Trafficking in Demons Read online

  “Bingo,” I crowed triumphantly. “We’ve got a…cartridge casing?”

  The tarnished brass color of the huge casing glimmered in the light as I held it up. It looked like it had come off a bullet designed to take down bull elephants. Or the kind of round that was belt fed into a .50 caliber machine gun. The casing stretched longer than my palm, and it was easily bigger than the diameter of a roll of dollar coins. I could only imagine the size and weight of a complete round.

  Hector kept on shooting as he moved to get closeups of the pitted and scored granite counter top. “Any marks on the base? I’d be curious to know who made it.”

  I turned the casing so I could look at it end-on. A pair of markings along the edge jumped out at me. One looked vaguely like an Egyptian ankh, only with an extra couple of hash marks added. The other resembled a strange flower or seashell at first glance. I squinted at this second mark more closely. Something about it looked familiar.

  My brain did one of its weird clicks.

  Right behind that click came my instant refusal to believe what my mind was telling me. I shook my head to clear it.

  “You find anything, Dayna?” Hector called.

  “What?” I asked, startled out of my chain of thought. “I mean, hold on. Just a second.”

  I’ve seen this shape before, I thought grimly. Of course I know it. I’ve even slept with it against my skin.

  That marking was shaped exactly like a piece of jewelry I’d had in my possession for several months. The medallion that Hollyhock had worn around her neck during my time at the Reykajar Aerie. The medallion that she’d used to cast a spell that nearly incapacitated an entire cave filled with griffins.

  The medallion Holly had pressed into my palm as she died.

  That same medallion had been used as a last-ditch bargaining chip. I’d handed it over to secure Shelly Richardson’s freedom from the First Samaritan Mental Hospital. What’s more, the founder of Crossbow Consulting had recognized the shape.

  Someone, or something, Andeluvian was at play here.

  In fact, this casing made the third time I’d come across an Andeluvian artifact in Los Angeles. The first was a giant feather that had come from Blackthorn, another of Shaw’s now-deceased True Born. The second had been the shard of crystal Esteban and I found next to a smoking machine gun. A weapon that had been set up and fired using a spell.

  I sat back on my heels, trying to make sense of the implications. Magic must have played a part in this murder. That meant this case had something to do with Andeluvia. But the mark on this casing?

  It pointed like a neon arrow towards the Creatures of the Dark.

  It pointed towards the mysterious ‘him’ that had set Hollyhock on the path to annihilation.

  And it pointed straight at Grayson Archer.

  Chapter Three

  Grim thoughts played out in my mind as I stood and placed the casing before me on the bar top. Events crossing from Andeluvia into my home world had been rare. Now, the pace of these events had started to accelerate. I sensed something big moving behind the scenes, something dangerous and dark.

  And I didn’t like it at all.

  Hector had finished his picture taking. I’d worked with the man several times before, and I recognized his ‘winding down’ phase. He paused and surveyed the scene with practiced eyes, camera in one hand and a sun-browned thumb jammed absently in his leather belt.

  Maybe I could use those practiced eyes.

  Although he wasn’t licensed, the man had an uncanny ability to sense patterns in everything from bloodstains and mud tracks to shattered glass. When we worked together, we often came up with the correct answer in half the time. Maybe he could make this whole scene a little less chueco.

  “Hector, got a minute? I could use your help reconstructing the scene here.”

  His dark eyebrows raised for a moment. “For you? Anytime. What do you need?”

  I indicated where I stood with a downward motion of my hand. “I’m in the right position to play the ‘shooter’ here. I need someone to play ‘victim’.”

  “I’m your guy, then.”

  He slung his camera strap over his shoulder and walked back to the recreation room as I lined myself up behind the middle scoring on the bar. I lifted my arms and pantomimed holding a large rifle, sighting along the imaginary barrel so that it lined up with the central hole in the far wall. Hector squinted at the floor, then stepped into my ‘sights’ only ten feet in front of me.

