The Devil's Daughter Complete Box Set, page 94
part #1 of The Devil's Daughter Series
“I met her,” Doodlebug blurted like a little kid who suddenly had something useful to share. “She created a forty-foot-tall dragon to help me.”
“Right,” Bart said skeptically.
“No, it’s true. She said that by affecting a real person’s mental state in life, she could change what the professor’s equipment created in hell. Depending on the potion, all manner of ghoulish creatures popped up.”
“Wait.” Bart lifted his feet off the desk and repositioned them on the floor. He leaned in close to the girl. “So all of those little dragons that Marjory called forth out of hell have human reals?”
“That’s what Chloe said.” Doodlebug sounded excited, maybe because the new information made her the center of attention. “She said the Laroque mansion is basically a drug den of stoners on her special dragon concoction.”
Sere nodded. “Fisher confirmed that Marjory funded a research project that spanned a couple of colleges. We didn’t realize she was so far along, though. Having doppelgängers walk through the hellmouth in search of their reals in order to become human-looking demons here in life is one thing. Having them become dragons that fly around in our skies isn’t nearly as straightforward.”
Bart leaned his head back as if his brain worked best bent over his shoulders. “So far, though, no one’s seen any of these dragons.”
“Couldn’t we just bust in and free the stoners?” Doodlebug asked.
Bart swiveled his chair. “That would be a whole lot easier than breaking into the bank and stealing the vault.”
Sere feared they were getting off track. “The dragons are the least of our problems. So long as Marjory is trying to make them real in this dimension, she’ll be too preoccupied to continue her immortality endeavor. Our focus has to be on Aloysius Laroque. If we can take him out, Marjory won’t have a play. She might be the all-powerful queen on the chessboard, but he’s the vulnerable king. After he’s dealt with, we can sweep up the other pieces she’s been playing with.”
“Right.” Doodlebug tossed her latest empty bottle into the trash. “Find Aloysius and his demon horde and stop whatever move they intend to make to command the living. Make sure Marjory can’t become immortal. Do what we can on this side to ensure that the hellmouth remains closed. Where do we start?”
Bart reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a key with a tiny metal skull fob. “First step is to locate Aloysius. Sere and I will head down to New Orleans and start searching Marjory’s strongholds.” He tossed Doodlebug the key. “There’s a Harley Davidson sportster out back. The dude left it as payment for an especially ugly bar brawl. You won’t be setting any speed records with it, but it’ll get you from bar to bar. Even though my patrons haven’t heard anything, that doesn’t mean no one has. Aloysius could be in our midst and somehow keeping the locals quiet. He is, after all, a devil. You’re one of the few people who could recognize him. Sit at the counter. Order a soda pop. Do not order anything alcoholic. Tell whoever asks that you’re searching for your long-lost daddy. Come up with some cover story about him owing your mama ten years’ worth of child support. You might ask a question or two with the guys who don’t immediately hit on you, but don’t push it past casual. Most importantly, listen to the conversations around you.”
Doodlebug weighed the key in her palm. “Won’t a sixteen-year-old girl stand out in a bar?”
“Not around these parts.” Sere nodded over her shoulder. “If you’re afraid of the locals, I’m sure we can find you a chaperone from Bart’s customers.”
Doodlebug clenched the key and stared squint-eyed at Sere. “I’m a demon. Anyone you sent with me would be the one in danger.”
Bart got up from behind his desk. “Based on Sere’s history, you won’t be able to use a cell phone. Work your way south until you get to Joe’s cabin. You know where it is. There’s a phone inside you can use to call the professor’s office if you get into trouble. If you don’t find anything, wait there for us to contact you. If you don’t hear from us by midnight, head down to the professor’s lab, but don’t let anyone see you.”
Sere stood beside Bart as they watched Doodlebug putter the old Harley out of the parking lot. “I don’t know if I’m more worried about her safety or that of the people she encounters.”
He put his arm around her waist. “Do you think it was a mistake sending her out on her own?”
She relaxed her body against his, grateful to be alone with him. “No. Taking her down to New Orleans would only get the attention of the Laroque clan. She’s messed around enough with that family to no longer be our secret weapon. It’s taken all we’ve got to keep Dooly Buell out of their sights. And teeming Doodlebug up with someone here would only result in a bar brawl. She doesn’t yet know how to work with others. Hell, I still don’t really have that skill down. At times, I barely know how to work with you.”
He laughed—a sound that could reawaken her soul from the depths of hell. “You do better than you think. At least she has experience going up against the demons and dragons if she does run into them.”
Sere couldn’t ignore the dark anguish in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t like letting her stay at Joe’s cabin.”
“I know, but it seemed like the only logical location for stashing her. Hopefully, she’ll learn a little humility by camping out in the dead man’s bungalow, surrounded by his possessions.”
Sere watched the lingering dust kicked up by the motorcycle. “Assuming she makes it that far. Now that the hellmouth is closed, she’s adrift when it comes to regeneration. If we hadn’t made direct contact between her and Dooly, I don’t think she would have recovered.”
“I wondered about that.” He pulled out the key to his Ducati. “How would the closed gate affect Marjory’s little monsters?”
