God Hammer: A novel of the Demon Accords (18 page)

I leaned back, myself, letting my brain run down the different paths my ideas were creating.  Where we ended up I wasn’t sure, but things were about to get interesting… more interesting.

I managed almost twenty minutes of nap time before the boss woke me up.  He had Chet on Facetime on a secured iPad and was updating him on Anvil. 
Trying
to update him, as Chet kept asking technical questions that Chris couldn’t answer.  So I filled the CTO in, which took a solid forty minutes.  My phone buzzed near the end of the call and when I looked down, I froze.  It was from Caeco.

I had had regular text chats with Mack, Jetta, Ashley, even a couple of short exchanges with Delwood, but none with Caeco since she had entered the modified training program the FBI had come up with for her.  Now she was on my screen and asking to meet me… in New York City.

“Ah, Chris?  You think I could grab a couple of hours to take care of something when we land?”

He looked surprised but almost immediately started nodding.  “Of course.  We’ve been working you like a dog.  You want a driver and car?”

“No, I’ll be okay with the subway and my feet.  Worse comes to worst and I’ll grab a taxi.  And I can handle myself with Anvil,” I said.

He smiled.  “No doubt.  Sure, take whatever time you need.  Anticipate some more training tonight, though, when you get back, plus some brainstorming on the trap idea.”

“I’m already thinking about that, but honestly, Chet will likely have some better ideas in a few hours,” I said.

We landed and I grabbed a taxi to take me to the address Caeco had given me.  It was on the West Side of Manhattan and my driver nodded and smiled.  “Hell’s Kitchen.”

I must have looked uncertain because he chuckled and shook his head.  “Some nice little restaurants there. It’s right near the theater district.”

I realized that I had heard of it before and its name had something to do with early immigrants, which was a relief.  When your boss has actually been to Hell and is number one on Satan’s hit list, you pay attention to anything with Hell in its title.

The taxi let me out on 11
th
Ave between a two bay Bridgestone tire place and a neighborhood deli.  I paid the driver and looked around.  Not what I expected with a name like Hell’s Kitchen.  Looked like a normal city street.  Bunch of multi-story buildings ranging from five stories to twelve or fifteen, with a bigger apartment tower every so often.  Every kind of business imaginable, from markets to shops and auto repair places to plumbing supply houses.  I only managed one glance around before I spotted a trio of women headed my way.  Caeco was in front, dressed in a black pantsuit that made her look older than I was used to.  Behind her, looking hard and unyielding, was Agent Krupp, and next to her was the intensely curious Agent Mazar, both in suits similar to Caeco’s.

“Hey,” Caeco said, brushing at her short hair.  It was a nervous gesture, one she rarely exhibited.

“Hey yourself, G Woman,” I said.

“She does fit right in, doesn’t she?” Krupp asked, giving me a tight smile.

“She does at that.  So what brings you three to the Big Apple?” I asked.

“We were requested.  The local Bureau head had heard our unit was being developed for, shall we say, special cases and asked us to assist his team,” Krupp said.

“So, something vampy, or what?” I asked.

“Something that we can’t explain through normal means.  Caeco thought it might be up your alley and knew you were here in the city,” Mazar said.

“So what do you have?”

“We have an office space that seems to be… hostile,” Krupp said.

“An office is hostile?” I asked.

“Feeling of oppression, random flying objects that have caused injury, missing forensic equipment, among other things,” Mazar said.

Poltergeist
,
Sorrow suggested.

“Oh.  Like a ghost?” I asked.

“Or possibly demonic or even some type of witchcraft,” Krupp suggested.

“Like a warded space,” Mazar added.

“Do you have foul smells or sudden cold spots?” I asked.

“No odors, but plenty of cold spots, usually just prior to some type of activity,” Caeco said, speaking up for the first time since she had greeted me.  She had been studying me while the other two had been talking.

“So it doesn’t sound necessarily demonic.  Did you want me to look at it?”

“That was our intent,” Mazar said.

“Where is it?” I asked. 

Caeco pointed across the street at a nondescript building that rose only four stories above the street.  “Office space in the basement,” she said.

We crossed the street without getting hit by traffic and Krupp led the way into the building, opening a stairwell door and heading down.  At the bottom, she gestured toward the steel fire door, letting me go first.

Opening my senses, I opened the heavy door and stepped through.

The hallway was painted neutral beige and the carpet was dark industrial gray.  One of the overhead fluorescent lights flickered ominously at the other end of the short hall.

Immediately, I felt a pressure, a probing hostile watchfulness.  Something here was angry.  My shields snapped instantly in place, a reflex Tanya would approve of, but nothing happened as we started down the hall.  Caeco pointed to a door on the left and I touched the doorknob, the metal much colder than it should have been.

The space on the other side was well lit, with bright white walls, an off-white drop ceiling and tan carpeting.  The spaces were all empty of furniture but I could see the imprints of desk legs and chairs still in the carpet. The air was musty and stale. That’s as far as I got before a large floppy book, which some part of my brain recognized as a phone book, picked itself off the floor and flew at my head.

