Chapter Eight – Luke

 

“All right, Oldham,” I said to myself in the rearview mirror. “Here’s the plan: you get in, you get the paystubs, you get out. That’s it. No sticking around any longer than you have to. No sense in dragging this girl in any deeper than she already is. It’s for her safety, and for yours. You can’t cross the line. Ever.”

I nodded to my reflection. “Yes, sir. Roger that.”

I was headed back down towards Tucson on Highway 77, just a few car lengths behind Molly.

Molly. Gorgeous, smart, funny Molly. The kind of woman I could have taken home to my parents, shifter or not, if either of them was still alive. Not for the first time, I felt like cursing this job. This vocation. Just throwing the whole damn thing aside and telling it to burn in Hell alongside all the other poor choices I’d ever made.

In the cup holder nestled into the center console, my phone began to ring, its little chirping noise bringing me back to the desert. To the mission.

I answered it. “What’s good, Tabitha?”

“At this point? Not much.”

“Talk to me. What is this thing?”

“Ever heard of a zmeu, before?”

“Not precisely, no. What do we know?”

“Romanian lust demons, smell slightly of sweetly rotten fruit. Shapeshifters, with the true form of a man with bat wings and a giant gem in the middle of their forehead, which is visible no matter their current form. Each one kills in a different kind of way, using intimate relations to steal organs from their prey, which is always beautiful women.”

“That explains the missing hearts, and where it’s posted up. It’s like the fox guarding the hen house.”

“Precisely.”

“What about the claws and the smell of dog? Anything on that?”

“No, nothing yet. A hell hound, maybe? You mentioned a mineral smell.”

“Yeah, but not sulfur. Like geological? Limestone? Not sure, I never did well in Earth Science as a kid.”

“Strange. Not sure about that, or the claws. I’ll go back to some of the old myths I dug up, see if they fit in somehow in a way that I didn’t initially see. But, bottom line, this is a zmeu. I’d put money on it.”

“Good. Glad we got that figured out. Now, how do I kill it? Silver? Holy water? What do I need?”

Everything alive can be made to be not alive. It’s just simple biology. Or, in the case of the supernatural, very strange and convoluted biology. For shifters, a silver bullet to the heart will kill us. Vampires? They have stakes and beheadings. Chinese vampires? Sharpened bamboo chutes will make short work of them.

And, when in doubt, you can always use fire. Fire kills everything.

“That’s the tricky part. Ready for this?”

“Shoot.”

She shot.

When she told me, I didn’t know whether I should burst out laughing, or crying. There was no way I was going to get that, not in a million years. “You have got to be fucking joking! Come on, Tabitha, there’s gotta be another way!”

“It’s the only thing that fits the bill. It’s a lust demon, but not really a demon, so we need something that’s a symbol of purity. We can’t just use religious symbolism with it, it doesn’t work that way.”

“Can’t we get, like, I don’t know, an abstinence pledge or something? Or a melted-down wedding ring? Make a bullet out of that?”

“Sorry, Luke. It’s gotta be this. Nothing else will work.”

“But, Tabitha, where in the hell am I going to find a fucking unicorn horn on short notice? Even the PRB would have had a hard time coming up with something like that, and they were a goddamn government agency!”

“Would you just relax? Remember how I told you about my contact, the one that’s been helping me dig up information on the missing women?”

A mental picture of an old busy-body witch fiddling around with a cauldron somewhere out in the middle of the Arizona desert sprang to mind, the Milky Way spread above her like Satan had sprayed a machine gun across heaven and left nothing behind but bullet holes for the light to come through.

“Yeah, you mentioned her. Why?”

“You’ve got a meeting with her in three hours.” She paused. “And, Luke, you brought a decent change of clothes along, right?”

Not sure what this job would entail, I’d packed up a nicer set of clothes than I had on. A clean button-up, some light linen slacks to go with them, and a decent-looking pair of shoes that weren’t combat boots. “Not sure why it matters, but yeah.”

“Good, because she’s not your usual kind of contact. You need to dress to impress.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She’ll need to know you at least made an effort. It matters to a woman like her.”

“Woman like her?” I asked. “Tabitha, just spit it out. What’s going on?”

“She’s a succubus, all right? That’s who I’m having you meet with.”

