I called Mychal and told him about David Moncrieff’s actions, as well as Karolyn’s, Courtney’s, and Rudolf’s.
I retrieved my motorcycle and drove down to police headquarters. I took the piece of paper with Courtney’s handwriting to the forensics lab and waited while Kevin processed it for me.
“Okay,” he said, handing me the results. “The handwriting is similar, but not the same. The DNA on this note is from a close relative, possibly an aunt, more likely the mother, of the writer of the note you found in the bar where you shot that demon.
I thanked him, took the analysis, and left. One of Courtney’s daughters paid Gecid to hire someone to kill me? I barely knew Beatrice. If someone told me one of Courtney’s daughters wanted me dead, I’d guess Karolyn in a minute. She and I were about the same age, and she was a lot like her mother. We had never gotten along.
I was fairly sure Ashvial was the one giving Gecid orders, and not David Moncrieff. It was daytime, not the normal visiting hours for most Rifters other than the Fae, which made it a good time to drop by and try to press some answers from Ashvial. That assumed his minions would let me in without prior notice. Deciding it was worth a try, I rode over to my house to prepare for a daylight foray into Lucifer’s Lair.
Chapter 45
Electronic and mechanical devices normally conflicted with magik. That was why demons couldn’t wrap their minds around technology. The Fae weren’t much better, although they did adopt cell phones, computers, and airplanes. But if it could be done with magik, they did it their way. Even human mages were more comfortable with magik, which was why they would pay outrageous sums of money for magitek devices instead of just flipping a light switch.
Magiteks were different. Although I had inherited a weak gift of electrokinesis, my main talent was in working with technology. I could enhance or interfere with anything mechanical or electrical or nuclear, in other words, anything involving physical technology. That last bit is what got my grandfather in trouble. But without devices, my ability to perform magik was pretty scant. Other than my quarter-elven heritage, I was pretty much a normal human.
Usually, I depended on the Raider and my father’s electromagikal box for protection, but if I was going to walk into Lucifer’s Lair alone, I wanted something a little more potent. The laser rifle was a significant upgrade in fire power. Magikally enhanced, at full power it would bore a hole a foot in diameter in anything within two hundred yards. Even though its power dispersed with distance, it could kill a demon at four hundred yards and a human at five hundred. Not something I would normally use in the middle of a city, but at half power it would be a major equalizer in a den full of demons.
I slung the laser onto my back and rode down to the harbor. The nightclub, unsurprisingly, didn’t look open, and the parking lot was almost empty. I parked my bike behind a bush in the back of the building, set a ward on it, took a deep breath, and unslung the laser rifle.
At that moment, a limo I hadn’t noticed started its engine and pulled out from a space at the far end of the lot. It came around and stopped in front of the club’s rear entrance. A guardian in a gray uniform with green and red trim got out and opened the car’s back door. A man came out of the club and ducked into the back of the car. The guardian closed the door and hopped into the front seat, then the limo drove away.
I had done a lot of research on the Akiyama Family over the years, and especially in the past few weeks. At first glance, I thought the Asian man was Akiyama Benjiro, but then I realized it was his uncle, Hiroku, the Family’s head of security.
It was shocking enough that he was in North America—Akiyama’s business headquarters was in China, and the Family estate was in Hokkaido—but it was even more shocking that he visited Ashvial’s nightclub.
My suspicions were immediately triggered, and I changed my plans for confronting Ashvial. Instead, I got back on the bike and followed the limo onto the freeway going north.
We passed beyond Baltimore and into the bayside communities lining the Chesapeake with summer houses, mansions, and fishing docks. I began to wonder where Hiroku was going. I knew that Akiyama had offices at the port in Wilmington, but they leased their facilities there from Findlay. I wouldn’t think that someone from the Akiyama Family would feel comfortable in a place under Findlay control.
But long before we reached Wilmington, the limo and its escort cars slowed and turned onto the Elk Neck Peninsula—a finger of land separating the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. At that point, I suspected that I knew where we were headed, but I continued until their caravan turned into the Elk Neck estate of David Moncrieff.
I turned around and rode back, soon leaving the freeway for the back highways taking me toward Findlay House. When I arrived, I went straight to Osiris’s office and told him what I’d seen.
“And you were going over to Ashvial’s place alone for what reason?” he asked when I finished.
Oops. “I think I might have a lead on who hired those guys to ambush me near my house.”
“Oh? And who might that be?”
“I’d really rather not say until I have better proof.”
“Ah, I see.” Osiris leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of him. “I take it that you suspect someone in Findlay.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t
