“Is there a secure phone I can call him on?” I asked. He gave me an
oh please
look. “Sorry, stupid question. Show me the way,” I said.
A half hour and one phone call later found Tanya, Arkady, Lydia, Stacia, Awasos, and me traveling on I-95 South through New Jersey. Trenton, one of Arkady’s most trusted guys, was driving the big GMC Denali SUV for the two-hour journey to our destination: the Jersey Pine Barrens.
Lieutenant Larry Dalton, who seemed to have become our liaison with the commissioner’s office, had told me that the New Jersey State Police Major who commanded the Special Operations Division had reached him through channels. It seemed the major had a problem spot in the middle of the vast New Jersey Pine Barrens—the kind of problem that leads straight to Hell.
It took a full two hours to reach the Pine Barrens, time we used to talk about Toni and her attackers.
“Was Chinese Nationals. Armed with automatic weapons and carrying both tasers and tranquilizers. Other than that, we don’t know much,” Arkady said.
“Chinese? Do they represent Chinese witches or the Triads or the Chinese government?” I wondered out loud.
“Could be any of those,” Lydia answered. “Chet and Deckert are looking into it. If there is any intel chatter, Chet will have a good chance of picking it up. The important thing is that Gina and Toni are all right.
Which
means you need to keep your distance from them right now. Your necklace thingy did its job, but you’ve got too many people looking for you. You’ll just bring extra trouble their way.”
I had wanted to go right to them the moment the attack occurred, but everyone kept talking me out of it. The dopplegheist necklace that Declan and his aunt had made for me from the God Tear had been very effective. It drew from me to provide protection to Toni and her family when I couldn’t be there and used a copy of Grim to do so. It seemed to be effective… very effective.
We threw around some ideas and Tanya agreed to contact Elder Tzao to see if she could shed light on Toni’s attackers and then we all sat back, quiet within our own thoughts.
“We’re here,” Trenton said, pointing at the State Police car parked across the access road to Wharton State Forest that we were supposed to take. Four media vans were also parked, various station call letters block printed on their paneled sides. The reporters all looked at us as we rolled up to the cops on duty.
Trenton powered down the window and a trooper shined his light into the interior.
“This road is closed,” he said.
“We’re expected by a Major John Leland from your Special Operations Division,” Trenton said.
The trooper looked us over, suspicion plainly written on his face, but radioed our arrival on his shoulder-mounted handset. “Send them through,” was the comeback response.
He shrugged and waved us in.
More vehicles appeared, mostly State Police, but also several NJ Ranger SUVs. The cars got thicker till we approached a tight knot of flashing lights and people with high-powered flashlights. Another trooper stopped us, then waved us toward the big group. Trenton stopped the Denali and we started to get out just as a group of uniforms approached. The guy in front wore a gold oak cluster on his lapel and looked like he was ready to tear someone a new one. Six two and muscular, he was maybe in his forties although there wasn’t a trace of gray in his black hair. He was surrounded by high ranking officers and a six-pack of armed SWAT guys.
His tight expression flashed through disgust as he looked us over, not happy with what he was seeing.
“You’re the experts? You’re the demonologist team?” he said, disbelieving.
“Yeah, that’s us,” I said. I stopped short of introducing myself, put off by his attitude.
“This isn’t a fucking reality show. We got dead bodies in there. Larry Dalton swore you could help us with this. I’m gonna fucking kill that guy,” he said, an aside to one of the men with him. A K-9 officer and his dog approached and the dog suddenly pulled his handler our way.
“Major Leland, Dalton asked us to come help you. Said Commission Rielly would consider it a favor. See, this is what we do. That’s why we just drove two hours to get here. But if you don’t want us here for whatever reason, if you feel whatever problem you have doesn’t require help, then we’ll leave. We can be home by a little past midnight if we leave now and we’ll just let the commissioner know his favors aren’t needed,” I said.
Leland looked at me, anger on his features. “Oh no. If Dalton swears by you, then by God, we’re gonna take a looksee at my
little problem,”
he said, getting up in my face. The tension was totally ruined by the big German shepherd shoving his head under my hand and whining.
“Jesus, Walinski. How much did we spend training you and that mutt?” Leland swore.
“Sorry Major. He never does that; he doesn’t like anyone. But he’s been acting weird, won’t follow the tracks. Same with Siskin’s dog.”
“Smart dog,” I said. “Let’s see your tracks, the bodies, and whatever else you have for us to look at.”
“Who said anything about bodies?” Leland asked, eyes narrowed.
“The coroner’s vehicle kinda gives it away,” Tanya said from my side. Actually it was the smell of massive amounts of blood, but I couldn’t really say that, now could I?
“Alright… Gordon, is it? Bring your circus and let’s take a look,” Leland said. Just then, Trenton opened the back of the SUV and Awasos jumped down.
The German shepherd dropped straight to the ground, whining and completely submissive.
“Jesus, is that a wolf?” the K-9 trooper asked, backing up. In fact, everybody backed up and more than a few reached for their guns.
“Yeah, mostly. Didn’t Larry Dalton tell you we have a wolf on our team?” I asked.
Major Leland was studying ‘Sos, who was sniffing the air and ground. He turned to me, his eyes still on ‘Sos. “Yeah, but he never said you were bringing one the size of a Clydesdale. What’s up with this circus act, Gordon? You look like the cast of a show my kids would watch on the CW channel.”
“Why don’t you show us your problem and we’ll show you what we’re about?” I replied.
He grunted, shook his head, and waved us after him. “Come on. Let’s get this over with. I gotta brief the governor soon.”
He led us through the sandy forest of small pines, first him, then us, then his cohort of SWAT buddies.