Despite her being on the phone, the words seemed to hang in the air like a bad smell, and my nose seemed to wrinkle of its own accord as I shook my head a little. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Tabitha.”

“Why would I do that?” she asked. “Why? Because I enjoy the thought of sending you to someone like her? Look, Roxy is an old asset of mine from the PRB days, and we’ve stayed on good terms.”

“Roxy?”

“Short for Roxanne. I don’t judge.”

“Not judging is fine. But, do you trust her?”

“With my life? Not necessarily.”

“Mine, though, that’s fine.”

“You’re an adult, Luke. You can handle yourself, can’t you?” Besides, I trust her to act in her own self-interest.”

“Which would be?”

“Think she wants any other sex demon operating on her turf?”

“How do we know they’re not working together?”

“We don’t, but that doesn’t mean we need to discount any help we’re offered.” She paused for a moment. “Look, Luke, do you want to stop this guy? Or not?”

“Of course I do. You know I do. But, do we have to stoop to this? To working with some creature?”

“Is that what Colonel Harrington was doing when he brought us in to the PRB?” she asked, her words soft but cutting. “Stooping?”

I sighed. She had a point. In the past, we’d all been unknown entities foreign to the United States government. Creatures that were ignored at best, hunted at worst. They knew we hid in plain sight, but we’d all known deep down that we could never reveal ourselves for fear of retaliation, or elimination.

Until the colonel came along, of course. He’d been able to pull us together, to direct us as a weapon in the war against the supernatural, to hunt the inhuman things of the night that preyed on innocent people.

“Fine,” I said. “But you’re sure she has a horn?”

“Spoke to her already, and she confirms it.”

“Text me the address and the time, then. I’ll find my way there.”

“You checked into your hotel yet?”

“Not yet, no. Checking into a few things while I’m here, first.” I didn’t exactly want to tell her about Molly, or that I was going back to her place to look over the scene. We had a strict no-civilian-involvement policy, which had worked for the most part. Up until the last year, of course, when all the guys had screwed the pooch and begun relationships while they were on the job. Three years ago, they would have faced disciplinary action. Now, all they’d gotten was a slap on the wrist and a firm ass-chewing from our boss Kris.

I knew the rules, though. Knew why they’d been put in place, and the importance of them. Knew them even if they weren’t being strictly enforced.

“A lead?”

“Something like that,” I replied, trying to brush her off. “Roommate of the girl who just went missing. Looking over their place, trying to see if I can get any records that’ll lead me to this modeling agency the woman works for. Witness is saying he saw her leave with some guy, so maybe the snatch didn’t happen there, exactly.”

“Roommate, huh?” she asked.

I clenched my jaw, waiting for the next line. The one of warning, which would inevitably come.

“Good. Good idea. Saves you from having to break in there.”

“Break in?”

“Since you’ve got open access to her residence, I need you to look into one other thing as well.”

Great. There went the in-and-out plan, the one I’d hoped would put some distance between me and Molly. The one I’d hoped would put these thoughts of her out of my head.

“Zmeus stalk their prey for a short period before they take them, sometimes even leave mementos behind. In this case, though, they could be actual gifts given to her by the zmeu acting as a client. I need you to find one.”

“Gifts? Like jewelry or clothing?”

“Along those lines, yes. Gold coins is another one.”

“Great. So, look for mementos that a call girl’s been given by her client? Maybe rings, maybe necklaces, maybe pirate doubloons. That should be easy. Anything else you need?”

Clearly, Tabitha detected the sarcasm dripping from my words. “Who said this was going to be easy?”

“Right.” I paused. “While I’ve got you on the phone, I need you to look into something else for me. New information since my last text. Just the first name at the moment, but working on digging up more. Dominic.”

“That’s all we’ve got to go on?”

“No one said this was going to be easy, Tabitha.”

She sighed, an exasperated sound.

“I’ll see what I can find. Good luck, Luke. You’re gonna need it out there.” She hung up.

Great. There went my plan of just being in and out.

Now I was stuck with searching through Heidi’s room. Which meant I was going to have to spend even more time with Molly. The one person I shouldn’t be spending time with. Now all I had to figure out was how I was going to search her place in time to get to the hotel to change, so I could meet Roxanne.