Devil's Paw (Imp Book 4) (17 page)

Who could have done this to him? We demons all have a host of enemies, but devouring wasn’t a common skill. Each time I’d done it, I’d been defending myself against a far stronger foe. It has always been a last–ditch effort when all hope seemed lost. The only time I’d devoured as an unprovoked attack had been involuntary — when I was a child and had been learning to breed. It was one of the reasons I was so reluctant to procreate. I was terrified it would happen again — that I’d be seized with the urge to consume and wind up killing my partner.

Baphomet didn’t look like he’d been locked in battle before his death. The blood on the walls didn’t seem to have come from him. There wasn’t a mark on him, not even a paper cut, let alone something significant enough to have caused his death. Even if he’d been torturing a Low, he should have little scrapes and cuts at the very least. If he’d been fighting a devouring demon, there should have been some visible injury.

That left the possibility of ambush. I couldn’t imagine he’d be breeding outside of Hel. Could someone possibly be using devouring as an assassination technique? It would be very effective, but would require planning combined with ruthlessness — a combination uncommon among all but the highest demons.

Taking a deep breath, I scanned him as thoroughly as I could. There was no remnant of demon energy whatsoever in the corpse, but as with the last head, right at the front of the neck, I caught a faint trace of that slippery energy. I concentrated and extended myself into his cells, cataloging each one in detail as I traced the indistinct line that circled his neck. It was still active, slippery and blocking my energy as I explored it. I’d encountered this sort of thing before, but what the angels used and what I’d experienced at the hands of elves and sorcerers wasn’t quite the same.

I sat back on my heels and frowned down at Baphomet. The energy was too faint to assign to any specific species, but that wasn’t what perplexed me the most. It was the placement that had my mind in a whirl. Neck. The angels didn’t fool around. They always went right to the source and coated our stash of energy deep inside to prohibit our usage of it. Elves employed a net technique, encasing our entire bodies and blocking physical attack as well as an energy one. Why neck?

Restrained at the neck, Baphomet might still be able to heal some internal injuries but not be able to convert his entire body into another form. He would have been like a dog on a leash, one with all his physical abilities still available. With demons, energy attacks are only part of the equation. We are just as dangerous with only the strength of our corporeal form, as I’d proven time and time again. An elf would never have just restrained a demon’s neck. Neither would an angel. Unless…

I searched again, every cell. I had no idea how long it took me, no sense of anything outside my focused examination. By the time I sat back, the shadows were long across the floor, and I sensed the presence of my angel behind me.

“Did you find anything?” His voice was soft and kind, as if he’d intuited my earlier grief.

“No.” I lied. I’d found plenty, but none of it made any sense. Baphomet had been restrained at the wrists, ankles and neck, leaving his energy accessible through his core. I couldn’t see any reason for it, and couldn’t see any connection between those faded traces and the devouring spirit that had killed him. Perhaps the restrain marks were just a fluke, something unconnected with their deaths. Or perhaps the devouring demon had purchased this type of thing from the elves and used it to keep his victims from fighting back. None of it made sense.

“Sahiviel suspects there was a different demon that lived in this house. Neighbors say that the deceased demon would come here frequently to visit, and that the individual residing here left about a day or so before this one’s time of death.”

I stood and took one last look at Baphomet before turning to face Gregory.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “Do you want me to check the house for any hints of another demon?”

“Can you do that?”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t find any energy traces, but demons don’t live exactly as humans do. Sometimes there are telltale signs.”

I searched the house, but couldn’t find anything to corroborate what the neighbors had claimed. The only thing I did find was a pocket mirror — a small communication device similar to the one I had at home. I’d been meaning to get a portable one to stay in better contact with Dar and my household, but hadn’t gotten around to it. Checking to make sure Gregory was in the other room, I pocketed the mirror. If a demon had lived here, I’d try and contact his household through the device later and see what information I could glean from them. It was a long shot. Many households, mine included, didn’t always know the details of what was happening on the other side of the gates.

