When my phone woke me, I was a little confused, and it took me a moment to figure out where I was.
“Hello?”
“Whittaker wants us to find out where everyone was when that demon went off. I can take the Novaks and our allies if you take the Findlays. Sound like a plan?”
“Mychal?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
“How is Kirsten?”
I took a deep breath, then decided to take the easier path. “I’ll have her call you.” I hung up and flopped back into my pillow, staring at the plaster casts decorating the ceiling sixteen feet above me. When I was younger, one of the older servants told me that Maude Findlay, my great-great-grandmother, had toured European palaces gathering ideas for her ideal home. Personally, I thought the place was wildly overdone.
The phone rang again.
“Good morning! I thought I’d let you sleep in a little,” Whittaker said when I answered. It was a little after eight, and I hadn’t gotten to bed until three. He proceeded to tell me the same things Mychal had, then he said, “We have an identification on that demon.”
That woke me up. “That was awfully quick.”
“He was a local. Officially registered as an employee of your buddy.”
“Ashvial?”
“One and the same. Manager of one of Ashvial’s businesses, a strip club down in Silver Spring. About a block from Fredo’s place. I’m sending over the file now.”
Whittaker signed off, and Marjorie stuck her head in the door. “Will you be coming out for breakfast, My Lady, or should I bring it in?”
“Just coffee right now, please. I’ll come out in a few minutes.”
The demon Elmok’s file came over, and I read it while I drank my coffee. A major water demon, he had been in our dimension for at least sixty years. That was when he was registered by Ashvial. While demons lacked the human emotions of love and empathy, that was still a long relationship. Ashvial must have valued him. And while Elmok might have taken a contract without Ashvial’s knowledge or approval, I would rather bet on my ability to fly.
That brought the whole thing back around to Akiyama, one of Ashvial’s major business partners. And I had to check on all the Rudolfs, Moncrieffs, and other Findlay relatives who were Akiyama allies to figure out who might have known about the attack before it happened. I was really looking forward to interviewing Courtney Findlay-Moncrieff and her husband David. Or would he fall under Mychal’s interviews?
More than a thousand people at that ball, and half of them related to me either by blood or marriage. Too damned many relatives.
I got up, took a shower, dressed in my own clothes, and joined Kirsten on the balcony.
“Are you all right?” I asked her as I sat down. “You were pretty shaken up last night.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. That was a little too close, is all. I’m glad Mychal was there.”
“He wants you to call him.”
“He does?” Her whole demeanor perked up, and the grim look on her face turned into a smile. She hopped up and practically trotted back into the suite, pulling her phone out of her pocket.
I watched her go, unsure how I felt about having Mychal Novak as a part-time roommate. He was old enough to take her to his place, though. I wondered if his Family was negotiating his fate now that his twin was scheduled for marriage.
While I ate, I considered how I should approach the cases assigned to me. Sarah Benning, Martin Johansson, the attacks on myself and Grandmother Olivia, the demon drug house massacre, and now the assassinations at Findlay House. If I assumed that Ashvial or the Akiyama Family, or both, were involved in all of them, it left me with nowhere to go. No proof.
There was one thing I might be able to prove. I dressed and went over to the security offices and commandeered a terminal. Then I called up all the video the security cameras had recorded the day before. I started with the barbeque on the lawn, searching for the guardian the demon had possessed.
It took me some time to identify him, and then to follow his movements that afternoon. I fast forwarded through the vids, switching from one camera to another as he moved around the grounds. Nothing he did roused any suspicions. He left with the rest of his party around five o’clock.
When his employers showed up for the evening’s festivities around seven thirty, the guardian wasn’t with them. He showed up fifteen minutes later. Alone. He managed to slip through the front gate with the group from another House, whose colors were similar. I tracked him to the main house, but instead of going inside, he went around to the back and in through one of the loading docks, which had a constant stream of caterers, servants, and delivery personnel going back and forth.
I lost him a couple of times, but caught up with him again when I switched to the cameras in the ballroom.
The attack had taken place at nine o’clock. Switching back and forth between cameras in the ballroom, the surrounding hallways, and the terrace, I attempted to identify those who might want to turn a demon loose on the party.
After two hours studying videos, I determined that Courtney and Karl Rudolf had slipped out to a bedroom in the guest wing and were absent for the killings. Her husband, David Moncrieff, had taken his daughter Beatrice outside on the terrace shortly before the killing started. Karolyn Moncrieff had abruptly excused herself to the ladies’ room as soon as the possessed demon began walking toward its target. Almost everyone else was in the ballroom at the time.
Then I noticed exactly where Veronica Findlay-Rudolf and her daughters were standing in relation to the
