Drinker of Blood Read online

  Even beyond the physical changes, though, were the etheric ones. Gray loomed huge to John’s exorcist senses. If he shut his eyes, he’d think he was in the presence of something much larger and stronger than Caleb’s slender body. Something like a very big tiger: a predator that could kill him without a second thought.

  After knowing Gray for months, he’d acquired a certain familiarity with the drakul. And yet, sometimes, it struck him anew: this being—huge and powerful and ancient—loved him. The realization stole his breath all over again.

  “Thank you for agreeing to this, Gray,” Zahira said, putting her hand to her chest.

  “You are welcome.” Gray turned his attention on her, and she shivered slightly in response. Being the center of Gray’s regard could be an unsettling experience; he focused on things with a singular concentration few humans could manage. And of course Zahira’s exorcist nerves were no doubt screaming the same warnings John’s did. “Ask your questions.”

  She hurriedly referred to her clipboard, as if afraid Gray might change his mind and not answer. “You were initially summoned to our world approximately five-thousand years ago, correct?”

  “Yes. But time has little meaning to me.” He cocked his head. “Or it did not, before I began to truly interact with mortals. Now…things are different.”

  It was surely only natural that being in a living body would change Gray. And yet, John couldn’t help but worry. Because the problem with most NHEs, the reason they went mad and started eating human flesh, or feeding on the life energy of those around them, came from exposure to human emotions they were unequipped to deal with. The transition from their natural state to a mortal form, subject to pain and fear, drove them mad.

  Gray was different, though. He had a cushion of experience in dead bodies. He would never become dangerous, or violent to humans. John believed that to the depths of his being.

  “What about before?” This was what Zahira really wanted to know, John suspected. “How did you experience time in the etheric realm?”

  Gray was silent for a long moment, brows drawing together just slightly, as if puzzled. “It was not the same. I hunted. Within the storm. Swooping, diving. Prey scattered before me.”

  Zahira chewed on the end of the pen she was using to take notes. “So the etheric realm has a sort of ecology.” She glanced at John. “And you were a predator. Did anything hunt you?”

  “Of course not.” Gray sounded offended by the very notion. “I am not food.”

  “So an apex predator, then.” She scribbled furiously. “That’s probably a good thing, considering how big you are.”

  “I don’t think I’d want to imagine anything scary enough to eat Gray,” John agreed wryly.

  Zahira nodded. “All right, Gray. Can you tell me a bit about how you interacted with other drakul? Did you have a society? Or did you live in groups, or…?”

  He hesitated, his lips parting slightly, eyes narrowing with concentration. “It has been so long, but…there was one. We hunted together for a time. The earth and the sky.”

  The fine hairs on the back of John’s neck tried to stand up. “What do you mean?”

  “I am the storm. But the other was the earthquake. I drove prey down. It drove the prey up. We ate together.”

  “Cooperative behavior among etheric entities.” Zahira’s eyes shone; John could practically see her writing the paper in her head already. “But you weren’t normally social? Was the other one, um, a mate?”

  Gray frowned, as if concentrating. “I do not…think so.”

  Something about the way he said it caught John off-guard. He’d never spent a great deal of time considering Gray’s past, because Gray himself seemed to deem it irrelevant. “You don’t think so?”

  Gray’s attention snapped to him. Dark brows had drawn down over bottomless black eyes. “It is not the same. Everything is different.”

  Which was the whole problem with summoning NHEs to this plane of existence in the first place. “Different how?” Zahira asked.

  “Love and hate and pain and pleasure: these are mortal things. Some of the few that are not nonsense,” he added. “Mortals waste their lives on so much foolishness, but to feel and experience these things is…good.”

  “Not for all NHEs,” John reminded him. “Not for most.” If the Vigilant were right, drakul ran mad when summoned directly into living bodies, capable of the full intensity of feeling both physically and emotionally. “Forsyth’s drakul seemed to lose it right away, attacking his own men, feeding off anything in sight. And the Soviet experiment in the 1950s didn’t work any better, considering they ended up dropping their drakul to the bottom of Lake Baikal.”

