The Demon Abraxas (29 page)

Was that a good sign? He had called her directly rather than telling Leonard to do it. That could mean he was keeping something secret from other group members and picked her as a new person without firm loyalty to anyone yet. Of course it could also mean he was setting her up to get rid of her.

She looked at the clock. It was after seven. Ana should have given him the tracker hours ago and he was expected to at least lead them to his house or some other magic-testing location. Where had he called from? She dialed Ana’s cell phone and got no answer.

That was almost enough to make her call Lily but she just couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Instead she searched for Gunnar’s number online and found a professional listing for Gunnar Khoury, Silversmith—Jewelry Repairs and More. She dialed it, hoping it was a cell phone.

“’Lo,” he said.

“I’m a friend of Ana’s, is she okay? She told me what she was up to this afternoon.”

“You the prof?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t work,” he said. “They’re still inside.”

What did that mean? Inside of her office building? Did the whole gambit fail?

“Is she okay?” Sabel repeated.

“Should be. Cops showed up.”

“What can I do?”

“Go see her,” he said.

“You think I should just go over there?”

“You got time, yeah. Bet you’re better to talk to than me.” The last sentence was said with a gruff lightness.

“Thank you.”

As she drove across town, Sabel wondered what Ana had told her brother about her in addition to her occupation and the fact that she was in on this whole business. He’d clearly heard something that led him to believe Ana would want to see her.

When she arrived at Ana’s, lights were on across the first floor. She went up the stairs quickly, trying to remember if Ruben was back from LA and hoping he wasn’t.

Ana cracked the door, grinned broadly and removed the chain so she could throw the door wide.

“Hey,” she said.

“I heard you might want someone to talk to.”

“Gunnar said you called. I’m surprised I beat you back here.”

“Parking,” Sabel said.

“Oh yeah, you want a beer or something?” Ana waved her into the house, threw the bolt, and reconnected the chain.

“Sounds good.” Sabel followed Ana into the kitchen.

“Honey Weiss or this weird oatmeal stout?”

“The weird one.”

Ana poured the beer into a tall glass. They went into the living room where Sabel saw that Ana’s beer was still in its bottle. What in Ana’s mind made her the beer-from-a-glass type? Not that she minded. Ana dropped onto her end of the couch and picked up the sweating bottle for a long swallow.

Sabel took the other end of the couch and sat facing Ana. She sipped the slightly bitter, malty beer and appreciated its lush chocolate bass note. Ruben had good taste.

“Gunnar said police were involved?” she asked.

“I put the tracker in Johnson’s briefcase, but he must have found it before he got very far and he came back with a bunch of guys. I ran into Detlefsen’s office and we hid out for a bit until we could get the police to show. Apparently the cops came once and someone sent them away.”

“It’s easy enough for a strong demon to be persuasive like that, particularly if the police didn’t want to stay. Drake must have been there.”

“I’m sure. But here’s the strange thing. After we took out two of the guys—Detlefsen is ex-military—Johnson shows up and says he called the police and he’s got this whole file of information about a few guys running some kind of drugs and money thing out of our shipping department. He tells the cops they were really after him and of course they buy it, though Detlefsen believes there’s something much bigger going on. Johnson had this backup plan all along to throw suspicion off him.”

“He called me tonight,” Sabel said. “What time did all this start?”

“Around six.”

“He called after that, so he already knew he was going to have to expose this fake drug ring. He didn’t say what he wants, but I’m supposed to help him with something tomorrow afternoon.”

“That can’t be safe!” Ana protested.

“Did you just tell me you just spent hours being chased through your own office building? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Ana smirked. “Which one’s supposed to be the girl in that saying?”

“The goose.”

“Then I’m pretty sure you’ve got it backward.”

“Oh, you think you’re the gander?”

“Don’t you?” Ana’s grin widened and Sabel felt herself start to blush.

Ana moved down the couch toward her and Sabel reached out to weave her fingers through Ana’s hair. Ana put a strong hand on the curve of her waist while Ana’s other hand curled around the back of her neck to pull her close.