I shook my head at Gregory as I walked back into the bedroom. I wondered what they’d do with Baphomet’s body. Not that it really mattered. It just bothered me to see him there, lifeless and twisted on the floor.

“How confident is your angel buddy that there was a second demon? Does he have some way of tracking the guy? Because, otherwise, I think we’re at another dead–end.”

“We have a description, but unless he tries to go through a gate or goes on a killing spree, it’s unlikely we’ll run across him. There are only so many angels here, and you demons are good at blending in with the humans when you want to.”

“So if he continues this one–off, demon here, demon there thing, we’ll probably never catch him?” It was a depressing prospect. I looked again at Baphomet’s body, wondering what I could do to find this guy before he killed again.

“He’ll escalate.” Gregory didn’t sound too happy. “They always do.”

“Escalate? You mean because he’s a demon and we enjoy mass murder?” I had a bad feeling I didn’t want to know the answer to my question.

“No, because he’s a devouring spirit.” Gregory looked down at me, and I could see the sorrow in his eyes —
feel
his sorrow in the red–purple of his spirit that networked through my own. “They reach a point where they can’t control themselves. They’ll begin to devour everything around them. Everything. Endless hunger.”

I struggled to take a breath. “What …what do you mean,
everything?
”

His gaze grew intense. “All life, all matter, the entire universe if they’re unchecked.”

I felt like I was suffocating. “How many? How many have you angels killed over the ages?”

“Ten. Eight of them in the last millennium. Eventually there will be too many, and they’ll come too fast for us to kill. One will slip through and herald in the apocalypse, devouring all creation.”

“So there is no solution but to kill them? What did you all do when we lived in Aaru? Kill us at birth?” “Them” had become “us”. I felt like lead weights were pressing on my chest. I devoured, but I had it under control. I couldn’t believe that someday I’d snap and go on a rampage, that Gregory would be forced to kill me.

“There were no devouring spirits when you were in Aaru — you were Angels of Chaos then. Devouring spirits are an anomaly that seems to have occurred with the devolution of your species.”

I stared at him, mute with dread at his words, and what I knew would come next.

“I should have killed you the moment I found out,” he said, clearly miserable at the idea. “I’m putting my own selfish desires ahead of what’s best for the entirety of creation.”

“But I’m okay,” I choked out. “I didn’t kill those demons, or that angel. The universe is safe from me.”

He shook his head, eyes still locked with mine. “One day you won’t be. Something will happen, or you’ll reach a certain age, and you’ll snap. There won’t be any warning, and who knows how much of the planet, or beyond, you’ll consume before we manage to stop you.
If
we manage to stop you.”

“Then why haven’t you killed me? Why don’t you just kill me right now?”

The angel’s mouth was pressed into a grim line. Without a reply, he turned around and left — walked right out of the house. I heard the front door close behind him. I felt as empty as the demon on the floor beside me, and so alone.

~13~

H
ey, baby. How’s it going?”

I was sitting on the hood of the rental car, eating a takeout falafel and talking to Wyatt. When Gregory hadn’t returned to the house on Evanston, I locked up and headed out. I wasn’t sure what to do with Baphomet’s corpse, and I wasn’t about to just hang out there, waiting for the angel to show up. If he needed me, he’d contact me.

“Not sure when we’re heading back. Gregory’s MIA at the moment, but I’m assuming we’ll take the red eye back to Baltimore.”

“Did you find anything out from the corpse?”

Wyatt was definitely intrigued. Good thing, since I’d probably need his special skills in the future. We were at a dead–end now, but Wyatt could find a needle in a haystack if only I could tell him what needle I was looking for.

“Not much. He was killed the same way. There were traces of restraints around his neck and all four limbs.”

“Well, that’s good.” Wyatt’s voice was encouraging. “That confirms your suspicions.”

I snorted. “What suspicions? I’m just as flummoxed as before. Someone used angel or elven/sorcerer magic to tie this demon up then drain him dry. No idea who, or what, or why.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Now I felt guilty. I’d been having resentful thoughts about Wyatt and his unwillingness to get involved in my activities, and here he was offering to help. Maybe the problem in our relationship wasn’t him; maybe it was me.

