“My pack was able to follow one of Narran’s kids to the abandoned cabin down the way. The same one I found the other night before I showed up at your place. Judging from the smell it’s probably where they’re dissecting their victims. However, there’s no way they’re staying there. It looks abandoned and my guys had to leave because of the stench. They have to have another place where they live.” He put some hand drawn maps and pictures of houses on the table.
“Narran is taking the ‘take your kids to work day’ a little too seriously. The unique situation with these kids is that they’re not more than children. I’m sure Narran aged them with magic, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t processing this as ten year olds. Their father is teaching them the torture techniques he learned from their mother.” I swallowed hard.
“He learned how to torture from his wife?” Adam looked nauseous again.
“It was her wedding gift to him. He likes playing with humans. Seeing how long he can keep female humans alive in a semi-conscious state was something he’d been practicing unsuccessfully for a few centuries before he met her. She was the one who demonstrated all of the sensitive places on a human female body. How to take the women to the physical breaking point and pull back.”
I stopped to gauge his reaction. Without knowing his entire background, I couldn’t tell how graphic I could get. He looked angry but okay.
“Most demon spawn have genetic problems from their inbreeding. They never fully develop, use minor little spells, and are a nuisance to everyone in the paranormal community. It dilutes the genetic strain and makes further generations of strong demons less and less possible. Right now, Narran and his wife are the only demons who like to express themselves by torturing human beings and the only ones with pure demon kids,” I said.
“There are a number of human beings who might have an argument with that point.” Adam noted.
“What you’ve seen in your time is really nothing: the Black Death, the plague, every major disease that wiped out a population, even if it was just a local area. More than likely had a demon hand in it. They haven’t created a major virus or superbug since polio. You have to understand that for demons, that’s a big step. A majority of demons had started to like human beings. They certainly liked the advances in civilization humans are driven to create. Every demon is absolutely grateful for Bluetooth because now they can talk to each other magically, and nobody thinks about it at all.” I appreciated the advances as well.
There was a huge market for fake Bluetooth headsets among demons. It was their version of bling. The bigger and fancier the non-functioning device was, the better. Demons would walk into clubs shouting at imaginary friends just so everyone would turn to see them. Then they’d pull their hands away from their ears exposing their fake headset.
“I have to admit it’s a handy invention,” Adam said.
“The fear I’m seeing from Laythe is they will be returned to the dark ages. Human beings have made this a pretty comfortable place to be. While demons can create any building they want out of thin air. It requires a tremendous amount of magic energy to keep it standing.”
“So why didn’t demons and dragons start to develop buildings and civilization?” He asked.
“As for dragons, we were okay in caves. You can’t set us on fire so a volcano isn’t a problem. I’m not sure why demons didn’t. I assumed it was due to their invulnerability. If they wanted to stay out of the snow, they would vanish and appear somewhere sunny. They are, as far as I know, only limited to Earth. I’ve never heard of a demon who wanted to explore space. As soon as human beings began to create their own civilizations, demons saw an opportunity to guide the construction. There are a lot of structures around the world that human beings shouldn’t have been able to build.”
“The pyramids.” Adam guessed.
“Easter Islands monuments, the Nazca lines, any number of them had demon assistance.” I didn’t mention the dragon influence in Mayan culture. “One problem with having demons live side-by-side with humans was the first time a demon family sent their young child to school with humans. I’m sure you’ve seen a hissy fit before? When demon children have hissy fits, they change form. The kids in the class got an up close and personal view of every scary creature this little kid had seen. Whether it was another demon, a family member, or something else, and the family was run out of town.”
“You scare the human population, they’ll grab their pitchforks and torches,” Adam said.
“There’s no other species in existence that can wipe out an entire race with a single purpose like humans. That’s why we have to stop this one family. I spend a lot of my time taking care of rogue demons for their lords, watchers, spouses, or children. All of that stuff is minor when compared to humans finding us. One day, maybe our children can play with their children, but our only way to acceptance in the human world is through the young.
“We can’t appear to the older adults, whose idea and concept of how the universe works, how their lives are supposed to work, how the world is supposed to operate is already solid in their mind. If we come along and change it, they’ll be scared. They will do what is necessary to protect that image and will be dangerous.” I knew the speech by heart.
Adam nodded. “That has got to be the best way I have ever heard it described.”
“I heard it from a psychologist in town. The one that Angie went to after she found out about Wretch. The woman knows what she’s talking about, although Angie had told her that her boyfriend was a different race and left out the part about being a different species.”
“A good idea.”
“Yeah, we all thought so at the time.” I laughed.
“I need to get going. I’ll leave the sketches and maps here with you. The bodyguard you met at Angie’s office, Greg, expressed an interest in helping out. I’ve freed him to come talk to you. If you think he’s okay, we’ll use his skills. He’s the best hunter I’ve ever met.”
I walked him back outside and once again envied the glorious yacht. Before he left, I made sure I took a picture of it and sent it to Wretch. The text message I received in return said, “Fuck you.”
One of the small joys I got in life was making Wretch’s life a little miserable. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point next week a luxury yacht pulled up to the warehouse with Wretch’s name on the side. I walked back inside closing the door behind me. This time I secured the locks. I made my way to the bathroom to shower.
