Sins of the Demon (6 page)

I nodded. “The stereotype.”

“Exactly,” he said, eyes flashing in amusement. “None of the cops who came in wanted to be seen eating donuts in public.”

“It’s my private shame,” I said with a parting wink. I turned around and barely caught myself before spilling my precious coffee all over the front of Officer Gordon’s jacket and my own. “Yikes! Sorry!”

Tracy gave me an engaging smile. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you were stalking me.”

“It’s true,” I replied. “I have a thing for men who keep me from freezing to death. Oh, and speaking of,” I said
as I tugged off the scarf and handed it back to him, “I can give this back to you now.”

“Well, I knew that if you did freeze I’d be the one stuck writing the report about finding your body.”

“I’m on call. I wonder if I’d have to investigate my own death?”

His mouth curved in amusement. “It’s a bureaucracy. Of course you would.” He looked to the patiently waiting David. “Sorry. Hot chocolate, please. Whole milk, with whipped cream.”

Damn, that sounded good. I briefly regretted my addiction to coffee. But only briefly.

He returned his attention to me as David went off to make his drink. “New purchase? Surely you didn’t have time to go back home.”

It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about. “Oh, the coat!” I grinned. “Yep, just bought it. I couldn’t resist.”

“It’s badass,” he said with an approving nod.

I preened a bit, about to respond when a screech of tires on pavement pulled our attention. An instant later we heard the distinct
crash
of a car meeting something immoveable.

“That can’t be good,” I murmured as we both quickly moved to the broad windows at the front. The street and the detective’s parking lot were in full view. My vehicle was the only one in the lot. Or rather, it had been. Now there was a dark blue Toyota Camry with its front end embedded in my car’s driver’s side.

I probably stared in disbelief for several seconds while the scene registered in my brain. “That’s my car,” I heard myself say. Then I shook myself out of my stupor.
“That’s my fucking car!” Okay, so technically it was the PD’s car, but still, it was assigned to
me.

I spun and hit the door at a run, glancing up and down the street just long enough to make sure I wasn’t about to get plowed by an oncoming vehicle. I was still holding my coffee, and the hot liquid splashed my hand through the little hole in the lid. I slowed to a brisk and angry walk as a blond woman made her stumbling way out of her driver’s side of the Camry. She wasn’t going anywhere fast. Not dressed in a pencil skirt and sky-high heels. She had the figure for it, I thought absently despite my current rage. Tall and slim and model perfect, even though she looked like she was in her late forties or so. Terrific genes. The bitch.

“Hey! You crazy, drunk bitch!” I shouted. “You just ran into the wrong car!”

She didn’t seem to hear me. Blood streamed from her nose onto her white blouse. Clearly the airbag hadn’t been very kind to her. Her unfocused gaze skimmed over me before she turned away from me and staggered to the middle of the parking lot. She stopped and looked up, spreading her arms as if she was waiting for aliens to snatch her up.

“Hey, lady!” I called out to her. “You need to get back over here right now.”

The woman suddenly let out a scream of pain and grabbed her head. She turned to focus on me for the first time, her eyes wild and wide.

“Help me!” she whimpered.

Drunk or high?
I thought sourly. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you plenty of help,” I told her. “Now, step back over to the car, please.”

She didn’t move. Her eyes stayed locked on mine. I could see her fingers digging into her hair as if she was trying to hold her skull together. “Make it stop.” Her voice cracked as if speech was an incredible effort. “Please!”

I stopped about a dozen feet from her. Last thing I wanted to do was tangle with a blood-covered bitch who was high on who-knew-what. “Make what stop? Come over here and have a seat by the car, and I’ll get you some help.”

She took a shaking breath, and for an instant I thought she was going to comply and make my life easier. Then in the next heartbeat her hands fell away from her head, her face went slack, and she dropped like a stone to the ground, hard enough for her head to connect with the asphalt with an audible crack.

“Shit!” I dropped the coffee and quickly closed the distance. Crouching beside her, I rolled her to her back and found a place on her neck that didn’t have blood on it to check for a pulse. Not an easy task.
Two nosebleeds in one day?
I thought with a grimace. Coincidences like that made me itch. Especially on the same day a demon decided to attack me.

