the secret door.  “No that’s all right.  I don’t mind at all.”

“Thought you’d see it my way.”

He vanished down a steep flight of stairs.  I gave him a few seconds, then followed, Madison right behind me.  She said, “You’re good, in a purely diabolical way.”

“Kind of you to say so.” 

The very steep stairs took us to a secret basement that was probably not on the building’s blueprints.  I reckoned we were under the records room, heading for some point under the teachers’ lounge.  The passage was brick-lined.  LED lights sconces were spaced out regularly so that we moved from one patch to another.

“No traps yet.”  Onyx took another step and there was a click from the floor.  “Uh-oh.  That’s not good.”

“Don’t move,” I said.  “Could be explosives or a deadfall set to obliterate evidence by sealing off this passage. I’d rather it stay intact.”

“I can try to defuse the trap,” Madison offered.

I looked at her.  “You studied this kind of thing at Van

Helsing’s School for Gifted Slayers?”

“Sure.  He believes in well-rounded education.”

“Did you get good grades in that class?”

“B-plus.”

“Let’s not risk it until we’re on the way out,” I said.  “Onyx, stay here and keep pressure on that section of floor.  We’ll be back in a bit.”

He sighed.  “Sure.  Go and have all the fun.”

“Do a better job next time,” Madison said.  “Couldn’t you see that wood tile was an eighth of an inch higher than the surrounding floor?”

I looked. 
Yeah, she’s absolutely right.  “
Obvious to a blind man,” I said.

Madison gave me a look that could mean just about anything, and slid around Onyx.  She took up the task of checking for more traps.  There didn’t seem to be any more, but she stopped just outside a doorway with no door.  A large space lay ahead.  We could hear muffled sobs, sounds of distress.  I pressed up behind Madison. 

She made no effort to hurry on, sliding her goggles down over her eyes.  Her head tipped down.  Her hand came up to block me.  She used a low voice.  “There’s an infrared beam three inches off the floor and one a foot off the floor, just inside the door.”

Someone really doesn’t want us down here.