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Another shriek—this time it was Camille. I raced to help her, but one of the Tregart thugs jumped in my path.
“Ah, crap.” I went into fighting stance as the demon laughed, approaching. He had the usual chain that Tregarts seemed to love to wield, whirling it as he eyed me with a glint in his eye.
“Come on, Blondie. You like it rough?” He lunged forward, his chain whistling toward me. I dove to the side, coming up with knife at the ready, turning my body so I was protected as well as I could be. As long as he had that chain, he could keep me at arm’s length unless I could dart in too close for him to use it.
Looking for an opening, I stepped to the right. He turned to follow me, and I quickly darted back to the left before he realized what I was doing and drove my knife straight into his side, moving in close enough for the chain to be a liability. He dropped it as he screamed, grabbing for his belt knife. I shoved against him, using the hilt for leverage.
He let go of the knife, flailing to keep his balance, and we both went tumbling to the ground. I yanked my dagger back as he reached for my throat. Blood fountained out of his side and—as he grappled for my neck—I brought the hilt of the blade down on his forehead. A crack on his skull and he let go of the knife. Another good crack and his head fell to the side.
I jumped up, looking for his partner, but the other Tregart goon was already dead, and by the looks of the rake marks across his midsection, Smoky’d had a go at him. As I frantically tried to assess the situation, Camille screamed again. I whirled around to see her holding her side, doubled over. Smoke was wafting off her and the ground around her.
As I frantically looked for Jaycee, a body on the ground caught my attention. Jaycee! Camille had managed to drop her—or…Shade stepped out of a shadow cast by the tree and I realized he’d been the one who took Jaycee out. He and Smoky were bearing down on Van, whose sneer quickly vanished.
“Dragons!” He let out one shout and turned to run. As Smoky and Shade gave chase, there was a flash, and Van disappeared. Camille was crawling over to Jaycee, still holding her side. Trillian was trying to keep her still. In three quick strides, I was by Jaycee’s side. She was still alive but stunned. Something had managed to knock her out, but she was coming around and the minute she was conscious, she’d be a danger.>I skimmed through the pages until I found what I was looking for.
“It’s no coincidence that Gulakah showed up here at this point.” I pointed to one of the paragraphs. “Here—it says that Newkirk showed up on the scene a couple weeks ago. Van and Jaycee took an immediate interest in him.”
“They recognized the spirit seal?” Trillian rapped his fingers on the table.
“Yeah. My bet is that they’ve figured out that Newkirk really does have one of the spirit seals and that they called home to Shadow Wing for help. Chances are, they don’t know how powerful Newkirk is—yet. If they try to steal the seal by themselves and fail, that’s going to look really bad to Big Daddy back home in the Sub-Realms.”
“So, call for help and that way, it removes the responsibility from Van and Jaycee should something go wrong.” Smoky said. “Which means the demon general knows exactly who has the spirit seal.”
“Which means we’re not the only ones after Newkirk. A three-way race against someone determined to keep what they’ve got. Us, Trytian, and the demons.” The potential results of that race didn’t make me altogether comfortable. In fact, two out of the three possible end scenarios weren’t in our favor.
Chase opened the door and slipped back in. We looked at him, waiting. He cocked his head to the side, a faint smile flickering across his lips. “I just went to check on something and we may have lucked out. Turns out one of our FBH rape victims reported the attack when it happened a year and a half ago. They got DNA off her, but no hits were ever made, and though she described her attacker to the sketch artist, there were never any leads. We already ordered a DNA swab from Andy Gambit in Alfina’s case. We’ll know in a couple of days. I put a rush on it.”
“It’s going to be positive. You know it is, and then we make that pervert fry. Now, we’ve got some info for you about one of the spirit seals. We have a new demon general in town.” My cell rang and I stopped to answer it. The Caller ID read Trytian. Crap, what now?
I flipped it open, listened to what Trytian had to say, and then turned to the others. “Don’t they ever give it a rest? Van and Jaycee have been spotted over in one of the graveyards. They’re with Telazhar, raising the dead—who knows for what purpose? Looks like they’re intent on wreaking as much havoc as possible.” I turned to Chase. “Can we borrow weapons? Not guns, of course, but my dagger’s at home and so is Trillian’s sword, and Camille’s knife.”
Chase nodded. As he called for Shamas to get a couple of long daggers from the armory, we grabbed our jackets. “I wish I could go with you, but I need my men here, in case things get ugly. Gambit’s incarcerated here, and I don’t want a situation where there’s a run on the station.”
“No problem. We can take care of this,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. At that moment, Shamas hurried in and handed Trillian, Camille, and me each a good-sized dagger. They weren’t silver but they were sharp, with cool steel hilts. As we headed toward the door, I gave them directions.
“We’re headed to Freeburg Cemetery, a secluded graveyard in the West Seattle area.” West Seattle wasn’t all that far from the Industrial District, where the Energy Exchange bar was.
As we burst out the doors, we saw that the protest had swelled dramatically. There were three times as many protesters as there had been when we entered the building, but the majority of the new ones carried counterprotest signs. The media was having a field day, news crews all over, taking photographs and filming the relatively peaceful mob. I spotted Tim, standing with a bullhorn. He stood next to Neely, who had another bullhorn. Waving to them, I scrambled into my Jeep and put the car into gear as Shade joined me.
“I wish I’d brought Lysanthra,” I muttered. “She’s silver and works really well against the undead.”
“Yes, but at least we have blades.” Shade nodded. “We’ll just have to get along with what we have. We don’t have time to go home.”
“Yeah, I know. But from now on, we go armed everywhere. I’ve been caught twice in the past few days relying on what I had on hand. Not again.”
As we peeled out of the parking lot, following Camille’s Lexus, life felt all too chaotic. I longed for the days when we were a small band, fighting what seemed like a relatively tame enemy.
Freeburg Cemetery was the home of the unclaimed dead, the final resting place for those with no money for fancy funerals or family to acknowledge them. A group of churches—including the United Worlds Church—contributed to the upkeep, as well as the burial of the indigent, the homeless, and the nameless.
The size of a small city block, the graveyard was surrounded by an iron picket fence that was falling over in some places. The budget for maintenance apparently didn’t extend far enough to cover nonessentials. But the grass was neatly mowed, and a few rose bushes were scattered here and there among the maples and cedars and firs. Three statues of angels rose from the center of the park to watch over the dead.
I scanned the lot. The thickets of trees shaded lurkers, but even though it was midmorning, there weren’t many mourners in sight. In fact, I doubted that the Freeburg Cemetery ever saw anybody come through to leave flowers or say a prayer for the dead, at least after the initial burial.
“There—over there behind that stand of cedars.” Camille pointed to the right. I squinted and followed her direction. Figures were milling around what appeared to be a cluster of graves.
“Has to be them. Unless some family has suddenly discovered that one of their missing members was planted here. Come on, let’s go. Stick to the trees.” We slipped between the trees, crouching down. With luck, they hadn’t spotted us.
“I’ll be damned,” Camille whispered. She was kneeling behind a large fern that filled the space between two large Douglas firs. The fern must have been growing there for years because it was at least four feet high and stretched between the trunks with ease. Camille parted the fronds and peered through them.
