Personal Demon (Otherworld 8)

I grew up believing in that family mythos. When my father led me through his offices, I saw happy people who smiled and bowed to him as if he was a beneficent king. I was a prince--petted and pampered. Outside those walls, though, I was the son of an unwed schoolteacher, living in a modest home up the Florida coast, where the name Cortez only meant I was "another damn Mexican." Is it any wonder I clung to the fantasy as long as I did? Right into high school, to the summer I went to work for my father and walked in on him dictating execution writs as casually as if he were ordering more toner for the copy machines.

I could have plugged my ears and told myself I'd misheard. But my father raised me to never turn my back on a question until it was answered. So I did my due diligence, and found that my palace was built on the bones of the dead. And those happy, smiling faces I'd seen since childhood? I'd play the smiling, happy employee for my boss too, if crossing him meant he'd send fire demons to burn my family alive.

The truth had seemed clear. Cabals were evil. Cabals must be destroyed.

I made a vow, that I'd do whatever it took to bring the Cabals down. A foolish, arrogant vow that only a sixteen-year-old could make, based on a clear division of good and evil that only a sixteen-year-old can see. I delved ever deeper into Cabal culture and counterculture, no longer a prince but an outsider. Instead of galvanizing me to action, the distance only brought the picture into sharper focus. And with sharper focus, I began to see the gradients of black and white.

Cabals do provide scores of supernaturals with a world in which they belong. One cannot underestimate the importance of that for people who otherwise spend their lives hiding. People who have to look at their bleeding child and evaluate the risk of taking him to the doctor. Of those people who smile and nod at my father every day, 90 percent are truly grateful and free of fear.

If they betray the Cabal, the punishment will be execution--horrible execution--but they have no intention of doing so. Yes, they've heard stories of families being murdered, but those are other Cabals. Yes, they've also heard of Cortez Cabal employees being killed after leaving the organization, but that is the price you pay for reaping the benefits. One of those benefits is security, and if the Cabal must kill a former employee to safeguard its secrets, so be it.

So is a Cabal evil? No. Is there evil within a Cabal? Absolutely. That's what I fight--the greed and the corruption that arises from an environment where all you have to do is cry "security issue" and you can get away with murder. Yet the world still looks for black and white. In me, supernaturals want to see a meddler or a savior. I am neither, so I disappoint.

I refuse to work for the corporation or take part in Cabal life, and yet I maintain a relationship with the CEO. By naming me heir, my father offers me the chance to take over the Cabal itself, to institute my reforms from within, and yet I refuse. Simple things, one would think. Simple decisions. If you hate the institution, turn your back on it completely. If you want to change it, take it over. Black and white.

Even by coming here today, I'll displease both sides. To some, I'll be meddling in Cabal affairs, without even a client as my excuse. To others, I'll be letting my father sweep me into his world again, on the pretext of helping manage a crisis, as he had with the Edward and Natasha problem four years ago. I've learned long ago that this is what I should expect anytime my path crosses my father's in a professional capacity. It can't be helped. But that doesn't make it any easier.

PAIGE AND I walked into the terminal. I carried two overnight bags; she had her laptop case.

We waded through a throng of friends and relatives greeting arrivals. Twenty feet away, Karl sat reading a newspaper, alone on a bank of chairs. Despite the shouts and crying around him, he never even glanced up.

As we emerged from the crowd, he snapped the paper shut, rose and strode into the terminal...away from us. Paige arched her brows at me. Was Karl simply being cautious? Or did he suspect he'd been followed? After less than a dozen paces, he stopped, wheeled and shot us a "Well, are you coming?" glower. He barely let us catch up, then was off again.

"We should find someplace with a modicum of privacy," I said. "I know several--"

"Here's fine."

He veered into a bar packed with commuters fortifying themselves for the flight--or the drive home. It hardly seemed the place to discuss matters of a supernatural nature, but a crowded public place was more secure than an empty one, where words could carry and neighbors might be bored enough to eavesdrop.

"Where's Hope?" Paige asked as Karl pulled out her stool, the action seeming more reflex than courtesy.

"After the girl died, Benoit--the gang leader--called her in. He has them hunkered down at the club, planning their next move. No one leaves."

That explained his brusqueness then. He was eager to get this over with so he could return. His haste was warranted. Should Hope push her panic alarm now, it would be a half-hour or more before he could respond.

Karl pulled a manila envelope from his folded newspaper and removed a sheaf of photos. Eight-by-ten shots, all grainy, the resolution poor.

"Hope used her cell phone to take pictures of the originals, then sent them to me," he explained.

The top photograph was of two young men. Both sat bound to chairs, bowed forward, as if so exhausted that their bindings were all tha

t was holding them upright. The dark-haired one bore an ugly cut across his cheekbone, his cheek coated with a layer of dried blood. The fair-haired young man had a black eye and a swollen lip.

"Jaz and Sonny, I presume?"

He nodded. "The original was left beside the girl's body."

"Was any note attached?"

"Three words on the back: more to come."

That could mean anything from "more information forthcoming" to "more mistreatment of the prisoners" to "more victims to follow." Intentionally cryptic, leaving the recipient hoping for the best while imagining the worst.

"And her killer claimed to be delivering a message from my father, not only with the picture, but the young woman's death? The Cortez Cabal rarely utilizes kidnapping. The outcome is fraught with uncertainty. If it fails, you must kill the victims. If it succeeds, you have living witnesses. If it succeeds and you kill the witnesses, your credibility as a negotiator is irrevocably damaged. To send such a blatant message, and leave evidence of his complicity..." I shook my head. "It's not--"

"--your father."

"No, I was going to say it isn't my father's style."