The demon rumbled softly from behind me, and I stared in shock as the man stepped forward. “Chief Morse?” I blurted in astonishment.
The Chief of Police of the Beaulac PD stood before me, dressed in a flowing robe of black silk shot through with crimson stitching. He smiled down at me, and for a brief insane moment I thought that he was there to help me, to try to stop Ryan. Then the reality of it came crashing in, and I cursed myself for my stupidity. It all made sense. He, not Reverend Thomas, was Peter Cerise. Chief Eddie Morse was certainly the right age and had managed to create an identity as an outsider so that no one could connect him to Greg. Light-blue eyes watched my reaction and, now that I was looking for it, I could see some resemblance to Greg. I also realized that the rumors that he’d had a face-lift were obviously true. He’d probably had cheek and chin implants as well, to further shift the lines of his face.
“What did you do to my aunt?” I snarled.
Eddie Morse/Peter Cerise gave me a cold smile. “Hello, Kara. Your aunt’s body lives, as per the terms of our agreement.” His lip curled. “Though I don’t know for how long, now that her essence has been stripped from it.” He paused, watching my face as I processed that information.
He used her, used all of her potency. She’s gone. She’s really gone. The last hope that I’d been wrong, that I’d misinterpreted what I’d felt, crumbled away. “Where’s Ryan?” I spat the name.
“Agent Kristoff is alive and well,” Cerise said as he crouched in front of me. “He was a bit of an unexpected bonus. He has enough arcane potential to add quite a bit of strength to the summoning. Makes up for Michelle being so worthless. I don’t know why my son chose to draw her.”
Michelle. He’d had her released so that he could have another sacrifice. I took a shaking breath. Ryan, you bastard! But I understood it now. “Greg liked to draw people who had arcane potential,” I said. “That’s how he could see into them.”
“Yes, and he saved me a great deal of trouble. He unwittingly gave me a handpicked stock of people whose only worth was in their spilled blood.”
“And you killed him.”
“I hated to do it.” He was silent for several heartbeats, and I could almost believe that it was true. Then his face hardened. “It was hard to give up that wonderful opportunity to find people with arcane resonance. It’s very convenient that so many people who are ‘sensitive’ tend to turn to drugs to dull the sensations that no one else can feel and that they just can’t deal with.” Cerise smiled, an unpleasant expression. “But Greg was starting to figure it out, noticing that all the victims were from his comic. He came to the station to speak to you, and he saw me there. He didn’t recognize me at the time, but I knew that he’d felt my arcane potential and would realize who I was soon enough.”
That’s when he called me, I realized. He had a feeling something wasn’t right. “And Reverend Thomas?”
“A convenient tool. I’m on the board of directors for this shithole, and meetings with the reverend gave me an excuse to come here and find out who Greg was drawing. Unfortunately, he decided to work late tonight. Wrong place, wrong time.” He shrugged. “It’s too bad, really. You’re not a bad detective at all. You got further than I ever expected. My last summoning failed, but a summoner’s blood should guarantee success this time. Your aunt, as strong as she is, won’t be quite enough, though she was a pleasant bonus.” His mouth curved into a smirk. “After I saw you reading the arcane resonance on the body at the wastewater plant, I did some digging in your personnel file and realized who your grandmother was. I then began to wonder if you might have inherited her gift. I was delighted to find out that you had. But I was even more delighted to discover that your weird aunt was the little bitch who’d helped my son sabotage the summoning that would have saved his mother.”
I stared at him as a piece of the puzzle clicked into place. He thought that Greg and Tessa had ruined the summoning on purpose. No wonder he’d allowed Greg to think that he had died in the fire!
“I had my demon seize her, intending to use her as a sacrifice. But then he informed me that Tessa was also a summoner.” He practically spat her name, and a glint of fury and hatred flashed in his eyes. “It was a joy to drain her, to feel her life force seep from her body and into my own control.”
Impotent rage and shock surged through me. A summoner had to form part of the circle with blood for any sort of greater summoning. And there was nothing that said it had to be the summoner who was actually leading the ritual. He’s going to link through me and drain me dry, I realized, both in blood and in power, while he remains whole and strong. Just as he had done to Tessa.