Author: J. A. Cipriano; Domino Finn; Sonya Bateman; Ambrose Ibsen; Al K. Line; Rob Cornell; James A. Hunter; Craig Schaefer; Pippa DaCosta; James Hunter
Date: 2016-10-20 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Anthologies; Paranormal; Urban Fantasy; Short Stories; Magic; Mythology
Description: 9 NY Times, USA Today, and International Bestselling Authors 9 original tales of magic, mayhem, mystery, and adventure. The ULTIMATE Urban Fantasy Boxed Set! Yours for an insanely low price. This Urban Fantasy collection will bring you face to face with unique characters, alternate worlds where magic is commonplace, and things that really do go bump in the night. Journey from Las Vegas to Wales and everywhere in between to face off against witches, shapeshifters, mercenaries, bounty hunters, zombies, and even a few gods. THE BULL DEMON KING by J.A. Cipriano - Mac Brennan just wanted to take hi

Full Metal Magic

An urban fantasy anthology of magic, mayhem and the paranormal

J.A. Cipriano

Domino Finn

Sonya Bateman

Ambrose Ibsen

Al K. Line

Rob Cornell

James Hunter

Craig Schaefer

Pippa DaCosta

Contents

Foreword

1.
The Bull Demon King - J.A. Cipriano

About the Author

2.
The Black Door - Domino Finn

About the Author

3.
Dance Of The Dead - Sonya Bateman

About the Author

4.
Hard Row - Ambrose Ibsen

About the Author

5.
Angry Spark - Al K Line

About the Author

6.
Family Business - Rob Cornell

About the Author

7.
Valentine Blues - James A. Hunter

About the Author

8.
A Drive In The Country - Craig Schaefer

About the Author

9.
Chase The Dark - Pippa Dacosta

About the Author

Foreword

When we first discussed putting this anthology together, our goal was to offer a sampler of the best dark urban fantasy on the market today. Tough protagonists neck-deep in supernatural conspiracies, beholden to dark powers, hunted, on the run, and generally all-around screwed. Whether you're familiar with these authors or not, this collection is a carefully crafted introduction to unique characters and alternate worlds where magic is commonplace and shadows are scary. Follow along from New York to Miami; Las Vegas to Detroit; even Cardiff, Wales and Valentine, Nebraska; each reimagined in mythical splendor.

Lastly, it's worth noting that Full Metal Magic is no mere compilation. Every story was expressly written for this release. What follows is an all-star gathering of original urban fantasy stories not available anywhere else. Enjoy.

- Domino Finn and J.A. Cipriano

* * *

THE BULL DEMON KING by J.A. Cipriano - Mac Brennan just wanted to take his girlfriend to the fair, but the Bull Demon King had other plans...

THE BLACK DOOR by Domino Finn - Cisco Suarez is dragged to the depths of the underground Miami nightlife, where seekers of arcane knowledge may just get their wish.

DANCE OF THE DEAD by Sonya Bateman - Halloween in Manhattan gets weirder than usual for Gideon Black, who finds himself up against a powerful necromancer looking to raise a lot more than the dead.

HARD ROW by Ambrose Ibsen - Demon-hearted brawler Lucian Colt prepares to trace a human trafficking operation to its fountainhead. But will he and his teammates prove a match for what awaits them in the seedy stretch of Hard Row?

ANGRY SPARK by Al K. Line - When an old vampire "buddy" calls you in the middle of the night, and asks for a favor, hang up on the them and stay the hell in bed. I was stupid. I got dressed, and nearly got dead soon after.

FAMILY BUSINESS by Rob Cornell - Sorcerer Sebastian Light expects his first day as a demon hunter to go off without a hitch, but sometimes family issues are harder to slay than even the surliest of goblins.

VALENTINE BLUES by James A. Hunter - As violence breaks out and people start dying, only Yancy Lazarus—bluesman, gambler, mage, and former wet-works man—can put things right. Well, he can try …

A DRIVE IN THE COUNTRY by Craig Schaefer - For Daniel Faust, driving a condemned man to his death dredges up old memories and old ghosts. You can't outrun the past.

CHASE THE DARK by Pippa DaCosta - New York’s sewers are infested with gators. As Ace Dante investigates, it becomes clear there’s something far worse beneath the streets, and it’s out for revenge.

The Bull Demon King - J.A. Cipriano

A Mac Brennan Short Story

Mac Brennan just wanted to take his girlfriend to the fair, but the Bull Demon King had other plans...

* * *

“If you wanted French fries, you should have gotten your own!” Ricky, my werewolf girlfriend snapped while simultaneously batting my right hand away and pulling the ginormous cube of cheesy fries out of reach. It hardly seemed fair since I’d paid for them.

“It’s a ten dollar cube of French fries that weighs over a pound,” I said, raising an eyebrow at her as she stuffed a handful of them into her mouth and chewed with methodical efficiency while holding eye contact with me the whole time. It was both creepy and arousing at the same time since she had one of those lithe professional swimmer’s bodies. It wasn’t fair she could eat everything under the sun and never gain a pound. I was a lot less lucky in that regard. If I so much as looked at a Twinkie, I’d gain five pounds.

“Mac, was what I said unclear in some way?” she asked, shoving the mouthful into her cheek like a chipmunk, her sea-green eyes boring into me like a high intensity laser.

“Um, no,” I replied, shoving my hand in the pocket of my trench coat. My hand throbbed even though she’d only hit me playfully. Damned werewolf strength. I sighed and took a sip of my nearly flat, overpriced beer. We were at the fair, and while I was sure I’d been to one before, I’d never gone to one with Ricky. Of course, she’d promised me awesome fair food, of which I’d gotten none. Still, watching her eat the foot-long corndog had been interesting. Yes, I do mean in that way.

She swallowed. “So why are you stealing my French fries?” she asked, spinning on her heel before I could answer and walking off through the crowd, fries tucked protectively to her chest. “Come on, I want to see the animals.” It wasn’t so bad because the way her jeans hugged her ass was simply spectacular. She might have been a werewolf, but when she wasn’t a raging hell beast, she was hot as Hell. “I need to envision what they’ll look like on a plate with an apple stuffed in their mouth.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to bring food into the animal enclosures,” I replied, following behind her as best I could. It was hard to keep up with her because the crowds parted around her, probably sensing her inner predator or something. I mean, she was the alpha for the entire fucking state.

I, unfortunately, didn’t have any such luck, despite my cursed right arm. Yeah, that’s right. My right arm is blacker than the hair on Satan’s ass, and has crimson, demonic tattoos across nearly every inch of it. The arm was a gift from a demonic cat and told anyone in the know, I’d made a deal with a demon in exchange for… something. I wasn’t sure why I’d done it, since making said deal had wiped my memories, but I had a few guesses.

Most of them were noble and centered around saving my sister and her son from a demon named Baal. I really hoped it was one of those ones. If it wasn’t, the arm, combined with my innate skills at killing the shit out of everyone in my path, made me think I hadn’t been the nicest guy in the world. It was something that kept me up late at night, and not in a good way. Besides, who wants to jerk off with a demonic hand? It would be like getting a hand-job from Lucifer himself.

Still, now wasn’t the time to think about that. Now was time to spend with my girlfriend, Ricky. We got precious few chances to do so, and if I was being honest with myself, I’d sort of wanted to skip the whole date part and go find a nice hotel somewhere.

I’d nearly suggested it, but I was a gentleman, and I’d feel bad moving to a more horizontal stage of our relationship when we hadn’t had at least one date, even if we’d gone through our share of supernatural baddies together.

“What’s taking you so long?” Ricky said, glancing at me over her shoulder. She was waiting for me by the entrance to the cow exhibit, and what’s more, her cheesy fries were gone. She tapped her fingers against her leg impatiently.

“I was trying to give you enough time to finish your fries,” I replied, sipping my beer. It was no PBR, but fair beer sort of existed on a whole different scale where price to quality of beer had no bearing on each other. Still, there was no way I was taking my beer inside the cow stables, and it was only half gone. She was going to have to wait. “Besides, I need to finish this before we go in.”

Ricky looked at me like I’d suddenly sprouted a second head. “Why?”

“Because it’s gross to bring stuff in there.” I pointed at the entrance. “Just smelling poop means tiny poop particles are going into your nose and mouth. Those particles also go in my beer.” I gestured with the amber liquid, causing it to slosh inside the plastic cup. “You can wait ten seconds.”

“Oh,” she replied, sauntering toward me in a way that suddenly had me concerned. The look on her face told me she had an idea, and I was sure I wouldn’t like what it was. “How about you remember you’re male and come the fuck inside?”

“I will not. That’s disgusting,” I said and raised my cup to take another swallow. Before it got to my mouth, she’d snatched it from my hand and drained the entire thing in a single gulp.

“There, now we can go,” she said, tossing the cup over her shoulder without even a backward glance.

“What the actual fuck?” I cried, following the arc of my cup as it landed in the metal trash can. It hadn’t even hit the rim. It was impressive, but at the same time, I was pissed she’d drank my beer, especially since she hadn’t shared a single cheesy fry with me.

“Come on. I’ll buy you some pie afterward.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. The feel of her skin against mine was almost enough to make me forget about the fact she’d stolen my beer because her hand fit perfectly into mine. The warmth of her skin flowed into me as we approached the entrance, and I wondered how it would feel to have more of her pressed against more of me.

“When you say you’ll buy me some pie, do you actually mean you’ll buy you pie and then not share any with me?” I asked as we stepped in front of a pen containing a large black cow. It stood with its back to us, chewing its hay and ignoring the small child poking its leg while his parents drank their respective beers. Ugh, can you even imagine?

“You’re learning,” Ricky replied, smacking me on the ass. “But I will actually let you have some pie.”

“That’s very nice of you.” A smirk crossed my lips as she dragged me toward a more traditionally colored cow. I was glad to move. I didn’t like standing behind an animal that could potentially shatter my skull with a well-placed kick. “I’m very good at eating pie.”

Ricky blushed, causing the freckles across her nose to standout. “Is that so?”

Before I could reply, she turned toward me, stood on her tippy toes, and kissed me full on the mouth. Though I had second thoughts because we were in public, I wrapped my arm around her back and pulled her lithe body against mine like we were a couple of teenagers. We’d only actually kissed a few times because every time we had a moment together, something insane happened. If a couple fair-goers got upset about PDAs, well, they could go to Hell.

“You’re beautiful,” I said, brushing the red hair out of her face after we broke apart. “And not just in the smoking hottie sort of way, but in every way. Being around you makes me want to be a better person.”

“Mac, you kill people.” She smirked and put her forehead against my chest. “I shudder to think what you’d be like if you were worse.”

“Well, I’d enjoy it more.” I smiled and buried my nose in her hair. She smelled like strawberries and cream. God, where was the closest hotel? “And I’d probably have more money. I’d be a hell of an investment banker.”

She laughed, and the sound tugged at me in a way that made me envision the two of us standing before an old farmhouse with a pitchfork in hand.

“So, how about that pie?” she asked, cheeks flushed. She latched onto my hand as she wiggled free of our embrace and tugged me forward.

“What kind were you thinking? I’m a huge fan of cherry pie,” I replied, glancing around at the other people milling about next to the cows. Not a one was even paying attention to us, which was good. I’d half-expected one of them to attack us, or for a semi-truck to come barreling through the entrance. You know, the usual. Hell, maybe one of the cows would morph into a minotaur and try to cut out my heart with an axe. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“If this is where you grow your hair out and start singing like Warrant, I’m going to be very unhappy,” Ricky said, glancing at me over her shoulder. “Besides, I’m more of a blueberry—”

She was cut off when a tiny Asian teen with hot pink hair zipped through the entrance and crashed into her. Ricky stumbled back into me as the teen latched onto Ricky’s free hand with both of her own hands and practically tugged Ricky into her in an effort to pull her back outside. There was so much strength in her effort, I nearly lost my footing.

“Please, Alpha! You have to help!” the pink-haired teen squealed in one of those broken English voices that suggested she was fluent but had never lost her accent. Her eyes were wide with horror and she glanced back the way she’d come.

Ricky had gone perfectly still as the teen continued to tug at her. Then, very slowly, she released my hand and smacked the girl across the face. The sound of it rang out as the teen stumbled backward a few steps, clutching her cheek.

“Mei, get a hold of yourself,” Ricky said, the barest edge of a growl to her voice. “What’s going on?” Just from the tone, I could tell Ricky was pissed, but what’s more I was guessing she knew the girl because she’d called her by name. I mean, that wasn’t unreasonable, Ricky had been running this city for a while. If this girl was a supernatural, and judging by her strength, it seemed like she might be, chances were good she knew Ricky. Still, it seemed like she was in trouble, and trouble was the absolute last thing I wanted to deal with.

Mei swallowed hard and cast her eyes at Ricky’s feet like she had suddenly realized she’d offended one of her betters. She seemed to shrink into herself, and she was a tiny thing to begin with. Now she seemed practically non-existent inside her yellow sundress.

“It has Chun,” Mei said, twisting her hands anxiously. Her fingernails were purple with pink tips. “It took her in the funhouse. I tried to follow, but I couldn’t get inside.”

“What the hell do you mean it has Chun, and you can’t get inside a funhouse?” Ricky asked, rage tingeing her voice. From the way she said it, I was willing to bet not only did she know Mei, but she knew Chun too. “What has Chun?”

Mei didn’t raise her eyes as she spoke. “Niu Mo Wang.” She said it like it should mean something, but I’d never heard it before. I looked from her to Ricky, who seemed just as clueless.

“What’s that?” Ricky asked, voice careful, probing. She wanted to help, but at the same time, she was wary. I could understand why. We’d faced our share of bad asses, and sometimes we’d won only because we’d been lucky. Taking on guys who could throw a tractor without a plan was practically suicide. If this Niu Mo Wang guy had stolen Chun from someone like Mei, chances were good he was strong as fuck.

“The Bull Demon King,” Mei replied, looking at us like we were the crazy ones, which hardly seemed fair considering the circumstances. “We were watching the Monkey King play, you know, Journey to the West?” she paused, waiting for us to acknowledge her, but when neither of us did, she continued. “Anyway, the actor who played the Monkey King called for a helper from the audience. Chun was so excited when she got picked to help Sun Wukong. When Chun went up, they tried to trick Princess Iron Fan into giving them the magical fan, but before she handed it over, Niu Mo Wang dashed out. His eyes glowed with emerald fire and smoke cascaded off of him in sheets. The actors turned toward him, and as they did, their eyes went glassy and opaque. I started to get up, sensing something was wrong, but before I could reach Chun, Niu Mo Wang grabbed her and leapt off the stage.”

“Um… okay?” I asked. “So it’s part of the show?” Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t. Still, I had to hope it was because this sounded bad, especially in a crowded place.

Mei shook her head. “I don’t think so because as I tried to chase him into the funhouse, Sun Wukong threw me through a popcorn stand while Princess Iron Fan moved to block the entrance.”

I opened my mouth to say something because this sounded insane, but before I could get out even a single syllable, screaming from outside filled my ears. Ricky and Mei exchanged a look and tore out of the cow stables.

So much for our date. And my pie.

* * *

I pulled my .45 caliber Glock 37 from the shoulder holster hidden inside my trench and bounded out of the cow pen after Ricky. It was a big caliber gun, meant to put big holes in things that could take a lot of bullets and keep on kicking. It wasn’t as nice as my .50 caliber Desert Eagle had been, but it was a lot easier to come by and quite a bit cheaper.

Ricky and Mei stood only a few feet away. They faced a six-foot-tall, pimple-faced teen with a monkey tail held up by a string attached to the back of his yellow sweatshirt with a piece of fishing line. The crowd around them had thinned, mostly running away or ducking for cover, which was good because I was betting this guy didn’t give a damn about collateral damage and innocent people.

Hopefully, the nearby food stations would provide cover for those hiding, but I wasn’t too sure about that since I didn’t know what he was capable of. Well, I’d just have to take him out fast.

He brandished an orange staff at them while a woman wearing way too much makeup and a purple dress that had to be really hot in this weather stood a few feet behind him, guarding the entrance to the fun house with a massive metallic fan.

People were screaming, probably because the guy in yellow who I was guessing was the monkey king, Sun Wukong, had bludgeoned more than a few security staff into unconsciousness with his staff. It seemed ridiculous, but then again, most things did. Part of me wondered if their cries would bring a SWAT team down upon us, but even if they did, it’d be a while before SWAT showed up. I wasn’t sure we had that kind of time, and even if we did, I wasn’t the type of guy who waited around for law enforcement.

“Stay back, Mei,” Ricky said before bounding forward in a blur. Her hands lashed out with her considerable werewolf speed.

Unfortunately, it almost seemed like she was moving in slow motion compared to the Monkey King. He calmly stepped back, bringing his staff upward in an arc that caught Ricky under the chin. The sound made my stomach clench in horror.

Ricky’s head snapped backward and her feet left the air as a surge of rage exploded through me. Ignoring the people all around me, I fired at him while sprinting forward. I was a pretty good shot, and my bullets would have hit him if the son of a bitch hadn’t blocked them with quick precise swings of his staff. The bullets came flying back at me, and I threw myself sideways.

Bullets slammed into the spell-hardened leather of my coat as I crashed to the rocky ground and rolled to my feet. A sharp stab of pain shot through my shoulder as Sun Wukong leapt into the air, crossing the several yards between us with one somersault and swung his staff at me.

I rolled to the side as his staff impacted the spot where I’d been with enough force to crack the hard-packed earth. I half expected him to take advantage, but as I crawled to my feet while raising my Glock, his hand shot out and grabbed Mei by the throat. He hoisted her into the air and drew her close to his body like a shield. The fucker.

His nostrils flared as he inhaled hard, and his eyes widened in slight surprise. He took his eyes off of me and turned them on Mei. His tongue lashed out of his mouth and slid across her cheek, leaving behind a slimy trail of goo.

“Sister…” he whispered, and the strangled growl of his voice made fear twist in my gut. I’d heard voices like that before. I wasn’t sure where because I couldn’t remember, but from the way adrenaline surged through me at the sound of it, my body sure as fuck remembered. It had to be something from my past, and if that was the case, maybe I knew how to kill it. As I reached for the memory, it vanished into the mists of my mind. Fuck.

“Drop the girl, asshole,” I said, aiming the gun at his face, but if it bothered him, I couldn’t tell.

“No,” he replied, right before Ricky slammed into his back. She’d shifted completely into her half-woman, half-wolf fighting form, and while I was never sure how she shifted from a girl just over five feet tall and maybe a buck thirty to a fourteen foot creature tipping the scales at four hundred plus with such speed, I was willing to bet it had something to do with all the calories she consumed. Well, that and magic.

Either way, her massive bulk was more than enough to send Sun Wukong stumbling. Mei slipped from his grip. The Asian teen hit the ground a few feet away as Ricky tried to latch onto the Monkey King’s throat with her powerful jaws, but he held her off with one hand while pummeling her ribs with his free fist. Each blow seemed to break something inside my girlfriend. It made me want to rush to her aid and hurt him twice as badly, but if there was one thing I knew, it was Ricky could take care of herself.

I bit down on my male ego, thanked my lucky stars she healed quickly, and scrambled forward. The tattoos on my right arm lit up like Amsterdam’s red-light district as I drew on my power. I wanted to blow this son of a bitch straight to Hell, but he and Ricky were still grappling. For the moment, it seemed like she had the advantage, especially since she could take so much damage, and as I tried to decide what to do, a werewolf with pink hair and a sun dress leapt onto the monkey king. Mei. Well, that explains how she and Ricky knew each other. Ricky was her werewolf boss.

“Ricky, I’m going to go for the girl!” I cried because if I helped her she’d totally be offended. So, respecting her girl power, I spun on my heel and headed toward the girl who I was guessing was Princess Iron Fan. She stood in front of the funhouse, staring me down with an expression that should only be on hardened Navy Seals who were also shifters with great abs as they mowed down countless enemies before brunch.

“I don’t think so,” she said in a cutesy voice that reminded me of baby Gru in the Minions’ movie. She grinned at me and waved her iron fan through the air in my general direction. The wind coming off of it hit me with enough force to send me flying backward as the purple-dressed kabuki dropped into a fighting stance and gave me the “come on” gesture like we were straight out of Crouching Tiger.

I picked myself up from the ground for the second time in as many minutes, rolled my shoulder because it hurt like a bitch and pointed my gun at her even though I wasn’t sure what good it’d do. There were way too many people around for me to think shooting at her would be a good idea, and when I’d shot at Sun Wukong, I’d almost taken a bullet to the knee, which would have really ended my adventuring in a hurry, let me tell you.

“Do you really think that’s going to work?” she asked, raising one heavily painted eyebrow at me. The way she said it was almost a dare. Well, fuck her and fuck good ideas.

“There’s a first time for everything,” I replied and fired at her. The sound rippled across the horizon like a crack of thunder. As she moved to sweep her fan through the path of the bullets and blow them away, I flung my right hand forward and called upon my power. I’d been counting on her to go after the bullets.

“Ignis!” I cried, unleashing a blast of Hellfire. I wasn’t sure what Hellfire would do to her, but from the fear that flashed across her face, it probably wouldn’t be pretty. Good.

Her fan stopped in mid-arc as she tried to throw herself to the side to avoid my attack. My fireball passed by her and careened toward the funhouse. As she hit the ground with one hand and sprung into the air like an Olympic gymnast, my fire slammed into an invisible shield in front of the funhouse and vanished like it was laser fire impacting a shield in Star Trek. Circles of concentric color, rippled outward, but I ignored it for now. I could figure out a way to get past the barrier after I took care of Princess Iron Fan.

Thankfully, she wasn’t as fast as Sun Wukong, and as she landed on her feet, I was on top of her. Her fan came flashing toward me, and I ducked beneath it, catching her under the arm with my own arm. Then I drove her straight into the ground with the force of all my weight while sweeping her leg out from under her. She slammed hard into the dirt, her head cracking painfully and her eyes going distant and dazed. I put my gun up under her chin.

“Dodge this!” I growled and pulled the trigger. The bullet snapped her head backward, but that was about it, which was unfortunate because she clocked me in the temple with her fist. It felt like I’d been struck by a sledgehammer.

As I bounced across the ground before sliding to a stop in front of a cotton candy stand, sans vendor, I realized my gun wasn’t going to be particularly effective, which kind of pissed me off because I was really good at shooting people. I reached up, grabbing onto the counter and hoisting myself to my feet while holstering my Glock.

Princess Iron Fan’s Doc Martin flew at my face in a well-placed kick, and as I dropped back to the ground, her foot punched a hole through the thin steel. Before she could pull herself free, I flung myself forward, hitting her in the stomach with my shoulder and driving her to the ground.

The impact rattled my teeth together, but if it bothered her much, I couldn’t tell because she was already grabbing me by the lapels of my trench coat, no doubt about to fling me off of her like I was a sack of garbage. I grabbed onto her wrists and dropped my full weight onto her, trying to keep her from getting the leverage she needed. I moved anyway. She was that strong.

“Sorbeo,” I said and once again my demonic tattoos lit up. Energy surged up out of her and thrummed into my right hand like I’d grabbed ahold of a live wire. It was always dicey draining the power from supernaturals because if I took too much energy, I could pop like an overfilled balloon. Still, it felt pretty fucking good. So good, I knew I had to use some of this power before things inside of me started to melt.

My senses went into overdrive as I pulled even harder, intent to rip everything out of her and deal with the consequences after she was dead. My skin began to smoke and my vision went hazy.

Just as I was about to release her so I could throw some of this power back at her in the form of Hellfire to the face, something inside her snapped violently in the same way a fishing line did when a fish pulled too hard at it. The energy feeding into me vanished, and not only that, but every spec of power I’d absorbed went along with it. That’d never happened before

The sudden lack of power combined with that realization was like a bucket of ice water to the senses. Whatever I was facing was a lot different than the enemies I’d faced before. I’ll be honest, the thought didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, but I wasn’t the type to back down.

I released my grip on her wrist in shock and sat back in confusion. Even the flames that had been leaping from my tattoos had disappeared along with whatever had been powering the girl. Great, first I don’t get any fries, and now I didn’t even get to keep the power I’d stolen? Lame.

“Oh my god, please don’t hurt me!” Princess Iron Fan cried in a way that suggested she was seeing me for the first time, which might have been true. Just because something was giving her power, it didn’t mean she’d been a willing participant.

She started thrashing like she thought I was trying to kill her, which I had been if I’m being truthful. Now she was pounding at my chest with weak little girly punches that made me think she’d never actually hit anyone before. What the fuck was going on?

“Stop,” I said, scrambling off of her. As I got to my feet, she crawled backward on her hands like a crab, her eyes wide in terror. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Please don’t hurt me,” she repeated as though my actions somehow suggested I planned on pummeling her into the pavement.

This was going to be a long day, and something told me it was going to get worse before it got better. A lot worse. I sighed and wiped my face with my hand. “Get out of here.”

“Mac, are you okay?” Ricky called, and I craned my head toward her. “Or are you going to keep picking on little girls?”

She was soaking wet and covered in blood. I wasn’t sure how much of it was hers since she could have healed any gaping chest wounds. She looked concerned, chewing on her lip as she caught my eye and began walking toward me. That wasn’t good. Ricky was almost never concerned about anything. So why was she worried about this?

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, rolling my shoulder again. It still hurt. Why couldn’t I ever fight anyone in a bounce house, or better yet, not fight anyone at all?

She wiped her bloody hands on the “This is Sparta!” T-shirt plastered to her skin. I was just glad it was black. If not, other people might have enjoyed the show. While I wasn’t possessive per se, I didn’t like other men leering closely at my girl. At least, not before I’d had the chance to do more than look.

“Mac, I think they’re possessed,” Ricky said, ignoring the girl in the Princess Iron Fan costume. She had gotten to her feet and took off running the moment I’d turned away from her. That was fine. As long as she didn’t come back to shoot me, I was more than happy for her to run far, far away.

“I think you might be right,” I replied as my eyes moved past Ricky to settle on Mei. The girl was dragging an unconscious Monkey King out of the bumper boat pool. “What happened? Are they allergic to water?”

“He’s not dead. Don’t worry.” Ricky smiled and shook her head, casting water about her like a large dog, which was weird because she’d already shifted back before I saw her. She never liked to shift, but she’d never told me why. Still, I always wondered how her clothes managed to change size along with her. “Once I held him under until he stopped moving, there was a flash of light and then a weird cloud of smoke vanished into the ether.”

“Awesome,” I muttered, shaking my head. So they were possessed. That meant we’d have to be careful. Anyone we fought could be innocent. “Just awesome.”

“Now for the hard part.” She sighed and looked toward the funhouse. It was one of those creepy ones with the big smiling clown and tons of mirrors. “We get to go inside and save Chun.” She glanced over at Mei. “Mei, get the rest of these people out of here. I don’t care if they insist on hiding. Drag them out if you have to. I want the entire area clear.” She paused for a moment, considering. “And make sure the cops don’t show up until we’re done.”

“As you wish, Alpha,” Mei replied, glancing around at the scattered, frightened groups of people with a lot less confidence than her voice betrayed.

“You always take me on the best dates,” I replied, moving past Ricky and heading toward the oversized, leering clown. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get in, but I was sure I could find a way. “Next time, I’m picking the place.”

“You can pick the place when you start paying rent and not a moment before,” Ricky replied, taking my hand as she moved up next to me. “Otherwise keep your mouth shut and enjoy your sugar mama.”

* * *

Dark, swirling energy leapt from the air around the barrier surrounding the funhouse as we approached. It crawled across my skin like icy ants and slithered down my spine like slimy slugs. I hadn’t felt anything quite like it before, but then again, I wasn’t the world’s most experienced mage, or maybe I was, damned memories. Either way, it poked obscenely at my senses with my wrongness. It was like seeing a goddamned slum in the center of Beverly Hills.

I wasn’t sure how to get past it, but fortunately, I knew someone who would know: the cat demon sitting shotgun in my brain. I still wasn’t quite sure who she was, but I knew two things. She was old and fucking scary. Both of those things combined made me think that even if she didn’t know what this barrier was made from, she could disarm it, assuming of course, she wanted to. She wasn’t always the most helpful partner, even if she did give me access to some pretty powerful magic. That’s what I got for teaming with a cat, I supposed.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” I whispered, shutting my eyes and opening myself to the mental plain where she liked to hang out. Instantly the image of an immense savannah filled with tall grass sprang into my mind’s eye. I couldn’t see her, but I often couldn’t because she liked to hide in the grass and stalk me.

She was here though. She was in every breath of fake wind, every waver of the simulated grass, every ray of the synthetic sun. This was the place inside my head she’d crafted for herself. Here, I was a guest. It was sort of weird to think about, like she’d walked into my brain and set up shop. I tried to ignore that as best I could and instead tried to be thankful she hadn’t shut me down first.

“If you speak to me like that again, Mac Brennan, you will regret it in ways you cannot comprehend.” Her voice filled the whole of the space, and as I turned toward its source, I saw her crouched low in the grass, eyeing me carefully.

She was in the form of a calico cat the size of a Siberian tiger. If she hadn’t been so big, she’d have been a pretty cat what with her green eyes and a splotch of golden fur around her left eye.

“Is that because you haven’t yet created the ways in which you will cause me to regret my words?” I asked before I could stop myself. In truth, she could threaten me all she liked, but she needed me. If she didn’t, she’d have killed me long ago. As it stood, our little Faustian bargain was worth enough to her for me to stay alive. That said, maybe pissing her off when I wanted a favor wasn’t the best idea.

“It is,” she said, standing and stretching under the high sun. “Do not worry though. I’m quite creative. You will not be disappointed. That, I can guarantee.” She sidled up next to me and rubbed her face against my leg, scenting me like I was her prison bitch, which I guess I sort of was. “I’ll think of something delicious.”

“I need a favor,” I said, opening my eyes so I could look at both her and the barrier around the funhouse. It was always a little weird to look at the real world and the inner world of my brain at the same time. I could do it, but it always kind of gave me vertigo. Now was no exception. “I need to know how to get through the barrier.” I gestured lamely at it. “Think you can help?”

“And what makes you think I care about it even slightly?” she asked, continuing to rub her head against me. “There is nothing within that hovel I wish to possess.” A grin spread across her face, which always twisted my stomach. I couldn’t imagine how Alice had dealt with grinning cats because it always strained my sanity, well, what was left of it. “And your desires mean little to me.”

“Aww, come on.” I knelt down next to her and rubbed her head with one hand. She began to move, positioning herself so my fingers got all the right places. “If you help me get in, it will give us a chance to show off. I’m assuming you saw what was going on with the whole ‘Monkey King’ business?”

“I have been watching you, yes.” She sat back on her haunches and stared at me. “I’ll admit, I do not like that one of them escaped before I could eat him.”

“Then help me get their leader.” I smiled. I had this in the bag. “Unless you can’t?” I let the question hang in the air, allowing the silence between us to build.

“I do not like this, Mac Brennan.” She yawned, revealing teeth the size of my fist. It made a shudder run through me because I wasn’t quite sure what would happen if she attacked me here. I’d probably die. “You are baiting me, and we have spoken about this.”

She was right. The last time I’d alluded to her not being strong enough, she’d proven me wrong by using overwhelming force in the same way dropping a nuke on the kid’s house down the street after he put a firecracker in your mailbox was overwhelming. I had no desire to see it happen again because it scared the bejeezus out of me. Still, I needed this done. Fast.

“Well…” I rubbed the back of my neck with my palm. “You know I don’t like to do it…”

“Nonsense,” she replied, and turned around three times in the grass before lying down and burying her face in her paws. “I shall help you, but know I am displeased. Leave me.”

It wasn’t like I had a choice. The moment she said it, the connection between us snapped, and the African plain faded from my vision. I found myself staring at the barrier, the weird overlay gone.

“Where’d you go?” Ricky asked, staring at me with narrowed eyes. “I smell sulfur, so I’m guessing you visited your friend.” She tapped her temple with her index finger.

“Yeah,” I said, somewhat relieved the cat seemed mildly interested in the spirit within. It meant she’d help. Unfortunately, I didn’t always like when she helped. Still, any port in a storm, right? “She’s going to help us get through.”

“Five star,” Ricky replied, smirking. “I love that you have the ability to get through this because my plan to just set the place on fire probably wouldn’t end well for anyone. Well, it would for Chun since she’d heal the damage, but likely no one else.”

“Were you really going to light the place on fire?” I asked, and she responded with a shrug that made me make a mental note to never cross her. She probably would do just that to save one of her pack. Hell, maybe she didn’t even need that much of a reason. It probably should have bothered me more, but it just didn’t, mostly because I didn’t know any of the people here. I’m sure if I did, they’d be more than a passing consideration, but I just didn’t. As it stood now, they were a statistic, and I was never really a big fan of math, anyway.

Ricky reached out like she was about to touch me, but I stepped out of reach as my right hand raised on its own, which meant the cat was in control. It was a little weird when it happened because I wasn’t quite sure I liked the idea of a psychotic demoness able to control my body, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure what I’d do without her. I’d made her a deal. I couldn’t get out of that. Besides, the power was kind of cool, you know, in the way being partnered with Reed Richards was kind of cool. It was all fun and games until Dr. Doom found out.

My tattoos smoldered as a touch of demonic energy flowed through my finger tips and hit the barrier, spreading concentric circles of Hellfire across its surface. The barrier reacted like a Tesla coil, shooting little arcs of crimson electricity between it and my fingers. I inhaled sharply as it rippled across my arm like a static shock before dissipating.

“Child’s play,” the cat said, shaking her head. “You don’t need me for this. You are just lazy.” My right arm lashed out, tearing a horizontal slash through the air. The barrier shattered like an eggshell. Chunks of translucent energy blew inward across the ground before dissolving into green mist. “But it’s nice to be needed. Now don’t call me. I’ll call you.”

The curtness of her statement was somewhat disconcerting, but I ignored it. She was always curt in a way I’d become familiar with. She liked to act like all things were both difficult and beneath her notice so that I felt in awe of her when she decided to do something. It was a bit annoying to be honest.

My hand fell to my side as she left me to my own devices, and I turned toward Ricky. “After you, mon petit chou.” I swept my arm out in an exaggerated gesture.

“Your French is absolutely terrible.” She rolled her eyes at me. “We both know you’re only letting me go first because I’m bulletproof.” She moved past me and entered through the barrier, anyway. She wasn’t bulletproof per se, but as long as they weren’t using silver, she might as well have been. I’d seen her shrug off blasts from assault rifles with less fuss than I’d have given a mosquito bite.

“I also like you for your brain.” I smiled and followed behind her.

“Whatever.” She glanced at me over her shoulder and gave me a long look. “Now watch my ass, so I don’t get offended.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Part of it was nerves. I never enjoyed walking into a place where I could get my ass kicked, even if it was a funhouse, but part of it was just that Ricky got me in a way I hadn’t expected. Sure, she was a bit crude, and I didn’t like her much when she hulked out, but at the same time, I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.

“Am I amusing you?” she asked, giving me a really good Bugsy Malone impression. Oh yeah, I forgot. She was good with voices. It had something to do with being able to actually change the physical makeup of her vocal chords.

A gunshot rang out from the funhouse, shattering my words as they left my lips. The bullet struck Ricky in the forehead and flung her backward like a ragdoll. Thankfully, her head didn’t explode, probably thanks to her harder than normal head. Hell, for all I knew, she could heal that anyway. Still, blood was everywhere, and as she crashed to the dirt beside me, I had half a second to move before the next shot got me.

It zipped right by my ear as I dropped flat and crawled toward Ricky on my belly. Thankfully, she was still breathing. That meant she’d heal. Good. I didn’t want to think about what would have happened if the sniper had been using silver. Still, I was going to kill the fuck out of the motherfucker who had shot her. And I was going to enjoy it. A lot.

As the sound of the rifle’s crack faded into the distance, I summoned more power. “Tueri!”

A sheath of magical flame engulfed my body like I was the Human Torch, surrounding me in a near impenetrable barrier of Hellfire. A bullet caught me in the side of the head an eye-blink later. It hurt like a motherfucker, and as I spun haphazardly to the ground, little tweety birds flapped around my head. I always hated getting shot, even through a shield spell because it hurt like a son of a bitch. Still, it was better than being dead.

Flame surged around me, and I could feel the toll it took on my body. My shield spell was one of my most draining ones, and I was already starting to feel the effects. My chest heaved with effort and I was starting to feel a bit woozy. There’d been more than a few occasions when it’d faded away to leave me defenseless at inopportune times, and it always took a long time to recover from if I didn’t consume a ton of calories.

Since I didn’t want my shield to die before I got to safety, I rolled onto my hands and knees and hoisted myself to my feet. Another shot rang out, catching me above the heart, and while it hurt through the shield, my spell-hardened trench was also in the way. I gritted my teeth and fought down the pain. I had to do something before the asshole decided shooting me wasn’t a good idea and tried to kill my ass with a bazooka. It wouldn’t work, but I was way too close to Ricky to risk it.

“I hope you’re ready to take off all your clothes!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. Ricky’s plan seemed really good, especially since I didn’t see anyone around. It was time to light the fucking place on fire. “’Cause it’s about to get really hot in here.”

I took off at a dead run toward the funhouse as much to get closer to my target as to distract whoever it was from Ricky. She was still recovering on the ground next to me, but given enough time, she’d get back up. With any luck, Mei would get her to safety before time ran out.

Part of me wanted to help her directly, but something told me trying to drag her to safety while on fire wasn’t a good idea, and I didn’t have the strength to extend my shield around her for more than a few seconds. There was way too much open space between us and the closest cover for me to be able to get her to safety in time.

As my foot hit the funhouse steps, the flames from my shield began to spread across them, catching the wooden frame and setting it ablaze like it was made of gasoline. Sometimes the shield was cool, but I knew from experience the flames moving along the funhouse were real, unlike the ones surrounding me. While my shield could protect me for a while, as soon as it failed, it’d become difficult to move without getting charred to a crisp. That was an end I wanted to avoid if possible.

I pushed through the double doors, setting them ablaze as I did so, and found myself staring at an enormous clown face with funhouse mirrors for teeth. Only, instead of making me look short, tall, or whatever, it made me look like a demon. My eyes were sunken holes of void and my skin was as pale as milk. The tattoos on my right hand writhed like live snakes.

It made me hesitate. I looked like the cat demon when she decided to take human form, and the thought made me shudder. I wasn’t sure what was going on here, but I didn’t like it. Ignoring the mirror as best as I could, I dropped my shield in an effort to conserve energy and drew my Glock. Sure, I could have kept the spell up, but I had enough problems without setting the inside on fire too. Besides, I wanted to save some firepower in case the asshole sniper didn’t mind getting shot.

Moving forward, gun at the ready, I stepped past a pit of rubber snakes and found myself staring at a huge pink hamster wheel at least ten feet deep. It was too dark to make out the other side, but from the way the thing spun, I knew I had to go through if I wanted to continue into the depths of the funhouse. Well, at least it wasn’t stairs. I fucking hated stairs.

I moved into the tube in a low crouch because I couldn’t stand to my full height. Evidently, this place was made for kids. Who knew?

As I reached the center of the giant hamster wheel, a dude who sort of looked like Crocodile Dundee stepped onto the other side. He wore a stained leather vest, jeans, and a stupid fishing hat. More interesting though, was the scopeless sniper rifle slung over his back and the huge knife gleaming in one hand.

“Ahoy, Mate.” He gestured at me with the knife. “Ready to tussle?”

“Do we have to?” I asked, kind of wishing I’d brought more weapons with me. “I don’t even know who the fuck you are. I just want Chun.”

He whipped the knife in front of him in a blur of steel. “Fancy that. The boss wants her too. Must have beer flavored nipples.” He gave me a lascivious grin that turned my stomach. “Ah well.”

I fired the Glock at him. He caught the .45 caliber bullet with his knife, sending it ricocheting off into the spinning tube.

“Of fucking course,” I muttered, holstering the gun as he took another step forward and drew another knife from the sheath on his leg. “Why can’t you just get shot like a normal fucking person?”

“People always say I’m stupid for bringing a knife to gun fights.” He grinned. “They haven’t seen me with a knife.”

* * *

The bastard rushed me. His knives slashed through the air as I leapt backward, and even still, the tip of the left one scraped against my trench. I decked him. My fist collided with the side of his chin.

“Motherfuck!” I cried as agony exploded through my hand. It felt like I’d punched solid granite. He smirked, adjusted his stupid hat and head-butted me in the forehead. It felt like I’d been struck by a fucking statue.

I stumbled backward and fell onto my ass. My vision was a sea of red haze as he stepped up to me and put one boot against my crotch and nudged my boys lightly.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” He shrugged. “Don’t much matter to me.” He wiped at his nose with one sleeve. “But decide quick ‘cause this place is going to burn down any second, and I’d rather not be here when that happens.”

“What’s the easy way?” I asked, reaching out and steadying myself against the still spinning tube. Any second, I was going to topple over.

“It’s the one where I slit your throat and leave you to bleed out.” He grinned, revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth that’d probably never heard of a dentist, let alone seen one. “The hard way is where I tear your head off with my bare hands and shit down your fucking neck. You don’t want that ‘cause it’s Wednesday.” He must have seen the confusion on my face. “You’ve never heard of Taco Tuesday, have you, mate?”

He adjusted again as the tube spun us. I took advantage of his movement and rolled backward on my shoulders. As he lunged forward to try to shiv me while still off balance, I threw my feet out, catching him in the stomach. The force of the blow reverberated down my legs, but it still knocked him backward. He stumbled a few steps, which was enough time for me to regain my balance.

“Come on.” I put up my hands because I really didn’t want to fight his knife-wielding ass without a weapon of my own. “Let’s fight like gentlemen.”

“I always hate the hard way.” He shook his head. “But if you insist.” He dropped the knives, and they clanged against the floor of the tube.

“You’d better be careful. I’m harder to kill than I look.” I shadow boxed at the air in front of us, throwing some punches with my right hand in order to draw his eye to it and create an opening.

“I’ve heard that a few times.” He took a step forward but stayed out of arms’ reach. “Haven’t been impressed yet.” He smirked. “Why this one time I beat up a silver backed gorilla with a bat. Had fifty to one odds.”

“You just stole that from Preacher,” I said, taking a quick hop backward, so I was just outside the spinning tube. “Fancy yourself Jody or something?”

“You read that one too?” he asked and the smile on his face made me shudder. He took another step closer. “And yes, I quite liked that arc.”

“Yeah. I read it. Garth Ennis is a genius.” I drew the Glock and fired in one smooth motion. The bullet caught him square in the forehead and blew his brain out the back of his skull. Bits of gooey bone sprayed across the tube as he toppled to the ground. Guess he wasn’t bulletproof. “But I enjoy the Saint of Killers more.”

Glad the motherfucker hadn’t seen through my ruse, I moved past the corpse. I left the tube as his body moved up the side and toppled back into the center in a heap. It was kind of gross, and I sort of felt bad for whoever would be cleaning it up. Hopefully, they got paid well.

I turned away from it and made my way forward. The pathway was full of mirrors, but that didn’t bother me. I’d been in a literal forest of mirrors guarded by a demon biker who could smash my skull like a casaba melon. After that, mirrors weren’t particularly scary, the things that lived within them? That was a different story.

Still, none of these mirrors cast my normal reflection. Instead they showed that demon-eyed one in a way that made me start to think maybe I’d bonded with the cat demon a little too closely. Man, I really needed to visit someone who could tell me more about what was going on with that, but at the same time, I had a kid to save. Priorities.

I edged forward past the mirrors, moving slowly right up until the room began to fill with emerald smoke. I inhaled a lungful that tasted like burnt cinnamon and sandalwood, which yes, are scents I’m familiar with. My eyes began to water and burn as it swirled around me. Then what felt like a fucking chainsaw hit me in the brain. A cry of pain left my lips as white-hot claws tore at my mind, tearing into it and looking around for the tender bits inside.

My grip on the pistol faltered, and it slipped from my fingers and clattered to the ground at my feet. My body followed it a moment later. I collapsed to my knees as the mist pushed in through my nose and mouth. The presence crashed into me hard, forcing my mind backward and trying to fill me up like a glove.

I threw what meager mental defenses I had at it, envisioning myself behind a wall lined with landmines and razor wire. As soon as I conjured the image, the wall exploded inward to reveal a red-eyed shadow. Its twisted face lit up like a jack-o'-lantern as it reached out one shadowy tendril and grabbed me by the throat.

“Your body is mine,” it snarled as it drew me close. A woman with skin like milk and hair like spun gold appeared behind the creature. She tapped it lightly on the shoulder with one crimson-nailed hand.

“You are mistaken,” my inner cat demon said. She had taken her human form and her voice was rolling thunder. No, that wasn’t correct. It was the hurricane, the tidal wave, the volcanic eruption. It was the end times. It was the alien motherfuckers in Independence Day (the first one) raining down unholy Hell upon the Earth. “He is mine. Body and soul.”

The thing holding me turned toward her, and as it did, she exhaled sharply through her nose. Its body literally evaporated, which was altogether weird because he’d been made of shadow. As blackened bits of him fell around me like a slowly settling dust cloud, she kicked at it with one bare foot.

“Thanks,” I said, regarding the demoness. She’d saved me, but I was pretty sure she’d done it more to assert her dominance than because she cared for me personally. The fact that she’d claimed me like property was pretty fucking terrifying.

“You’re welcome.” The way she said it didn’t make me feel very welcome, but before I could reply, the scene in my head shattered. I found myself lying on the ground in a puddle of drool. That same shadowy creature from my mind lay on the ground beside me. Well, that wasn’t true. Bits of the shadowy creature lay beside me.

Evidently, whatever she’d done to it in my head had a real world effect. The thought made me shudder. I didn’t know who she was, but I’d seen her eat Kings and Queens of Hell. Still, she’d never done anything like this. She was getting stronger. The thought made my gut churn with dread. What would happen when she got strong enough to cast me aside?

I tried to push that thought from my mind as I got myself to my feet and collected my Glock. I popped the mag out and checked it. I only had four rounds left in the ten round magazine, and I didn’t have spares. That didn’t make me feel very good, especially since I’d faced lots of guys who seemed to be able to deflect bullets. Well, I’d just have to make my next shots count.

Shoving the magazine back into the weapon, I moved past the remains of the shadow creature and entered a room that was as white as snow from top to bottom. Sitting in the center was a single red chair. The smell of lilacs filled my nose as I took a hesitant step inside.

The chair flew at me, and I sprang backward, but before it reached me, it hit the end of its mechanized tether and snapped back into place. Was it some kind of automation?

I wasn’t sure, but as I edged my way around it toward the door on the other end, eyes opened in its backboard and watched me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up, but I didn’t shoot it because I might need the bullets. I wanted to though. A lot.

As I moved forward, I began to get antsy. The outside of the funhouse had been on fire, but inside here, it was kind of chilly. There was no sign of the fire that should have consumed the structure by now. That scared me. Well, that and the possibility something had gotten to Ricky.

I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. I exited the room and found myself standing before a large chasm filled with spikes. There was a rope dangling in front of me, presumably to help me get to the other side. I wasn’t sure if the spikes were real or not. I mean, if this was part of the funhouse, they were probably rubber or something, but for all I knew, someone had bippity-boppity-boo’ed them into real spikes.

Either way, I wasn’t taking any chances. I holstered the Glock and grabbed the rope. When it didn’t come down, I tugged on it as hard as I could. It didn’t budge.

“Well, here goes nothing,” I said aloud and my voice echoed in the narrow corridor. I leapt off the side, holding onto the rope for dear life. As I passed over the six foot chasm and my foot touched down on the other side, I braced myself for another attack. None came.

I let loose a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and pulled the Glock free. Four bullets. I’d have to make them count. Ready to shoot on the first bad guy I saw, I moved forward until I found a set of narrow stairs.

“I fucking knew it,” I groaned, shaking my head. “There’s always fucking stairs.”

* * *

When I turned the corner after climbing the stairs, I nearly caught a face full of plasma. The only thing that saved me was my spidey-sense. It went absolutely berserk. As I jerked my head back, a blue beam of death lanced through the space where my head had been. Instead of obliterating my skull, it blew out the wall behind where I’d been in an explosion of fire and sound. The entire structure listed to the side as the crack of support beams giving way filled my ears.