  “Caleb wishes to speak,” Gray informed them, before vanishing. All that enormous wash of energy tucked up tight like an origami tiger, until all that remained was a low level hum, a whisper of power teasing the very edge of John’s senses.

  “So asking Gray about the etheric plane isn’t going to get us very far,” Caleb said apologetically. He lounged back in the chair, his posture far more relaxed than Gray’s. “Sorry, Zahira. The problem is, etheric entities are a sort of energy, right? So they don’t have brains like we do. They don’t process memories or thoughts the same way. But as soon as Gray was drawn into this world and put in a body, he had a brain from then on. A bunch of brains, over the years. He’s still a being of energy, but everything is shaped by having a physical form. Trying to bridge the gap between what he’s been for the last few thousand years, and what he was before…” Caleb shook his head. “He has to really concentrate, and the things he is able to recall…I’m not even equipped to understand half of it. Like literally, I know I’m missing things because the human brain isn’t built to perceive them.”

  “I see.” Zahira frowned at her notes. “And of course, even if Gray could explain everything clearly, he’s a sample size of one. There’s no way to know if his experience is typical, or if other drakul would give different answers.”

  “You could see if the Russians want to dredge the lake for theirs,” Caleb suggested.

  “I think I’ll skip that,” she replied dryly. “So, what if—”

  John’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, found a text from District Chief Barillo. “Question and answer time is over for today,” he said. “Barillo’s got us a new assignment.”

  “Oh good,” Caleb muttered as he rose to his feet. “And here I thought we might go an entire afternoon without murder and mayhem.”

  * * *

  “The call came in from campus police,” John said as he navigated Charleston’s narrow streets. “We’ve got a hysterical officer and a messy dead body waiting for us at the college.”

  Caleb leaned his head against the window. He’d taken the backseat while John drove and Zahira rode shotgun. Tourist traffic had died off a bit from its peak, but the historic district was always stop and go no matter the time of year.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Not right now. Apparently classes won’t start back until tomorrow, so the campus itself was mostly deserted. No other witnesses.” John pulled up to the curb and shut off the engine. “Here we are.”

  Caleb slid out of the back of the sedan and took a deep breath. Twilight had taken hold, and the air smelled of damp earth from an afternoon storm. He’d driven past signs for the college any number of times, but never thought about setting foot there before.

  One glance at the big trees, draped in Spanish moss, the stately old buildings, and the make of some of the cars parked along the street, suggested this was the sort of place he could only afford with a hefty scholarship. But Charleston had other universities. He’d earned an associate’s degree in Charlotte, but held back from going any farther. Mainly because he’d been hiding the fact he was paranormally abled, trying to stay under SPECTR’s radar and keep from being registered.

  That plan had failed spectacularly, with the introduction of Gray into his life. So why not finish his degree? T
ake some night classes?

  “Because there are better things to do with our time,” Gray countered.

  Decided to quit sulking, huh? Caleb teased.

  “I was not sulking. I was thinking.”

  Sometimes, Gray was quiet for hours at a stretch. Most mortal doings didn’t interest him. If he got bored, he’d curl up in some part of their shared brain and go still, until something caught his attention again.

  Today, though, his stillness had a different quality than usual. Zahira’s questions about his pre-corpse hopping existence had brought on an unusually contemplative mood. About what?

  “This existence. Love.” A pause. “I would not wish to return to the etheric plane.”

  What did happen to NHEs who went back? John and the other exorcists did their best to trap NHEs in bottles, but after forty days, or in a kill-or-be-killed situation, that wasn’t possible. Gray devoured the ones they fought, but the others, the ones forced out of the mortal realm when the host body was destroyed, returned to the etheric plane. Except now they were mad, twisted versions of whatever they had been before. From what little Caleb had gathered, they were thought to await another summons, to return again and again as a lycanthrope or wendigo, craving rage or flesh or whatever hellish desires their madness dictated.

