Sins of the Demon Read online

  Raves for the previous Kara Gillian novel, Secrets of the Demon:

  “Rowland’s hot streak continues as she gives her fans another big helping of urban fantasy goodness!… The plot twists are plentiful and the action is hard-edged. Another great entry in this compelling series.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “This is an excellent police procedural urban fantasy that like its two previous arcane forensic investigations stars a terrific lead protagonist… Kara is fabulous as the focus of the case and of relationships with the Fed and with the demon as the Bayou heats up with another magical mystery tour that will take readers away from the mundane to the enjoyable world of Diana Rowland.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “The sex definitely sizzles, the characters are engaging, the world is intriguing, and action pulled me right in. Highly recommended!”

  —Errant Dreams

  “Diana Rowland has built a fascinating and compelling urban fantasy series, with main character Kara as tough as she needs to be yet vulnerable enough to be realistic. Secrets of the Demon is book three in the Kara Gillian Demon Summoner series, and I hope there will be many more.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  And for the earlier Kara Gillian novels:

  “A nifty combination of police procedural and urban fantasy. Not too many detectives summon demons in their basement for the fun of it, but Kara Gillian is not your average law enforcement officer. In the course of Rowland’s first book, Kara learns a lot about demons, her past, and above all, herself.”

  —Charlaine Harris, New York Times

  bestselling author

  “Rowland spins a tale that is riveting, suspenseful, and deliciously sexy. With a unique take on demons, and with one of the most terrifying serial killers ever, (Rowland) will keep you up late at night turning pages.”

  —Jenna Black, author

  of The Devil’s Playground

  “Mark of the Demon crosses police procedure with weird magic. Diana Rowland’s background makes her an expert in the former, and her writing convinces me she’s also an expert in the latter in this fast-paced story that ends with a bang.”

  —Carrie Vaughn, New York Times

  bestselling author of the Kitty Norville series

  Also by Diana Rowland:

  SECRETS OF THE DEMON

  SINS OF THE DEMON

  *******************

  MY LIFE AS A WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE

  EVEN WHITE TRASH ZOMBIES

  GET THE BLUES*

  * Coming soon from DAW

  SINS OF THE

  DEMON

  DIANA ROWLAND

  DAW BOOKS, INC.

  DONALD A. WOLLHEM, FOUNDER

  375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM

  SHEILA E. GILBERT

  PUBLISHERS

  www.dawbooks.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Diana Rowland

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by DAW Book Collectors No. 1574.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  First Printing, January 2012

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  –MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

  For Jennifer, Shawn, Katie, Ellie, and Ashley.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Every time I start a book I tell myself I’m going to create a file to keep track of all the people who help me during the book with research or support. And I forget to do so Every. Single. Time. So, once again, I’m doing the mad scramble at the end of the process where I desperately try to remember everyone who held my hand. Eep!

  Many thanks go to:

  My awesome husband for being my biggest fan.

  My beautiful daughter for snuggling me when I needed snuggles.

  Dr. Mike DeFatta for continuing to answer my bizarre questions.

  Cpl. Judy Kovacevich for refreshing my memory regarding crime scene procedures.

  Daniel Abraham for the advice, encouragement, and support.

  Carrie Vaughn for helping me work my way through the mid-series hump.

  Ty Franck for being irreverent.

  Walter Jon Williams for inviting me to the mountain.

  Roman White for letting me bounce numerous ridiculous ideas off him.

  Nicole Peeler for being the best critique partner EVER.

  Nina Lourie for being who she is.

  Matt Bialer for being a wonderful agent and friend.

  Lindsay Ribar for EVERYTHING.

  Betsy Wollheim for even more EVERYTHING.

  Chapter 1

  Someone had recently taken a leak in the alley behind the Beaulac Police Department. Splash marks were still visible against the bricks, and the beam from my flashlight reflected off the rivulets that led to a broader puddle in the center of the alley. Some other sort of noxious liquid dripped from the corner of a dumpster in viscous plops to mingle with the piss, and the dregs in a broken beer bottle added one more pungent ingredient to the resulting aroma.

  I carefully picked my way around the various pools of who-knew-what as I made my way out of the alley. Along the ground behind me ran a faint track of arcane sigils, appearing in my othersight as silvery-blue shimmers, and completely invisible in normal vision. In front of me, Eilahn patiently traced more patterns along the back end of the building, using nothing but the movement of her fingers and her will.

  This side was easy. The Beaulac Police Department and its parking lots took up most of a block in downtown Beaulac. We’d started with the back-alley end and the south side that held the detective’s parking lot and the entrance to the Investigations Division. Those were unoccupied at this time of night. The main entrance with its broad glass doors faced the street, which would only be tricky if anyone driving by happened to see us and wonder what we were doing. But the north end of the building—the one that held the entrance to the Patrol Division—would be the most difficult, since officers came and went through there at all hours.