Sunlight streamed through the new opening in the funhouse as I dropped into a crouch and reached out with my magic, trying to feel for the source of the attack. Before I could sense anything at all, my spidey-sense started going crazy. I tried to move, but before I could, a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt burst through the wall beside me and grabbed my head.

The cheap wall gave way like wet tissue paper as it hauled me painfully through and flung me like a sack of potatoes. My back slammed into the far wall, and I crashed to the floor. My breath shot out of my lungs and my vision went hazy, but I brought my gun up, anyway.

I unloaded all four rounds into the bulky chest of the nine-foot-tall, bull-headed thing stomping toward me. The bullets pinged off his abs and ricocheted off into the darkness, which was no surprise since he was so ripped, even his abs had fucking abs.

“Niu Mo Wang is displeased with your interference, mortal,” he half-growled, half-snorted. The sunlight glinted off his huge white bull’s horns as he regarded me with glowing red eyes. “You should have left well enough alone. Now, Niu Mo Wang will be forced to deal with you personally. This is unfortunate for you.”

“Are you seriously referring to yourself in the third person?” I asked as I got to my feet. He didn’t move, evidently, unconcerned by little old me. That was fine. I loved being underestimated. It would make the look on his face when I killed him that much more enjoyable.

“Niu Mo Wang does not need to explain himself to you.” He raised his ham-sized fists and smiled. “Let’s fight like gentlemen.” He added in a startlingly good impression of my voice. Only I was pretty sure I didn’t sound that dopey.

“So you saw that?” I asked, running a hand through my sandy hair as I tried to think of a way to take this guy on. I was worried if I tried to use magic, he’d try to blast me again, and call me crazy, but I really didn’t want to get hit with his Special Beam Cannon if I could help it.

“Niu Mo Wang saw you cheat, yes.” His lip curled into a disgusted scowl that sort of reminded me of how Ricky looked when she ate something she didn’t like. Man, I wondered if she was okay. I’d sort of expected her to make an appearance by now, but then again, she’d taken a sniper round to the face thanks to this guy. Sure, I’d killed the guy who had actually shot her, but this guy was just as responsible.

“Good to know.” I raised my fists. “Bring it.”

He charged like a bull. I stepped to the side as his huge bulk passed by me, and he slammed hard into the wall. His horns pierced the cheap wood, gouging great swaths in the wall as he tore himself free. As he whirled to face me, I saw the blinking lights of fire engines outside. The entire front of the funhouse was doused in water, which was probably why the place hadn’t burned down. Still, it was a little weird because I didn’t see any firemen outside. Where had they gone? I found it hard to believe they’d just leave their truck lying around.

Niu Mo Wang didn’t give me time to figure it out because he threw a Mike Tyson style jab at my face. I ducked, thanking my lucky stars he was a lot slower than Sun Wukong had been. The blow passed by my head with enough force for the wind to ruffle my clothing, but I ignored it as I grabbed hold of his wrist and shifted while throwing my weight into the movement so I could use his bulk and momentum against him.

He was big, but he was no match for my Judo skills. He came tumbling over my shoulder and crashed into the floor. I’d intended to keep him in a wrist lock, but the floorboards beneath him buckled under his weight, and he crashed through them with a sharp crack. I released him as he fell through the hole in the floor.

His massive body slammed into the spiked floor I’d crossed with the rope earlier with an audible thwack. The spikes tore through him in a way that suggested they were very, very real. Niu Mo Wang lay there, dazed and confused as I smiled at my good fortune.

“I was never a fan of having my steak well done, but for you, I’ll make an exception,” I replied, holding my demonic hand out in front of me. “Ignis!”

A blast of Hellfire leapt from my palm and slammed into his chest. The blast blew through him, melting a hole straight through his torso and turning the concrete beneath him into slag. A banshee-like wail erupted from his lips as his jaws unhinged and spewed green smoke into the air. The form of Niu Mo Wang vanished, leaving behind the smoldering corpse of a tiny Asian kid with glasses. Fuck.

Part of me should have felt bad about killing the kid who’d been possessed by the spirit, but I was way more pissed off that Niu Mo Wang wasn’t dead. His spirit was in that smoke, and I wasn’t letting it get away. I summoned more power, ready to hurl more Hellfire, but as I called upon my magic, the smoke surged past me and hit a curtained area just behind me.

I took a hesitant step toward the curtain as the sound of ropes snapping filled the air. A bull-headed werewolf clad in hot pink Hello Kitty shorts and a white Hello Kitty tank top burst through the curtain and glared at me with smoldering eyes.

“Chun?” I asked, wishing I had some silver bullets to pop into my Glock. Still, if it was Chun, I couldn’t kill her. She might be able to heal a lot of things, but silver would kill her. That’d make Ricky sad, and I really didn’t want to do that. No, I had to think of a way to get Niu Mo Wang out of her.

“There is no Chun. There is only Niu Mo Wang,” the creature said right before hitting me like a goddamned freight train. My teeth snapped together as my body left the ground, and I flew backward through the broken wall of the funhouse.

I fell five or so feet and crashed into the soaking wet purple awning stretching from the entrance of the funhouse. My weight tore through it, but it was enough to break my fall and keep me from dying as I fell another five feet to the ground. Air exploded from my lungs as I lay there trying to orient myself to my strange new painful reality.

The bull-headed werewolf sprang at me, and I was instantly glad the place was mostly deserted. Evidently Mei had done a good job of getting rid of everyone. The werewolf’s claws dug into the dirt beside me as I rolled away, half-torn between wanting to kill Niu Mo Wang and running the fuck away from the enraged Hellbeast. I sort of leaned toward running away because werewolves weren’t exactly fun to fight without silver, and this one was all hopped up on crazy sauce. Not a winning combination. Man, where the fuck was Ricky?

Niu Mo Wang kicked me in the stomach as I tried to get to my feet. I was pretty sure it hadn’t broken anything, but that was only because its foot hadn’t hit my chest. If it had, I’d be in the market for new ribs. As it stood, saliva burst from my lips as I flew through the air.

My back slammed into the red wall of the fire truck, and I collapsed to the ground. I could taste blood in my mouth. That was never good. Still, I was Mac Brennan, and it was time to teach Niu Mo Wang a fucking lesson.

Niu Mo Wang stomped toward me, a cruel smile on its bull-face. As it bent to pick me up, Mei leapt out of the running, screaming crowd and tackled the bull to the ground. The two werewolves struggled for a moment until Niu Mo Wang grabbed Mei by the throat and flung her at me. I dropped back to the ground as the werewolf hit the firetruck with enough force for the vehicle to rock on its side.

As she collapsed to the ground beside me, I grabbed the fire hose and turned toward the motherfucker, intent on blasting the Demon Bull King with a stream of water. Only, I had no idea how to turn the damned thing on. I’d thought there’d be a switch or something.

Niu Mo Wang grabbed me around the throat and hauled me into the air like I weighed less than a supermodel after a purge.

“Niu Mo Wang dislikes you a lot.” The creature’s breath had a fetid mix of hay and raw meat, which I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know was a smell.

“It’s mutual,” I replied, grabbing the Demon Bull King’s wrist. “Sorbeo!”

Power exploded through me, filling me to the brim in a second. Unfortunately, Niu Mo Wang didn’t seem to care. Actually that wasn’t true. The brute hauled me against his stolen werewolf body and held me there, pinning my arm between our chests.

“Take all you like, mortal. Niu Mo Wang has plenty to share.” The bull’s teeth widened into a grin. They seemed way too sharp for bull’s teeth, but then again, he was part werewolf right now. It sort of made me wish I hadn’t been so quick to fry his last body. He’d been a lot easier to deal with when he didn’t have massive claws and teeth.

“Get your hands off my boyfriend!” Ricky said, moments before she drop-kicked Niu Mo Wang in the side of the head. The bull-headed werewolf lost his grip on me and careened sideways like a broken mannequin.

Ricky caught me before I could collapse, shot me a wry grin, and moved to stand between me and the slowly rising Niu Mo Wang. “Stay behind me, Satan,” she said, and her words nearly made me laugh. Only it hurt too much to do that.

Stolen power still thrummed through my veins, and as Ricky and Niu Mo Wang leapt into the air like ninjas intent on gutting each other in midair, I unleashed all my stolen energy in the form of Hellfire. The fireball slammed into Niu Mo Wang’s shoulder, blowing off his left arm and setting him into a spin. Ricky took advantage by grabbing the bull by his horns with both hands.

She flung Niu Mo Wang straight at me, setting me up for a knockout punch. As the bull-headed monster came at me, I knew I’d have only one shot. I drew in power, causing my tattoos to flare like the cursed daystar. Then I drove my fist straight into his oncoming face. I wasn’t trying to kill him because that’d kill Chun, and while I wasn’t worried about her being able to heal a missing arm, I was pretty sure she needed a head to, well, live.

My flaming fist caught Niu Mo Wang right under the chin, snapping his head backward so violently, I knew I’d broken Chun’s spine. Thankfully, she was a werewolf. She’d heal just fine.

The blow flung her body backward into the grass, and as she impacted the dirt, her mouth opened wide. Green mist began to spew from her face hole, and as it did, I reached out toward the forges of Hell themselves.

“Ignis!” I unleashed everything I had, more than that because my vision went double and blackness encroached from everywhere. Fire spewed from my hand like a flamethrower, catching the smoke center mass. The stuff went up in an arc flash of heat and fire that gave me a wicked sunburn.

I stumbled onto my ass, everything sort of fading into the distance around me. Still, I was pretty sure Niu Mo Wang was dead. I’d felt him die, felt his power burst outward in a shockwave causing the cat in my head to grin in a way that made my gut churn.

“Mac, are you okay?” Ricky asked, moving toward me. Behind her, I could see Mei hoisting Chun to her feet. Her back was already healed. Sigh. I really needed to carry silver.

“I’m fine,” I said, getting to my feet. It was way harder than it should have been. The place was deserted, but judging by the sirens in the distance, I was betting that just meant they’d gone for backup. Either way, we needed to get out of here.

“Good.” Relief flashed across her face as she threw one of my arms over her shoulder and supported me. I wanted to tell her I was fine and could walk on my own, but I couldn’t. At least, not without eating something. I had burned up way too much energy.

“So, how about that pie?” I asked, trying my best to smile at her.

“Pie?” she asked as a mischievous grin spread across her lips. “Wouldn’t you rather just go back to the hotel room I got?”

* * *

Continue the Thrice Cursed Mage in Cursed.

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New York Times Bestselling author, J.A. Cipriano is not the Batman, but if he was, he'd totally lay down sick flows and fight crime. He is the author of the Lillim Callina Chronicles and the bestselling Thrice Cursed Mage Urban Fantasy Series.

When he isn't out not fighting crime, he is spending time with his wife, three-year-old son, and his cat named Turtle. Oh, and writing. He does that occasionally too.

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The Black Door - Domino Finn

A Black Magic Outlaw Short Story

Cisco Suarez is dragged to the depths of the underground Miami nightlife, where seekers of arcane knowledge may just get their wish.

* * *

I'm a jeans-and-T-shirt kinda guy, but tonight I wore a slick button-down number I got special. Slim cut. White stitching along the shoulders and sleeves. Real sharp. Brand new jeans too. No holes or rips, honest.

I drew a line at the red alligator cowboy boots. Those were staying on my feet, dress shirt or no. You could say we'd been through a lot together.

The reason for all the fuss? Well, I could go into how my other clothes had blood on them, but that would be dramatic. Let's just blame it on date night. That sounds much more normal. Much less dangerous.

Although I was dressed to the nines, the girl at my side wore a plainer ensemble. Tight pants and heels, sure, but a hoodie too. Girls can get away with stuff like that. Rachel was a striking figure that drew gawkers anyway. Thin, pale, with a walk that meant business. The bright pink hair flaring from her hood drew the eye, but her stylish sunglasses hiding half her face demanded privacy.

We were off to a late start, but that's how it's done in Miami. Going out at midnight. Despite the hour, the alley blacktop radiated warmth. Humidity hung thick in the air. The Magic City, all right. From a distance, the downtown skyline is as stark and colorful as a Lite-Brite. Up close and personal you get the same grit as every other city, even if the rain washes it away more often.

The short line in the alley cleared, and we stepped up to the bouncer. A hefty man. More padding than muscle, but sturdy enough to take a punch. He stood in our way like his authority overruled Saint Peter's.

"Cisco Suarez," I said. "I'm on the list."

He frowned judgmentally and didn't bother cross-checking anything. Maybe there was no list. This wasn't my element and he knew it. Hot date, swanky clothes—ten years ago I wouldn't have recognized myself. I was never a club kid. Hell, I'm not a kid at all anymore. So I felt a little ridiculous under the glare of the twenty-something dance-club crowd.

Then again, this wasn't a normal date. And this certainly wasn't a normal dance club.

"Talent?" prodded the bouncer with a bored expression.

I grinned. I wasn't good at dates or dancing, but I was good at this.

I tugged the black twine around my neck and withdrew the silver whistle. I blew. It didn't make a sound. Not an audible one, at least. It was a dog whistle, but I don't think even the dogs heard it. I let the whistle hang loose instead of fiddling with my collar.

The bouncer glanced at my date and then back at me. I smiled calmly as a pigeon fluttered from the sky and landed on my forearm.

He arched an eyebrow. "What's this?"

"Look closely."

He grumbled and studied the pigeon. It was rank. Feathers matted with dried bodily fluids. Cracked upper beak. Its eyes had been eaten out by bugs. The bird was deader than dead. Yet there it sat, perched on my arm, awaiting my command.

"Voodoo," muttered the bouncer, unimpressed. A common trick in Miami. He switched his arch to the other eyebrow. "Is that it?"

"It's enough," I answered, sending the bird to the sky. "Trust me."

He shrugged. It wasn't worth bothering with. He turned to my date robotically. "And you?"

Rachel posed next to me, standing sideways, hands on hips, head tilted. Her black-lipstick smirk said all she was going to, as if that was enough.

"She's with me," I offered.

"Talent?" came the gruff request.

"Don't I get a plus one?"

"This ain't no wedding."

I snorted. An underground magic club that didn't allow dates. Maybe they were serious after all. Maybe that meant I didn't have to dance. Lucky me.

The bouncer waited. The line behind us shuffled impatiently.

The dead pigeon was nothing. Now for the real trick. Misdirection.

My date lifted her arm and spread her fingers. She turned her wrist so the streetlight hit the back of her hand. In her shadowed palm, a tendril of darkness snaked and swirled.

The bouncer lifted his eyebrows again, not out of contempt or skepticism or any of a number of passive-aggressive expressions people use to display superiority. This time the romanticized security guard was curious. Confused even.

He was so confused he didn't realize it was my magic he was clocking like a hawk. Rachel didn't have any of her own, but I wasn't a one-trick pony so I lent her some of mine.

The magical slither of shadow wiggled in her palm like a sixth finger. Then it stretched and reached out for the bouncer.

"That's enough," he said, backing away from the ghostly appendage. He unhooked the velvet rope and gave us a wide berth as we went inside.

* * *

"Stop," pleaded Rachel. "Stop. I don't like this anymore."

The blindfold pressed tight against her temples. It hurt. A kind of indirect pain. Not through force but loss of circulation. A strangling claustrophobia. The final realization of a rat caught in a trap.

"Please," she said. "This isn't funny." The haze of the drugs left her voice hollow, but she begged anyway. "I want this to stop."

* * *

Music was the first thing that greeted us. Soft and distant. Then mustiness. The smell of alcohol forever married to the carpet. A corridor led to a cramped entry hall. Nothing too fancy. A few couches. Two bathroom lines. Another bouncer kept watch on the sparse club goers, but they were too exhausted or too out of it to cause trouble.

Rachel and I pressed deeper through double doors until the muffled electronica and square footage exploded into a blaring dance hall. We stood on a raised platform of lounge seating that skirted the room. Wet bars flanked both walls. A few steps below, a mass of people rocked to the DJ's beats on the unfinished cement floor.

I wasn't good at these places. Where to start?

Rachel didn't delay. She marched straight into the chaos without thinking, shoving through. I eyed the crowd full of rambunctious energy, as eclectic as you'd imagine. And definitely dancing.

"Great," I muttered and went in after her.

Every trade has real players and wannabes. Those that got it and those that don't. Spellcraft is no different. It's a vocation that seventy-five percent of the civilized world no longer believes in. Even among the believers, only a small fraction has any ability at all. That makes it a narcissistic pursuit. People slide a penny across a table with magic and suddenly think they're special. Walking god complexes. At the very least, they think they've got it figured out. The truth is they're often more lost and disenfranchised than everybody else.

Navigating the throng only confirmed my suspicions. It couldn't be denied these were real animists, tappers of the spirits, channelers of the patrons. This was an exclusive playground after all. They'd each shown a talent to gain entry. But these partiers were more infatuated with the idea of slinging spells than doing anything tangible with their spellcraft. The crowd reeked of overcompensation. You could tell by the way they wore their power on their sleeves.

Lots of black clothes and gemstones. Jewelry with stars and moons. Hot topic witches. Tribal ink for the shamans. Finger bones. Taxidermy frogs. No joke, I even saw a few wands. Granted, this is coming from a guy who wears a giant skull-and-pentacle belt buckle, but it looked like a Halloween party in here.

And maybe that's all this was. A party. A safe place for fledgling animists to gather, away from the prying eyes of the oblivious majority. Simple unadulterated fun. I couldn't find fault with that, even if I had no idea what fun was anymore.

Rachel and I weaved through the theatrics and made for the far side of the club. Some dude did an about-face when she squeezed by him.

"Hold up there," he said, grabbing her hand. He held her delicate fingers, black-painted polish, and checked her out with a confident smile. "You look like you're itching to dance."

I rolled my eyes as I approached.

She yanked back her arm coldly. Not a word, though. She just watched him through sunglasses with a smirk.

"Aw, don't be like that," said the guy.

He was Salvadoran, probably. Tanned skin, black fauxhawk, a gold watch and a heavy chain. He sidled closer to Rachel.

"At least let me buy you a drink."

She was consistent. Instead of saying anything, she turned around and started away. To me, that was answer enough. Our friend didn't think so. He spun her around by the shoulder.

"Hey. Don't do me like that, bitch."

No smirk now. Rachel considered him passively, without emotion.

With typical Cisco Suarez timing, I slid between Romeo and Juliet. "Relax, buddy. She's with me."

Firm but not aggressive. I was getting ready to chalk it up as another crisis averted when the dude-bro opened his mouth.

"She's still a bitch," he said.

What did I tell you about overcompensating?

The Salvadoran was my size, a bit over six feet and well muscled. A jean jacket with cut-off arms showed his tribal tattoos to anyone half paying attention. There were too many swirling stage lights overhead for a proper inspection, but I figured his ink for enchanted. Nothing to be concerned about.

The bigger issue was that my success tonight hinged on being incognito. I didn't wanna tear ass on the first chump who talked tough. I couldn't exactly back down either. Just in case someone important was watching, I had to let them know I was the real thing.

"You've made your point," I told him, fire in my voice. "No reason to keep making it."

The wannabe shaman considered me. Like I said, I didn't look like an easy target, but he didn't look like someone who made wise life choices. He flexed.

"What about you?" he challenged. "You got a problem?"

"Not a big one," I answered.

He flashed open his jacket. Strapped to his chest was a two-inch throwing knife. The Salvadoran showed a set of crooked teeth. Gold there too, engraved with the words "Step Back." Might as well have said "Douche Bag."

Rachel stood behind me, watching intently. I could feel the tension in her, ready to spring at a moment's notice. Me? I released a long sigh and put on like I was in my fifth hour of a calculus lecture.

The Salvadoran's gaze strayed to either side of us. Looking for his friends. That was his second mistake. It showed weakness. He was probably affiliated with a small-time street crew. Used to having backup. Thugs like him were a dime a dozen. The problem was there were a dozen of them. Scared most people shitless. But he was isolated now. None of his buddies stepped up to intimidate me.

What's that? Oh, the first mistake he made? Forgot to mention that. His first mistake was stepping up to me to begin with.

Before you see someone fight, it's hard to know what they're capable of. A place like this especially. But this guy was counting on that. All bark and no bite. He was used to his prison swagger being enough of a deterrent to back people down. Not enough for me, though. Cisco Suarez was the unflappable model of serenity.

"Okay, bro," he said. "I get it. She don't wanna dance, but you do."

The gangbanger lifted his hand between us. At first I thought he was going for the knife. If he had, I would've shut him down before he got that far. Instead, he held up an open palm, fingers curled. What did I tell you? No balls.

With a sizzle of spellcraft, the knife appeared in his grip. The tip of the short blade rested against my stomach.

Eat your words, Cisco. Had to give it to him. It was a curious trick. Only thing to do was double down on my initial read.

"Watch it," I warned. "That's a new shirt."

His eyes flared. I wasn't supposed to keep talking. I was supposed to shut that smart mouth and scurry away like a dog who'd been smacked on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Once again the Salvadoran had advanced an arms race he didn't want to win.

He watched me with hard eyes, grinding his teeth, wondering who the fuck I was. I let him wonder. At this point, he was his own worst enemy. Anything he imagined was worse than what I'd actually do to the chump, so I let him grind on the possibilities for a while.

Eventually, it was time to put this little charade to an end. I set my jaw. "Either stab me or walk away. It's your move."

Talk about tough, right? This could've been the story of how Cisco Suarez got stabbed on a fake date in a fake club. Instead the gangbanger lost his nerve. He hissed and disappeared into the crowd.

I glanced over to Rachel. "You really can pick them, can't you?"

She didn't say anything. Then again, she wouldn't.

"Okay," I sighed. "Lead the way."

* * *

The men forced Rachel to the floor. She couldn't see anything. Maybe this was all a bad dream, but she knew better.

"Please, Derek. Why are you doing this?"

Rachel curled her body into a fetal position as groping hands knotted her wrists and ankles with rope. Her arms were pulled at opposite sides, straight away from her body. On her back, she whimpered as they spread her legs apart. She was utterly helpless.

A sudden tug ripped her blouse away. Her back was cold against the raw concrete. Tears filled her eyes as she heard the others. Their reverent murmurs. Their breath on her skin.

* * *

I trailed Rachel off the crowded dance floor, past the bar, and out to the back patio. She was single-minded now. As was I.

I know a thing or two about revenge. That served-cold bullshit is just a rationalization for people who watch the years pass without getting theirs. I'd lost years myself. Wished I could get them back. But I, at least, knew how to handle payback. Not Rachel. She was out of time.

The outside patio was concrete, broken up by strips of manicured grass and potted palm trees. A few Tiki torches lined the outer path, but most of the light came from crisscrossing cables strung overhead. The orange light of Edison bulbs warmed the amply cushioned wicker furniture beneath. A wooden fence connected the adjacent buildings to enclose the property. Nestled in the corner, another DJ spun chill-out beats. Beside him was a small outdoor bar with a single bartender. That was where Rachel hiked.

She positioned herself at the end of the bar. Out of the way. Unassuming. She leaned her back against the bar top, elbows resting, and turned her head to me so she faced the main yard. I squeezed between a small gathering at the front and considered her.

Beneath the raised hood, behind the large sunglasses, was a face I didn't want to think about. Pretty. The shades didn't suit her. Made her look standoffish. Then again, that's exactly what we needed right now.

The bartender slid me a menu, a yellowed paper clipped to leather backing. The small bar didn't have beer or other alcoholic staples. It was an experimental craft cocktail bar. Maple mojitos. Drinks with genever and muddled guava. Stuff like that.

I was more interested in the bartender though. White guy with a five-inch orange goatee, a few beads knotting its length. He had tattoos too. Color strips running up both arms. I didn't think I needed to worry since they were Simpsons characters, but you never know.

"What'll you have?" he asked.

I slid the leather toward him. "What I want isn't on the menu."

He quirked his lips. "That right?"

I nodded at the side of the building behind him. Behind Rachel. A reinforced steel door was set in an alcove behind a row of potted plants. Black lacquered. Nearly invisible from the main floor. For anyone that did see it, it was just another sealed-off vestige of Downtown Miami history.

"I want past the black door," I said.

The black door. It's a heavy-handed metaphor for the unknown, what some call the hidden world of spellcraft. A menacing barrier, locked to most, keeping prying eyes from the business of the magically inclined. Most of the world lives outside the black door, safe from its confines. Safe from the truth. Those that venture past it are forever changed.

I was done changing, but I needed the truths behind this particular door.

The bartender was smooth. He didn't even look. "That door's locked," he said. "It's not part of the club. A different property." He picked up a rag and casually wiped the bar top.

"I'm looking for Derek," I said plainly.

That got the reaction I was looking for. A pause. Cold consideration. With a single name, I was no longer a nosy drunk. I was a situation. An interloper.

A loose end.

A bird flapped overhead, landing hard on the string of lights above. The sway of the cable made the orange glow play across our faces with menacing implications.

The bartender narrowed his eyes. "Who?"

The bird croaked. I slanted my eyes upward. A warning.

Normally I'd close my eyes and see what my thrall saw, but it no longer had eyes. I turned to the main floor and peeked through the gathering at the bar. The Salvadoran was back, barging through the patio with a sneer, four of his gangbanger buddies in tow. He scoured over the crowd, looking for me.

"Hey, buddy," repeated the bartender. "How do you know Derek?"

I wrapped the blindfold around my fist. Red, but no longer bright. Silk, but no longer smooth. As I squeezed it, dried blood flaked away. The memory of its fetid dampness around my skin made me shudder.

I held the cloth up to the bartender. "I have something Derek wants."

Sometimes blindfolds are just blindfolds. Not always, though. Animists wear blindfolds when they seek a special kind of sight, a special kind of knowledge. That's what I had done. But this was Rachel's blindfold. I wasn't sure if that meant anything. I didn't know its purpose before I'd reclaimed it.

Admittedly, I have a tendency to overthink things. Sometimes blindfolds are just plain, old-fashioned blindfolds.

The bartender's eyes fell on the silk and stuck there. He knew exactly what this had been used for. I wanted to pummel him. Demand answers. But unless he was Derek, I had to play along for a while.

He laughed and said, "I don't know what that is." Insincere. Didn't project nearly as much confidence as he'd hoped.

"It's not just the blindfold. I have a girl, too." Again I nodded toward the black door. The bartender's eyes fell on Rachel waiting beside it, her head tilted back and to the side, clocking us. The black lipstick framed a bold smile against her pale skin. She was ready, said her expression. She was game.

"Who is she?" he asked.

"She's no one," I answered with a devilish smile. "No one's better than someone."

The bartender chewed his lip before nodding slowly. "Okay," he said. "You want to play in the Underground? That's on you. But if Derek doesn't like you, you'll never see sunlight again."

I took a cue from Rachel and smirked. This guy was real cute. If only he knew I lived in the shadow. "Everyone likes me," I said.

He shrugged. "I warned you, man."

The bartender walked around the bar and banged against the metal. Two slow raps and two fast ones. Rachel and I hunched close. There was a faint design on the door. Two red spots painted over the black lacquer. Two widened ovals, like eyes filled with the wonder of another world.

"Hey!" yelled a voice behind us. The Salvadoran spun me around by the shoulder. His knife was in his hand again. "What was that you said about making my move?"

He sucked his gold teeth threateningly. His crew surrounded us against the building. They were hastily armed with bottles and brass knuckles.

I clenched my fist, feeling the spiked dog collar tingle on my wrist as I tapped my spellcraft. A mass of blackness bit at my hand like flames.

Behind me, the black door squeaked open. The gangbangers all tensed in surprise, five heads swiveling in unison at the sound. They murmured and shuffled nervously. The Salvadoran in my face quivered, another surge of adrenaline blasting through his body. He must have been pissing himself again over what he'd gotten into. Backup included, they all shied away as a unit from the open black door.

"So that's why they call you Step Back," I mocked. His lips twitched closed to cover the gold-toothed inscription, but he didn't remove his eyes from the black door. "Aren't you guys supposed to be at the little kid's table?" I was feeling pretty good about beating the Salvadoran at his swagger game until I felt the presence at my back and flinched.

Another bouncer. Another doorman. Except this door's very presence spooked hardened thugs. This giant was a whole foot taller than me. Had the height of a basketball player but a heavier frame. It was a safe bet this guy couldn't jump for much, but anybody with two eyes saw he was a fighter.

"Trouble?" he asked in a light, scratchy voice.

The Salvadoran opened his mouth nervously. He spun around to see his buddies had left him. Instead of mustering the courage to speak, he sprinted back indoors.

Smart move. I got the feeling I should do the same.

"This guy wants to see Derek," reported the bartender. "Says he has a girl."

I nodded boldly, going for unfazed.

The giant motioned his arm to the open doorway. Chipped stairs descended into darkness. Rachel impatiently entered and I followed.

"Watch out," added the bartender with a snort. "I don't trust them."

I flashed the bartender a scowl but the giant stepped between us. He ducked through the doorway and pulled the black door shut with a bang, cutting off the source of light. Three locks clicked and the bouncer said, "Welcome to the Underground."

* * *

Rachel pulled against her bindings. "Derek, I'm scared."

She was sure what would happen next. She almost didn't care anymore. Not about herself, anyway.

"Where's Tilly?" she asked.

Paintbrushes tickled her bare stomach. The sweeping lines felt cool and hot at the same time. Her skin tingled as a chorus of voices built around her. An incantation of some sort, like a ceremony.

"What's happening?"

A warm, salty liquid splashed her face. She jerked her head side to side as it kept coming. Shut her mouth as the fluid swirled around her lips. Into her nostrils. It soaked into the blindfold. It saturated her being. As the liquid cascaded over her, she dared not scream for fear of drowning. But it was hard not to.

The smell of it. The taste of it. It was blood.

* * *

We stopped at the foot of the stairs. Murmurs and candlelight snaked around the narrow hallway. The giant had to duck as he lurched around us. It reminded me of a bad Igor impression. But this wasn't some sniveling assistant. Unlike the doorman on the street, this one had the stink of magic on him. A foot too tall. A sight too ugly. I made him for a low-level fiend masquerading as human. A hasty disguise meant only to fool the uninitiated.

"You weren't stupid enough to bring weapons, were you?" he rasped.

He patted us down, only coming up with my small bronze knife. He didn't look happy about it. I shrugged and said, "It's ceremonial."

He frowned and folded it into his large grip. "You'll get it back." Then he nodded us forward.

We didn't linger. Rachel and I pushed ahead, eager to find some space to move in the basement.

We weren't disappointed. The sub-floor wasn't gigantic but it spanned the entire building, with only scattered support columns getting in the way. The ceiling opened up so the giant could stand at full height. A throng of onlookers filled the generous space. Some meekly watched from the back, unsure if they should be here but too frightened to back out.

One thing was certain. No one cared about me or Rachel. All eyes were on the center of the room. A huddled mass of robed figures in hoods stood against the light of numerous open flames.

The doorman directed us around the outskirts. The shadow was thicker here, and I took the opportunity to let the black seep into my eyes. A bit of passive spellcraft. My green irises darkened and I could see my surroundings plainer than a cat.

Upside-down pentagrams and anarchy symbols scratched into the walls. Statues of goats and well-endowed nude women with horns and hooked tails. This place looked more like a rebellious teenager's idea of black magic than the real thing. I shit you not, I passed a group of teenagers wearing plastic vampire teeth.

This was the type of thing that gave my vocation a bad reputation.

Well, not the only thing. You see, despite all the poser accoutrements, this wasn't a mere movie set. The Intrinsic energies that are the foundation of all magic buzzed in the air. Something was happening here. Something bad. And it had nothing to do with the wannabes on the fringes of the circle.

A booth of faux black leather was cradled in the corner. I thought the giant was leading us there, but instead he cut into the throng. Into the ceremony. The kids shied away from his presence, unexplained instincts reliably warning them of danger. Those in the inner circle, the ones wearing robes, had no such qualms. They remained focused on the ceremony. The giant led us to a spot behind them.

"Wait here," he said, not a request.

The hooded figures parted for him and he entered the center. For the first time, I had an unobstructed view of the main attraction.

A ritual. This was real, honest-to-goodness spellcraft. And this spellcraft required real, honest-to-goodness girls tied to the floor.

The scene was shocking.

A pentagram was smeared onto the concrete floor in blood. One girl lay on her back, lengths of rope tied to each limb. Her body was forcibly extended as if she were being quartered, with two hooded figures holding each rope. The girl could've been a carbon copy of Rachel, too. Skinny, perfect teeth, still-blonde hair. She was frightened and sweaty, wearing a red silk blindfold.

A noose was fitted around her neck. The other end of the rope culminated in a second noose and a second girl, with only two feet of length between them. This one had a short punky haircut, dyed blood-red. Black eyeliner but red lipstick. Red lines on her cheeks. A plaid skirt, black fishnets, no shoes. A club kid all the way. Her eyes were wild. A baby giraffe surrounded by lions. She hovered over the other girl protectively. Uselessly.

These girls were drugged or disoriented or something. Same as Rachel had been. Neither wore a shirt. Two robed men dipped paintbrushes in pitchers of blood and scrawled markings on their pale flesh. Around their bras, on their stomachs and necks. It was reverent, sensual, and twisted.

My stomach turned at the sight of it. So much for poser magic.

* * *

The haze began to lift. Rachel was conscious of her surroundings once more. Unsure of how much time had passed. It was quiet now, but she could hear breathing in the darkness. She wanted to scream but her body was too sluggish to respond.

"Don't be afraid," said a woman's voice. Soft. Gentle.

Rachel was confused. So confused. "I'm tied up. I can't see anything." She squirmed in her bindings. The harsh rope scratched her skin. "I can't—"

"Let me help you," said the voice, light without whispering. "You need to relax. You need to trust me."

Rachel only saw darkness. The blindfold. It was sodden with blood that dribbled into her mouth and nose. Seeped into her eyes. Her dizziness and confusion gave way to a warm numbness. Happy almost.

Until something dark and foreboding intruded on her senses.

* * *

I forced down my rage to get a handle on the ritual. To see if I could help these girls.

The blonde was on her back, aligned with the pentagram, but not with the five points proper. She was upside down. Her legs were pulled to correspond with the arms of the star, tight pants straining in the painful pose. Her arms, instead of being spread at right angles from her body, stretched up and over her head to match the star's legs.

The upside-down symbolism was amateurish. New age devil worship stuff. Supporting that theory was the severed goat head at the top of the star. That explained the blood. Two beer pitchers were full and warm with the animal's life essence.

Towering over the animal head was a freestanding mirror framed in fancy black oak. It stood at the head of the ceremony, reflecting its arcane horrors. This was why the girl was upside down on the pentagram. She was a subjugant to what was in the mirror. An offering or vessel of some sort.

This was something I hadn't seen before. The trappings may have been new age, but they weren't without power.

The giant strolled to the center of the ritual without an ounce of reverence. He leaned into the three huddled figures over the girls and whispered. After a beat, their hoods turned to me in unison.

The man holding the noose spoke. "You don't belong here."

The murmuring of the crowd went deathly quiet. The implication of violence hung in the air. Nobody wanted to move lest that wrath take notice of them.

"I belong here more than anyone," I said.

Anger tinged the man's voice but he spoke evenly. "I could have you killed."

"You could try."

More silence. Deeper somehow. The man caressed the bound girl's hair and stood, releasing the noose. The slack allowed the girl in the skirt to rise to her knees. She blinked her eyes, coming out of a daze. The girl on the ground swiveled her head between me and her friend, frightened behind the blindfold. The doorman watched with apathy.

I considered taking them all out right then and there. I was inside. I'd found two new victims. But I also needed to know what was going down here. Who was responsible. I needed a name.

"You Derek?" I asked the standing figure.

He exchanged a glance with the others and lowered his hood. Wavy black hair. Black eyeliner and lipstick. Sideburns ending in double points like forked tongues. He was the one.

"Why are you looking for Derek?" he asked.

I scoffed. I was done with games. I tossed the balled-up blindfold at him. He caught it and unwrapped it slowly. Carefully.

"Where'd you find this?"

"Does it matter?" I shot back. "I wanna play too."

Another figure snorted. "He's not a disciple of Ageroth."

Oh, brother. Sounded like someone's bad D&D campaign. An elder god of Lovecraftian proportion, no doubt. Giant eyeball, face tentacles. You know, the usual. But it jived with the goat offering under the mirror. A sacrament of life to a long-dead god.

I clenched my jaw. All I wanted was the Dungeon Master. Then the whole act was over. I cleared my throat and looked to the man as a teacher. "We're all blind before we open our eyes."

He smiled as his ego soaked up the compliment. Hungry for more, maybe. He took a step toward me.

"I found this on him," warned the giant, holding up my knife.

He shrugged. "A voodooist, then." His head cocked in interest. "What other gifts have you brought Ageroth?"

I stepped aside to reveal Rachel, pink hair splayed out behind designer sunglasses. She remained stolid. No smirk this time.

He ran his eyes over her body. "Your friend?"

"Barely know her."

The others considered my date. After approving nods, the man motioned to the doorman. The giant stomped over to us and casually planted his fist into Rachel's stomach. She doubled over to her hands and knees. The sunglasses clattered to the floor.

"Do what you want," I said calmly. Without emotion. I put the heel of my alligator boot on Rachel's back and shoved her thin frame to the floor. "I'm done with her. She's yours now."

With a pained grunt, Rachel reached for her shades and slipped them back on.

"She has spirit," one of the men said with a chuckle.

"We can use that," agreed another.

The man with the sideburns studied us. If he was in control here, he was no doubt an animist who knew a trick or two.

My confidence, my age—no doubt he'd pegged me for something too. But I knew he wouldn't heed his internal alarms. Call it a fault of the profession. Makes you cocky. Me too, guilty as charged. With the power of spirits at your fingertips, it was hard not to be.

But cocky was different from evil and greedy. This pursuit, this testing of magical boundaries, it requires restraint. Discipline. Respect. Without them, you get lawless underground clubs that tie helpless girls to the floor.

"Derek," came the wandering, confused voice of the victim. She was totally out of it. "Please, Derek," she pleaded.

"Shut her up," he barked.

"Shh," whispered the redhead in the skirt. "You'll make them angry."

I fought away my distaste. Wondered if I was taking this too far. Did it really matter which one of these scumbags was Derek? Everyone here was culpable, but those taking part with paintbrush or rope were the ringleaders. I very much questioned the value of their lives.

The giant pulled Rachel's hood away. He dragged her to her knees by her disheveled pink hair. An avant-garde style, long but trimmed wildly in some sections. Hastily.

"You don't mind if we hold onto her from now on," said Sideburns. "Do you?"

I shook my head firmly. I didn't mind one bit. This would all be over soon enough.

"You wish to serve Ageroth?" he asked.

I kept a straight face. "I do."

"Then to your knees."

I kneeled. As the man approached, I rested my hand on the dark floor, hiding my smile.

"Ageroth demands blood payment," he preached. He dunked his fingers in a pitcher of blood and stood before me.

My hand sunk into the depths of the shadow, pushing through solid concrete like water. When I pulled it back, I came away gripping my sawed-off shotgun. A surprise in a shadow box. In a smooth motion, I stood and rested the barrel against his chest.

"Let's cut the shit, Derek."

His eyes widened. Spellcraft or not, I doubted any of these noobs had ever had a gun pulled on them before. The hooded figures flinched to their feet. The girl in the skirt too. The ropes forcing the other girl down slackened and she tried to sit up.

"No!" screamed her friend. The girl with dyed hair pushed her back down, hugging her to the floor with her body.

That threw me off. It didn't fit with everything else I'd seen. With the narrative I'd built in my head.

Looking back, it all seems so obvious now, but in that fraction of a second I hesitated.

The giant's left arm hooked around my chest from behind. I tried to tug away, but he was strong. At the same time, the man with the sideburns wrestled for control of my shotgun.

I didn't hesitate again. An explosion of birdshot ripped into him. He fell backward in shock.

The giant knocked the gun away. I let it go. It didn't matter because it only carried a single load. Instead I focused on escaping the fiend's grip. My struggle was short-lived. He brandished my bronze knife at my neck.

"Don't move," he ordered, "and you may live a little longer."

I ground my teeth in wordless acceptance. Normally I could phase into the shadow, become one with the nothingness, untouchable to both bullets and blade. But this giant had a grip on me now. I wouldn't be able to shake him. At best I could take him for a ride, but how far would we get before my own knife found its way into my neck?

The panicked gasps in the throng transitioned to silent shock. The single robed figure who had lowered his hood, the man with the wavy hair, contorted on the floor as blood dribbled from his mouth. His leaned on his elbows, trying to rise. He looked at me with confusion, then fear, and pulled open his robe and shirt. A hole the size of a quarter was inches from his heart. Each breath, each beat, gushed another deluge of blood.

One of the hooded figures scrambled to place a half-full pitcher under the wound. Capitalizing on the suffering of his dying friend. The wounded man watched him in disgust before collapsing backward.

"Hold her down!" directed the girl in the skirt. She snapped her fingers at the men with ropes. They drew them taut again. Once the blonde was secured, the redhead unhooked the noose from her neck and scowled at me.

"Derek," I growled, shaking with rage.

Dumb move, Cisco. Cocky move. What did I tell you about the fatal flaw of our profession?

* * *

"It hurts," said Rachel.

"What hurts?" said the woman's voice. Soothing.

"The... the darkness."

Rachel knew it didn't make sense, but that was the best way to describe it. Darkness. A presence blacker than black. Hungry. Lusting.

Rachel fought against it, no longer focusing on her physical body. That part was weak. Overpowered. That part was defeated. Her struggle was now for her mind. Her sanity. Rachel pushed the searing pain away.

"Listen to me," said the woman's voice. "You need to open your eyes. Tell me what's out there so I can help you."

"I don't want to." Rachel wanted to please the woman. She wanted them to help each other. But it was against her every instinct to give in to the darkness.

"Open your eyes, Rachel," said the voice. "I need to know what you see."

"I..." she started. The saturated blindfold dripped a bloody tear. "I..."

Like a dam collapsing, searing brilliance flooded into her consciousness. Black burned white. Cold gushed hot.

It hurt. It hurt so much I had to cut away.

* * *

Derek stood. It was immediately apparent she was the one in charge. The blood markings on her skin, the double noose—she was binding herself to her victim, using these girls for something arcane.

It had been her damned soothing voice that had tricked me. I had thought it a friend's voice, a fellow victim's, but the whole time it had just been a shine job.

Studying Derek more closely, she was older than the girl on the floor. An emo look ten years too late and ten years too old. They hadn't been friends at all. Acquaintances maybe. An act to lure the gullible. To take advantage of younger girls like Rachel and the blonde. Peer pressure gone bad.

"I don't know what you really want," said Derek, squaring her shoulders to me, "but I can tell you're curious. You want to witness Ageroth's power."

I raised my voice to command the room's attention. "This is ending now. I'm putting a stop to it."

She grinned, amused with my pronouncement. "I understand your defiance." She faced her acolytes. "It's natural for us to be wary of miracles. To turn away the very assistance we crave." She approached and patted my cheek. "In that sense, witnessing this is receiving my blessing."

The girl on the floor moaned and squirmed. She grew increasingly lethargic. "Please, Derek," she begged. "Please let us go."

Us. The confirmation of a fact I already knew. There were more girls. More rituals. Beyond Rachel. It was obvious, really. This wasn't a huge crowd, but there were enough people here that word had gotten out. Enough infrastructure to support the secret club. The Underground.

Derek returned her attention to the girl on the floor. "Quiet now," she soothed. That kindness in her voice returned. She strolled past the man with the sideburns, dead now. She lifted the pitcher of fresh blood and sat beside the girl again.

"It's about insight," explained Derek, refitting the noose around her neck. "True knowledge. Not the scraps humanity has gleaned in our small lives, prizing grains of sand on a beach. I'm talking about universal truths known by gods older than mankind."

She turned to the mirror at the head of the star. "Oh, holy Ageroth, we beckon you once more. Heed our invitation."

Derek upturned the pitcher over the girl's head. Blood rained on her face. She recoiled from it, but a man held her noose firm.

I closed my eyes. I didn't want to watch this, but I had more actionable intentions. I dove into my pet pigeon. Without eyes of its own, I couldn't see, but a gathering of other senses flooded my way. An extra awareness fueled by spellcraft.

The bird was trapped outside the Underground. I had it fly over the patio fence to the sidewalk. It landed and skirted the building, pecking at the windows lining the basement ceiling. They were all sealed shut and fogged with dirt.

I opened my eyes again, allowing my thrall to seek its own entry.

"As always," continued Derek, facing the mirror, "I come to you with the same question." Her eyes were going wild again. Losing their composure to the mysticism of the ritual. A trance state. "Only you can reveal the secrets of life and death. Only you have the power to grant mastership of both."

This was spiraling pretty quickly into crazy land. The giant's grip was strong. I had to distract him for a moment, but my bird was too slow.

Derek raised her voice in devotion. "Oh, Ageroth, I ask you to bestow upon me the key to eternal life."

A smoky presence swirled within the mirror.

"No," murmured the girl on the floor.

"Tell me what you see," said Derek anxiously. "I need to know what you see."

I suddenly understood Rachel's fate. The blinding white light. The searing pain. In that instant I finally realized what had happened. I also knew I had to hurry, because this girl didn't have long.

"Please," she begged from the floor. "I don't care what happens to me. Just let my sister go. Please. Just let Rachel go."

I furrowed my brow and turned to Rachel. She was on her knees beside me, watching the ritual unfold. Her frazzled pink hair was worn and abused, sticking in every direction. Her natural color was blonde, though. Same as the girl in the pentagram. She was the one Rachel had been calling for. Tilly. They were sisters. That explained why both girls were the same age and build. They might've been twins, even. Rachel's giant sunglasses hid her face, but a single red tear leaked down her cheek.

My breath caught in my throat. The emotions from the night before flooded back into my head. The pain. The suffering. Everything I had witnessed through the blindfold. Through my own brand of black magic.

This was about more than revenge for her now. About more than death. With all the darkness in the world, it hungered for a spark. A fire.

I could no longer save Rachel, but I could save her sister.

With a hard jerk, the giant's knife-hand came free of my neck. Rachel was standing now, a single hand clutching the doorman's wrist. He tugged vigorously but her grip didn't budge. He considered her in shock.

I didn't give him time to work it out. My head came back hard, into his jaw. It was an awkward angle that didn't do a lot of damage, but his arm around me loosed. I elbowed him in the gut and slid to the floor.

The hooded figures spun to their feet as I broke free from the giant. He snarled, dropping my knife and catching Rachel with his left fist. Her head snapped to the side. The sunglasses exploded into pieces. But she took the blow on her feet, without losing ground. The crowd whispered.

Slowly, Rachel turned her head to the doorman. Black lipstick smirk. Red bloodshot eyes. Just like those painted on the black door.

Tilly screamed in panic. Pain. I slid into the shadow of the floor, becoming one with it. My body lost physical form and I slipped past the men holding her down. Before they knew what was happening, I solidified in the circle and ripped off Tilly's blindfold. Her eyes had started to pinken, but she wasn't yet overtaken.

Derek jerked awake, shaking her head back to reality. "That's my vessel!" she screeched.

"Not anymore it isn't," I said.

A hooded man came at me. I called the shadow again. This time it gloved my fist and I pounded him in the chest. Ribs snapped. He flew ten feet and landed with a broken thud.

The crowd recoiled, many of them witnessing true combat magic for the first time. I barged into the huddle, sending them scattering. The pitcher of warm blood toppled and spilled at our feet.

"No more rituals!" I yelled. "No more girls!"

Derek stood with a snarl. Her acolytes were panicking. It was everything she could do to keep them from abandoning her completely.

Behind me, Rachel pounded the giant in the stomach. He buckled over, losing his lunch in a vile spew. But the fiend only looked up and grinned. He'd finally found a real fight.

He barreled into her, lifted her on his shoulder, and slammed her to the floor. Her head smacked the concrete. He didn't let up. His fists rained down on her body.

I lifted my arm and spawned a tendril of shadow from below. It struck like a snake and latched around the giant's neck, yanking him backward. He didn't lose his balance, but it gave Rachel a chance to roll away and recover.

The fiend was strong, but not remarkably so. Rachel wasn't too worse for wear. She came at the giant and punched him in the face. He staggered and growled.

"Surround him!" yelled Derek.

The crowd was fleeing the Underground. The robed acolytes stayed tough. They began organizing against me. If they had more than parlor tricks, it was now or never. They were amateurs, but I couldn't discount the damage they could do as a unit.

