The Demon Abraxas (27 page)

Yes, it would probably eventually crush the company to have that much money siphoned through it without actually being invested, but who cared about one more little software company? A handful of competitors had similar products on the market. Roth’s loss wouldn’t be felt by anyone except its sentimental founders. And once he had his first billion, he could build a state-of-the-art hospital with research that helped kids never have to face what he had.

He went down the hall to his office. His admin wasn’t at her desk, again. She had this habit of afternoon coffee breaks that could stretch out to nearly an hour and he’d encouraged it in the past so that he could use her to keep tabs on the currents of gossip in the office, but now it was bordering on the annoying.

In his office, he slid his netbook into his briefcase and penned a short note: “If Joe calls, forward it to my cell.” This he left on his admin’s desk. There was no expected call from anyone named Joe, but the lack of surname on the note would make her spend the last half hour of her workday worried that she’d missed the call by not being at her desk or that she’d forward the wrong Joe to his cell. That should lay the groundwork for her staying at her post more often.

He drove to the wine bar where Drake waited for him at a small table by the window. They didn’t worry about being seen together; after all, Johnson was just wining and dining the potential buyer of his company.

“How is the girl?” Drake asked.

“As you’d expect. I’ve been thinking that we should find a way to lure her to us.”

“Ah, and here I was out hiring thugs to just grab her. What’s your subtle plan?”

“She has a brother,” Johnson said. “He keeps to himself and would be pretty easy for your thugs to grab. I believe she might trade her newfound friend for her brother’s safety.”

“I like it.”

In his briefcase, Johnson’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out and looked at the faceplate in case it was one of the other company execs, but it was no one important. Probably his fool admin decided to send every call to his cell so that he wouldn’t miss the one from the fictitious Joe. He should have seen that coming. He sighed and set the phone heavily down on the table.

Drake looked at it and then raised his head like a dog scenting the air. “What did you buy? Another phone?”

“No.”

“There’s a device in your bag, what does it do?”

Johnson shook his head. “It’s just my netbook. A computer. They’re all over the modern world, you know.”

Drake looked exasperated. “Give me your bag.”

Johnson obeyed. He’d learned long ago that one key to keeping secrets from the demon was to never carry anything incriminating on his person—or in his mind, if he could help it.

Drake went through the main section and then started unzipping side compartments. From an inner pocket he pulled out a small, dark rectangle that looked like a phone with no numbers. He sniffed it.

“Do they have peach soap in your executive men’s room?”

“Absolutely not.”

Drake grinned. “Then it’s from the girl. Oh I do like her.”

Johnson held out his hand for the device and turned it over looking for signs of a microphone. All it had was an on-off switch and a small antenna. Was it some kind of bug or transmitter? What did the signal do?

“Let’s go ask her what it does,” Drake said.

“You have to stay out of sight.”

“Of course, but I’m bringing in the hired men, just in case we have an opportunity to grab her.”

“It’s too obvious,” Johnson said, but he knew Drake wasn’t listening to him.

The man was already up from the table and moving for the door, leaving Johnson to snatch up his briefcase and follow in his wake.

* * *

Ana spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get work done and failing. She caught herself reading back through all the news stories about Roth Software, starting with the report of the company struggling to grow and people working all hours, then Helen’s murder, her own kidnapping, and a follow-up about the potential sale for which she’d written a statement. Drake Industries had leaked the story, but the statement from the Roth CEO made it clear that it was hardly a done deal.

Lily called again at six p.m. “You still at work?” she asked.

“Just finishing up. What’s up?”

“What time do people usually leave your office?”

“Four thirty to five thirty.”

“I’m tracking Johnson. He went about a mile away but now he’s coming back. I can’t be sure, but it looks like there are two other cars with him.”

“Oh crap.”

“Move!”

