whiskey witches 01 - whisky witches (29 page)

He raised his chin, his mouth open. He didn’t buy it.

She didn’t care. Trust was a sword not easily won. She needed to know if she could trust this agent and she didn’t have a lot of time to play. “Balnore, I need you.” She didn’t break step as she continued to the caboose, shining her flashlight ahead of her.

“Did you say something?” Scott asked over his shoulder, sans light.

“Nope.” She slipped the gloves on and stopped in front of the leaning man. “Sir?”

Scott touched the other man’s shoulder with a black-gloved hand. “He’s dead.”

“How can you tell?”

“He . . . feels dead.”

Paige stepped in closer and checked the man’s pulse. “You’re right.” She flicked her gaze at Scott. “No light.”

“Um.” His mouth opened and he shrugged.

“Peanut,” Balnore said from the car. “I’m in the middle of something.”

Paige turned to the demon and frowned. “The wrong side of an interrogation?”

He flattened his lips. A cut bled across one eye and his cheek was swollen. His shirt was half untucked, his pant leg torn. “I need to get back.”

“Fine.” She took a step toward him. “I need you to tell me what you know about this one.”

Balnore took a staggering step backward. “Jack? He’s clean, Peanut. You can trust him. Besides, you’ll probably need him before this is over.”

First name basis? That meant Special Agent Scott was a person of interest. “What is he?”

“Human.”

“A witch? What’s his gift?”

Balnore dipped his chin and stared at her through his eyebrows. “He sees dead people die before they die. Now, can I go?”

She flicked her fingers and turned back to Scott as Balnore disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

The agent raised his eyebrows. “You summoned a demon to vet me?”

She closed her eyes. “I’ve done it for worse.”

And she had.

A
GENT SCOTT RUBBED
his forehead. “Whatever. Are we good now? Can we work together?”

She shrugged. It still felt way too convenient, and “he sees dead people die” wasn’t much help.

“There’s the mirror I saw,” Scott said, pointing to the right, “and the wheat.”

Paige ran her tongue over her teeth and nodded. “They’re playing. Malika and Jones. They’re toying with us, having fun.”

“You haven’t caught them yet. They’re getting cocky. They’ll slip up soon.”

“We don’t need them to slip up. I need him to slip up.”

“Him, who?”

Paige rubbed her eye and paced away. Sure, Balnore had told her Special Agent Scott wasn’t bad, but that only meant he wasn’t evil. Maybe. Did she really trust Balnore anymore?

Tough question. Yes and no.

Headlights shone on them and a rumbling purr met Paige’s ears.

Dexx pulled Jackie next to Scott’s car and got out. “What do you have?”

Relief crept into Paige’s chest. Having Dexx there made things easier. Him? She could trust Dexx. “Another body.”

He clicked on his flashlight and pointed it at the caboose.

Scott raised his hand to shield his eyes and stepped out of the glare.

“Who’s the fed?” Dexx asked.

“Special Agent Jack Scott.” Paige ran her hand over her face. “He sees people die. Balnore says he’s clean.”

Dexx narrowed his eyes at her, his expression pained.

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

He relaxed his brow and nodded once. “Details on the first body you found. It was left in town?”

“Malika apparently killed her. Put the woman in her own dress, then tied her to a light post in the middle of town.”

“Security cameras?”

“Probably. We’ll have to see.”

“Small town.”

“Hopefully not that small.”

“Witnesses?”

She shook her head and meandered toward the dead male.

“Then how’d you get so many details already?”

She gestured to Scott. “He saw it in a vision.”

“Seriously.”

“And the details he had were solid. I’d say he was in on it, but Balnore vouched for him and I have to believe good people are out there.”

Scott ducked his head and chewed the inside of his cheek.

Paige winced. Just how calloused had she become? “Malika left love runes and conch shells on the ground at her victim’s feet. Some kind of message for Jones?”

“A love note, maybe?” Dexx’s face contorted in an expression of gross.

“It’s sick.” Though, with these two, it was a real possibility.

“They’ve been killing people together for weeks. This is a little lame, don’t you think?”

That wasn’t the word she’d have used. “Then this guy. According to Agent Scott, Mike strangled him, then left him here with a mirror and a wreath of wheat.”

Dexx’s expression went flat. “Wheat? Are you fucking kidding me? First a protection mandala and now a wreath of wheat.”

“Just goes to show that the power is neutral until warped by the hands of the user.”

“Wheat.”

“I know.”

Scott’s eyes bounced between the two of them as they volleyed. “You two speak in a weird sort of half-language.”

Paige shook her head and turned away from the body.

“We used complete sentences,” Dexx said.

“No. You really didn’t.”

“Really? I’m sure we did.”

“No.”

“As cute as both you boys are,” Paige interrupted. “Shut it.” She rubbed her mouth. “There’s probably evidence we can actually follow here.”

“That’s a good thing,” Scott said.

“No. I need to get to Sven and I can’t do that if Malika and Jones are locked up in jail.”

Agent Scott stepped into her line of view. “You think these two murders were plants so they could get caught.”

It made sense. They’d been several steps in front of her this entire investigation. This would be like thumbing their nose at her, reminding her she still didn’t know what needed to. “Sven’s hiding. And my globe stops working now? No. Somehow, he knows the only way I can find him is through those two.”

“Who is Sven?”

Dexx walked to Jackie and propped himself against her hood. “A demon, and a pretty bad one at that.”

Scott stretched his neck. “A demon. As a real one.”

Dexx chuckled. “No, numb nuts. A guy who thinks he’s one. Demons don’t really exist.”

“Like I can’t see people die before it happens?” Scott gestured to Paige. “Also she summoned a demon, Balnore, to see if I was okay.”

“Pea. Really?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was tired of playing.”