I had to release the shadow tethering the doorman to wrap it around my fist again. I swung menacingly at whoever drew near. My swipes were defensive, meant to keep them at bay. I could beat them down, but the fastest way to end this was to get to Derek.

Tilly wiped hexed blood from her eyes. "Rachel?" she asked softly. "Is that you?"

The giant and Rachel kept pounding each other, oblivious to anyone else. The bulk of men surrounded me and chanted. Their presences merged. Blurred. It was like they were entering my mind. Derek's soothing voice was at the head of that chorus.

Group incantations are powerful lulls. I wondered if she had slowly infiltrated all of them, drawing them under her wing. But no. The song filling my head was asking, not telling. This wasn't mind control, it was temptation.

A window shattered. Finally the bird fluttered into the basement. My pet flew haphazardly, half a wing torn off from the glass. That was okay. I didn't need it for much longer.

I put my silver whistle to my lips and blew, directing the pigeon downward. It careened to the floor and tumbled over the pentagram. Slid into the blood of the spilled pitcher. The fluid drenched its feathers. Seeped into the coarse stitching on the bird's underside.

Blood is important in voodoo. It's an activator. In this case, the spark powder that filled its belly was ready to go.

As the chanting encumbered my mind, the bird lifted off the cement and flew like a dart at the coming horde. The wild flapping of wings was nothing compared to their voices, but the resulting boom of the explosion must've been heard over two city blocks.

I was blown to the floor. All the sidewalk windows shattered outward. Everything muted and tumbled in slow motion. Then it all rushed back with a crash on the floor and ringing in my ears.

I coughed. Smoke. Flames licked the wooden furniture against the wall. Car alarms bleeped in the distance. Robes were burning everywhere, some of them still wrapped around body parts. Most of the onlookers left standing sprinted for the black door. The diehards that remained backed away, fearful to do more than watch in horror.

I crawled through the chaos until I reached Tilly. She was hysterical. I grabbed her shoulders and held her tight. "I got you," I said. "You're safe."

Rachel flew head over heels and landed beside us. Her face was battered. Her arm was broken. Still she rolled to her feet and re-engaged the giant. They continued beating on each other as if the entire room hadn't just exploded.

The doorman was huge and mean and didn't show signs of tiring. Rachel was quicker. She sidestepped his body blow and planted her heel into the side of his knee, snapping bone. With an ear-splitting shriek, he crumpled to the floor.

The smoke thickened. I pulled the rope off Tilly's arms and legs, but she would do nothing but cry.

The doorman's sobs were louder. He roared over the car alarms and panicking pedestrians above. Rachel approached the broken giant, calm against his braying. She locked both hands above her head and brought them down on his skull, cracking it open. His whimpering ended abruptly.

In the commotion, I didn't notice Derek picking up my bronze knife until too late. She slipped by me, came up behind Rachel, and plunged the blade into her neck.

"No!" screamed Tilly.

Rachel clutched the knife and spun to her attacker. Derek's cold smile was ruthless and unapologetic. But Rachel's bloodshot eyes didn't flitter. She didn't cry out in pain or buckle to the floor. She stood still and restrained, knife protruding from her neck, her black lips perked.

Slowly, Derek's expression shifted to fear. "I... I know you."

Everyone in the room was frozen.

"You do," I said. "You did." I climbed to my feet. "That's what you do, isn't it? Pick up lost transplants, new to Miami, without family to claim them. Except instead of taking them under your wing, you offer them up to your dark god."

Derek stared at Rachel in horror, fully recognizing last night's murder victim.

"You wanna know the secrets of life and death?" I asked her. "You're talking to the right necromancer."

* * *

I had been in the Everglades the night before. I was there a lot. It's where I hid from the ample streetlights and glow of the city. From those that would look for me. Life's hard for a black magic outlaw. But it's not all bad. The Everglades are peaceful if you don't mind the chittering insects and critters. They're also the perfect place for a body dump.

Before the car stopped, I'd already known what they were there for. Identifying an off-the-beaten path where water and wildlife would swallow up a corpse. The man with the sideburns exited the car, pulled Rachel's body from the trunk, and dropped her in the drink without pretense. He only watched the swamp a moment before driving off. That's how fast Rachel was swallowed up by the Everglades.

But he hadn't counted on me being there.

I didn't sound the alarm or go to the police. I could do them one better. I'm a necromancer, a speaker for the dead. I dragged Rachel from the swamp before the gators got to her. Saw the remnants of dried blood on her skin. Noted the traces of spellcraft. The girl had been through several lifetimes of pain but hadn't suffered any physical damage save the bruises on her neck, wrists, and ankles. Then there was the curiosity of her inky, bloodshot eyes.

So I got to work. I did my blindfold trick to witness her last moments of life. To feel them. Blindfolds close one kind of sight to open up another, you see. Rachel had been blindfolded too. I just didn't get why at the time.

In my vision, I couldn't see through the red silk. Hampering my spellcraft further, her final moments of consciousness were heavily drugged. Panicked. The poor girl had been unaware of most everything save her precious mortality.

I followed along until Ageroth's vision flooded her brain. My spellcraft wasn't enough to translate whatever Rachel saw. Even if it was, I doubted it would've been comprehensible. The searing light was so painful that I had to disconnect. And then she was no more.

I got what I could from her final moments, but I didn't get enough.

So I did the next best thing. I animated her corpse. Made her a zombie. My thrall. I revived the body and the muscle memory with it. Rachel's soul was long gone, but her flesh remembered.

I cleaned her up. Hastily cut and dyed her blonde hair pink. Slapped on a cheap pair of designer shades and a hoodie. Anything to hide her identity long enough to lead me to where she died. To those that had killed her.

As a general rule, I don't get attached to my thralls. They're just empty husks, devoid of the magic that gives us life. But something about this girl spoke to me. Something about her tragic story demanded my involvement. I dunno. Maybe I'm a sucker for the downtrodden. Maybe I saw an easy opportunity for vengeance. Or maybe these assholes had just dumped her body in the wrong fucking place.

* * *

Derek's eyes were suspended wide in shock. She hadn't killed Rachel directly. That had been Ageroth's work. A vision of life and death so arcane the human body couldn't withstand it. But Derek had loaded that gun and pulled that trigger. She had seen Rachel die with her own eyes, all the while demanding that the poor girl reveal her blessed vision. How many others had died in her pursuit of forbidden knowledge?

"Impossible," she said.

I smiled coldly. Derek was an animist, but she didn't know true magic. She'd stumbled upon something. A spirit, a god. It didn't matter. Truth was, she hadn't learned to harness the Intrinsics any more than most of the posers upstairs.

The thrall standing before her wasn't party voodoo. It wasn't another pigeon or animated piece of roadkill. She was a masterpiece. A fully working automaton that could pass for human. Derek had never seen anything like her.

Rachel stepped toward her would-be benefactor. I waited. Fitting for the thrall to be the one to do it. That's how revenge works.

"This can't be," stuttered Derek.

The aging emo club kid backed away from my date. Her fishnet feet slipped in blood and she tripped backward over Tilly. Rachel converged with a passive mask.

And then something crazy happened.

Amidst the flames and smoke and car alarms, a rumbling shook the building. I drew the shadow to me, ready to react to this new threat. I squinted against the stuffy interior and crouched below the smoke. That's when I noticed the giant sideways eyeball in the standing mirror. It blinked.

Ageroth wasn't just page ten of the Monster Manual.

Rachel ignored the being of terror. Derek lay under her, afraid to move, shielding her face with quivering hands. The zombie lifted her fists above her head and...

And...

Stopped.

"You are not a suitable sacrament," boomed a voice that could only be Ageroth's. A deep bass that vibrated like tectonic plates settling, threaded with the scratching of thousands of panicking insects. It was overlaid with a sort of clipped monosyllabic utterance, a binary sampling that failed to capture the harmonic saturation of the god's true words.

I bit down on the whistle and willed Rachel to complete her mission, but something about Ageroth's presence was interfering.

"Who wishes my blessing?" boomed Ageroth.

"The blindfold." Derek scrambled for it and held it over Tilly's head.

But the girl was no longer bound and pinned by five men. Her tears still flowed, but so did her resolve to live. The two girls grappled in blood. Tilly forced Derek to her back and straddled her. She clawed at her face. The animist struggled to fit the blindfold around her. Then Tilly's thumbs found Derek's eyes. She gouged into them with a liberating scream.

Derek's howl joined her. She convulsed and shook Tilly off. The blonde landed hard on the cement. Rachel still ignored my commands.

"I—I can't see!" cried Derek, patting her bloody eyes.

The mirror bulged outward, taking the rounded form of Ageroth's eye. His many voices intermingled with satisfaction. "There you are."

I scooped Tilly into my arms. She tried to push me away, but I held tight and dragged her out of the pentagram. Away from the squirming prophet.

The smoke in the room retreated from the space between Derek and the mirror, as if the embodiment of Ageroth's will was a physical presence occupying space. Whatever it was, all his energy went into the emo girl in the skirt. The one who had often summoned him. The one who had desperately wanted to know the secrets of life and death. And truth.

Ageroth's full blessing and wrath focused on Derek and the background chittering came to a stop. "I. Will. Show. You."

The animist's bleeding eye cavities opened wide, as did her mouth. She shrieked and wailed in growing waves, each injection more painful than the last. The bloody visions of a mad god. Derek was finally learning the secrets of the universe. Finally learning she wasn't meant to know.

What can I say? The truth hurts.

I turned to the few remained hooded figures. "This is over," I said in a tone that dared them to challenge me. Despite the light of the flames, I drew the shadow around me like a cloak. "Get out of here and never come back. Or you're all dead."

They scrambled for the door as Derek's dying screams rattled the basement of the Underground. Police sirens joined the car alarms above. I pulled Tilly away from the madness. When Derek choked her last tortured breath, the freestanding mirror shattered. Rachel jerked free. She followed us up the smoky steps and outside the black door.

The patio was abandoned. Even the bartender was gone. Tilly wiped her eyes, but they still burned. From the smoke. From the blood. She couldn't get the pink out.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Her brow creased. She blinked away the tears to consider her twin sister, fingers running through newly pink hair.

"It's you," she said softly.

I turned away. Rachel didn't respond.

Tilly swallowed. "You're... dead. But you came back for me."

I stared at my boots. Like I said, it wasn't really Rachel. Her spirit had already left this world. I'd tried to locate her in the Murk but couldn't. All I had was her husk. Her muscle memory.

It had been enough.

"She can't come with us," I said softly.

"But—"

"Don't you get it?" I snapped. I bit back my ire. Softened my voice. "You're the one that got saved, Tilly. It's too late for Rachel. Nothing can bring her back."

She silently fought to understand my words. To come to terms with them.

"She needs to stay here," I said. "There needs to be a victim. The police need to pick up the pieces of what happened here. As much as they can, anyway."

Tilly sniffled and clasped her sister tightly. Rachel stood stoic, like a statue. I sighed and sent her a silent command. Rachel lifted her arms and hugged her sister back. Tilly sobbed into her twin's shoulder.

Rachel's last flashes of life ran through my head again. That was the downside of the spellcraft. It wasn't just a vision but an experience. As if I had died myself, it was my memory now too.

Those final moments were hard. Helpless. Once Rachel had stepped through that black door, she was overtaken by forces she had no chance of understanding. It wasn't power or insight she had gained, but death. The last true frontier. In a way, Rachel had passed through a different kind of black door.

But her next life had overcome those odds. This one, empowered by death, had become a weapon against her predators. She put a stop to Derek's madness. Ended the giant's miserable life. And, in the end, she'd accomplished much more than justice. She'd saved her family. Her blood. Sacrifice for salvation. That was something Ageroth could never teach.

"We need to go," I said, cutting into the tender moment between sisters. "You shouldn't get caught up in this, Tilly."

"No," she agreed, "but I want to. I need to identify my sister. Tell the police what happened here."

"They won't believe it."

"I'll skip the details. I won't tell them about the thing in the mirror. Or my sister coming back. Or you."

I pressed my lips together. Tilly was already commanding her senses again. Already returning to reality. That was a good sign.

"I need to let her go," I said.

Tilly sniffed. "Okay."

I smiled at Rachel. The pale skin and pink hair was a good look for her. I wish she could've seen it. Then I put my silver whistle in my mouth and blew. Her body went limp in her sister's arms. Tilly gently lowered Rachel to the floor and cried.

I stepped away. The Fire Department was circling the property. They'd be barging in any second now. The police would follow. I had to be gone when that happened. In the middle of Downtown in the middle of the night, disappearing wasn't a problem for me. The shadows were easy to melt into.

"What are you gonna do?" I asked her.

"Take my sister back home. To Iowa. And never come back."

I nodded. It was probably for the best.

"What about you?" she asked.

I hiked a shoulder noncommittally. "Oh, the usual. Hiding out in the Everglades. Barely staying ahead of my own problems."

She turned to me. "You must not have many. With your power."

I smiled grimly. "Power creates its own problems. The important thing is to have the strength to deal with them."

She took a slow breath and turned her thoughts inward. After a moment she said, "I forgot to thank you."

"You just did. Listen, I gotta get outta here. You take care of yourself."

She nodded.

I marched toward the back fence. A quick hop into the alley and I'd be in the wind. I vaulted a leg over the top and paused, contemplating the two girls who had placed all their hopes and dreams in moving to Miami. Who had traded a slow life for something much more than they bargained for.

"Tilly," I called out, hesitant to ask but curious. "What did you see in there? When you were blindfolded?"

She turned to me, pink eyes softening with water. "Nothing I'll ever speak aloud."

I worked my jaw once or twice, shot her a quick nod, and kicked off to the other side of the fence.

-Finn

* * *

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Domino Finn is an entertainment industry veteran, a contributor to award-winning video games, and the grizzled Urban Fantasy author of the best-selling Black Magic Outlaw series. His stories are equal parts spit, beer, and blood, and are notable for treating weighty issues with a supernatural veneer. If Domino has one rallying cry for the world, it's that fantasy is serious business.

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Dance Of The Dead - Sonya Bateman

A DeathSpeaker Codex Short Story

Halloween in Manhattan gets weirder than usual for Gideon Black, who finds himself up against a powerful necromancer looking to raise a lot more than the dead.

* * *

Author’s note: This story takes place just after the events of WRONG SIDE OF HELL, book one of The DeathSpeaker Codex.

* * *

A few weeks ago, I’d found out humans weren’t the only dominant species on two legs. All it took was saving one werewolf in Central Park, and I’d gotten a violent crash course on the Others. Which apparently I was one of. Well, half, anyway.

It was something I’d gone the majority of my life without knowing. As if being part Unseelie Fae wasn’t enough, turned out I could also talk to dead people. And they couldn’t lie to me. This was an ability shared by no one else, anywhere. Lucky me.

And just like that, Gideon Black, van-dwelling body mover and general all-around nobody, had become the DeathSpeaker — potential instrument of genocide and Milus Dei’s Most Wanted.

I’d managed to escape the deadly cult that wanted to wipe out every Other on the planet, and then taken a few days off work to recover. Tonight it should have been business as usual, except I’d driven through a Manhattan teeming with Others to get here. Werewolves, vampires, ghosts and ghouls, fairies and demons, fantastic creatures and shambling nightmares … they thronged the sidewalks and lurked in just about every corner of the city. Most of them seemed to be having a grand old time, too.

But that probably had something to do with it being Halloween night.

Of course, no Halloween would be complete without a couple of real corpses that needed a ride to the morgue. When I’d arrived at the crime scene on the west bank of the East River, there was only one body. They’d pulled the second one from the river just as I was loading the first into my van. That was a little over an hour ago. Forensics was almost finished processing him, and then they’d turn him over to me.

We’d all been hoping the body count would stay at one. No such luck tonight, though.

I leaned against the side of the van, where I’d parked on the road just outside the sawhorse-and-yellow-tape barrier, and watched the activity. There was a guardrail past the barrier, then a grassy down-slope to a flat area beside the river where the cops had congregated. Three floodlights triangulated on the scene. Techs snapped photos of the half-bagged corpse, and officers on the shore directed police boats returning from the called-off search. A cluster of suits — three detectives, one lieutenant — conferred next to one of the floodlights, their words transformed into frosty clouds as they passed from lips to air.

One of the suits broke away and headed for me. I straightened and gave a slight wave as Detective Abraham Strauss plodded grimly up the incline, mopping his face with his handkerchief. If the rumors were true, he wouldn’t be a detective for long. They were bumping him clear up to captain after his work in the Milus Dei fiasco — much to his chagrin. He wasn’t looking forward to being chained to a desk.

Abe knew the truth about the Others, or at least as much as I could bring myself to tell him. He deserved that and more. The man had been the closest thing resembling a father to me since I was sixteen and running from a past that had tried its best to kill me.

Someday, I was going to tell him everything. I just couldn’t talk about it yet.

“You still here, kid?” Abe slowed and stepped over the guardrail, shaking his head. “Hell of a way to go,” he said. “Poor guy.”

“So it was the rescuer?”

Abe nodded. “Had a wallet on him. The license matched the registration of the car on the bridge.”

“Damn.” The body currently in my van was an apparent suicide, a woman who’d jumped off the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge a few hours ago. According to witnesses, the second victim was a man who’d been driving on the lower level of the bridge when she jumped. He’d slammed his car to a stop, got out with the engine still running and ran after her. Dove right into the river, no hesitation. And from the descriptions, it seemed like he didn’t even know the woman.

Some people had made the jump from that bridge and survived, so the guy must’ve thought he could make it. But generally, the people who jumped without the intention of killing themselves did so during the summer. Not at the end of October, when the current was strong and the water temperature was a few hairs above freezing.

The man died trying to save a stranger’s life.

“Guess they’re about done with him.” Abe glanced back at the brightly lit riverbank. “There. One of the techs is bringing him up now,” he said, gesturing at a woman in disposable crime scene scrubs who was shoving a wheeled stretcher through the grass toward the incline. “I take it, since you waited around, this isn’t keeping you from any wild Halloween parties.”

“Nah.” Now that I had a bunch of friends who weren’t exactly human, my life was a Halloween party every day. But I wouldn’t bring that up. It was still too new for either of us to wrap our heads around. Crime and death sucked, but at least it was familiar. “What about you?” I said. “Costume contest at the office, or are you all just gonna dress up as cops again this year?”

Abe laughed. “I’ve got a mountain of paper to push,” he said. “Need to go over those witness statements again and possibly check out a suspicious character.”

“Suspicious?” I said. “I thought this was pretty cut and dry.”

“Yeah, me too. But I guess some of the witnesses noticed a guy hanging around the bridge, wearing a robe and carrying a big book that may or may not have been glowing. Most of them said he had an eye painted on his forehead, and at least one claims he was ‘doing something’ to the jumper. Like, reading her a bedtime story or some shit, I don’t know.” He let out a sigh. “Probably just a random nut in a Halloween costume. But I gotta tie up all the threads, you know?”

“I hear you.” The stretcher-pushing tech had almost reached the guardrail, and I nudged one of the sawhorses aside. “Hold on,” I called. “I’ll help you with that.”

“And I’ll grab your paperwork, Gideon. Be right back,” Abe said as he headed for the unmarked a few feet down the road.

I stepped over the guardrail and grabbed the end of the stretcher. The tech nodded, and we lifted it over and got it onto the road. “I’ll take it from here,” I said.

“Thanks. Just leave the stretcher at the morgue, if you don’t mind.” She frowned at the body bag. “Somebody ought to give that guy a posthumous medal or something.”

I smirked. “Sure. Bet the mayor’ll get right on that.”

“Yeah, just about the time pigs get wings.” She waved and headed back down the hill.

By then Abe had returned with a clipboard. The paper on it was a standard release form, listing the time and location I took possession of the corpses, so the NYPD didn’t get sued if anything happened to me or the bodies on the way to the morgue. And so I could get paid. “Make your scribble, kid,” he said as he handed it to me.

I signed something that vaguely resembled my name. “All right, we’re out of here,” I said. “Good luck with your nut in the Halloween costume.”

“Yeah. Guy can’t be too hard to find tonight, right?” Abe leveled a sardonic smile at me. “Take care, kid. Check in when you’re all set.”

“Will do. ’Night, Abe.”

He nodded and walked off to help dismantle the crime scene, and I turned my attention to the dead man on the stretcher. Abe was right — it was a hell of a way to go. The whole thing seemed crazy. So sudden and dramatic. Man driving on a bridge sees random woman jumping to her death and instantly decides to jump after her. For a few seconds, I wondered if the guy in the robe really did have something to do with it. I’d seen a hell of a lot that defied rational explanation lately. More than I ever wanted to know.

But I shrugged it off and loaded my second charge into the van. If there was one thing I knew, it was that death rarely had a good explanation. Death happened, even when it shouldn’t.

This death definitely fell into the ‘shouldn’t’ category.

* * *

The fastest way to the morgue was through the mostly abandoned dry docks along the river. I must’ve driven this route a hundred times, and I barely paid attention to the silent, rundown buildings and graffiti-strewn wreckage that lined both sides of the road.

Until a figure darted out from between two buildings and stopped in the middle of the street, directly into the path of my van.

I slammed on the brakes. Tires screamed on asphalt, and the back end juddered and slid out. The van came to rest at a slightly drunken angle across the narrow street. My heart hammered as I shifted into park, took my foot slowly off the brake, and tried to catch my breath.

The guy I’d almost hit wore a long black robe. There was an eye painted on his forehead, and a big leather-bound book hanging from thick, padlocked chains around his waist.

In his outstretched hand, he held a gun.

“Get out, please.” His voice was muffled but audible through the closed windows. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

I didn’t want to be shot. But I also didn’t want to get out, because everything in me insisted this was all kinds of wrong — and not in an everyday, I’m-being-mugged-in-New-York way. The book wasn’t glowing, but this had to be the suspicious character the witnesses had seen around the jumper and her would-be savior.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

The robed man, who looked to be in his fifties or so, gave a deep frown. When his forehead crinkled, I noticed the eye on his forehead wasn’t painted on. It was a tattoo. That was not only creepy as hell, it also suggested he wasn’t just dressed up for Halloween. This was a normal look for him.

He lowered the gun slightly and fired.

The bang of my front left tire exploding was almost as loud as the report. I hadn’t recovered from the shock of the sound when he pulled the trigger again, taking out the other front tire.

And now I was pissed.

“Get out, please,” he repeated calmly, raising the weapon to my level again.

Okay, fine. If the Third Eye Freak wanted to play, I was game. I hadn’t learned a whole lot of Fae spells yet, and the ones I did know weren’t all that useful. Stop, glow, unlock, shut down. And maybe sleep, even though I’d only heard that one and not used it. I could use the sleep one, knock him out, and call Abe to pick up the nutcase for questioning and attempted murder of my van.

I just had to remember the words.

As I opened the door and climbed out slowly, the sound of a revving engine filled the air. A dark vehicle shot out from a side street about a block behind the van, turning in the opposite direction. Then it lurched to a stop and reversed toward us. The vehicle was a hearse, with heavily tinted windows and a dark pleated curtain drawn across the back.

Great. Mister Wizard had friends.

I stepped away from the van and faced the robed man with raised hands. Even if I could remember the sleep spell, I doubted it would work on more than one person at a time. I really had to learn how to magic better — if I lived long enough.

Behind me, I heard car doors open. One, two, three. I already didn’t like the odds.

My anger simmered down to a slow boil as I tried to shift my focus to survival. “What the hell are you doing?” I said.

“You have something that belongs to me.” Three-Eyes nodded at the van.

“No. That’s mine. You want to see my registration, asshole?”

The robed man smiled. There was absolutely nothing friendly in that expression. “You can keep your vehicle,” he said. “I only want the bodies.”

Ice flooded my veins. Whoever, or whatever this guy was, there couldn’t possibly be a good reason for him to steal dead people. Especially if he had something to do with their deaths — and now I had a strong suspicion he did, though I still couldn’t imagine how. “Well, you can’t have them,” I said. “I signed for them, so they’re my…”

Responsibility. The last word dropped off as my brain registered the sounds behind me. Horrible sounds. Dragging, crackling, moaning, squelching sounds. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I turned my head to look.

Three corpses had gotten out of the hearse and were shambling for the back doors of my van.

Those people were dead. Long dead. Two men, one woman … at least, I thought that’s what they were. It was hard to tell, since their flesh was rotting from their bones. Covered with filth and rags, their eyes unblinking white marbles, they moved like wooden puppets fast-marching at the ends of unseen strings.

Okay. Zombies were stealing my corpses.

Gun-toting madman or not, I had to do something. I gestured at the nearest walking dead and spoke the first spell I could remember that had a marginal chance of doing something. The one for stop. “Staad.”

The zombie froze like a kid playing Statue.

I registered the roar of outrage from the robed man seconds before the flat crack of the gun. A bullet tore through my shoulder, knifing hot pain down the left side of my body. I staggered back with a grimacing gasp and tried to focus on the bastard. What the hell were the words for sleep?

“Beith—”

The blast of a gunshot cut me off. This one grazed my ribs and spun me half-around. Four more shots fired in rapid succession. At least three of them hit me. I was able to think that at least I probably wouldn’t die, since I was half immortal, as I dropped hard to my knees and blackness swirled over my vision.

“Bring his body.” The robed man’s words sounded hollow and distant through the roaring pain. “We have to avoid discovery. Just a few more hours, and then it won’t matter.”

It was the last thing I heard before oblivion came.

* * *

I had no idea where I was when I woke up. Sadly, that was the least of my concerns.

Sensation came back first. Which was the last thing I wanted to return, since I’d just been shot four or five times. To say everything hurt was an understatement. At least I wasn’t dead, but for the moment, I was about as useful as a corpse. I could barely move.

I also couldn’t see shit. My surroundings were pitch black, cold and somehow smothering. I was sprawled face-down on an uneven heap of hard angles and sharp bits tangled together with other things, firm and spongy and damp. Some of it was ground. I could smell dirt and decaying vegetation, along with something far less appealing. Something that smelled like death.

I knew why I’d survived. Being half-Fae helped, especially since they healed much faster than humans. But mostly, it was because of the glamour. The Fae used a basic, instinctive spell to change their appearance, make them look more human — a spell they apparently used even if they had no idea they were Fae. And because of the way I’d grown up, my natural glamour had evolved into something a little more effective than camouflage. What I projected was slightly off center, so I was never exactly where I seemed to be. Bad guys generally missed my vital organs when they tried to kill me. In fact, if he hadn’t been so close, he probably would’ve missed me completely.

It was a defense mechanism against being frequently shot at by the people who were supposed to be my family.

Of course, the glamour didn’t make being shot any easier or less painful. But I did have one potential advantage — the robed man thought I was dead. So if I could get out of wherever I was, maybe I’d live to draw breath another day.

Fae magic was tied to the moon, so moonlight would help speed up the healing process. I couldn’t see the moon. But I had brought moonlight with me.

I shifted carefully, hearing various things groan, shift, and crackle beneath me as I drew the moonstone pendant from my shirt. The clear shard of stone was a gem found only in the Fae realm, a place I’d never been and didn’t even know existed until a few weeks ago. It acted like a battery, drawing and storing moonlight for when I needed it.

This definitely qualified as a time of need.

“De’àrsahd.”

I rasped the spell to activate the moonstone, and it responded with a flare of blue-white light that settled to a steady glow. My eyes adjusted slowly to the brightness.

And I found myself face-to-face with a grinning human skull.

I swallowed a gasp and jerked back. The sudden movement lanced my shoulder with fresh pain. Something beneath me gave way with a sharp snap, and I was tumbling down before I could get my bearings. I landed abruptly on my back.

Breathing carefully, I lay there for a minute with my eyes closed. Wherever I’d landed was a flat, hard surface that felt like packed dirt. I finally chanced a look.

I’d fallen from a shallow heap of debris. Broken boards and beams peppered with rusty bent nails and shards of glass, the moldy pulped remains of plaster or sheetrock, and here and there, the busted remains of furniture. Wooden chairs, wooden desks, bed frames and springs with a few scraps of rotted material clinging to them. Tangles of dead brown vines twisted through the mess. Patches of moss grew in some places — the damp, spongy stuff I’d felt.

And the skull I’d seen when I turned on the moonstone was connected to the full human skeleton sprawled on top of the heap, half-grown over with moss and decorated with rags that used to be clothes.

I’d been lying on a dead person.

I took full stock of my situation and concluded it was worse than I thought. This place appeared to be a collapsed basement that hadn’t been touched in decades. Probably since whoever that was on the heap had died. I tried not to think too hard about how it might’ve happened. Maybe they’d gotten stuck down here and starved to death, since there didn’t seem to be a way out.

Or maybe my would-be killer had thrown me down here because he already knew it was a place where bodies would never be found. Because he’d put that one here, too.

I gave myself a few minutes to let the concentrated moonlight heal me some before I pulled myself to my feet. The first thing I tried was my phone. No service. Not a big surprise, but still disappointing. The phone did tell me I’d been out for probably two hours. I’d left the crime scene around 8:30, and now it was just after eleven.

That didn’t exactly help me figure out where I was. My attempted murderer had wheels, and two hours was a lot of potential driving time.

Once I felt like I could walk without collapsing, I started looking for a way out. And I failed to find one. This place was three walls of solid cement and one wall of collapsed earth, which had spilled across the entire floor. There was a single door just above the heap of junk I’d landed on. Big and solid metal, coated with rust. It was probably locked, but I couldn’t find out for sure. The door was about twenty feet off the ground, and the wooden stairs leading up to it had long since fallen into rot and joined the pile of debris.

I had exactly one, pathetically slim chance to escape. I could ask the dead person how they’d gotten in here — and pray it wasn’t the same way I suspected I did.

Because if the answer was a guy in a robe threw me through that door, this place would be my tomb.

* * *

Talking to dead people wasn’t nearly as awesome as it sounded.

First of all, I had to physically touch the remains. It was the only way I’d been able to make it work so far — at least, on purpose. That meant picking my way back up Mount One-Wrong-Step-From-Multiple-Lacerations.

After I’d made it back to the top and settled cautiously on a thick wooden beam that only looked half-rotted, I was within reaching distance of the skeleton.

Now it was time for more pain.

The dead couldn’t lie to me, but so far the ones I’d done this with really didn’t want to talk. They’d mostly been bad guys who didn’t want to give up information I could use to take down their still-living friends. And the more they’d struggled, the worse it was for me. Their voices were like knives in my head. If I kept up the conversation for too long, my nose would start bleeding. Then my ears. Eventually, I would pass out and lose the connection.

So I’d keep the conversation as short as possible. Is there a way out of here, and where is it? That was all I wanted to know.

I took a deep breath, then reached out and grabbed the skeleton’s arm. “Hey. Dead guy,” I said. “Got a question for you.”

There was a short, sharp tugging pain in my head. More surprise than resistance. And a female voice said, Who are you? How is this possible?

Okay. Dead girl. Her voice was strong and confident compared to most dead people. But then, I’d mostly spoken to the newly dead, and they were generally terrified, pissed off, or both. She’d obviously been gone a long time. Must’ve had time to accept her fate, or whatever.

“Never mind that,” I said. “Listen, you’re dead. You probably already know that. But I need to know how to get out of … the place where I found your body. Any ideas?”

The answering silence worried me, especially since I didn’t feel a struggle. That usually meant the dead person didn’t know the answer. I could only get the truth from them about things they knew.

Finally, she said, I might be able to help. But there are a few things I need to know.

The words came as if she were choosing each one carefully, and then poking them into my brain like needles. It would only get worse if we dragged this out. “No, thanks,” I said. “How do I get out of here?”

Another pause. I’d tell you, if I knew what ‘here’ you’re talking about.

“Goddamn it!” My jaw clenched in frustration. If she didn’t know where she was, then she hadn’t died here. So she couldn’t know a way out. “Gotta go,” I mumbled. “Maybe there’s a busted shovel I can dig through the landslide with, in a year or two.”

Wait!

The shout tore at my brain, and a thin runnel of blood dripped from my nose. “Could you not yell, please? That hurts,” I said. “Look, you can’t help me, so—”

I can help. I just need to know if you’re in the basement or the tunnel … and if you came down on purpose, or if someone put you there.

Despite the pain of hearing the words, I felt a faint glimmer of hope. “I think it’s a basement,” I said. “And I was definitely put here, by some crazy asshole in a black robe with an eye tattooed on his forehead. You know him?”

Yes, the voice in my head snarled.

Damn. I was hoping for a no there. “He killed you, then.”

He did. The cold anger behind the words chilled my soul.

“Well, I’m sorry about that,” I said. “But I need to get out of here before he manages to kill me, too. He already tried. How do I get out?”

There is a tunnel that runs beneath the basement. She struggled against speaking this time, and my bleeding nose went from drip to stream. You’re forcing me to answer, she said. What kind of sorcerer are you?

“I’m not. Where is the tunnel?”

I felt her squirming, trying to resist. Through the hatch by the north wall, she finally said. Please, you must tell me what Balthier is doing here. Has he gathered the sacrifices? How many dead does he have with him? And … is it Halloween night?

The chill in me deepened to bone-cold. “He’s got three zombies and two corpses that he stole from me,” I managed to say. “And yes, it’s Halloween. For about forty-five more minutes.”

There is no time, the voice said breathlessly. You must stop him immediately, sorcerer.

I ignored the sorcerer part this time. “Stop him from what?”

From summoning the demon of chaos and plunging the world into eternal darkness.

* * *

I didn’t know what the demon of chaos was, but it sounded way above my pay grade. I’d just managed to accept that things like werewolves and vampires and the Fae were real — even though I still hadn’t met a vampire. Now I was supposed to believe in world-ending demons? Maybe this was some kind of sick, elaborate Halloween prank or something, because this couldn’t be real. “Look, sister,” I said. “I don’t know who you are, or who this Balthier guy is, and I don’t want to. I just want to get out of here alive, okay?

You MUST stop him. Obviously, you have power of some kind. And if you don’t stop the ritual, you’ll doom all of humanity to an eternity of blackness and death.

By the time she finished speaking, my nose was pouring blood and my head throbbed with the pain. I almost let go of her so I could cut the connection, go find this escape hatch, and get the hell out of this place. Only one thing prevented me from doing that.

The dead couldn’t lie.

“All right,” I finally said, trying to wipe some of the blood off my face with a sleeve. “I guess you’d better tell me what’s going on, and how to stop it. If I can. But do me a favor and whisper it, okay?”

We only have until midnight. At least she’d complied with the whispering, but I detected a note of irritation in her tone. Get moving, and I’ll tell you on the way.

“There’s no ‘we’ here. You’re dead,” I said. “And I can’t talk to you if I’m moving. I have to be touching your remains.”

After a startled pause, she said, What are you? Never mind that, for now. Just take me with you.

“Are you crazy? I’m not dragging a skeleton around this place. Where are we, anyway?”

No, I’m not crazy. North Brother Island. Stop compelling me.

“North Brother Island,” I said in a kind of choked, strangled voice. “You mean the abandoned, off-limits to the public, dangerous and spooky-as-hell island in the river, home of Riverside Hospital, where Typhoid Mary died. That North Brother Island?”

Yes, she whisper-hissed. How can someone with such power be such a fool?

I didn’t respond right away. I was still trying to get over being on North Brother Island. Christ, no wonder I didn’t have cell service. That also explained the advanced state of natural encroachment, the moss and the vines and the solid earth wall — this place had sat untouched since the 1960s.

Finally, I said, “Watch it with the name-calling, lady. Out of the two of us, I’m the one who’s currently not dead.”

I can’t imagine how you’ve survived. She gave a ghostly sigh that felt like static shocks along my skull. If you must touch my remains to communicate, then bring a piece of me with you. Won’t that work?

“I don’t know. Never tried it,” I said. “To be honest, I’m really not sure how any of this talking-to-the-dead stuff works.”

You have the power to speak to the dead, and you don’t know how it works?

“Volume!” I gasped as fresh blood gushed. This time my ears gave an ominous pop with the pressure of the stabbing voice in my head. They weren’t bleeding yet, but they would be soon if I kept this up. “You’ve got to keep it down … whoever you are.”

Zoria, she said in a considerably lower tone.

“Yeah, that’s great. I’m Gideon. Listen, Zoria, just try to speak as little as possible. And don’t answer that.” I let out a shaking breath and started working the skeleton’s arm free of the moss and muck. Maybe I could pull off a finger bone or something. “I’m going to try this piece-of-you thing. Hold on.”

She didn’t answer. But I could practically feel her impatience.

Where most old bones were dry and brittle, these were damp and rubbery. Partially mummified instead of rotted. I found the hand, and my gut rolled a little as I worked the skeletal thumb back and forth until it came free with a grisly ripping sound.

I let go of the arm and tucked the clump of bone in my jeans pocket. “Can you hear me?” I said.

Yes.

“All right. I guess it works, then.” Gritting my teeth, I pushed up and began the laborious process of getting back down the debris pile. “I’ll start looking for this tunnel,” I said. “You tell me what’s going on.”

Truth be told, I really didn’t want to find out. Chasing down some guy on North Brother Island who planned to summon an actual demon was not the way I wanted to spend Halloween.

But I had a feeling there was no one else around to stop it.

* * *

I hadn’t found the exit because it was buried under three or four inches of dirt. The hatch was a wooden trapdoor that led to a questionable-looking ladder, and the tunnel at the bottom was half-choked with vines and tree roots that had forced their way through solid concrete over the years.

Apparently the collapsed basement had been beneath the nurses’ quarters, and this service corridor led to the main hospital building. That was where we were headed — and by we, I meant me and a haunted thumb bone.

Zoria filled me in as I navigated the tunnel. Balthier, the guy who’d tried to kill me, had been her apprentice. They were necromancers. She’d insisted she was the harmless one, but I didn’t see how anyone could be in the business of raising the dead for harmless reasons. Especially when she said they worshipped the demon Azathoth, who was somehow associated with Erichtho’s Comet, whatever that was.

The comet arrived every thirty-three years on Samhain, which was Halloween to the rest of us. The two of them had come here the last time the comet passed to pay tribute to Azathoth. It was supposed to be a small blood sacrifice. Their own blood, not anyone else’s. But Balthier wanted to actually summon and control the demon — something Zoria would never allow. So he’d killed her during the ritual, while she was most vulnerable, and stolen her grimoire. That was the book he kept chained around his waist. According to Zoria, it contained some seriously powerful spells.

Then Balthier had to wait thirty-three years for the comet to come back. And tonight, he was planning to offer five specific resurrected sacrifices, perform the ritual to summon Azathoth at midnight under the comet, and destroy the world.

So, no pressure or anything.

I’d had to stop Zoria a few times during the story when the pain in my head approached passing-out levels. Now I was nearing another ladder-hatch, the one I was supposed to take back up to the surface, and she was explaining about the sacrifices.

The three you saw must have been the wicked healer, the fallen priest, and the virtuous executioner, she said. The fourth was the body he took from you. The failed savior. He must have caused their deaths to prepare them for sacrifice.

I closed my eyes a minute, trying to will the throbbing in my head back after so many words. The failed savior — the guy who’d died trying to save someone else. “So he cast a spell on them? I mean, the witnesses said that book was glowing.”

Yes.

I was grateful for the one-word reply. “Does that mean the jumper is the fifth sacrifice?” I said. “He wanted both bodies.”

No. But he’s probably using her as material for the fifth. He’d need a body to resurrect the spirit from its remnants in this place.

“Whose remnants?”

The walking plague, she said. Typhoid Mary.

Great. So I had to go up against a necromancer and five zombies, one of which was Typhoid Mary.

I was still far from healed. My nose wouldn’t stop bleeding, and my head felt ready to explode from talking to Zoria for so long. I knew all of five pathetic spells, but I had a limited amount of magic, and the moonstone was nearly drained from constant use. I’d need time and moonlight to recharge, and I didn’t have either.

“How am I supposed to stop this guy?” I said as I stopped at the ladder.

There are many ways.

“Not helpful. Name one.”

Use magic. Destroy one of the zombies. Get the grimoire from him. Just take something out of commission. He doesn’t have time to perform another resurrection, so you only have to interrupt the ritual.

“Yeah, that’s more than one way. And none of them are real helpful,” I said. “Besides, even if I break up Balthier’s demon-summoning party, what happens then? I mean, he isn’t going to say ‘aw, shucks, guess I’ll try again in thirty-three years.’ Is he?”

No.

“What’s he going to do, then?”

Zoria struggled against a reply, and the pain in my head spiked sharply. He’s likely to kill you.

That was kind of what I’d expected to hear, but it definitely wasn’t the answer I wanted. “And how do I stop him from killing me?”

I don’t know. She paused. But if you interrupt the ritual, you’ll die saving the world.

Terrific. Just what I always wanted. “Call me selfish, but I’d feel a hell of a lot better saving the world if I was still around to enjoy it,” I said. “Don’t you have any ideas here? If you don’t, just lie to me.”

It would appear that I can’t.

Oh, right. No lying to the DeathSpeaker.

I released a curt sigh. “Well, guess I’d better get going,” I said with extreme reluctance, eyeing the ladder that ascended in the darkness. I wasn’t terribly thrilled about climbing straight into a high chance of death. But I didn’t have much choice here, since I was the only living person on this island who wasn’t trying to summon a chaos demon.

And it was twenty minutes until the end of the world.

* * *

I really could’ve gone without knowing that the tower at the front of the old Riverside Hospital building was called the tuberculosis pavilion. But I had to go through there to get to the courtyard directly behind it, because that’s where Zoria said Balthier would be preparing for the ritual.

Eerie didn’t even begin to describe this place. Dark, decrepit, and so far reclaimed by growth that some of the rooms bordering the outside of the building had living carpets of grass and ferns. Deep red rust swallowing every metal surface, severe water damage, crumbling plaster and splintering wood. Furniture, equipment, books and bedding everywhere, rotting where they lay. This island was life abruptly abandoned.

A place like this should’ve been silent, but there was just enough sound to make it completely unnerving. Faint traffic and the occasional siren from the city on either side of the river — Manhattan to the west, the Bronx to the east, like the ghosts of civilization. The whispering whistle of the October wind through jagged cracks and broken windows.

And when I got close, an ominous monotone chanting that had to be Balthier.

I shut down the moonstone with a focused thought — the only magic I could perform without speaking. Ahead of me, moonlight spilled through a warped door that stood ajar, leading to the courtyard. Layers of dead leaves had gathered in drifts on either side of the doorway and spilled across the grungy, cracked tiles of the floor.

Figuring I should make as little noise as possible, I crept toward the door and looked through the nearest window beside it.

The first thing I saw was the zombies.

Five of them, standing in a row about ten feet from the exit with their backs to the building. The two at either end were considerably fresher than the rest. The one in the middle, the one I’d thrown the spell at back by the van, looked … kind of broken. Where the others stood straight, swaying in unison with the chanting, he was slumped over and twitching. Barely functional.

A single tree erupted from the paved ground about ten feet to the right of the door. And beyond the zombie chorus line, in the center of the courtyard, was Balthier.

He’d drawn an elaborate pentagram on the flagstones with something that looked exactly like blood and probably was. The necromancer stood in the middle of the pentagram, the grimoire open and glowing a sickly yellow-green in his hands as he read loudly to the sky in a language I didn’t recognize. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to the building at all.

Maybe I could take out the busted zombie before he noticed I was here.

I drew a slow, deep breath and stepped carefully over the nearest pile of leaves, watching Balthier closely for any sign of distraction. The necromancer kept chanting as I entered the courtyard and moved as close as I dared to the defective zombie. It took me a minute to remember the right words for the spell I wanted. Not stop this time, but shut down. I’d only used it once, and definitely not on a zombie. But something told me it was the right spell.

I was three feet away when the wind picked up sharply and dark clouds roiled across the sky, impossibly fast. Now or never, I thought as I gestured at the center zombie.

“Dhuunad sios’na.”

The rotted zombie collapsed into a lifeless heap, with a sound like someone stepping on a brush pile.

And Balthier noticed.

He whirled toward me, a terrible sneer on his face. The thick, yellowed pages of the book in his hands flipped by themselves as he moved. “You’re supposed to be dead,” he snarled as his furious gaze dropped briefly to the book. “Silentium ei!”

The grimoire pulsed with a bright burst of green light.

I had no idea what he’d done until I tried again to cast the sleep spell on him. And found I couldn’t speak.

“I will not be stopped now,” Balthier said. “You’ve taken my virtuous executioner — but that’s what you are, isn’t it? Killing for a cause, attempting to save this diseased world. And you’ve somehow come back from the dead.” He flashed an icy grin. “You’ll do to take his place in the ritual.”

Gideon, run!

Zoria’s voice ripped through my head, nearly driving me to my knees as a geyser of blood erupted from my nose, accompanied by streams from my ears. I stumbled, turned away, and made for the door into the building. Blinding pain blurred my senses. Behind me, I heard Balthier speaking another spell.

I’d gotten six steps when what felt like an actual shit-ton of zombie tackled me to the ground.

“Bring him to the circle,” Balthier called.

I flickered in and out of consciousness as two of the zombies dragged me across the buckled flagstones. Whatever my limit was on talking to the dead, I’d just reached it. Zoria was gone.

And I was about to be sacrificed to a demon.

* * *

Balthier used the chains and padlock from the grimoire to wrap me up, binding my arms to my sides and my hands behind my back. Then he had the zombies rough me up some before they deposited me on my knees at one point of the pentagram.

If I could talk, I would’ve told him that wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t in any shape to run even before the beating.

Now it was all I could do to stay conscious while he destroyed the world.

The zombies gravitated to the edges of the bloody symbol. Five star points, five sacrifices. A hot, hard lump of helpless fury formed in the pit of my stomach as I watched Balthier return to the center and start reading from the grimoire again.

While he chanted, the black clouds above the courtyard thickened. The wind whipsawed at a fever pitch, kicking up miniature tornadoes of dead leaves and detritus. Then Balthier thundered a final line, and everything went abruptly still. The air grew heavy. The clouds unraveled to a clear sky spangled with stars — hard pinpoints of white against black, only slightly dimmed by the cold light of a full moon.

Something deep in me stirred as moonlight bathed the courtyard. My depleted magic responded like water poured on a bone-dry sponge, soaking up every ounce of light. The crippling pain ebbed a few fractions, enough for me to see and hear. And think straight.

I wasn’t letting the world end without a fight.

If I was going to stop him, I had to be able to speak. And despite my extremely limited experience with magic, this had sort of happened to me before, while we were fighting Milus Dei. I’d had a silencing spell cast on me — by a Fae, not a necromancer. Another Fae had undone the spell with a word I could almost recall. It was right at the edge of my mind.

Maybe if I thought it hard enough, like I’d managed to do turning off the pendant, I could get it to work. I just had to remember the word.

Araais.

It came to me like a surfacing bubble. I seized on the word, forcing every thought to focus on it. And for just a few seconds, I actually felt the magic working in me.

Balthier wasn’t looking my way. I shifted my bound hands until my fingers touched the padlock, and tried to whisper the only spell I knew that I hadn’t used yet tonight. “Oscaihl.”

The lock clicked open.

He didn’t hear the click, but I definitely got his attention when I struggled to my feet and pushed the chains away. The look on his face was part shock, part absolute rage. He sent a desperate glance at the sky — and a grin replaced his fury.

I couldn’t help looking, just in time to see a bright blaze of light streak across the stars.

Erichtho’s Comet had arrived.

“You’re too late,” Balthier said. “Qui vocat vos, Azathoth.”

There was a booming noise above, like a jet plane breaking the sound barrier. Concentric ripples traced the sky and drew inward, forming a translucent funnel that distorted the carpet of stars. And a voice thundered from the funnel.

“Who calls upon me and disturbs my slumber?”

Nails on a chalkboard would’ve been a beautiful symphony compared to that voice. The sound of it reached down my throat and actively tried to yank my guts out.

The necromancer shuddered and went down on one knee. “Lord Azathoth. I am Balthier, heir to the guardians of the Great Comet and your humble servant,” he said. “I seek—”

“You seek my great displeasure with your crude fumblings and your imperfect sacrifice. That one still lives! Where is your master, mortal plaything?”

“My lord, the sacrifice has been returned from the dead, in accordance with your demands,” Balthier stammered. “All is in order. Zoria has tragically passed to the Great Beyond, and I have assumed her mantle with a heavy heart.”

“Heavy?” I said with a sneer. “Well, it can’t be that big of a load, since you killed her.”

“WHAT?” the demon thundered.