My shields certainly would have blocked it, but I was now pretty much hardwired for response and my own kinetic push first stopped it, then slammed it flat on the floor.  “Stop that,” I said automatically, instantly feeling slightly stupid for speaking to what seemed an empty room.

The temperature came up a few degrees, although I think it was more due to the entity having shot its wad than any command on my part.

“You’ve got a ghost,” I said. “A nasty, angry ghost.”

The temperature started to drop, so I immediately opened my Sight.  Across the room, something was gathering, a cloud of energy, building up. Sorrow suggested a spell. I took it and used it to take the ghost’s energy.  Just reached out mentally and yanked it away. Kinda cruel really, and must be frustrating as hell to build up enough energy to do something and some living dude steals it.

It started again, this time on the opposite wall, and again I yanked all the power into myself.  “I can do this all night,” I said, which was true.  My family specialized in taking power.  A mental scream of frustration beat at my senses and then the room brightened, the oppressive feeling dissipating.

“Wow, that’s a seriously pissed-off ghost.  Just what is this office?” I asked, turning to the three behind me.

Caeco was watching me, arms folded.  Mazar was delighted and Krupp looked wary.

“It’s been a hundred different businesses. But for the last seven years, it’s been a medical clinic, now defunct.  The local Bureau has been working on an organ trafficking case, which led them to this clinic,” Mazar said. 

“Organs?  Like human kidneys and stuff?” I clarified, queasy at the thought.

“Exactly. Big black market trade.  The legal waiting lists are long, and sometimes a wealthy patient will jump line by paying for an illegal organ.  Organized crime has gotten into the business, and there are some less-than-ethical doctors who will participate if the price is right,” Krupp said.  “So the team came here to investigate, found the clinic gone and this… thing started throwing large objects at them and stealing their equipment.  It’s a ghost, you say?” Krupp asked. “Now they’re real too?”

I nodded.  “Look, everything is made of energy—atoms bound together in structures.  We know if we split an atom, we get a massive energy dump.  So the quantum particles that make up an atom are all energetic in one form or another.  Living objects are very energy intense, and that can leave an impression.  There are psychometric kids at school that can tell us what you ate for lunch last week by holding the shoe you were wearing when you ate it.  That’s because the act of living leaves records behind.  Sometimes those records get stuck in a building and when the conditions are right, replay themselves.  That’s a residual haunting.  Then there is the kind we have here—an active, intelligent haunting,” I said.

“A pissed-off one,” Krupp muttered.

“Exactly.  If life is energetic, then the moment of death can be doubly or triply so.  Like splitting the atom.  When someone is forcibly, violently separated from life, massive psychic energy is released.  A part can be left behind, a copy sort of,” I said, struck instantly by the correlation to Anvil leaving copies everywhere.

“So it’s not the whole soul?” Mazar asked.

“Who knows?  My aunt, who is much better with ghosts than I am by the way, thinks they are residual pieces of the soul that got trapped here at death.  I listen to her on this stuff,” I said. “Seems like this one is a big piece, though.  Also, it feels male, at least its anger does.”

The room seemed to darken, even though the lights stayed even.

“So how do we find out about this one?” Caeco asked.

I was watching the corner of the room, opposite of where we were standing, focusing my Sight.  Something was occupying space there.

“Generally, we just ask it,” I said.  A five-foot-high form, a black blob really, was becoming visible to me, even though the others didn’t seem to see it.  They must have felt something though, as Krupp rubbed her arms and Mazar was looking all around.   Caeco still watched me and I could see her, in my peripheral vision, looking where I was looking. “Any EMF fluctuations?” I asked her.  I think she frowned, but it was hard to tell with my side vision.  The blob got darker.  

“Really high in that corner,” she said.  “Temperature dropping over there, too.”

“You can pick that up?” Krupp asked.

“Some,” Caeco answered.  Oops, maybe she hadn’t let them know her full capabilities.

“How about radio waves?  Pick them up, too?” Krupp asked casually.

Caeco didn’t answer.   “Son of a bitch!  No wonder the instructors could never surprise you,” Krupp said.

I felt a chill of another sort and carefully avoided looking Caeco’s way.

“How will it communicate—if it even wants to?” Mazar asked, completely ignoring the tension.

“My aunt would just have a conversation with it.  One of the gifts of her Air affinity.  Me, I’m pretty weak with that, so we’ll see.  Ghost hunter types use digital recorders and thermal cameras and stuff to connect,” I said, still watching the motionless blob that radiated hate and suspicion.   “Did you die here?” I asked it.

It jerked, like a person surprised at being addressed.  I felt its regard, could almost swear that the head-shaped lump above what might pass for shoulders tilted a bit to one side.

“These people you’ve been harassing are law enforcement officers, investigating crimes.  Was your death a crime?  Were you murdered?” I asked it.

It moved suddenly, impossibly fast, faster even than vampires.  In its corner one moment, right up in front of me in the next.  I couldn’t make out any features or even its sex, but I could feel its curiosity as it focused on me, standing just outside my shields.

“Where is it?” Krupp asked.

“About a foot in front of me,” I answered.  “Did you die in this office?” I asked it again.  It quivered, then was gone.  I looked around for it, but the doorknob behind us suddenly rattled.  We all spun around, seeing nothing.  The knob rattled again.