Hellforged

help.

“Hi.” Daniel slid into the booth across from me and pulled off his gloves. For a homicide detective, he didn’t have any qualms about sitting with his back to the door. Maybe we hadn’t seen the same action movies. He put a hand over mine. Although he’d just come in from the cold, his hand was warm. “This is a nice surprise,” he said. “I never get to see you during the day.”

A nice surprise. He’d change his mind about that once he heard what I had to say. Gently, I pulled back my hand. “I wish this was just a coffee date, but I need your professional help.”

The waitress brought over my muffin, called Daniel “hon,” and took his order for coffee. When she came back with the pot, she refilled my mug for good measure.

“So what’s up?” He sat back, waiting, letting me figure out how to start.

I opted for the direct approach. “A zombie was killed in the Zone this morning. Torn to pieces and … liquefied, somehow.”

Daniel blinked. “Jesus. Where?”

“Creature Comforts. I found him.” What was left of him.

“Vicky, I’m sorry. That must have been awful.” He took my hand again and squeezed it once. “What happened?”

I repeated the story, the same way I’d told it to Sykes. Daniel listened attentively. When I’d finished, he ran a hand through his curls.

“And you have no idea what killed him?”

“None at all. I’ve never seen anything like it, Daniel. Never.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. There’s not much I can do. It’s JHP’s jurisdiction.”

“That’s the problem. The Goon Squad was there, but two human detectives showed up and stopped the investigation.”

Daniel’s blue-sky eyes darkened a shade. “Hampson.”

I nodded. “That’s what the detective said—their authority came straight from the commissioner.”

He sighed. “There’s still not much I can do. Hampson won’t listen to me. I’m lucky to have my job after what happened in New Hampshire.” Back in the fall, a crazy biogeneticist intent on studying shapeshifters kidnapped my ten-year-old niece Maria—my sister Gwen’s kid—and held her at a research facility in New Hampshire, a state where PAs have no rights. Daniel helped me get her back, pissing off several law enforcement agencies in the process.

“There’s got to be someone in your department who can do something,” I said. “It was a homicide, after all.” I didn’t think zombicide was an official word. “Kane can’t help right now, and I don’t know who else to turn to.”

Something flickered across Daniel’s face when I mentioned Kane. “Let me talk to the CSI guys,” he said. “The way you describe the scene, it sounds like something no one’s ever come across before. Even with the investigation called off, I’ll bet somebody kept some evidence, out of curiosity if nothing else. I’ll ask around, but I can’t promise anything.”

“Thanks, Daniel. It seems wrong to shove T.J. aside as though … as though he never existed.”

He nodded. “I understand. I’ll see what I can find out.” He checked his watch, then drained his coffee cup and pulled on his jacket. “I’d better get back to work. How about dinner tonight?”

“Don’t you mean breakfast? I’m going straight to bed after I leave here.”

He flashed a “wish I could join you” smile, but he didn’t say the words. Not that either one of us had gotten anywhere near the other’s bed. I blushed anyway.

“Okay, breakfast. We’ll find a place that’ll whip you up an omelet. Say around seven?”

“It sounds like fun, but I can’t. I’m giving Tina a lesson tonight.”

“What time will you be done?”

“Nine-ish.” A little late for breakfast, I thought. Dinner, too. “Anyway, I’m working. I’ve got a Drude extermination in the Fenway, and I need to be at the client’s condo at ten to set up.”

He stared into the distance for a few seconds, then shook his head. “I’ve got to be up at six thirty tomorrow. So I guess a nightcap won’t work, either.”

This was why I had so few dates—with anyone, of any species. “There’s no way to tell how long the extermination will take. Depends on how many Drudes—could be midnight, could be three A.M.”

“Another time, then.” A wistful half-smile curled his lips.

“Okay.”

Daniel stood. He stepped toward me, bent slightly, and brushed his lips against my cheek. One arm found its way around my shoulders in an almost-hug. I closed my eyes and soaked in his warmth.

“Promise?” His voice, soft in my ear, was as warm as his flesh.

All my words seemed to have fled, so I nodded.

“Good.” When I opened my eyes again, he’d straightened and was smiling at me. Then his eyes changed, and he put on his cop face. I watched him walk out of the coffee shop and into the bright, cold day. But the warmth of him lingered on my skin.

I SNUGGLED UNDER MY COMFORTER, TRYING TO CONVINCE myself I was sleepy. But it was no good. I’d been tossing and turning for half an hour, and I couldn’t get warm. Any warmth I’d borrowed from Daniel was long gone. My toes were icy, even with socks on, and it’s impossible to fall asleep with cold feet. It didn’t help that I’d stayed to finish my coffee after Daniel left, and then let the waitress refill my mug one last time. How could I say no when she called me “hon”?

Too much coffee and chilly toes were just excuses, and I knew it. The truth? I was afraid to fall asleep. Now I understood how my nightmare-plagued clients felt. But it wasn’t a couple of pesky Drudes that had invaded my dream; this was a Hellion. The one I thought I’d sent back to Hell for good.

I didn’t understand how Difethwr had trespassed in my dreamscape. The Hellion was bound to me; I bore its mark on my arm. I’d strengthened that bond myself a few months ago, in order to banish the demon from Boston. It was a risky thing to do—as far as I knew, none of the Cerddorion had ever attempted such a thing. But my gambit had worked. Difethwr had stayed away. For weeks, I’d been free of the near-uncontrollable rages that my demon mark sometimes caused. The mark hadn’t even twinged. Difethwr was trapped in Hell.

Or had been, until it showed up in my dream.

Somehow, the Hellion had used me as a portal to bypass Boston’s protective shield. That was the point of destroying my watch. Difethwr wanted to demonstrate that what I saw in my dreamscape was the real thing, not some dream-image. Difethwr was real, the watch was real. The crow that delivered it was probably real, too.

In Welsh mythology, crows are a bad omen, symbolizing impending death. That omen had sure as hell come to pass.

Damn it, I was supposed to protect this city from creatures like Hellions. Not throw open my dreamscape like a door and invite them in.

But some things didn’t fit. The attack on T.J. didn’t match the Destroyer’s style. To kill, Difethwr shot flames from its eyes, mouth, and hands, burning up its victim’s soul. T.J.’s body should have been intact, but with hellfire raging inside. That was how Difethwr killed my father. But I’d never seen the Destroyer—or anything—attack in a way that was even remotely like what happened to T.J.

I turned onto my back and stared into the darkness.

I needed to talk to Aunt Mab. She’d trained me, and no one knew more about demons. I should have fessed up months ago, after I strengthened my bond to the Hellion. And I’d meant to, I really had, but when days and then weeks went by without a peep from Difethwr, I thought maybe I’d vanquished it.

That was too proud, and more than a little stupid. Because Difethwr was sure as hell peeping now.

You’d think that, at twenty-eight, I’d have lost my terror of a scolding from my aunt. But of course you’d only think such a thing if you didn’t know Mab. She was strict and stern. She made no allowances for even the teensiest mistake. But there was no better demon fighter. And if there was one person who could help me figure out what was going on, it was Mab.

I needed to talk to her. Now.

The Cerddorion have a psychic connection that functions best through the pathways of the mind that open in sleep. When Gwen and I were teenagers, we called this connection the dream phone, and we used it to chat about