Balthier shot to his feet and whirled on me. “How dare you accuse me of—”

“Be silent, mortal! The sacrifice will speak.”

I really didn’t like my new nickname. Shuddering all over, I looked up at the demon funnel and tried to swallow past the cotton-dry fear lining my throat. “Uh. Lord Azathoth?” I said. “This guy killed Zoria. I know it’s true, because she told me.” I fumbled in my pocket and managed to free the thumb bone. “See, um, this probably sounds crazy, but—”

“You are the DeathSpeaker.”

If there was anything he could’ve said to shock me more, I couldn’t think of it.

“Yeah,” I finally managed. “Guess you’ve heard of me. So if it’s all the same to you, can we take my name off the sacrifice list?”

“Lord Azathoth, I don’t understand.” There was a whining undertone to Balthier’s voice now, like a child denied a candy bar. “This boy is nothing. A charlatan of a sorcerer, capable only of simple parlor tricks. I’ve served you faithfully, and I ask … I demand my reward!”

“The agony of life and unlife is Chaos. The stillness of the grave is Order. I do not accept this sacrifice,” the demon voice snarled. “And further, you are not worthy of your self-appointed post. You, a sniveling mortal who murders my faithful and fails to observe proper rituals. Since you cannot recognize true power, you will be stripped of your own.”

The funnel crackled with green light. Balthier’s scream of outrage was cut short as a massive bolt hurled itself from the sky and struck him to the ground.

And the demon was gone.

* * *

Gideon! Can you hear me?

I was just starting to feel like I’d only been hit by a bus, instead of the A-train and the L-train at the same time, when Zoria’s voice meathooked into my brain. “Will you please stop shouting,” I groaned. “I’d like to keep the rest of my blood on the inside.”

I felt her faint sigh of relief. Sorry, she whispered.

At least she sounded like she meant it this time. “So I don’t know how much of that you heard, but—”

Everything. She paused. I tried to warn you not to speak to Azathoth.

“Yeah, well I probably wouldn’t have listened.”

No, I suppose you wouldn’t. I could sense her gathering words, and finally she said, It seems you’re not the fool I took you for, DeathSpeaker.

I smirked. “Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself,” I said. “You know, for a demon-worshipping necromancer.”

Thank you.

“Your apprentice, on the other hand. I’d ask how you managed to get involved with him, but I have a feeling it’s a long story. And I don’t think I could survive a long story from you right now.”

He used to be … charming.

“Yeah. Psychopaths are good at charming.” I stretched carefully and paced a few more steps away from the unnerving scene in the courtyard. Balthier was still breathing, but he hadn’t moved from where he’d fallen. And the zombies were just standing there, broadcasting creepy silence. “So if he lost his power, why didn’t they go down when he did?”

They?

“The zombies,” I said. “Thought you knew what was happening.”

I can hear, but I can’t see. A faint tinge of alarm colored her words. Are you saying the sacrifices are still animated?

“Well, maybe not animated. They’re not moving. But they don’t exactly seem dead. Or re-dead, whatever they should be.”

I felt Zoria shiver. They’re still under his command, because he resurrected them, she whispered. They’ll continue to obey him until they’re released.

“Great. I don’t have enough magic left to shut down all of them,” I said. “How am I supposed to release them?”

The grimoire.

I spotted the book next to Balthier’s outstretched arm — just as he stirred and grabbed it, then hauled himself to his feet and fixed me with a fiery glare. “Kill him.”

With a chorus of moans, the zombies started for me.

They were damned fast for dead people. I jogged back and darted to the left, just as the closest zombie made a swipe at me. It was one of the fresh ones, the so-called failed savior. He barely missed.

“You shouldn’t listen to him. You know he killed you, right?” I said as I ducked another grab — and bumped into the woman who’d taken an unwilling swan dive into the East River. Who promptly wrapped both arms around me and started squeezing. I felt a few of my ribs crack.

And I heard a tormented voice in my head that wasn’t Zoria. Please send me back to sleep. I don’t want to kill anyone else.

I almost told her I didn’t think she had killed anyone, and I didn’t really want to be her first murder victim. Then I remembered the faux suicide woman was only material. The spirit inside her was Typhoid Mary.

Trying to draw breath was an exercise in agony. Two more zombies had reached me and were attempting to wrench my arms off. I couldn’t see the fourth one, but seconds later a hand that felt like iron clamped around the back of my neck.

I still didn’t have a whole lot of magic. A full recharge in the moonlight took hours. But I thought I could manage one small spell, and it just might give me time to finish this. If I could breathe enough to speak it.

“Mary,” I wrenched out, gasping as one of my shoulders popped with the strain. “I know you … have to obey this guy. Just ease up. One second. Please.”

I felt her surprise. Then her deadly grip loosened, and I sucked in a hard lungful of air.

“Staad.”

The word wasn’t as loud as I wanted, but I pushed everything I had into it.

And the zombies stopped moving.

Spluttering and gagging, I wriggled out of the zombie pile and started toward Balthier, who was frozen with shock. “Didn’t you hear Azathoth?” I said. “I’m the DeathSpeaker. Sending dead people after me wasn’t such a great plan, asshole.”

He snapped out of it. “Impossible!” he shouted, walking slowly backwards as he flipped through the grimoire. “I’ll send you straight to hell, you cut-rate charlatan!”

“I don’t think so. You don’t have any power left.” I caught up with him, yanked the book from his hands and threw it aside. “Tell you the truth, neither do I. But I’ve got something else for you.”

Balthier sneered. “Another cheap parlor trick?”

“Yeah, and this is my best one yet,” I said. “I’m going to put you to sleep.”

With that, I balled a fist and drove a hard uppercut into his chin.

He gurgled gently as he sank to the ground.

Laughter exploded in my head — Zoria’s, not mine. Did you just punch him? she said.

“Yeah.” I managed an exhausted grin and ignored the pain. “So much for Balthier, heir to the guardians of the Great Comet.”

Indeed. All hail the power of your right hook.

“Figured he was all magic, no stamina.” I winced and rubbed the shoulder that had almost been pulled from its socket. That was going to hurt for a while. “So you think I’ll be able to make this grimoire of yours work on the zombies?” I said. “I mean, I’m not a necromancer.”

Of course you can. A whisper of sardonic amusement rippled through my head. Any fool can read a spell.

This time I laughed. “Well, I guess I’m the best fool for the job.”

* * *

Somehow I managed to stumble through reading a spell in Latin. I still suspected it wouldn’t work for me, right up until the zombies started toppling gently to the ground. That was when I heard a collective, ghostly sigh, and a few voices whispering thank you.

Apparently people didn’t enjoy being enslaved to their own dead bodies. Go figure.

I’d chained Balthier to the lone tree in the courtyard. Without his spells, he wasn’t going anywhere until I could get hold of Abe and have him arrested. I just had to figure out how to do that.

Unfortunately, my only source of information had been dead for thirty-three years. But I still had to try.

“Okay, I think I’ve had enough fun for tonight,” I said. “Any ideas how I can get back to civilization?”

We always used a boat, Zoria said.

“Great. I should’ve thought to bring a boat while I was being kidnapped and left for dead.”

Balthier must have used one. Take his.

“I might have to,” I said, frowning slightly. “I just don’t want to leave him here long enough to try escaping, you know? If I could get a signal, I could have the NYPD out here with helicopters and shit. I think.”

A signal for what?

Oh, right. She’d died before cell phones were invented. “It’s kind of hard to explain,” I said. “Basically it’s like a radio signal, except for phones.”

Huh, she said. Radio signals reach the west shore, the Manhattan side. It’s not far from here.

“All right. I’ll try that.”

What will you do with Balthier?

“Have him arrested,” I said. “I’ve got a good friend, a detective who’s practically a captain. He’ll make sure the charges stick, and there’s going to be plenty of them.” I let out a sigh and rubbed the back of my neck. “Gotta get these bodies back, too. I’m responsible for them — the fresh ones, at least. But I want to bring all of them.”

Why?

“It’s my job.”

As the DeathSpeaker?

“No, as a body mover. Long story,” I said. “So … what about your body? I mean, it’d be tricky, but we could probably get you out. Give you a permanent resting place.” I already felt bad that I couldn’t offer her anything more. It was strange getting to know someone who died before I’d met her.

Zoria sighed gently. This island is too dangerous. But I’ll be fine here. Only Balthier knew where I was, before you. She paused, and said, I’d prefer to keep it that way.

“Don’t worry. I’m not telling anybody about this.” Even if I did, they’d never believe me. Necromancers and zombies and demons, oh my. “And the grimoire?”

Burn it. I don’t want those spells falling into the wrong hands.

“Will do.” I didn’t smoke, but I had a pack of bar matches on me somewhere. I figured I’d tuck the thumb bone into the book before I burned it, just so there weren’t any bits of Zoria lying around.

Thank you.

I looked at the sky — clear and cold, free of impending demons. “Did we really save the world here?” I said.

No, we didn’t. I sensed her smiling. You did.

“Great. I think I’ll put that on my resume.” I smiled back, even though she couldn’t see it. “Well, I’d better get moving and try Abe. By now he’ll know I never showed up at the morgue, and he’s probably tracked down my van. He’s gonna kill me when he finds out I’m not dead.”

I believe it’s time for me to go, too. There was a wistful tone in her whispered words. I’m glad to have met you, Gideon.

“Same here,” I said. “Goodbye, Zoria.”

Goodbye, DeathSpeaker.

For a while after the pain in my head eased, I had a lump in my throat to replace it.

* * *

Zoria was right about the western shore. I had almost a full bar of service standing at the rail of a crumbling concrete barrier, looking at the familiar Manhattan skyline and its ghostly reflection in the river as I waited for Abe to pick up.

I didn’t have to wait long.

“Where the hell are you, kid?” he answered after a ring and a half.

“Do you want the sarcastic answer, or the real one?”

“Guess.”

“North Brother Island.”

That silenced him. Finally, he said, “So what’s the real answer?”

“That is the real one,” I said. “I think I can see your house from here, actually.”

“Gideon.” He managed to sound worried, relieved and angry all at once. “You’re not kidding, are you?” he said. “How in the name of Jesus Q. Christ did you get to North Brother Island?”

“I’d tell you, but that’d only make you worry more.”

“Too late.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m fine,” I said. “Just calling in a citizen’s arrest. Did I tell you that I’ve always wanted to do that?”

“You did not do a citizen’s arrest.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly tell him I was arresting him. I just chained him to a tree.”

“Who? Gideon, you’d better start explaining this shit right now, or—”

“Okay. I’m sorry.” I couldn’t help grinning, just a little. “Here’s the short version. I’ve got five bodies and one live murderer-slash-corpse-thief here, and we all need a lift across the river. Bring helicopters. I’ll give you the long version when you get here.”

Abe let out a long-suffering sigh. “It’s a good thing I trust you, kid, or I’d think you were crazy.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to think that. You already know.”

“North Brother Island,” he muttered. “I can’t wait to hear this one. Hang tight — and for Christ’s sake, don’t arrest anyone else until I get there. That’s my job.”

“Believe me, I don’t want your job.” I smiled. “Thanks, Abe.”

“Yeah. Thanks for not getting yourself killed.”

“Any time. See you soon.”

I ended the call and took a minute to breathe. Up until now, I’d thought the insanity would be mostly over when we beat Milus Dei. Sure, I had to deal with the fact that I wasn’t human, and with knowing the things that had always belonged in fairy tales and nightmares were actually walking around with the rest of us. But I figured I’d have time to adjust to all that.

Except I wasn’t just any Other. I was the DeathSpeaker — and it scared the hell out of me, but I couldn’t crawl back under the radar and pretend none of this happened. Not when I could change things for the better, and maybe save the world sometimes.

I had a feeling life was about to get a whole lot more interesting.

* * *

The DeathSpeaker Codex Series

Get book one: Wrong Side of Hell

Visit my series page for all books in The DeathSpeaker Codex

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About the Author

Sonya Bateman lives in 'scenic' Central New York, with its two glorious seasons: winter and road construction. She is the author of the DeathSpeaker Codex series and the Gavyn Donatti urban fantasy series (Master of None / Master and Apprentice) from Simon & Schuster.

She enjoys good coffee, bad movies, and finding new people to fan-girl with over awesome things like Dr. Horrible, the Artemis Fowl books, all things Terry Pratchett, Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman, The Dark Crystal, and Dragonball Z.

Contact Sonya here

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sonyabateman.author@gmail.com

Hard Row - Ambrose Ibsen

A Demon-Hearted Short Story

Demon-hearted brawler Lucian Colt prepares to trace a human trafficking operation to its fountainhead. But will he and his teammates prove a match for what awaits them in the seedy stretch of Hard Row?

* * *

The waitress came by, wearing a too-cheery smile for a weekday evening. Maybe the three of us looked like good tippers or something. “I've got the triple cheeseburger and chili fries for Lucian,” she began, setting a teeming plate before me. “And a chocolate milkshake for Joe. Can I get you folks anything else?”

Glaring at the aproned woman, Chief Kubo replied, “Just the check.”

As usual, I'd ordered way too much food. It was an hour or two past sunset, and I was seated with Joe and Kubo in a corner booth at the Steak N' Shake on 4th and Maplewood Avenue. While I worked over my cheeseburger, three patties high and oozing with grease, Joe sipped pensively at his shake and the Chief pretended not to know me.

I hiked a grease-slick thumb towards the window. “So,” I began, mouth half-full, “the guy's headed in there to do his grocery shopping?”

Kubo, who'd only ordered a glass of water, crunched an ice cube as he replied, “Yes.” His broad shoulders stiffened in annoyance. “Though why you insist on sitting here, engorging yourself, is beyond me. I'd much rather we wait outside. Ernie will be by any minute now to give us the cue.”

Joe turned to me, a lock of oily hair escaping his pompadour. He quickly combed it back, checking his reflection out in the window. “Lucy, I know you've got a demon's heart... but are you sure that eating that way won't kill you?”

I smirked. “Nah, I'm bulletproof. It'll take more than a junk food diet to kill me.”

Kubo sighed. “Just hurry up. We're working within a narrow window here.” Noticing as my gaze drifted to the dessert menu, he plucked it off the table and smacked me across the face with it. “Get your head in the game, Lucy. For Christ's sake. I feel like I'm babysitting a toddler whenever you're around.”

I worked my greasy lips into a pout. “It wouldn't kill you to treat me with a little more respect. I mean, I'm your star-player, chief. The least you could do is call me by my full name.” I did my best impression of Kubo's Southern drawl. “Lucian, my boy, we're all counting on you. This dinner's on me, and after the job, I'll take you and Joe out for ice cream.”

The Chief arched a wooly brow. “If you aren't done eating that monstrosity in the next five minutes, I swear...”

My heart shifted uncomfortably in my chest, the muscle spasming suddenly.

No, I wasn't having a heart attack. It was just the transplanted demon heart in my chest acting up.

I'd had the heart of a fallen angel in my body for a little while now, but I still wasn't used to the way it lurched and hiccoughed in my chest. The demon got restless sometimes, and I guess the only way for him to calm back down was to throw me into palpitations. I thumped myself in the chest until the fluttering stopped and then took a swig of Coke. Getting excited, Gadreel? I thought. Excited about the fight to come?

The demon in me, Gadreel, loved a good fight. Whenever he sensed one coming on, he tended to grow restless, and in the heat of battle his influence over me would increase a great deal. Not that I minded letting him step into the spotlight; violence was what he did best. I mean, the myths surrounding him mostly dealt with his participating in important battles throughout history, of dabbling in warfare and sharing it with mankind. Some called him the God of War.

It was hard to believe just how much my life had changed since taking on Gadreel. After getting murdered by a coven of savage witches, I'd been given a second shot at life thanks to the Veiled Order. They'd chosen me as the lucky recipient of a demon's heart, which brought me back from the brink. I even came away from the deal with some crazy new powers. Powers that'd helped me take out the hateful witches that'd killed me in the first place. I'd died a simple, good-for-nothing repo man one day and been reborn a demon-powered badass and secret society mercenary the next.

Life as a member of a secret society wasn't as glamorous as I'd hoped. For starters, there weren't any interesting rituals to carry out, no micromanaging of the world's affairs. All of those conspiracy documentaries I'd watched had gotten that stuff wrong. Joe and I got dragged into the office now and then to discuss new supernatural threats to the city, but by and large the higher-ups in the Veiled Order didn't concern themselves with us a whole lot, and they weren't gearing up to take over the world, either. The organization's only goal was to keep magic off of the streets. There are two worlds; the world of spirits, often called the “Beyond”, and ours. The Veiled Order stood between them like a chaperone at a school dance. Better that the two worlds not dance too close, you know?

A burger joint was a weird place to wait for a suspect in a human trafficking operation. The guy we were keeping an eye out for, the target our ghostly informant Ernie was currently tracking, was a fellow by the name of Enrique Pena. I didn't know a whole lot about Enrique, had never met him, but had been told he was the human ringleader in a trafficking operation that dealt in children. The real masterminds behind it were allegedly a pair of werewolves, Mikhail and Gennady Kaminsky, and the two of them were pretty high up on the Veiled Order's most-wanted list. We were hanging around at the restaurant, keeping our eyes peeled for ol' Enrique, who was known to do his nightly grocery shopping at the chic organic market across the street.

That's how us secret society guys roll. If you're on our shit-list, we're going to take you down while you're planning the week's meals and rummaging through the sale produce.

“This guy, Enrique, what's he look like?” I asked.

“Big,” replied Kubo. “Full sleeve tattoos. I hear he isn't too pretty; lots of metal in his face and dinner plates in his ears. He's mortal, and as far as I know he has no magical skill whatsoever, but it's hard to say whether the Kaminsky brothers have provided him with any sort of protection.” He crunched another ice cube. “We want him alive, of course. We need him to tell us where his bosses are hiding.”

“Don't go getting carried away, Lucy,” said Joe, leaning towards me. “You're going to have to rein it in, you know? Nothing flashy.”

I smirked. “Yeah, yeah. I'll try to hold something back.” I took a gulp of soda and stretched a little, patting my gut. “So, why would a pair of werewolves dabble in something like human trafficking? It seems a little pedestrian for two creatures of the night, no?”

Kubo frowned, setting down his empty glass with a thud. He glanced around the restaurant for a time. There was no one within earshot. The only other customer at the time was an old man seated near the entrance. Our waitress came by and dropped off the check, which Kubo hastily dealt with. When she'd gone, he finally replied. “Us humans are valuable in certain spheres,” he said.

I took a bite of my burger. “Yeah, but monsters with special powers could certainly get involved with more lucrative work than, like, abducting kids, don't you think?”

Sniffing the air, Kubo shook his head. “No, you misunderstand. These kids they kidnap aren't ending up in prostitution or something like that. It isn't that sort of operation.”

Joe shifted uncomfortably in his seat, tugging at the collar of his leather jacket. “What do you mean by that?”

Kubo leaned forward, taking on the severe cast of a father trying to explain to his idiot sons where babies came from. “I don't know how much more obvious I can make it. The kids are bought and sold to be used in rituals. Their parts are, anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Blood... fresh human blood, or body parts, especially those of a child, can supercharge one's spells. The market for living children in the Beyond is vast. There are entities on the other side that do business with the Kaminsky brothers, selecting human children like you might select a fresh lobster from one of those tanks at the grocery store.”

My stomach dropped, and no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to chew up the bite of hamburger in my mouth. I wasn't sure what was more upsetting just then; the fact that this sort of thing actually happened or the Chief's utter nonchalance surrounding the matter, comparing abducted kids to grocery store lobsters. “Y-you serious?” I asked.

It was a stupid question, of course. “Yeah,” replied Kubo. “That's why the Veiled Order is involved.”

The color had fled Joe's face. He glanced nervously through the window, fidgeting with his milkshake. He'd unknowingly pressed a number of crescent moons into the styrofoam cup with his fingernails. “That's fucked up,” was all he could manage.

My horror gave way to anger. “So, the guy we're meeting tonight is the human motherfucker who facilitates this whole thing? The middleman?”

Kubo nodded.

I cleaned my hands off on a napkin and threw it down onto my plate. “Well, I'm looking forward to meeting this Enrique, then. I'm going to have to apologize in advance, too. I don't know if I'll be able to take it easy on him.”

“Don't start, Lucy,” began Kubo. “We need him alive. This whole thing falls apart and his bosses get off scot-free if we kill him.” He tossed his shoulders, smoothing out the front of his black sport jacket. “Then again, if he tells us what we want to know, then I certainly won't have any hard feelings if he winds up dead.”

That businesses existed to sell off human children like cattle for use in blood rituals sickened me more than I can describe. What could possess someone, a human being, no less, to take part in an operation of this kind? How could such a person sleep at night, knowing what became of his “merchandise?” The whole thing made my skin crawl, made my stomach roil. And that wasn't good, because I'd packed away at least a pound of beef and cheese before Kubo's reveal had seen my appetite disappear.

The door to the restaurant opened and then fell closed with a clatter. There was no one there. I thought I heard footsteps, but figured it was the waitress or someone in the kitchen walking out into the dining area.

It wasn't until the voice seeped into my ear, followed by a touch of freezing cold air, that I realized Ernie was in the house.

“Hey, kiddo,” said the ghost. His voice was low, and with it I could have sworn I caught a whiff of Colt 45 malt liquor. Ernie was one of the Veiled Order's informants. Every night, he walked the city of Detroit, keeping an eye out for suspicious activity or following the organization's targets. He'd been an alcoholic and compulsive gambler in life, and he'd met his end when those two passions collided. Kubo had told me he'd blown his brains out in a game of Russian Roulette over a bottle of bum wine. “Your man has just entered that store across the street. Just like I said he would,” continued Ernie, loud enough for all three of us to hear.

Kubo shot up from the table. “All right. Let's move it.” Grabbing my shoulder, he pulled me out of the booth and waited for Joe to fall into step behind us. “It's just like I said. Confront the guy. Lead him outside. I'll have the SUV waiting. Don't make a scene; the last thing we want is to have to deal with cops. Keep your wits about you, too. It's hard to say whether he's packing a weapon, or if he has any magical skill.” He turned to Joe just as we exited the restaurant. “Keep an eye on Lucy. Don't let him fuck this up.”

Joe cracked a grin. “I'll do my best, Chief.”

The green neon sign for the organic grocery across the street lit up the night. It was a real fancy place, the kind where you could buy your clementines pre-peeled, where all of the avocados were picturesque and never turned brown. The three of us started towards it, Kubo breaking away as we neared the parking lot. His massive SUV was parked at the very edge of it, so that we could make a quick getaway with our target when the time came.

“He's got tattoos and piercings and shit, right?” I asked Ernie, whose footsteps I could still hear at my back.

The ghost whistled, loosing a nervous chuckle. “Oh, yeah. He's an ugly fella, that's for damn sure. Can't miss him. I followed him as far as the door. Came in on foot. He's done the same thing pretty much every night this week, so if you don't get him tonight, then maybe tomorrow you can—”

“Oh, no,” I replied, approaching the entrance to the store. “We're getting him tonight.” I cracked my knuckles, the joints popping grotesquely. My heart thrashed in my chest, the demon sensing an altercation in my future.

Joe took hold of his silver Zippo lighter, twirling it between his fingers. He could do some pretty wild things with it. As a pyromancer, he was capable of manipulating an open flame, could throw fireballs at people or even cook them from the inside with their own body heat.

I shook my head. “Nah, man. Put it away. I'll handle this.” The two of us stepped into the store, a wave of air conditioning making the sweat on our faces go frigid. “I'll talk to him. Get him to leave with us without making a ruckus. You stay close-by, just in case he tries to make a run for it, OK?”

Pursing his lips, Joe scanned the store ahead of us. Wherever Enrique was, he wasn't near the front. “You sure, Lucy?”

“Positive,” said I. “I'm a real charmer when I want to be.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Whatever, man. Just don't mess this up. I don't want to get screamed at by the Chief, OK?”

The two of us pushed deeper into the store, past the displays of hemp soap and the gaggles of soccer moms perusing the selection of cruelty-free deodorants. We didn't have to go far before we struck gold.

Standing in the produce section, looking every bit as nasty as Ernie had promised, was our guy.

* * *

I moved in on him.

Just strike up a little conversation with him, I thought to myself. Get him laughing. Then, maybe, you can get him to follow you out to the parking lot.

Pretending that I had taken a great interest in the two-for-one broccoli crowns, I made a couple of side-steps his way and then shot him a narrow glance. “Say,” I began, “you look familiar.” I wasn't sure where I was going with this, but my ad-lib game was normally pretty good and I decided to just go with the flow.

The heavily-tattooed guy, standing a foot taller than me, had enough metal in his face to build himself a rocket to Uglytown. His earlobes were stretched to the sizes of small saucers by black gauges and, unless I was mistaken, he had silicone implants near both temples that were supposed to resemble budding horns. Darling. He was holding two bunches of crisp-looking chou-frisé, but if we're being honest, he didn't much look like a chou-frisé kind of guy. He turned to look at me, eyes narrowing. “Sorry?”

“Yeah,” I continued, nodding. “You, uh... you look like that guy...” I glanced up at the ceiling, pretending to fall into thought. “Enrique? From the music videos in the nineties?” I snapped my fingers. “Enrique Iglesias, am I right?”

The guy cracked a smile, revealing stubby, yellow teeth. “Nah, not me.”

That smile of his sickened me. Just knowing what kind of guy he was, what kind of work he did, where the money for these hippy-dippy vegetables was coming from, made me sick. No, it was more than repulsion; I wanted to crack him across the jaw right then and there. The sort of operation that this dude was facilitating was just about the most evil thing I'd ever run across. Painting the stone-tiled floors with his blood seemed like a perfectly good idea. Somehow, though, I restrained myself, tried to keep up my pleasant ruse.

“No, no, you're totally him, aren't you?” I waggled my eyebrows. “You did that song... 'Bailamos,' am I right? I loved that shit, man. Can I get a selfie with you?” I got closer to him, pulled out my phone.

He frowned, apparently tiring of my joke. The frown was just as off-putting as the smile he'd had on. His shoulders stiffened, fists tightened. These changes in his body language told me I'd just about worn out my welcome. I needed to take a few steps back, lay off of the guy.

But I couldn't help myself.

Hands in my pockets, I shrugged. “Ah, my mistake, then. I must be getting my Enriques mixed up, huh? You're not the singer. But... your name is Enrique, isn't it?”

He turned to face me, his gaze steely as the rings in his nostrils. “Yeah, that's right. What do you want?”

“Come with me, I wanna chat with you outside,” I offered. “This really isn't the best place.”

He stood there, the bulldog grimace on his lips telling me that he had no intention of moving. “No. What do you want?” he demanded.

“What do I want?” I played dumb, looked up at the ceiling as though I were about to list off the items on my bucket list. “Oh, just to have a little talk with your bosses. I don't imagine you could tell me where to find them? The Kaminsky brothers?”

Now it was his turn to play dumb. “W-who are you talking about?” He waved one of his chubby hands at me. “You've got the wrong guy.”

I sniffed the air, nodding sympathetically. I also took this opportunity to take a step towards him, hoping to cut him off in case he darted to my right. “No, I don't think I do. You're the one who works for a pair of werewolves and shuttles kids off to the Beyond, ain't that right?” I clicked my tongue. “I knew from the minute I'd laid eyes on you that you'd never been in a fucking music video.”

All of the color on the fella's face that hadn't been put there by a needle drained away. His eyes, dark things that were probably unaccustomed to widening in fear, suddenly bolted open. He'd been found out. One of his big, black boots hit the floor with a deep thud as he took a step away. Then another.

And then he was running, all three-hundred or so pounds of him, full-tilt, for the exit.

Fuck.

The chump was sprinting towards the front of the store, bumping into other shoppers and stacks of merchandise while navigating the cramped aisles. So much for keeping the whole thing discrete.

Kubo hadn't wanted us to make a scene, but now that the guy was on the run, what choice did I have? If he made it out that door there was no telling whether we'd be able to find him again. It was too big a risk, and so I pushed past a cute granola girl reaching for a container of yogurt and gave chase. Joe was running, too, coming up on my right, cursing.

“You should have boxed him in somehow, Lucy!” he spat. “Now he's going to make a break for it!”

“Oh, yeah? Maybe you should have stood in his damn way, then! What were you doing while I was talking to him?” I barked. “Trying all of the free samples?”

Enrique bobbed and weaved between the aisles, knocking down displays of soy crisps and bottles of coffee-based drinks as he went. He was going to get to the door before we did, and nothing short of a ranged attack was going to slow him down.

I cut to the right of the store, whipping an empty shopping cart from one of the center aisles and started into a sprint, the cart charging just ahead of me like a battering ram. A few girls in yoga pants looked on in horror as I barreled past the refrigerables and came up on Enrique's six. Behind me, I could hear Joe fussing with his Zippo. What was he hoping to do with that here? Give all of the shoppers a front-row ticket to a real magic show? Tossing fireballs at the guy was way too conspicuous.

I opted for something just a little more subtle.

Gripping the handle of the shopping cart, I hoisted it over my head and then threw it across the store with everything I had.

The cashiers hit the deck as the metal cage flew through the air and connected with Enrique. The guy lost his balance, the cart smacking him in the back, and fell into a delicately stacked pyramid of soda twelve-packs. I felt like I'd just made a Superbowl-winning pass.

Joe and I found our opening. While Enrique struggled to get back up, we gained on him, dashing past the registers and taking hold of his arms. He was out of breath, sweating profusely for the brief chase, but still tried to pull himself free.

He succeeded in evading Joe's grasp, but he wasn't strong enough to out-muscle me. I let my fingers sink deep into the meat of his flabby biceps till his legs went weak. Then, yanking him towards the door, the three of us made our way into the warm night. Idling near the entrance was Kubo in his black SUV. He rolled down the passenger-side window just far enough to curse at me. “I told you not to make a goddamn scene!”

Joe opened one of the doors and we piled in, the quaking Enrique getting dragged into an open seat like a sack of sweaty garbage. I hadn't loosened my grip any since leaving the store and his arm had gone limp. Tears streamed down his painted cheeks, a nifty compliment to the teardrop tattoos he wore. I let go of him.

When the doors were shut and we were roaring down the road at ninety-plus, Enrique finally spoke. “W-who are you people? What do you want?” he gulped, massaging his fingers as the feeling slowly returned. “Are you... are y-you cops?”

Kubo glanced at him in the rearview, flashing his sharp teeth in a grin. “No, we aren't cops. But by the time we're through with you, you're going to wish we were just cops.”

The soundtrack to the remainder of the car ride was a grown man's stifled weeping.

* * *

“Where's Ernie?” asked Joe, looking back at the empty seats in the SUV. “Did he leave?”

Kubo nodded. “You know how he is. I handed him a silver dollar and he just took off, said he had some walking yet to do tonight.”

Joe furrowed his brow. “What's his obsession with silver? I mean, can a ghost even use money?”

“He's saving up to buy himself a yacht. Wants to make the trip down the River Styx in style,” replied Kubo, cracking a grin.

I wasn't paying attention to those two. I was focused solely on our captive, Enrique. As we tore down the street to God-knew-where, I had just one question for the guy.

“So,” I said, leaning forward from the third row and eyeing Enrique expectantly, “why do you do it?”

I wasn't sure just where Kubo planned to stop. We'd been driving about twenty minutes already and the guy showed no signs of slowing down. I thought we might hop onto the highway and go to the Veiled Order's headquarters, a massive concrete complex sitting in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by tall, black gates, but he kept to the side streets. Probably he was just looking for some place where we could shake the guy up without attracting too much attention.

While Joe flicked the cap to his lighter open and closed, Enrique played the fool. “I don't want to say anything until I've spoken to my lawyer.”

“You damned idiot!” I barked, slapping the back of his head. “You work for two monsters, grabbing kids off of the street, so that they can sell them to other monsters. If I were a cop I'd have killed you execution-style by now!”

Kubo shot me a glance, shook his head as if to say, “Cool it.”

I sighed. “I just want to know why you'd do that kind of work. You know what happens to those kids after they're snatched up, right?”

Enrique was sweating. Big, fat drops of perspiration dripped from his forehead, traced the gauges in his ears till they were glistening. He looked up at Kubo, summoning his voice feebly. “W-where are you taking me?”

Unfortunately for him, I was the only one in the vehicle willing to chat with him.

“I asked you a question.” I gave the demon in me a bit of slack to play with, let him use my eyes to deliver a chilling glare that made the trembling guy sit upright. I could practically see the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, one after another, as Gadreel's presence filled the space. “I don't like being ignored.”

Finally, Enrique gulped, hand squeezing the armrest. “I, uh... I do it for the money,” he said. Trying to sport a grin, he added, “You've gotta do what you can to get by. Rent's still due at the end of the month. You know?”

It was such a poor excuse for doing his heinous work, such a predictable reply, that I could have spit in his face, punched his head clean off his shoulders. But what really got under my skin about Enrique's weak excuse was that I'd heard it all before.

You know, I don't like to talk about it much these days, but once I wasn't such a nice, upstanding guy myself.

OK, sure, I'm not exactly a Boy Scout. Some would insist that I'm still not a nice, upstanding guy. That's besides the point.

Anyhow, a few years back, after earning a master's in Art History, I'd had a hell of a time finding a good job. Turns out that people don't really care about whether you can differentiate between a legitimate DaVinci or a fake, how many papers you've written on the works of Frida Kahlo. And so, I turned to something that paid well, something that didn't require a degree of any kind, and whose only qualification was persistence. I became a debt collector.

I spent a few years knocking on doors, collecting money from people who couldn't afford to repay their debts. And I did worse, too. Slashed tires, kicked in doors. Real Hollywood shit. Whatever it took to get my “clients” on a payment plan.

If asked, my excuse was always something like what Enrique had spat out. “Oh, well, I do it because I need the money. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, right? A man's gotta eat.” And it was all bullshit. I'd done things at that job that I couldn't take back, had probably ruined more lives than I knew. Over time, I'd left the repo agency and started doing work for private clients, recovering pieces of stolen art. But the gist was the same. Violence for money. It was while doing a job for one of those clients that I'd gotten mowed down by witches and had, subsequently, been given the demon's heart.

I laughed for a little while, leaning back in my seat. Then I reached over and slapped Enrique in the head again. A little harder this time. “That's horseshit, and you know it. There are countless ways to make money that don't involve selling off human children to the inhabitants of the Beyond. You're a piece of shit.”

For the first time in a while, Enrique actually managed to reply in an even tone of voice. “Maybe. But it seems to me that you already had your mind made up about me before you asked the question. So, why'd you bother?”

I frowned, kicking the back of his seat. “Chief, where are we taking this dirtbag?”

Kubo turned into a large, empty lot flanked by long-abandoned brick buildings as if in answer to my question. We were in an old part of town, a neighborhood I couldn't even name, and as I scanned our surroundings through the tinted glass I wondered how long it'd been since we'd seen a pedestrian or another car on the road. Out here, most of the streetlights were out. The air looked kind of smoky, like the wind seldom blew through these parts and the filth just remained suspended in a semi-permanent haze.

Easing down on the break, Kubo brought the SUV to a stop and then shifted into park. He checked to make sure he'd locked the doors before studying Enrique with a scowl. “So, we want to know one thing and one thing only, Enrique. Unlike Lucy back there, I'm not interested in knowing why you do this work. I just want to know where I can find your bosses, the Kaminsky brothers. I know you can direct me to them. Do so, quickly, and I'll let you out here.”

Enrique considered this for a long while, dabbing at his forehead and toying nervously with the silicon horns beneath his skin. “A-and if I refuse?” He had to wrestle out the words.

Kubo's eyes had never left the man. His stare came in as sharp as a razor as he responded. Reaching into his jacket, he unholstered a massive, silver handgun and set it down on the dash before him. “Let's try it the easy way first, yeah?”

Enrique stared at the gun with wide-eyed horror and worked over his lower lip with trembling fingers. “I, uh... I've worked for the, uh... Kaminsky brothers... for a couple of years now. They have a lot of guys working for them, mostly like me. Guys who need the money. Guys who—”

Kubo snapped his fingers, still staring the prisoner down in the mirror. “Now, that ain't what I asked, is it?” His gaze drifted to the gun on the dash for an instant before returning to meet Enrique's. “I want to know one thing, and one thing only. You got me? Where are they?”

I watched the exchange from the third row, wondering how long it'd take the guy to crack. Even for me, Kubo was a pretty intimidating presence. He had all the warmth of a drill sergeant and was willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to get what he wanted. I had zero doubt that Kubo would put a bullet between his eyes if he didn't cooperate, and the prisoner seemed to realize it.

Still, Enrique beat around the bush. “My bosses, you see... they pay me very well. I don't have to do much in the way of dirty work. I just... you know, I delegate. I map out the routes and tell the other guys where to go. When they find kids, they—”

I grabbed his shoulder and shook him hard. “Yeah, yeah, you're just their fucking door-greeter, right? Spit it out, Enrique. Quit your stalling.”

Suddenly, Joe turned and glanced through the window. He'd quit playing with his lighter at some point, and was now clutching it in his palm. He pressed his face to the glass, his breath fogging it up. “C-chief?”

“Not now,” replied Kubo. “Enrique, I—”

The Chief and I noticed it at the same time. Something dark blotted out what little light there was outside. The nearest working streetlamp was blocked for an instant as something seemed to streak past it. Joe, Kubo and I all stopped what we were doing and looked out the windows, searching for the source of the disturbance. Maybe a bird, or a bat?

Enrique began to chuckle.

“What's so funny, asshole?” I asked.

Kubo's eyes were searching the night for something while his hand sought out the gun on the dash. He grit his teeth, sparing a quick glance at the captive. “How many are there?” he asked.

Enrique shrugged, his lips peeled back in a wicked grin.

Suddenly, I understood.

His bosses had been keeping an eye on him, had sent someone to rescue him from us. And he'd known it the whole time. He'd merely been stalling, waiting for them to show themselves.

The SUV rocked on its suspension as something solid landed on its roof. A second something, very dark and apparently bipedal, landed on the hood, leaning down so that its two, ruby-red eyes could be seen through the windshield.

Kubo cursed, throwing open his door. “Gargoyles.”

* * *

Kubo was out of the car first, and Joe wasn't far behind. I, on the other hand, fumbled to get over the second row of seating and out one of the side doors. All the while, Enrique appeared positively tickled. His backup was here, and his captors were about to get what was coming to them.

Or so he thought.

It wasn't until I'd clambered out of the SUV and found myself face-to-face with one of the nasty-looking things that I began to understand what we were up against. There appeared to be three figures in total, one for each of us, all built of dark grey stone. They were uniform in appearance; towering at something like seven feet and featuring the same, snarling expressions, they looked like they'd just been plucked off of one of the nice old buildings downtown.

Loosing grating, inhuman cries, the gargoyles moved around with surprising deftness despite their great weight.

And they could fly, too.

One of the three jumped up into the air and stayed there for several moments, doing fly-bys around Kubo. It was a shrieking dive bomber made of pure concrete, and its every movement promised of punishment. A hit from one of those arms or legs would be like getting struck by a wrecking ball.

Shots rang out. I watched as Kubo played target practice with the flying monstrosity, and though he was a good shot, connecting with three of his four rounds, the bullets had precious little effect. They struck the stone body, knocked a little dust, some gravel from it, but couldn't penetrate it fully.

The other two gargoyles also took flight, the three of them circling the SUV like stony buzzards. Joe gave the striker on his Zippo a spin, and from the sparks that burst forth he summoned up a wild flame. Rising like a burst of lava from the lip of a volcano, Joe aimed his lighter at the nearest gargoyle, which was reaching out towards him to deliver a slash with its granite claws, and bathed it in flames.

The gargoyle gave another of its shrieks, but seemed unfazed by the fire that now covered its body. It did a few more circuits around us with its fellows, the stone that comprised its body holding onto the bolus of flame but not succumbing to it.

Great. Now one of the damned things was a flaming cannonball diving at us from above.

“Get back,” ordered Kubo, rifling through his jacket pocket for his paper seals. The Chief always carried a stack of the things with him, spells he'd prepared ahead of time. Once he'd found the right seal, he could utilize it by tapping into his will and uttering the necessary incantations. Trouble was, he couldn't really leaf through his papers with the three monsters flying at us. A single blow from one of those things could easily kill him. And Joe, too.

That was where I had an edge.

See, when you've got a demon's heart in you, death simply doesn't take. Since joining up with Gadreel, I'd had my body cut to ribbons, had been shot and stabbed. I'd run the gamut of pain, only to crawl back from the brink every time.

It was going to hurt like hell, but I could take whatever these stony bastards could dish out.

And then I could reciprocate.

Balling my fists, I felt my heart leap in my chest. The skin actually trembled as the muscle kicked into overdrive. Adrenaline shot into every quadrant, made my muscles go taut, filled my brain. “All right,” I muttered, spitting on the ground. My caustic spit ate a nickel-sized hole in the concrete. “Let's see what you've got.”

Kubo rolled back, ducking behind the SUV as the flaming gargoyle swooped down at him, claws raised, like a giant bird. Joe had pocketed his lighter, and ran straight into the SUV just as a second gargoyle touched down on the roof and left behind a pair of monstrous dents. The vehicle lurched to one side as the creature pushed off, taking flight once again.

The third gargoyle set its sights on me and sailed down like a missile, its jagged visage all teeth and pointed tongue.

With all the strength I could muster, I crouched down and buried my heels in the ground. The concrete beneath my sneakers cracked as I sprang into the air, fist cocked for a hard jab. I met the gargoyle an instant later. Or, I should say, he met me. I felt his claw graze my side, then felt the thick, stony appendage crunch through ribs. The breath left my lungs as pain tore through my abdomen. The creature's punch ended somewhere within my guts, its rocky fist buried between my spleen and small intestine.

That was when I threw my counterpunch.

The roar that left my throat was raw, impossibly loud, and was enough to leave my target temporarily stunned. Before it knew what hit it, I'd struck it straight-on in the face, my knuckles going to work on its chiseled countenance like a jackhammer. The stone spiderwebbed, gave way like an eggshell, and burst a moment later into a cloud of grey dust.

I fell to the ground with what remained of the headless gargoyle, its arm still deep in my abdomen. The gargoyle landed first, its body cracking and its limbs falling apart, which left me to bleed out on a pile of jagged rubble. I coughed through the dust, clutched at my gaping gut.

And then I stood up.

That was one down.

Kubo was still running from the flaming one, had ducked around the back of the vehicle to have a look at his seals. He didn't have enough breathing room to work his spellcraft. The minute he stopped to pick out the right slip of paper, the thing was upon him. The other one was flying overhead, eyeing us and taking the occasional jab at our ride. The poor SUV was dented, its windshield cracked. I hoped the guys at the Veiled Order were up to date on their insurance.

I picked a few pebbles out of my grievous abdominal wound. The ground was dressed in my gore, but as I studied the wound itself, I couldn't help but smile. The torn flesh was slowly closing, the borders of the wound moving towards one another as if in embrace. The layers beneath the dermis did the same, so that by the time the flaming gargoyle landed and took a swipe at me, I was practically healed.

The other gargoyle, the one who'd been flying around and making a mess of the SUV up to that point, got it into his head that he should help his buddy deal with me. The gargoyles appeared to be nothing more than rock-hard automatons, but in judging me the greatest threat, they'd gotten at least one thing right. They took turns swinging at me, their sharp, rocky wings flapping between jabs.

The fiery gargoyle had to go first. He was the most dangerous. Reaching through the flames that still raged all over its body, I thumped it in the chest, causing it to lose its balance. When its face was within striking distance of my foot, I reared back and gave it a kiss in the lips with the edge of my sneaker, Bruce Lee style. The sound of splitting stone filled the night as its head and shoulders burst apart into rubble. The fire continued to burn, but the stony bulk fell still as it met the ground.

From behind came a hammer-blow to the head. I was jostled by the punch, felt my eyes nearly spring out of their sockets. I staggered forward, trying to gain my bearings, and felt something sharp graze my forearm. A wing.

Momentarily out of breath, I gave my head a good shake. My sight finally stabilized, and I firmed up my stance. “You pricks just don't know when to quit, do you?”

The gargoyle loosed a harsh, open-mouthed shriek that made my ears ring. I wasn't sure whether it'd understood me, whether it had knowledge of anything aside from violence.

Thankfully, that was a subject I was proficient in. I spoke to it in a language I was sure it could understand. Catching one of its bulky arms in mine, I swung a forearm into its elbow joint, breaking the limb down the middle. Then, jabbing it in the chin, I circled around to its rear and kicked its right knee to pieces. The gargoyle took a tumble, smacking into the concrete face-first.

When it tried to get up, I spit in its face. There's something about demon spit that's highly acidic. It'll eat through anything. The monstrosity's head began to bubble away, leaving behind only a jagged stump when my loogie was through.

It was done. Ushering Gadreel back into the shadows, I shared with him a mental high-five. That's what I'm talking about, Gadreel! Top-notch. I think you just earned yourself a beer.

I turned around, wondering why it was that Joe and Kubo weren't patting me on the back, and found the two of them sprinting out of the SUV. “H-hey,” I chanced. “What's the matter?”

Kubo was the first to reply, in the form of a gunshot.

A pained cry rang out shortly thereafter. Then the sound of a body hitting the ground.

I walked around the SUV and got a look at what they were doing.

Ol' Enrique had made a run for it. He'd gone a pretty good distance before Joe and Kubo and managed to catch up to him. The shot had been clean, and as I drew nearer I saw that the bullet had gone in through the small of his back. Might've even severed his spine in the deal.

Enrique wept and twitched on the ground like a cockroach that hadn't been fully squashed, face-down. The color hadn't fully returned to Joe's face, but he dropped down to one knee beside the guy. “Shit, did you kill him, Chief?”

Kubo didn't have an answer for him. “You still with us, Enrique?”

Gasping, Enrique offered a tearful murmur in response.

“I think you're going to be OK. The bullet passed through. A good shot, if I do say so myself. You'll make it if I call an ambulance right now. But in order for me to do so, I need you to tell me one thing. Your bosses, the Kaminskys. Where are they?”

Enrique wasn't messing around anymore, and raising his head as best he could off of the ground, he replied. “They're on Hard Row. They operate out of Hard Row.” He groaned, his hands grasping at the pavement. “P-please, call 9-1-1. C-call someone, please.”

“Hard Row?” asked Kubo, giving the gun in his hand a little shake. “You sure about that?”

Enrique gave the best nod he could manage.

“See? Was that so hard?” asked Kubo as he sent a round through the back of Enrique's head.

Enrique's brains splashed out over the concrete, the splatter reminding me of ground beef and, subsequently, the cheeseburger I'd eaten before setting out on this wild mission. My stomach churned. “Fuck, chief... why'd you do that? Why'd you...” I gagged a little, turning away. Funny how I could look at my own innards during a fight, but the sight of some spilled brains was enough to make me queasy.

Joe stood up quickly, brushing flecks of grey matter off of his jeans. “Yeah, Chief. What the hell?”

Kubo reached down towards the dead man's pant leg, drawing it up and revealing a small tattoo. It was shaped like a shooting star, but the tail of the thing was a curious spiral. “See that?” he said. “I caught a glimpse of it just as he darted out of the SUV. It's no ordinary tattoo, that.” He pointed out the tail of the shooting star with the tip of his gun. “It's a brand. That coil on the end is a magical sigil indicating ownership. I'll bet you his bosses put it there. The little star just makes it look less conspicuous.” Kubo stood, straightening his jacket. “It's very possible that his bosses have been using that tattoo of his to track his whereabouts. Thus the gargoyles. He was too big a liability. Probably should have killed him sooner, except he wasn't willing to talk.”

I licked my lips, pacing around the dead man. “Well, what now?” I averted my gaze, looked over at the SUV, at the orange streetlight. The quiet had returned.

“Now, gentlemen,” replied Kubo, holstering his gun, “we're going to Hard Row.”

Hard Row. It was a rough spot on the cusp of Detroit. A former strip mall. The sort of place our mothers always used to forbid us to visit. Most of the buildings there were abandoned and inhabited by gangs, and those that still housed businesses were known fronts for illicit operations. It was a relatively small area, but it teemed with unsavory types. Even the cops avoided it, pretended it didn't exist. It was pretty much the perfect place for the werewolf brothers to run their human trafficking operation.

We made our way back to the beat-up SUV, the Chief surprisingly jovial despite his just having killed a man. Sticking the key in the ignition, he chuckled. “Well, would you look at that! She still starts up. A little rough around the edges now, but she'll get us to where we need to go. Now that's what I call a dependable ride.”

