Occult Assassin 4: Soul Jacker (4 page)

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

A COLD RAIN blanketed the monolithic high-rise housing projects of Vichy-Sous. Corbusier, the Swiss architect behind the buildings, had called them “machines for living,” an attitude that had turned them into “machines for alienation.” There was little variation in the neighborhood, a drab, concrete wasteland stretching to infinity in the misty rain. It made Detective Samia Ahmed think of an outpost on some far-flung world.

Hands resting on the steering wheel of their green, unmarked Peugeot 308, she eyed her partner, Detective Pierre Baudin. He was munching on a croissant, alternating bites from the pastry with deep swigs from his café au lait. Crumbs decorated his black coat like giant dandruff flakes, and a gloved hand kept brushing them off while he ate his late breakfast. His careless habits extended to his disheveled appearance. He’d missed a spot under the chin while shaving this morning, and his rumpled shirt hadn’t seen an iron in quite some time. Yet she overlooked his less-than-stellar hygiene in favor of his many other admirable qualities. Besides being a good cop, he wasn’t a racist like many other members of the force. Pierre never looked down on her for her brown skin or Muslim religion. On the contrary, he never failed to tell her how much he admired her for seeking employment in the mostly male, white, Christian police force.

Samia had grown up in an assisted housing project much like this one. A place dominated by squalor and poverty—in short, a slum. She spotted a few Addidas-clad young punks loitering on the slick sidewalks.
 

The recent string of attacks by residents of the banlieues against Parisians had sent shockwaves through the country. Giving the case to a female detective of Algerian descent might have been a shrewd bit of political maneuvering, but she planned to work her butt off to prove she deserved the job. She knew these neighborhoods and understood the culture. With any luck, her background would help her overcome the mistrust many of the locals held for the law.

She slowed the car and pulled up to an empty parking spot on the side of the street facing the tenement. Ismael Hassin had stabbed three innocent people on the Metro the other day, and she hoped that talking with his family might shed some light on his behavior. The animal savagery of the attacks had raised the possibility that drugs might be involved.

Pierre wolfed down the last of his breakfast and got out of the car. Samia followed his example. The hostile stares of a few local goons immediately landed on them. Cops rarely ventured out to the banlieues, but Samia wasn’t your average cop. She acknowledged the men and held their gaze, hoping the color of her skin would keep them at bay.
 

Pierre maintained his cool and even managed a smile as he said, “Friends of yours?” She shot him a mock-angry look while they brushed past the punks and into the building. French hip-hop throbbed from one of the units. They headed toward a graffiti-covered elevator.
 

“What am I looking at?” Pierre pointed at a sign spray-painted next to the lift. It was the image of a raised hand, but instead of a little finger it appeared to have two thumbs, one on either side. The hand contained an eye at its center and a collection of Arabic symbols.

“It’s the hand of Fatima. It’s one of the national symbols of Algeria and stands for the five pillars of Islam.” Noticing Pierre’s perplexed expression, she added, “It’s a protective charm meant to ward off the evil eye.”

Pierre cocked an eyebrow. “The evil eye?”

Samia nodded but skipped a long explanation. She turned toward the elevator. It reeked of piss and dog shit, a strong incentive to opt for the stairs instead. Unfortuantely, Ismael Henni’s mother rented a small apartment on the tenth floor. Samia’s daily workout regimen included both running and Crossfit sessions, and she easily climbed the ten flights of stairs. Pierre didn’t quite fare as well and she could hear him huffing and puffing behind her.
 

“Didn’t I tell you to quit smoking?”

“Why do women have to ruin every pleasure known to man?”

They grinned at each other.

A few minutes later, they arrived at their destination. The dank hallway of the tenth floor was as rundown as the elevator. Muffled sounds drifted from the various apartments. Many of the residents were unemployed and spent their days on the couch, numbing themselves with TV shows and video games.

