Demon Lord 4: White Jade Reaper Read online

  He nodded. “You wanted information on a series of child-killings that happened here in Santa Fe back in ‘95 and ’96.”

  “Right. And anything you hear about a secret auction being planned in the next few days.”

  “I’ll look into the auction. About that other business, don’t get nervous; I’m just reaching for what you want.” Slowly, his hand went to the back of his belt. He brought forth a bulging, white business envelope. “These old news clippings will give you most of the details. There’s not much else.”

  Taking the envelope, I tucked it in a jacket pocket. “Tell me what’s not in there, what the preternatural community knows, or suspects.”

  Onyx drew closer, listening in. The others had enough sense to make themselves scarce.

  The Indian watched Onyx carefully, but otherwise showed no tension, saying, “Rumor back then had it that there was a fey connection. Some people thought the victims were captured or pacified by some fey relic. At the time of the killings, some fey went around asking about a theft, offering a sizable reward for the guilty party to be revealed.”

  Hmmm. Interesting. “Did the fey ever recover the artifact?”

  “No. The reward is still standing.”

  Great. That will put a little more cash in my pocket, or maybe some kind of magical reward. “Do you know anything more about this relic?”

  The Indian held out his hand.

  I pulled out my wallet and handed him a hundred.

  He glared at me. “I’m worth less than a cue ball? You gave the manager two hundred.”

  I added another hundred.

  He said nothing, hand still open, waiting.

  I gave him another hundred and a hard stare. “If that’s not enough, I can throw in a bullet.

  Which vital organ do you want it lodged in?”

  He closed his hand on the cash and stuffed it in a pocket.

  “That will do just fine.” He reached into a shirt pocket, pulled out a white linen business card, and extended it to me. “Here’s the, uh, man you need to talk to.”

  I took the card and read it: Santa Fe Silver Gallery. There was an address in the downtown area, and a phone number. “This business is a cover for the fey?”

  The Indian nodded. “They buy their turquoise from the local tribes, but the ultra-pure silver is imported from Fairy.”

  I shot a glower at the informant. “The fey are in competition with Native American craftsmen. You wouldn’t be sending me in there to get a little payback against your rivals, would you?”

  He huffed, some kind of a laugh I think. “Just because I want them annoyed with your presence, doesn’t mean they don’t have things to tell you.”

  Okay, not a wild javelina chase then. “Fine. I’ll go see the man. Anything else?”

  “Just this, the killings stopped as suddenly as they started. You might want to look into the last victim. Victims actually. It was the only case where more than one victim was found, and one of them is still alive. I can’t give you the name. As a minor, his name was never released to the media, and somehow, it never turned up.”

  “That is interesting.”

  Red and blue flashes of light speared in through the front windows as a police car pulled up. There’d been no sirens. They’d rolled up silently to catch us by surprise. Car doors were thrown open.

  We were seconds away from a law enforcement invasion. “Thanks,” I told the Indian.

  He scurried off to the side, out of the line of possible fire.

  I turned to Onyx, summoned my guns, put the safeties on, and flipped them in my hands. “Here, hold these.”

  He took the guns.

  I got on my knees and raised my hands, and sang the theme to Cops. “Bad boys, bad boys, what cha gonna do when they come for you…?”

  They kicked in the front door—which hadn’t been locked—

  and one of them screamed. Freeze!”

  Another cop yelled, “Put the guns down!”

  Onyx stared at them, a puzzled expression on his face. “Which is it? Do you want me to freeze or put the guns down?”

  They clarified themselves:

  “Put the gun down!”

  “Freeze!”

  “Drop the gun!”

  Onyx melted into a puddle of darkness, taking my guns to the floor with him. He left them there as he scooted across the floor, under the cops’ feet, and out the door. One cop stood frozen like a statue. The other turned to watch the retreating darkness.

  “Holy shit!” he said.

  Quite inaccurate.

  The frozen cop got over his shock and came further into the pool hall. He went to my guns and scooped them up, smudging any prints I might have left on them. Avarice gleamed in his eyes as he smiled at my weapons. “Nice.”