  Did the other denizens of the etheric plane fear them? Avoid them?

  “I would eat them.”

  Because that’s your answer to everything.

  “I do not believe in needless complications.”

  John led the way beneath the spreading oaks to where a knot of police and EMTs gathered. “Special Agent Starkweather, SPECTR,” he said, flashing his badge when they approached. “This is Special Agent Noorzai and one of our contractors, Mr. Jansen.”

  A woman in a campus police uniform shook his hand. “Betty O’Neal. I’m the head of campus security. Mr. Freeman is over there, near the ambulance.”

  “He was the responding officer?” John asked.

  She nodded. “He shot at the NHE. The…” O’Neal paused and swallowed visibly. “The body is under the trees. Forensics is finished up and are just waiting for your say-so to remove it.”

  Caleb tipped his head back, breathing deep. Gray rose, hovering just beneath his skin, eagerly scenting the air for a trace of demon.

  There. Badly faded thanks to the rain, but perhaps it would be stronger near the body.

  Caleb found himself striding across toward the lawn without conscious decision. Back off, Gray. If you manifest in the middle of a bunch of freaked-out cops, we’re going to end up full of lead.

  Gray withdrew, but Caleb felt a thread of impatience. The sort of tracking they’d done the other night was one thing—that required patience. But once Gray had the scent, he didn’t hesitate to act.

  “Hesitation only gives the prey a chance to escape.”

  I’m not disagreeing. But getting shot by jumpy cops gives the prey a pretty good chance to escape, too.

  The body lay beneath one of the old oak trees, starkly lit with high-powered police lights. The dead man had an athlete’s build, short blond hair, and several days’ worth of scruff. His shredded clothing was too soaked in gore to identify anything beyond the fact he’d been wearing khakis and a polo shirt, but the watch on one out-flung wrist looked damned expensive.

  Whatever had gotten a hold of him, it hadn’t made his death easy. One leg had been ripped free, and something had started to feed on it, judging by the bite marks and missing flesh.

  The scent of the demon was thicker here: rot and slime, stagnant water and stinking algae. Caleb’s stomach cramped in response, and saliva filled his mouth. As much as it repulsed him, it attracted Gray like a whiff of warm chocolate chip cookies. Caleb’s teeth burned, need thrumming in his veins.

  Zahira and John trotted up. “Therianthrope?” Zahira hazarded as she studied the body.

  “No.” Caleb took another deep breath. “The scent is badly faded, but it isn’t a therianthrope. It smells like a swamp full of dead things.”

  “Can you pick up the trail?” John asked.

  “I’ll give it a try.” Caleb paced first in one direction, then the other, then circled outward. He finally found the trail, leading deeper into campus. But after a hundred yards or so, it faded away.

  “Lost it,” he said, Gray’s deeper growl creeping in. “But whatever it is, it must be strong for us to still smell it after a downpour.”

  “Damn it.” John shook his head. “Campus police took too long to call us.”

  “What about security cameras?” Zahira peered at the trees and buildings around us. “If the NHE stopped manifesting, we might be able to identify the faust.”

  “We’ll request them from security.” John turned back to the flashing lights of the police cars and ambulance. “For now, let’s talk to Officer Freeman and see what he has to say.”

  Chapter 3

  The officer who had made contact with the NHE and discovered the murder sat in the back of one of the ambulances, wrapped in a blanket. His brown face had taken on a grayish hue, and his body shivered visibly. Given the warmth of the August evening, John guessed it wasn’t an outer cold affecting him.

  “Officer Freeman?” he asked. “SPECTR agents. We’d like to talk to you about the incident.”

  Freeman shuddered, peering at John with eyes red-rimmed and swollen. “Don’t want to talk about it. Don’t want to think about it.”

