The Demon Pool (34 page)

An adrenaline dump pushed Jim’s heart rate higher. Cold
sweat stung his eyes and trickled down his back. He swept the room with his
weapon.

De la Garza sat upright in a high-backed chair.
His right eye was open. A wood shaft, some type of short arrow, or bolt,
protruded from his left eye. The shaft looked old. Antique even. A half-mask of
crusted blood covered de la Garza’s cheek, chin, and neck below the offended
eye.

An assault rifle, with magazine inserted, rested
against the side of the chair. De la Garza’s mouth hung slightly open.
Something inside kept his lips parted. Jim used the sleeve of his free hand to
clear more sweat from his eyes. He took three deep, slow breaths, as he rubbed
his hand against his pants to remove the sweat from his palm and help calm his
nerves.

He looked around, edging cautiously past the
chair. The small kitchen, now visible, stood empty. Moving back to the right,
he walked slowly toward the short hallway leading to the bedroom. To his left
was the bathroom, the door partially closed. Jim used his foot to nudge it
open. Empty.

He turned toward the closed door across the hall
and stood still for a moment. The house remained quiet. He reached out,
noiselessly turned the doorknob and shoved the door open. Nothing. Jim cleared
the bedroom and returned to the living area. He holstered his weapon and began
the distasteful task of examining de la Garza.

Jim wiped more sweat away from his eyes. He
looked behind the chair and saw the iron tip of the bolt, barely poking through
the chair’s upholstery. It had pierced Pedro’s skull and nailed his head to the
chair.

Taking a pen from his pocket, Jim pushed Pedro’s
mouth open. Using the tip of the pen, he pulled out a small length of what
looked like a beaded necklace. Hooking the string, he eased it out of Pedro’s
mouth and saw a silver crucifix attached to it. A rosary hung at the end of
Jim’s pen.

Events somehow had tied together Kat Connors,
Bruce York, the little Klingon freak, Kevin Williams, and who knew whom else.
Events had taken Pedro from murder witness to murder victim.  Regardless of
his presuppositions, Jim had to admit that Saffi might be right. No matter what
he might believe, he had to follow the evidence, even if it led to the devil’s
front door.

Of all the recent occurrences, the kidnapping of
Carl Johns puzzled Jim the most. It could have been blind luck that Kat somehow
got her hands on Carl, but Jim doubted that.
There has to be a bigger
connection.

He looked at Pedro. He had seen death many times,
but Pedro’s loss made the situation more personal, more painful. Pedro de la
Garza, along with Saffi, had helped move him from skeptic to nascent, if
reluctant believer. The old soldier had paid with his life. Maybe now he was
finally at peace with the woman he loved.

The sound of a vehicle driving slowly toward the
house cut through the dead-silence of the living room. Jim put his hand on the
butt of his pistol and moved to the edge of the front door. He cracked the door
enough to see the area where the trail opened into the clearing. A white
Chevrolet Impala rolled toward the house. Even from a distance, he recognized
the Impala as a State of Florida fleet vehicle. It pulled up behind Jim’s
Charger.

Jim pushed the door open at the same time Bill
Joyce exited the vehicle. Jim took a second to put on his sunglasses before
stepping out on the porch. He pulled the door closed behind him. Joyce was
dressed in a white Department of Law Enforcement polo shirt and dark pants. A
third generation, Glock twenty-two pistol rode high on his right hip.

“Trooper Demore, I didn’t expect to see you
here.”

Joyce walked purposefully around the Charger,
stopping at the bottom of the steps. He removed his sunglasses, squinted at
Jim, and rubbed his eyes.

“Your buddy inside?” he asked.

Jim nodded, then reached up and removed his own
sunglasses.

“He’s inside, but he won’t be talking to you.”

Joyce started up the steps, but stopped a step
short of the porch. Jim stood in front of Joyce, not quite ready to give way.

“You know, Demore, even though you got benched,
we’re playing on the same team,” Joyce told him.

“You would think so.”

“I just want to ask your buddy a couple of
questions.”

Jim put his sunglasses back on and stepped aside.

“Go ahead, ask him anything you want.”

Joyce stepped up onto the porch and paused for a
moment. He looked at Jim, smirked a bit, and then shook his head. He walked up
to the front door and rapped on it. Joyce announced himself.

“Mr. de la Garza, my name’s Bill Joyce with the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement.”

Joyce waited a moment for an answer and then
pushed the door open. He was still talking as he entered the living room.

“Mr. de la Garza, I’d like to ask you a couple of
questions.”

Joyce stopped abruptly when he saw Pedro.

“Holy shit, Demore,” Joyce shouted over his
shoulder at Jim. “Damn you. Why didn’t you tell me he was dead?”

“I tried,” Jim replied as he stepped off the
porch. The volume of his voice went up a notch. “You didn’t sound too
interested in what I might have to say.”