  “That’s a little close, don’t you think?” I asked him. “You’d fill up my entire viewfinder at that range.”

  “If I was that close, you wouldn’t need it,” he pointed out. “And this is exactly where the victim was standing when the shooter pulled the trigger.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Marks in the carpet. Take a look.” Sure enough, the carpet that stretched from here to the bloodied expanse in the adjoining room had noticeable vacuum lines. Hector had spotted the one real deviation in the pattern – a deep scuff mark that paralleled the scratch on the bar top.

  “You’re right.” I noted the distance between the scuff marks and the body’s ultimate resting place. Had I not seen the results, I don’t think I’d have believed them. “And if you’re right, then the impact of the bullet from this gun knocked the victim back more than thirty feet.”

  Hector nodded. “Like I said, whatever the shooter used, it was a BFG.”

  “It’s not the distance the body flew that bothers me. It’s the distance between the body and the barrel of the gun,” I said. “Ten feet…that’s no ambush, you could clearly see a gun being pointed at you. Even in low light.”

  “Definitely no ambush,” Hector agreed. “I haven’t looked over the whole house yet, but there’s no sign of a break-in from the front door. It just…it doesn’t feel like there was a burglar here who got surprised at his work and shot someone out of fear.”

  “No, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels planned.” I scanned the bar top again, this time looking off to one side of the scratch marks. I leaned forward, motioning Hector to join me as I spotted something so faint, it was easy to miss. “Look at that, can you take a picture?”

  “What?” he asked, before he spotted it as well. He let out a mild curse as he unlimbered his camera and took a couple shots. “Dammit, I shouldn’t have missed that.”

  The faint mark sat about six inches to the right of the scratches. It was perfectly circular, almost as wide as a man’s palm.

  “That’s got to be a moisture ring from a glass,” I mused aloud as I looked up from the bar. My glance fell upon the shattered remains of the rum bottle on the kitchen floor, then moved to the strands of spearmint still lying in the dead man’s palm. Two strands, to be precise.

  The victim had been making two mojitos. With a little ‘click’, my brain filled in the rest.

  “So, our guy there was making drinks for him and our shooter. There’s no glass here on the bar, so the shooter must’ve finished his first drink and handed it back to his…host?”

  “I think you’re on to something.” Hector moved back to the carpet marks. “The victim must’ve taken the glass back to the counter. Maybe the rum was already there, but he had to get some fresh spearmint for the refill.”

  “But just as he returns, mint in hand,” I continued, “the shooter calls him over. The victim crosses the floor to the point on the carpet…”

  “And the shooter blows him away.” Hector pantomimed the movement. “Bang, bang, bang. I’d bet good money that the shooter never fired whatever that cannon was before, either.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “The fact that there were three bullets fired. Question is, why? The shooter hit his mark on the first shot, turning our friend over there into hamburger. But if you’re startled by a weapon’s kickback, your first instinct is to squeeze your grip harder.”

  “And possibly trigger the weapon twice more,” I said, following along.
/>   “All three shots must’ve generated a good debris spray, too. I’m seeing shrapnel marks on the kitchen appliances and the granite counter. That’s why all the glass there is shattered.”

  “Shattered into near-powder,” I grumbled. “But I’m still going to collect all of it. The shooter’s glass must be in there. Maybe the lab techs can get a partial print off something.”

  “I hope they can. I think we nailed what happened, but it’s still pretty weird.” He hefted his camera. “Maybe you’ll think of something. In the meantime, I need to get some exterior shots.”

  Hector left as I went back to my case to bag the cartridge casing. The sequence of events just seemed odd. No break-in, and it didn’t appear that anything had been ransacked or taken, except for this mystery weapon. In fact, this seemed to be a friendly visit, since the two people had already had a first drink.

  And then…one person set up a cannon on the table and calmly shot the other?