Once in front of the mirror, I looked at the human form I had carried for over seven hundred years. What I saw was deemed attractive by most of the human women I met. My muscles were maintained and restored every time I changed. I shifted into my natural dragon form and admired the deep purple scales that covered my entire body. I stretched my wings as far as they would go even though I couldn’t stretch into full size in the small room.
I pulled my wings back stepping into the shower with the hottest water until steam filled the room. I could feel the scalding hot water as it found the spaces between my scales, and burnt anything and everything as it drifted down the drain.
“You have to shift to human,” my mother used to say.
As soon as I learned to shift, she emphasized the need to remain human as much as possible. At home with my parents, we walked around as dragons. We shifted as needed, but never for one another. Even some of the villagers saw us and left sacrificial offerings at the opening of the cave where we lived. The Yucatan had many caves and water holes we could explore without interfering in the villagers lives. I could hold my breath for twenty minutes as a child. Now, it was five at the most.
My father lived for a thousand years before mating and having children. His human form looked exactly like me with blue eyes. They still lived in the Mexican jungle, traveling the world sightseeing. Human tourists gathered at natural monuments while my parents sought out human achievements.
We were one of six dragon families. Dragon births were rare because the mother had to stay in dragon form to carry a child to term. The gestation period was a year. The more humans invaded mountains and jungles, the harder it was for us to hide away a pregnant, famished dragon female, for twelve months. My ex-fiancé and I had talked about having children. I wasn’t sure I could handle fetching her food for a year. Our temperaments lent to the possibility of me bringing home something to knock her unconscious or, at the very least, mute for the year.
I needed to scope out the cabin for myself tonight. A better mental picture of the place would help me plan the attack. With Wretch in London, we would need an exact plan since neither Adam nor I could vanish and appear at will. Damn, I wanted that ability.
I turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and flapped my wings until the steam had almost dissipated. It wasn’t until I opened the door that I realized I had taken the complete shower without turning on a light. It turned out to be a good thing because when I walked back out into the warehouse, I wasn’t alone.
There was an extremely large wolf sitting on my coffee table staring at the BBC footage of Nitha replaying repeatedly. His ears twitched as I walked across the room. I know he heard me, but he didn’t turn his head. I did notice he had placed his tail over the top of the paperwork. It was no accident. I wondered how he’d used the mouse with his paw.
I recognized Adam’s bodyguard from the coroner’s office.
“Is there anything I can get for you?” I asked from behind him.
He turned his head while jumping down off the table. He walked around the love seat shifting while staring straight at me. The man who now stood before me was easily as wide as I was and had to be six feet four inches tall. He was one of the few werewolves who might actually be more impressive as a human.
“I’m sorry to have broken in. Do you remember who I am?”
“You’re Adam’s bodyguard, and your name would be?” I know Adam told me, but I didn’t want him to know that.
“I’m Greg. I know Adam told you about me. What he didn’t tell you, because he doesn’t know, is that I was friends with a couple of the victims.”
That changed things. “I’m sorry that you lost someone, but I can’t have anyone involved with this that has a personal agenda. They get sloppy, and then they get dead. I think you understand.”
Judging from the almost complete lack of emotion on his face as I spoke, I was sure he hadn’t known the recent victims for very long before they died. The wolves in this area rarely ever bonded with humans. If he could keep his emotions under control, I had no doubt with Adam, we could take Narran down along with his sons within the next twenty-four hours.
“Their loss won’t affect my ability to hunt down the prey. I’m the largest wolf in the pack and will be able to smell the demon killers even from a mile away. Adam said it was okay and released me from my bodyguard duties, contingent on you accepting my offer. I’ve only been in town for two months and most of the demons don’t know who I am. This gives me the ability to move within crowds that are high in demon presence without being detected. I know they’ll be able to smell wolf. But given the cover of pre-Mardi Gras. There’s a good possibility they’ll think I’m in town for a holiday and not part of the local pack.”
I’d already decided to let him in. With Wretch gone, another body with a superb sense of smell would be good. He made a very good case even if I hadn’t been considering it. “Your relative anonymity in the area is definitely a plus. I wouldn’t still be alive if I didn’t know when to take the offer of help.”
“So I’m in?” He actually looked a little nervous.
As strong as I was, I never would’ve won many battles if I had insisted on going in with just my own strength, ego, and nothing else. “Yes, you are in.”
He took that moment to realize he stood two feet from me without any clothes on. I spelled him clothes. Jeans with sweaters or button downs were the only ones I knew. He didn’t look bothered.
We sat quietly in front of the television that I had switched over to the local news. He helped me sear the steaks Adam left, and we ate them almost raw. After dinner, I looked over the things Adam had left behind. He had very detailed maps of all the possible locations for Narran’s living quarters. He wasn’t staying in the cabin and his kids might need a house of their own. His patience might end at sharing living space with three demonic children.
Since we didn’t have them show up on any of Wretch’s cameras, it was possible they had houses in either the Garden or the Business districts. He even added a couple of buildings that weren’t on the local maps yet. Greg and I discussed it, and we decided first thing in the morning we would walk by the two buildings that Adam had added.
If they were just new businesses, we needed to know whether they were new structures built by demon magic. They would disappear if we got close to them and set off the alarm spells. We also needed to know that.