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We moved forward cautiously through the gate. As soon as we passed through it I had even more confirmation. “Hold on,” I said in a low voice as a wave of resonance washed over me. “Golem’s definitely here.”
Ryan flicked an acknowledging glance at me, then I heard him mutter low into the radio as he passed the info to Zack.
“Foul,” Eilahn muttered. I glanced at her to see her nose wrinkled as if she smelled something disgusting.
“Have you ever seen one before?” I asked.
She shook her head, keeping her eyes in a constant scan of the area. “It is a different sort of power, but it makes my nose itch.” She didn’t have a gun, since she’d pointed out that she had yet to have any sort of training with such a weapon. Instead she had a goddamn sword strapped to her side. The sword was Zack’s and he insisted it was merely a high-quality costume piece that he used for Renaissance fairs, but there was something about the weapon that made me think that this sword was not only very real, but had also seen actual battle.
The door to the building opened when we were about twenty yards away, and we raised our weapons. Or rather, Ryan and I raised our shotguns, and Eilahn drew her sword.
I expected to see Ben Moran step out.
I was shocked as shit to see Trey step out. What the hell? Is he working with Moran?
Trey didn’t seem very surprised to see us, though he did give Eilahn and her sword a brief “what the fuck?” look before returning his attention to me. He no longer looked harmless. He stood straighter now, more focused, but his smile had a nervous edge to it. We might not have surprised him, but he wasn’t looking forward to this confrontation.>I heard a shuffling and then the closing of a door. “Okay, go ahead,” he said.
I gave him a quick rundown of what happened at my house last night, leaving out the part about being woken up by a demonic lord. Crawford was handling the woo-woo stuff all right so far, but I didn’t think he was quite ready for the bit about me summoning demons.
He muttered something foul. “All right, we’ll come up with something to explain what happened to your car. Do you know who sent that thing after you?”
“We have a pretty strong theory, but, well, we’ve run into a snag.”
“Go on.”
“I have no idea how to get a warrant that accuses someone of committing murder using an arcane construct,” I said sourly.
“Well, shit.”
“We’re trying to put together a plan,” I continued. “It would help if you were a part of it, but it might not, um, follow procedure.”
He was silent for several heartbeats. “Then it sounds like you might have need for me.”
I breathed a silent sigh of relief. “We’re holed up at Ryan’s place. I’ll text you the address.”
“I’ll be on my way as soon as I get it.”
I disconnected and walked back to the living room. “Sarge is on board. Where the fuck are we?”
Ryan laughed and rattled off an address that I recognized as being even more out in the boonies than my own house. I quickly sent the text to Crawford, then plopped back down on the couch and concentrated on eating. No matter what course of action we decided on, I had a feeling I was going to need all available energy.
Crawford arrived about twenty minutes later, which gave me enough time to finish my burger and even finally pull a brush through the snarled mess that was my hair.
I introduced Eilahn and Crawford, quickly glossing over where she was from and why she was here. He gave her a gruff greeting, shook her hand, and then ignored her so studiously and carefully that it would have been insulting in any other circumstance. However, I was pretty sure that Crawford had somehow figured out that he didn’t really want to know too much more about her. Crawford’s tenuous acceptance of my weirdness seemed to include an instinct to not ask questions unless it was absolutely necessary.
Probably a damn smart move on his part.
“I think the first thing we have to do is find the golem and destroy it,” I said, once we’d all settled in the living room. “Then we can deal with Ben Moran without worrying about silly things like getting smacked by a giant clay monster.”
“It would have to be somewhere at the house, right?” Zack suggested.
I started to agree, then paused. “No. I’ve been to the house twice and never felt any resonance. I think if it was being kept there, I’d have felt something.” I considered for a few seconds. “And not at the studio, either. Or rather, I only felt resonance there in certain places, where the golem would have been to kill Adam Taylor.”
Silence fell.
“You said this thing is made out of clay?” Crawford asked after a moment.
I nodded. “That’s what it looked like to me. Dirt, dried clay, held together and animated by some sort of arcane means.”