“Let’s do this,” Pierre said as they reached the Henni residence. Samia rang the buzzer. There was a beat of silence followed by rapidly approaching footsteps. Knife marks scarred the doors of the various units, a sharp reminder of the neighborhood’s heavy gang presence. No wonder Mrs. Henni was hesitant to answer the door. Samia opened her coat, held up her badge, and faced the spy hole.

“Madame Henni, I’m Detective Samia Ahmed and this is my partner, Detective Pierre Baudin. We’re here to talk to you about your son. We spoke on the phone a little earlier.”

A pause. Then the sound of a security chain being pulled back. The lock was disengaged and the door opened a few inches. A face shrouded in shadow appeared on the other side.

“I’m sorry for your loss,
madame
, and I know you’re grieving for your son. But we must talk about what happened. Could we please come inside?”

“I can’t help you.”

“All we want to do is talk. Please.”

Warring emotions flickered across Mrs. Henni’s face as she finally opened the door. She was about five foot-two, a big woman whose shapeless form was hidden under a grey dress and black hijab. The Quran instructed women to dress in a modest way, and the hijab was a big part of Arabic culture, especially for those who hadn’t been born in the country. The French government had outlawed headscarves in their schools, but in privacy of people’s homes, neighborhoods and mosques, the cultural tradition lived on. Samia personally embraced the freedom of the West, but she also believed immigrants should be able to wear what they wanted. Forbidding a Muslim woman to wear a traditional hijab might inspire her to completely cover her face with a niqab as a form of protest. Forced cultural assimilation came at a price, and whether right or wrong, the government’s actions were widening the rift between the banlieues and the rest of French society.

They followed Mrs. Henni into her drab apartment. Noise from a talk show greeted them. Samia caught a glimpse of a young man slouched on the ratty couch. He barely looked up from the TV as they passed by, showing little interest in the visitors, hypnotized by the drama of the program. The police file had mentioned Ismael’s brother, and she mentally ran down what she knew about the killer’s sibling. High School dropout. Unemployed. A prime target for radicalization. He sounded like another banlieue statistic in the making.

Mrs. Henni told them to take a seat in the dining area as she poured them cups of hot tea.

“First off, Mrs. Henni, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Samia said. “Your son committed terrible crimes, but I know how hard life can be out here. All we’re trying to do today is gain a better understanding of what might’ve driven him to murder. Had he joined any groups that you were aware of or was he hanging out with any new friends?”

Mrs. Henni sipped her tea, eyes never leaving Samia’s, but she didn’t say a word. This wasn’t going to be easy—but then again, Samia hadn’t expected it to be.
 

“Did you notice anything unusual in your son’s behavior leading up to the attack?”

Mrs. Henni showed no signs of having registered the question.

Pierre pulled out a small vial emblazoned with the letter M, which had been found among Ismael’s possessions. Some of the other attackers had carried similar vials, and the police feared a new drug might be infesting the streets of Paris. Toxicology had discovered traces of a strange substance in the young man’s bloodstream, but the lab had been unable to make heads or tails out of it. According to the scientists, this wasn’t like any drug they’d seen before.

“Do you know where your son got this drug? Did he ever talk about it?”

There was a flicker of recognition in Mrs. Henni’s gaze as she studied the empty vial. She was clearly familiar with the drug on some level, but she merely shook her head and wiped tears from her eyes. Her features emerged from the hijab like a turtle from a shell. “Ismael is a good boy.”
 

Samia noted the mother’s refusal to use the past tense when talking about her deceased son. This visit was turning into another dead end. She cursed inwardly and fought to control her growing frustration.
 

She asked more questions anyway, hoping Mrs. Henni might open up, but after ten increasingly frustrating minutes of questioning, she decided to call it a day. Her partner’s long look told her he shared her feelings. This was getting them nowhere.
 

She finished the last sip of her tea and got up, thanking Mr. Henni for her time as she turned toward the exit. Ismael’s brother had evacuated his spot on the well-worn couch and silently snuck out of the apartment. She suddenly wondered if they might’ve questioned the wrong person today.

