Echoes of the Past (Demon Squad) Read Free Page B

kidnapped me.”
    A cruel smile graced her lips. “Shot you?” She ran her cold fingertips across my forehead, sending a shiver down my spine. Her hand came away wet with blood but the wound had already healed. “I don’t see any kind of injury, do you captain, colonial?” she asked her flunkies.
    Both answered with a chuckled, “No, ma’am.”
    “As for kidnapping,” she continued, “we’re well within our rights to bring you in for questioning. It’s hardly abduction. You’re a suspect in a grievous case of crimes against humanity. We’re simply doing our duty.”
    Her words jumbled together inside my head like a train wreck of huh? I had no idea what she was talking about, but it was pretty clear she and her minions worked for some kind of government agency. Now I only needed to find out the specifics of who, what, where, when, and why.
    “Who are y’all, and what do you want?” I got straight to the point.
    She wiped her hand on my sleeve, her smile still cracking her narrow face. She had nice teeth. “We work for the Department of Supernatural Investigation; DSI for short. The name is fairly self-explanatory, I would imagine. While the department has been in service for over ten years, the recent disturbance of supernatural energy that devastated the planet seemed to light a fire under the POTUS’ ass. We are now fully funded and authorized to do what needs to be done to end the threat of supernatural incursion.”
    “So, you’re the Ghostbusters? Where’s Chevy and Dan?”
    Johnson growled and took a step forward, but Rebecca stopped him with a look. “Joke if it makes you feel better, Trigg, but know this: We’ve been given every necessary clearance to deal with the problem as we see fit; as I see fit. As long as the bodies don’t float to the surface too often, no one in our government will be dredging the lake to look for them. Do you understand?”
    I just stared at her and grinned. I’ve been intimidated by the best in my life, and she didn’t even begin to qualify.
    She seemed to realize that. “Understand that I’m not trying to scare you. I know your relation to the Devil, and suspect you’ve seen far more frightening things than anyone in this room has ever experienced. However, we are not without resources. We set you up at your home, bagged and tagged you—without incident, I might add—using nothing more than our human element. All that cost less than ten dollars—gas money and a single bullet, if you’d like specifics.” She drew a step closer, a long finger pointing at my chest. “I can’t even go the movies for the amount of cash we spent taking you out. Imagine what we can do when we put our full effort behind something; to you, your friends and family. “
    “Don’t you dare! ” Having just lost Abe to similar circumstances, my first instinct was to blast the smug bitch through the wall. I drew my power to me as I stood to face her, but it felt reluctant. It sat stagnant. My anger was tempered by surprise as I realized something in the room blocked me from calling on my magic.
    “You didn’t think we’d only taken away your gun, did you?”
    I had actually, but I kept that revelation to myself.
    She put her hand on my chest and pushed me back into the seat. I didn’t bother to resist. Even as mad as I was, I knew I’d catch a bullet in such a small room if I pushed my luck. I could wait.
    “We’re not quite the low-rent organization you picture us to be, demon, so I suggest you start taking us seriously.”
    “Oh, I will,” I assured her.
    She didn’t bat an eyelid at my hollow threat, getting straight to business. “Why don’t you tell us what you did to bring about the storms?”
    “What I did?” I shook my head. “You want me to take you seriously and then you go and ask a dumbass question like that? You’re able to shut down my magic in a closet, and you really think I have enough horsepower to rain down destruction on a global scale? All