Ana grabbed her purse, left her computer running and hurried down the hall from her cubicle. It could be that Johnson was only coming back to chat, but far more likely she was about to be in big trouble. There were plenty of places to hide, but no place where she wouldn’t be found eventually. Anyone after her would check the women’s bathrooms, the cafeteria, and the other departments. With the workday ending, Johnson and anyone he brought back with him could have hours to look for her without interruption. There was only one set of elevators so she couldn’t get past them if he’d posted a guard there and at the bottom of the stairs.

She made it to the end of her department and looked around. Detlefsen’s light was on and she bolted for his office as she heard the ding of the elevator.

He raised his eyebrows at her breathless entrance. “I hope it’s worth your hurry,” he said.

“It is,” Ana gasped. “Remember when you said you trust my instincts?”

He nodded.

“I need to talk to you and I need your help getting out of the building, but I don’t think we should stay here. There are some guys coming up on the elevator that I don’t want to run into.”

He pushed himself up from his chair. “They connected to the fuckers who kidnapped you?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I’ll make sure you get out safe.”

He picked his jacket off the hook by the door and stepped into the hallway. His posture was no longer the usual bear-roused-from-slumber. He moved ahead of her in complete silence and she realized suddenly how much his loud, clumsy manner was an affectation.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Down the hall, Ana could see two men walking to her cubicle. They wore suits but moved like they were used to heavy physical activity.

Abraxas welled up in the back of her mind.
The humans are not alone. They are here to take you willing or not and your friend may come to harm.

Ana reached out and touched Detlefsen’s shoulder. It felt like a rock under her hand, but he turned immediately. She motioned toward her cubicle where the tops of two heads showed over the tan walls and shook her head.

“Weapons?” he asked. The word carried on a barely audible breath.

“The ones who kidnapped me had Tazers.”

He paused, looking over the dividers as the heads turned toward them. Ana could see him thinking it through and remembered the times he’d told her about his years as a wrestler and then in the military. She imagined his calculus: could he take two men? A moment later he seemed to arrive at the same conclusion she already had, maybe he could take two men unarmed, but not with weapons. He motioned for Ana to follow him and ambled silently down the hallway away from the goons.

Lily says there are at least six of them in the building
, Abraxas said.
They left one at the door.

“Great,” Ana muttered, and then in a louder whisper to Detlefsen, “They’ve left a man at the door.”

He led her through the engineering department and then across the back of the building. Now that it was after six and late summer, this area was empty. The engineers who would stay to work late had been dragged off on family vacations.

“How do you know?” he asked.

It was a good question. She wasn’t sure what allowed Abraxas and Lily to communicate over short distances, but if she had to guess it probably had something to do with the time he’d spent in Lily’s body. The short answer was, “Magic,” but she couldn’t say that to Detlefsen.

“The guys who kidnapped me—there were a dozen of them and they’d be smart enough to leave someone at the door. We’ve got to find a safe place to hide and then call the police.”

They stopped at a plain gray door in the back wall. “Access stair,” Detlefsen said.

He pulled a thick roll of keys out of his jacket pocket. The first one didn’t fit into the lock, but the second clicked it open. Ana shut the door behind her, hoping it locked itself again automatically. They padded up the stairs to another gray door, this one locked. Detlefsen shook his head and gestured up the stairs with his chin.

“Only have keys for our floor and the roof,” he said.

They went up each flight and tried the door. Ana wondered what would happen if none of them opened. How safe was the roof?

Abraxas, can you ask Lily to call the police?

She’s not in a position to do that now. She will as soon as she can.

The third door she and Detlefsen came to had been wedged open with a piece of cardboard inserted between the frame and the catch of the lock. Detlefsen grunted. “Smokers using the back way to go up to the roof.” He pushed through the door and let the cardboard square fall to the floor so it would lock behind them.

Now they faced a long, dim hallway. Light from far windows shone through the glass of office doors, illuminating a path for them in the unlit interior of the building. Most if not all of the people who worked on this floor had left for the day.

