The Demon Pool (22 page)

Janet Poulet was tapping away at the keyboard of her
laptop when her cell announced an incoming call. The screen showed Martha St.
Onge. Janet answered.

“Martha, I’m working on a story. I only have a
minute. The news waits for no one, you know.”

“I only need a minute, dear. What are you working
on right now?”

“Story about the FHP trooper who got himself
blown up. It’s weird. I mean what kind of asshole blows up a guy who writes
traffic tickets for a living. Doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Ex-marine, did a couple of tours in the Middle
East. Purple Heart. Bronze Star. Actually sounds like a really good guy. Must
have pissed off someone sometime, but I haven’t found anything. Yet.”

“Yet,” Martha repeated. “That’s why you guys get
all the ratings. I might be able to help you.”

Janet looked at the clock on her laptop screen.
She could spare a few more minutes. You did not get to report for the highest
rated TV news program in Southwest Florida blowing off reliable sources, and
Martha was more than reliable. She was the crone of the Green Grove Coven.
Janet’s coven and the crone was nothing even close to Hollywood’s green-faced
Wicked Witch of the West. Simply a post-menopausal, former high priestess who
acted as counselor for the priests and priestesses of the coven. However, to
the Green Grove Coven, Martha was a witch’s witch.

“Your trooper might not be quite the good guy he
appears to be. Might be a little dirt underneath that squeaky-clean exterior.”

This was not the first time that Janet’s
association with Martha had got her a great story.

“Okay, Martha. You have my attention.”

Janet knew that the larger, unenlightened
community would be shocked to their teeth to learn the extent that witchcraft
had penetrated into general society. The Green Grove Coven sat like a warm,
spiritual blanket over dozens of South Florida’s citizens, many who were
influential and well-placed. Martha was the common thread that ran through the
entire blanket, and sometimes Martha just knew things that no one else seemed
to know.

She had been present at each ritual of Janet’s
three craft degrees, and had helped Janet select her secret craft name,
MoonFire. She had also officiated at Janet’s high priestess ceremony. The
faithful knew Martha as a powerful witch, devoted to her craft and the members
of her coven. When Martha called, Janet listened.

“I can’t give you the details just yet. The story
is, as you reporters would say, developing,” Martha said. “I’ll call as soon as
I have more information.”

Janet fought the temptation to grill Martha. Janet
had been the breaking news reporter on the Demore story. She needed new
information to keep that lead. Destruction, death, and scandal, especially when
it happened to those idolized, always brought in the ratings, and nobody in
Southwest Florida got better ratings than Janet Poulet.

***

Major Kant was seriously concerned about her newest
accident investigator, Trooper Jim Demore. Jim sat in her office, obviously
tired, but looking stoic. Her brief conversation with him a moment earlier had
done little to alleviate her concerns. Trooper Demore had a sterling
reputation, both as a police officer and as a military reservist.

She found herself relieved when Demore had finally
checked in with the troop headquarters, albeit several hours later than
expected. She had been happy to rearrange her schedule to accommodate his
urgent request for a meeting. No one had ever attempted to assassinate one of
her troopers prior to this and, frankly, it pissed her off. She did not know
what other problems, aside from almost having his ass blown off, Trooper Demore
might be having, but she knew she would do anything in her power to help. She
looked through the pictures Demore had given her. She had already read the
note. The DVD sat off to one side, awaiting its turn.

The photos showed only Jim, the dancer, and the
background. After sorting through the last photo, Major Kant placed all
thirteen copies back into an envelope. She frowned her concern.

“Jim, in my eighteen years with the Highway
Patrol, I don’t think I have ever seen anything like this,” her voice serious,
but not harsh. “You did the right thing, bringing this to me. Tell me what
happened.”