Sere tried to corral the different pieces of information into some coherent idea. “According to Doodlebug, Marjory has the real people who are the basis for the dragons. There would still have to be a connection between real and dragon doppelgänger, and without her bridge of the damned, she can’t download the information to make them immortal. With the reals, however, she can create a direct connection to keep them functional the way we did between Dooly and Doodlebug. That is, assuming the druggies don’t overdose or escape. Her demons might be more of a challenge if she doesn’t have control of the real people who they’re based on. She couldn’t have anticipated our closing of the gate, so she might not have chosen the demons with all of the care that she should have. We can’t even be sure how many made it out before Sanguine performed her magic.”
“Do you think Gerald might be of some use in getting the police force to watch for abductions?” Bart asked.
“I don’t know,” Sere said. Gerald Laroque, the former chief of police—and grandfather of Aloysius—wasn’t someone she was in a hurry to confront in spite of all of his past help.
Bart kneed the four-barrel shotgun holstered at Sere’s thigh. “What’s your take on those paranormal shells?”
She pulled the key to her Triton from the pocket of her leather pants. “Another very good question. The pellets were meant to sever the connection to hell. Much as I hate to say it, I think our first stop has to be to see the professor. I don’t want to confront Aloysius until I know what weapons will work against the devil.”
“Do you think Marjory is going to keep her catch under lock and key? If dragons start showing up in the Quarter, things are going to get complicated.” He put his hands in his back pockets. The masculine stance made her want to rip his clothes off.
Reluctantly, Sere pulled away from his rock-hard body. “I thought about that too. It’s not like Marjory to summon a demon army and leave them languishing in a basement, but turning them loose in the heart of the French Quarter doesn’t make much sense either.”
“What about the tunnel?”
She tried to visualize the place so she could judge whether it was impregnable. “She must have secured every basement access by now. It would be too out of character for her to leave such vulnerabilities unguarded.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Fisher said Baron Malveaux built it so he could sneak into his brothels unseen. That would mean the access must end in the old Storyville district. Didn’t Doodlebug say that area is where she ran into the dragons in hell?”
“Yeah, she said they showed up in the abandoned tenement houses in the Tremé—like that area around the cemetery isn’t creepy enough already.”
“Better that the demons show up there than appear flying out the bank’s front doors. I wonder if the Laroques have any financial interests in the area that might give us a clue about where to look.”
Sere began to feel that they were wasting time, but she didn’t want to let go of Bart’s attention a second sooner than she had to. “I’ll have Fisher do some investigating.”
Bart finally hopped onto his Ducati. “So first stop, Professor Yates’s office. We’re just going for a quiet ride along the swamp, okay?”
She pulled on her helmet as she straddled the Triton. “Right. Like that ever happens. Last one to the door buys the next round of drinks.”
87
Chapter 2
Sere fired up her Triton motorcycle but waited until Bart made the first move. As thorough as her knowledge of the swamp and New Orleans was, when it came to the hidden highways and secluded back roads, he’d beaten her on too many occasions for her to get cocky. Not this time, my friend. I’m following you until I know I have the advantage.
When the trail of parking-lot dust kicked up by his back tire reached the toes of her gator-skin boots, she hit the gearshift and laid into the throttle. A hissing from inside her saddlebags accompanied the screech of tires against the gravel. Her two canebrake rattlesnakes stuck their heads out of the flaps like lazy puppies peeking out of their blankets. As the wind picked up over their scales, their tongues emerged to lick at the chase.
“We’re going to hang back this time and let him think he’s got the advantage, so don’t freak out that I’m not taking the lead,” Sere told the squirmy reptiles, who never liked it when she didn’t give her all to a motorcycle ride. But after Bart made a gentle turn, she heard his engine rev higher, indicating that he was trying to break away, and Sere changed her tune. “Laying back is one thing—giving up is something else.” She leaned low over the gas tank of the homemade motorcycle, shifted up a gear, and gave it full throttle. As she crested the curve, she caught the glow of his taillight disappearing around the next bend.
Blasting past Kelly’s Diner and Larry’s Machine Shop, she felt a familiar lump in her throat. She reminded herself that with Doodlebug’s help, the couple had entered the deep waters. If there was any justice in the afterlife, the essences of the two would find each other again.
For the run down to Riley’s bar, Bart led her along familiar routes—there weren’t many side roads that Sere hadn’t already explored in her attempts at secrecy, so she was hard to surprise. During the long run along the bayou, he attempted to shed her from his tail more than once, but each time, she maintained her distance.
A long gentle incline had her downshifting to keep him ahead. “Nice try. I’m not letting my eager-demon side take the bait.” Learning self-control hadn’t come easily, and Bart knew exactly how to draw out her unbridled aggression.
At the outskirts of New Orleans, she held back long enough to be certain he’d lost sight of her. Then instead of sticking to the busy freeway that led into the city, she swung her motorcycle onto an off-ramp that led over the river.