  For decades, the station had been a brick and chrome example of seventies’ era architecture, but thankfully it had been renovated in the past year to remove the majority of the chrome and restyle the structure to b
etter fit the “elegant southern town” feel that the rest of the buildings along the street were striving for. Across from the station was the city administration building, built well over a hundred years ago and looking more like a plantation building than a government facility, complete with massive columns and a broad balcony. The rest of the street was taken up with smaller city offices and about half a dozen small shops and restaurants. The city had done its best to make the downtown area picturesque by replacing the big sodium vapor streetlights with smaller ones that were meant to look like Victorian gas lamps. Wrought-iron benches had been painstakingly bolted down along the sidewalk, and large planters interspersed between them. But right now, any elegance was overshadowed by the cheap and tacky Christmas decorations that the city workers put up a few days prior. Maybe next year they’d have enough in the budget to buy decorations that didn’t look quite so sickly.

  Probably only if they cut salaries, I thought sourly. As long as they didn’t cut mine, I could put up with a Santa Claus who looked vaguely leprous.

  I shifted out of othersight and peered at my watch using my flashlight. Four a.m. We’d been at this for nearly an hour and were barely halfway around the Beaulac PD building. But Eilahn had been adamant that the places I spent the most time should be protected—at least as much as was reasonable. She was a syraza, an eleventh-level demon, assigned—gifted? loaned?—to me by the demonic lord Rhyzkahl after it had become clear that someone or something in the demon realm wasn’t thrilled about my association with him. And Eilahn took her job damn seriously.

  The wards on my house had been beefed up into intense and powerful protections, with an outer layer of aversions that would hopefully make intruders lose their desire to continue into my home. Needless to say it wasn’t practical or desirable to have that sort of thing on the Police Department building. Instead, these protections were the sort that would make it highly difficult for me to be summoned while I was inside them—necessary since someone in the demon realm seemed to be intent on doing just that.

  The wards were undetectable by anyone without arcane abilities. At least I sure hoped so. But even though they couldn’t be seen by the naked eye, the process of laying them down looked pretty damn weird. Hence the reason we were out at oh-fuck o’clock in the morning—after the bars closed and before the sun came up.

  I sighed and cast a longing glance across the street at the dark and closed coffee shop that had recently opened up next to the city administration building. Grounds For Arrest. The painting of a steaming coffee cup on the window seemed to taunt me.

  Eilahn softly cleared her throat, and I dragged my attention back to the matter at hand. Slipping back into othersight, I let the sensations wash over me as I checked for gaps or weak spots in the chain of sigils. Even incomplete, the patterns buzzed against my senses pleasantly, like a flow of warm water over my skin. If any part of the sequence had been wrong or poorly scribed, I’d feel it like a vibration in the back of my teeth. But no, it was clear that this demon knew what she was doing.

  “You there!”

  I straightened and turned at the male shout from behind me, squinting in the sudden light shone into my eyes. Beyond the glare of the flashlight I could see it was someone in a Beaulac PD uniform. Crap.

  “What’s going on here?” the officer demanded.

  I lifted a hand to shield my eyes. “Could you lower the light please? I’m Detective Gillian. Who’re you?”

  The officer obligingly lowered the flashlight. I tried to blink away the spots that now swam in my vision. “Oh, hey, Kara. It’s me, Tim Daniels. Sorry. Y’all looked like you were doing some serious skulking.” He gave a small chuckle.

  I returned the chuckle. Luckily we’d already come up with a hopefully believable fiction for why we were tromping around the PD in the middle of the night. “Nope, nothing nefarious. I was bringing my cat to the vet earlier and it got away from me, so my roommate” —I gave a vague gesture toward Eilahn— “and I are trying to see if we can find it now that there aren’t a lot of people and cars around to scare it.”

  His gaze shifted to Eilahn and lingered there. I couldn’t really blame him. The form she’d taken after I summoned her was female. Or, to be more specific, smokin’ hot chick. Tall and athletic, with violet eyes and sleek dark hair that flowed past her shoulders, she somehow managed to look Asian, Jewish, Indian, Swedish, and black all at once. Right now she was dressed in jeans, low-heeled boots, and a snug-fitting long-sleeved black shirt. Yeah, I’d have stared too if it was my first time meeting her. I tried not to think about the contrast between us. I was about three inches shorter, with boring gray eyes, poker-straight mud-brown hair that was more fly-away than sleek, and, while I wasn’t pudgy, I sure as hell didn’t have anything resembling an athletic build.

  “I just got off shift,” he said, gaze not leaving Eilahn. “I’d be glad to help you look. What’s your cat’s name?”