Joe glanced out his window, looking to Enrique's limp body sprawled out against the concrete. “Damn, Chief. Are you sure it was a good idea to kill him? What if... what if he wasn't telling the truth?”

Kubo peeled out of the lot and made a beeline for the main road. “If he was lying? Well, then I imagine the three of us are going to wind up fighting our way through a literal crowd of gangbangers only to be disappointed.”

I perked up from the back seat, frowning. “Yeah? And what if he was telling the truth?”

Kubo hooked a sharp right. “The same. Except, at the end of the rainbow, there'll be two werewolves waiting for us, besides.”

I gulped.

It was going to be a long, long night.

* * *

I'm going to spare you all of the consternation and hand-wringing I did on the way out to Hard Row as Kubo explained his plan to us. After our tussle with the gargoyles, you probably think it pretty silly that I'd lose my cool over taking on whatever riff-raff called that stretch of town home. I wasn't worried for myself, though. I was worried for Joe and Kubo.

The Chief's plan, which he set into motion pretty much the minute we left Enrique in the rearview, was pretty simple. He'd made a phone call, arranged for a truckload of Veiled Order foot soldiers to surround Hard Row. The strip mall would be given some breathing room; that is, there wasn't going to be some conspicuous display to draw the attention of the spot's denizens. They were just going to act like a safety net, something to pick up the Kaminskys should they somehow manage to slip from our grasp.

The three of us were heading into the thick of it, though, to seek out the two of them. Anyone who interfered with our hunt was automatically volunteering for a beating, and Kubo explained emphatically that we would dash in, go building-by-building if we had to, in order to capture the King Rats we sought.

Er, wolves. Whatever. You get my point.

That was all well and good, and I could see from the fiery look in Kubo's eye that he was all for leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, however I wondered if there wasn't some better way for us to strike at the heart of this trafficking operation, to search out its headquarters and drop in without warning.

Because, in case you haven't noticed, my two partners weren't exactly invulnerable. Me? I could take my lumps. Knives and guns couldn't do a thing to me. But Joe and Kubo were a different story, and if one of them got picked off by a trigger-happy gangbanger while we went door-to-door, well, it was going to be a bad time.

We were less than a mile out, the landscape having changed dramatically into something more degraded than we'd hitherto seen. The buildings we passed, probably meth labs or low-key brothels, bore a tottering quality that felt somehow forced. Great care had been taken to make these abodes seem shabbier than they really were, to prop up the illusion of abandonment so that passersby wouldn't spare them a glance. As we drove, though, our beat-up SUV the only working car in view, I could see curtains in upstairs windows parting slightly, narrow eyes glancing out at us and taking note.

“This entire part of town is like a spider's web,” I muttered, shaking my head. “When you step into it, anywhere, the vibrations course throughout the entire thing. There has to be a better way, Chief. It's not like we can just knock on every door and ask the pimps and drug dealers out here whether they know the Kaminskys.”

Kubo leaned on the wheel, corners of his lips curled in a smirk. “Of course not. You think this is my first time out here? It's a labyrinth of old buildings. It all looks abandoned, but behind every door there's bound to be at least one gun-toting thug waiting for us. I've got something else up my sleeve.”

“What's that?” asked Joe.

“The Veiled Order has access to a lot of military-grade equipment. Night-vision stuff, thermal imaging tech, things like that. Our guys are already out here, scoping out the buildings and looking for any pockets of suspicious activity. We'll know where the threats are before we even leave the car.” Kubo looked back at me. “Unless you've got a better idea, kiddo?”

The plan felt clumsy to me, overly complicated. Why use a bunch of sophisticated technology to root around when we could utilize something simpler? “Why don't we just send Ernie in?” I asked. “He could literally walk from building to building, find the Kaminskys. Seems a lot easier, no?”

For the first time that night, Kubo seemed to thoughtfully consider my words. “Come to think of it,” he conceded, “that's not a bad idea.” He brought his phone to his ear and made another call. “Johnson, see about picking up Ernie again. Shuttle him over to Hard Row. I've got another job for him. And if he gives you sass, tell him I'll pay him double.”

He hung up just as we reached a number of other black SUVs idling along the shattered curb of a nameless street whose signage had long ago been lifted. Veiled Order commandos were crowded between them, dressed in black body armor and shouldering beefy rifles. Kubo hopped out of the car and flagged a few of them down, letting them know that there'd been a small change in plans.

When he returned to the SUV a few minutes later, I asked him what we were going to do.

“Now, we're going to wait and see what Ernie finds,” he replied.

* * *

Ernie was a predictable spirit, his nightly wanderings taking him in a steady circuit around town. By day he took shelter in the basement of a shuttered bar, but by night he walked, and was always willing to earn a little extra silver. The Veiled Order apparently had a trace spell on him, so that they could retrieve him in a hurry whenever they required his services. In life, the old vagrant had done work for the organization in order to fuel his habit. Why he kept at it in death was hard to say. Maybe old habits were just too hard to break.

Joe drifted off in the passenger seat. I stretched out across the third row and nearly did the same when I heard a soft knock at Kubo's window. He lowered it and leaned out.

There was no one there.

No one we could see, that is.

Ernie's raspy laugh drifted through the air. Glancing outside, I thought for a minute that I caught the barest impression of his face, of his wide smile and rosy nose. “Quite the place, this,” he said, nodding towards the menacing silhouettes of battered buildings to the right. “It's crawling with roughs. One of 'ems a brothel, I think, judging by the things I was seein' and hearin'. I stopped to watch a little bit, just makin' sure I had my bearings right, and the stuff that went on in there, boy, it'd make your head spin! There was one room, I tell ya, where these two young fellas were going at it with this bird. She was likin' it, too, callin' 'em 'daddy', and her legs were up—”

If he'd been able to, Kubo would have slugged the ghost. “I don't give a damn about that, you old lech. Did you find our targets? The Kaminskys?”

“Ah, yeah,” replied Ernie. “They're in there, all right. The dead, you know, we can look beyond simple masking tricks, and when I peeked into one of them doorways, I spotted two big ol' werewolves chatting with some young fella about a bet they were makin'. Real gamblers, these two, I reckon.” He cleared his throat, let loose an invisible loogie, and then continued. “They were in a building near the back, pretty sure the number was 1134.”

Taking two silver dollars out of his breast pocket, Kubo rubbed them together. “Pretty sure? Ernie, I'm not paying you for pretty sure.”

The ghost laughed a hiccoughing laugh. “Nah, nah, I'm sure it was that one, 1134. That was the number near the door. Real run-down on the outside, but you can tell they been takin' care of it on the inside. Even got a workin' TV in there, where they was watchin' the Tigers game. Say, they having a good season this year? I don't get to follow up with sports a whole lot these days.”

Kubo dropped the two silver coins into Ernie's invisible palm. “I wouldn't know,” was his terse response. “Joe, Lucy, get up. We're heading in. And Ernie, stay close. There's a third coin in store for you if you come along.”

In a library somewhere there's probably a book explaining why it's impossible for something incorporeal like a ghost to pocket a few silver coins, but that's what Ernie did, tittering to himself at the prospect of earning still more. “Sure thing!”

Joe and I exited the SUV and took in the sight of Hard Row. Ernie had zeroed in on the particular building we were looking for, could probably take us in through the best possible entrance, however this mission was still fraught with risk. I was beginning to wonder why we couldn't just have Kubo's bosses call in an air strike.

OK, maybe there would have been some collateral, but it would have been a lot safer than skulking around this part of town for Joe and Kubo. The three—er, four of us started across the street. Kubo had given his orders to the Veiled Order grunts, advising them to stay back. They could theoretically bum rush the building if things went south, but the Chief seemed hopeful for a more delicate operation than that.

Ernie's ghostly form was traced in a subtle, ethereal blue. He led the way, whistling a tune and occasionally chatting with us about the things he saw on his nightly walks. None of us were listening too closely, though, too deep in our thoughts, so that when he said, “This is the place,” we nearly walked past him.

Joe approached the squat, brick building and appraised the rusted numbers on its exterior. 1134. “So, what, do we just knock?” he asked in a whisper. Despite the night's warmth, he kept pulling up the collar of his leather jacket, like he was trying to fight off a constant chill.

Kubo shook his head. “Not quite. Ernie's going in first.”

I didn't like the look of the place, most of its windows busted and covered by black garbage bags. There was a smell in the air, like motor oil left to stew in standing water, and every time the wind blew I seemed to get a face-full of it. If I listened real hard, I could hear what I thought was the sound of a television from inside. The building was two stories, and was connected on one side to an even taller structure. The place next door had been a pharmacy or something at one time, judging by the faded sign hanging from the weathered bricks.

“Not too welcoming,” I said, standing behind Ernie. My gaze traveled along the street to our backs, and I half-expected to see a surly street gang like something out of The Warriors strolling by. No one did, though. From one of the adjacent buildings, I heard the sound of shattering glass, of forceful voices. Across the street, huddled in an alley petting a stray cat, was a homeless man who was missing three of the fingers on his right hand and humming contentedly. Somewhere in the distance, a car backfired.

Ernie pushed open the door. It wasn't locked. That seemed awfully strange, considering we were entering Human Trafficker Headquarters and all. Peering into the dark room ahead of us, I searched for signs of movement, of any presence, but there were none. The room was an empty shell, packed only with dust and shadow. We stepped inside.

Canvassing the room, Kubo held his gun at his side. “Close the door, Joe.”

Joe did as he was told, the flimsy wooden thing closing with a soft click.

The air here was still, like no one had walked through the room in centuries. The only window, to our right, was still intact, but it'd been covered over with newspaper to keep out prying eyes. I gritted my teeth as we slowly advanced towards a dark hallway. What kinds of things happened in this building? Was this where they brought the abducted kids and prepped them for delivery to the Beyond?

At the thought, I tried to gulp down a knot of nerves, but my throat wouldn't cooperate. “Prep” was quite the euphemism for what was happening to the kids who got picked up by these bastards. It's not like they were being kidnapped and sent to space camp or some shit.

“How much further, Ernie?” asked Kubo, raising his gun and stepping into the hallway.

Ernie's bluish hand massaged the back of his neck. “Eh, not far now. Pretty sure they were in the room just around this corner.”

The sound of a television became clearer with every step we took. The crack of a baseball bat, the roar of an enthusiastic crowd. The werewolves were watching the game.

And then the sound was suddenly cut off.

The four of us stopped in our tracks.

Next, a door opened. From around the corner at the other end of the hall came a tall black man in a pair of tight jeans and a wife beater. There was a massive gun tucked into his waistband, but he didn't reach for it. Instead, for whatever reason, he offered us a big smile. “Welcome. The Kaminsky brothers will see you now. Right this way.” Despite the imposing figure he cut, the guy's voice was syrupy and effeminate. Come to think of it, he looked more than a little like RuPaul sans drag.

Kubo tensed, gun leveled upon this newcomer. “So, you've been expecting us? Stand aside.”

Tugging at the ends of his wife beater, the man did as he was told. From around the corner, in a deep voice that still retained something of a Russian color, came a reply. “We have indeed been expecting you. We were placing bets, in fact, on whether we'd manage to get out of here before you showed up.”

We walked to the end of the hallway and found ourselves standing at the threshold to a surprisingly chic office. It was clean and neat, unlike virtually everything else we'd encountered. New floors, freshly-painted walls, a muted flatscreen. There were two desks within, behind which were seated two beastly-looking men. I don't say that on account of what I knew them to be. They really were animalistic in appearance, from the dense hair that sprouted along their thick forearms, to the canine sharpness of their teeth and the curious yellow glint of their eyes. Even their ears were unnaturally shaped, a little longer. Like a dog's.

These were the Kaminsky brothers, the monsters we'd been seeking all night.

Finding the two of them had proven surprisingly easy.

A little too easy, in fact.

“How did you know we were coming?” asked Kubo, one eye on the RuPaul lookalike to our rear, the other on the sneering brothers, who now stood from their seats to a full height of more than six feet.

Their names had been Gennady and Mikhail, if I remembered correctly. I wasn't sure just which one of them replied, but he had thick, black hair and a dense five-o'-clock shadow. “Enrique, of course,” he said, stepping out from behind his desk and cracking his knotted knuckles. He was wearing a fitted dress shirt and designer jeans. Apparently Enrique hadn't been kidding; human trafficking paid pretty well. “We kept an eye on him at all times.” He pointed to the ceiling. “From above.”

Kubo grunted. “Oh, the gargoyles? We handled them.”

The other brother chuckled, hands in his pockets. “You handled three of them. There was another, of course. Once we knew you were on our trail, we had him watch you from afar.” The guy turned his sharp eyes to me and gave a little bow. “That was a very impressive display of power, by the way.”

I tried real hard not to feel flattered, but it isn't every day that someone comments on your gargoyle-thrashing skills, you know? I looked away.

The other brother picked up from there, looking over his thick, manicured fingernails and showing little interest in Kubo's gun. “The minute Enrique was taken, we arranged to leave Detroit. We just didn't anticipate your finding us so easily. The gargoyles, you see, missed your ghost. We thought we had more time, but the spirit led you right to us.” He sighed, like our visit was just a major pain in his ass. “Our arrangements still stand; we have a plane waiting to take us out of the country and any second now our driver will be by for us.”

“A shame you went and paid for that ticket, eh?” replied Kubo.

The brother on the right shrugged. “Well, that's up to you now, isn't it?”

Joe looked between the brothers, then back at the bodyguard, who leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and a smile on his glossy lips. “What, do you think we're going to let you walk out of here?”

Sticking his pinky into his ear, the bearded brother cocked his head to the side. “I'm just saying it would be in your best interest to let us out of here, yes. We could spare ourselves the fighting, the violence, and just drop the whole thing.”

Before Kubo could respond, the other brother chimed in. “We're ready to make a deal, if you are. Will you hear our terms?”

* * *

“We know you've got a small army outside,” began the bearded brother, who introduced himself as Mikhail. “We have one of our own. We could certainly let the two sides face off against one another, except it would be rather messy, don't you think? On the other hand, if you allow the two of us to leave here, we will agree to abstain from further hostilities and give you what you're looking for.”

Kubo stared him down. “Oh, yeah? And just what is it I'm looking for?”

Gennady leaned forward, replying, “You came to shut us down, did you not?”

“We have...” Mikhail took a few moments to count on his fingers for theatrical effect. “We have perhaps a dozen children ready for delivery. They're being held nearby. Let us leave and we'll release them. We'll also close up shop, never do business of this kind in Detroit again.”

Kubo mulled this over a minute. The call wasn't mine to make, but I still had plenty to say on the matter. “You two don't deserve to live. There's no way in hell I'm going to stand by and watch you two hop into a limo or something.”

Kubo nodded. “Kid's right. That's not going to fly.”

Frowning, Gennady put his hands on his hips. “Even if it means saving those children? Even if it means sparing the men under your command from a vicious firefight with ours? We practically own this part of town and every illicit business that's run out of it. Each building here is crawling with men who will do what we ask of them. If I should just pick up this phone and ask one of our guys to...” He motioned to the cell phone on his desk. “To execute those children, for instance? What would you say to that?”

“You've got shit for brains if you think I'd even let you pick your phone up,” snarled Kubo.

“Sure, but even if you killed us both now, you still wouldn't know where those kids are being kept. By the time you find them, it'll be too late. They'll get shipped off, sold before you can hope to rescue them,” said Mikhail, massaging his stubbled jaw. “Think this through. It's a great opportunity. No fuss, we just go our separate ways.”

In utilizing Ernie, we'd thrown these guys for a loop. They'd been on top of us the entire time, confident that they'd be able to stage an escape before we figured out where they were based. Unfortunately for them, we'd caught up. Now they wanted to try and strike a deal, get out town before things got ugly. They must have known ahead of time that we wouldn't take that bait, though. Their utter calm told me that much. They were biding their time, had something else in store.

Joe flipped open his Zippo and glanced at the Chief. “Well, Chief?”

“I'm afraid we didn't come here to negotiate. Hands behind your head. If you want to live, that is.” Kubo took aim, ready to blast Mikhail in the heart. “The bullets are silver, of course.”

The brothers chuckled to themselves. “Quaint,” said Gennady.

The door to the building thumped open behind us, and deep footfalls resounded.

I knew what was coming our way before it even lumbered into view.

“Chief,” I said. “It's a gargoyle.”

An inhuman shriek rattled us as the creature started down the hall.

Mikhail knocked on his desk like an old mob boss, and from a door in the corner there came a number of men with guns. They were filthy-looking types, their clothes ill-fitting and reeking of spilt booze, and the guns in their hands were definitely not legal. They lined up behind their bosses, ten or twelve of them, and took aim.

Already the Kaminsky brothers were beginning to change. The fragile facade of humanity they'd put up until that moment fell away in layers, steadily revealing the bloodthirsty Lycans beneath. “The hard way, then,” growled Mikhail.

Two werewolves, a gargoyle and a bunch of dudes with guns. In a small room, no less.

Ernie summed up my feelings pretty well just before the first shots rang out. “Nah, fuck this. This shit's too hot for TV.”

* * *

Lon Cheney's stellar performance in The Wolfman probably marked the first time in my life I'd ever seen a werewolf.

The second time? It wasn't quite so enjoyable.

The Kaminskys set their sights on me as the entire room fell into chaos. Even with a demon inside of me, I felt completely unprepared when all hell broke loose. Automatic gunfire drowned out all of the noise and made my head spin. And then the werewolf twins were upon me, knocking me out of the room and onto my back.

Ernie was hightailing it out of there. Not that he had anything to worry about. Kubo and Joe, though, were going to have a harder time. Bullets whipped past their heads as they hit the deck, taking shelter behind desks and scrambling with their own weapons. I heard the hiss of a bourgeoning flame, smelled the burst of butane as Joe got to work with his lighter. He threw up sheets of fire that combed each wave of bullets out of the air, made them pop like popcorn kernels, while Kubo took the odd shot here and there and rifled through his stack of paper seals.

There was one thing they'd neglected to consider, however.

The gargoyle.

The stony creature lashed out with a series of wild blows, crunching furniture beneath its fists. I think they managed to get out of the way before getting hacked apart by its stony hands, but I couldn't be sure.

I had problems of my own.

The Kaminskys were savage, and they took turns kicking my ass. It turned out they weren't merely strong, but that they were talented brawlers as well. Their style was a practiced grappling, and once they had me on the ground they coordinated their strikes to both keep me pinned and keep me hurting. One of them bound my legs while the other stomped on my chest and face. The air was kicked out of my lungs and blood rushed in. I managed to block a couple blows, but the constant beatdown was getting to be too much and I could barely see straight by the time they took a break.

The two beasts were panting, their bodies coated in wiry, dark fur and their fangs bared in full. They had such perfect, sharp teeth, just like something out of a cartoon. A pair of Wile E. Coyotes in the flesh.

I needed to get away from these pricks, to give Kubo some cover. Maybe he'd be able to whip up a powerful spell that would level the playing field, or else he could call in the cavalry. The Veiled Order commandos were almost certainly close enough to hear all of this gunfire. I expected them to kick in the door and help us out at any moment, however in the heat of battle every second felt like an hour and there was no sign of them as Mikhail Kaminsky peeled me off of the ground and buried his fangs in my throat.

The werewolf pulled away, dragging out the inner components of my neck like a dog ripping stuffing from a chew toy. The pain was incredible, made my body spasm. And then I felt myself sailing back towards the ground, hitting the dirty floors with a thud.

Mikhail's fangs were dripping crimson, and the beast looked down at me with a smile. “Not so tough now, are you?” he barked.

They were ready to leave me for dead, the two of them, when I suddenly sprang up. The muscles in my legs grew rigid. Then my abdomen. And before they could react, I was rising off of the ground in a series of jerks and twitches. My clothes were now completely drenched in blood, but the gaping wound beneath my chin was quickly healing and the sight had returned to my eyes.

When a dog gets scared, it whimpers, right?

Turns out werewolves do the same thing.

The Kaminsky brothers took a step back as I returned from the brink. Gadreel emerged from the shadows and took over.

“What are you?” demanded Gennady.

As my throat was repaired, I finally managed an answer. “I'm the city dogcatcher, don't you know? And I've come to put the two of you down.”

From the other room came a series of sounds in quick succession. There was the room-shaking impact of the gargoyle's fists against the floors and walls, the rat-a-tat-tat of several automatic weapons peppering the room in holes and something else that wasn't clear to me until the werewolves turned around to look.

Kubo had thrown down a paper seal, the black script on it burning a molten orange as the spell on it was activated. The Chief's voice was nothing but a whisper as he delivered the necessary incantations; the final ingredient in a finicky recipe. I watched as the gunmen lowered their weapons, hands thrust to their ears as the spell commenced.

What followed was an ear-shattering pop, followed shortly by a sudden remodeling of the room. One of the walls was thrust aside like cardboard, and the street outside was strewn in bricks and drywall. The gunmen couldn't even stay on their feet, were sent spiraling through the air.

A burst of hot air struck me from the doorway, knocking the werewolves off of their balance. The gargoyle, who'd been ready to slam Joe's brains in only moments ago, was laying on the floor in pieces, its terrible visage now cracked and still.

Kubo stood up, running a hand through his black mop and looking out into the street where the surviving gunmen now pawed around in a daze. “That's one way to clear a room.” He raised his gun and, without warning, fired off three quick shots into Mikhail.

The werewolf's body was yanked this way and that with every round, but Mikhail wouldn't go down. Bracing himself against his brother, he let us see his pearly whites and flew into a rage, stomping towards the Chief with his claws raised.

In all of the books and movies, a silver bullet is enough to kill a werewolf. Here Kubo had just pumped half a clip of blessed silver rounds into the bastard and he still wasn't dropping. The only thing that did it was getting hit by a ball of tightly-packed flame from Joe's lighter, which saw his fur light up. Mikhail cut to the left, knocking into the wreckage of a desk and loosing a roar as his body was consumed by the fire. He staggered around for a few paces, lit up like a Christmas tree, before finally falling to his knees. He'd succumbed.

Gennady watched in horror as his brother was turned to cinders. He leaped forward, taking a silver bullet to the shoulder, but lost his footing when I reached out and took him by the scruff of the neck. Hauling the beast back towards the hall, I socked him in the chest and watched him writhe on the ground, searching for breath like a fish out of water. “The kids you're planning on selling,” I demanded, kneeling down at his side. “Where are they?”

The werewolf's yellow eyes were bulging from their sockets. His claws left deep grooves in the wooden floors as he tried to sit up. “They're... next door, in the basement,” he answered, thrusting his snout towards the next building over.

Outside, a few of the gunmen had recovered enough to fight again. Those that lacked the sense to escape when they had the opportunity began firing a succession of rounds back into the building. Joe tossed up a wall of flame to catch the bullets, nice and easy, while a cacophonous gunfire erupted from elsewhere. The Veiled Order foot soldiers were on the scene now, picking off what remained of the brothers' forces.

Kubo and Joe met the commandos outside, crawling over the ruined wall, and immediately set out for the building next door. I heard the door being knocked down, heard them storm inside in search of the captives. Meanwhile, I babysat Gennady.

The werewolf was sitting up now, had dragged himself across the floor to leer at me from the corner. His fur was bloodied, his chest heaving. “You... I won't let you leave alive,” he said, gaining his feet. “Without your friends here, you have no hope. You're done for, whatever you are.” He turned his head, allowing his neck to crack grotesquely. “I'm going to make you pay for what you've done to Mikhail.”

The demon inside of me perked up. For a minute there, I'd thought the fighting was over with. Falling into a relaxed stance, I waved him over. “Try me.”

The pads of Gennady's feet caught the floor in rapid, booming steps as he lashed out, fangs and claws ready to rip me to shreds. His muscled arm drove a set of claws towards me like a dagger, which I pushed out of the way with my forearm. When I'd drawn him in close, I let loose.

The first hit was just below his furry ribcage, and I could feel his organs slamming into one another as my knuckles pressed in. He staggered back, but I didn't let up, dropping a hammer-fist onto his snout that made him yelp like a kicked dog. The hit that killed him was a hard right, delivered with enough force to snap his neck and leave his tongue hanging past his chin.

He hit the floor and gave a final sigh.

It was done. Gennady and his brother had done terrible things in life. Who could say just how many children they'd ferried off to the Beyond, how many had died in barbaric rituals as a result of their actions? As I stood over him, I almost wished I'd kept him alive longer. Made him suffer a bit more.

From somewhere in the room behind me came a loud whistle, along with a disembodied voice. It was Ernie. In all of the chaos, I'd forgotten he was there at all. The ghost had probably been hanging low, watching the violence unfold from a distance. To him, our struggle here had been little more than an action film. “Damn, kid. That was one hell of a punch.” The specter's face came into view, the features rendered in their usual ghostly blue. “I wonder, though, if you should have killed him.”

“What do you mean?” I asked with a frown. “You know what these guys did for a living, right?”

Ernie shrugged weakly. “Sure, but there's something to be said for mercy, too. If you ain't careful, you might become a big ol' monster like this fella here. Just somethin' to think about.”

There wasn't anything more to say on the matter. I held back on spitting on Gennady's body and just walked out onto the street, stretching. My limbs were damn sore, the bruises incurred from my tussle with the twins still healing. I'd need a good meal and a day's sleep before I'd feel like myself again. Looking up into the night, the air thick with dust and smoke, I saw the stars winking back at me.

* * *

We were at the Steak N' Shake again. It hadn't been more than a few hours since our last visit. We chose the same booth, had the same waitress, and placed more or less the same order, except that this time, Kubo wasn't with us. Poor guy was going to be up till daybreak, writing up his reports and following up with his bosses about the night's work.

The beauty of showing up at a twenty-four-hour burger place after midnight is that you can walk in covered in dried blood, your clothing torn and body covered in bruises, without getting too many questions about it. Joe and I reclined, drinking milkshakes and saying little.

All told, we'd rescued about ten children in that building and had captured enough of the traffickers alive to bring the whole operation to a halt. Mission accomplished. As I looked through the window at the organic grocery across the street, I found a few cop cars still parked there, the officers investigating the “disturbance” earlier in the evening, no doubt.

“So,” began Joe, pointing at me with a french fry. “What do you think Kubo will have for us next?”

I grimaced. “Dude, I don't even want to think about the next job. I just want to get paid for tonight. A little time off suits me just fine. Maybe I'll go on a vacation or something. Buy a new car.”

“Oh, yeah?” replied Joe. “What do you have in mind?”

Before I could answer, the sound of the door opening drew my attention away. It slammed shut, the little bell in the corner dinging, but there was no one there.

I was about to shrug it off as a trick of the wind when I heard a series of slow footsteps to my back. I turned just as an invisible hand squeezed my shoulder. It was Ernie. “Hey, fellas,” he began. “Sorry to bug ya like this. I meant to get ahold of Kubo, but he's real busy right now and won't answer my calls. He, uh, said something about giving me a third coin if I came along with y'all into that building on Hard Row, right? You hear him say something about that earlier?”

I couldn't help but laugh.

* * *

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* * *

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About the Author

Once upon a time, a young Ambrose Ibsen discovered a collection of ghost stories on his father's bookshelf. He was never the same again. Apart from horror fiction, he enjoys good coffee, brewed strong.

- @ambroseibsen

- Ambrose-Ibsen

https://ambroseibsen.wordpress.com/

Angry Spark - Al K Line

A Dark Magic Enforcer Short Story

I’ll give you a tip, free of charge. When an old vampire "buddy" calls you in the middle of the night, and asks for a favor, hang up on the them and stay the hell in bed. I was stupid. I got dressed, and nearly got dead soon after.

* * *

New Job

"Faz, Faz. Wake up."

"Huh? What time is it?"

"Early," said Kate.

"Need rest," I grumbled, turning over and putting my arm around her waist. I was asleep in a moment, dreaming of floating, then falling, the fluffy-cloud sensation turning into a nightmare. "Ow! What the hell? You pushed me out the bed!"

"Only because I've been trying to wake you for half an hour. Some guy called, said he wanted to speak to you, and that you were to call him back immediately. He didn't sound like he took no for an answer." Kate was sitting up, looking as sexy as if she'd just fed and the blood magic was running rampant through her system. One of the perks of having a vampire for a girlfriend, especially when she's one of the few nice ones.

She shifted a little, a mischievous glint in her eye as I scrambled back onto the bed, eager for the distraction now I was awake. She wore nothing but a skimpy vest and a pair of pink shorts, but she shook her head, locks falling about her divine face as I reached for her, and said, "No chance. Go make your bloody call."

"Who was it? Did they leave a name?" I tried to wipe the sleep from my eyes, but I just wanted to snuggle, or more.

"Tantalum Method. I'm sure I got it wrong, but he insisted that was the name."

"Shit. Why didn't you say so?" I half fell, half rolled off the bed and ran around in a bit of a panic.

Kate just watched me, stoic, then asked, "Looking for this?" as she held up my phone.

"Yeah, thanks. Damn, I never thought I'd hear from him again."

"Who is he?"

"He's someone who did me a favor a long time ago when I accidentally found myself surrounded by a coven of dark witches and was gonna get my ass kicked. Gosh, must have been almost eighty years ago. I was a noob enforcer then, didn't know what I was doing. Did he..."

Kate was asleep. Not that I was jealous or anything. I took the phone from her lap and went downstairs into the kitchen of our cottage. Our retreat away from the madness that is our often violent world.

It's always cooler in here, and I like it. I'm sure the hobs, the small creatures you rarely see but help keep the house and land tidy, keep it this way just to be kind.

I made a mug of instant coffee and sat, staring at my phone. What did Method want after all these years? I'd heard how he'd progressed through the ranks of the gangster life over the intervening time, and some of the stories were less than glowing. He was a hard man. Cold, and with high aspirations within the strict and cutthroat underground hierarchy, but he was a friend, nonetheless, and us users of magic, thieves of magic from the Empty, well, we don't have many friends, or if we do they don't stay alive for long.

I sipped my coffee, checked the last number that had called, and phoned back the man known as Method. He thinks it makes him sound like more of a gangster, and I guess he's right.

"Black Spark, the numero uno dark magic enforcer, sorry to wake you."

"No problem, Method. How you doing?"

"You know, the usual. A bit of this, a bit of that."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. How's Grandma?" Everyone calls my Grandma that, and if you ever meet her you'll understand why.

"Fine. All good." He was stalling, and if Method was stalling it didn't bode well for me.

"That's great. Ah, can we meet?"

"What, now?" I checked the time on my phone. One thirty in the damn morning. But then, he was an old vampire, and the old ones are weak as kittens in the daytime, so you had to remain flexible.

"Yes, now. Like, as soon as possible. This is important, Spark. You know I wouldn't be calling otherwise."

He sounded rough, even for him. His breathing was always labored because he's always been grossly overweight—unusual for a vampire since they mostly stay lean and youthful looking because of the blood magic, but he felt it made him seem like more of a mob boss or something.

"I don't want to call in a favor, or make you think you have to come, but... Hell, please come. I'm at the club, in the city. You know the one. Gotta go. Bye."

I'd heard the shouting and the crashing, not to mention the final throes of bad comedy at the mike, so knew only too well where he was. Downing my coffee, I got up and crept back upstairs, grabbed my clothes as quietly as possible, then dressed in the bathroom.

After brushing my teeth, I put on a simple black suit from the nineteen sixties, a red shirt—I always wear a red one when on a job as you can guarantee there will be blood and it hides the goop—straightened my tie, argued with my bleached-blond hair, but it failed to behave even with my pleading, laced my winklepickers, then left the house.

I stood on the front step, breathing deep of the Welsh country air. It was cool and slightly damp, perfect for waking me from my bubble of warmth and safety.

Checking I had what I needed, I was good to go. Keys, phone, wallet, kick-ass attitude, all present and correct.

Hi, I'm Faz Pound. Most know me as Spark, a.k.a. Black Spark, Dark Magic Enforcer, and this snappy dresser is heading out, reluctantly, to meet a blast from his past.

* * *

Same Old, Same Old

The city slept. Cardiff was almost deserted as I drove into the center and parked. Nothing but a few hardcore late-night revelers, lone vampires prowling for likely prey, and the odd insomniac roaming the streets searching for answers the city would never provide. It was also raining, even though it was summer, but that's Wales for you. I remained dry, the rain fizzing millimeters from my body—a perk of being a wizard.

What did Method want? It would be nothing good, certainly not to catch up over a beer. He was an odd one, and I kind of liked him, but it had been years since we'd spoken and a lot can happen in our world in that time.

Magic, this drug we're all addicted to, it has a way of getting you into trouble, and vampires are often at the heart of it all. This unknowable energy, it defines me. Ever since a boy, I've been immersed in Hidden culture, stealing magic from the Empty to do my job, dealing with the abusers and the cruel who use it to cause mayhem. I suck the magic right out of them, and there's often no coming back from my particular brand of punishment.

All too soon I was at the door. Breathing deep, I pushed on faded paint and entered.

Ah, the Hidden Club, home to Hidden and Regulars alike. A place where you can smoke until your lungs bleed, drink until the sun comes up, fight, argue, laugh if the Chemist is doing new material for his stand-up, and just pray the owner, Brewster Bunker, one of only a few trolls who have their own business, doesn't catch you trying to nick a drink and flattens your skull.

The air was so thick with smoke and alcohol fumes I had to waft my way through, feet sticking to the booze-soaked floor, feeling lightheaded and half drunk just by breathing. There was no one on stage now, the show over, not that you would've heard them over the beer-infused revelry.

I ordered a beer, paid promptly, and searched for Method.

Trying to keep the shock off my face, I headed over to a table that was still intact. Brewster even puts out little lamps with red shades in an attempt to make the place nice, but the clientele just use them as an exciting way to brain someone who looks at them funny.

"Dude, what the hell happened?" I asked, sitting down and unable to hide my shock. The once heavyset Method was little but skin and bone, flesh hanging off him like wet washing, skin pale and waxy even for a vampire.

"It's bad, isn't it? I knew it was, but not sure how bad. Spark, you gotta help me. I don't know who else to turn to. Not now, not after this."

"Why am I getting a bad feeling about this?" I swigged my beer, but I wasn't in the mood, had been staying clean of late so put it down.

"Aw, hell, this is a nightmare." Method waved an arm about as if the whole world had gone sour, accidentally knocking my beer over in his misery. "Shit, sorry. I'll get you another."

"Don't worry about it. I didn't want it, anyway."

"You sure? I don't want to—"

"Oi, did you just spill beer on my leg?" I turned in my chair to face the goblin who was poking me on the shoulder with a bony finger.

"Sorry, it was an accident." I looked down at the green git's leg, but there was no splash mark, just the bottle that had rolled up to his foot. Maybe.

"I fink you done it on purpose. I fink you and your boyfriend are asking for a fight."

"Look, mate, I said sorry, and to be honest I think it's you that wants a fight, but let me ask you something first."

The goblin looked confused for a moment, massive nose wobbling like a rubber prosthetic as it scratched. "Er, okay."

As it spoke, I stood, eyes snapping hard to black, and I called on the Empty for a hit of magic, just enough to do what needed to be done. I slammed my hand onto the goblin's head and said, "How are you enjoying this?" I breathed deep, his flesh shriveling as I drew in his essence, making it mine.

I couldn't kill him, could never take it all as this was a truly magical creature, but I could make his recovery long and hard.

"Argh, geddof, geddof." The goblin, a nasty piece of work I knew from around, struggled to stand but he was just a bully, and a poor fighter, relying on intimidation rather than skill.

"Stay right where you are or I'll drain you until your mates here will use you as a footrest for a fortnight. Understand?"

He nodded once and stopped squirming. He knew as well as I did that it was no idle threat. I would do as I promised and his "mates" really would take advantage of his weakened state.

I eased off, returned the magic to the Empty, and let it fade from my ink. The tattoos that covered my entire body returning to their usual beautiful designs rather than a way to channel elemental energy.

I sat, not bothering to even look at the goblin, and said, "Now, where were we?"

Method said nothing about the altercation—it's par for the course in the Hidden Club—merely adjusted his position so he was a little more upright. I could see the strain on his face as he moved—weak as a kitten, and that's not good for a vampire. "You were staring at me in horror while I waste away, that's where we were."

"Ah, right." I let my body settle, already longing for magic to course through my veins and ink again. The Hidden Club has that effect on you, as you know it won't be long before you need to blast the dark arts because of one thing or another. I didn't know what it was, but I was jittery around Method. Something was off, and it wasn't just the fact he looked like he'd been on a crash diet and didn't know when to stop. "What's going on? There's something weird happening, right?"

"Haha, how did you possibly guess? It's my body, Spark, it's eating itself and I can't stop it." Method leaned forward and whispered, "I think maybe I'm not true vampire anymore." He put a hand to his mouth and looked about guardedly as if saying the words could get us both killed—he was right, any sign of weakness and he'd be history.

"This is a job for a witch, maybe a wiccan. Hell, go talk to a seer, they'll be able to see what's in store for you. This isn't my thing, Method, but I am sorry. Look, you know once you're vampire that's the way it stays. You're losing it, buddy." I got to my feet, ready to leave. No way was I getting involved in this. It would lead nowhere but to an early grave, and I like being alive, it means I can have sex with Kate. I'd lived for over a hundred years without getting killed and had no plan to do it today.

"Spark, please? I can't trust anyone else. I need to know what's happening. I'm..."

"What? Come on, this is getting seriously creepy."

Method stood with a groan and a hell of a lot of effort—he looked a lot worse standing than he did sitting. "I'm not even hungry these days."

"Okay, let's go. We can't talk here."

I nodded over to Brewster Bunker but he just practiced his vacant stare. Not that he needed to; he nailed it long ago.

Method made his way over to the steps and I followed him through the smoke haze. Watching him climb up to street level made it abundantly clear he was in an atrocious condition.

Flesh hung off him in folds. His body misshapen beneath a loose-fitting suit he'd obviously had tailored to hide the wasting away, but it wasn't working. He was like a skinny guy in a deflated fat suit. Wobbling flesh bunched at his arms, hanging low beneath thin legs making it hard to walk, knees all lumpy where the excess skin from his thighs sagged low. Even his ankles were thick and overflowing—it looked like it was extremely uncomfortable.

Exiting onto the street felt like stepping from a sauna into an ice-bath even though it was mild, the change in temperature playing tricks with the body. But Method was sweating like a virgin at a vampire orgy and looking just as scared.

He was holding out on me, no doubt about it.

Only question was why?

* * *

Walking the Streets

Cardiff is a strange city. Capital of Wales—a kind of country in its own right although part of the United Kingdom—it has rapidly morphed into a modern metropolis with chain restaurants that suck at your soul and more outdoor cafes than is sensible for somewhere so bloody wet. On the plus side, it's easy to get around as traffic flows smoothly, and you are never more than half an hour from open countryside. It's the Hidden that make it strange, though.

Capital for all things magical in the UK, it houses the UK Hidden Council and numerous Heads of the various magical beings that are human or once human. From shifters to witches to vampires to zombies, although the zombies don't really have a Head, what with the whole trying to eat your brains and gnaw on your arm thing.

It makes it interesting, cosmopolitan, and there's never a dull moment.

Even as we walked through the quiet streets, Method clearly building up to something, signs of the Hidden world were all around. Cats skulked in alleys, pigeons eyed us warily, but I saw what they truly were—Hidden creatures such as gremlins or imps, Regulars never able to see beyond the protective camouflage that kept them safe and unknown to anyone not touched by magic.

Nobody knows what goes on right under their noses, and if they did they'd freak. So it's us and them, Hidden and Regulars, and that's the way it's always been. Me, I've got something similar, a touch of magic always buzzing away in the background making me the everyman. Unmemorable and unimportant to those that see me. I'm forgotten mid-sentence, never to be recalled again, which makes ordering a pint problematic but there you go—I suffer for my art.

An idea came to me as I watched Method struggle to walk, huffing and wheezing. He looked like he was already dead, not an eight-hundred-year-old vampire that ran the cutthroat business of faery dust for the whole of Wales, focus on the south where Cardiff is sited. The Hidden love this stuff, can't get enough of it. And trust me, if you've ever tried it then you know why.

Personally, I've only ever had it the legal way, an incredibly rare gift from a faery, and it's intoxicating and incredible but scary and dangerous as hell—endless Hidden have paid the price for using the extremely hard-to-come-by wares that Method peddles, even though it costs an absolute fortune.

"Okay, we're almost at the car, then we'll go see the Chemist. He may be able to help."

"The Chemist? Don't think I'm in the mood for comedy, Spark, if you can call it that."

"Don't ever tell him you dislike his routine. He's very sensitive, you know that. He may be a ghoul, but he's also the best damn potion maker in the country. Apart from Grandma, of course."

"A bloody potion won't help me," moaned Method.

"You'd be surprised. And what have we got to lose?"

"S'pose. Damn, I'm exhausted. I can't even walk these days."

"Let's just go see him. Then you need to be straight with me. No lies," I warned, "or you're on your own."

"Fine, just help me. I'm dying here."

"Not sure how that would work, with you being a vampire and all. It'll take centuries for you to waste away to nothing, even if you don't feed." I couldn't imagine the pain and horror of such a death. If vampires don't feed when they need to then it's the worst kind of withdrawal imaginable.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Method said with genuine fear. "Slowly turning to a living skeleton and experiencing the whole damn thing. I'll be too weak to move, but won't die until the last of the blood magic is gone."

"Just get in the car," I said with a sigh as we made it to one of my boss's cars I still had from a previous job. "And anyway, so many people hate you that I'm sure someone would oblige and put you out of your misery."

"Maybe, or maybe they'd rather watch me slowly turn to dust and live the nightmare for as long as possible." He had a point.

Method grunted and groaned, but I managed to help him into the passenger seat, thick folds of flesh overspilling—I seriously doubted he'd get the seatbelt to fit. "Damn, dude, how big were you?"

"It's glandular. Or, it was."

"Yeah, whatever you say." I closed his door and turned to move to the driver's side, catching sight of two very wide, very serious looking men heading right for us, dressed in dark suits with darker expressions. "Friends of yours?" I asked, knocking the window.

Method took one look at them and freaked. He never was the most gangster of gangsters, more a thinker than a man of violence, but still, he was overreacting. "Let's go," he shouted.

I turned to face the two men, and then saw why he was so worried. They flickered, revealing the other half of their nature for a second.

"Shit. Shifters." I dashed around to the driver's side as the two men's clothes fell away as they morphed from juiced-up bodybuilders to two very scary looking, and well-fed, Great Danes. They were bloody huge, easily up to my chest, and damn but they could move fast.

In an instant they were running full-speed, teeth bared, shining yellow and deadly as they passed under a streetlight.

"You and I are gonna have words," I warned Method as he squirmed in his seat, leaving me to the bow-wows.

I called furiously to the Empty. It answered with a rush of magic into my system that almost overwhelmed me. It came in hard, slamming into my body at full-force. My eyes snapped to black, vision enhanced, seeing the true nature of the world and the magic it contained. My ink swelled until it pushed tight against my clothes, swirls and perfect abstract patterns channeling magic through my system. Boosting it, circling it through my chakras, increasing its potency as it went.

My tattoos practically burst through my skin as they fattened like angry eels, magic screaming until I was ready to unleash hell on the shifters, and maybe Method, too, for getting me involved in something I knew nothing about.

The dogs leaped over the car, two pairs of deadly teeth aimed right at my throat.

* * *

Nice Doggie

With magic-enhanced reflexes, I ducked easily as the pooches scratched deep gouges in the paintwork before landing in the road. They skid to a halt then turned fast, muscles bunched, ready to eviscerate me with their next move.

"Look, nice doggies, why not leave us be and go about your business? I'm not in the mood, it's late, or, er, early, and I've got things to—"

They pounced in unison, one for my head, the other right at my midsection. Backed up against the car, I lifted both hands and willed magic into my palms. Down it came, shunting terrible forces through my ink, patterns squirming as magic backed up then was released in a spasm of pain. Black fractal shards of death shot out of my hands like a nail gun with a stutter. This was nothing but a taster of my full capability, but I knew it would suffice.

Tiny darts as small as needles punctured their bodies in a thousand places, entry wounds invisible as the magic shot through fur, skin, flesh and bone. But the exit wounds were as large as a fist, the magic spreading into fat balls as it exited then returned to the Empty with a hiss and a puff of gray smoke.

The bodies slammed into the asphalt, a mess of gore as innards splatted and steamed. Their teeth tinkled like tiny gremlin shot glasses clinking together to celebrate my victory.

Death, there's always death in this world I've chosen to be a part of, can't ever seem to escape from.

These were no professionals. Just ill-informed goons not expecting an experienced dark magic enforcer to be acting as unknowing bodyguard for Method. My ink settled and my eyes faded to regular color as the Empty took back what I'd stolen. The loneliness took me. A hollow feeling, as if I were less than a whole man now. The world mundane and dull after the peek through the looking glass at the reality of this world so many walk through with eyes half-closed.

Sickness came calling, the magical comedown that can leave you praying for death as payback for the thievery, but I'd grown out of that particular sacrifice and I denied it entry, forced my body to fight it off. Then it was just me, the man known as Spark, my Hidden name, the only one most in the Hidden world ever use—they have no right to use my real name, that's for family and close friends only.

I stormed around to the passenger's side and ripped the door open. "What the hell are you involved in here, Method?" I spat, anger and violence ready to blast him to hell for what he'd got me involved in.

"Sorry, Spark. I don't know what's going on, honestly. But people are after me, doing things to me, and I don't know why."

I studied him for a moment. He seemed genuine, but where was the ruthless gangster? This man was a faint shadow of his former self. Weak and frightened rather than strong and afraid of nothing. "You better not be lying," I warned, then shut the door on him, straightened my tie, put my hands through my hair and got in the car.

"You don't know who those guys were?" I asked as I drove through the city, sticking to the speed limit.

"No idea. I've always got on fine with the shifter communities. Heck, some of them work for me and they're always good clients."

"This a regular thing, people trying to kill you?"

"Yeah, lately." Method wiped his brow with the back of a bony hand, skin bunched around his wrist. In the stark light of the streetlights we passed, his face showed just how damaged his body was. He looked like a skeleton wrapped in poisoned skin, cheekbones sharp as my grandmother's tongue. Eyes sunken, the life and the sense of menace faded, replaced with sad resignation.

"Where's all your people? Your goons? What about the other vampires?"

"Spark, I've still got goons, that's why I'm still alive, but I wanted to meet in private. You know I don't deal with the other vampires much. Give me the creeps, always have."

"But you're a vampire!"

"So what? It's not like you get on with all humans, is it?" He had a point. "And anyway, they never liked that I stayed large. Damn fools with their preening and posturing, makes me wanna throw up."

"Okay, business then? This about business? Someone trying to take over?"

"Nope. Business is better than ever. With all the coal mines closing or closed, all the industry either gone or about to go, I'm richer than ever and have more people working for me than ever. I've got a mini army to protect my interests now. I still rule, you can bet on that."

This was crazy. Why the hell was he being targeted, then? "Well, there has to be something," I said, exasperated and a little annoyed by his evasive answers.

"Spark, that's just it. It could be any number of Hidden out to get me. You know what it's like in our world, and I'm a bloody gangster. Everyone hates me, it comes with the territory." He had a point about that, too.

We were silent for the short drive to the Chemist's, Method leaning back against the leather seat, wheezing and battling for breath.

I woke him after I parked up across the street from the Chemist's and we crossed. I knocked, and a few minutes later, after some curtain twitching and the sound of way too many bolts and locks being removed, the Chemist opened the door.

Sour body odors, the stench of strange potions, and the overpowering heat of his lab burners hit like I'd stepped into hell itself.

"Can we come in?"

"Sure, Spark. Who's the mannequin?" The Chemist peered at Method for a few seconds, then squinted, or tried to. It's hard to get the facial expressions right when half your face has melted down to your chin—yeah, he's a ghoul, and he freaks out everyone that sees him. "Damn! Method, is that you?" He moved closer, then said, "It is! What happened?" as he grabbed us both by the arm and dragged us into the inferno that was his home-cum-lab.

I gagged and tried not to breathe—you're likely to catch a contagious disease if you do—but I succumbed, took a tentative drag on the polluted atmosphere, checked and found to my relief I was still alive, so moved further into the room.

The Chemist bolted and locked the door, then turned and said, "So, what can I do for you fellas? I hope you've got money? Did you see my act earlier?"