“I’m sure-as-shit interested now,” Joyce replied.

Jim didn’t wait for Joyce. He climbed into the
Charger and hung a tight U-turn in front of the porch. As Joyce sprinted out
the front door, Jim pressed hard on the Charger’s accelerator and the rear
wheels spit dirt, shells, and small bits of dried vegetation at the
investigator. Joyce opened his mouth to yell, but he found himself dodging a
shower of tire spit instead. When he finally did speak, it was a shout. “Son of
a bitch” was all that Jim heard.

Joyce stood in front of the porch as the Charger
pulled away. In the rearview mirror, Jim watched Joyce stab at his cell phone.

Leaving de la Garza’s, Jim drove back to State Route 29
and followed the highway north. From there, he cut west toward the interstate.

He thought about finding de la Garza dead, his eye
socket pierced by what looked like a crossbow bolt. In a way, it made sense. A
crossbow made no noise, there would not be any ballistics to match, and no
gunpowder residue on the perpetrator. No DNA either, if the killer had been
careful.

Given that de la Garza had an automatic weapon
sitting ready, next to his chair, he must have expected something. Jim pondered
the skill of the killer. To get close enough with a crossbow to put the bolt
right through de la Garza’s eye, without being seen or heard, and to be
accurate enough to get one shot, one kill through a closed window.
Hell of a
kill, even for a trained operator with a modern weapon.

Jim had known some Marine recon types that were
that good with their silenced small arms. He also knew that some special forces
units did use exotic weapons. He had even read that the Marine Commandos of the
Indian Navy had, at one time, used modern crossbows with cyanide tipped arrows
for sentry elimination, but he also understood that less awkward and much less
cumbersome silenced pistols had replaced those. Killing de la Garza with what
looked to be a medieval, crossbow bolt had been an almost superhuman act, or
maybe supernatural? Jim did not care for the prospect of either.

If he ever needed divine guidance, and, frankly,
he never gave it much thought in the past, even in combat, it was now. Jim
prayed his first real prayer since the forced Sunday school prayers of his
youth.
God, I don’t even know if you are there, but if you are, well, I need
some help. Whatever you can do, okay?

Remembering from his youth how they always ended
the prayers, Jim murmured aloud, “In the name of Jesus, Amen.”

It sounded corny, but he didn’t care. Whatever he
had to do to get Carl, and, hopefully, himself out alive. If God gave him an
edge, great. If not, well, the situation could not be much worse.

Jim reached over to where his cell phone rested
in a portable phone mount and checked his voicemail. Major Kant wanted to see
him, Bill Joyce had a whole bunch of unanswered questions, and Saffi had done
some research for him and had the results. He would explain the situation to
Major Kant and to Joyce after he rescued Carl. Calling them now could seal
Carl’s fate, especially if Kat had some weird, occult way of finding out.
Can’t
take that chance.

At this point, the evidence he had to work with
consisted of only a video and a voice, and the statement of a dead witness. If
he were unsuccessful in saving Carl, explanations would be moot. The dead had
no need to explain. Jim deleted all three messages and called Saffi. She
answered on the first ring.

“Hi Jim, don’t say anything and don’t ask any
questions. Get back to my apartment now. I don’t know how, but Pedro’s dead.
God, I can’t believe he’s dead. It’s on the news. Janet Poulet just broke the
story.  Good Lord, this is crazy. She said he was murdered and someone
claims to have seen the Trooper-Gone-Wild driving near where Pedro lives. Get
here quick. Bye.”

Before he could get a single word in, Saffi hung
up.
In the news, already. That’s nuts. I just left de la Garza’s.

He was sure that Bill Joyce would not have called
the media. Maybe someone from the coroner’s office had alerted the press when
Joyce called it in?
Damn, that was fast.

The traffic on the road leading to Pedro’s house
had been sparse. It was unlikely that someone had recognized him. He had not
seen a single car for ten miles in either direction, both coming to and leaving
de la Garza’s.

He glanced up at the sky. Large, heavy clouds
bunched up, pushing inland. The trees and brush next to the road shuddered
intermittently as the storm in the gulf began to affect the local weather.

He wondered if someone or something was watching.
Someone or something that could see him, but that could not, itself, be seen.
He felt a chill. Did demons even come out in the daylight? He was not sure he
wanted to know. Maybe Saffi could answer some of those questions.

Jim drove past the interstate exit, deciding to
take the back streets into Ft. Myers. He had a little time and there was less
chance of him running into another state trooper on the local roads.

He kept reminding himself that even if the
supernatural existed and demons were running around, or flying around, making
his life miserable, they still needed humans to accomplish their purposes.
While he admitted to himself that he didn’t know much about stopping demons,
taking corrupt and criminal humans off the street — well, that was something he
did know how to do. Assuming he would ever have the chance to again.

