* * *
Ethan stood under the hot spray of water, drowning himself in the misery that clung to his skin. The way she’d felt in his arms, the stir of emotions he’d long thought dead by design. The laughter and acceptance he’d found in her eyes, only to see them cloud with pain. Pain he’d put there when he pushed her away, and finally the scorn of rejection.
He allowed himself to wallow in it, the brief, shining moments of pleasure chased by sorrow for as long as the hot water held out, and then locked it away as he turned off the tap. There was too much work to be done to let himself be distracted by something as fleeting as feelings.
There were ways to track the demon he hunted; he wasn’t as completely in the dark as he’d let on to Cady. As Ethan toweled himself off, he did his best to push her from his thoughts, a whispered curse leaving his lips at how easily she’d slipped in there again.
Without bothering to dress, he went into his office, grabbing a stick of white chalk to draw a circle on the worn floorboards, large enough for him to comfortably kneel in. Next came the careful inscribing of protective sigils, in case his quarry should find him in the ether and try to follow him back. It was too much to hope that he might find the host the demon wore now, but he’d had luck in finding the face of his next intended victim.
Setting the chalk aside, Ethan knelt within the circle, closing his eyes to gather the stillness around him. The ancient words began to form in his head, and when he had them fixed in his mind, they tumbled from his lips. “Dominus in lucem, mittere signum. In sapientia tua precor.” He began to rock slowly, the words forming their own rhythm as he repeated the chant over and over again until he achieved a kind of trance.
Visions of Cady filled his senses, her laugh, the spill of fiery hair down her back, her pure, clean scent. Ethan allowed himself the brief distraction of her beauty before he made his mind a blank slate, unsure if she’d snuck in there because of his weakness or if the demon still wanted her.
Neither was acceptable.
Concentrating on the inky blackness of discipline, only when he was sure he’d reached a blank state did he open himself to the vision again, nearly losing his rhythm when Cady’s image beckoned to him again.
“Shit.” The room spun as he released the energy without grounding himself, and Ethan grit his teeth as vertigo swelled and then receded. Twice more, he tried to access the visions, and each time he only saw Cady. Fingers threaded through a metal cage, bored out of her mind, as her blonde friend chatted amiably to a man on the other side of the partition. Sitting in a Laundromat, paging through a magazine. Nothing about either sets of images showed him anything dangerous or out of the ordinary. He had to conclude that it was his own subconscious subverting the process.
Stumped, he dressed swiftly, eating something tasteless from the freezer before going down to the parking garage. The interior of his car reeked of blood, and he realized he’d have to get a new one before too long. He drove with the windows open, losing the cool of the air conditioner, but gaining relief from the smell.
There were still things he could do to track down the subject. He’d already found the address for the last host body, the art gallery and the private home. Ethan didn’t think there was much point in checking out the gallery, but the house might yield some clue as to Q’s actions.
The modern three bedroom house would probably command a price well in excess of a million dollars, the view alone guaranteed it. A high tech security system was the rule in a house like that, and this one proved no exception. Ethan didn’t let it worry him, nor did it bother him to approach the house in broad daylight. With his skills, he could easily get around even the most sophisticated security systems, and the house probably wasn’t being watched.
There were no signs of police entry or caution tape, since Claudio hadn’t been killed in his home, but it was reasonable to expect they’d already been through the place with a fine toothed comb. Ethan only hoped to find something the police wouldn’t recognize as valuable intel, something that would lead him to the monster behind the man.
The alarm took less than two minutes to bypass, the fancy deadbolt even less. In the space of a few minutes he stood in the marble tiled foyer, taking in the lay of the land. Ethan was methodical in his search; starting with the bedroom, he went through every single drawer, searching between neatly folded clothes. He stuck his hands in every pocket, making sure to replace them in exactly the same position, repeating the process in the large, walk-in closet. After that he moved to the bathroom, then the vacant rooms and the living room, ending with the kitchen. The entire search took nearly an hour, and what did he find?
Nothing. Not a goddamned thing.
He even took the time to crack the wall safe, finding only a woman’s diamond bracelet and two thick bundles of cash. Ethan pocketed both before securing the safe. The man wouldn’t be needing it anytime soon, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave it around for Q to use. Not that he thought the demon would be coming back. He tended not to dwell on the past, from what Ethan could tell. Except in one aspect.
Ethan drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles on Fell Street, waiting for the last dawdling employees to leave for the day. All it had taken was a couple grand and a disgruntled janitor to slip into the branch one night and install the beautiful little line of code that allowed him access when the system went into night mode without ever having to step back inside the building.
If his hunch was right, Q might obsess about one past issue that could lead Ethan right to him – the victim he was denied. On the one side, he hoped that he was wrong, because if there was a chance the demon wanted Penny, then the equal chance existed that he might come after Cady. But he’d sensed no danger in his visions of Cady, so he focused his search on her friend.
Ethan knew her first name, coloring and guessed her age to be somewhere between nineteen and twenty-five, giving himself a wider range since Cady proved to be younger than he’d thought. Of course he could always call Cady and ask where Penny lived, but it was better to make a clean break.
It didn’t take long to find her anyway, Penelope Abrams, on Lawton Street. Now that he had her full name, it was easy to find other things about her too. Her employer, social security number, immediate family’s names and addresses, an article about her engagement in the Chronicle.
Taking a chance when he found her not at home, he slipped inside, making only a cursory search of the small apartment before placing a bug in the living room behind a vase of silk flowers, and one in the bedroom on the underside of a framed print of Water Lilies by Monet. By the time the petite brunette came home to her one bedroom apartment, Ethan had a pretty good feel for the woman. This one would be easy to keep tabs on.
Penny stayed in for the night, with a marathon of schmaltzy cable movies on the television. One phone call to the fiancée, Justin Larsen, and then to bed by ten o’clock. Sitting alone in the darkened car, he listened to the soft snore over his equipment. If she was truly his target, Ethan expected Q to find her just as easily. He only hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake in leaving Cady unprotected.