As they left, Mrs. Henni locked the door behind them. Milky beams of sunlight seeped into the deserted corridor from a large window next to the staircase. To their surprise, someone was waiting for them in the stairs. Ismael’s brother, Hakim, leaned against the wall. His eyes flitted nervously back and forth.
 

He’s afraid
, Samia thought.

“We need to talk,” he declared matter-of-factly before she could even ask him a question. He kept darting paranoid glances around. Who or what was he terrified of?

“Talk about what?”Pierre asked. “Do you know anything about the drug your brother was taking?”

Hakim remained mum, almost as if he was having a change of heart about sharing information with the police.
 

“Listen, we’re trying to stop anyone else from getting hurt. I know Ismael wasn’t a violent guy-”
 

“I’m taking a big risk talking to you. His eyes and ears are everywhere…”

Pierre took a step forward. “Who are you talking about?”

There was a scared beat of hesitation before he said, “Rakan.”

A frown furrowed Samia’s brows. “Who is Rakan?”

“He’s the devil who stole my brother’s soul.”

As if to emphasize his words, he held up an empty glass vial. It was engraved with an M just like the other vials they’d found among the recent attackers. She traded glances with her partner before she said, “The drugs…they come from around here?”

Hakim nodded. “They call that shit
Soul Jacker
on the street. It steals your soul.”
 

Samia considered this.

“Where can we find Rakan?” Pierre asked.

Hakim bit his lips and stepped away from the large window, revealing the thirty-story tenement located about a block away. The forbidding structure rose from the urban sprawl like a fortress of darkness. It was by far the ugliest and tallest building in the neighborhood. Samia searched her memory for the name.
Le Tour de Flandre
—The Flanders Tower.
 

Hakim tilted his head toward the building, the meaning of the gesture unmistakable.

Before he could add anything else to his story, Hakim’s eyes widened with sudden terror. Samia whirled and so did Pierre. Mrs. Henni lurked behind them. Her tears were gone and so were any other signs of grief. Her face seemed carved from stone, her eyes narrowed into slits. The wrinkles had metastasized, transforming her face into a spiderweb of gnarled skin. In her grey dress and black hijab, she moved like a wraith.

Words in Arabic exploded from her lips in a guttural, distorted voice that barely sounded human. Without hesitation she launched herself at a terrified Hakim. Before Samia could stop her, the heavy-set lady slammed into her son, the momentum carrying them both toward the large window. Glass shattered, and the two figures disappeared from view, plunging ten stories down.

Samia peered through the jagged maw of glass. Below, blood framed the shattered bodies of mother and son. Mrs. Henni’s final words, spoken in Arabic, echoed in her mind. Samia doubted she would ever be able to forget them.

Your soul belongs to me.
 

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

AFTER HE FINISHED up his meeting with Casca, Talon returned to his rental car, a black Aston Martin Vanquish, and began his long journey to Paris. The powerful V-8 engine and the low-profile sports car body made him feel like a teenager again as he hurtled down the endless roads. He normally tried not to take advantage of Casca’s generosity, but how many times would he get a chance to drive through the Swiss Alps? Flying might’ve been faster, but he had a funny feeling airport security would have some issues with the ominous looking pentagram around his neck—not to mention the demon slayer blade and his trusted Glock.
 

While the snow-capped mountains streaked past him, a British-accented voice emanated from his car speakers, elaborating on the complex history and mythology of the Jinn. Casca had been thoughtful enough to provide a few audiobooks on the subject. There was much to learn. Even though Jinns could be conjured with the help of occult rituals, they were difficult to control. The only person said to have complete power over them was the legendary biblical King Solomon. According to the stories, God gave Solomon a magic ring that allowed him to subdue the Jinn. In some of the tales the ring was inscribed with a pentacle, which made Talon think of his own magical Sumerian talisman. Could there be some sort of connection?

After five hours of listening to various experts chime in about the cultural origins of the Jinn, Talon had heard enough. His mind reeling from data overload, he turned off the audiobook and switched to a local rock station. As much fun as Arabic demonology might be for some people, it just wasn’t the right soundtrack for the stunning mountain vista.