Mark of the Demon

“It’s going to need stitches.” Ryan scowled blackly. “What the fuck was that stunt? That’s not what partners do!”

I hunched my shoulders unconsciously under the verbal barrage. “Sorry. I was thinking that the demon was keeping us there long enough for Belle to be grabbed.”

Ryan swore under his breath again and jammed his fingers through his hair. “Yeah. Okay. But, next time, fucking tell me. I mean, give me some warning other than ‘Cover me!’ I was fucking reloading!”

I winced. “Sorry. I’m not used to this partner thing. You’re right.”

He blew out his breath. “No. No, it’s cool. I’m sorry I yelled. Its full attention was on you, which made it possible for me to shoot it. We need to get you looked at, though, and see if our girl is still here.”

“We’re probably gonna have help in a few minutes,” I said, as I retrieved my gun and holstered it. “I’m sure someone around here will call in the fact that they heard gunfire.”

Ryan scanned the street, then looked back at me. “How are we going to explain this?” he wondered aloud. Then he let out a colorful oath. “You’re bleeding pretty badly. Where’s your radio?” He took me bodily and pushed me down to the curb.

“I’m all right. It just got me with a claw.” Now, as the adrenaline wore off, I was starting to feel it more. I could also feel what would soon be a bruise on my wrist where it had grabbed me. It grabbed me and then let me go. It had what it needed. “Radio’s in the car,” I said. Then I gave a rough laugh. “Good place for it, huh? Though I don’t know how I would have called this one in. ‘Officer needs assistance, under attack from demon.’”

“That would go over well,” he replied dryly. He reached inside the car and grabbed my radio out of the charger and a T-shirt out of my gym bag.

“I need to call something in, quick,” I fretted. “Something to explain why I got hurt and why we fired shots.”

“Got it covered,” he said with a smirk as he lifted the radio. “Agent Kristoff, Dispatch. Unit 723 and myself in foot pursuit of burglary suspects, headed down”—he paused, glancing at the street sign on the corner—“Vaughn Street at Alfred Drive, southbound. Shots have been fired.” He spoke in an unbearably calm voice, eyes on me. Then he lowered the radio, picked up a brick from the gutter, and heaved it through the diner window.

I groaned and dropped my head. “I cannot believe you just did that.”

“You want to tell them we were fighting a demon?”

I shook my head, laughing. “You’d just better hope that there’s no video surveillance on any of the businesses on this street.”

“Oh, shit,” he said, suddenly chagrined. He glanced up and down the street, then relaxed. “I don’t see any. Probably why he chose this spot. Wouldn’t want his demon to get caught on tape.” He gave me a quick grin, then keyed up again. “Agent Kristoff, Dispatch. We’ve discontinued foot pursuit. Officer in need of assistance. Subjects last seen headed southbound.

“Before all the troops arrive,” he said, as the sound of sirens became audible, “can we expect any more of these nasties?” He handed me the radio and pressed the shirt from my gym bag to the bleeding wound on my shoulder.

“Highly doubtful. It’s almost impossible to summon and hold more than one demon at a time.”

He sat down beside me on the curb, holding the shirt to my shoulder. “You know, this kind of sucks ass,” he said, tone jarringly conversational.

I laughed. “Ya think?”

He gave a wry smile. “No, I mean, you … we … can’t be honest about what we saw, which means that we can’t get help trying to find who sent it after us.”

“Yeah. That definitely sucks.” I rubbed at my face with my left hand. “A little extra manpower would be damn useful right about now.” The summoner would be tired, I knew, and a little shaky from having his summoned creature sent back. He was fucking vulnerable, and there was nothing I could do about it.

But that wasn’t what had me so unsettled. “He wasn’t trying to kill us.”

Ryan arched an eyebrow at me. “Oh? He was doing a damn fine imitation.”

“No. If we were meant to be dead, we’d most likely be dead.” I could hear the wail of sirens grow closer. We probably had less than a minute until the backup units arrived.

Ryan’s brows drew together. “So what was it doing?”

“I think … it was assessing me.” I fought back a shiver. “It grabbed me—just for a heartbeat—and then let me go. And right before it ‘died’ here, it called me ‘summoner.’”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” he said, voice nearly a growl.

“Me neither, but a few things make sense now. The bodies being dumped where we could find them, the sigils around Greg’s body—I think all of that was to see if I was a summoner.”

“Then why send the demon?”

I rubbed my arms. “To see how strong I am, I think.”

“I’m pretty damn uneasy about why he might want to know that.” He gave me a grim look.

The backup units came screeching up then, and the next several minutes were a barely ordered maelstrom of questions and shouted commands. Somehow we both managed to stick to a vaguely consistent story. I gave a fictional description of the perps, which I prayed didn’t resemble anyone who might actually be in the area, and about a minute later the K9 unit rolled up.

“So, how many of them were there, Kara?”

I raised my good arm in a gesture of helplessness. “Sarge, I’m sorry. I think there were three, but it happened so fucking fast. We rolled up on them just as the brick got pitched through the window. We got into a fight, then a chase, one of them fired on us, we both fired on them, but it was so crazy that I don’t know if any were hit. I didn’t even realize that I’d been cut during the fight until Ryan saw me bleeding.” Damn, but I was pretty good at lying!

The road sergeant glared at me. “Why the fuck didn’t you call it in when you saw it?”

“I did!” I exclaimed with what I hoped was believable fervor. “But my radio got knocked out of my hand during the fight.”

He frowned. “Nothing came over the air.”

“Damn cheap radio system,” I said, adding a scowl for good measure.

He nodded in agreement. “Yeah. It sucks ass. Maybe after someone gets killed, the voters will give us the tax that we need to buy new equipment.”

The one time I can be glad that our budget is so damn low, I thought with vague relief.

A din suddenly erupted from the K9 unit’s vehicle, drawing everyone’s attention. The dog yelped and whined, refusing to get out of the car. His officer was clearly baffled as to why the animal was acting so oddly.

It smells the demon, I thought. And it doesn’t want any part of it. “I think they had a car near,” I said aloud, beginning to despise the need for fiction. “I don’t think there’s a point in doing a track with the K9.”

The sergeant’s gaze was still on the dog. “Yeah. Probably a good thing. Man, I have never seen that dog act like that.” He walked over to the vehicle, and I could hear him telling the K9 officer not to bother. The dog’s yelping subsided instantly once the door was shut again.

“Yep. This sucks,” I agreed in a low voice to Ryan.

CHAPTER 20

We were both grimly silent as Ryan drove to the ER. He pulled up to the emergency entrance, but to my surprise he made no move to get out.

“I’m sorry,” he said when I gave him a perplexed look. “I need to go take care of some things and write up the report of my involvement.”

“It can’t wait?” I said, realizing after I said it that I was being a weenie. I didn’t need him to stay and hold my hand.