“That’s the problem, major. I don’t know what
happened. I remember that I had an appointment in Tampa with a person of
interest in the Briggs case. A dancer named Kat Connors. Next thing, I wake up
in my car on Picnic Island with the envelope containing those photos, the DVD,
and the note sitting on the passenger seat. I went straight to the State
forensics lab in Ft. Myers. I go to school at night with one of the
technicians. I gave her everything. I also asked her to test my blood.”

“You know I have to let higher headquarters know
about this.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jim replied, his voice heavy with
fatigue. He continued, “Major, I have never had to go to a topless club to meet
women. This is nuts, ma’am.”

Major Kant smiled. Demore was a handsome kid.
Hell,
if I wasn’t his boss I might go cougar-town on him.

“You asked the lab for a blood test? You think
somebody doped you?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s the only explanation that
makes any sense. I remember driving toward Tampa, then waking up in my car on
Picnic Island.” Jim looked frustrated. “Somebody did something. I need proof
and I need to know why.”

Major Kant nodded her head in agreement.

“I can’t argue with that Trooper Demore. This
will get ugly if it gets into the press. Do you think the explosion is tied the
Briggs investigation? The assassination attempt failed. Maybe this is Plan B.
Someone certainly doesn’t want you digging any deeper into Briggs.”

“I guess it’s possible. Although right now the
only link is time proximity. Not much of a link.”

Major Kant poked at the offending envelope still
sitting on her desk.

“No doubt somebody did something. I’ll run
interference with the bosses for as long as I can, but don’t be surprised if
you end up driving a desk while we sort this out. Let’s hope, for your sake, we
find out just who did what.”

“I’ll find out, major. If getting shot to shit in
Afghanistan couldn’t stop me from coming back to work here, a few dirty
pictures sure as hell won’t.” Jim stood up. He ignored the ache in his knee.
“They just gave us proof that there is more to Briggs than just an accident.
That, and they’ve really pissed me off. There’s no way I’m getting off Briggs.
Not until I find out who killed him and why. That’s a promise, ma’am.”

Jim watched Kat Connors dance for him to Cobra
Starship’s “Good Girls Go Bad.” Her movements were slow, flowing just behind
the beat, and super sensual. She danced on a high stage and Jim floated toward
her, suspended in midair. He allowed the seduction of the dance to draw him
closer. Kat stepped off the stage into empty space and her arms snaked around him.
He looked down, seeing his own body naked and aroused.

Kat pulled his face toward hers and her tongue
came out to greet him. Jim tried to pull away. The end of her tongue rose up
revealing a serpent’s head. The serpent’s face morphed into a man’s. The man’s
age could have been thirty or fifty, Jim couldn’t tell. A black beard roamed
across his face and a scar drifted down from the left temple, eventually hiding
itself in the coarse facial hair. The man’s eyes were black pools that drew the
surrounding light into them until all that Jim could see was the face. It spoke
to him, but the voice was Kat’s.

“Surrender to your desires.”

The voice reeked of seduction, as tantalizing as
her naked, writhing body. The scar on the side of the man’s face pulsed and
squirmed under paper-thin skin.

“Join your flesh with mine,” her voice invited.

As her voice tempted, her hands explored. The
pleasure centers of Jim’s brain and his flesh merged into a single erotic
point. He wanted to surrender, desired to surrender, ached for the release her
body promised. When was the last time he’d felt this way with Linda?

The man’s face pushed closer, grew larger. Now
full size floating in front of Jim.

“Surrender to my flesh,” Kat’s voice beckoned.

The heat and stench of the man’s breath assaulted
Jim’s nostrils. This isn’t right. Kat’s voice, Kat’s body, but some dude’s
face?

“Surrender. Join with me,” Kat purred. “Taste me.
Taste my pleasures. Surrender.”

The man’s eyes pulled Jim in against his will.
Kat’s voice penetrated Jim’s mind and gently stroked his brain’s hedonic
hotspots, the pleasure centers. If he surrendered, he could rest for a while.
If he surrendered, there would be sweet release. But, first the dude had to go,
then someone needed to fix the CD. The song repeated the first few bars, each
repetition growing annoyingly louder. Not a CD. Just the damn ringtone on my
cell phone.