  John winced. Encounters with etheric entities were often horrifying. Certainly he’d had more than his share; the memory of the succubus brothel still rattled him. At least he was trained for it; probably the guard had never thought he’d find himself face-to-face with an NHE, let alone one of its victims.

  “Of course you don’t,” Zahira said. “No one would. But we need your help to catch the NHE who did this.”

  “A demon.” Freeman licked his lips and glanced first at her, then at John. “That’s what it was. A demon straight from hell.”

  Now didn’t seem the time to explain that demon was a badly outdated term, or that NHEs came from the etheric plane. “Can you describe to us what happened?”

  Freeman took a deep breath, as if bracing himself. “I’ve been in this job ten years, and I never saw anything like it. Mostly I just make sure kids aren’t vandalizing the campus, or that the frat house parties don’t get too loud. Sometimes there are fights or what have you, but this…”

  “Were you just on your normal rounds, or did you get a call about the scene?” John prompted.

  “I was going around, checking to make sure all the doors were locked like they’re supposed to be.” Freeman licked dry lips. “Everything was fine. Quiet, you know, since classes don’t start until tomorrow. Then I heard that boy screaming. Wasn’t even sure it was a human at first—thought maybe it was some kind of animal, in pain.”

  John nodded sympathetically. “And you went to investigate?”

  “I came running. Whatever was going on, I needed to put a stop to it. The rain was just starting, so visibility wasn’t all that great. I thought I saw two people fighting on the ground. I shouted, and one of them looked at me…and it wasn’t human.”

  Zahira slipped her notebook and pen out of her pocket. “Can you describe it to us?”

  He swallowed convulsively. “Big. Hairless. It had purplish skin, kind of like it was bruised all over every inch of its body. There was blood on its mouth, its hands. But the worst was those yellow eyes. It looked at me like it hated me. Like it wanted me to die screaming.” Freeman put his hands over his own eyes, as if to block out the memory. “I yelled again, and it ran. I had my gun out already—I must’ve drawn it when the screams started, I don’t remember now. I shot it four times, and I know I hit the thing at least once. The bullet ricocheted off its skin, like it was made out of concrete.”

  That didn’t sound good, not at all. Possibly Freeman was mistaken—a high adrenaline situation like this one produced false memories more easily than most people wante
d to believe. Forensic analysis of any bullets found could confirm or deny it, but if he was right…well, Caleb had already said it was a powerful NHE, for its scent to have lingered so.

  “I didn’t try to follow it,” Freeman went on. He dropped his hands slowly, eyes gazing into some horror only he could see. “Wouldn’t have for all the money in the world. And besides, Derek was still screaming then. Even though his leg was off…God, that thing had been eating it in front of him! I knelt down by him, meant to stop the bleeding while I called for help. But there was nothing I could do.”

  “Derek? You knew the victim?” Zahira asked.

  “Didn’t I say? Everyone knows…knew…Derek Scheffler. Tennis star. They say he’ll be playing at Wimbledon before long. Or would have.” Freeman swallowed convulsively. “He was a good kid. He didn’t deserve that.”

  “No one would.” John put a hand to the man’s shoulder, gave it a squeeze. “Thank you, Officer Freeman. You’ve been incredibly helpful. We’ll find the NHE responsible and stop it, I promise you.”

  They left him in the care of the EMTs. As they made for the sedan, Caleb said, “What now?”

  “Now we get some rest, while we wait for the security camera footage to get pulled,” John said. “Then we figure out what this thing is, and exorcise it before it finds its next victim.”

  * * *

  “All right,” John said, opening up his laptop. “We have the footage from the incident last night.”

  He watched Caleb and Zahira take their places around the conference room table. John and Caleb’s office wasn’t big enough for the three of them, and Zahira was stuck in a cubicle, so they had no choice but to meet here if they wanted any amount of privacy.