I whirled to signal for Tracy but he was right behind me and already on his radio, calling it in. “No pulse,” I told him. “Tell ‘em code three.”

He nodded and relayed the information as I turned back to the woman, got my hands in proper position, and started giving chest compressions. I took the CPR class every year as part of my in-service training, but this was the first time I’d ever had to do it on a real person.

The woman’s eyes were half lidded, and bubbles of
blood formed at her nostrils with every compression. The latest guidelines called for compressions only, no mouth-to-mouth, and I sent up a silent thanks for that. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t want to risk giving breaths, even if I had one of those mask things. It was bad enough that my hands were getting blood on them.
I don’t have any open cuts
, I reminded myself. I hoped.

I lost track of time, though it was probably only a minute or two before sirens cut through the air. An ambulance pulled into the parking lot, and a few seconds later EMS crouched beside me. I gratefully relinquished the duty to them.

I stood, legs a little numb from kneeling. I staggered a step and felt a strong hand at my elbow steadying me. I looked over to see Tracy, then gave him a nod of thanks as he handed me a sanitizing wipe. I scrubbed my hands thoroughly of every trace of blood then hurriedly checked my lovely new jacket to see if I’d gotten any on it. If so, I couldn’t see it against the black leather. Yes, I knew I was being horribly shallow. But focusing on the little things kept me from losing my cool.

I returned my attention to the paramedics and their patient. “She was in the Camry,” I explained with a gesture toward the two cars. “She ran into the other one, then got out and walked over here. She seemed a little unsteady, but then she just stopped and—” I paused, knowing it was going to sound strange. “She grabbed her head and said, ‘Help me. Make it stop.’ Then she dropped like a stone.”

The one manning the ventilator glanced over at the car and frowned. “Could be a stroke. Doesn’t seem like a bad crash, but you never know.”

There wasn’t anything more I could do then except stand back and watch. A glance over at the coffee shop showed a number of faces at the window peering out from the warmth. They were the smart ones. The paramedics continued to work on her, but it didn’t seem to be doing much good. After a few minutes they loaded her up and screamed off with lights and sirens going.

I let my breath out as the ambulance departed then looked mournfully at my car. “Damn.”

“At least you weren’t in it,” Tracy said with a rueful smile. “Then you’d have to go through the joy of a piss test as well.”

“Yeah, small favors.” I sighed, tugging my gloves out of my pockets and onto my hands. “I guess I shouldn’t be whining about the car when there’s a chance that woman might not make it.”

Tracy shrugged, then looked back at the sound of approaching footsteps. I followed his gaze to see the barista, David, trotting up with a cup in his hand. He gave me a smile, then held the cup out to me. “I saw that you’d dropped yours and made up a new one.”

“Oh my god,” I said as I nearly snatched the cup from him. I took a big, scalding gulp and sighed in relief. “You are the perfect man!”

David laughed. “And you’re quite easily impressed!” He gave me a wink and then headed back across the street to the coffee shop.

Tracy smiled. “The perfect man is one who brings you coffee? Makes me wonder how the men in your life usually treat you.”

Men? Or demonic lords? I tried to cover my reaction
by taking another sip, but he took note of my sudden reticence and grimaced.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s none of my business, and it was a dumb thing to say.”

“No, no!” I hurried to reassure him. “It’s all right.” I made myself chuckle. “I’m not really the ‘shower with gifts’ kind of chick, and that’s fine with me.”

“Well, it looks like I get to write the report for this nonsense.” He lifted his chin toward the two vehicles.

I peered into the open door of the woman’s car. It looked like she’d recently had it detailed. There were vacuum marks on the passenger side carpet, and the dashboard had a slight sheen of Armor All. An air freshener wafer tucked into the console sent the scent of chemical pineapple through the vehicle.

I spied a dark red Coach handbag on the floorboard, wedged under the dash. “Her purse is here.” I set my coffee on the roof of the car, and snagged it out. “Least I can do is help you inventory all this.”

“Appreciated,” he said.

After this I’d need to make some phone calls to my rank to see if I could score another car. I scowled as I dug through the woman’s purse. Would I even be able to get a new one issued on a Sunday? I was most likely screwed until Monday.

I found the woman’s wallet and removed the drivers license. “Her name is Evelyn Stark, and her address is.…” I trailed off.
Son of a bitch.