The spell fractured. An angry voice replaced
seduction.

“Give me what I want,” the man demanded, his
voice now harshly masculine, commanding, filled with an undercurrent of evil
intent. “Surrender to us now.”

“No,” Jim shouted. “Hell no.”

As his voice reverberated in the echo chamber of
his dream, the man’s face aged, became hideous. Putrid flesh hung off his
skull. The lips cracked and turned black. A reddish black fluid oozed from
those cracks and from the corners of the mouth. The eyes remained dark and
bottomless.

“We will have you.”

The face snarled and snapped at Jim while Kat’s
arms remained entwined around his body. The voice became a guttural growl.

“We will feast on your soul.”

Using all the strength his spirit could muster,
Jim jerked his body free and awoke with a start. A moment of confusion reigned
as he glanced around the Spartan hotel room. He looked at his watch. The catnap
had lasted twenty minutes. Sweat drenched his body. He felt filthy and
violated. And God-awful tired. He reached for the ringing phone.

“Florida Highway Patrol, Trooper Demore,” Jim
answered, much too loudly.

The familiar voice sounded startled.

“Jim, it’s Saffi. You were drugged.”

Drugs. That explained the blackout and the
pictures. Did it explain the dream?

“What drug?” he asked.

“Well, we have something of a mystery there. The
lab found two substances in your blood. One we know. Rohypnol. They slipped you
a roofie.”

Jim didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Jim?”

“How could they do that?” Jim’s voice sounded
distant, hollow. “I though the manufacturer of Rohypnol modified the drug with
a blue dye to make it noticeable when mixed in a drink? Every law enforcement
agency in the universe got the bulletins on Rohypnol.”

“Maybe a counterfeit. Made without the
safeguards? Illegal as heck, but it’s out there. The second drug has a structure
similar to some neurotoxins, either venom or some kind of nerve agent,
definitely synthetic, but we can’t positively identify it. That one has to go
to the Defense Department.”

Jim sat quiet for a second, lost in thought.
Synthetic venom? That can’t be good.

He remembered, once in Okinawa, when he had
ordered a drink that had a pickled Habu snake in the bottle. Native to Okinawa,
the Habu harbored a neurotoxic venom. Some lunatic had turned a neurotoxic
snake into a bar drink. Youthful insanity combined with a testosterone-driven
sense of immortality, a combination that created a level of bravado that only
another jarhead could understand, caused Jim to take one shot from the bottle,
and for the entire next day, he felt like he was living underwater. It was one
of those “never again, what the hell was I thinking” experiences.

“We don’t know for sure,” Saffi told him. “I’m
sending a sample to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. See what they
think. Whatever it was, it looks like it did a number on you. I guess it
explains the blackout and the photos.”

“I guess it does. I owe you one, Saffi.”

***

Saffi smiled. Yes, you do. Big time.

Giving Jim the good news certainly helped offset
the negative side of the rest of her analysis. It had taken Saffi a couple of
hours after her meeting ended to get to the pictures, paper, envelope, and DVD.
She had kept the originals and provided Jim with copies. She had found nothing
that would help identify who was responsible. No fingerprints, no stray hairs,
no nothing. Regardless, she had heard appreciation in Jim’s voice.

“Buy me lunch sometime,” Saffi told him.

The words just popped out. Oh Lord, Saffi. Why
don’t you just ask him to marry you?

“I can do that,” Jim replied. “Can you fax the
results to my troop headquarters?”

“Right away.” Saffi said, smiling into the phone.
“Let me know about lunch. You’ve got my number.”
Boy, does he have your
number. Stop it, Saffi. You’re a good Christian girl, you don’t chase men.
Well, at least not until Jim Demore.

***

Jim felt a sense of relief that he had rarely
experienced. Probably, only the medical report that allowed him to return to
duty with the Highway Patrol after rehabilitation from his war wounds came
close.