Saffi wasn’t kidding when she said she’d done some
research. She printed out all of the county property records on the de la Garza
estate, as well as a satellite view of the property. Jim looked at the paper
spread out on Saffi’s kitchen table. Although limited in its detail, the
satellite photo did give Jim a view of the surrounding terrain, and it was
recent enough to show the fence that encircled the property.

The fence went back beyond where a clearing
containing a spring merged into the thick brush surrounding it. Jim saw a
number of ways he could approach the property without anyone seeing him, at
least anyone human. However, given his experience thus far, human eyes may not
be his greatest concern.

Jim stared at the documents laid out on Saffi’s
kitchen table. He reached down next to his chair and grabbed a tactical gear
bag from the floor.

“Let’s assume the worst,” Saffi told him. “You
know that I believe in the Bible’s version of good and evil. So, let’s assume
that demonic forces are behind this entire mess. The question then becomes —
how do we neutralize them? How do we make it so that you are only dealing with
the people and not the occult power behind them?”

“Yeah, okay,” Jim said. “However, if all we are
dealing with is simply bad actors, just normal, nasty, bad guys, then all I
need is a plan to get in and neutralize a couple of untrained morons and their
girlfriend. I don’t need to be a witch doctor to do that.”

Jim hefted the gear bag onto the table. He pulled
out a night vision system, a compact, rail-mounted, laser sight, and an extra
pistol, a Smith & Wesson Air Lite, five-shot revolver.

“If this is simply a human endeavor, no problem,”
Saffi told him. “You have enough firepower and technology here to take out a
good-sized nest of bad guys. But if these people are empowered by demons,
you’re going to need more than bullets. They’re going to know your every move.
They are out there, Jim. In the air. All around us. There is no way you’re
going to have the element of surprise and, frankly, without that, you have
little hope of getting Carl out alive.”

“Well, that’s a bright, happy assessment,” Jim
said. “Look, I admit that something weird has been going on. But the only thing
I’ve seen that actually looks demonic is that little freak Kevin Williams from
the State Traffic Management Center. Now if you told me that that guy was a
demon-possessed serial killer, I would believe you.”

“Okay,” Saffi ventured, “maybe these are just bad
actors, but can you really afford to take a chance? You might only get one shot
at getting your friend Carl and yourself out of there alive. You need spiritual
covering, just in case.”

“You mean like a cross or garlic or something?”
Jim smiled. “It might be a little hard to find silver bullets this late in the
day.”

Saffi did not look particularly amused.

“Look, Jim, vampires and werewolves don’t show up
in the Bible or in church history, so don’t worry about silver bullets or
garlic,” Saffi shot back. “However, demons do, and you said yourself that
something was weird about this case. Everything points to some type of demonic
power at work here, and icons and vegetables are not going to help you. When I
say spiritual covering, I mean serious, anointed prayer and it needs to come
from at least two people. After all, even though you might not believe it,
Jesus said that where two or more are gathered in his name, he would be there.
I need someone to pray with. Someone who is a genuine believer. Someone you can
trust with your life and Carl’s.”

Jim looked at Saffi. He could not take a chance
with Carl’s life. After all, she only asked for prayer and Jim himself had
prayed after finding Pedro. It couldn’t hurt and it would keep Saffi occupied,
and probably safe.

“I know someone,” Jim said.

***

Pastor Jack Demore drove, and lived in, a nineteen
seventy-three, Volkswagen Westfalia, full pop-top van. He could have chosen to
live better, but Jack Demore knew that anything he owned would someday just go
to someone else, or to rust and corruption, and, frankly, he was much more
interested in sending his treasure ahead to heaven. His focus had not always
been on spiritual things. Before Vietnam, it was fast cars and little Jenny
Shapiro.

He had let his hair grow, quit high school, found
a job as a mechanic, and rented an apartment over the garage where he worked.
Jenny then moved in with him, much to her parent’s chagrin. Then came the
miscarriage, followed closely by the letter that brought him greetings from the
President of the United States and an invitation to report to his local draft
induction center.

Jack got drafted and a very short haircut. Jenny
moved back home with her family. Ultimately, each found redemption. Jenny in a
life as a nurse, doctor’s wife, mother, and social maven, and Jack in a life of
sharing God’s truth with anyone willing to listen.

Jack pushed the Westfalia’s four-cylinder engine as
hard as he dared. This would not be Jack’s first mission to interdict an
enemy’s forces. He had spent that final year in ‘nam as a member of a
quick-reaction force, a blue team. The “blues” traveled light, fought hard, and
went anywhere they were needed. It had been an eerie foreshadowing of his
future life as an itinerant preacher and evangelist. The difference being that
in Vietnam, Jack’s mission was to send as many of his enemy soldiers as
possible straight to hell. Now, enemy or friend, he only wanted to see people
saved from hell, and this time, it was his nephew Jim that needed saving.