“Kara?” I glanced up to see Tracy with his pen poised above his notepad and a frown on his face. I passed the driver’s license over to him, fighting hard to maintain something resembling composure.

“Sorry,” I managed “I know her. Knew her. I mean…I knew who she was.”

His brow furrowed in concern. “Friend of yours?”

I shook my head, chilled to the bone despite my coat. “No.” I took an unsteady breath. “No. Not at all. She’s the drunk driver who killed my dad.”

I headed back over to the coffee shop after Tracy assured me he could handle the rest of the report just fine. I made a token protest, but he must have seen how dazed I felt and gently told me to get the fuck off his scene. The sun was making another valiant effort to break through the clouds, and the wind had died down a bit. Traffic had picked up some, and I paused at the street, waiting for a break. A silent ambulance went by. I knew it probably wasn’t the same one that had taken Evelyn Stark away, but I watched it continue on down the street.

Would I have given her CPR if I’d known who she was?

No.
I let out a shaking breath.
I’m not that good a person.
I couldn’t get back at the ovarian cancer that had taken my mother from me when I was only eight, but I could sure as hell focus plenty of rage and grief on the woman who’d taken my dad three years later. When I first began learning about demons, I’d asked Aunt Tessa to send a demon after Evelyn Stark. Tessa utterly refused to aid me—not saying that such a desire was wrong but, instead, explaining how that sort of arrangement
with a demon would be fraught with all sorts of peril because of their complex code of honor. Besides, she pointed out, the woman was serving a prison sentence, and it would be quite a tricky matter for a demon to get
to
her.

But the simple fact that my aunt had understood my pain and not dismissed my desire for revenge as petty or wrong had endeared her to me more than anything else ever could have. And by the time I became a summoner in my own right, and could potentially carry through with such a desire, my lust for that sort of revenge had faded.

But, no, I wouldn’t have given Evelyn Stark CPR and gotten my hands all bloody.

The ambulance turned the corner. I shook myself out of the grim memories and made myself face the other thought clanging around in my head.
Barry Landrieu and Evelyn Stark died on the same day, both with nosebleeds.
I knew there was a connection between them, but I had no idea why anyone besides me would want to kill them. Hell, even I hadn’t wanted them dead. Not anymore, at least.

I started to turn back toward the street, but movement on the roof of the PD building pulled my attention. Had the shadow of the AC unit moved? I held my breath, watching the shadow as my pulse thudded unsteadily. That was the
graa’s
leaping-off perch this morning. Could there be another?

After a few seconds I let my breath out. No. Just my eyes playing tricks, and my paranoia working double-time. The sun was losing its battle again; the moving shadow had probably been a cloud.

A chill walked down my back, and I forced myself to look away. Too much weird shit in one day was making me jumpy as hell. I glanced back to see if Tracy was looking at me, but he was peering through the windshield of the Camry in an effort to get the VIN. Quickly shifting into othersight, I extended my senses as far as possible, but nothing untoward leaped out at me. No sign of any demon. No whisper of arcane power. Only the unfinished chain of sigils snaking around the PD building.

Letting out an unsteady breath, I hurried across the street and into the coffee shop. A table near the window gave me a good view of the PD and the parking lot. The coffee in my cup was still plenty warm, and I took a good long slug as I scanned the area. Nothing seemed out of place—other than the car that had attempted to intersect mine.

Still unsettled, I pulled out my phone and commenced with the various calls I needed to make. First was to my sergeant, Cory Crawford, to let him know that I was—again—in need of a new vehicle, though at least there was a possibility that my current one was fixable. My last car had gone into the Kreeger River when I’d been shoved off a bridge by a soul-stealing psychopath. My life was seldom dull.

I was getting ready to call Eilahn when I saw her pull in front of the coffee shop on her motorcycle. It was actually my aunt’s bike, but she hadn’t ridden it in months and was quite willing to allow Eilahn to use it—a relief to me since Tessa didn’t have a motorcycle endorsement on her license. Neither did Eilahn, for that matter, but since all of the demon’s identification were forgeries, it was a bit of a moot point. Besides, since Eilahn was in
human form, she needed a way to get around, and the motorcycle gave her the most flexibility.