“And our second victim,” Harrison continues. “Is Eva Martin. We think she could have been a hunter, but not with the Order.” Ethan nods and Harrison goes on. “She was an avid hiker and lived in North Carolina until she moved here recently for work, some sort of freelance photography. She was found in an alley near the Mag-Mile and was mauled by bears. Not apparently, but actually mauled by bears. Investigators found clumps of fur at the scene that was ID’d by DNA as black bear fur. The cops kept her death from the news and animal control was on high alert for the next week, but no one ever reported a bear sighting.”
We keep going through the victims, until we have nine identified. Julia was right to say there’s definitely a pattern of weird deaths every three days. We’re missing a few files that I’m sure Julia will be able to dig up if she has enough time.
“The hiker was killed by bears in the middle of Chicago,” I start, looking over the papers. “The teacher was shot in her apartment but no bullets or gunpowder was found, and the boy who was scared to swim drowned in a bedroom. The fears are on point, and the victims are seeming more and more random at this point.”
“You said you were looking for a Freddy Krueger demon. He’s not, uh, based on truth, is he?” Laney asks nervously.
“As far as I know, he’s not,” I say, but look at Ethan and Sam to see if they’ve heard of anything. “But demons feeding on pain and fear are very real.”
“Great.” Her hands have been on the demonic encyclopedia this whole time, but she hasn’t opened it. Laney is the kind of person who watches horror movies with the lights on. Looking through the book for the monster behind the murders is beyond her comfort zone, that’s for sure. “You don’t have a magical version of really strong coffee, do you?”
“I’m sure I can come up with something,” I say, not having thought about it before.
“Cocaine works wonders when you’re trying to stay awake,” Nik notes casually.
I shake my head. “Again, no. No orgies. No drugs.”
“Buzz kill,” Nik huffs under his breath.
“I have a feeling I’m missing something.” Harrison lowers his coffee cup and looks at my faery roommate. “And I definitely want to know what it is.”
“I suggested we host an orgy last night to lure an incubus into our realm,” Nik tells him like it’s no big deal. “It would have worked.”
“Good thing it didn’t come to that,” Sam grumbles.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Laney asks.
“Two things,” Ethan tells her. “The first is a connection between the victims. Why did this demon kill the auction house historian and then the hiker? And the second is a demon capable of doing this.”
“Any priority on which one?”
“Finding the connection could point us to our next victim,” he goes on. “And will let us know where the demon will strike next. But knowing what we’re dealing with puts us at an advantage.”
“So, either?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Laney nods and opens the demon encyclopedia. “Whoa.”
“There’s a lot of information in there. And it’s not organized in any sort of way,” I tell her. “Some of the old English is hard to understand too. Just look for any sort of sleep demon if you can understand what some of the gibberish means.”
“Got it. If I can decipher what doctors mean in their crazy patient notes, I’ll be able to handle this.” She smiles. “But to be sure, I’m looking for anything about a demon who feeds off fear?”
“Yep.”
She flips a page. “What about the entries that are crossed off?”
“That means the demon has been vanquished.”
Harrison peers over the table. “You crossed of Xozon, right? I was the one who found him in that book, ya know.”
“Really?” Laney looks up, looking eyes with Harrison. Again, I’m left wondering why this is bothering me. My brother and my best friend getting along and hanging out is a good thing, right?
“Really. That’s all I can claim in terms of helping. It took Annie a few days to even call me and let me know how things turned out.”
“Sorry,” I say absently, “I was a little distracted. Hell, I’ve been a little distracted a lot since then.”
“You’re distracted now,” Sam grumbles under her breath.
“I know,” I agree and leaf through the death files again, trying to find a connection. An hour later, I’m cross-referencing everything I find with the victim’s social media accounts. The historian, Miles, had a Facebook page that he’d update regularly with unique items that would run through the auction house. His last post is about a necklace that he said dated back to fourteenth century Europe. He said he was excited to get to see it again and would be posting pictures soon.
He died three hours after that post.
Eyes needing a break from staring at a screen, I go through the reports again, starting with the police report Julia sent over this morning for Patrick. His neighbor across the hall noticed something was odd when he didn’t go out to get his mail, and then heard his alarm going off for over an hour before he called for a wellness check.
Nothing else stands out, except that the police found ashes several feet from Patrick’s body. Ashes. If he died in a nightmare, why would there be ashes several feet from his body? I flip though the reports, going back to Sheela. She was on the phone with her sister when she started screaming about a plane crashing. The police found her on the couch, but never located her phone. Which makes no sense if she fell asleep and was killed in her nightmare.
But it does make sense if she was pulled into a different plane of existence.
“Guys,” I say, looking up. “I don’t think we’re looking for some Freddie Kruger style demon who kills via nightmare. Hector’s car was found parked along the road, away from his body. There were ashes by Patrick. And Sheela’s phone was never recovered.”
“What are you insinuating?” Sam’s brows furrow.
“If Hector was attacked by some sort of sleep-demon, why was he out of his truck? His tox report came back clean. It was cold that night. It’s not like he fell asleep relaxing on the beach. And why would there be a murder weapon if the demon is killing remotely?” I swallow hard, mind whirling. “The incubus,” I start again. “It was able to watch me in the astral plane but needed to be here to feed. What if this demon is the opposite?”
Ethan tips his head, suddenly getting what I’m saying. “It needs to bring us to its plane to feed.”
“Exactly. It’s able to stalk us, watch us, and learn about us, right down to what our worst fear is. Then it brings us into its dimension to feed and spits us back out when it’s done.”
“That would explain why the phone was never found,” Sam says slowly. “And why there were ashes on the floor of Patrick’s apartment. These nightmares...they’re not happening inside their heads. They’re actually happening.”
“Yes. Hector’s worst fear was being killed by witches and he actually was by some sort of manifestation the demon created, right down to a murder weapon. He fed off of his fear until there was nothing left and when he spit him back out, the weapon he created came with.”