“What happened to the girl?” I asked the housekeeper when she first showed me Sarah’s room.
“She was taken away, just before all the commotion started,” was the answer.
“Taken away where? By whom?”
“I don’t know, Mistress. Lord Akiyama and that demon came up here, bundled all the girls up, and took them downstairs, and put them in some cars, and drove away.”
“Demon?”
“Yes, ma’am. Fearsome, he was.”
“What did this demon look like?”
She shrugged. “Like a demon. Taller than the door, with red skin and black horns and a face that was terrible to behold.”
“Did anyone say a name? Does Ashvial ring a bell?”
“As a matter of fact, that Sarah girl did say that. I didn’t realize it was his name, she just said, ‘Ashvial’ when she saw him.”
We knew that neither Ashvial nor Sarah had gotten on that airplane. The spelled helicopter was still sitting at the airfield. But after I questioned a few other servants and guardians, I knew that Akiyama, a demon, three girls, and the rest of Hiroku’s retinue had boarded four cars and left in a hurry. Three of those cars reached the airfield.
I called Kevin Goodman, the police forensics leader on the scene. “Kevin, I need someone to take a look at a helicopter parked at the Elk Neck airfield. It’s blocked with some kind of ward, and I need to know if the magik is demonical.”
“It is,” he said. “We’ve already checked it out.”
I took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t happen to know if a demon in a car could drive right through a blockade of armed guardsmen, would you?”
“Depends on the demon. The one who spelled that helicopter? Probably. They are masters of illusion, you know.”
Damn. Ashvial wouldn’t be driving, but he could cast the spells while a human took the wheel.
I called Kirsten. “Do you have any charms that would allow me to see through illusions? Demon illusions?”
“Hello, Dani. How are you? How is your day going?”
“Sorry. I haven’t slept since I saw you last.”
“Dumbshit. Yes, I can whip you up a charm or potion to do almost anything. Within reason. If you’re asking, can I help you see through an illusion cast by a demon lord, I’m afraid that’s out of your price range. But give me another fifty years to work on it, and I might be able to come up with something.”
I sighed.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m pretty sure that Ashvial has Sarah Benning. He evidently spirited her out of the Moncrieff estate under everyone’s noses just before all the shooting started.”
“She’s still alive?”
“She was last night. Okay, talk to you later.”
“Wait, you’re not going to—” I hung up and turned my phone off because I didn’t want to listen to a lecture.
Chapter 53
I hitched a ride down to the airfield and commandeered a helicopter and its pilot to take me to Baltimore. I had him drop me on the roof of Police Headquarters, where I took the elevator to the basement parking garage and grabbed my car.
As I started the engine, I remembered that things had been a little weird the last time I was downtown. I pulled up the screen on the dashboard and logged into the police network to get a status update.
Work clearing the rubble at the Palace of Commerce was still in progress. The police had finally contained the rioting downtown, although the area was essentially under martial law. The demon army advance had stalled south of Annapolis. Five thousand guardians and mercenaries dug in along Highway 50 had penned the demons against South River on the east, Beard’s Creek to the south, and the Waste to the west.
Basically, the entire Mid-Atlantic region was drowning in chaos, but at the moment, I was sitting in what amounted to the eye of the storm.
I checked all my weapons, then pulled out onto the street. It was eerily quiet, and there was a cop in riot gear on almost every corner. I lit up the car’s rooftop and door panels that showed I was a cop, just to make sure no one got excited about me driving around.
Out of a sense of duty, I took a swing by Kirsten’s shop and noted that it appeared to be intact. A few buildings on her street showed some damage, and nothing was open. Of course, it was still fairly early in the morning. I took the car up in the air and circled over the shop. The greenhouses didn’t have any broken glass.
Satisfied that I could calm her fears when I saw her next, I took the car above all the buildings and turned toward Lucifer’s Lair. Circling over the nightclub, I saw that the flat roof had a helipad on it. There were chains across the entrances to the parking lot, and about a dozen cars were parked inside, including four limos. There were also at least twenty demons hanging around the building. They didn’t look like they were guarding the place, but demons didn’t do formal guard details or act official and military.
I brought the car lower until I could feel the magitek boxes I had affixed to the building’s electrical and water systems on my previous visit. There weren’t any demons on the roof, so I set the car down on the helipad.
The last time I ventured into Ashvial’s domain, I was lucky to make it out unscathed. I doubted he would be so beneficent about me confronting him after the assault on his allies at Moncrieff. Even though I was wearing my Kevlar corset, I didn’t think that was nearly enough protection. Opening the trunk, I got out a full-body flame-proof suit and pulled it on, including the hood and a facemask. The ballistic-cloth fabric would also protect me against demonic claws and fangs.
The door
