Free Demon Driven by John Conroe Page B

believe you already know Simmons, his team
name is Rattler.”
    Blockhead said nothing, just gave me a flat
stare and Gina a head-to-toe appraisal.
    “The big guy is Books, our heavy weapon
specialist. Next to him is Data and Splitter.”
    That covered the wiry little guy and the tall
lanky dude.
    “Finally, we have Balls,” he said, indicating
the girl.
    Gina asked the obvious question, “Why
Balls?”
    “’Cause I got brass ones!” the girl answered,
with a cold grin.
    “Okay, Data is your technical wizard,
Splitter is a sniper who ‘splits hairs.’ But I don’t get ‘Books.’ ”
Gina said.
    Adler shrugged. “He’s always reading
one.”
    The niceties’ out of the way, I turned away
and moved over to Duclair, who was in her element, issuing orders
and asking questions. She noticed our approach and stopped an agent
in mid-sentence to speak to us.
    “Mr. Lassiter was found by a passing car,
right over next to the woods, twenty-nine days ago. He was
unconscious and had severe bite wounds to both legs and his right
arm. The responding EMT’s felt he would expire before he got to the
hospital, but he made it and subsequently healed at a near
astonishing rate,” she said. “Lassiter lives about two miles up
this road, but he hasn’t been to his house in days and so we’re
checking both the house and here for possible fresh sign. You know…
revisiting the scene of his attack and all that. Chris, I’d like
you to see if you can find anything we’ve missed.”
    She looked at me closely as she said this,
but my poker face was on lockdown and I simply turned and moved
toward the attack site. I didn’t miss her questioning look in
Gina’s direction. Whatever sign Gina gave her must have reassured
her, as she turned back to her covey of agents.
     
    I hadn’t gone more than a dozen feet when the
vision hit. Unlike my demon visions, this one was slower and
without a sense of urgency. I quickly saw, as well, that it was
also a vision of the past, not the future. I stopped and dropped to
one knee, the other leg folded under me, while I dug out the sketch
pad and pencil.
    About five months ago, I had the first of
these new type visions. It was the scene of a vampire attack, and
the events of that attack played on my mind’s movie screen and then
across the pages of my sketch pad, detailing the assault like a
movie director’s storyboard.
    My hand started drawing of its own accord and
I watched to see what it revealed.
    This one had six scenes laid out. The first
showed a skinny middle-aged guy with too-large glasses walking on
the side of the road, a small mixed-breed dog on a leash. It seemed
to be late afternoon by the shadow of the speed limit sign. I
looked ahead and slightly to my right, spying that very sign about
twenty-five feet away. Looking back at the rapidly evolving
picture, I could see three pairs of eyes that peered from the
forest edge behind him. The next showed the dog looking back in
fear, the man (I assumed this was Lassiter) staring myopically at
the dark forest. The third scene showed a huge blur, streaking
across from the wooded shadows, where the other two sets of eyes
remained. Lassiter was in the midst of dropping the leash and the
little dog was bolting ahead.
    Number four was filled with a wolf the size
of a black bear, Lassiter’s thigh in its mouth, the animal holding
him off the ground as it savaged the leg. Scene five had the man on
the ground, with both legs torn up, the wolf now chewing an arm.
The final scene showed the wolf moving off to the woods, only one
pair of eyes still waiting, Lassiter unconscious.
    My hand stopped drawing and I became aware of
an audience. I smelled Gina, Duclair, Adler, the female – Balls –
and the male technician; all looking over my shoulder at the
carefully detailed, cartoonish drawing.
    “That’s…amazing!” Duclair said in a
thoughtful voice.
    “Yeah, they are incredibly useful,” Gina
said.
    I handed the sketch up and over my