A warning shock of pain lanced up from her breastbone to her throat. She dropped her hand from Ana’s hair to her shoulder and pushed at her gently. Ana drew back and gave her a questioning look. Sabel turned her attention inside her own body. Above the heat and desire in her gut, she felt the tug of  the leash’s three bands across her chest and neck. She put one hand over her heart as if she could stop the painful tightening. What triggered it?

“Did they set a demon on you again?” Sabel asked.

“No.”

She stood up and stepped away from the couch. The leash didn’t release, but it stopped compressing. She moved back toward Ana and felt it notch tighter, so she stepped away again.

“What’s wrong?” Ana asked.

“There’s still demon energy around you. Did you leave Abraxas at Lily’s after she extracted him?”

Ana looked confused. “No.”

“Is he in this room?”

“Yes.”

“What did you put him in?” Sabel asked.

She looked around the room to see if there was a statue or stone of some kind near Ana. Or maybe she was wearing him as an amulet under her shirt. She thought Lily said she was going to put Abraxas into a stone box, but who knew what he would pick at the end of the day. He could be in anything that wasn’t too small.

“Me,” Ana said. “I put him back into me.”

“What?”

“I chose him. He makes me stronger and he teaches me things and…I didn’t think you were that squeamish about all of this. Why do I have to justify it to you? I can shut him out of my sense if it bothers you and he won’t be able to feel what I feel, though I really think he’s not paying attention.”

“I can’t touch you now,” Sabel said, biting off the half-strangled words.

She didn’t like how tight her voice sounded when she spoke, but with the leash pressing on her throat it was hard to relax the muscles there. She was grinding her teeth all on her own, though.

Ana stared at her, anger and confusion flickering across her features.

“If you didn’t want me to keep him—,” she started but Sabel cut her off with a gesture.

“The Hecatine witches won’t just let me hang around with demons without…countermeasures.” She stopped talking because that just sounded stupid.

“They did something to you?” Ana asked.

Sabel nodded.

“In the mall on Sunday when I touched your hand?” Ana asked.

“It hurts,” Sabel told her and was horrified to hear how rough her voice sounded and to feel tears burn her eyes. She turned away and struggled to regain some kind of control over herself.

“And now?”

Sabel put her hand over her upper chest. “It’s a magical thing. When demonic energy gets close to it, it warns me with pain and then it starts to shut me down. If a demon tried to possess me, I’d be unconscious in seconds. Because Abraxas isn’t actively trying to do anything to me, it’s slow and I can step back and stop it, but there’s so much of his energy in your body now…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were going to get rid of him. It didn’t matter.”

“Can you get it off?” Ana asked.

“When all this is over, they’ll take it off.”

Ana got up slowly and picked up Sabel’s glass of beer. She went the long way around the coffee table, so that she wasn’t near Sabel at any point in her journey, and set it on the end table next to the armchair furthest from her side of the couch. Then she returned to her spot and sat.

Sabel looked at the glass of beer for a moment as a warmth overrode any of the residual constriction in her chest. She sat down in the chair across the room from Ana and took a sip of the beer.

“I’m sorry,” Ana said. “I never want to hurt you.”

“I should have told you. I’m not used to having anyone I can talk to about magic.”

“Me either. I still don’t think you should go do whatever Johnson’s got planned tomorrow.”

Sabel managed a little grin. “Aren’t you the queen of ‘don’t tell me what to do’?”

“Are you seriously going to keep flirting with me when I can’t touch you?”

“Oh no, I’m going to flirt more. You’re the one who kept the demon, I think you deserve it.”

Friday morning Ana took the articles to a copy shop and made three copies. Then she dropped one off with Detlefsen, stepping into his office and handing them to him while he was on the phone with an upset customer. On her way to the bookstore her cell phone rang. It was Andi, the reporter who she’d first called about the kidnapping.

“Drug money?” Andi asked without preamble. “Who launders drug money through a high-tech company?”

“With so many startups here in the last ten years, what agency has time to oversee all of them, and who would think to look for it there?” Ana didn’t completely believe that herself, but she said it anyway to hear Andi’s reaction.

