Part 16 (1/2)
CHAPTER 18.
Sasha sat across from Hunter and Silver Hawk, while Crow Shadow and Bear Shadow patrolled the perimeter of the leaders.h.i.+p cabin. She felt a hundred times better, even though the information she'd gleaned so far really wouldn't help the wolf Federations fight the charges lobbed by the Vampires.
”It's a possession demon,” she said calmly.
”A what?” Hunter stood. ”And it tried to attach itself to you?”
”Yeah, pretty messed up what happened in the lab.” She looked at Silver Hawk. ”A piece of this same thing tried to get inside Sir Rodney and Clarissa, but the Fae blasted it before it could go full-blown. We've gotta get you cleaned out, just in case, all right?”
Hunter paced away from the table, seeming like he was ready to explode from frustration.
The elderly man nodded and released a long breath. ”I do not feel like myself.”
”Your silver aura is so strong that the thing is struggling within it, most likely,” Sasha said in a quiet tone. ”Did you touch anyone?”
Silver Hawk looked at Hunter. ”Just my grandson.”
”Why would a strong sorceress like Lady Jung Suk join a coven?” Sir Rodney said, staring at Esmeralda's crystal ball. ”It doesn't make sense.”
”It does if you want to ama.s.s even greater power,” she said, watching the mist begin to part within the murky globe. ”She could feed, like a Vampire, on all the souls in the group, sucking their magic from them, their life force ... If she was given a body by the Vampires, as you say, beloved, then she would want to have a way to get strong enough to one day break their hold and control over her.”
”That definitely fits the bill for her personality type.” Sir Rodney sat back and rubbed his chin. ”But how do we find her?”
”Patience .. .” Esmeralda sighed. ”I'm trying to do a little remote viewing, and that requires concentration, all right?”
He held up a hand. ”Sorry.”
”Thank you,” she said, and then gave him a s.e.xy sidelong glance. ”I want amnesty forever in the sidhe for this.”
”You know that can be arranged,” he said, leaning in close to her. ”So, when we find this very bad little witch, how do we make sure her Were Leopard doesn't escape back out into disembodied form if we simply shoot her with a silver crossbow shot or something equally drastic?”
”Oh, no,” Esmeralda said quickly, now turning to face him straight-on. ”You must trap her in silver so her Were Leopard spirit cannot cross that plane. She will separate from the girl's body, pulling her spirit out of it to run from the silver. So mesh and then some sort of strong bars or energy field are required to actually trap her fleeing spirit. But if you want to save the girl, you'll have to pull her away quickly and try to resuscitate her terrified spirit. But to kill a disembodied meansa””
A horrific scream left Esmeralda's throat as Sir Rodney grabbed her by the shoulders.
”What's wrong, love! What's wrong?”
Blood poured from Esmeralda's once lovely eyes, leaving dark holes in the sockets as she clawed at her face.
”I cannot see, help me, help me, she's blinded me!”
Lady Jung Suk slowly walked away from her kitchen sink and dropped the sharp knife into it with a clatter. Blood stained the white porcelain as a satisfied purr rumbled in her throat.
”That will teach you to spy on your elders,” she mewed. She went outside in her garden to enjoy the late-morning sun.
Doc squinted as he peered into the microscope one last time and then sat back. ”Lab a.n.a.lysis shows that the bites from victims one and two found on the first night the murders began are different from the others at the Bayou House, and the last victim, Lawrence DeWitt, wasn't bitten at all. That was more like some sort of protoplasmic depth charge, go figure. But those mauling victims prior to the ones found at the Bayou House didn't have any trace of that highly volatile demon virus resident in them. Now, why that cooler of tissue samples from there snapped, crackled, and popped like it did doesn't make sense to me. If it's the same contaminant in it as was in the bodies we brought back from Colonel Madison's first mission, then it should have reacted similarly.”
”Unless an infected host, like Sasha, wasn't nearby,” Bradley said, coming over to the now still samples.
”Bradley, my friend, you just may have a point.”