  Eilahn shot me a glance, and I masked a grimace. Crap. We hadn’t counted on anyone actually wanting to help us look for a cat in the middle of the night. “Erm, its name is Fuzzykins.”

  The demon’s expression didn’t change a whit, but I could feel the withering Fuzzykins? That’s the best you can do? as clearly as if we’d shared a telepathic bond. Damn good thing we didn’t. I really wasn’t sure I wanted to know what she was thinking most of the time.

  “Fuzzykins,” the officer repeated, grinning. “I love it. I’m Tim, by the way,” he said to the demon. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “Eilahn,” she replied with an easy smile.

  “Nice to meet you, Ellen,” he said. I bit back a smile as her eyes narrowed at his mispronunciation. “So, what’s this cat look like?”

  Her eyes flicked back to me. Damn it. I was on the hook again. “It’s, um, a calico.” Those were sort of rare, weren’t they? “Without a tail.”

  “A calico Manx. Well, that shouldn’t be hard to miss,” he replied with a laugh.

  Ah, hell. He really did intend to help us look for this nonexistent feline. So much for getting the warding finished tonight.

  “Tim,” Eilahn said with a tilt of her head. “Perhaps you could run to the store for us and purchase some food for Fuzzykins to help lure her out.” She gave him a smile that even dazzled me. I quickly dug in my pocket and came up with a battered twenty-dollar bill that I passed to her. In turn she pressed it into his hand without ever breaking eye contact, letting her fingers linger on his.

  The poor boy never had a chance. Half a minute later he screamed off in his cruiser.

  I cocked my head and regarded the demon. “How the hell did you learn how to do that?”

  Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Do what?”

  “That smile-seducey, make-men-drool thing.”

  She tossed off a shrug. “I read a lot.”

  Damn. I needed to hit the bookstore.

  I moved to the corner and peered down the street. A damp and chilly breeze ruffled the wrinkled tinsel wrapped around the lamp posts. One of the eyes of an illuminated reindeer flickered on and off, making it look like it had a twitch. A dog barked somewhere several streets away, but otherwise the smooth silence remained unbroken. No cars. No one to see us.

  Eilahn turned back to the chain of arcane symbols, then paused, eyes narrowing. A whisper of arcane brushed over me even as a scuff of sound from the roof drew my attention upwards. I barely had time to note a black shape swooping down before Eilahn leaped at me in a flying tackle.

  I remembered to tuck my limbs in, and somehow she managed to roll with me so that I didn’t hit the ground in a painful sprawl. The attacking demon was fast though. In the next instant it was on us, one clawed hand seizing my left bicep, and its other three on Eilahn. I tried to bite back the yelp of pain as one of its claws pierced skin. This was a graa—easy enough to recognize with its multiple arms. Hopefully this one only had the four. I’d seen some that had as many as eight—multi-jointed and ending in strange hands consisting of a th
umb and two fingers, each tipped with curved claws. They looked almost spider-like—if spiders had wings like roaches and heads like crabs and hindquarters like a lizard.

  Twisting, I tried to wrench my arm out of its grip, but I might as well have been a kitten trying to escape a lion’s mouth. Eilahn seized something on its head that looked like a spicule or antenna and yanked harshly, wringing a hiss like a teakettle from it. The three of us rolled in a weird tangle of arms and legs and claws—a strangely quiet fight, punctuated only by my breathless cursing and the graa’s hissing and snarling. They didn’t have vocal cords, and one of the reasons I rarely summoned this species of demon was because I had such a fucking hard time understanding them.

  Eilahn had broken two of the demon’s arms, but now it was doing its best to slash a claw across her throat while she struggled against it, her own face set in a fierce rictus. I wasn’t wearing my duty weapon, but I had my backup piece in an ankle holster. It took a few more seconds of Twister-worthy contortions, but I finally managed to yank the little Kel-Tec .32 out of the holster, shove it against the demon’s midsection, and fire.

  The demon let out a whistling shriek and released us both. I rolled aside, gasping raggedly, but Eilahn apparently had no desire to let it recover to attack another day. Her face twisted into a silent snarl as she pinioned three of the arms together. The fourth arm flailed uselessly against the pavement as the graa whistled and thrashed.

  “Again, Kara,” Eilahn said calmly. “The side of the head should be sufficient.”

  I staggered to my feet and shoved the gun against the creature’s head. It went still, oddly human eyes blinking at me, then it shuddered and looked away.

  “Forgive me,” I murmured. This demon wasn’t attacking me for personal reasons. It had been summoned, and a bargain had been set for it to perform this service. My true vendetta was against whoever had sent it. But I had to do this, and there was no way it wouldn’t hurt the demon.