We reached an opening maybe fifty yards in diameter, the ground mostly more sand and pine needles. Except for the big circle of black nothingness in the middle—and the two torn bodies in hunters’ camouflage, compound bows lying beside them.
Tracks littered the ground, some booted and human, but a number looked like gargantuan turkey tracks. The soft sand didn’t allow much detail to show, but there were definitely three toes to a track, each tipped with what appeared to be a healthy-sized claw.
Some of those tracks led away from the bodies, which looked to have been run through a farm thresher.
‘Sos sniffed a three-toed track and growled, his hackles rising.
The circle was almost five feet in diameter and looked geometrically perfect. It was outlined in florescent yellow, an empty spray-paint can tossed to one side. Little numbered exhibit cards were placed next to the can as well as next to a short wooden stake and a coil of cheap twine.
“Mike DiNapoli and Vincent DiNapoli—cousins. They bow hunt every year, this time, this area. Mike’s son Anthony came off of watch at dusk and came looking for these two. Found them four hours later like this,” Leland said.
Stacia wondered closer to the circle, stepping carefully to avoid tracks. Two SWAT guys followed, keeping a close eye on her.
“How old is the kid?” she asked, looking at more tracks.
“Eighteen,” Leland replied.
She looked up at me. “Smaller tracks, about a woman’s size eight.”
The circle of black on the ground burbled and a feathered demon the size of a small man shot, screeching, straight out of its center. Bipedal, two short stumpy wings ending in claws, two big, muscled legs ending in bigger claws.
It arced up out of the hole and landed square on one of the two SWAT guys ogling Stacia. Driving the man to the ground, huge sharp talons flexing into his body. His buddy stumbled back , falling by Stacia, who reached out, snatched his Benelli shotgun, and fired three fast shots into the demon’s horned head, effectively decapitating it.
A second screech sounded as another demon launched itself through the air. A black and tan missile intercepted it with unstoppable force, the combined bodies landing twenty feet from Stacia. Awasos stood with all four feet braced and shook his head violently, rendering the demon broken but still twitching.
Turning to Leland, I said, “That’s what we’re about.”
Chapter 9
“You’ll want to get photos fast; the bodies sorta melt here—in our world,” I said.
Leland and the other cops just looked at me, all stunned by what had just happened. Stacia moved to the cop whose shotgun she’d appropriated and snagged three shells from the loops on his combat vest. Then she calmly reloaded the Benelli while nodding her head at the trooper on the ground. The standing cop gaped at her, then looked at his buddy, who was sitting up, looking at his own body. “Good armor,” Stacia noted to the guy on the ground who had huge gashes in his body armor but only a little bleeding from a wound on his right arm.
Leland jumped into motion, yelling orders for EMTs, photographers, and forensic people all at once. I walked with him over to the demons. The one that Stacia had shot was starting to bubble and steam even as a couple of CSI photographers snapped shots. The one ‘Sos was holding down continued to thrash about a bit.
“When demons come to this realm, world, dimension, or what have you, they traditionally do it in spirit. The whole Linda Blair-Amityville type of thing. They’re super dangerous, but mostly because they use people against people. When they pass through an open gate into this world, they come in their own bodies. With their own abilities. Even more dangerous. These things here look like horned velociraptors from
Jurassic Park
—sorta.”
“Why do they melt, and why hasn’t that one melted yet?” he asked.
“Not sure. Doubtless something either related to quantum physics or religion or both. This one will go as soon as I take its head off,” I said, snapping open a Kershaw folding knife and slicing through the last threads that held the broken head on, while ‘Sos used one big paw to hold the body in place. I could have used my aura to mono-blade it, but the major didn’t need another example of our weirdness.
“They’re very, very tough,” I said, loud enough to include all the troopers who were clustering around us. “Body shots don’t do much. You need to remove the head. Stacia has developed a technique with buckshot that seems to work well, as she just demonstrated. The rest of our crew stick with blades.” The body had stopped moving as soon as the sharp steel cut the tough tendons. Now it too started to fizz and burble.
Awasos moved away and began wiping his muzzle on the ground. I turned, and Arkady threw me a water bottle to help ‘Sos wash out his mouth. “Sos here usually ends up with a foul taste in his mouth. Never stops him from ripping into them, though. An open portal is a doorway. You need to have guards posted while they’re open,” I said, pointing to Stacia, who had taken up watch on the Hellhole, borrowed Benelli in her arms.
“How do we close them?” Leland asked.
“
You
don’t. I do. Or a circle of powerful witches can do it,” I said, moving to the circle and sitting down cross-legged next to it. The twine and stick circle compass was nearby and it reminded me of my friend Declan.
“Major, someone with knowledge made this circle. If your technicians find any clear shoe prints, you might want to touch base with Larry Dalton about their Central Park case.”
“You think it’s the same perp?”
“I have a bad feeling,” I said, touching the circle’s edge and pushing aura into it. Tanya moved up to stand watch behind me, the slight rasp of metal on polymer telling me she had drawn her short swords from their hidden back sheaths.
It took forty minutes, give or take, to close the circle, and I was exhausted by the end. The perfect geometric shape seemed to make it harder to close and several more things tried to come out of the hole, but they retreated when Stacia and a half-dozen SWAT types blasted the shit out of them. Police videographers filmed the whole event and I didn’t protest or nuke their cameras. Shit was getting real and people were going to have to know how to deal with it. Talk to people about demons and they got real polite and made themselves scarce fast. Show them police videos and they might—might just pay some attention. Plus, I had a feeling that the Bishop woman was going to start some life-altering crap with me soon.
“The smaller human shoe prints head south, and what looks like three sets of three-toed tracks chase after them,” an officer reported to Leland.
“Probably accompanied, not chased. I think the caster of this circle called some reinforcements,” I said.
“What do you know?” Leland asked.