Peg said, “Four vehicles with no snow on them are parked in the back lot. Lots of tracks. Checking vehicles.”
A hand entered the screen and pulled on the latch. The back of a van door opened. Inside was a massive collection vessel. He silently closed the door, backed away as if the vessel would open up and spew demons. He checked another van. In it were four midsized containment vessels.
“If they’re inside the church, why leave the vessels outside?” EJ murmured.
Peg closed the door. The image shifted. “Entering alley—”
His voice stopped. The camera showed a scene on the side of the church. Bodies in various stages of slaughter, all human-shaped. All dead. The blood was still bright on the white snow. Silently, Peg stepped back and slipped around, out of the area, down the block. Over the audio his footsteps were fast, his breath harsh. “You see that?” he asked.
“Affirmative,” EJ said. “Four? All adults?”
“Four heads. Didn’t count limbs.” Because some demons ate heads. Some ate hearts and torsos. Could have been more than four killed.
EJ said, “They fed a demon. Peg, were there signs of a ritual?”
“No containment circle. Possible that something got away.”
“So we may have demons loose in the community,” EJ said.
“There’ve been no alerts to law enforcement about people killing and eating their families or neighbors,” Peg said. “It’s more likely the vamps got them back. There are enough collection and containment vessels to sweep in most anything except another leviathan.
“Hell’s hounds,” he cursed. “Your little gizmo just vibrated in my pocket. I’m outta here.”
The gizmo was an amulet that vibrated if uncontained freed demon energies were nearby. It was EJ’s personal amulet, one he had been working on between battles for the last two days instead of sleep, using a drop of the precious elixir and broken pieces of his father’s old wind instruments. Incorporating the elixir had created a much stronger warning device than his old ones.
Peg’s vid remained on until he was safely in his vehicle and had pulled into the dark, icy street. Peg turned the vid off but left audio on. “You asked about ritual. No circles, no candles, nothing designating north. But the blood was all contained in one area in the narrow drive between the side of the sanctuary and the chain link fence along the property line. Nothing dragged away, no blood spatter beyond the alley, not even splattered through the fence links.”
“A circle under the snow, maybe? Hidden?” EJ asked.
“Best guess is yes but…” Peg stopped.
“But?” EJ asked, understanding. “You saw something in the war. Classified. Something you can’t talk about.”
“No comment. Got no idea what you’re talking about, kid.”
The connection went dead.
EJ slumped in his chair, one foot flat, rolling the chair slightly back and forth on the wood. “There were murmurs,” he said. “Section Nine murmurs.”
Walter smiled, so very slightly. “Perhaps you should ask your pet assassin.”
“Shiloh wasn’t in the war.”
“Oh? Wasn’t she?”
EJ shot his eyes to Walter, but the vampire was striding to the door, his languid grace back in control.
“I’ll have the unit gear up,” Walter said. “And Angelina.”
“Her hands—”
“We cannot do this without her.”
EJ walked into the guard’s current quarters to find Shiloh wearing her psycho armor, again curled on the coffee table like the cat she was pretending to be. A gear belt and gear bag were on the floor near her. So were two six-foot-long bo staffs, two longswords in sheaths and harnesses, and four vamp-killers. He opened his mouth to say,Except for vids, I’ve never seen you fight. Instead, what came out was, “You’ll clink when you walk.”
She turned vamp-black eyes to him. Her gold-plated fangs were in place in the roof of her mouth, but the black eyes suggested something close to the edge. “I don’t clink,cuz. I kill.”
EJ decided not to respond to that. He said, “There was something in the war. Something that let demons feed on humans or vamps or witches. It required bloody sacrifice, but without ritual. Something that called them to feed, maybe. Or that set them free to feed and kill and then called them back. Kept themcontained. Something other than a containment vessel.” He held out a still shot taken from Peg’s video. The pieces of bodies and heads. The blood-splattered snow.