Method grunted then said, "I've got plenty of money, but this was Spark's idea, not mine. I don't think there's anything you can do for me. And, er, yeah, I caught the end. Very funny." He's a better liar then I am. I was almost convinced.

"I missed it," I said, trying not to look relieved.

"Shame. Now, Method, I am the Chemist. I can do a lot of things for a lot of people, and you, my friend, have been the victim of—" Something spat and boiled over at the long workbench and the Chemist went to deal with it.

"He's got what?" I asked, keen to get home to my bed.

"What?" asked the Chemist, adjusting the burner beneath a bell jar. "Oh, yeah, he's been hexed. Not by a wizard, but by a witch. She's stuck a mörkö on him."

"Damn, you're screwed," I said.

"Yep, he is," said the Chemist.

"Shit," said Method.

"Cup of tea, anyone?"

We waited for the murky brown liquid to boil. In for a penny, in for a pound.

* * *

Fear the Bogeyman

"Are you sure?" asked Method, staring dubiously at his tea. I tried mine—I should have known better.

"Yep, I can see it right there on your back. Great fat thing it is, like a smooth mountain of flesh, just a head and then a blob. Nasty bugger. Its eyes are as white as its teeth and it's grinning at me and making me real nervous." The Chemist looked away.

Damn, if it was freaking a demon ghoul that still to this day fed on necrotic flesh and was so misshapen he made Freddy Krueger look like a model, well, you know it's kinda gross.

Method tried to look over his shoulder, utterly freaked, but clearly saw nothing. The Chemist is true Hidden, born of magic, so is privy to things we aren't. Especially regards to supernatural creatures that are more myth than anything.

"This can't be right," said Method. "Mörkö are just bogeymen, used to scare kids. They aren't actually real."

"Come on, even I know that all myths and fairy tales are based on fact," I said. "You should know better. It's Finnish, right? And you're Finnish?" A lot of powerful vampires and Hidden hail from Finland. It's where humanity first learned about the Empty—there's definitely something in the water there. Or, it's so boring they make stuff up to entertain themselves then wake up one morning only to discover it's now real, and keen on biting.

"I haven't been back to Finland for centuries, and this mörkö is just a story. Anyway, you said it was a witch doing this." Method put down his tea and wiped at his face. He was overheating. The weight of the skin without the flesh beneath must be a terrible burden, and the sauna-like conditions of the room were not helping.

"Yeah, it's a witch all right, and she's set this on you. It's riding your back, sucking your energy right this minute. Hell, it's growing as more of your flesh is consumed. Surprised you fellas can't see it." The Chemist spoke conversationally, like this was just us guys talking about sports.

I inspected an oversized, murky test tube, jumping back as something squirmed inside and hit the glass. "Can you remove it? Can you break whatever hex he has?"

"I can get it off him, sure, but it'll hurt."

"That's okay," I said.

"Hey, this is me we're talking about, not you," objected Method.

I shrugged. "Suit yourself."

With a sigh, Method said, "Fine, do it."

"Okay," said the Chemist preparing a relatively clean beaker. "But this won't remove the hex. There will be something else along soon enough. You've been chosen by some old crone and she's got it in for you. Any Hidden creature that sniffs out the hex will be drawn to you and it could be worse next time."

"Nothing could be worse than this," moaned Method, all of us knowing that wasn't true.

"Sit over there on the bed. This won't take long, it's a simple potion to just get it unstuck from you."

We eyed the stained, bare mattress in the corner of the room dubiously, deciding to remain standing.

* * *

"Here you go." The Chemist was brimming with pride, smiling wide, which was very disconcerting as he only has half a lip and you can see his teeth through the side of his face.

Method took the proffered vial of orange liquid reluctantly, holding it with two fingers. "Thanks. This gonna work? Get the mörkö off my back, stop my body being consumed?"

"Of course it is!" The Chemist was affronted—he may be unorthodox, but he knows his potions. "Go on, down the hatch."

Method looked to me for reassurance but I just nodded. What choice did he have? "Bottoms up." He poured the potion down his throat.

I took a step back. So did the Chemist.

We craned our necks forward, mesmerized as we followed the progress of the thick goop, an orange trail beneath Method's skin and clothes as it burned its way into his stomach. In a second every visible piece of skin was alive with fiery orange, showing his veins and shining like a fire burned inside.

We both took another step back.

"Argh, uck. Hell, it's burning me, I'm gonna melt." Method clutched at his throat then his belly, corrupted skin spasming, wobbling and swinging under his clothes, making it look like he had a family of ferrets crawling about and biting him in places that should never be nibbled on.

"Don't puke," cautioned the Chemist. "The mörkö is getting smaller. It's giving me the daggers and it isn't happy, but it's shrinking. Here it goes, just a small blob stuck to your neck, now. Ugh, those eyes! Proper mean sucker, this one. Doesn't want to leave." He grabbed the beaker he'd made the potion in and cautiously stepped up to Method, lost to pain and fear. Taking advantage of a scream, the Chemist poured half the contents into Method's mouth, clamping his jaw shut until Method swallowed.

We retreated until we were backed up against the wall.

Method collapsed to the floor, writhing about and shouting abuse at the Chemist, turning from orange, to bright red, then purple.

And then nothing.

His color returned to waxy, but he wasn't wheezing now.

The Chemist stepped close and nudged Method with his boot. "Result. The mörkö has been banished."

"Are you nuts? You killed Method. What's the point of being cured if the cure leaves you dead? Not really worth it if you ask me."

"I only killed him a little bit. Don't worry, he'll be fine." The Chemist bent and clenched two fists into a ball then hammered down on Method's chest.

Method shot upright, gasping for air, eyes wild and terror-stricken. There was a pop, like a champagne cork, and then Method just... Okay, this may sound nuts, but he inflated like a tire. From hanging flesh, looking like a coat hanger for discarded skin, he ballooned out to the man I remembered. Rotund, obese, but solid looking at the same time. Dangerous looking.

He jumped to his feet, sprightly for such a large guy. My vampire "friend" was angry and he pounced for the Chemist, doing the shimmer shuffle that all vampires do, moving too fast to follow. He was at the ghoul's neck, teeth bared, milky venom dripping from exposed fangs.

"I wouldn't if I were you," I warned. "The Chemist's so full of his own potions and experiments you'll be a lot worse off than you were, trust me."

Method got control of himself and came back down to reality. He backed off, teeth back to normal, and only then realized that his full figure was restored.

"I can't believe you were gonna bite me. After I just got you your body back and everything. Go on, bugger off. But pay me first," he added hurriedly.

"Sorry, got a bit carried away. Damn, I feel great. Like a proper vampire again. I feel unbelievable." Method skipped about like a schoolgirl, brimming over with energy and vitality.

"That's because the mörkö had to give back all it stole. You've got all your blood magic back." The Chemist held out his hand and Method dug deep into his pocket, opened a wallet, and piled bills up high.

"Thanks. Sorry for overreacting. Nice to meet you again, and I wouldn't have bitten you, honest."

"Hmm." The Chemist grabbed the money then retreated to the other side of his work bench.

"Thanks, dude, see you soon," I said.

The potion master moved to the door and unlocked it. As we left he said, "Come to the club on Tuesday. I've got new material, it'll knock your socks off."

"Maybe. I'll have to check my diary," I said, knowing that I'd definitely be busy.

"See ya, fellas, good luck with finding the witch."

He slammed the door in our face and locked up.

He's a nice guy, but damn his place stinks.

"Think maybe I upset him?" asked Method.

"I dunno, do you usually try to bite the jugular out of your buddies?"

"Um, sometimes."

"Guess he's just moody, then. Wow, you are one big vampire, you know that?"

"Yeah, great, isn't it? It feels so amazing to be back being me."

He did seem pleased with his huge girth, and who was I to judge? "So, how many witches have you annoyed lately?"

Method's face darkened, a look I remembered from my youth. It meant look out, I'm definitely gonna be killing you. "Just one, and I know where to find her."

So, we went to pay her a visit.

* * *

An Admission

The car was sluggish, mainly because of Method. He spilled over from his own seat onto mine, making it hard to use the handbrake or change gear. Still, he was smiling, in between scowling. There was definitely a lot of scowling beneath the plump folds of flesh.

I've often wondered what it must be like to be large, but I burn through my calories like I'm mainlining an illegal substance, which I guess I am—magic use makes me run at a very fast speed, eating up calorie reserves until I'm dangerously close to death on occasion, so some spare meat on my bones would be welcome. Plus, the powerful frame must be reassuring. I'm more like a scrawny scrapper with boiled eggs for biceps, but at least I can wear my slim suits, so it's swings and roundabouts I guess.

Method was moody, but back on form. Aggressive, in other words. Cursing the woman he believed responsible for the hex and setting the mörkö on him, but refusing to call his goons, saying we had to deal with it in person.

All I wanted was my bed, but I owed him, and whatever he said he was definitely calling in the favor.

Between his moaning, which I was getting tired of, he gave directions to the wayward witch, and I followed without thinking, too tired and on the magical comedown to take much notice.

"This is it, pull up."

I pushed at his flesh, pulled the handbrake on, put the car in neutral then turned off the engine and checked out the street. "Oh no, you have got to be kidding me. Do you know where we are?"

"Of course I do, I gave you directions. This damn woman has had it in for me for years, and only last month she made two of my goons fall in love with each other and they eloped. Eloped! Goons! They could have just got a house together and stayed local, not run off. They went to France! France! My goons!"

"Okay, calm down. That's witches for you. They like to give you what they think you need, not what you think you need."

"What's needed is for you to blast her, Spark. Blast her good."

This was getting ridiculous. "Look, Method, I came because you asked, and I'm happy to help, to a degree, but I've got the demon off your back, and that's what you asked me to do. But this, dealing with a spiteful witch, this you can handle yourself. Or, use your own people. Why involve me?"

"Because they can never know about Udele Scozzafava."

"And why is that?" I asked, knowing only too well why. I wanted to get the hell out of there. This was witch central, a place where those that refused to acknowledge the Witch Council lived in a series of terraced houses in the center of the city. You did not go there unless invited, and even then you went with serious backup and even more nerve.

"Because, well, you know... Ah, dammit, Spark, I'm a man of certain needs, and certain standing. I've got a reputation to maintain and so I have to keep some things quiet, on the hush-hush. So, I come here, or did, until that damn thing started sucking on my life force."

"And now you want me to deal with her so she won't tell? Or won't try something else?"

"Now you're getting it. I can't let my guys know about my, er, indiscretions. They think I'm above all this."

"I thought you were, too," I mumbled.

"Sorry to disappoint. I may be a vampire but I still need her particular kind of services. Or I did." Method clambered out the car, or rolled out, and was halfway across the road before I swore under my breath, got out, locked up, and chased after him.

"You sure about this? There's no other way?" I was hoping he'd change his mind, but knew he wouldn't. This was gonna be a nightmare. If we got out alive we'd be damn lucky.

"I'm sure," he said.

We stood at the door. Method knocked in a particular sequence, a code that unlocked the innocuous entrance to what appeared to be a simple, terraced red-brick home, and the door eased open, letting out a suitably spooky squeal.

We stepped over the threshold with our eyes closed as you'd go insane in an instant if you witnessed the madness of the volatile magical disturbance, and walked into the end of the world.

Yes, I do mean literally.

* * *

The Games People Play

I opened my eyes, stifling a laugh. Then had to sidestep as a damn great axe came crashing down and nearly split me in two.

"Hey, watch it," I shrieked.

"Sorry. Usually people arrive over at the edge," said a guy that appeared to be seven feet tall and more muscular than a troll on the rock juice. As he turned, lifting his shield to halt a mace, yielded by an ogre of gigantic proportions, he shimmered a little, his true self revealed.

"Get them idiots out of there," I heard Udele Scozzafava shout to a couple of muscular men in leather kilts and not a lot else. They ran for us, dodging the fighting men and creatures, kicking up dust in the arena as they headed our way.

"I bloody hate this kind of stuff," I moaned, standing and trying in vain to brush the dust off my suit. I glared at Method, but he wasn't paying attention, was already storming across the grounds of the amphitheater, focused on Udele.

Dashing after him, I waved the goons away as their orders were defunct now anyway, and caught up with Method before he got to Udele, boss of ARMageddon. A place I loathed and distrusted, and not just because of the stupid name those that sought out such twisted forms of entertainment thought was cool and clever.

"Method, you need to think before you act. You know how this place works, and you damn sure know it's Udele's rules we have to play by now. I can't believe you dragged me in here. What are we gonna do now?"

"Now? We're gonna kick her ass and make sure she doesn't fuck with me again, that's what. I'll shut her down, I'll brain her. I'll burn her fucking house to cinders with her in it if she doesn't apologize and it better be good."

Method was livid. Face red, flesh wobbling as he gesticulated wildly. Already we had an audience, the fighters stopping to watch the spectacle. One guy paid for his lack of attention and his opponent hacked down hard with a broadsword, slicing his arm off at the elbow, the man screaming and then shouting that it wasn't fair and it wasn't a real victory, and that he'd use his other arm, anyway.

I let go of Method with a shrug. He was a big boy, and if he wanted to play it like that then he only had himself to blame. I trailed behind as he walked up to Udele, standing just inside the black infinity that lay beyond.

She smiled, not in a friendly way, as he slowed, getting closer. She turned and said a few words to the people beside her and they moved away, the way clear for us.

ARMageddon is a Hidden version of a computer game. I guess the best analogy is that it's a virtual reality, but then some. When you step through the door—if you can afford to get the pass code—you are in Udele's realm. This is a world generated purely by strong magic, by someone immensely powerful and very dangerous. It is a place but not a place, real but not real, and if you ever get a glimpse of the Empty you'll understand what I'm talking about.

It is formed through wrapping magic in on itself and around itself, and pretty much anything goes. Udele specialized in giving people and other creatures a way to let off steam in the most visceral way possible. You say what you want to be, and there's plenty of options, and then you fight. I can tell you right now, the fighting is very real.

The only difference between what goes on here and in real life is that you cannot die and anything that happens to you here doesn't carry back with you once you leave—as long as you play by the rules. All the rest, it's just the same. You bleed, you puke, you hurt like hell if you get smashed or pulverized, and it feels entirely genuine.

Many Hidden have gone insane in ARMageddon, unable to cope with the switch in reality. Fighting what appears to be a demon—because to all intents and purposes it is—and having your limbs gnawed off slowly over endless virtual days, then having your insides pulled out twice as slowly, can tip you over the edge. Then, when you think you've had enough and can't go on, you're picked up and shoved out the back door, only to find yourself in a nice rear garden with a neatly mowed lawn and all your bits and pieces intact.

I can't understand the attraction, as everyone looks stupid in their weird-ass clothes and fake bodies—trolls or giants or any number of true Hidden creatures. Others choose to remain human looking, just amped up, boosted muscles and the looks they've always dreamed of. It tells you a lot about human nature, this place, and what it was telling me right now was to go home and put the kettle on.

"You put a mörkö on my back," accused Method, opening his mouth, ready to let his fangs snap down. But, of course, nothing happened, and this is why I never come to these places.

No magic worked apart from Udele's. That's the deal. And although you remain as you were because of the magic use over the years—so Method wasn't the dust he should have been at his age—you cannot use any yourself, only what Udele imparts to you for your chosen body and abilities.

People come here to beat the living crap out of each other, to release tension, to learn how to fight, but mainly because they are sadistic freaks that like having their limbs hacked off and get a kick out of it.

"Do not come into my house and raise your voice to me," said Udele with a wry smile, her utterly gorgeous face serene as ever.

"I'll tear your fucking limbs off, you bitch. You think this is funny? I've been wasting away out there and all because of what?"

"You know full well what the reason is, and you got off lightly. The last time you came here you broke the rules, and you know that means you have to be punished."

"I thought you just banned me for a year? That's what you said my punishment was." Method had calmed down a little, looking more confused than anything, but he'd already stepped over the line.

"Hi, Udele," I said, trying to calm the situation down. "Sorry about this. Method is a little out of sorts because of the mörkö, but he didn't mean to be rude, did you, Method?" Knowing this could get out of control, I stayed cool and calm, being nice, and tried not to ogle Udele.

"I bloody well did mean to be rude. I won't let this bitch get away with this. I nearly died!"

Udele brushed a strand of violent-pink hair behind her ear, revealing gorgeous lobes that would give a faery a run for her money—yes, I know I've got a problem when it comes to ears, but damn, they were fine! Her hair tumbled down past her firm chest, over the revealing leather outfit.

I knew it wasn't real, knew that in the normal world she was a somewhat plain woman and rather scrawny, but in here she was the stuff of dreams, and part of the reason so many guys, and gals, too, came to play.

"You cheated," she said, as if that explained everything.

"What? Really?" I couldn't believe it. Method was going off on one when it was his fault? "What did he do?"

"He brought in some of his damn faery dust. Had it concealed in his mouth, then took it to get an edge when he was fighting."

I turned to Method, astonished. "Seriously, dude? It's just a game."

"It's not just a game! And besides, I was so close to getting to the next level, then I could be any creature I wanted. I had to beat the demon, but he always wins. Always chops off my head."

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Can I go now, please?" I wanted nothing more to do with it, with him, or with Udele.

"Go?" asked Udele, incredulous. "No, you may not go, either of you. You know the punishment for entering without your invitation, for coming when not expected."

"Oh, shit," I moaned. "If I ever get out of here, I'm gonna kill you," I warned Method.

"Sorry, Spark, I think I did a bad thing."

We had no choice. We would have to fight in the arena, but because of our crime whatever happened here would transfer over to the real world.

Knowing there was no choice, I undressed, not wanting my suit to get any more ruined. Although, I realized it was a lost cause already as I took it off and tried not to moan about the stains and tears from the rather busy last few hours.

I was down to my boxers just in time. As I took my socks off, I watched, fascinated, as my body stretched and cracked, muscles thickened and then pain overtook me. I blacked out as I snapped and popped and my nerves lit up.

When I awoke, I was nine feet tall and looked like someone had taken a large hammer to my body and bashed it about randomly just to see what would happen.

In other words, I was an ogre.

Method was just fat, I mean really fat. He was twelve feet tall, wore nothing but a loin cloth, and fashioned a cool hairstyle—a Sumo wrestler of epic proportions.

"Is this what you usually choose?" I asked through a mouthful of teeth and tusks that made my voice come out all gruff like I was chewing gravel.

"Yeah," he said rather too cheerily. "Great, isn't it?"

Then a sword came arcing through the air at my face, so I caught it with a new oversized arm and felt pretty good with the boosted muscles and speedy reflexes. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

I was wrong.

"Kill them both," ordered Udele.

Things got ugly.

* * *

Let Battle Commence

I don't know how Udele did it, but I felt at one with this new body. I was powerful, strong beyond compare, with lightning fast reflexes and a lumbering grace. What I didn't have was much of a clue how to fight with a sword.

My fights are usually with magic, or just me ducking and weaving, punching and kicking, with a healthy amount of running away thrown in if I think the odds are against me, which they often are.

So, I defaulted to the running away thing as a very large, kilted warrior swished his sword and I only just managed to jump back in time. I dashed about this way and that, but there were five of them against us two, and they were damn fast. I gnashed my oversized ogre teeth, figuring I may as well try to intimidate them—it didn't work—my tongue swollen and strange as I ran it around a dry, alien mouth.

Method had no choice but to fight, his enormous bulk making running impossible. Why the hell he chose such an outlandish appearance was beyond me, but there's no denying he was impressive. Even as I dodged a blow that would have severed an arm, I heard him roar and saw him charge at one of our opponents. An orc with a long, twisted face and body, all scrawny muscle and oversized hands.

Method ran right at him, and before the orc could swing his club, Method hit with a sick thud. The orc bounced off him backwards, flew through the air and landed in a cloud of dust. A few onlookers cheered, although rather depressingly many more booed as they knew Method and I were in Udele's bad books.

He ignored them and waddled fast to the orc that shook its head as it rose. Too late, as Method half launched, half just fell forward, and his bulk hit the recumbent creature with a squelch, the body flattened to a pulpy mess when Method moved to reveal the gore.

His folds of flesh were coved in blood and brain but even as he turned to look for another fight, the bits fell off him and joined the rest of the goop on the ground. It all moved back together, slowly rebuilding the squashed orc, but regrouping now as the true man that had inhabited the magic body, revealing a youth of maybe twenty. Someone new to magic, relatively speaking, and a wizard I knew and certainly disliked.

He screamed blue murder. It was obvious it was agony as his face kind of popped out to reveal his features, skin raw and still pulpy but recovering as he got up and staggered off to the side, shamed and beaten, out of the game.

Four more to go. A muscle-bound human, a giant, a wisp of a man so thin and tall I was amazed he didn't get blown over, and a demon, intimidating as hell and just as red.

The oversized man charged at me but I met his sword, steel clashing hard, sending vibrations up my arm. He was quick, definitely experienced, and obviously skilled, so, like all good fighters, I played dirty. As we parried again, I kicked him in the knackers. Very hard. His sword arm dropped to defend his private parts, too late, so I swung two-handed and took his head clean off.

It's a weird experience, decapitating someone. I felt a slight resistance through the length of the sword, but it was more like slicing through butter than flesh and bone. I watched, mesmerized, as the head came to a stop and angry eyes blinked. Taking it well, the dude poked out his tongue before he died.

The moment he did, someone rushed up, put the head where it was meant to be, and the wound healed over. The man got up, grunted, and nodded at me with respect, then took his place on the sidelines.

Three to go.

The wraith man was upon me, dark and ghostly, smelling of damp basements and turning my mind cloudy with visions of chattering insects and beasties that lived in the netherworlds. He snatched at my ears, poking bony, long fingers inside, nails sharp and twisted, drawing blood.

I stamped down hard on his long, bare feet, then grabbed his tattered rag of a coat and yanked, spinning him in a circle. Wisps of tortured faces screamed as his coat flapped open.

He grinned, face skeletal and eyes sunken, a true horror story of an image, and he jabbed out hard and incredibly fast with a slender blade, nicking my thick skin, drawing blood on my flank. I ignored it, used my bulk to shoulder him aside, but he spun agilely and jumped on my back, clawing at my face, trying to get my eyes. Worst of all were the terror-whispers, the incessant voices whispering in my ear like the clicking of beetles' wings before being snapped off cruelly.

Reaching behind, I grabbed his head, flipped him forward over me, then kneed him hard in the face where he lay. He put a hand up to stop me doing it a second time, grabbing my foot, so I pushed down with all my weight, and the arm snapped. Thinking that would be it, I stepped back, but the wraith sliced through the limp limb, severing it, then clutched the arm with broken shards of bone jutting out and swung it at my head.

"Seriously? Come on, dude," I moaned, but parried with my sword, cutting chunks out of the limb. I backed up, only to hit a wall of sticky flesh. It was Method. He was beating the giant about the middle with his fists.

Leaving him to it, I put my head down and charged the wraith man, bringing my thick skull up at the last moment. It connected with his fragile jaw with a satisfying crack.

Teeth fell to the ground, trampled by my charge as he retreated. I kept after him and formed my plan as I moved. Close to him, I changed course and circled behind, grabbing his flapping coat as I went. I pulled it up over his head, pushed him forward with my bare foot, then grabbed the arm he'd let go of.

Flipping him over moments after he hit the dirt, I felt with one hand for his mouth, and as he snapped at me I jammed the broken end of the arm right into his stretched mouth, pushing it deeper and deeper until he was choking.

He tried to buck me off but I gripped him tight with my thighs. With my other hand I squeezed his nostrils, the large nose sticking up under the cloth. Soon enough he stopped moving so I pulled out the arm, dropped it, and got to my feet.

I was panting now, and wondered if I had my own heart and if it would explode. Then I remembered none of it was real, but it didn't compute as it all felt real and I knew for a fact that if I died I would really be dead. Not like the wraith that was already back to being a fifty-year-old woman of striking beauty, with pale auburn hair and covered in tattoos.

She jumped to her feet, bowed, and said, "Well done, good fight," then bounced off to the sidelines, her bum wobbling, distracting me so I was floored as the demon punched me in the back. I hit the ground, mouth full of dust.

I rolled over and got up fast, the demon beckoning me with a hand twice the size of mine, claws as sharp as knives, horns just as deadly. It lowered its head and ran, ready to impale me.

"We are no longer friends," I shouted to Method, who right that second was getting off the flattened head of the giant, the rest of the body intact, the head just a red stain on the ground.

"Come on, Spark, don't be like that." He moved closer so we faced the demon together.

"Last one, mate. Why not just go quickly so we can get out of here?" I asked, knowing it was pointless.

"I'm gonna kill you both. Slowly," said the demon, voice booming off into infinity.

"Don't say I didn't ask nicely." I was getting into the swing of it now. It felt so genuine, so visceral. So did the punch to the face as it hit out faster than I could follow.

I slammed back into Method's clammy flesh then bounced forward right into the demon's clutches.

* * *

Boing

The demon, Method's apparent arch-enemy in ARMageddon, wrapped densely muscled arms around my thick hide and squeezed, lifting me off my feet. A moment later, Method roared and I glanced over my shoulder to see him coming at us, hard.

He connected with a wet slap, the air knocked out of me. But it had the desired effect and the demon tumbled backward, loosening its grip on me. I was in no state to do anything but fall on top of it, struggling to breathe.

Method shouted, "Move," and I rolled aside as he belly-flopped onto the demon, elbow braced, aiming right for the demon's head. He was too slow, though, and the demon shifted enough so that Method connected with nothing but dirt. I recovered enough to grab the fallen sword and swung it at the demon's arm, getting a good hit, slicing part way through the forearm. He roared, slapped the sword with his other hand and I lost my grip.

Method was up now, angry and panting shallowly. He swung a meaty fist right into the demon's stomach, the force pushing the abdomen tight against a ribcage like rails of rotten fencing. It reacted with a punch of its own, connecting with Method's rather less emaciated belly, having little effect because of the ample girth. It bounced like ripples on a lake as I made my move, jumping high and fast, feeling the power of the ogre body launch me higher than expected.

I landed on its shoulders, my thighs tight around the demon's head. Momentum carried us both forward, him crashing down with me still riding high.

"Grab a horn," I shouted to Method, and he did. I took the other and yelled, "Lift, then twist," nodding to check he understood.

"I'm finally gonna beat you," whispered Method, before he nodded. He was ready.

We pulled on the horns, lifting the upper body of the demon to a sitting position then twisted sharply. Its spinal column cracked, then the resistance gave way and we spun in a circle, the head rotating clean around until it faced the wrong way.

Letting go, the body dropped down, face landing with a crunch.

I bent over, exhausted, and watched the head slowly twisting back around as the demon took on human form.

Method's smile of victory turned to one of confusion then utter despair. Then outright anger.

"A damn child! All this time, the amount of defeats I've had, and it's a child? A little girl?"

"Yeah, and you only won because there are two of you, so, nah." The girl of maybe twelve stuck out her tongue then got up and ran over to Udele, shouting, "Mummy, can I fight him again? That wasn't fair."

"No," said Udele, stroking the girl's beautiful long hair lovingly, wiping the dirt from her face. "Method still has his ban in place, so maybe in nine months you can fight him. Well done, both of you, but now it's time to go."

Before we knew it, we morphed back to regular form. Two goons brought us our clothes, so we dressed, then walked over to Udele and her daughter.

"Sorry to hurt you, little girl," I said to Udele's daughter.

"Get a grip, old man. It's just a game." She skipped off to go play with the swords, unconcerned by her nakedness.

"Guess that told me."

"No more funny business," warned Udele.

"No, absolutely not," Method replied, seemingly happy, although I'd expected him to go ballistic again.

Udele clapped her hands together and we closed our eyes.

When we opened them we were on the front step of the house, the door still open behind us.

"Did she call me old?" I asked, then adjusted my tie. My suit felt gross, dirty and goopy, but at least I was alive.

* * *

Don't Blame Me

"Do not," I warned, "under any circumstances, ever call me again." I stepped down; the door slammed behind us. The entrance to an unassuming house in a drab looking street, a world of magic hiding behind the uninspiring exterior

"Come on, don't be grumpy. You gotta admit, that was fun, right?" Method was panting hard, but he had a wicked gleam in his eye.

"Maybe," I conceded. "A little."

"There you go, then." Method slapped me on the back and chortled. "I knew you'd love it." He began to cross the road but I grabbed him and pulled him back, leftover magic making him feel light.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Then it clicked. "You knew it was Udele all along, didn't you? You slimy son-of-a-bitch."

"I did," he conceded. "That's why this worked so well. Spark, I panicked a little, okay? I was in no state to go in alone, knew there was something going on. So I thought what better way to kill two birds with one stone than to look up my old buddy to help me in my hour of need. I knew you'd be up for it, and you'd find out what was wrong with me, but I also knew you'd take some convincing," he said, laughing.

"Convincing? You tricked me. Are you nuts!? You did all this, dragged me into Udele's madhouse, just because you thought I'd enjoy it?"

"What? No, of course not. I did it because I was wasting away. Er, and wanted to beat that damn devil. I knew you'd never go in to ARMageddon otherwise, but I was sure you'd love it. Cool, eh? My gift to you."

"No, not cool." He stared at me. "Okay, a little cool. But hell, we could have got killed."

"Nah, I had your back, buddy."

"I'm going home. Get yourself a taxi."

"See you soon, Spark. Don't be a stranger." Method was still laughing as I got into my car and drove off.

Vampires. Don't make friends with the old ones. They get bored with life and are extreme thrill seekers, so never answer their call in the middle of the night. Especially if they're in a playful mood.

* * *

Sleep

The kitchen was cool; my body was overheating. Wearing yet another suit destined for the trash, I stripped down to my boxers, groaning and crying out as the fabric caught on the cuts and tears to my flesh.

I was a mass of bruises that no magic could force to heal. That would have to happen the old-fashioned way.

My ink was still buzzing, a background hum of violence that seemed to stay closer to the surface with each passing day. Magic thrummed as it swirled through the intricate patterns, flushing through my system like acid.

I couldn't shake it, was unable to come back down to reality. This is who I am, what I am. An addict.

I put the dirty, ruined suit in a bag and left it outside the front door. It stank, and so did I.

Slowly, body aching like I'd got between two dwarves fighting over a chunk of gold and said, "Hey, why don't you just split it?" I climbed the stairs, showered, and tried not to look at myself in the mirror.

Moving silently into the bedroom, I checked the time on my Mickey Mouse bedside clock, amazed to find I could still get a few hours sleep before Kate awoke.

She was finding it harder and harder to rouse herself early these days, the vampire in her morphing from a day person to one that only truly felt alive at night. I knew how she felt. The darkness is when our world is at its peak, but it's dangerous. I worried for her safety, for our future, for just about everything.

But the moment I crawled under the sheets and put my arm around her flat belly, all my worries, my sadness, my sense of futility and the questions I had about what the hell I was doing, they all faded away. It was just us, safe for a little while longer.

Kate stirred and shifted to face me. "How did it go? Everything okay?" she mumbled, already half asleep again.

"Everything's fine. Just an old friend wanting to catch up and have a beer."

"That's nice. Thought it was going to be trouble."

"No. Just a typical night for us Hidden. You know me, it's a quiet life I want."

"Good. I love you, Faz."

"And I love you, too."

There was no need to bother Kate with a blast from the past. I got the distinct impression I wouldn't be hearing from Method any time soon.

Sometimes being kept in the dark is a good thing, as long as you've got somebody to keep you safe and chase away the monsters if need be.

But monsters are the least of our worries in this Hidden life we lead. People, they're the true monsters. Always have been, always will be.

Night-night.

Sleep well. I know I will.

The End

* * *

Dive right in to the world of the Dark Magic Enforcer with book 1 in the series: Black Spark.

* * *

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About the Author

Al K. Line is a British author who lives in rural England with his wife, son, and dogs. When asked to describe himself for this bio all we got was the following: "Who am I? Degrees, jobs, living in other countries, fighting squirrels, cuddling monkeys, amused by penguins. All the usual stuff."

Contact Al here:

www.alkline.co.uk

Family Business - Rob Cornell

An Unturned Short Story

Sorcerer Sebastian Light expects his first day as a demon hunter to go off without a hitch, but sometimes family issues are harder to slay than the surliest of goblins.

* * *

My Ministry license to collect bounties on demons and other rogue creatures was so freshly printed I could practically feel the residual heat in my back pocket from the runic symbols magically seared onto the parchment. I had slipped the rough paper out of my wallet and marveled at it a few times already. I had no idea what, exactly, the runes meant, except that I could kill demons the Ministry deemed as threats and collect money in the process.

How cool was that, right?

I was twenty five. My first job involved trying to tail a kid on a bike. Back then I drove this ancient Ford Escort, which made following someone on a bike through a quiet suburb a bit of a trick.

It was the middle of May, but the kid wore a down parka with a fur-lined hood, which obscured his face. A knapsack with Detroit Free Press stamped on the side hung from his shoulder. To any passer-by, he looked like a paperboy. The disguise seemed to work, even though paperboys were all but extinct as far as I knew. Nowadays, some sleepy-eyed, coffee-sipping adult cruised down the middle of the street, tossing papers out the car windows and barely landing them beyond the curb.

But I had good reason to suspect this kid wasn’t hauling newspapers. And that he wasn’t even a kid.

Frazier Fleischhacker was a goblin accused of dealing fairy dust in rock form to mortal clientele. Which was bad. The Ministry seriously frowned on what we called “breaking the wall,” which meant crossing the metaphorical boundary between the supernatural world and those who had no idea things like vampires, shifters, and goblins existed.

But breaking the wall didn’t get you a death sentence. Getting three mortals killed from an overdose of fairy dust you illegally dealt them, then proceeding to dodge a Ministry summons to stand trial? That would do the trick.

Lucky for me, it meant a pretty big bounty, too. If I snagged this goblin, I could trade in my Escort for a less beaten beater.

I sat at the corner of the block, my car’s engine rattling like a tin can full of loose screws. I’d had to replace the carburetor twice on the damn thing, and I had a bad feeling the transmission was about to go. Another good reason to take up demon hunting—I could finally afford a new car before this one fell apart around me.

The “kid” rode away from me, down the sidewalk, traveling the full length of the block without making a single stop or tossing a single rolled copy of the Free Press. I knew a lot of people got their news on the internet these days, but not a single subscriber on this quiet suburban street?

Nice try, buddy.

When he reached the end of the block, I crept forward and turned down the parallel street. This was one of those mass-produced suburbs built on a convenient grid pattern with the occasional cul-de-sac. Made tailing the faux paperboy a little easier.

I pulled up to the next intersection, barely touching the gas pedal, and stopped a couple car lengths before reaching the cross street. I could see around the gray-bricked ranch style house on the corner just enough to watch for the kid to come around the far end of the street. He had done this up one street and down the other thing three times already and hadn’t yet stopped at a single house. I assumed it was a maneuver to keep up appearances. Show any glancing neighbors a paperboy going about his business, nothing to see here, carry on.

This time he finally stopped, about three-quarters of the way down the block. He looked from side to side as if checking for witnesses. Then he pedaled across the street and up the driveway of a two-story colonial with a front lawn that looked a couple of weeks past due for a mow.

The kid left his bike on its side in the driveway and scurried up to the porch. He clutched the knapsack to his chest, only releasing one arm long enough to rap on the door.

Whoever was inside must have been expecting him, because the door opened five seconds after the knock. A woman with short, tight curls poked her head out. The kid marched into the house as if he owned the place.

Like a groundhog spotting her shadow, the woman jerked back inside and swung the door shut.

Decision time. I didn’t know how many deliveries he had on his agenda, nor how many he’d already completed before I caught up with him. For all I knew, this one was his last. I couldn’t take him out in the open—not without breaking the wall myself.

At the same time, trying to take him in the house could prove tricky. I wasn’t worried about breaking the wall with the woman inside. That damage had already been done. But I still hadn’t confirmed one-hundred percent this was Fleischhacker, or a goblin at all.

If I dithered too long, it wouldn’t matter either way. I could lose this bounty if I didn’t make a move soon.

To hell with it.

I cut the Escort’s engine—which made a hollow chuff before it quit—and got out.

I instantly breathed in the smell of mown grass. The spring air carried a warm, dry touch. The breeze felt great as it made my cotton shirt ripple against my chest. A yippy breed of dog was on a steady barking streak in a nearby backyard.

I took the sidewalk up to the house, trying to act casual. Although, if these people hadn’t wondered about a paperboy who wore a parka in warm weather and never actually delivered any papers, I probably didn’t have to worry about drawing attention to myself.

A weather-blanched statue of the Virgin Mary stood tucked between a pair of shrubs in front of the house. On my way up, I wasted a second admiring the kid’s candy apple Schwinn that looked a couple weeks shy of brand new. For a paperboy who only delivered to one person every three blocks or so, he could afford a pretty sweet ride.

An idea popped in my head that made me grin like a mad villain.

I let the air out of his tires. For good measure, I put the nozzle caps into my pocket.

That done, I followed the cement driveway into the backyard. Hordes of dandelions choked the grass. On the patio, a metal-framed porch swing sported a green awning as faded as Mary’s blue robes out front. The swing’s cushions had water stains on them. Aside from a few terracotta pots full of dirt but no plants, and the weeds growing out of cracks in the concrete, nothing else occupied the patio. Made me wonder how long the woman inside had been hooked on the dust. Neglect had left her home a little shaggy around the edges.

I crossed to the back door and pounded on it. “Police! Open up.” Then I cocked my head and listened.

I heard panicked scuffling and low voices. Then silence.

I laughed quietly to myself. They were really going to pretend they weren’t in there? When in the history of the world had that ever worked on anyone but a Jehovah’s Witness?

I pounded again. “We know you’re in there. Open up or we’ll break down your back door.”

I hoped I hadn’t telegraphed my move too much with my specificity on which door I threatened to breech.

No need to worry. Ten seconds later I heard the front door fling open.

I sprinted around the house in time to see the goblin struggling to pick up his bike while the hastily slung knapsack on his shoulder kept slipping in his way. In his rush out the door, he had also forgotten to pull up his hood. I saw the gnarled, branchlike nose. The greenish-gray skin. The solid black eyes.

Fleischhacker.

I stood between the woman’s and her neighbor’s houses, not completely out of sight, but guarded enough I was willing to take a chance. I held my hand out at my side, palm up, and drew on my magical energy. My skin grew warm as I bent the element of fire to my will. A bright orange flame ignited from my palm. Its heat made the air around it ripple.

I knew some hunters liked to say something pithy before taking down a bounty, like offering a proclamation of the bounty’s guilt or something like that. I guess it gave them a sense of authority. Thankfully, such nonsense was not required by the Ministry. So I just said, “Boo-ya,” and tossed a fireball at the goblin.

His gaze jerked up as the flaming bolt sailed straight for his face. Right before it reached him, he pressed a finger against his hooked nose. The fireball veered to the right, sailed around his head, then boomeranged back at me.

I ducked and felt the heat of the blazing comet streak over me, but I had managed to dodge it.

The Honda parked in the driveway behind me? Not so much.

The fireball blasted through the car’s rear windshield and set the interior alight. The smell of burning upholstery soon followed. The flaming car had distracted me long enough for Fleischhacker to finally get on his bike. He struggled to pedal away. The bike wobbled, nearly pitched sideways, but he put one stubby leg down to keep him upright. He looked down at his flattened tires and growled.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

He glared over his shoulder at me, black eyes shining, thin lips pulled back from his pointed teeth.

I lit up my hand again. The smoke and noise from the burning car would bring unwanted attention right quick. Time to end this.

But that little prick pushed his finger against the side of his nose again, puckered his lips, and blew.

The fire in my hand went out.

I stared dumbly at my empty palm. “What the fuck?”

The goblin snickered and gave me a wink. Then he pulled one more trick with his little nose gesture, magically re-inflating his bike tires.

I tried to pull up more fire, but he had somehow literally extinguished my ability. Stunned, I just stood and watched him ride away.

Until I heard the sirens. Then I got the hell out of there.

* * *

My grandfather, Eldred Light, lived on three wooded acres in Ann Arbor. His house looked like a log cabin on the outside. Inside, it had the usual amenities of most homes. The kitchen had shiny stainless steel appliances, and there was a stone fireplace in the family room. Age had worn much of the furniture—especially Grandpa’s favorite rocker, its oak seat polished to a cloudy brown from repeated use.

I loved the scent of ginger and cinnamon that infused the whole house, the ghost of Grandma’s baking still clinging two years after she passed away. After the death of his beloved wife, Grandpa had slowed down a lot. It took him five minutes to answer my knock. But for a six-hundred forty-nine year old widower, that was pretty good.

He smiled through his long white beard when he saw me. The sadness never left his eyes, though. He wore a blue bathrobe with a few popped seams and striped pajamas underneath. Since he seldom went out, he didn’t feel the need to dress up. Not that he didn’t (or couldn’t) care for himself. He kept his beard clean, what remained of his hair brushed, and his clothes washed. But when he dressed for the day, it was always pj's and his robe.

We hugged, then he ushered me into the family room. It wasn’t cool out, but he had the fire going and all the windows shut up. The stuffiness pressed in on me, and I quickly started to sweat.

“You need to open some windows,” I said while he eased into his rocker with a soft groan.

He waved his hand weakly. “It’s fine, it’s fine.”

An old-fashioned wingback chair faced the fire near Grandpa’s rocker. That used to be Grandma’s usual seat. I had distinct memories of her reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit to me while I sat on the floor beside her chair and stared into the fire. I had always loved fire, even back then.

I sat on the edge of her chair. “I need your help.”

His gaze drifted to the mantle above the fireplace which displayed a collection of family photos, one of Grandma prominent in the middle. He chuckled softly, but again, the humor didn’t reach his eyes. “What can an old man like me do for a virile young man like yourself?”

“It’s for work,” I said.

He turned his gaze on me and raised a fuzzy eyebrow. “You’re working now?”

“I’ve barely started, but yes. And it’s a job you have some experience with.”

His lips parted. He stared at me for several seconds. “Tell me you’re joking.”

I shrugged. “I thought you’d approve.”

“It isn’t my approval you have to worry about.”

The fire snapped like a whip as it reached some sap on one of the logs, then it settled back into a steady crackle.

I ducked my head. “I have a right to choose my own profession.”

“Of course you do.” He smoothed his robe across his lap. “But you haven’t told them yet, have you?”

“You know how they’ll react.”

His sad eyes stared straight through to my soul. “You don’t think they have a right to know?”

“I haven’t even collected my first bounty. I figured I’d hold off telling them until I was sure the job was right for me.”

He snorted, shook his head. “You’re a terrible liar. Not even you believe that.”

“What am I supposed to do? They’re a couple of stuffy scholars. They won’t understand.”

Grandpa leaned toward me. His rocker creaked under him. “You do realize your father was raised by a demon hunter.”

I let out a short laugh. “That’s why I’m here.”

“And that’s why…” He settled back with a sigh and started rocking. “…your father became a stuffy scholar, and why he married one, for that matter. He’s seen up close what hunting does to a man.”

“Grandma never seemed to mind.”

His gaze returned to the central photograph on the mantle. “That’s because she chose me as I was. She knew what she was getting into. But we can’t pick our own parents. And I know there were times Walter wished he could have. He certainly wouldn’t have picked me.”

Wow. I knew Dad seriously hated what Grandpa had done for a living, but I never got the sense that Dad resented him for it. I put a hand on Grandpa’s arm. “That isn’t true. He loves you.”

He gently bobbed his head. “But not all of me.” Then he clamped his hand down over mine. Despite the shut up windows and the fire, his thin, papery skin felt cold. He squeezed my hand with surprising strength. “You should reconsider this path.”

The suggestion didn’t give me second thoughts. It did the opposite, making me want to dig my heels in and declare that this was my life, damn it, and I wouldn’t let my dad’s issues with his father dictate my own choices. I think my grandfather saw as much.

He relaxed his grip and slid his hand off of mine. Then he laced his fingers together and rested his hands in his lap. “How can I help?”

A charge ran through me. I sat up straight. “I need to track down a goblin I’m after. I had him this afternoon, but he slipped me.”

Grandpa’s mouth curled up on one side. “I should say. Goblin magic is a tricky thing.”

I looked down at my right hand, the one Fleischhacker had blown out like a candle. On the hour drive to Ann Arbor, I had tested drawing flame in that hand several times. Thankfully, the ability had come back. Whatever the goblin had done to me had only worked temporarily. I’d been a little freaked there for a while. I could not imagine losing access to my power.

“Yeah,” I said. “Tricky.”

“How did you find him the first time?”

“Old fashioned way. The rumor mill and knocking on doors.”

He nodded his approval. “I assume, now that he knows you’re onto him, that way won’t work again.”

“Definitely not.”

He stroked his beard and hummed, his eyes focusing on some faraway place. I had him intrigued. The old hunter was still in him. “I know a few ways to track someone, but most require something from the target. A strand of hair. A prized possession. I once used a dirty sock.”

I dug into my pocket and brought out the nozzle caps to Fleischhacker’s bike tires. I held them out in my palm for Grandpa to see. “These are from a bike he was riding. Looked like he took good care of it. Might qualify as a prized possession.”

One bushy eyebrow went up. He peered at the caps like a scientist observing a specimen. “A bicycle? And he got away from you?”

I felt my cheeks flush. “He fought dirty,” I said. “And we were too exposed for me to go after him.”

He reached for the caps. I noticed his fingers trembling, and it took him a few seconds to pick the caps up. Once he had them, he brought them to his nose and sniffed. He broke into a wide smile, and this time it reached his eyes, obscuring his chronic sadness. “These should work. Who knew a bicycle could be so important to a goblin?”

“He uses it to make his living,” I said.

“Doing what?”

“Delivering rocked fairy dust to suburbanites. He’s posing as a paperboy to make his rounds.”

“And the Ministry wants him executed for this?”

“Three of his customers have OD’d.”

“Ah.” He closed his fingers around the caps. “And why is it you can’t work a spell on these to find him?”

Again, my face went hot. “I flunked small magic.”

“Small, huh? I bet that drives your father bonkers.”

Ha. Bonkers. Who said that anymore? I nodded. “Bonkers indeed.”

“You need to buckle down, Sebastian. There’s no such—”

“—thing as small magic. Dad got that phrase from you, huh?”

“Doesn’t make it any less true.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Let’s put this spell together. We can work in the kitchen. I’ll show you small magic.”

* * *

Despite his trembling hands, Grandpa threw the spell together in fifteen minutes. When he was done, he handed me a small juice glass, empty except for the two caps. He had covered the top of the glass with plastic wrap and put a rubber band around it to hold the plastic in place.

Inside the glass, the rubber caps jittered and crawled up and down the glass like a pair of trapped insects.

“They want to get back to their owner,” Grandpa said. “Follow where they want to go, and you’ll find your goblin.”

“Nice,” I said. “And a little weird.”

I thanked him and promised to call him with an update on how it went. I could still sense the excitement from him, though the spell (however “small”) had worn him out a little. His hands shook more, and he kept his eyes pinched as if struggling to hide pain.

I drove back toward Detroit with the glass on the passenger seat. The caps clinked around inside, apparently wanting to break out and fly back to Fleischhacker. I had watched Grandpa work the spell—the mumbled incantation, the burning sage, the pulse of his magic as he enchanted the caps—but I didn’t understand it, even when he tried to explain it to me. Subtle magic, he’d said, requires a subtle hand, a light touch. That lack of subtlety is the only thing holding you back. You can’t spend the rest of your life casting fire and wind.

I could do more than that. With the help of potions and trinkets anyway. I had to admit, it bothered me a little that I couldn’t get small magic to work. I knew the moves, knew the words, knew the mechanics.

In other words, there was something wrong with me, not the spells.

It took me a while to get the hang of following the caps’ lead while driving. But when I found myself circling a block in another suburb not far from where Fleischhacker had been making his deliveries, I knew I was close enough to continue on foot.

This neighborhood looked newer than the last—the houses larger, the yards smaller, and the space between homes a whole lot narrower.

With the glass in hand, I strolled down the sidewalk, keeping an eye on which direction the caps fidgeted. Eventually, they led me to a two-story house with a brick facade and vinyl siding. The lawn was neatly mowed, the shrubs recently trimmed. While the color of bricks was an earthy brown, the front door was painted bright yellow. An odd choice, but it did give the place a cheery highlight.

I stood there a moment. The caps knocked frantically against the glass right toward the house’s front door. The place looked way too…normal…for a goblin’s home.