Sasha put the cell phone down on the table and simply stared at it.
”What's wrong? What did Sir Rodney say?”
Sasha closed her eyes and ran her palms down her face. ”Esmeralda, a friend of his, was attempting to locate Lady Jung Suk through opening up a remote viewing . . . she'd joined their coven so it was even easier than normal .. . and then something went wrong. Esmeralda's eyes got clawed out.”
”d.a.m.n . ..,” Hunter murmured.
Silver Hawk nodded. ”This is the powerful sorceress I spoke of. The predator within that is extinguis.h.i.+ng the spirit of the girl's body she stole. In three days and nights, once the moon ceases to be full, the girl will float away and become an earthbound spirit. Lady Jung Suk is a being of darkness; she will never let the innocent girl find the Light. .. and she is so much stronger than that young girl.”
”Rodney's going off the grid to take Esmeralda back to the sidhe for protection, but he told me what Esmeralda said about how to catch Lady Jung Suk. We owe it to Amy Chen's family to try to save their daughter, if we can.” Sasha stood and went to the window.
”I know my brother is distraught about what he witnessed when he went to visit her parents while investigating,” Hunter said quietly. ”Shogun has not been himself since that time. His smile is slow, and it does not reach his eyes.”
Sasha nodded and lifted the hair off the nape of her neck in frustration. ”I almost don't care anymore that we only have shaky evidence to link the Vamps to unleas.h.i.+ng an ent.i.ty that killed two humans.”
”I know how you feel, Sasha,” Hunter said in a gentle tone. ”According to UCE rules, they only care that the Vampires may have facilitated the embodiment of Lady Jung Suka”a treasonable offense, due to the fact that she was a criminal found guilty of crimes against the Seelie and was on the run. That would be enough to mitigate any claims they have against us, because under UCE law, thankfully, you cannot have blood on your hands and seek justice. You have to be clean. The Vampires are not.”
”But they don't care about that poor girl, or even those stupid kids who thought they could bargain for immortality with the Vampires,” Sasha said, waving her arms about. ”Something's wrong with a system where any life or anyone is considered a second-cla.s.s citizen.”
”And as such,” Hunter said slowly, ”the UCE will not care about a possession demon on the loose. They only care to know that it is not wolves who have been doing the killings and thus giving the supernatural community undue exposure. They will call for a demon hunt, exterminate it, and then try to do damage control.”
”Those are the twin evils that I spoke of,” Silver Hawk said in a faraway tone. His gaze went beyond the window to a place they couldn't reach. ”One strikes at the life force of an innocent, the other strikes at the life force of a communitya”and in order to bring balance back and clear the wolf Federations, you will have to solve a dilemma that will help others more than it may help yourselves.”
”Before we do anything,” Sasha said, going to Silver Hawk but not touching him, ”we've got to get your aura cleaned.”
After days of craziness, they had at least solved the first part of the jigsaw puzzle. They now knew what it was, but had run into the brick wall of trying to figure out where it was. Making things more complicated was the fact that they had to locate the predators but couldn't immediately engage them until they figured out how to stop them.
”That's right,” Hunter said, speaking to Shogun in short bursts of information. ”We've got like twenty-four more hours to find Lady Jung Suk before she completely patterns over that girl's soul, but if you do locate her, you can't kill her in the conventional manner or you'll hurt the victim.”
Sasha watched Hunter as he paused. Both her eyes and Silver Hawk's were on him.
”Yes,” Hunter finally replied. ”Just scout her location and get back to the sidhe. Sir Rodney is conferring with his top magic advisors there about how to contain and destroy both types of ent.i.ties. Esmeralda was severely injured because she wasn't clear about just how strong a force Lady Jung Suk is. So, brother, I repeat, do not engage the target. Wait for us at the sidhe.”
They looked at Hunter as he disconnected the call. Crow Shadow and Bear Shadow had come into the cabin to stand at the ready for the cleansing of Silver Hawk. The elderly man stood slowly and nodded toward Hunter.