The car I was looking at had a slight dent and a scratch on the back bumper, pretty much verifying it was Sarah’s. The license plate number matched. I pulled out my phone and made a call.
“Whittaker,” my boss answered.
“I found Sarah Benning’s car,” I said. “Its location is something of a problem.”
“How so?”
“Circumstantial, but points to the possibility that one of the Hundred is involved in her disappearance.”
He was quiet for a long minute. “Where are you?”
I gave him the address, then said, “I’m supposed to be meeting Sergeant Collins from Vice at that murder scene up in Pimlico. This car looks like it’s been sitting here since Sarah disappeared. Want to meet me here later, or do you want to take care of it?”
“First thing tomorrow,” Whittaker said. “Bring Novak.”
I groaned. Whittaker was a notoriously early riser. “Like eight?”
“Like six. What name do you suspect?”
“Johansson.”
Whittaker hung up.
Chapter 22
Collins was sitting on the front steps of the house in Pimlico waiting for me. The electric-yellow crime-scene tape across the front door was still intact.
“One of the nice things about partnering with Mychal was he could deal with that sort of thing,” Collins said, waving at the tape.
I chuckled and used my magik to deactivate the tape. All mages on the force carried a little magitek box that activated and deactivated the barriers. Not being a mage, such a box wouldn’t help Collins, and I didn’t need the box.
We entered the building, and I took a brief look around before climbing the stairs to the room Collins had labeled the office.
It contained a desk, a credenza, a couple of filing cabinets, and three chairs. The chair behind the desk was demon sized—Collins and I could have both sat in it at the same time. No computer, of course, since demons didn’t ‘get’ technology. The smartest of them could wrap their minds around driving a car, but none of them could fix a car other than replacing a hydrogen canister or plugging it in. Computers were completely beyond them.
Collins picked up a piece of paper on the desk. Squiggly marks in columns ran down the page. “Do you read demon?”
“Yeah. That’s either a grocery list or a list of trafficking victims.” There weren’t any names, of course, just physical descriptions of humans.
He shrugged. “Probably the same thing.”
“Maybe this isn’t about drugs at all,” I said. “Maybe the main business is trafficking, and that’s why the drugs were left behind.”
Collins shook his head. “With demons, it’s always about power and territory. Selling drugs, people, or any other kind of contraband is just a game they play in this dimension. Demons don’t care what the product is, only the profit margins, and money is just a way to keep score. Power in the local demon hierarchy is all they really care about.”
I knew he was right. Minor demons cared about pleasure and food. Major demons fed more on strong emotions than physical food, with anger, fear, and lust being the strongest emotions. Major demons and what we called demon lords were the true enemies of humankind. They were the ones whose magik enabled them to possess other beings. They were the ones who fed on souls.
And that was what scared me about Ashvial. Playing a lust game with him might be amusing, but opening myself might lead to possession. And despite the legends, there was no documented case of a human surviving an exorcism.
We spent three hours going through the documents in that room, cataloging them, and packing them up to transport back to the station. In total, there were records of more than three hundred humans, vampires, and shifters who had been bought or kidnapped and then sold over the past three years. I had little hope any of them would ever be seen again. Some of the descriptions might have matched Sarah Benning, but the dates were wrong.
After I helped Collins load the boxes into his car, I waved goodbye to him and called Novak.
“Mychal, can you meet me somewhere quiet for a cup of coffee?”
“Yeah, sure. Where are you?”
“That house in Pimlico.”
“Do you know The Mean Bean in Mount Washington?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Tell them you’re with me and ask for the table next to the koi pond.”
I drove over to the coffee shop, one that catered to upper-class society. A young woman escorted me outside in the back. The small table sat under a willow tree next to a small waterfall pouring into the pond. Gold and white koi leisurely swam around, providing an almost hypnotic calming atmosphere. The place Novak had chosen was at least ten feet from the nearest table, which was vacant, and the flowing water provided white noise. I ordered an exorbitantly-priced caramel coffee and sat back to wait.
Mychal showed up half an hour later. “The usual,” he said to the hostess as he dropped into the chair across from me. He scrutinized me, then said, “What’s up?”
“I’ve been working on a side case Whittaker assigned me. Daughter of a rich Magi Family went missing.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Her car has been missing along with her. I found the car today. A total accident, really.”
“Okay. So, why bring me into it now?”
“Whittaker said to bring you along when I meet him tomorrow morning.” I leaned close. “The girl is Sarah Benning, Justus Benning’s daughter. Remember me asking Dolin about Magi involved in trafficking?”
Novak nodded.
“Martin Johansson’s name keeps cropping up. He has a fifteen-year-old mistress stashed in an apartment, and I found Sarah Benning’s car parked behind that apartment building.”
He let out a long, low whistle and leaned back in his chair. “He has powerful allies. You do know that he’s close to Akiyama, don’t you?”
I didn’t. Although I probably should have spent more time keeping up on the activities and shifting alliances of the Hundred, I tended to shy away from them. Akiyama was one of the Ten, and my relatives