Detlefsen put out one hand and trailed it along the wall as they walked. This was a floor of smaller offices. Lawyers and graphic designers, Ana guessed from the names and shapes that appeared through narrow interior windows as they drew close. Detlefsen tried each door as they came to it. At the end of the winding hall, they reached the elevators. Ana could see the elevator cars had stopped on the third and sixth floors. As she watched, the elevator on the third floor moved up to the fourth. The men were systematically searching all the floors of the building. They knew that Ana hadn’t left yet.

“Don’t you have a cell phone?” Ana asked, realizing hers was still sitting in her cubicle.

“Left it at home trying to get my daughter to fix it,” Detlefsen said. “Never can get that damn thing to work right.”

“They’re searching all the floors,” she said. It seemed so strange, like a detective movie, but she could imagine them moving casually down the halls, greeting co-workers, looking nonthreatening. When they came to Ana and Detlefsen, it would only take them a moment to pull the vials out of their pockets and possess them. Then she and Detlefsen could be made to walk calmly out of the building with no one the wiser. If only the guys coming after her had guns instead of demons, this escape would be so much simpler.

Detlefsen nodded to Ana and motioned her away from the elevators, back down the hallway. When he stopped, it was in front of an office door that seemed flimsy. Many had solid oak doors, especially the lawyers, but this office had been carved out as an afterthought, with a thin wooden door separating it from the hallway. Detlefsen stepped back and kicked it, grunting as his foot smacked into the wood and cracked the doorframe. Ana wanted to stop him, but she didn’t have a better plan to offer. Their best bet was to get to a telephone. He rocked back and kicked the door again. This time it cracked open and he stepped into the office. Ana followed and gently shut the door behind them, hoping that in the dusky slanting light of early evening the goons wouldn’t notice the gap between the door and the cracked frame.

This office consisted of one moderately sized room with two single-occupant offices. Both had closed doors. Detlefsen went to the reception desk and picked up the phone. He called the police and explained that they were being pursued inside their office building by godless thugs and needed an escort out. He told them the office number they were in, grunted assent a few times and hung up. Then he settled himself into one of two padded chairs in the reception area.

“We have a few minutes, tell me about these men who are after you.”

Ana looked at the dim window on the far wall. It was hard to know where to begin, but she knew that Detlefsen had his own suspicions about what was going on with the company.

“There are some men at Roth who are involved in a variety of illegal activities. I’m not sure about everything they’re doing, but Helen was starting to collect information about it and I think that’s what got her killed.”

“How do you know this?”

Ana cleared her throat. Telling the truth could lose her a job, but lying to a man like Detlefsen didn’t go over well when she needed his help. “I broke in to Helen’s apartment and found some notes the police overlooked.”

He laughed. “You broke in to Helen’s apartment? Well, you’ve got balls. What did you find?”

“Newspaper stories that point to people having more money and influence than they should rightly have.” She held her breath. It was slender proof when she had to leave out the part about demons, but he was nodding.

“That makes sense. Someone’s using our company to launder money.”

“What?” Ana asked at the same time Abraxas said to her,
Of course
.

“With what you’re telling me, it’s starting to make sense. There’s a group involved in shady dealings, drugs probably, and they’re making a lot of money.” He rubbed his fingers along the arm of the chair. “But the IRS gets suspicious if a person suddenly gets fifty thousand dollars from nowhere, even if they pay taxes on it. A few months ago I found out that Roth has some moderately large accounts selling software to companies that would have no need of our software. Those companies aren’t buying our product, they’re dummies funneling money into Roth. Then the people involved in this scam use that money in their expense accounts and through phony bonuses. It appears they’re earning it legitimately and because we’re a private company no one is looking at the whole picture and connecting the fake income to the bogus payments. I’ve been able to see the pattern, but I’m still trying to track down the responsible parties. There has to be a connection at the executive level and someone who’s been with the company for a long time.”