  “Can I get up now?” I asked him.

  He holstered his gun, it being awkward to hold three weapons at a time, and looked at me. “Oh, yeah, sure.”

  I got off my knees, putting my hands down, and gushed with insincerity. “Thanks, officer. I don’t know what that was, but you saved us all.”

  “All in a day’s work, sir.” He continued to pay more attention to the guns than to me.

  My ass, no way you know what work is.

  The biker chick picked herself up and ran at the cop while pointing my way. “That’s the bad guy, right there! He attacked me.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw her boyfriend sneaking out the front door, limping. Guy probably has outstanding warrants.

  The cop looked at her as she stopped short of barreling into him. By this time, his partner got there, too. He holstered his gun. “Hey, Joe, don’t we need to call in on that whatever-it-was?

  It’ll get clean away.”

  “Let it, Rick,” Joe said. “How would we keep it in a cell anyway? We’re not L.A. or New York City; we don’t have special secret police units to deal with stuff that isn’t supposed to exist. We’ll just get sent off to pee in a cup, and I got better things to do.”

  “Are you listening to me?” The woman screeched, still pointing my way. “He’s with that thing. They’re in it together.”

  I looked at the cop. “She’s obviously hysterical. I think you need to slap her a couple times.”

  There was a sound of a motorcycle revving up out front. The woman’s face jerked toward the front door as she apparently recognized the sound. Her eyes widened. She shoved between the cops struggling toward the door.

  “She’s getting away,” I yelled.

  Rick pulled his Taser and zapped her. She dropped like a pole-axed mackerel.

  By this time, the manager had scooted out into the room. “Hey, don’t hurt my customers.”

  I smiled at him, but my stare was a cold threat. “It’s alright, I’m fine. I just hope that shadow-thing doesn’t come back. Someone could get hurt—bad.”

  The manager looked at me and visibly paled. He swung his stare to the cops. “I saw it all, she attacked you and you did what you had to.”

  After giving my statement, I was allowed to leave. I lingered outside, watching as a second patrol car pulled up. The backup hustled inside to get in on manhandling the woman. I took this opportunity to pick the trunk locks of the police cars and steal their riot shotguns. Hey, they had my handguns; I considered it a fair trade. Of course, if they couldn’t hang onto my weapons, how is that my fault?

  I sent out a thought drenched in raw magic. A moment later, I heard consternation from within at the missing evidence as my semi-automatics went back to the satchel in my hotel room. Too bad I couldn’t do that with the shotguns. With a shrug, I carried them to my car, with Eric Clapton’s iconic guitar riffs sliding through my head. I softly sang, “I shot the sheriff…”

  NINE

  “Why waste jewels on women who already have lovely tears.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  Rolling past the city square—where old adobe buildings lined a park with a fancy spire monument—we reached a lane with available parking. I eas
ed the Mustang into an open spot, killed the engine, and activated the antitheft devices. Onyx and I got out, as did the girls. I’d gone back to the hotel for them, figuring they’d be easier to handle after being dumped off to do some shopping near the Plaza at the best and priciest shops. Grace had a credit card from Cassie, and a few black diamonds from Onyx who’d been kissing ass, metaphorically speaking. Pragmatic where their own best interests lay, it wasn’t surprising how fast the girls forgave him for barging into their road trip.

  Grace and Madison followed Onyx and me to the Santa Fe Silver Gallery. They planned to sell some of the black diamonds for hard cash. Good idea. Bad place to do it. The fey were likely cheat the hell outta Grace. I wasn’t planning to interfere; Grace needed to make mistakes as a learning experience. If it looked like the fey were taking too big an advantage, I might say something. Then again, she’d taken my vehicle without permission.

  I opened the glass door to the showroom and went in. Behind me, Onyx caught the door and held it open for the girls. I could hear breathes catching as the ladies noticed the surrounding display cases. Without looking back, I could easily imagine just how wide their eyes had grown. Me, I knew enough to appear uninterested and slightly bored by all this. You can’t appear hungry and still get a good deal.