“I knew you had some kind of ability when it came to demons.” Scott spread his hands. “It’s the only thing that made sense. A lot of your cases had the same footprint.”

Same footprint? She’d never had anyone study her before. It felt a bit creepy.

Raising his chin, Dexx pursed his lips and folded his arms over his chest. “This is too weird, Pea. First the chief. Now a fed.”

“May I remind you who brought Brian in.”

He quirked his lips and flicked his eyebrows. “Right. Anyway, yeah. She summons, as you know. She can do it practically at will.”

“And that’s it?” Scott asked. “If that’s the case and Sven really is a demon, then summon him.”

Paige bit the inside of her lip.

Dexx unfolded his arms and thumped Jackie’s hood. “That’s a good point. Why go through all this if you can just summon him?”

Summoning someone like him now? It was too soon. She still felt raw from the possession. “He’s too powerful. I just got my gifts back. Yes. I can summon demons I’ve summoned before. Balnore for example. But more than that? I’d have to know his true name.”

“How would you find that?” Scott asked.

Dexx shrugged. “I have books and books with demon names.”

“No.” She stared at the stars blinking out overhead. “Those are just letters and sounds. A true name is so much more. It’s a twinge in the gut. It’s a twist in the heart. It’s a collage of images.”

“So when someone without your ability creates the circle,” Dexx said, gesturing with his hands as if recreating the act, “and goes through all the pomp and circumstance—”

“A demon isn’t forced to come when someone summons like that.” Paige propped her foot on Jackie’s bumper. “The salt circle is to protect the summoner, but the real protections have to do with names; the true name of a wall, the true name of a door.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“And your gift,” Scott said, “comes with understanding these names.”

“Kind of. I guess. I hear walls speak. I hear see memories, watch them play. It’s like being able to see beyond the veil of time, to see all the timelines together.”

Dexx’s face screwed up in confusion. “How does that help you find a name?”

“The name of a location, of a wall, of a door, is the culmination of all those memories, all those voices, all the people who left their mark.”

“Hmm.” Dexx glanced at the victim still tied to the caboose behind Paige. “So how do you get a demon’s true name?”

“Research them. Pull up all their information. Collect their details.”

“So do that.”

“Sven died, Dexx. His paper doesn’t exist.”

Scott pulled his head back. “Demons die?”

“Like anyone else. He died hundreds of years ago and no one’s heard from him since. He could have been born again as a human or as a bear or as a tree.”

“Now you’re pulling my leg.”

“I wish I were.” This was well above Paige’s understanding. She’d never even asked many questions about this. She’d never had to. “Demons have souls. Angels have souls. When they die, they go back into the same soup we all do.”

“So no matter what you believe, you’re going to be reborn.”

Paige shrugged. “It’d be an awful waste of energy, don’t you think?”

Dexx released a puff of breath and glanced at the bandage on her chest. “How are you feeling, anyway? It’s been less than a day since you were abducted and possessed.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you? What about when you’re around demons?”

“I’m fine.” And she was, surprisingly. She’d always been a quick healer, but this was a new fast for her. She’d had symbols carved into her. She’d been beaten and drugged, and she was just a little sore.

“Okay. So, what’s the plan?”

Paige scratched an itch at her temple, the sun piercing the night with delicate swords of light. “This is big and getting bigger.”

“We can’t allow Malika and Mike to go free,” Scott said fiercely. “We need to catch them.”

“I hear you.” But they had bigger fish to catch. “We’ll gather the evidence first and then review it.”

“We already know who did this.”

“And if it were just us, that would be enough. You with your visions. Me with my demons, but this is a big scene right now, Special Agent Scott. I don’t know how you do things, but with me, when humans are involved, we let the law handle them.”

He gnashed his teeth.

“This is the first time you’ve worked with someone who didn’t think you were crazy, isn’t it?”

He pulled his lips back, then settled them in place in a relaxed, settled expression. “Yes.”

She’d seen it before, mostly with “psychics” who couldn’t tell a stick from a tree. When they tripped onto people who didn’t immediately assume insanity, they latched on, felt the rules no longer applied. “If the evidence points to Jones and Malika, we bring them in. We try them on the evidence they present.”

“And everything else we know?”

“We use to guide us to the evidence they wouldn’t otherwise have provided.”

Scott dropped his gaze to the ground and released a frustrated breath.

“It’s not fun. Especially when we know what’s going on.”

“I’ve seen you bring people in with no evidence at all.”

And she had.

“So let’s bring them in now. Get them in custody while we’re processing the evidence.”

“Then how do we find Sven?” Dexx asked.

Scott raked his teeth over his bottom lip and turned to the victim behind him. “That man had a name. He had a family. He had friends.”

A wave of guilt and regret washed over Paige like a bucket of acid. “He’s one man.”

“And the woman from earlier?”

“Is one woman.”

“And the three they killed before?”

“Were three more.”

Scott shot daggers from his gaze.

It was time to share with the fed what the real issue was. “Sven is after a key that opens the Gate to Hell. It’s in three pieces. We have no idea how many pieces he has. We have no idea if it is working. We only know he has been successful in opening the gate for a short period of time. Things got loose. Things got free.”

Scott’s eyes widened.

Finally, she had his attention. “If he gets his hands on all three parts of the key and then uses it? Imagine how many thousands, how many hundreds of thousands, millions, billions of lives will be affected then? Demons, running around loose. Damned souls. Angels. Worse.”

“What could be worse?” he asked, his voice low.

“You don’t want to know.” And neither did she. She didn’t know what could be worse. She’d never faced it before. It could be Satan. It could be Jesus. Hell, it could be God. Who knew? One thing she did know.

That gate had to remain closed at all costs.

Five bodies was a small price to pay.