Mark of the Demon

“Dude, that was fucking awesome!” he exclaimed.

I grinned and returned the high five. As I ducked into my office, I heard Wetzer as he called down the hall to Pellini and Boudreaux: “Duuuudes, she fuckin’ owned your asses!”

I laughed as I shut the door behind me. The insinuations concerning my sexual activities were more annoying than offensive. I’d grown used to that sort of thing a long time ago and had accepted that I couldn’t talk to anyone of the male persuasion without being suspected of rampant lust. However, it was a seriously cool feeling to realize that I’d just scored points with others in the department for giving the two dickheads a smackdown for stirring up that bullshit. I’m one of them now. I just proved that I can hold my own.

I squeezed past my desk and plunked down into my chair. My office was only about the size of the walk-in closet in my bedroom, but it was mine. The walls were plain white, which I kept meaning to decorate with pictures or posters, but somehow I never managed to get around to it. I had a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet, and barely enough room for one extra chair. I didn’t mind having a small office. That just meant I didn’t have to share.

I spent the next several hours typing up my notes and running more checks on missing persons, placating the twinges of hunger with the cereal bars I kept stashed in my desk for when I worked late. A few possibilities emerged among the missing persons, and those I set aside. They were probably long shots, but I’d get with Dr. Lanza later to see if we could compare dental records, if they were available. DNA comparison would be used only if we were reasonably certain that we’d found a match, since it was expensive and took forever.

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Agent Kristoff’s remarks about not limiting avenues of investigation came back to me, and I frowned. Was I doing just that by clinging to my deep-seated conviction that this was the Symbol Man again? What if I really was being narrow-minded? It was possible—albeit remotely—that this could be a different killer, one who was also versed in the arcane. Perhaps the symbol on this victim had been a coincidence. No one—including several experts in the arcane whom I’d consulted —had ever figured out just what the symbol was supposed to represent.

I mulled over the possibilities, eyes still closed. And that Agent Kristoff—was he always such a prick? Maybe he was just having a bad day. But he does have some nice eyes…. My thoughts drifted to another set of eyes—crystal blue, full of power, ancient and potent …

He stood behind me, potency surrounding me and arms loosely clasped around my body as I looked out over a stone battlement into a lushly forested canyon. Above were tumbled cliffs split by a shimmering waterfall that plunged to mist-filled depths. I could see creatures in flight—at first I thought them to be birds but then realized they were reyza and syraza, wheeling and diving in some sort of complex aerial sparring match. I looked to my right to see a reyza crouched upon the stone wall and beside him a man wearing what looked like some sort of medieval guardsman uniform, with a sword at his waist. The man didn’t seem to have any fear of the reyza. In fact, they seemed to be deep in conversation. I looked down, oddly unsurprised to see myself dressed in a black silk shirt and leather breeches, with a sword strapped to my side.

He lowered his head to nuzzle the side of my neck and I smiled, leaning back into him and holding his arms tighter around me. “All yours, dearest,” he murmured. “Call me to you, and I will give it all to you.”

“All of what? This?”

His hands slid over my breasts, teasing, caressing. I dropped my head back against him and gave a languorous sigh. “This world. Your world. All worlds,” he breathed. “Call me to you.”

“But you never gave me your number,” I said. “You have a cell phone, right? Isn’t that it ringing …?”

I jerked awake, still hearing the insistent trilling. I blinked several times, trying to clear away the lingering shards of the dream, finally realizing that the trilling came from my pager, not from a cell phone that a Demonic Lord was carrying.

I fumbled for the pager, wincing as a sharp crick in my neck made its presence known. I jammed the button to silence the pager and tossed it on my desk. Teach me to fall asleep at work. I smiled wryly as I finger-combed my hair back from my face. Small wonder that I’d fallen asleep, and small wonder that I’d had a crazy dream that threw me into the comic book my aunt had given me. Maybe something about getting only two hours of sleep in the past two nights?

I picked up the pager and tried to get my eyes to focus. Why the hell did they page me instead of just calling me here? I glanced up at the clock, blinked, then looked frantically at the time on the pager.

“Holy crap,” I murmured, shocked. I hadn’t just fallen asleep. It was five in the morning! No wonder my neck had a crick in it. I’d been damn near unconscious!

Then my eyes focused on the actual message on the pager. My throat tightened as the meaning penetrated. Another victim. That made two victims in three days. The Symbol Man was definitely back.

The body had been found at Leelan Park—only a couple of miles from downtown Beaulac on the east end of the lake. The park was one of the pride and joys of the city, built within the last decade through the combined efforts of residents, local businesses, and the estate of the previous mayor of Beaulac, the late Price Leelan. There were sports fields, basketball and tennis courts, and a sprawling playground with nearly every conceivable climbing or swinging activity represented. A boat launch was in constant use on nice days, and on weekends when the weather was pleasant the park was packed with people.

At five a.m., I could hold on to the hope that the body hadn’t been found by a kid.

The park was large, but it wasn’t hard to figure out where to go. About half a dozen police vehicles were clustered on the end farthest from the lake, near the baseball fields. I parked my little Taurus in the first free spot I could find, did a quick makeup check-and-fix in the rearview mirror, then grabbed my notebook and exited my car. I scanned the area quickly, subtly relieved that I didn’t see any sign of Kristoff. At least I’d fallen asleep sitting up, so I wasn’t too wrinkled. I really needed to keep a change of clothes in my office, or at least in my car. I felt like I’d slept in my clothes, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I smelled like it too.

I could see Pellini and Boudreaux leaning up against one of the unmarked vehicles. They didn’t look very pleased at being up at this hour, nor did they seem eager to provide their help. Not that I gave a fuck about their help, but I did enjoy a bit of perverse pleasure that they’d been dragged out of bed. Pellini puffed on a cigarette, face drawn in a scowl as he took note of my presence, while Boudreaux remained deeply engrossed in the sports section of the newspaper. I quickly ceased to worry about my appearance. Pellini had quit battling the fat on his midsection many years ago, which meant that his gut had reached the point where it flopped over the top of his belt. He was sporting a Beaulac PD T-shirt that was so worn it looked more like e ulac P, and to add to the insult to onlookers, anytime he lifted his cigarette to his mouth the shirt rode up enough to display a couple of inches of pale and hairy stomach fat. Boudreaux didn’t have a weight problem, but his shirt was so wrinkled I suspected it had been balled up at the bottom of his laundry basket for weeks. And I didn’t want to know whether it was the “clean” or the “dirty” basket.

I knew they’d seen me, but neither felt it necessary to acknowledge my presence with any form of greeting. No help from that quarter. Fine with me. As least I knew it going in so that I wouldn’t have to worry about being disappointed by them.

There was enough of a chill in the air that I was regretting leaving my jacket in my office. The sun was well above the horizon, but the western sky still stubbornly held on to the dark-purple hues of dawn. Yellow crime-scene tape fluttered sluggishly in the morning breeze, blocking off the entrance to one of the baseball fields. I walked up to the tape, dew scattering off the grass and soaking my shoes.

The officer manning the crime-scene log was one of my old teammates from when I’d been on the road. Scott Glassman was a self-described “good ol’ boy” from the sticks, with a bit of pudge beginning to show in his midsection and with no desire to ever move over to the detective bureau. Scott was more than content to remain a street cop for the rest of his life. And I had to privately agree that the street was the best place for him. He had a good manner with people, knew everyone, and would go quietly nuts if he had to endure the slower pace and the paperwork required in the bureau. He kept his uniform pressed, his head shaved, and his nose clean. I fully expected him to eventually retire with thirty years of service, still a street cop.