“I don’t know how you can.” I sighed and sat my half–eaten falafel on the hood of the car, suddenly not hungry. “I knew him, Wyatt. He was an old friend. We hadn’t been in touch lately, and we’d sort of grown apart, but I hardly expected to arrive here and find him dead on a bedroom floor.”

“Sam, I’m so sorry.” Wyatt’s voice was sympathetic. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“A couple of years ago.” I thought back, remembering all the times we’d connected over the decades. Baphomet didn’t like to stay as long as I did, but he tended to keep his real estate holdings and businesses in trust, so he could return to them later. I’d flown out two years ago to discuss a scheme to sell stolen body parts. I really hadn’t wanted to get involved in black market kidneys and passed on the project. He’d left a message for me late last year about some other project, but I’d never called him back.

“Maybe there is something you can do for me,” I said as the thought formed in my mind. “Baphomet was using the same human form he had been two years ago. Can you search property records, and anything else you can find for Anton Breskine? And also 3256 Edmonston in Freemont? Does he own that house?”

“Anton Breskine. I’ve got a Washington State driver’s license — African American male, five–foot–eleven, one–ninety, thirty–five years old?”

“That’s him.” Baphomet had been using that form for the past sixty years. He’d had to forge a birth certificate every decade or so to keep himself within that magic mid–thirties window. I could modify my human forms to a variety of ages, but most demons, Baphomet included, could only recreate the physical being at the same age they’d Owned them.

“I’ll send you the address from his license. It’s a place on Eastlake.”

Eastlake? I remembered him buying a place there about five years back. He’d been really thrilled with the purchase, although he’d said some of the neighbors were a bit weird. I’d flown out to see it, because weird to Baphomet would have been really extreme. The house had been beautiful, the neighbors disappointingly normal.

“The house on Edmonston is owned by a Paul Yong.”

I didn’t recognize that name, but Baphomet may have Owned other humans since I’d seen him last. The neighbors had told the angels that someone else had lived there, but that didn’t mean Baphomet wasn’t connected somehow. He may have been renting it out to a human or another demon.

“Anything else?”

“Looks like Anton Breskine owns the house on his license and has for the last five years. Nothing else in Washington. Do you want me to check another state?”

“California,” I said on impulse. “Specifically in the LA area.”

“Hmmm, a couple of businesses, one with considerable unpaid tax debt.”

Yeah, that would be Baphomet. I wondered about the lack of businesses in Washington. Baphomet was pretty predictable in his interests and liked to live a lavish lifestyle. How was he funding it all with only those few dried–up places in LA?

“Thanks,” I told him. I really meant it too. “How are the girls? Are you ready to run screaming yet?”

He sighed. “Nyalla is holed up in your house reading magazines and working on her language software. She meets us for dinner and movies but seems to want to be on her own a lot.”

“And how’s Amber?”

“She’s …Amber. I don’t know, Sam. Same as always. Charming, understanding, caring. She pops over and we spend hours together, but when she leaves, I realize I don’t know anything about her life or how she really feels. She talks about her fall class schedule, various friends, a part–time job as if everything is just normal and perfect. Every time I try to dig and find out how
she’s
coping with all this, she redirects me.”

Amber was very good at redirecting. “I’ll call her.”

The half–elf actually called me as I drove to the address on Eastlake. As Wyatt said, she rambled on about activities in a superficial way while I waited. Amber never called me unless she needed something that only I could give her.

“Sam, I think I need to get laid.”

I pulled over to the side of the road, because I was on the verge of crashing the rental car.

“Well, nineteen–year–old human girls generally do seem to enjoy regular sexual intercourse,” I told her, feeling flustered at the awkward conversation. I was a demon; this shouldn’t bother me, but somehow having a sex–ed type discussion with Amber turned me into a blushing prude.

“Yeah, but I stopped when, you know, when I found out I wasn’t human. What if birth control doesn’t work on half–elf freaks?”