“Can I quote you on that?” she asked.

“Not on your life! What’ve you got?”

As she continued, Ana heard her smiling. Andi always smiled when she was on the track of a hot story. “Just the basics. Some guy in your IT department was masterminding this laundering business. They took him down along with a buddy and two of your sales guys who weren’t selling software at all, it turns out. They found a few kilos of coke in the shipping area and some crazy financials, but the whole story will take weeks to put together.”

It sounded neat and reasonable, and she had no doubt that Johnson had planted enough evidence to come to light in unexpected ways that the police would never suspect they weren’t getting the truth. Compared to a tale of demon summoning and ritual murder, who wouldn’t rather believe drugs were being sold out of the back office of a software company?

“Andi, are you at your office?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m coming over.”

She turned toward downtown, taking a roundabout route in case anyone was following her. Andi was waiting for her in the lobby of the
Chronicle
. She wore jeans and the Polartek zip-front sweatshirt that she always had on, looking more like a ski bum than a reporter. She gave Ana a quick hug and ushered her into a meeting room. Andi’s office was a messy cubicle in the newsroom with no privacy other than that afforded by the perpetual loud bustle of activity around it.

Ana handed her a copy of the articles. “I found these in Helen’s apartment. Yes, I broke in and no, you can’t report that…Andi, it’s bigger than drugs.”

Andi opened the folder and flipped through the first few articles, pausing on each as her amber eyes scanned a few paragraphs. She was almost a head shorter than Ana and as she read, Ana could watch her progress over the top of the tipped up folder.

“What is all this?” Andi asked.

“I can’t tell you except it includes some serious power-brokering and these men are all involved, including Charles Johnson.”

“Your VP of Sales? But he called the police last night. He’s the one who exposed the—” Andi stopped and a ran a hand through her already tousled red-brown hair. “Ana, can you—?”

“No,” she said for what felt like the hundredth time. “I can’t prove that he’s connected to the money, or the drugs, or Helen’s death, but he is.”

“Those are serious allegations.”

“Andi, have you ever known me to make up wild stories?”

She laughed and shook her head. “You should be scared out of your mind. Oh right, Ana doesn’t get scared, she gets pissed off. These guys picked the wrong woman to kidnap.”

“You can say that again. Look, I’ll bring you anything else I can.”

“This is already a lot.”

“I know, I know, don’t put myself in danger. That’s all very sweet, but as you said, I’m pissed.”

“Okay, just one more thing.”

“What?”

“Next time you pick up the phone to call the cops, make the next call to me.”

Ana gave her a quick hug before leaving. Andi had once pointed out that only cops, emergency workers and reporters were stupid enough to run into danger rather than away from it, but Ana could see that Andi was also beginning to include her in that esteemed company. She’d said “next time,” knowing that Ana wasn’t going to stop pursuing these guys, and that understanding warmed her.

Ana drove over to the bookstore, eager to see a person who understood what her life had become. A clean-cut college kid was working at the front register, so Ana went to the back and then up the stairs to Lily’s apartment. She paused for a moment at the door, her hand raised but not knocking. She remembered kissing Lily a few days ago in that apartment, and though technically Abraxas was responsible, it was her chest that felt this alien mix of shyness, embarrassment and anticipation. Could she completely separate her feelings from Abraxas’s while he lived within her? What if she couldn’t?

Abraxas flowed up her hand and knocked for her.
There are many options
, he reassured her.
I won’t trap you in my emotions.

Lily answered the door still in her robe and slippers. Above the tops of them, Ana could see where the scaly skin of her lower calves turned smooth.

“Morning,” she said. “Oh, afternoon. I was up late with another possession. I think Jacob’s boys are playing with demons they don’t know how to control. I keep finding these little lost creatures around the city. Come in, you guys.”

Ana settled on the couch and Lily curled herself up on the other end, kicking off her slippers and tucking her feet underneath herself. She had the windows open, and a cool breeze trickled in, smelling of eucalyptus. Ana rubbed her hands over her upper arms, wishing she’d remembered a sweater.