“Thanks, Saffi,” Jim replied. “I’ll call you. Talk
to you later.”

Jim hung up. The girl was his hero. Thank God for
Saffi, science, and technology.

Jim was not quite sure why he felt he needed to
thank God, someone he wasn’t even sure existed, but he figured that at this
point, it couldn’t hurt. Considering what had happened and what still might
happen, he would probably need all the help that God, Odin, and the rest of the
universe could give him. He called Major Kant.

The telephone next to the cash register declared its need
for attention. The custom ringtone had an ethereal quality. Martha St. Onge
answered. The caller’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

“Jim Demore is going to keep working the Briggs’
case. He’s determined.” A pause. “I have to go. The major just opened her
door.” The caller disconnected.

Martha hung up and dialed Janet Poulet. Martha’s
number glowed on Janet’s caller ID.

“Tell me we have a story,” Janet said.

“Our sister, Starshadow, works for the FHP. In
the Ft. Myers office. You have a story. Courtesy of the FHP itself.”

The coven’s broad web once again handed her an
exclusive. Martha had put a name with the story, Corporal Jim Demore, Florida
Highway Patrol Homicide Investigator. Janet Poulet broke the Trooper Gone Wild
story during the early news at four p.m.

***

“I want him on administrative
leave today.”

“Sir, we have a good reason to believe there was
no misconduct on Trooper Demore’s part,” Major Kant said.

“No misconduct?” The director was almost
screaming. “I saw the video, major. He and that woman were not exactly on a
church picnic. The porn industry puts out tamer stuff.” The director paused
long enough to catch his breath, but not long enough for Major Kant to respond.
Kant closed her eyes, anticipating the next blast.

“Nobody’s gonna give a rat’s ass if there was
actual misconduct. I’ve already had a dozen calls about this, including the
governor himself,” he continued, the volume a touch lower. “This is a public
relations nightmare. What the hell was he doing in a strip club in the first
place?”

“Corporal Demore went there to question a person
of interest in the Briggs case.”

“Person of interest? God, I hate that expression.
It sure as hell didn’t come from a cop. Probably from some dip-shit reporter,
or possibly a lawyer.” the director said. For a moment, he sounded as if he was
talking to himself. “Person of interest? As far as I’m concerned, you’re either
a suspect, or a witness, or nobody.” He paused again. “You said the Briggs’
case?”

“Yes, sir,” Major Kant replied.

“Close it,” the director commanded.

“Sir, the case is nowhere near complete.”

“Doesn’t matter, major. Close it. I’ve read the
preliminary reports. Even if Briggs had been racing, how are we going to prove
it? Maybe Briggs was just trying to pass someone who didn’t want to be passed.
Has anyone found out if there was another vehicle?”

“That’s what Demore was working on. The person of
interest...sorry, sir...the suspect he went to see worked at a strip club in
Tampa. Might have been the one driving the alleged other vehicle. Demore claims
he has no memory of ever reaching Tampa. Said he woke up in his patrol car on
Picnic Island and that the pictures, a DVD, and a note were in an envelope on
the passenger seat of his car. I’m waiting for a report that may verify he was
drugged. Possibly someone slipped him a mickey.”

“How convenient. How the hell did the media get
hold of it?” the director interrupted.

“No idea, sir. We’re still investigating that.
I’m sure you know about the attempt on Demore’s life. Maybe there’s a connection.”

“Put him on paid leave. Today. I can have the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement look at any evidence you have. But I want
that boy off the job. Today. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

The phone went dead. Major Kant hung up. It looked
like it was going to royally suck to be Trooper Demore today.

***

Jim stood in front of the squad
room television monitor. He had drifted in to get a cup of coffee when a
breaking news ticker began running at the bottom of the screen below the image
of a female news reporter. The ticker read
Trooper Gone Wild
. Jim’s
picture flashed up on the screen next to the reporter.