  I scanned the room for an available salesperson, and noticed there were no cameras, unless they were very well concealed. That made sense. If there were problems, the fey would want to deal with them in ways human society might frown upon. There were employees in the room, both hot blond eye-candy with piled hair and low-cut dresses. Their faces and figures were perfect, too perfect. I fed raw magic to one of my special tattoos to awaken it. The warm tingle was chased away by a new sensation ghosting in, payment for the magic I invoked. It felt like someone had just stepped into me with a rumbling chainsaw. I almost missed a step. The phantom pain faded out, leaving me unimpaired, my vision magically enhanced.

  In the cases, the silver and turquoise necklaces, rings, and bracelets softly shimmered with a kind of color coding only I could see. The pastel tones were benign, showing none of the murky tones for dark magic. Hanging like ghosts in the air over various items were tags that defined the spell’s purpose, and numbers indicating complexity and strength. Without an exception, everything sold here had low-grade compulsion spells that encouraged shoppers to buy generously.

  Grace pushed past me and hurried up to a saleswoman who didn’t seem busy, whose smile was dialed up to high. She wore a periwinkle dress with billowy sleeves, restrained pink lipstick, and hair piled in a French chignon. She wore silver earrings with blue teardrops which advertised for the business, as well as a silver necklace supporting a flat, abstract flute-player—Kokopelli, a Native American legend, one of the faces of the Trickster.

  Grace couldn’t see it, but to my enhanced sight, the woman had grown taller, skin shining with a moon-glow. Her ears lost their human roundness, going pointy and long. She was fey to the bone, and there was more to her mind-clouding glamour than I expected. The tag I read over her head suggested she might be a strong illusionist.

  The saleswoman said, “Can I help you find something?”

  Grace put a cupped hand over the counter and let three dark stones spill out on the glass. “I’m looking to sell these.”

  The woman glanced at the stones, then away, as if they held little interest. “Hematite is not that valuable, but…” She smiled brightly, “We might be interested in making an offer.”

  Fey don’t lie. They can’t. In that way, they’re similar to kitsune like Grace. The saleswoman didn’t actually say the black diamonds were cheap hematite which would have been a lie; she’d only said hematite wasn’t that valuable.

  The saleswoman brightened, as if with sudden inspiration. “How about I trade you one of these nice, shiny necklaces here?” She tapped the case under the diamonds. “We have some very nice work here.” Assuming agreement, her hand moved to sweep up the stones.

  Grace was faster, covering the diamonds with a palm. “Well, if you’re not going to be serious, I’ll take my diamonds someplace else.”

  “Diamonds?” the saleswoman used a tone suggesting that Grace had to be mistaken.

  Grace scooped up her stones and turned, as if walking away.

  “Wait,” the saleswoman said, “perhaps you’d like to speak to our owner. He knows a great deal more about gems than I do.”

  Grace stopped, but didn’t turn back. “I don’t know…”

  “Just give me a moment.” The fey hurried toward a doorway blocked by a turquoise curtain, and pushed through.

  Grace turned toward me with a grin in place. “Like someone can play me.”

  I pointed at Madison. “You’d better go save your friend. The spells on the jewelry have gotten a good hold on her. She’ll buy everything she sees, until her cash is gone, and she’s masturbating on street corners with one of her stakes for money to buy more.”

  The other saleswoman had finished with a customer. She’d turned toward us in time to hear my statement. She frowned. “Sir, you shouldn’t say such things. We’re trying to run a business here.”

  I gave her a cold stare. “We both know what you’re running here. Behave, or I’ll sic my attack dog on you.” I pointed at Onyx.