I pulled the plastic wrap off the top of the glass and tipped the opening toward the house. The caps shot out like a pair of angry bees. They moved so quickly, I lost sight of them until I heard them tick against the yellow door. From the sidewalk they really did look like a couple of black bugs. They futilely twisted and jigged to get through the barrier between them and their owner.

What an awesome trick, Grandpa.

Maybe someday I’d pick it up.

The yards here weren’t fenced off, probably because that would reveal how small the lots really were. One yard blended into the next, the most distinguishing feature among them the size and shape of their back decks. And every deck seemed to have a gas grill the size of a compact car.

The stairs up to Fleischhacker’s back deck creaked under my feet. A sliding glass door led directly into a dining room. Peering in, I could make out a small, round table with four matching shellacked chairs, and a bowl of fruit in the center. Judging from the brown spots on the bananas, the fruit was real instead of that weird wax stuff. A marble counter sectioned off the kitchen from the dining room.

The whole setup looked terribly mundane. Not at all like where I imagined a goblin would live. Maybe the caps had it wrong. Or maybe this was another customer’s house—though I hadn’t seen his bike out front.

I decided to trust Grandpa’s magic. Just had to figure out a way to get at Fleischhacker before he could touch his damn nose.

I tested the glass door. It slid open a few inches when I pressed at the handle. It rolled easily on its tracks, barely making a sound.

I was about to push the door open wide enough to slip through when a woman entered the kitchen. Not just any woman. A pregnant one. Her belly stuck out with at least nine months worth of baby inside, making her white, sleeveless summer dress drape wide from her porcelain legs. She had long black hair and a heart-shaped face only a little puffy from baby weight. She was damn pretty, too.

I jerked back, pressing against the wall beside the cracked door. If she glanced over, she would likely notice the door open. She might come over to investigate, then catch me standing there like an amateur cat burglar (instead of an amateur demon hunter).

Time to split?

This couldn’t be the right place. Not with a pregnant woman in there.

Then I heard her laugh, a hearty one with a musical lilt. She said something I couldn’t make out. Another voice answered, low and growly. A weird impossibility struck me. I had to take a peek, no matter the risk of getting caught. I eased forward and titled my head just far enough to see inside.

I almost shit myself.

The woman was down on her knees, bringing her eyes level to Fleischhacker’s, who stood before her, hooked nose, pointy-toothed grin, and all. But this didn’t stop her from softly kissing him on his grayish lips, the passion between them unmistakable.

Had I stepped into the Twilight Zone or something? All the weirdness of the paranormal world shrank to a mere oddity compared to what I saw going on in that kitchen.

Another crazy thought hit me.

Was the baby his?

I had heard about human and supernatural relationships. Of course. But I pictured shifters or even vampires—things that could look human under normal circumstances. Not…goblins.

My shock had made me forget about stealth. I had unconsciously moved further out from the wall to openly stare at them. When they finished their kiss, Fleischhacker spotted me from the corner of his eye and whirled to face me. After seeing the tender moment he had shared with the pregnant woman, the fear in his eyes made me feel a little guilty.

But I couldn’t let my emotions get in the way of my job. He was still responsible for the deaths of three mortals. I had to stay professional. Had to push out any thoughts about what the woman would think when I immolated the father of her child. Or how that child would always wonder about what happened to their father because her mother couldn’t bear tell them the truth.

Get that shit out of your head, Sebastian.

Fleischhacker’s surprise melted quicker than my moral haggling. He brought his finger up to his nose. I had only a second to wonder what hex he might throw my way. I didn’t waste that second wondering, though. I twisted away from the glass door just in time.

The glass exploded outward with a sound like crashing cymbals. Shards sprayed across the deck like spilled diamonds. One small piece cut my cheek.

I should have jagged away from the wall and thrown a fireball in through the smashed slider. But I kept seeing the woman on her knees, the kiss, the way her pregnant belly pressed against her squat lover. And he had hugged that belly, hadn’t he? Had run his hands along the sides with a loving touch. A proud father-to-be.

I couldn’t make myself do it. I just couldn’t.

Instead of marching in on the attack, I held my hands out so they could see them. “Wait,” I shouted. “Truce.”

A moment of silence followed. A couple of robins bickered on the branch of a nearby maple. A lawn mower growled in the distance. Twilight had started to fade in. I could smell the flowers in a hanging basket a couple feet away from my head.

“Frazier, don’t,” I heard the woman say.

He responded with a gurgled sigh. “Go away,” Fleischhacker said. “Then I won’t have to hurt you.”

The next words came out of my mouth all on their own without any thought on my part. “There will be others hunting you,” I said. “If I can find you, so can they.”

“So what?”

Yeah, Mr. Light. So what?

I gritted my teeth. I could not believe what I was thinking. It went against every oath I had sworn to get my license. I had yet to collect on a bounty, and here I was, contemplating not only letting my first contract go, but…

“I can help you.”

* * *

That earned me another long silence. I still had my hands out in plain view, but they were getting tired. As a show of good faith, I stepped away from the wall, glass crunching under my boots, and stood in the open, facing them through the frame of the shattered door.

The woman had gotten to her feet. She stood twice as tall as Fleischhacker. An inappropriate curiosity about the physical mechanics of their relationship crossed my mind. I pushed it back before I started imagining possibilities.

Fleischhacker had his small fists clenched at his sides. He wore a plaid shirt over a pair of jeans and a pair of sneakers, all probably purchased from the kids’ section. Despite his goblin features, his attire made him look almost normal. Especially in such domestic surroundings.

“Why would you want to help us?” he asked.

The woman absently ran her fingers through his curly black hair. Otherwise, she remained rigid, and her eyes shined with fear.

I decided to go with the honesty policy. “Frankly, I don’t know. I guess I’m not cold-hearted enough to kill you in front of your pregnant…wife?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “Wife.” He took a few short steps forward and tilted his head while studying me. “That still doesn’t explain why you want to help. Or even what you could do to help.”

Another good point. What the hell did I think I could do for them that they hadn’t already tried themselves?

“I…I don’t know.”

“What do you know, you little twat?”

The woman whapped him on the back of his head. “Frazier.”

He ducked his head. “Sorry, dear.”

“I think we should hear him out,” she said.

Fleischhacker glowered, but he nodded. “Take your boots off and leave them on the mat.”

To one side of the entryway lay a rubber mat with a collection of shoes and boots lined up against the wall. “Seriously?”

He pointed at the floor of the dining room. “You see that carpet? It’s brand new. Leave your boots on the mat.”

I stepped inside and did as instructed. Fleischhacker and his wife led me in my stocking feet into the living room. This room looked as normal as the dining room. Modern furnishings, some framed abstracts on the walls, more spotless carpeting. An incense burner sat on an end table by the TV, the wisp of smoke rising from it filling the room with woodsy scent.

The woman offered me her hand. “I’m Carrie.”

I took her hand. Her skin was soft and warm. “Sebastian.”

Fleischhacker and Carrie sat on a loveseat that had the legs removed so it sat lower to the floor. Carrie’s knees bent up a little, while Fleischhacker’s feet touched the floor evenly.

I took a seat in a puffy leather armchair which threatened to swallow me if I leaned back. I doubted Fleischhacker spent any time in it.

“Why haven’t you moved away?” I asked right off the bat.

Fleischhacker scowled. “When the housing market crashed, we ended up with a house worth half of what we owed on it. And when Carrie tried to take maternity leave from her job, they figured out a legal way to fire her. Some horseshit about restructuring.” He made air quotes when he said that last word. “We can’t afford to move. And with the baby almost here…” He threw up his hands. “The medical bills aren’t going to pay themselves.”

“How have you dodged the Ministry for this long?”

“They didn’t put open season on me until a few days ago. I thought I was being careful enough. But you still managed to find me.”

“Others will, too.” I looked him straight in his solid black eyes. I doubted I saw the same thing in them that Carrie did. Love truly was blind. “Your financial issues. Is that why you’re dealing the dust?”

He held out a hand to stop me, but the question was already out of my mouth.

Carrie turned a quizzical eye toward her husband.

Uh oh. I guess the wife hadn’t known about her hubby’s little side job.

“What’s he talking about?”

I shrunk back from the immediate tension that bloomed between them. Nothing worse than getting stuck as a witness to a domestic squabble.

Fleischhacker fumbled for words while he gazed around the room as if one of the walls might have the right thing to say painted on it. Without a straight answer coming from him, Carrie did the worst possible thing I could have imagined at that moment.

She turned to me.

“What are you talking about? Dealing? Dust?”

Okay, there was something worse than witnessing a tiff between lovers—getting dragged into the middle of it. “I…uh…I don’t think it’s my place to say.”

Her cheeks turned a soft pink. She blasted me with a glare that would have made an ogre tremble in his oversized boots. I hunched my shoulders up, wishing I could pull my head in like a turtle and wait for this painful awkwardness to blow over.

No such luck.

“Don’t give me that,” she said. “You said you wanted to help us. Start by telling me the truth. If you can’t do that, you’re no help at all.”

“Carebear,” Fleischhacker said in a small voice. “It’s really nothing.”

She smacked his knee. “Shut up. Sebastian is trying to talk.”

I am?

Her pointed look spurred me on. I gave Fleischhacker an apologetic shrug. “Your husband is selling fairy dust to mortals. There’s this Ministry that governs—”

“I know all about the Ministry. And I know they’ve sent out people like you to murder him.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “And your husband didn’t tell you why?”

He lowered his gaze and cringed.

“He told me,” Carrie went on, “that he’d been wrongly accused of using magic in a public place.”

I frowned. “That sort of thing doesn’t warrant a death sentence. The Ministry put a bounty on him because his reckless dust dealing resulted in three mortal deaths.”

Carrie looked back and forth between us. “Is this true?”

The goblin sneered in a crooked way only a goblin could. “No. No one I’ve sold to has died. I delivered to all my buyers just today.”

“Then why is the Ministry claiming otherwise?” I asked.

“Because they’re lying!” His cheeks turned more green than gray. “In their eyes, we’ve broken the wall in the worst way. But their laws, such as they are, won’t permit them to kill us outright.”

“I find that really hard to believe.”

“That’s because you’re a young, naive dolt.”

I let the insult roll off. There were plenty of political machinations to the Ministry I didn’t understand. And I’d heard Dad complain about them. But what Fleischhacker claimed seemed… What? Farfetched? I only had to look at my nation’s history to know the heights bigotry could reach.

“So you’re dealing the dust to fund an escape.”

He gave a sullen nod.

“What on earth are you thinking?” Carrie shouted and whapped his arm with the back of her hand.

“I was desperate. I am desperate.” He looked up at his wife with pleading eyes. “If we don’t get out of here soon they’re going to find us. They’ll…” He rested his small hand on Carrie’s swollen belly.

I frowned. “No one is going to hurt your child,” I said. “The contract is on you alone.”

He snorted and waved a hand at me. “I’m not talking about your stupid lot.”

“Then who?”

He folded his arms and turned his face away from me. With the kids’ clothes, he looked a lot like a spoiled kid getting his first real scolding.

Carrie watched her husband for a handful of seconds, then she shook her head and turned to me. “There’s this group,” she said. “They call themselves Purifiers.”

She didn’t have to say more. I could figure out the rest myself. Apparently the paranormal world had its own version of the KKK.

“You need to get out of here,” I said. “Now.”

Fleischhacker rolled his eyes. “We know that, idiot. But like I told you, we—”

“There has to be somewhere you can go.” The desperation in my voice startled me. Here I’d gone from wanting to turn Fleischhacker into a wick, and now I found myself invested in saving his life. I looked at Carrie’s belly.

Not just his life.

Carrie said, “Neither of us have family to go to. Our friends are here, so going to them would only put them in danger without making us any safer.”

I hung my head and pinched the bridge of my nose. I wanted to help them, but I couldn’t think of anything I could offer. I didn’t have any money to loan them. Of course, if I killed Fleischhacker, I’d have a nice chunk of change. How was that for irony? Anyway, one contract’s payout wouldn’t last long enough to get them in the clear.

“Well, we can’t hang around here much longer. There’ll be more hunters coming for you, and I doubt many of them will care what your family situation is.”

Carrie’s eyebrows drew together. “Where will we go?”

Another stupid idea popped into my brainless head.

“I know someone who can help.”

Fleischhacker sneered. “Who?”

“Someone who’s been in this business a lot longer than I have.”

* * *

While the Fleischhackers gathered some things to take with them, I put my boots back on, headed out the front door to get my car, and nearly got an arrow punched through my eye. It hit the doorframe instead, but only about a foot to my left. The thwack sound it made sent my heart into my throat. I jerked to the side and glanced out toward the street to see where the hell it had come from.

Twilight had settled in and night wasn't far behind. There weren't any streetlights on this stretch of street so plenty of shadows crawled in under the maples and oaks planted in various front yards.

But I could see the small car that looked like a shoebox with wheels, and the gleam of someone’s eyes in the driver's seat staring out at me.

I also saw a glint of what remained of the daylight on something metallic inside the window.

"Hey," I shouted.

The door popped open and a little waif of a girl stepped out. She was dressed in a pair of white high top sneakers, a frilly black skirt, and torn black nylons underneath. Her shirt looked like a spatter of random colors on a black background, as if Jackson Pollock had collaborated with someone puking paint. She had an Asian cast to her wide face and a sharp pointed chin. A lot of black makeup, too.

But the whole look wouldn't have been complete without the crossbow held at her side.

"Who the fuck are you?" she asked.

I stammered, heartbeat still out of control from the shock of nearly getting my skull skewered. "Who the fuck are you?" I threw back like a grammar school kid on the playground.

She snorted like that was the dumbest question in the whole wide world. Then she crossed the street. I took an instinctive step back. The girl couldn't have been much older than twenty. Maybe she could get into bars, but she sure as heck couldn't rent a car. Yet she had a hell of a presence. Even from halfway across the street, I could feel it press closer as she closed in.

I reached back and absently drew the door shut.

When she stepped up the curb, she jerked her chin at the house. "What were you doing in there?"

It didn't take long for me to figure out who this girl was. Or, rather, what she was. Another hunter. And she had sniffed the trail to the Fleischhackers’ house same as me.

"I was taking care of business," I blurted. Great. I was speaking in cheesy song lyrics. What an interesting stress reaction.

She raised one of her dark eyebrows. "Business, huh?"

“Yep,” I said. "You know. Hunting stuff."

"Stuff?"

I felt my face flush. I was sounding like a total dork. I needed to get rid of this girl, damn it.

"Yes," I said with some force—maybe too much. I swallowed, tried to straighten my expression as much as possible, showing her how serious I was. "Goblins, to be specific. That ring a bell with you?"

"You're really a hunter?"

"Sure am."

She shook her head. "They'll give anyone a license these days."

I let out a short, derisive laugh. "You're what? Twenty?"

"Twenty three," she snapped. I noticed her hand tighten on the grip of her crossbow.

I felt a headache coming on just thinking about one of those arrows lodged through my eye. "Well, you're no old lady. So you can't use the whole 'these days' thing."

Her lip curled.

"I've been hunting since I was sixteen," she said.

"Wow," I said with a ring of sarcasm. But I really was impressed. I couldn't imagine being a kid, a mortal one at that, chasing after demons and other kinds of creeps. As the son of sorcerers, I'd grown up knowing about this stuff, which made it a little less traumatizing.

She rolled her eyes and started her approach again.

I stepped off the porch to meet her in the center of the front lawn. She tried to sidestep me, but I slid in her way. I held out my hand. "My name's Sebastian."

"Good for you," She dodged left, then zagged right, managing to get around me. She was damn quick.

I turned around and put as much boredom in my voice as possible.

"He's already dead.”

She stopped, looked over her shoulder. "You put down a goblin?"

I shrugged. "So hard to believe?"

"Kinda."

"Well, I am glad I can disappoint you on that score. Fleischhacker is a charred lump of nothing."

She turned all the way to face me. "You got the remains?"

Oops. I'd forgotten about that part. You had to turn in some remains to the Ministry as proof of the kill. "Yeah, I'm going to get my car so I can bring the goods out without drawing suspicion."

Her brow furrowed. "Why? Not like you need a big piece. A hand, couple of fingers maybe. They can tell from that if you did the work. Which I'm getting the feeling you didn't."

I laughed, and I knew it didn't sound convincing. "I'm new at this," I said.

"Obviously."

"Point is, I thought I needed more than that. Thanks for the tip. I guess I can go back in there now and get it."

One corner of her mouth curled up in the evilest of evil smirks. She kind of looked like she was about to eat me.

"No worries," she said. "I'll go in and get it for you."

I held up my hands. "Totally not necessary."

"You're a terrible liar."

I guess Grandpa had been right about that.

She turned on her heel and headed for the front door. I took a few steps after her, but she reached the porch well before I could reach her. She raised her crossbow and reached for the door handle.

"Hey," I shouted. I pulled on my magical energy, focusing on the air, drawing it together in front of me in a sort of mini hurricane. Nothing too crazy, but enough to feel the breeze blow my hair back and chill my skin like an October night.

She ignored me.

Left me with no choice.

I solidified the ball of air, creating an invisible pocket of wind with the heft of a large stone. I hurled it straight at her head.

She jerked forward on impact. Her head collided with the brick facade. She bounced backward, stayed on her feet for a couple seconds, then pitched backward off the porch. Thankfully, she dropped onto the soft grass and not the cement approach. I didn't want to crack her skull open, just knock her out long enough for me to get the Fleischhackers the hell out of there.

I rushed over to her. She still gripped her crossbow, as if her hand had gone into premature rigor mortis. I grabbed her under the arms and dragged her behind the shrubs.

I jogged to my Escort, drove it back, and pulled into the Fleischhackers’ driveway.

Carrie stood just inside the door when I came in. "Who was that girl?"

"She was here to put an arrow or two into your husband. Another bounty hunter."

Her face paled.

I gave her arm a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay. Where's Frazier?"

"Here." He came down from the second floor lugging a suitcase nearly as big as him. He didn't show any sign of struggle as he carried it down, though.

"We're not coming back here, are we?" Carrie asked.

Frazier took his wife's hand. “We’ll be fine.”

I reached out to Frazier. "Let me take that.”

He looked like he wanted to object, but he handed the suitcase over without grumbling.

I carried it out to the car, leaving the two of them to give their home one last glance before I led them to an uncertain future.

* * *

If circumstances had been less serious, the expression on my grandfather's face would have cracked me up. He stood in the doorway, staring at me and my new companions, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. He might as well have been looking at a pig in a tutu.

"Hey, Gramps," I said.

"Sebastian?"

Just my name, but it stood in for the twenty-million questions probably rattling through his brain.

"Can we come in?"

He swallowed, seemed to come to an internal decision, and nodded.

We filed into the living room. Grandpa still had the fire going, though it didn't feel as stuffy as before. Then I noticed the window looking out at the back of the wooded property was cracked a few inches.

That was a big step for Grandpa. I wondered if my visit to him had perked him up a bit. He wore a different set of pajama bottoms that looked slightly less pajama-y. They could have been light cotton pants now that I thought of it.

Hmm.

Maybe I needed to come by more often.

The four of us stood awkwardly in the center of the living room while the fire crackled and made shadows quiver across the ornately woven Persian rug under our feet.

"Please," Grandpa said. He gestured to the available seating—Grandma's chair and the two-person loveseat with patches over spots time and use had worn thin.

The Fleischhackers took the love seat, I sat on Grandma's wingback again, and Grandpa settled into his rocker. It rocked back once, but he planted his slippered feet on the floor to stop it.

He turned his pointed gaze my way.

Time for the pitch.

First thing I did was introduce the couple. Grandpa received them graciously, but his back remained stiff through the whole affair. Unlike me, he didn't seem the least bit surprised the goblin and human were married. Nor did he flinch at the fact that Carrie was carrying Frazier's child.

"Why did you bring them here?" he asked.

"Mr. Fleischhacker here is...was...the goblin the Ministry put a contract on."

"I gathered that."

I gulped down my embarrassment and went on.

"I don't think the Ministry has the facts straight on this one.”

Grandpa raised his gray brows. The wrinkles around his eyes smoothed, and the way the firelight struck his face, he looked a decade or two younger—which wasn't much when you were over six-hundred, but still noticeable. There was a gleam in his eye, too. As if he were...enjoying this?

It was damn hard getting a read on him at that moment.

"You think the Ministry has made a mistake?"

I squirmed in my chair. I got the sense he was testing me, and my answer here would make or break his willingness to help.

I looked at the couple. Frazier was his usual dower self. But the flame's glow complimented Carrie's fair complexion. She really was a stunning woman.

"Yeah," I said. "They've got this one wrong."

"Why do you think so?"

"You don't?" I held a hand out toward them. "Look at them. They're in love. It's freakin' obvious."

Grandpa shrugged. "That doesn't mean Mr. Fleischhacker here isn't guilty of the charges."

Frazier hopped off the sofa, his sneakered feet thumping on the hardwood through the rug. "The charges are bull and you know it, old wizard. I know you know it."

Grandpa broke into a full-on belly laugh. "I'm no wizard," he said. "And you know that, too."

Frazier shrugged and, I couldn’t believe it, actually cracked a smile. "Sorcerer didn't have the same ring to it."

I looked back and forth between them, wondering if I hadn't missed my stop on the train down to crazy town.

"Nice to see you two getting along,” I said slowly. “Does that mean you're going to help, Grandpa?"

Grandpa held up a finger. "If I may have a moment with my grandson in private?"

"Of course,” Carrie said. Frazier climbed back up on the sofa and snuggled in close to her. She took his small hand in hers.

With a creaky grunt, Grandpa rose from the rocker and beckoned me to follow him into the kitchen.

He took me by the elbow and guided me to the far side, over by the stainless steel sink that looked perfectly clean except for the layer of dust on the spigot and knobs.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked.

I glanced at the entryway to the kitchen as if I thought the Fleischhackers might have snuck up behind us to listen in.

"Are you?" I asked. "I hardly explained a thing, but you two sounded like old friends."

“Do you trust him?"

I hesitated. “I hardly know him.”

"If you go through with helping this couple, and if the Ministry were to find out, it could spell disaster for you."

I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. "I'd lose my license before I ever had a chance to use it."

"You could lose more than that. You are aiding a supernatural fugitive. One the Ministry deems fit for execution."

"He says none of his customers died. That the Ministry made that part up or something. I don't know why they'd do that, but I believe him that none of his buyers were hurt."

Grandpa stroked his beard. He took a while before he spoke next, and I waited him out because I could see the wheels turning.

“The Ministry is a political machine like any other. If you want to keep doing their work, you have to accept the flaws in that machine."

A sour taste filled my mouth. "I know the Ministry isn't perfect, but are you saying they're corrupt?"

"I'm saying they aren’t a force to be trifled with. There will be only so many times you can defy them before you end up in the same position as Mr. Fleischhacker."

For the first time, I doubted my newly chosen profession. For the gods’ sake, I had just started, and already I found myself flirting with the Ministry’s bad side. I tried to swallow the knot tied in my throat without much success.

"So, I'll ask again,” he said. “Are you sure you want to do this?"

Despite Grandpa’s clear warnings, I didn’t have to think before I answered. “Yes.”

Grandpa appraised me, his scrutiny a little uncomfortable. “Why?”

Again, I didn’t hesitate. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

Then he smiled. He clapped me on the shoulder. "I think you'll do very well in this business."

I smiled back. I felt like we were kindred spirits. I looked forward to a lot more conversations in front of his fire.

We rejoined the Fleischhackers. "There are many, many others in a similar position as yours. Mortals and supernatural beings persecuted for choices the mainstream looks down on. This is nothing new, of course. Creatures both mortal and paranormal will always judge those different than they. But this also happens to work in our favor."

The doubtful look on Frazier's face could have mirrored my own.

"Not seeing the silver lining here, old man,” the goblin grumbled.

"The silver lining is that this epidemic of bigotry has forced some to create a life outside of that bigotry’s distasteful eye."

"Grandpa," I said slowly. "You kind of sound like Yoda, but with better grammar."

Carrie laughed.

"There is a place where Carrie and Frazier can go and live a life without fear, in a community that will welcome them."

Frazier frowned. "Sounds like a load of hellhound crap."

"A little pie in the sky, I admit," Grandpa said. "But it's no less real. And I know someone who can take you there. Finances won't be an issue. Think of it as a refugee camp, but with superior accommodations."

I saw Frazier tense up, a defiance in his eyes, a natural distrust of something that sounded too good to be true.

Carrie brushed at his temple with the back of her hand, which seemed to relax him.

I stood up and clapped my hands. "Sounds awesome. Let's do this.”

Frazier looked up at his wife. Their silent exchange spoke volumes. I hoped I could someday look at a woman like that, and have her look back at me the same way.

Carrie nodded. "I believe," she whispered.

Frazier smiled. "That's what I love so much about you." He turned to me. "I guess you were right."

"About what?"

"You can help us.”

“Don’t get too sappy on me, or I might have to give you a hu—”

"Quiet," Grandpa whispered with such command the three of us all but stopped breathing. “Someone's here."

"Who?" I asked.

Grandpa closed his eyes. "Six of them. All werewolves."

Frazier clenched his wife's hand, and a shadow of fear crossed his gray-green face.

"Purifiers."

* * *

I ran to the front window and snapped on the porch light. The light’s yellow cast didn’t reach more than fifteen yards or so out from the house, and the woods encircling the property held shadows thick enough to hide almost anything.

Grandpa rushed down the hall and out of view. I looked back at Carrie and Frazier. They stood embracing, Frazier’s arms encircling Carrie around the hips. Frazier had a darker version of his usual glower with a clear shot of fear in his black eyes. Carrie absently rubbed her belly with one hand.

“Werewolves?” I asked.

Carrie nodded.

“They’re like a task force for the Purifiers. Brutal.” Frazier jerked his chin toward the window. “They’ll rip us apart.”

“Not while I’m here they won’t.”

Grandpa came back out, this time holding a shotgun and a gleaming sword with a silver blade. He marched toward the couple and held the shotgun out to Carrie. “You know how to shoot one of these?”

She grabbed the shotgun from him without hesitation. “Yes.”

“Good.” Grandpa swung the sword in a lazy circle at his side. He looked awfully comfortable with it. He nodded at me. “You got your big magic ready?”

I focused and pushed my energy down my arms and into my hands. “Ready.”

A second later a terrible series of howls, yips, and cries cut through the night outside. The sound set my teeth on edge.

Grandpa sniffed. “Those are my protection spells. I can practically smell the singed dog fur. But depending how determined they are, they’ll eventually wear out the magic. Nothing out there is going to kill them, I’m afraid.” He did that lazy loop motion with the sword again, rolling his wrist with graceful ease. Even in his pajamas and robe, and with his long white beard and thinning hair, that sword made him look like a total badass. It gave me a glimpse into his past, back when he had hunted the nasties.

He smiled and gave me a wink.

The cries outside stopped suddenly. The silence felt oppressive in the wake of the tortured clamor.

We all stood frozen, exchanging glances, waiting for whatever would come next. I thought about looking out the window again, but I never got the chance.

The window facing the back, the one Grandpa had finally cracked open, exploded inward, a werewolf bursting in through the shattered glass and splintered window frame. Werewolves basically looked like giant regular wolves who walked on their hind legs, had bigger teeth, intense yellow eyes, and claws with six-inch nails that gleamed like metal in the moonlight.

The wolf landed on the floor and didn’t hesitate in its charge. It crouched low, about to spring forward.

The shotgun went off with an ear-ringing roar. The wolf took the shot in the face. The buckshot ripped away patches of its furry mug and knocked loose some of its teeth. It yelped and danced backward with the force of the shot. But the shotgun had a standard load. Not silver. Which meant the wolf would easily recover. Which it did.

It reared on Carrie with murderous anger in its eyes, the expression made all the more horrifying by its bloody and ravaged face.

Another crash came from down the hall in one of the bedrooms.

Grandpa rushed down the hall in the direction of the sound. I called out to him, but he never looked back. And we still had a wolf to deal with in the living room.

Carrie pumped the shotgun and leveled the barrel at the wolf as it crept toward her.

I glanced at the fire, smirked. “Save the ammo,” I said, then I reached out toward the cracking fire and pulled on the flames with my magic, drawing them like a blazing curtain over the wolf. It screeched as its fur caught fire. It bucked and writhed as the smell of cooking flesh rode the smoke coming off of the beast.

In its struggles, it stumbled backward toward the window it had jumped through and caught the curtains on fire. Then it thumped to the floor and lit up the rug as well.

Frazier pressed his finger against his nose and blew like he had when he’d extinguished the fire I’d held in my hand, which felt like a million years ago. Each puff of his breath blew away the flames the burning wolf was spreading until it finally fell still and lay smoking on the floor.

I heard Grandpa cry out from down the hall. I ran back there without thinking, operating on instinct and a sudden burst of adrenaline. I charged into his bedroom and found him leaning against a wooden chest at the foot of his bed. He sat with the sword in one hand and the other hand clutching at the side of his face. Blood oozed between his fingers.

I rushed to his side. “Grandpa?”

“I’m fine. Better than him.” He pointed the sword at a beheaded werewolf sprawled on the floor, its neck pumping blood into the carpet.

“Nice.” I reached out and took Grandpa’s arm, helped him to his feet. He looked about ready to swoon. I held tight and he steadied himself.

A thunderous boom rang out from the front of the house along with the sound of cracking wood. They had breached the front door.

Grandpa and I bolted down the hall.

Three more weres rushed in through the broken door and went right for Frazier and Carrie. Frazier pressed his finger to his nose and one of the trio flew right back out the door as if yanked by an invisible wire tied around its waist. Its howl trailed away with him.

One of the remaining pair of wolves leapt forward and pounced onto Frazier, knocking the goblin onto his back.

Frazier cried out as the wolf landed on top of him and clawed into his shoulders.

The third werewolf didn’t have a chance to follow suit. Carrie fired the shotgun. The load of buckshot hit the wolf square in the chest. It staggered a few paces back, but kept its feet.

It was stunned long enough for me to take a shot at him. I gathered the air around the silver sword in grandpa’s hand and, with a focused torrent, yanked the sword from Grandpa’s grip and sent it straight through the werewolf’s back, the sword’s bloody point sticking out through the wolf’s chest. It threw its head back, but its outcry turned to a gargle as blood filled its throat. It staggered for a moment, then dropped dead in front of the fireplace.

The wolf on Frazier snapped at the goblin’s throat, but Frazier gripped the wolf’s ears like a pair of handle bars and held it back. I wouldn’t have believed the goblin’s short arms could resist the strength of a werewolf if I hadn’t seen it for myself. I gained a new respect for all of goblin kind.

Carrie had the shotgun aimed at the wolf, but she hesitated, clearly uncertain she could shoot the wolf without also injuring her husband. Finally she took the gun by the barrel and swung it like a bat.

The stock cracked on impact with the wolf’s head. The blow might as well have been a tap on its shoulder, because all it did was get its attention. The wolf snarled and backhanded Carrie, knocking her to the floor.

Frazier let loose a sound worthy of the most frightening creatures of the dark. He used the momentary distraction Carrie had provided to press his finger against the side of his crooked nose.

In a blink, something about the wolf changed. It happened so quickly it took my brain a second to process.

The wet slap against the ceiling. The red spray off the wolf’s whole body. The sight of blood-slick musculature.

Gods be damned, the goblin had stripped the wolf of its pelt, which was what had hit the ceiling. All of its skin had come off like a zippered coat and now lay in a rubbery clump on the floor.

A hot glop of bile burned its way up the back of my throat.

The skinned wolf reared its head back and bayed. The pain must have been unbearable. The wolf rolled off of Frazier and curled up in a fetal position, whimpering. With enough time, it could have conceivably grown its skin back. It probably wouldn’t die without additional help. Which made it all the more horrible to think about.

Despite my rolling stomach, I couldn’t look away.

Which meant I had my back to the door. Which gave the wolf Frazier had thrown outside the opportunity to pounce me. I felt its claws dig in just under my shoulder blades. I opened my mouth to scream, but the impact with the floor and the weight of the wolf on top of me squeezed the air out of my lungs.

From the corner of my eye I saw Grandpa raise his arms in the air. He bellowed something in a language I didn’t know.

A swirling wind whooshed through the room with enough force to blow out the fireplace. The wind had an icy bite I could feel even with the wolf’s body heat pressing down on my back. The spell drew the wolf’s attention, sparing me from a huge bite to the back of my neck.

The cyclone picked up tremendous speed in a matter of seconds. Then Grandpa threw his raised arms down, and the wind lifted the wolf off my back and straight through the wall separating the living room from the kitchen. The hole it left behind was large enough for someone to step through. Pieces of the drywall crumbled to the floor and kicked up chalky dust. A pair of broken studs hung down like stalactites.

I could see the wolf through the hole, up against the stainless steel refrigerator that now had a werewolf-sized dent in the door. The wolf’s jaw hung open, its tongue lolling out its mouth.

Grandpa trudged over to the wolf I’d shish-kababed with the sword. He grabbed the hilt in one hand and braced his foot against the wolf’s back. With a wet sluice, he pulled the sword loose.

I pushed myself up onto my knees, wincing at the pain through my back from the wolf’s claws. I watched Grandpa, his jaw set, blood running down the side of his face where he had earned his own claw marks. He ducked through the hole in the wall and stepped up to the wolf, who was already shaking off the cobwebs from its trip through the wall. It had a chance to look up at my grandfather, then Grandpa jammed the sword straight through the wolf’s face, splitting its canine snout in half.

The wolf kicked its clawed feet and seized for a couple seconds, then fell still.

Once again, Grandpa yanked the sword loose.

I watched this man in awe as he came out of the kitchen with a stony expression and an angry gleam in his eyes. He stepped over to Frazier and helped the goblin get to his feet. He held the sword out to Frazier.

Frazier looked into Grandpa’s eyes for a moment. Something unspoken seemed to pass between them. Frazier took the sword, strode over to the skinned wolf, and thrust the silver blade through its heart. The wolf didn’t yelp or whimper, but rather sighed like a deflating tire.

Frazier stepped around the wolf without giving it another glance and went over to Carrie. Carrie propped herself up on one elbow and reached up to her husband to stroke his cheek. Frazier cupped his hand over hers and held it against his face.

“I’m okay,” she said. “We’re okay.”

The goblin exhaled a shaky breath. Then he turned to me. He opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind, and nodded instead.

I returned the nod.

Then I looked to my grandfather. With the fire out, the shadows obscured the details of his expression, but I felt a different energy emanating from him. I knew I was looking at a changed man.

* * *

After a night of burning werewolf bodies in Grandpa’s back field, I took the Fleischhackers to the bus station. Grandpa had made a call to his contact, and the whole thing was arranged with surprising speed. I found myself a little bummed they had to leave so quickly. I’d grown fond of the couple. Probably a product of our having shared a traumatic experience together. But the feeling was real enough.

I even think Frazier had warmed up to me, though he wouldn’t admit it.

Carrie hugged me, then climbed onto the bus. Frazier had a blue hoodie on with the hood up. He appraised me for a moment, then said, “Take care of my bike,” and got onto the bus.

I shook my head and laughed.

That was the last I ever saw or heard from Mr. and Mrs. Fleischhacker.

I headed back to Grandpa’s. That swipe across his face from the wolf and the large amount of magical energy he had put into his cyclone spell had taken a lot out of him. I wanted to make sure he was okay.

When I arrived and didn’t see any sign of him in the house, the skin on the back of my neck prickled and I felt a pit in my stomach.

A cool spring breeze cut through the usually stuffy house. Some of that came from the shattered window and lack of a front door. But he had opened a couple of intact windows as well. He hadn’t relit the fire. And his rocker…

It was missing.

I found him on the back porch. He had brought his rocker out there and now stared toward the tree line at the back of his property. A trail of smoke rose from the charred lump of werewolves at the edge of the clearing

As nice as the spring breeze felt that morning, it was coming out of the east and carrying the smell of cooked wolf with it.

Grandpa rocked steadily, the floorboards of the porch groaning in a steady rhythm.

I nearly choked when I saw he was fully dressed. And not just dressed, but dressed. He wore a tan suit and a polka dot bowtie.

“What’s the occasion?” I asked.

He raised a hand, which held the framed photo of Grandma from the mantle. “Family reunion.”

I wrinkled my nose, not sure what he was talking about.

He turned to face me, and I saw the still raw claw marks across his face. They oozed with pus and were bright with infection.

“Why haven’t you healed that? You’re going to get gangrene or something.”

He slowly shook his head. He leaned forward and tried to stand, but he couldn’t make it and dropped back into the chair with a heavy groan. One flap of his coat pulled away from his belly, revealing a thick, wet red stain on his shirt.

My stomach clenched. I pointed at the blood stain. “What is that?”

“That wolf,” he said and grimaced. “Got more than my face.”

In all the chaos of the night, I had somehow missed this other wound. Worse still, he had failed to tell me about it.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because I knew you would…” He clenched his jaw and hissed through his teeth. “You’d probably tell your parents, or take me to that apothecary friend of theirs. You’d try to save me.”

“You’re damn right. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

He grasped my wrist with a strength that belied his clammy, pale face. “You won’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my time,” he said. He squeezed my wrist harder. “It’s my time.”

I sighed. What little energy I had hung onto to keep me from passing out with exhaustion leaked out of me. I slowly lowered to my knees beside his chair. “I can’t talk you out of this.”

He shook his head. His gaze went down to the photograph. “It’s my time,” he said again.

A silence fell between us. The call of a sand hill crane echoed in the distance. The breeze cooled the moisture in my eyes and made my eyelids feel sticky. Finally, I said, “You were awesome last night.”

He laughed, but had to cut it short to keep from breaking into a coughing fit. It was more than his wounds wearing him down. He had pulled a large chunk of power together to create a wind strong enough to shoot that werewolf through a wall. He probably hadn’t worked a spell like that in decades. Maybe longer. It had cracked his already damaged soul.

And without the will to live pressing him on, he could not recover.

“You weren’t so bad yourself.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t do much magic.”

He looked me in the eye. “No, but you did the right thing. And sometimes that’s harder than casting the biggest of spells.”

After that, we didn’t say more. I held his hand and let a little magic flow from me to him. I couldn’t heal him, but I could make him a little more comfortable. The moment was so serene, I didn’t notice when he passed. I thought I would have felt the life go out of him through the magical connection I had established to ease his pain. But the man had been so full of life, it had carried on a little longer after him.

I stood, kissed his cold cheek, then went to call my parents and let them know we had lost another Light.

* * *

Read the first novel in the Unturned series featuring

Sebastian Light here

* * *

Make sure to sign up for Rob Cornell’s newsletter to stay up to date on new releases and exclusive promotions.

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About the Author

Rob Cornell is the author of The Lockman Chronicles, a five-book urban fantasy series featuring Craig Lockman, an ex-government agent battling the world’s greatest paranormal threats. He also has a new series that starts with Branded, about a Detroit sorcerer with a serious vampire problem.

Raised on a steady diet of Star Wars, He-Man, G.I. Joe, and Transformers, he has always spent much of his time wandering the halls of his imagination, conjuring stories. Nowadays, he writes them down like a responsible adult. He lives in rural Southeast Michigan with his family.

Contact Rob here:

- robcornellbooks

www.robcornellbooks.com
rob@robcornellbooks.com

Valentine Blues - James A. Hunter

A Yancy Lazarus Short Story

The kids in Valentine, Nebraska just aren’t right. Not anymore.

They’re Dangerous. Unpredictable. Hungry. As violence breaks out and people start dying, butchered in their homes, only Yancy Lazarus—bluesman, gambler, mage, and former wet-works man—can put things right. Well, he can try …

* * *

Something was wrong in Valentine.

I could feel it in the air, beating down on my senses like an invisible sledgehammer.

My El Camino rumbled beneath me as I cruised along US 20, nearing the edge of the sleepy town, a few worn buildings poking up along the horizon. I leaned over and cranked down the window, letting the wind whip into the cab, filling the interior with the scent of fresh-turned earth—musky and rich—and the sweet aroma of wildflowers offset by the pungent smell of cow shit. I breathed deeply, inhaling a great big whiff of country air, then exhaled it slowly through my nose.

Great swathes of dusty dry yellow stretched off to either side of me, a flat land deep in the heart of a drought, but ahead lay a patch of green, like an oasis in a desert. I turned an eye skyward, searching the clouds above for any telltale sign of the strange energy bearing down on me, but the sky was clear as far as I could see. I turned my gaze back to the two-lane cut of asphalt lazily meandering off to the left. A “Reduced Speed Ahead” sign popped up on the right, so I dropped down from sixty-five, coming damned near to a crawl as I passed by the first few buildings on the edge of Valentine.

Off to the left lurked a recently renovated motel, the Trading Post, laid out in a “U,” the grass out front lush and inviting, a series of squat bushes lining the roadway. The motel vanished in a blink, replaced in short order by a run-down gas station, followed by a few rows of single-wide trailers, many old and worn. None of ’em looked occupied. The run-down trailer park disappeared behind a clump of leafy trees as the road straightened, swelling into a four-lane boulevard, lined on either side by gas stations, hardware stores, a couple of fast-food chains, and a spattering of rough motels with names like the Waterfall Inn or the Motor Carriage Lodge.

Cheap tacky places that appealed to approximately no one, anywhere, ever.

I travel a lot, living out of the back of my car, moving from state to state, town to town, bar to bar, eating cheap bar food and playing the blues for beer money, so I know a thing or two about sleepy towns. This place? This place was a Podunk shit-speck—maybe eight or nine hundred people—the kinda town folks drive through, but only because they were on the way to someplace better, more interesting. The shops lining the streets damn near shouted that fact at the top of their lungs: all catered to the weary travelers looking for a bite to eat or a place to catch a wink.

Podunk to the core.

Not that I have anything against Podunk shit-speck towns, mind you. Not the kinda place I’d ever want to settle down in, obviously, but small towns are the best places to shoot the shit with crusty old-timers over at the VFW hall. Tradin’ war stories, having a few laughs, killin’ time.

I stared at the shops as I cruised, my eyes picking over the long shadows cast by the fading sun, searching for signs of life, but everything seemed dead. Cold. The air washing into the cab felt heavy with arcane power, some powerful construct laying over the entire town like a smothering pillow.

Eric Clapton blared from my speakers, but with a grunt of irritation I flicked the power button, killing the gritty tunes so I could get a better read on the town. The music died, replaced by silence. An unnatural quiet radiating from the buildings and the streets. A hush that demanded compliance. Valentine felt like a friggin’ library, presided over by some haughty, overbearing lady with boxy glasses and a motherly cardigan, eager to bring down the gavel the moment some snot-nosed kid broke the peace.

I rolled up to a three-way intersection guarded by an unnecessary stoplight looking down on an otherwise empty street. There were cars around, true—lots of older American made trucks, a few newer SUVs in various makes and models, a couple muscle cars with peeling paint—but they were all parked along the streets, empty. On the surface, everything looked fine. No sign of trouble. No evidence of rioting. No burnt buildings or broken store windows. The stores, though mundane, looked neat and clean, carefully and lovingly maintained. But no people.

Not a one.

I stopped at the light even though I had a green, loitering for a moment as I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, the sound unnaturally loud in the stillness. Straight ahead, flanking the US 20, lay more motels and fast-food joints. Then the road broke away, clearing the shit-speck town, cruising on for another three hundred miles until it turned into Interstate 25 in Wyoming. To the right, though, lay North Main Street, a quaint two-lane, slicing deeper into the town, leading back into the residential area, eventually turning into the US 83, which headed into South Dakota.

I was bound for Rapid City, which meant that bastard road was on my route.

For a long beat, I considered just gassing it, laying my foot down flat against the pedal and driving right on through this shithole. Skip Rapid City entirely and head west into Wyoming instead. After all, one town was as good as another, since I didn’t actually have a place to be.

I idled at the intersection a spell longer.

Yep, the smart thing to do was to keep right on truckin’, put this place firmly in the rear-view, and leave the residents of Valentine to deal with their own bullshit. Whatever bullshit that happened to be.

I frowned, sighed, then reluctantly gave the Camino some gas and wheeled right, puttering onto North Main Street and deeper into the heart of the town. Dammit. Idiot.

Stupid, bleeding-heart moron, is what I was.

I passed a few more shops and city buildings, all made of old red brick—a post office here and some kinda historical center there—before finally passing into a winding neighborhood loaded down with cute, double-story cookie-cutter houses that could’ve filled the suburbs of any city in America. Lifeless trucks and motorhomes dotted streets and driveways. Too-green lawns stared at me as I rolled past, mocking me with their vitality while the rest of the town remained dead and quiet. Still no friggin’ people. Zippo.

I started taking turns at random: a left on West Second followed by a quick right onto North Edna, my gaze constantly sweeping back and forth. Constantly searching for any indication of what in the holy hell had happened here.

Each turn brought me further into town, offering me more views of the same quaint, rural neighborhoods. Creepy as hell. Like driving through a modern-day ghost town. I slowed the Camino to a crawl as I hooked a right onto Third Street and caught sight of red and blue police lights strobing ahead, tattooing the paneled siding of a ranch-style up on the left. The den window, looking into the home’s interior, had been shattered. Pieces of glass littered the lawn while the curtains fluttered in a soft breeze. The front door stood ajar, yawning like a mouth, and a suspicious patch of red decorated the front walk.

The cruiser—a deep blue sedan with Valentine Police sprawled across the side in blocky letters—had mounted the curb, coming to a rest on the well-manicured front lawn. The driver-side door sat open, but there was no sign of the cop. No movement. No sound. Just the strobing light, whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh, washing over the house again and again and again.

I kept right on rolling, not wanting to get out until I had a damn compelling reason to do so.

Three blocks later, near the intersection of West Third and North Wood, I saw the kids.

A bunch of ’em, ranging from scabby kneed preschoolers to surly eyed high schoolers. They loitered around a sprawling brick building—a looming sign labeled it as the Valentine K–12 School—the younger ones hanging from monkey bars or swinging on the playground, while the older ones milled around in small pods on the blacktop and the connecting field. A couple played basketball, a few listlessly kicked a soccer ball back and forth, most shuffled absently from foot to foot. Uniformly, though, they did everything in complete silence.

No one talked or laughed, which was as downright unnatural as things got. Me? I’m not a big fan of kids—they’re loud and obnoxious, plus they reek of responsibility, which isn’t really my bag. But even I know kids well enough to say they don’t ever do anything in complete silence. Ever.

Game was definitely afoot. Some kinda creepy-ass Children of the Corn game, which was no bueno and instantly set my teeth on edge.

But, I’d already sorta committed to figuring out what in the hell was going on here, so against my better judgment I eased the car to a stop. A host of empty placid faces swiveled toward me, fixing on the Camino like a pack of uber-intelligent, rabid wolves. Dammit. With another sigh, I shifted the car into park, popped the door, and slid from the driver’s seat, stretching my weary legs with a groan. I peered over the roof at the kids and casually reached for the monster hand cannon tucked away in a shoulder rig beneath my leather jacket.

I fingered the pistol grip for a moment, feeling the worn wood inscribed with runic symbols of power, then shook my head, deciding against it. Scary asshole kids were blastin’ out creepy vibes by the truckload—practically screaming I’m gonna murder you and turn your skin into a fleshy bathing suit through a megaphone. But, they were just kids. Kids clearly in need of intense psychological counseling and possibly an exorcism, but I couldn’t just start shooting indiscriminately. Not yet. Poor scabbed-knee bastards could actually be possessed, so it wouldn’t be smart to start fixing a potentially short-term problem with a cylinder full of long-term, irrevocable solutions.

A pair of high school kids, a boy and a girl, promptly turned, regarding me through hazy, hooded eyes. The boy was your typical corn-fed, football-playing farmhand: big ol’ son of a bitch with sandy hair, thick shoulders, and a pristine letter jacket in blacks and reds. The girl, trailing just behind him, was a prom queen in the making—thin build, crisp cheerleader uniform, and shockingly blonde hair tied back in dual ponytails.

“Nice town you got here,” I said with a lopsided grin, desperately working to beat down the slobbering-fear-badger clawing at my insides. “Don’t suppose one of you would mind pointing me in the direction of an adult. Any grown up really—cop, politician, your local grocery store bag boy. As long as they can vote I’m interested and if they can buy beer all the better.”