Jim had never met the woman, but he knew her
reputation. The station she worked for had plastered her image on billboards,
bus stops, and other public locations around Southwest Florida with emphasis on
her “Emmy Award-winning” status. Jim grabbed the television remote control that
sat on the coffee service table and turned up the volume.

“This is Janet Poulet for
The Early News at
Four
. If your children are home from school, you may want to send them to
another room. What we are about to show you is not suitable for young
children.”

Jim’s picture flew off the screen as the camera
pulled back to reveal Janet standing in front of a Ft. Myers’ topless club.

“
The Early News at Four
has exclusive
coverage of a Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Gone Wild. These photos show
Corporal Jim Demore, the Florida Highway Patrol Accident Investigator whose
home was recently firebombed, out on the town at a local strip club.”

Jim’s jaw went slack as picture after picture
flashed across the screen. Although the nudity had been blurred out, his face,
with his eyes-wide-open zombie stare, could be clearly seen. A video clip
replaced the photos. Jim watched himself being “entertained” by the stripper.
Off screen, Poulet continued her narrative.

“Although we have not yet identified the club or
the stripper in the pictures and video clip that you are seeing, we know that
Corporal Demore works out of Ft. Myers and is assigned to Troop F. Based upon
the photos and this video, it seems that Corporal Demore’s lifestyle runs a
little faster than the speeders he chases down the freeway.”

Jim watched as the video ended and Poulet came
back on the screen.

“A representative for the Florida Highway Patrol
told this reporter that they were not able to comment, as this was a personnel
matter involving an ongoing investigation.”

His one consolation was that he was alone in the
squad room. The story was as ugly as Poulet was attractive and the video and pictures
were damning.

“Attempts to reach Trooper Demore were
unsuccessful, but this reporter will not rest until we have uncovered all of
the facts in this story.”

What attempts?

Jim doubted that it was the facts that were
important. More likely, it was the opportunity to break a sensational story, to
crush the competition, and get another Emmy. All at his expense. Poulet
continued, looking even more serious.

“Law enforcement tells us that many of these
so-called gentlemen’s clubs are frequently fronts for prostitution and drug
rings, and are often controlled by organized crime. That information makes us
wonder if the recent attempt on Trooper Demore’s life might be tied to some
ongoing criminal activity and the trooper’s possible involvement.”

 The pictures and video were painful enough. The
reference to organized crime went over the top. Someone was trying to destroy
him with what appeared to be a preemptive strike.

It was not until Jim’s first deployment to Iraq
that he had come face-to-face with genuine, unrestrained evil. The occasional
bloody and mangled individuals he encountered on the highways as a trooper were
more attributable to stupidity than any type of intentional evil. In Iraq,
however, he had seen the broken, bleeding, and battered bodies of innocent
civilians — men, women, and children — tortured and murdered by sectarian and
terrorist violence. That was evil. It had been a rude awakening for a kid from
relatively peaceful Southwest Florida.

Yet, in spite of the horrors of war and the pain of
losing friends in combat, he did not feel particularly jaded. He had seen man’s
inhumanity to man firsthand — but he had also seen random acts of kindness that
restored one’s belief that, despite the evil in the world, pockets of goodness
also flourish. No goodness existed in the report that he had just watched.

He felt an unfamiliar hatred rising up inside of
him. A hatred of all things unfair, all things corrupt. A righteous
indignation. For the first time in his life, he was the direct target of a horrible,
and deliberate, injustice.

The evidence pointed toward someone, some
thing
,
working behind the scenes, not only to sidetrack the Briggs investigation, but
now to personally destroy him. Some force that seemed to go beyond simple
criminal activity. He could not name it, but it was there. He felt it, and he
had become its target.

He reached a quick and simple decision. Whatever
person, persons, or power it was, he would face it head on and defeat it,
regardless of the personal cost. He would destroy it, or it would have to kill
him. No compromise. He would be relentless, even ruthless if necessary. He
would track the evil down and stop it — or he would die trying.