“Who did? Who hired him?”
“What kind of businessman would I be if I divulged my clients’ secrets? Shall we say that I have done a lot of business with one of the local Families recently.”
He projected more lust at me and stood up. I couldn’t help but look at his massive erection, and that was enough to kill any erotic feelings I might have had. I raised the laser rifle and pointed it at him.
“Don’t come any closer, and don’t try to stop me from leaving.” I backed away, glancing quickly over my shoulder to make sure there was a clear path behind me.
“And you really think that weapon would stop me?” he asked with a leering grin.
I swung the muzzle to the side a little, projected magik into the rifle, and pulled the trigger. I didn’t know if he could see the red laser light, but he could definitely see the daylight through the two-foot hole in the wall forty feet away. He froze, looked at the hole, then returned his attention to me.
I grinned. “I’m fairly certain this will even the odds of me leaving here.”
Sidling away from him, I worked my way around the room to the door where I had entered. From there, I took the stairs down to the next level. Turning around, I saw Ashvial watching me from the top. I pointed the laser and destroyed the stairs between the two floors. I didn’t know if that would stop him from following me or not.
I ran down the stairs to the ground floor. Half a dozen demons awaited me there, and they didn’t look friendly. I glanced toward where I had seen Ashvial last, and he hadn’t moved.
Pointing the rifle at the floor between the demons and me, I burned a hole in the floor, sweeping the laser back and forth, opening a chasm more than ten feet wide. Then I turned and ran toward the back door.
The sound of large feet pounding behind me let me know that my delaying tactic hadn’t worked. I reached the hallway leading to the exit, turned around, and fired. Three demons who were closing in on me lost major pieces of their anatomy. I didn’t wait to see if it slowed down their buddies but resumed my run for the door.
I made it outside, slung the rifle across my back, and jumped on my motorcycle. The engine came to life at the same time as another demon stuck his head out the door. Drawing my Raider, I fired two shots at him, and gunned the throttle. The bike sped across the parking lot and took me out into the street.
Chapter 49
When I got home, I told Kirsten to close her wards, and then I called Thomas Whittaker.
“I think I know where Sarah Benning is being held,” I said when he answered. “I know you’ve got a lot going on right now, but I don’t think she’s going to be there much longer. I think they’re getting ready to ship her to Japan.”
“I can’t spare any personnel right now,” he said, “but I’m sure Justus Benning has guardians who can back you up. Where is she?”
“I’m about ninety percent sure she’s at the Moncrieff estate at Elk Neck.”
I heard him suck air. “That gets tricky.”
“Yeah.” The estate would be heavily defended, not to mention invading a Magi household would ignite a feud.
“Call your buddy Osiris,” he said, “and let me see what I can put together.”
Whittaker and Novak were allied with Benning, but Findlay wasn’t. At least not yet. But we had ties to Moncrieff through Courtney’s marriage, even though Moncrieff was allied with Akiyama. It was enough to give me a headache or drive me to drink. Maybe both.
I called Osiris and told him what I’d told Whittaker.
“You’re sure?”
“As sure as I can be, considering my source was a demon. We know Hiroku was staying out there. Something else that Ashvial let slip was that it was a woman who contracted Johansson’s murder. He also said he’d been doing a lot of recent business with a local Family. That was in the context of Johansson’s murder and the demon at the ball.”
His next question was unexpected. “Kirsten doesn’t have her shop open, does she?”
“No. It’s crazy down in that part of town.”
“Then come up here and bring her with you. Plan on staying here until things settle down. I’ll talk to your security teams.” Then he hung up, giving me no opening to argue.
I went into the kitchen where Kirsten was in the process of baking brownies.
“Osiris wants us to move up to Findlay House until things stabilize,” I announced.
She didn’t react, but proceeded to pour batter into two baking dishes, then put them in the oven. Wiping her hands on her apron, she finally looked up at me.
“Can we have someone check here and at the shop occasionally?”
“I’ll see what I can do. If it’s safe, yes. If there are fifteen hundred hungry demons hanging out in the harbor area, probably not.”
“Fair enough. The guardians can take our luggage in their vans, can’t they?”
I thought that her reaction was a pretty good indicator of how seriously she took the present situation. We both packed a couple of bags, and the guardians took them out to the vans. Then I had a couple of the guys haul half of my arsenal, as well as my tools, out to the vans. I figured I might end up bringing it all back unused, but better safe than sorry.
Finally, they loaded our motorcycles in the vans. Kirsten took the brownies out of the oven and warded the house.
We set out with the two vans sandwiched between the four guardians mounted on motorcycles.