  Her eyes went to Onyx. A small furrow appeared between her eyebrows. She waved a hand, as if clearing the air, and froze like a mouse come nose-to-nose with a tomcat. The opal she wore on a silver chain was an old, fey piece steeped in magic. Dream Court magic. The tag on it indicated the stone’s purpose was to bring understanding, its power similar to that of my Dragon Sight tattoo. She touched a bracelet on her left wrist. The tag on the bracelet indicated that it was a weapon from the Winter Court, the saleswoman looked back at me for help, but the second her spell-opened eyes landed on me she almost pissed herself, gripping the bracelet hard enough for it to pierce her skin and a drop of blue blood to seep out.

  An ice weapon. That won’t do a hell of a lot against a shadow man, much less me.

  Onyx looked at her the way a friendly puppy might. He smiled and waved to recapture her attention. “Hi!”

  Meanwhile, Grace dragged Madison toward the door. “Trust me, you need to wait outside. I’ll explain later.”

  A high-pitched male voice cut across the room. “What’s going on here?” The new-comer pushing through the curtain looked balding, wrinkled, and as worn as any human, but he was fey under the illusion of normalcy. Focusing through his glamour, I saw pointy ears, high arching brows, unwrinkled skin, and the golden glint of long curls. The ring on his finger—a silversmith guild ring from Fairy—was entirely real.

  “Your saleswoman was just trying to cheat my friend on the price of some jewels,” I pointed at his employee. “I’d have thought you would have trained her better. Knowing what you are possibly offending is a survival trait.”

  The fey paused to really look at us. “And what are you?”

  Grace came back from shoving Madison out the door. Hearing the question, she answered it by taking off her pastel green cowgirl hat. Her feathery antennae bobbed. Her eyes were coins of yellow fire as she shed her lightweight, pink windbreaker, fully revealing a cropped tee shirt as faded as her blue denim shorts. Grace turned to show the baby moth wings on her back, fanning them a little to show they were real, and

  finished facing the fey again.

  “Do I get the fey discount?” she asked.

  My lip twitched in an almost-smile. Grace was the one being disingenuous now. There wasn’t any fey blood in her that I knew about, but she was leaving that impression without saying so. I thought there was an element of self-defense to it as well. She probably thought if she were mistaken for fey, they might not treat her too badly. Obviously, she didn’t know fey very well. However, I approved of the way she kept her kitsune nature hidden.

  Onyx moved behind Grace, draping his arms around her like he was a sweater she’d just tied on. “I am shadow,” he said, “fear me.”<
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  “I’m here on other business,” I said. “Take care of my friends, then we can talk.”

  The owner’s eyes came back to me. “Talk about what?”

  “Demon business,” I said.

  The two clerks gasped in unison.

  The owner’s eyes widened. “I have no business with your kind.”

  “That’s a sane policy,” I said, “but I’m not one of the locals. You are going to deal with me. I am Caine Deathwalker, the Red Moon Demon, a golden dragon, and a lord of Fairy.”

  “The three-crowned lord…!” The owner bowed with great formality. “Where there has been insult, I will see it punished.”

  Showing surprise, Grace and Onyx looked at me as well. Grace was gob-smacked. Onyx enlarged his eyes and took a better look. I smiled at the two. Grace and Onyx went back to normal. The shadow man’s smile was back on his face.

  I lifted an eyebrow. “And you are?”

  “Einion Silversmith, master of this shop, certified in good standing with the Silver Guild of the fey, at your service, exalted one.”

  Absently, I nodded receipt of his name. “You will make amends by offering fair market value for what the girl offers you.”

  He looked at Grace. “And what do you offer, little sister?”

  She went to Einion and spilled three black diamonds on the glass that lay between them. “Black diamonds.”

  Picking them up one at a time for general inspection, he used a jeweler’s loupe to check for flaws.

  “These stones have a natural color that hasn’t been tampered with. They’re perfect. Where did you get them? You do understand; I need to remain free of legal entanglements. I require your solemn oath these items were properly acquired.”

  “They’re not stolen,” Grace said. “I got them as a gift.”

  “From a very thoughtful and considerate person,” Onyx added.

  Einion furrowed his brow in deep thought. “A thousand dollars apiece should be adequate,”

  Grace’s face broke into an indignant scowl. “C’mon, I know enough not to take a first offer.”