  I shook my head, to clear it as much as anything else. And that reminded me of something else I had to take care of. When I’d looked over the systems that had been re-installed in the newly refurbished OME van, they’d left a couple of items out for ‘budgetary reasons’. Of course, that included the wet-vac recharger system, as well as the wet-vac itself.

  I went back down the main hallway and out the front door. The uniformed officer was still there, waiting stoically just outside the barrier of crime scene tape. I called him over and asked him to give the County Coroner’s Office a buzz.

  “Specifically, you want to ask them to send over somebody from one of the northern branches,” I instructed. “Probably from Sylmar, or Santa Rosita.”

  “But why?” he asked. “You’re here already.”

  “Yeah, but they have the manpower and a working wet-vac system. Have you seen the mess inside?”

  He swallowed. “I have. Never seen anything like that before. You sure you can’t call them yourself?”

  “I’m in the middle of a crime scene investigation right now. I need someone with the right cleanup system here before the decomposition of the human remains starts to accelerate. And what’s in there right now will smell like lilacs and daisies compared to what’s to come.”

  “But why do I have to call –”

  “Look,” I snapped, nettled. “If we can’t get someone on site, then I’ll have your commanding officer deputize you to help me do clean up. You really want to spend the rest of the day down there on your knees, wet sponge in one hand and a mop bucket in the other?”

  His face went pale. “I’ll, ah, put the call in. Immediately.”

  The officer all but ran to his cruiser. I’d been bluffing on what I could get him to do, but I really did need someone up here. And my patience had begun to wear thin.

  I turned back towards the house, noting again the vibrant growth of the ivy that curled over the front door. That was curious as well. Ivy didn’t exactly like the arid heat of the inland Southern California climate. I leaned over and looked at where the vines grew out of the sheltered patch of dirt.

  The dirt was bone dry, and there was no sprinkler head to water that patch of ground. Even more curious. I tried wedging my fingertip under one of the vines on the wall, but it didn’t have the give of a natural plant. What looked like ivy felt more like fibers wrapped around metal cable.

  My curiosity now aroused, I stepped back and looked at the entire plant system again. Fake ivy? Why bother with something as mundane as that?

  I stood on tiptoe, brushing back some of the leaves directly above the door frame, and got my answer.

  Chapter Four

  I couldn’t feel the ivy’s texture through my gloves, but my nose still worked fine. Up this close, I should have smelled something organic. The grassy or earthy scent of the leaves, the stems, or the suckers. But my nose picked up nothing but dry dust. I pulled back the leaves above the center of the doorway.

  A security camera lens stared back at me.

  The officer I’d asked to call the County Coroner’s Office reappeared. He stayed firmly on the outside of the crime scene tape and called over to me.

  “Okay,” he said. “They’re sending someone over from Sun Valley. Should be here in an hour or two, tops.”

  “That’s great,” I replied. “When you next spot Detective Vega, tell her that I’ve found a security camera above the front door. She’ll want to find out where it’s been broadcasting.”

  He nodded, and I went back inside. The odds were good that the recordings off that camera would tell us a lot about what took place here. But there was at least one other thing I wanted to check out, regardless.

  Each of the three shots fired from the mystery weapon had shattered one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves at the rear of the room. One of those battered pieces of furniture tilted curiously forward, at an angle that threatened to spill its remaining undamaged volumes onto the floor. That didn’t strike me as something that a separate piece of furniture would normally do.

  I felt around one end of the bookshelf in question. It only took a few seconds to locate what I’d suspected would be there: a hidden catch. I flicked it and the shelf swung open, dislodging a dozen or so volumes off the top shelf as it did so.

  Sometime last winter, I’d seen these novelty ‘hidden passage’ bookshelves at a new-construction housewarming party in Santa Monica. They weren’t meant to conceal secret rooms so much as wow easily impressed guests. I stepped into the next room, senses alert to what I might find.