The old Huey P. Long Bridge wasn’t for the faint of heart, especially for people on motorcycles. The narrow lanes shook and bounced from the trucks that surrounded her. She had to remain loose to stay in control of the motorcycle on the crowded roadway squeezed between the train trestle and the low railing. Only a hip-high metal bar prevented a dizzying drop to the river below. Sere held onto the handlebars for dear life and focused only on what was in front of her. “I just have to get across the river.”
On the downward slope, she opened up the motorcycle like she was on a roller coaster. Darting between trucks and cars, she took the first off-ramp onto the seldom-used road that ran along the winding river. “So long as we don’t get stopped by a local cop, we should make it to the Crescent City Connection and back over the river before Bart even makes it through the interchange.”
The snakes rattled their tails in approval and admiration of her brilliance.
In the empty parking lot of the professor’s wharf-side office and laboratory, Sere peeled the helmet off of her sweat- and dust-coated hair just as Bart slid his Ducati to a stop beside her. “That was cheating, you know,” he said from under the face shield.
She set her skullcap helmet on the end of her bike’s handlebars. “You always say that when you lose.”
“Whatever.” He pulled off his helmet as he swung his leg from the seat. “How do you want to play this?”
She’d hoped that knowing the root cause of why she felt compelled to always tell the truth would make it easier to overcome the conditioning. It hadn’t. She never wanted to lie to Bart, anyway, but when it came to dealing with others, she needed a go-between to prevent her from saying something she shouldn’t.
“He’s going to have a ton of questions. If I didn’t think it would be overly suspicious, I’d wait out here while you found our answers.”
“I don’t mind taking the lead,” he said.
Sere felt unnatural letting other men take the lead, but when it came to Bart, she didn’t mind the show of masculine strength. “We need to understand more about the dragons and demons now that the hellmouth is closed—specifically, how to kill them. Hopefully, my scattergun isn’t completely useless. If you focus on Aloysius, we might get what we need without divulging too much about what Marjory turned loose. I really don’t need those busybodies trying to take charge.”
He gave an aggravating smile that made her want to hit him. “Demonsplaining? Really?” He headed off in front of her, giving her ample opportunity to ogle his ass.
“Don’t call me a demon,” she muttered as she followed him into the offices. She consoled herself with the thought that anyone but Bart would have ended up with a knife in the back for the insult.
Polly threw a large power-supply switch at the back of the hallway. “How about now?”
“Still nothing.” Professor Yates was completely focused on his computer screen and didn’t acknowledge the visitors.
Bart cleared his throat with entirely too much drama. “I don’t mean to interrupt.”
The professor finally looked up from the display. “I assume we have you two to thank for this chaos?”
Bart gripped Sere’s hand to prevent the buildup of facts from erupting from her mouth. “Sanguine is free, and the hellmouth is closed.”
Polly let go of the lever and came out from the shadows. “Well, that must have been some adventure.”
Again, Bart squeezed Sere’s hand in warning. The good cop-bad cop routine between the professor and Polly was one she’d fallen for too many times. “I’d like to say hell’s dangers are behind us, but this might be a matter of closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Marjory managed to turn her great-nephew, Aloysius, into a full-fledged immortal devil, and he’s not alone. We need some answers, and we need them fast, so explanations on our part will have to wait.”
Polly sat next to the professor. “Tell us what you need.”
Bart finally let go of his iron grip and turned to Sere as if expecting that she’d have everything clearly thought out. She pulled her four-barrel shotgun from her thigh holster and dropped it on the desk. “Is this thing going to do a damn bit of good now that the gate’s closed?”
The professor popped one of the shells out of the chamber. He turned the orange plastic sleeve in the sunlight. “Well, the pellets didn’t vanish. That’s something at least.”
“Did you think they would?” Sere couldn’t imagine any scenario in which something from hell that had passed through the gate would cease to exist just because the portal had closed.
“I was just spitballing ideas.” Polly glared at the professor.
Sere picked up the shotgun, snapped it back together, and reholstered it. “We don’t have time for speculative ramblings. Will those pellets work or not?”
The professor lit his pipe, which was never a good sign when Sere was seeking brevity. “So long as the connection between an escaped doppelgänger and their real in life goes through hell, the pellets should work. With the hellmouth closed, however, we have no way of knowing if that’s the case, especially with my equipment no longer getting feedback from the dimension. As for a possessed human, between Thomas and Fisher, you’ve already proven that the pellets can focus and empower the dominant spirit.”
“We don’t have a case of possession this time,” Sere interrupted, not wanting the old man to drone on indefinitely. “Aloysius is bonded into one spirit, and there are monsters with their reals in physical proximity with no access back to hell.” She tapped the butt of the gun. “What happens when I shoot them?”
He held his pipe in both hands. “Honestly? I don’t know. When it comes to the modified doppelgängers, you could end up killing them by connecting them back to hell with a pellet that originated with Agnes Delarosa’s hell, or you could end up empowering them instead.”
“Sounds like we need to capture one of the buggers,” Bart muttered to Sere.
She nodded but didn’t want to pursue the idea around the professor just yet. Since he didn’t have a definitive answer regarding the weapon, she chose to move on to her next possible means of combating Marjory. “Which brings up the second question, Professor. Without a tether to hell’s computer, how would Marjory power up her little toys?”