  It took me less than a minute of looking around to mentally dub it the ‘stag’ room. That was partly because two whole walls were lined with mounted trophy heads of deer, antelope, and even an African water buffalo. It was also because a third wall had been lined with silicone-endowed centerfolds from a magazine called Sexy Sweater Kittens.

  All three bullets had blasted their way through the bookshelf and the wall behind it before exiting through the wall with the centerfolds, in one case decapitating the especially pneumatic Miss July.

  Daylight filtered in through the holes. These were especially strong, reinforced surfaces. Again, I couldn’t help but marvel at the penetrating power of the mystery weapon. More light entered the room from off to the right, through a rear exit door. Said door had been propped open an inch or two with a black rubber doorstop. I went through it to find myself at the edge of a thriving row of cherry tomatoes.

  The Wainwright backyard stretched out ahead of me in a wide arc. Closest to the rear door lay a natty vegetable garden. Tomatoes, poblano chilies, asparagus, and an assortment of salad greens had been laid out in carefully staked strips. Automatic sprinklers made a tick-tick-tick sound as they spat a steady stream of water over the plants.

  Further out and off to the left sat a booth-like structure, surrounded on three sides by massive earthen berms. Directly ahead and off to my right, the well-manicured lawn rose along a gentle slope. The lawn ended abruptly as the land continued, choked with underbrush and gnarly old pine trees.

  Those pines were roughly in line with the direction of the exit holes in the house’s outer wall. If I had a hope of locating a bullet shard, it would be somewhere in the trees. I set out, swerving a little to avoid a row of lettuce-like plants, and made my way across the expanse of lawn. Crime scene gear wasn’t the best to hike in, but the sun had gone behind a cloud, throwing a cooling gray layer over the entire yard.

  I halted as soon as I got to the edge of the manicured vegetation. That was partly due to my need to pick out a path through the underbrush, but only partly. There were even better reasons for me to stop and give my surroundings an extra look.

  For starters, the trees at the edge of the property looked…strange. That’s the only way I could really describe it. The branches between two of the pines had grown together in a strange, twisted embrace.

  I don’t know much about dendrology. My best guess was that strange tree limb growth could be possible in nature. As I stood there, puzzling over the oddba
ll trees, the sun emerged from its cloud bank, throwing everything into sharp relief.

  Something glinted at me from the underbrush.

  A pair of straight lines glittered up from the knee-high tangles of shrub and vine. They ran parallel to each other, about ten feet apart. Each was composed of a white, glittery substance. I took a step to one side and confirmed that, yes, the two lines pointed directly at the house. They resembled the borders of a dim pathway marked with a dusting of talcum powder and powdered mica.

  I took a few steps into the weedy tangle, lifting my feet high to clear the loops of vine. I also kept a sharp eye out for poison oak. There was a gallon container of calamine lotion in the OME van, but I was already on thin ice when it came to using (or abusing) the vehicle, so I didn’t want to have to dig into it unless I absolutely couldn’t help it.

  There was a spot clear of the worst underbrush a little further in. I made for it and squatted next to one of the lines. Up close, the line stood out clearly against the darker woods, earth, and the green of the leaves. I pulled off a glove and gingerly touched the white outline where it coated a fern’s unfurling frond.

  It felt gritty. I turned my finger over and noted that several tiny white granules clung to my skin. The granules were irregularly shaped chips, and they had no discernable odor. I bent over a little more to get a closer look. These tiny bits of white didn’t have the regular patterns of something like, say, Phantom Quartz. But they did look familiar.

  A hard voice called out to me.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jerked back, almost losing my balance. I stood, absently brushing my finger clean against my slacks. A crashing sound approached as someone blundered through the underbrush towards me.

  Detective Isabel Vega marched over to stand next to me. Her coffee-colored hair looked as if it had been fused under pressure into a bun at the back of her head. And her expression behind her black wire frame glasses looked as if the severe hairstyle was starting to pull on her scalp and give her a migraine.