Naturally, they said nothing, their blank faces hardening as they shuffled toward me, lethargic at first, but only for a moment. Before I knew it, the pair broke into a lurching run, eating up the distance between us. A flash of movement in my peripheries caught my attention—I wheeled in time to see more kids emerging from the houses across the street. They too were lurching my way, closing in with the hungry, coordinated movements of a hunting shark pack surrounding hapless prey.

* * *

The kids were friggin’ rabid, but I wasn’t quite ready to put them down for keeps. Thankfully, I still had plenty of options aside from the ol’ hand cannon. I breathed out, clearing my mind, dispelling fear and worry, and opened myself to the Vis—the cosmic power underlying matter, existence, Creation—just waiting to be exploited by someone with the right talent. Like me. A mage. True, I’m basically a homeless, wandering degenerate, but I’m also a former wet-works man for the Guild of the Staff, which meant I had a thing or two up my sleeve.

Time came to a herky-jerky crawl as energy flooded into me like a crashing tsunami. Heat and life filled me up, sharpening every sense, infusing my limbs with power and strength.

Everything came to a grinding halt, slowing to half-speed, then to quarter-speed:

The high schoolers barreling toward me seemed to hit a wall of invisible molasses; their movements slow, exaggerated. A glance back revealed a cadre of middle schoolers, most sporting jeans and collared T-shirts, headed for me. On instinct, on the level of subconscious thought, I thrust both hands out, conjuring a swirling cloud of silver fog, a force construct, which stretched and curled out in every direction.

Time snapped back into full speed all at once, the tendrils of creeping power engulfing the kids closest to me, bands of raw energy smashing into ’em like some giant hand, swatting ’em away in a wave. Bodies flew into the air, scattering from the force of the blow. A few kids skipped over the grass—twisting, rolling, bouncing, skidding—while others flipped through the air, ass over teakettle. A flash of guilt poked at me, but I shoved it away. Kids were tough, I reminded myself. Maybe they’d have a few bruises come morning time—assuming they were human, which was no certain thing—but mostly they’d be fine. Probably. Possibly.

Then, before they could gain their feet and force me to make a real fight of it, I shoved the Vis away, closing myself from the alluring power, and slipped back into the cab of the Camino. Definitely time to beat feet. I pulled the door shut with a thud, dropped ’er into gear, and slammed my foot down on the pedal. The Camino’s fat tires squealed, leaving rubber on the asphalt as the car rocketed forward.

I stole a hasty look in the rearview mirror, relieved to see none of ’em were pursuing me.

Nope, not following, but most were back on their feet, and all were staring at me with blank faces and empty eyes. Something flickered beneath the skin of the corn-fed jock in the letter jacket: a ripple of motion—waves washing over the surface of a pond. His hazy, distant eyes seemed to shift for a moment, blue irises giving way to golden eyes slit horizontally with a ribbon of black like a goat’s eye. That kid wasn’t a kid. I couldn’t be sure what the hell he actually was without knocking the holy crap out of him and dispelling his flesh-suit, but he sure as shit wasn’t human.

Great. Perfect. Asstastic.

I kept on straight, blasting through a couple of stop signs, eager to leave the satanic school behind, then swerved left onto North Main Street, rear end sliding into the turn—

I mashed down on the brake a split second later, jerking the steering wheel left to avoid the line of cars running across the street in a makeshift roadblock of steel and glass. Dammit. On my left was an Ace Hardware store, on my right yet another beat-to-shit motel, but beyond that, on the other side of the car blockade, was the police station: a boxy two-story building of more red brick, with a marble face and wide doors. More cars lined both sides of the street, and it looked like someone, or several someones, had fortified the station—turned the place into a friggin’ doomsday bunker. The door and windows were boarded over, and curled strands of razor wire cordoned off the walkway, leaving only a narrow gap that led to the door.

Could be, I’d finally found the adults.

Carefully, I threw the Camino into reverse, parking off to the side so some reckless yahoo, like me, for example, wouldn’t rear-end my baby. I slipped from the car, scanning the building for signs of life. Things looked quiet, but I’m an old hand and a former Marine—spent time in Okinawa with the 3rd Battalion 3rd Marines, then later did a stint over in Nam—so it didn’t take me long to catch the glint of a scope on the roof. The shooter was obviously in the prone, doing a damned good job of keeping hidden, but that scope told me everything I needed to know.

Cautiously, I edged between the cars blocking the street and approached the building, hands raised, palms open—the universal symbol of surrender. I did, however, open myself to the Vis, drawing in a trickle of power, preparing the weaves for a quick and dirty friction shield just in case the guard on the roof got an itchy trigger finger.

“Go ahead and stop right there, mister,” came a hard-edged voice as I neared the C-wire barrier. “I don’t fancy shootin’ you, but you better believe I’ll pull this trigger if you gimme cause. I fought in Phantom Fury—part of a sniper unit with Three-One. I could drop you at a thousand yards before you blink.”

“Well, Semper Fi,” I said with a nod, “but there’s no reason to go and do something like that. I’m thinkin’ you and yours have some weird-ass shit hittin’ the fan around here, am I right?”

He didn’t answer, but through my heightened senses, I heard him shift uncomfortably under my accusation.

“Listen, bub,” I said, shooting for calm, friendly, “I think I can help you, but not if you turn my head into pink mist, you trackin’?”

Another tense pause, followed by the squawk of a handheld radio. “Go ahead and lay on down,” he finally replied. “Get your face flat against the ground, hands up and visible. The sheriff’ll be out in a minute.”

I complied, squatting, lowering myself onto my belly, scanning the door.

A long squeak broke the tension as a woman, maybe mid-forties and trim, with a tangled swatch of golden hair, stole toward me, sidearm drawn and at the ready. She didn’t speak as she moved, instead she slipped over and cuffed me with a quick, practiced ease, before pulling me to my feet and leading me into the building’s interior.

Silently, she guided me down a corridor lit by harsh sodium lights overhead, my black boots clacking on the linoleum flooring. We passed a receiving station, manned by a pair of overweight, forty-something men with flat tops and camo jackets. Beyond them were people—more adults packing the station. The douches at the desk regarded me with open hostility and made to get up, but the sheriff waved ’em off and pulled me into a tiny cubbyhole of a room with a single exit, an innocuous circular table, and a couple of padded office chairs.

The sheriff lowered me into a seat, cranking up on my arms, situating them behind the chair, all without unlocking the fancy steel bracelets. With the kinda power I had at my disposal, a pair of cuffs wouldn’t deter me from breaking loose if I really wanted to, but I wasn’t here to pick a fight, so I kept my cool.

The sheriff lowered herself into a seat adjacent to mine, letting out a long sigh as she scrutinized me, parceling me up, filing away every detail. She was older than I’d first pegged her, maybe fifty, with dimpled cheeks made for smiling and fine crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. She looked tired, though, deep purple bags under gray eyes, frown lines creased into the skin by her mouth.

“I’m Sheriff Copeman, Heather Copeman,” she offered. “My man up top says you might know something about what’s going on in our little slice of paradise. That so?” She leaned forward, elbows resting on her thighs, gaze intense and burrowing. “Or maybe,” she said, “you’re working with that shitheel, Piper. Come to try and push us into paying. Threaten us maybe?”

“Look,” I replied with a shrug, “whatever’s ailing your town, I’m not a part of it, Sheriff. I swear. And I sure as shit don’t know who this Piper clown is. Never told your man I did. I said I think I might be able to help.”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded, unconvinced, leaning back in her seat, folding her arms across her chest. “Since you’re not involved in any of this,” she said with a frown, “I’m wondering just how exactly you think you can help us. I don’t even know how I can help us, Mr. …” She paused, lips pursed in thought. “You know, I never did get a name from you. Care to fill that in for me?”

I cleared my throat, shifting awkwardly in my seat. I had sort of a questionable relationship with the law due to some of my various assignments for the Guild. As a result, I was on a number of different watch lists, though generally I had no problem keeping my head down and my profile lower than dirt.

I could’ve lied, but at this point I wasn’t sure it mattered. “Yancy Lazarus,” I said eventually, fidgeting in my seat, readjusting my ass in the squishy chair.

“If I run your name, am I gonna find anything?” she asked, glowering at me.

“Could be,” I said with a noncommittal nod, “but I’m thinkin’ you got bigger things to worry about—like that roving mob of bloodthirsty teens over by the school. The ones that have you hunkered down on DEFCON five.”

“And what do you know about them?” she asked, focused as a laser.

“I know they look like townies, but aren’t. They aren’t even human. Considering the level of paranoia on display here, I’m guessing they’ve probably done some spectacularly horrendous shit.”

She stood, turned away from me, and started pacing back and forth, arms squeezing tight against her ribs. “Well, those are some awfully wild claims, Mr. Lazarus. Everything okay up here?” She reached up and tapped at her temple with one finger. “’Cause you sound a few cans short of a six-pack.”

I snorted, then shook my head with a roll of my eyes. “Don’t give me that. You know it’s true—otherwise you’d never have a jarhead up on your roof, ready to blast a civilian in the face. That sorta reeks of desperation and fear.”

“Fair enough,” she said, her feet still restlessly carrying her back and forth across the narrow room. “But you seem to know an awful lot for someone uninvolved. We’re pretty jumpy around here, so maybe you can shine some light on what you think you know and how you happen to know what you do.” She stopped abruptly, spinning, then slamming her hands down on the table. “Sound fair?”

“I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you,” I replied with another shrug.

“Mr. Lazarus,” she said, righting herself, “for the past week, this town has been cut off from the outside world. No radio traffic, no phone calls, no internet. Over the past week Valentine has seen twenty-three homicides—kids murdering their parents. Tearin’ them apart with their bare hands, then eating the remains. I saw a six-year-old bite through the carotid artery of her grandmother. Lapped up the blood like a goddamn cat. I’m past the point of disbelieving anything. Anything. So give me your best shot.”

I smiled and with a whisper of will conjured a floating orb of flickering flame the size of a softball, which burned like my own personal sun. “Convinced?” I asked.

She stared at the orb for a solid half minute, the light shining in her tired eyes, mouth slightly agape. “Holy Mary Mother of God. Okay, good enough for me,” she replied, reaching over and keying the radio at her shoulder. “Harlan, this is Copeman. I need you down in interrogation ASAP, over.”

* * *

Sheriff Copeman loitered in the corner, legs crossed, one hand resting on the butt of her Glock, a permanent scowl etched into the lines of her face. She was cagey and understandably so, considering the circumstances.

The guy across from me, Harlan—first name, not last—was exactly the opposite: easygoing, lots of friendly smiles, unflappable nature. I’d been expecting a meathead, lots of muscles and tattoos, but Harlan was a short, unassuming man with a slight build, a balding head, and a clean-shaven face. A mousy fella wearing desert camo, his long barrel rifle resting against his leg while he sipped at a cup of coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

“Piper,” he said tentatively, unsure how to begin, where to go. “Well, he came to us about two months back. A drifter. Real odd duck, though. Sorta thought he wasn’t right in the head.” He tapped at his noggin. “Gave me a bad feelin’ from the get-go.”

“Can you give me any kind of description to work with?” I asked. “Small, tall, fat, skinny, giant pointy horns, or maybe a snake tail? Anything would be great.”

Harlan canted his head, then gave a little shake. “Sorry. Fella had a real forgettable face. Pretty average—white, 5'5", brown hair, little pudgy around the gut. But I can’t remember him, not really. No one can.”

I grunted. A glamour, probably. Only thing that’d explain it. “What’d this guy want? Did he threaten you in some way?”

“No, no.” He waved one hand complacently through the air, brushing away my question. “He offered to help us. This fella, he came over to the mayor’s office, walked right in like he owned the place. I do security for the mayor—well, did before …” He trailed off. “Before his son ripped out his throat.” He looked down, avoiding my scrutiny. “Guess that don’t matter much now. Anyway, we had us a real bad drought this year.

“The worst one I can ever remember. Farms were drying up. Crops dying. Then in comes this hobo, no offense meant”—he nodded at me—“says he could get rid of the drought. Had this little flute. He’d twirl it around and around. Said he could play a tune and end the drought.” Harlan snapped thin fingers. “Said he could end it just like that. But he wanted fifty thousand for his effort.

“Well, the mayor, he agreed ’cause he reckoned it was a bunch of hogwash and he really just wanted the guy gone.” He paused, sipped his coffee, then drummed his fingers on the table. “Piper, well, he nodded, smiled, and slipped away. And you wouldn’t believe it, but the next day that drought broke. A week later Piper, well he come back, says he wants his due. The mayor had me kick his ass right outta town—no good to have some loon like that hanging around. But that’s when he made his threat. Said we’d broken faith. Told us he’d get his fee in flesh and blood. Now here we are.” He sighed and shrugged.

“So,” Sheriff Copeman said, “what can you tell us?”

I leaned back into my chair, looking up at the pock-marked ceiling tiles. “Not much without meeting this guy. But from the gist of it, I’d say you made yourself a deal with a fae lord or maybe some dusty old fertility godling. Things like that don’t really give a shit about money, so it was probably running a con the whole time—he expected you to break the deal, opening the door for whatever shiesty business he’s got in mind. Like I said, though, I don’t know how to fix it until I figure out what he’s done to the kids.”

“So what do we do?” the sheriff asked, eyes narrowing, forehead creasing.

“You?” I shook my head. “You folks just hang tight. I’m gonna head out and see if I can’t pick a fight with this Piper asswipe. Figure out what we’re up against.”

“How you reckon you’ll do that?” Harlan asked, perking up at the idea of a little ass-kickery.

“Don’t worry about it. I got a feelin’ he’ll come out of the woodwork once I start blasting holes in his shithead army of nightmare kids.”

It took only a little haggling before Sheriff Copeman agreed, turning me free, then escorting me from the premises.

“Good luck,” Harlan called down to me from the roof as I weaved through the C-wire barricade. I shot him a quick wave, then beelined for Third Street, not bothering to get in the Camino. Didn’t want to risk this Piper guy denting up the bodywork—taking a shot at me is one thing, but no one touches the Camino. It took me maybe five minutes to get back to the K–12 school on foot, but I’d attracted attention long before I ever reached my destination.

Blank eyes watched me from house windows while ghostly shapes slipped from shadow to shadow, alley to alley, street to street, tracking me, though never closing. Cautious, now that I’d tipped my hand.

A ring of kids waited for me at the four-way intersection of Third and North Wood, fanning out in a tight horseshoe by the school. Twenty of ’em, easy. A daunting number for sure, but even more so because I’d seen double that when I’d first stopped at the school. So the question was, where were the rest of the little turds? With my luck, probably closing in around me like a noose, hemming me in tight so I wouldn’t be able to run. That was okay, though. I wasn’t planning to run. Not this time.

Letter-Jacket and his bouncy cheerleader girlfriend broke apart from the rest of the pack, apparently the impromptu leaders of this merry little gang of horrors.

“Glad to see you’re both doing okay after our little tussle,” I said, drawing my pistol from its holster, canting the gun so I could check the revolver’s cylinder for rounds. “But here’s the thing, if you screw around with me again, I promise you’re not gonna walk away. So, let me just make this real simple—I want to talk to your boss, Piper. If he’s not here in”—I bobbed my head from side to side—“let’s say two minutes, I’m gonna start shooting. Find out what’s under those flesh-suits.”

Letter-Jacket hissed as he dropped into a crouch, limbs elongating, joints cracking, fingers stretching into spidery appendages. More kids started dropping, shifting. A few at first, but more every second. Morphing, their rudimentary flesh-suits melted away, revealing pasty long-limbed critters of ropey sinew, bleached skin, and pouching potbellies that skittered around on all fours. Each had a chinless frog-like head, attached directly to their rib-lined torsos; they stared at me with yellow goat-eyes, their fleshy lips pulled back from blunt, yellowed horse teeth.

Yep, definitely not human. No doubts in my mind now. Oh, also, grade A nightmare fuel. I’d really been hoping to bluff my way through this encounter, but apparently the freaks surrounding me didn’t mind taking things to the next level. Great. Just my friggin’ luck.

A battle cry went up a moment later, a chorus of awful voices shrieking and warbling, the sound hoarse, raspy, and sharp—a dog whistle made for human ears. Almost as one, they came at me in a wave, scampering on hands and feet, shuffling forward with a lopsided gait that nevertheless ate up the space between us quick as hell. I bolted toward a nearby truck, leveling my gun, going to town as I ran.

I aimed at what remained of Letter-Jacket and squeezed the trigger a pair of times—the gun barked in my hand, spewing a flash of fire from its muzzle. Most Rube handguns won’t do much against the movers and shakers of the supernatural community, but my piece wasn’t any regular handgun. Nope, not even close. It was a specialty item crafted by the Dökkálfar: .44 Magnum, dark hammer-forged steel, six-inch barrel, etched with runes and mystic symbols, swirling and twisting with artful flourishes.

Only bad, bad things lay at the end of the muzzle. Which Letter-Jacket found out.

The first round went wide, lodging itself in the wall of a nearby building, but the second shot caught him in the jaw—the side of his ugly-ass mug exploded in a shower of skin and black blood. He let out a gurgled shriek of pain and surprise, then spiraled to the ground, groping at his ruined face as he died.

I kept moving, dropping another of the encroaching Pasty-faces before scrambling into the back of a beat-to-shit pickup. Fighting from the high ground was always smart, even if the high ground ended up being in the back of a truck. Pop-pop-pop, I squeezed off my remaining three rounds, blasting one of the spidery-limbed dickbaskets in the stomach, punching a softball-sized hole of shit-kickery clean through its center. Another of the Pasty-faces—a short little freak that’d probably been masquerading as a toddler—I dropped outright. Its headless torso flopped to the roadway.

The cylinder ran dry, and though I had a speedloader in my pocket, I stowed the gun instead. A great tool, my hand cannon, but against a small army, thirty strong, I’d need more than bullets.

With a snarl, I pulled in sweet, life-giving Vis—my senses sharpening, strength flooding my body, time taking a shuddering breath—and thrust out my right hand, conjuring a spear of fire, thick as my wrist. Flame washed over the wave of creatures closest to the pickup, tongues of orange and yellow lapping at exposed skin, setting pilfered clothes ablaze. The front row fell back yowling, arms waving and flapping in the air. A few dropped to the ground, rolling in manic circles to put out the flames, but most simply ran around in terror, streaks of oily smoke trailing behind them.

That move got their attention awfully quick.

More pressed in, though, only to drop as the sharp report of distant gunfire split the air with a thunderous crack—rounds shearing down bodies. Not my handiwork either.

I took a hasty glance back toward Main Street and thought, for just a second, I saw the glint of a rifle scope, though it was probably my imagination. Still, it had to be Harlan. God bless that hillbilly hick. The firing continued in earnest: the shots slow, steady, methodical, and precise as a surgeon’s scalpel. Every round found a target—sinking home with a deadly thud and a spray of black gore, dropping opponent after opponent.

The mad rush slowed, faltered, and died as the strange pack of critters surveyed their fallen dead, too-large eyes shifting suspiciously between the corpses and me in turns, confusion evident on their gruesome faces. Obviously, these clowns had expected some easy game, but were now reconsidering their options. I still wasn’t sure what exactly I was dealing with here, but that hesitation told me a couple of things: one, they weren’t keen on dying horrible deaths and two, they weren’t nearly as tough as some of the nastier things in Outworld.

Both damn-good points to know.

“Yeah, that’s right, assholes,” I called, shifting from foot to foot, hand still outthrust—a loaded weapon ready to maim or kill. “This isn’t gonna be a walk in the park. Now, like I said, get me your boss, Piper, or things are gonna start getting ugly—”

The melodic sound of a flute cut me off mid-sentence, its graceful trill parting the tension in the air and stilling the assembled mass of ugly-ass critters in an instant. The sound of that music swirled and danced around me, thrumming with ancient, potent power. Some kind of Vis-wrought glamour, meant to control and manipulate emotion and thought. The friggin’ working pounded at my brain like a sledgehammer, demanding I cease my murderous tomfoolery. Demanding I relax, submit.

“That’ll be quite enough,” a man said as the music died.

The speaker in question stepped out from between two houses near the end of the block and ambled my way, his steps light and carefree. At a glance, he looked human—average height, unremarkable build, dusty brown hair, and a plain, if pinched, face sporting a five o’clock shadow. He wore faded jeans, a deep brown poncho, squared-toed cowboy boots, and a garish white Stetson. Guy looked like some sort of Old West gunslinger, except instead of a pistol he carried an ancient wooden flute, painstakingly carved with intricate vines and thick leaves.

“Yancy Lazarus,” he said, drawing ever closer as the long-limbed freaks scuttled out of his way, subjects scraping before their king.

“Got it in one, bub,” I said with a nod. “I take it you’re Piper?”

He bowed with a fanciful flourish of his poncho, like some kind of matador acknowledging his adoring public. “So I am. And let me say what a pleasure it is to meet you—it’s not every day I run across such an esteemed former member of the Fist of the Staff. You’ve got quite the reputation in certain circles, Mr. Lazarus.”

I shrugged one shoulder and hawked a fat loogie to the ground to show him what I thought of his pleasantries. “Listen, guy,” I said, “I’m not interested in any ass kissing. Let’s just cut to the part of the conversation where you tell me who you are, what in the hell you’re doing here, and what it’s gonna take to get you to go away and give back the kids you took.”

“A man of business,” he said with a smug nod, then twirled his stupid flute around and around in one hand. “People, they call me the Pied Piper—”

“Like from that Brothers Grimm story with the rats.”

“One and the same,” he said with another bow and flourish. Friggin’ weirdo. “I also happen to be a lesser lord of the Springlands. Now, in answer to your questions, I am here conducting business and there is naught you or anyone can do to get the missing children back. The governing officials of these fair lands entered into a binding agreement with one of the Daoine Sìth, then reneged on their word.” He pouted, tut-tutting as that damned flute spun round and round. “Very bad form, I’m afraid. Now, I am simply exercising my right to recompense.”

“By taking their kids,” I said, folding my arms, offering him a cold, flat glare.

“That is my chosen form of compensation, yes. Now, I know a thing or two about you—information gleaned from some of my kith and kin—so I know my decision might rankle you. The fact remains, however, that I am acting lawfully and within my rights. They entered into an agreement and failed to follow through, and this?” He spread his hands, gesturing toward the crowd of heinous monsters.

“Well, this is the consequence. Now, I am prepared to let your assault on my children go, since you acted in ignorance, but if you interfere with me or mine again I shall take it quite personally. Are you prepared to commit yourself to such unpleasantries for people you don’t even know?”

“You threatening me, asshole?” I asked, voice a growl, as I conjured a sphere of crystalline ice in my palm.

The Piper dipped his head and held up a hand in a placating gesture. “Haste and anger make fools of us all, Lazarus. So please, just consider my offer, won’t you? Otherwise, we may find ourselves at an unfortunate impasse. And I think you’ll find I can be a formidable adversary, despite your”—he paused, eyes narrowing, head tilted to the side—“unique skill set.” Then, before I could reply, he twirled on his heel, poncho spinning in a whirlwind of cloth, and started playing his flute. A jaunty tune that urged you to move and dance. To follow. To obey.

And his pasty-faced brood did just that. The beasts turned and trailed after him.

* * *

“So what did you find out?” the sheriff asked.

I absently ran my palms over my dusty jeans. The damn interrogation room felt claustrophobic, despite the fact that I knew I wasn’t being charged or held—guess there’s just something about police stations that give me the jitters.

“Not much I didn’t already know.” Except that you might be royally boned, I thought. As much as I hated what was going on in Valentine, if these idiot Rubes really had entered into a legally binding contract with the Piper, there wasn’t much I could do for ’em. They shouldn’t have screwed around with something they didn’t understand. There were a lot of nasty things out there in the big wide world; most were predatory, looking for any excuse to attack. The law of the friggin’ jungle, right there.

Harlan pushed his way through the door a moment later, carefully balancing a large plastic trash can full of sloshing water.

“Just set it here,” I said, waving him over. The man complied, confusion running across his face as I removed my socks and dipped my toesy-wosies into the water with a soft sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Sheriff Copeman said, eyeing the trash can, then rubbing at one temple, “but what exactly is this going to accomplish?”

I sniffed, then wiggled my toes. “It’s magic stuff,” I replied, even though it’s not really magic—more like advanced physics than weird rituals or any of that occult bullshit. “Don’t worry about it. I just need to hammer a few things out.” I closed my eyes, letting go of my fear and anxiety over this whole clusterfuck, feeding all of those unhelpful thoughts and emotions into the fires of the Vis as I conjured a weave of water and will, boring deeper inside myself. Seeking to connect with my inner man.

And by “inner man,” I mean Cassius Aquinas, the shit-talking water elemental who lived inside my head, permanently bound to my subconscious mind.

When I opened my eyes a heartbeat later, I was no longer gazing at Sheriff Copeman in the boxy interrogation room. Instead, I stood on a narrow street lined on either side by two-story buildings and lit with the yellow glow of evenly spaced street lamps and neon signs in a riot of hues: sapphire blue, fallout green, look-at-me red. Most of the buildings had balconies jutting out over the wide sidewalks, which were filled with umbrella covered tables, all absent of guests. Bourbon Street, smack dab in the New Orleans French Quarter.

Except it was quiet, still, and lifeless—a thing which could never be said of the real Bourbon Street.

My brainscape, a metaphysical representation of my psyche, which naturally resembled the Big Easy, with its hot, muggy nights, over-the-top eats, and outta-this-world music scene. Here I was at home. Here I was safe and the aches and pains of real life were like distant memories, hazy and faded at the edges. The air filled with the scent of slow roasted pork—tangy, smoky, sweet—while licks of gritty blues swirled around me, thick as cigar smoke. I inhaled deeply, letting tense muscles relax and unknot.

“Yancy,” came a voice from behind me. My voice to be precise. I glanced left, watching a dark figure, bathed in weak light from one of the hanging lanterns near a brick-fronted eatery, saunter toward me. He held a stout glass of scotch in either hand; a fat cigar hung from the corner of his mouth. He extended one turquoise-tinged hand, offering me the second glass as he drew up next to me.

I took it with a thankful grunt and a nod, then pulled a long slug as I regarded the man. Cassius Aquinas. An Undine—a creature of water and spirit, permanently grafted into a piece of my soul. The very embodiment of my subconscious mind. Minus the seawater-colored skin, he could’ve passed for my twin: an average guy of maybe forty with short-cropped, dark hair and an unremarkable height and build.

“You been paying attention to this horseshit in Valentine?” I asked without preamble.

He titled his head and took a deep drag of his cigar, then nodded in confirmation.

“So you got anything for me? Seems like this Piper douche is the kinda guy you mighta heard of in your past life.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I know him. It’ll be easier to show you, though.” He placed one hand on my shoulder, fingers sinking down, then wheeled, dragging me with him. With a step, we shifted, leaving behind the comfort of the French Quarter, manifesting in a sprawling room with plush carpet, dark wood wall paneling, and mahogany furniture—all old, finely made, and smelling of lemon oil and leather. Cassius’s office, I guess you could call it. I took a seat in a padded leather club chair and gazed up at a ginormous wall-mounted flat screen.

A picture of the Piper appeared on the TV, except now he was dressed in some stupid, frilly Shakespearian getup with a wide collar, puffy sleeves, and a ridiculous floppy hat. Complete tool.

“That’s what he looked like the last time I ran across him,” Cassius said, sweeping his free hand toward the screen. “But he goes back further than that—he used to go by the name Silenus.” The picture on the screen blinked, resolving into an image of a potbellied, goat-legged yahoo with a pipe. “That was when he was still living the high life with Dionysus, back in the days when Greece was still a major player. Silenus is a minor satyr deity, I think. Asshole’s fallen a long way since then, though.” He paused again, drawing a long pull on his cigar. “He’s been running con games since the fifth or sixth century.”

“What kinda cons?”

Cassius shrugged, a look of disgust creeping over his features. “A tasteless, unimaginative one. Nothing like what I did to those pricks in Glimmer-Tir—and he only works his hoodoo on Rubes, which is about as lowbrow as you can go. Ol’ Silenus there runs the same friggin’ play every twenty or thirty years. Rolls into some little flyspeck town or village, uses his fertility-god powers to whip up some kinda problem.

“Plague-rat infestations were his tragedy du jour in the middle ages, but he’s got control over the weather, crops, all kinds of shit. Anyway, after he stirs the pot, he swoops in, fixes the problem he created, and demands payment. Not a bad grift, I guess, but lazy as hell. Then, obviously, when the townsfolk don’t pay, he takes kids. Guy’s a grade A shithead. No one likes him. No one.”

“Why kids, though?” I asked with a frown, rubbing at my chin. “What’s he do with ’em? Is it some kinda virgin sacrifice thing?”

The picture on the TV flickered again, and Silenus’s goat-legged image was replaced by a photo of the nasty Pasty-faces. “You know what satyrs and seahorses have in common?” he asked.

“What? No. How the hell would I know that? More importantly, why in the friggin’ hell would I know that?” I replied, staring at the drink in my hand. “They both start with s, I guess.”

“Yes, they both start with s, clearly that’s the connection.” Cassius offered me a colossal eye roll. “Seahorse daddies give birth. Same thing for satyrs. Piper takes the kids in order to hatch a fresh brood of changelings. He gives birth to a horde of the shifty shits. His revolting offspring, in turn, kidnap a bunch of kids, steal their identities and memories, infiltrating the home, then eat the parents. Once the changelings are mature and the mental link becomes useless, Piper eats the kids, thus closing the whole disgusting cycle.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “That’s brutal. Like pushing someone into a wood chipper, brutal.”

“Right?” Cassius said with a shake of his head. He hunched forward, swirling his drink, staring at the swishing vortex of Bourbon, then offering me a sidelong glance. “You gonna go after him?”

I looked away, unwilling to meet his eye, and pinched the bridge of my nose with a grimace. Was I gonna go after him? Maybe coming to Valentine in the first place had been a mistake. Piper didn’t want me here, and he sure as shit wasn’t gonna stand in my way if I decided to hop back in the Camino and split. The folks of Valentine were the ones that entered into the contract. They were the ones that’d screwed the pooch, not me. The universe was giving me a chance to walk away—I could wash my hands of Valentine and leave guilt free.

Well, mostly guilt free.

My mind turned toward those kids. A bunch of kids that’d die unless I put my own neck onto the chopping block. I scowled. Sighed. Tossed back the remainder of my drink in a single gulp, the booze hitting my belly like a splash of napalm.

“You’re such a bleeding-heart moron,” Cassius said. “Complete moron. If you kill us, Yancy, I’m nominating you for the Darwin Awards.”

I waved his insults off. “Yeah, I know. I keep thinking the same thing.” I grimaced. “But those kids, Cassius.”

“Fine, idiot. Whatever.” He crossed his arms and scowled at me. “Piper’s got this thing for abandoned cave systems, alright? And the closer to a body of water the better.” He grumbled for a moment “If you can find his lair, you’ll find the kids, and you’ll find Piper. But watch out for that stupid-ass flute of his. All his power is music based—he uses that thing as a focus to channel the Vis. Shut down that flute, you’ll shut him down, too.”

I opened my eyes, Cassius gone—vanished back into my subconscious—the interrogation room unchanged. I pulled my feet from the water, weaved a small flow of air and heat to wick the moisture away, then shimmied back into my socks and boots. The sheriff stared at me from the corner, her lips turned down in irritation, hands planted on her hips. “So,” she finally snapped as I adjusted the cuff of my pants, “what did you find out with your ‘magic’?” She used air quotes around the word, as though she couldn’t really believe what she was saying.

“We need an area map,” I replied, “preferably a topical one.” I paused, jaw clenching. “I’m also gonna need a local guide—one familiar with the cave systems in the area. And a mechanic. One who knows his way around a badass sound system.”

The sheriff squinted at me in suspicion. At last, though, she dipped her head. “Harlan,” she snapped, digging out a pair of keys from her front pocket, “go find me Vick Larsen, then head up to my office.” She plopped the keys into his hand. “There should be several area maps in the top right drawer of my desk. I’ve got a cave survey in there, too. Grab ’em all and get back here ASAP.”

“Sure thing, Sheriff,” Harlan said, with a dip of his chin.

“Okay, Yancy,” the sheriff said, fixing me with a hard-eyed death stare. “I feel like I’ve been pretty damn cooperative, considering the circumstances, but now I want you to tell me what you know.”

So I told her, giving her the details Cassius had passed on to me. Harlan came back a few minutes later with an armful of maps and a burly bearded man in coveralls, who I assumed was Vick. “Alright,” I said as Harlan unfolded the maps on the round table, “this is how we’re gonna beat that assclown …”

* * *

I squatted down, fingers trailing over the dusty ground as I surveyed the narrow opening of a cave mouth on the outskirts of town, near a spit of water the locals called Mill Pond. The cave entrance wasn’t much more than a tight fissure in the rocky face of a barely there hill peppered with trees. “You’re sure this is the place?” I asked Harlan, who stood to my right, a compact M4 with a broomstick slung across his body on a tactical sling.

“It’s bigger than it looks,” he replied evenly, eyes picking over the map in his hands. “The entry’s tight, but it oughta open up into a pretty good size cavern not too far in. Place don’t go real deep, but there’s nothing else in the area. If you’re right and Piper’s holed up in a cave, then it’s here or nowhere.”

“Is it big enough to hold forty or fifty kids?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You ever been in there?” Harlan asked, turning toward the sheriff, who lingered just behind him.

“Once,” she replied, grip tightening on the heavy-duty bolt cutters in her hands. “Long time ago, though, back when I was still in high school—local kids come out here sometimes to drink beer and fool around. At least that’s why I came out here in high school.”

“Well,” Harlan said with a drawl, “I guess we just need to take a looksee, then we’ll know for sure.”

“Yeah, alright.” I stood, brushing my hands against my jeans before turning back toward the coverall-clad Vick, our car audio-system expert. “You hooked up and ready to rock?” I asked, nervously eyeing the substantial set of speakers and subwoofers positioned around a Valentine patrol car. The Camino’s sound system—a truly heartbreaking sight. I ran a hand through my hair and took a great big ol’ breath, tearing my eyes away from the damage. If my hunch about Piper was wrong, I could be setting myself up for colossal, certain-death failure. And not just me. If I called this wrong, Harlan and Sheriff Copeman might end up equally dead.

The greatest casualty of all, though, would still be my poor car.

Vick nodded at me, then turned his face and spit into the dirt—a big ol’ brown blob of chew-laced saliva. “Everything’s good as you’re gonna get ’em,” he said solemnly, then rubbed a thick, scar-laden hand over one of the black boxes. A pet lover admiring someone else’s dog.

“Well, I guess there’s no way to put this off any longer,” I said. “Let’s just get this shit over and done with.” I clapped Harlan on the shoulder, then set off. I slid my pistol—freshly reloaded—free from its holster and conjured a wavering orb of soft blue light, which floated an inch above my outstretched left palm. Harlan eyed the little working askew, still clearly uncomfortable with all the wonky supernatural bullshit. “Sheriff”—I glanced at the salty law-woman—“no matter how things go down in there, you work on getting those kids out, trackin’?”

She nodded, face hardening in resolve.

“Groovy. Sheriff, you’re behind me, Harlan, you’ve got our six.” Without waiting for a reply, I set off, wiggling through the slash in the rocky outcropping and pushing inward. The tunnel, if you could call it that, was a tight, claustrophobic thing, big enough to accommodate me, but just barely. After about ten feet of pressing rock, though, I squeezed into a rough passageway, maybe five feet wide and seven high, that cut deeper into the hillside before curving away. I trudged on, movements slow, careful, quiet, ears straining to hear anything while my blue orb battled against the gloom of the cave’s interior.

“Trying for stealth at this point is futile, Mr. Lazarus,” came Piper’s voice from somewhere up ahead, the words oddly distorted as they reverberated off the stone walls. “This particular cave carries sound exceptionally well, so your arrival hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

I crept forward another few feet, goosebumps breaking out along my arms.

The passage led to an irregular room—three or four thousand square feet—just as Harlan had predicted. Greasy firelight, burning from a handful of rusty miner lamps propped up on old crates, illuminated the rough-walled cavern, casting flickering shadows over everything. Along the right-hand side of the cave was a series of cages: beastly things of thick rebar, locked with even thicker chains, containing kids.

Lots of kids.

A good chunk of Valentine’s young folk had been sorted more or less by age, then rudely crammed together, with no room to fully sit and certainly not enough to sleep. Each cage had a plastic bucket in the corner, which must’ve served as a shitter. The children themselves were dirty and hollow eyed, their cheeks gaunt, hair disheveled, skin sickly and pale. And they were quiet; not a one of ’em made so much as a peep. No one cried out for help or shouted in protest. No one banged a fist against the prison bars.

They had the look of coma patients, which meant they were in a trance of some sort—probably part of the binding ritual, attaching their minds to the changelings that’d stolen their identities.

And speaking of the changelings, they were present and accounted for, too. Yay for me. Piper sat on a rickety wooden rocking chair like it was a grand throne, and spreading out around him in a loose semicircle were his kids. None of ’em had bothered to don their flesh-suits or hide their disgusting, unnatural appearance.

“I was afraid you’d do something irrational,” Piper said, giving me a lopsided grin as he tented his fingers. “That’s what my kith and kin all say about you. That you have more misguided virtue than common sense. Still”—he paused, picking up his flute, running slender fingers over the carefully carved leaves and vines—“I wonder what you hope to accomplish here? Look around, Lazarus, and tell me how you think to seize victory. You’re badly outnumbered and the terrain favors me and mine. So, last chance, turn around and take your lackeys with you. Leave my brood be, or perish.”

“A lot of supernatural shitbirds bigger and tougher than you have made that same threat,” I replied with an indifferent shrug, “but here I am, alive, kicking, and getting ready to turn your family into meat-paste. So, I’ll make you the same generous offer. Stop now, leave those kids alone”—I jerked my head toward the cages—“tuck your tail between your legs and run, and I won’t turn you into something I can sweep up in a dustpan, comprende?”

“Ah.” Piper’s grin faded, vanished. “And so we’ve arrived at that unfortunate impasse I spoke of earlier.” He raised the flute to his chin, ready to play. “How do you propose we proceed, Laz—”

Pop-pop. I didn’t let him finish the sentence, firing a pair of rounds his way while I broke left.

In a blink, Piper had that stupid flute to his lips; shrill licks of music swirled and twirled, echoing through the room, battering at my ears and senses. A shimmering wall of twisting green light—shifting in hue from emerald to jade—exploded before him, the hasty construct intercepting my slugs with brilliant flashes before they could sink home and end Piper. Simultaneously, the changelings sprang to life, surging forward in howling rage in response to Piper’s music.

Gunfire erupted from my right as Harlan opened up on the charging doom beasts, placing precise groupings into the mass of pale bodies.

I hooked left, squeezing off a few more rounds, capping the Pasty-faces nearest to me. “Get the locks off,” I yelled at Sheriff Copeman.

What I really needed to do was call up a whirlwind of flame and roast all these sons of bitches wholesale, but I couldn’t risk it, not until we got those kids away. Changelings fell, shrieking, to the floor, limbs missing, bodies leaking out fetid blood, only to be trampled underfoot by their kin.

My pistol ran dry with a click, and I stowed it with practiced ease before drawing a Vis-imbued K-Bar at my hip—perfect for hooking and jabbing in a tight space like this. I dropped back a step, pressing my back against the jagged wall, then called up a spear of silver force, which blasted into the encroaching horde of creatures, smashing them into the ranks pressing in behind them. I glanced right: Harlan was standing near the entrance, laying down suppressive fire while the sheriff fought at the locks with her bolt cutters.

This was taking too long. Harlan was doing a damn fine job of holding back the changelings, but eventually they’d overwhelm the sheriff and that’d be endgame.

With a snarl, I drew Vis into my body, then shoved that terrible power into the ground, reaching into the deep places of the earth. The room trembled, quivered, and the dusty earth cracked as spear-shafts of granite sprouted from the floor. Sharpened javelins of rock skewered the changelings en masse, impaling emaciated torsos, ripping through arms, feet, and legs. The Pasty-faces mewled in pain as they struggled to fight free from the sudden forest of razor-sharp death.

All the while, the Piper played on, his face darkening, but his fingers never ceasing their frantic dancing—

One of the changelings broke free, a huge yawning wound in its belly, and threw itself at me. Before I could do jack-shit, jagged teeth sunk into my calf. A burst of pain lanced up from the wound, tap dancing its way through my body. Holy horsecrap, did that smart. With a howl, I lashed out with the K-Bar, stabbing down into the creature’s skull, sinking the blade to the hilt. I jerked the knife free and booted the suddenly limp corpse away from me.

I took a quick peek out of the corner of my eye: Sheriff Copeman had gotten the locks and chains off the cages, but despite the cage doors hanging wide open, the kids didn’t move. Didn’t try to run. Piper—his damned music was filling up their heads, bewitching them into obedience. “Call Vick!” I shouted, limping right, positioning myself in front of flute-playing asshole in the Stetson. The sheriff tilted her head and spoke into the radio at her shoulder.

Piper, still protected by his conjured force shield, regarded me with cool hate.

A second later sound blared around us—an up-tempo track, à la Eric Clapton. Hard bopping piano runs and silky-smooth guitar riffs rattled the walls with thunderous volume. Piper continued to puff away at his stupid flute, but the noise was drowned out by Clapton belting out the lyrics to “Sweet Home Chicago.” A nasty smile, mean and feral, broke across my face as the caged kids came to themselves, Piper’s musical spell broken by the sheer awesomeness of the blues.

It took only a handful of seconds for Sheriff Copeman and Harlan to evacuate the captives, ushering ’em out in a panicked rush. By then, the changelings were finally starting to pull themselves free from the spears of rock and regroup, but it was a damn-bit too late for that to matter. I slipped over to the tunnel entry, keeping my back pressed against the wall. Finally, Piper stopped playing, horror dawning on his pinched face as he realized how fundamentally screwed he was. I stowed the K-Bar, flipped him the bird as Clapton played on, then threw out both hands, unleashing a wall of flame that burned like the inside of a friggin’ volcano.

Piper caught fire, his arms waving madly as he stood and rushed me. I conjured another hasty wall of bedrock spikes across the exit—the only exit—barring his path, consigning him to a long and, hopefully, unpleasant death. Asshole. I gave him a small wave, bye-bye, and turned away as he and his body-snatching brood burned, cloying smoke wafting up behind me, awful heat beating at my back.

Good riddance.

* * *

I puttered down Main Street, more Clapton washing over me, pouring from the open windows as I rolled along, puffing on a well-deserved cigarette. Vick had done a masterful job getting the speakers back in. I glanced up to my rearview mirror, caught a glimpse of Harlan and the sheriff waving at me. I stuck a hand out the window, returned the gesture, then put my foot to the pedal.

* * *

Website and Mailing List: www.JamesAHunter.wordpress.com/contact-me/

Books by James A. Hunter: www.Amazon.com/James-Hunter/e/B00R7T569C/

About the Author

Hey all, my name is James Hunter and I’m a writer, among other things. So just a little about me: I’m a former Marine Corps Sergeant, combat veteran, and pirate hunter (seriously). I’m also a member of The Royal Order of the Shellback—’cause that’s a real thing. I’ve also been a missionary and international aid worker in Bangkok, Thailand. And, a space-ship captain, can’t forget that.

Okay … the last one is only in my imagination.

Currently, I’m a stay at home Dad—taking care of my two kids—while also writing full time, making up absurd stories that I hope people will continue to buy. When I’m not working, writing, or spending time with family, I occasionally eat and sleep.

Contact James here:

- @jamesahunter13

- WriterJamesAHunter

www.JamesAHunter.Wordpress.com

JamesAHunter@outlook.com

A Drive In The Country - Craig Schaefer

A Daniel Faust Short Story

For Daniel Faust, driving a condemned man to his death dredges up old memories and old ghosts. You can't outrun the past.

* * *

The kid knew he was going to die.

He hadn’t internalized it, not yet. But as the black Lincoln pulled away from the city lights, leaving Las Vegas in the rearview mirror and turning toward the endless desert flats, he knew. I sat across from him in the backseat, riding easy, feeling the weight of the blue chrome .45 against my hip.

“I thought we were going to talk to Jennifer,” he said.

“You had your chance to talk to Jennifer,” I told him. “Now you’re talking to me.”

Scrawny as he was, he looked like a cow. Big cow eyes and a droopy cow face with a sad-sack expression. Just bright enough to know he was born for the slaughterhouse. I’d told Jennifer, when we decided what to do about him, that this night had pretty much been inevitable.

“Where are we going?” he asked me.

I didn’t answer. Louie the Tramp, one hand on the steering wheel, glanced to the rearview mirror. High beams washed over us from behind, a truck coming up fast on this desolate strip of highway, and the thin slash of glass framed Louie’s bloodshot eyes and his cauliflower nose. He smirked like an imp. He was getting off on the kid’s nervous energy. I was just bored by it.

“Y’know,” Louie croaked, his voice raspy from fifty years of chain smoking, “those old-school Sicilian mobsters, when they’d take a guy out and go Old Yeller on him? They called it ‘going for a drive in the country.’”

I stared out the window at nothing in particular.

“That they did,” I said.

“Probably still do, y’know, where they got actual countryside. We just got a lot of desert. Sand and rock, rock and sand.”

“The occasional cactus,” I said.

“You ever get out to Sicily, Dan?”

I shook my head. “Nah. My girlfriend wants to visit Scotland, so that’s probably gonna be a thing soon. She’s…not from there, exactly, but I think she’s got some Scottish blood in her.”

The kid’s head whipsawed between us. “Hey,” he said.

“Aw, you gotta go to Sicily. Take the lady. She’ll love it, I promise. There’s this place, makes the best goddamn pesto alla trapanese you’ll ever taste.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve got pretty high standards for pesto—”

“Hey,” the kid said again, louder.

He wanted my attention. So I gave it to him. I turned and looked him in the eye, watching him sink back into his seat like a delinquent student in the principal’s office.

“We met once,” I said. “Do you remember me?”

He replied with a timid nod.

“Say my name.”

“Faust,” he stammered. “Daniel Faust.”

I took a deep breath and let it out as a tired sigh.

“When you came to Vegas, me and Jennifer took you aside and explained how things work. The New Commission runs this town. You know that. If you want to operate in our house, you follow our rules.”

His head bobbed. “I—I do! I paid out to her, every week! I’m a good earner. She told me so.”

“You were told the rules. Among said rules, don’t deal within two hundred yards of a school, don’t cut your product with fentanyl, and—now here’s an important one—don’t deal to kids. When people break our few and simple rules, bad things happen.”

He fumbled for a response. The best he could come up with was a softly murmured, “I’m a good earner.”

“Bad things happen,” I said, “such as, for example, hypothetically, some street dealer sells fentanyl-cut heroin to a sixteen-year-old varsity athlete, and our budding Olympic star overdoses and dies.”

“Listen,” he said, “I—”

I held up my hand to shut him up.

“Now, hypothetically, this dead track star’s dad happens to be a major-case detective in Metro. The kind of person who can cause very serious problems for all of us. And he finds, in the aforementioned dead track star’s cold and pale hand, a bindle with a local dealer’s personal brand.”

I reached into my breast pocket and tugged out a tiny plastic square, faint yellow grains still clinging to the inside. The bindle bore a gaudy scarlet logo, a laughing, toothy clown head.

In the sudden silence, nothing but the purr of the engine and the thrumming of the wheels on the highway, I could hear the kid swallow.

“A local dealer,” I continued, “who can be tied directly to the Commission. Now that’s a headache.”

“Big fuckin’ headache,” Louie said.

“Cop Dad wants justice, and not just the ten years this hypothetical dealer would catch if he went down for the crime. And we want Cop Dad to not come after the Commission with guns blazing. So, Jennifer was put in the unenviable position of deciding what was more valuable: our entire operation, or the life of one dumbshit street dealer who couldn’t follow the rules.”

I slipped the bindle back into my pocket and looked him in the eye.

“You know what she chose, right?”

“She said I was a good earner,” he whispered, looking shell-shocked. “Would it…would it help if I apologized?”

I stared at him.

“Louie,” I said, “do you believe this asshole?”

“No, Dan,” he replied, “my sense of belief is deeply troubled.”

I leaned back against the headrest. Distant rock formations glided by, painted midnight black by the shadows.

“First time we met,” I said to the kid, “I told you what would happen if you broke the rules. That I’d be paying you a visit.”

“Yeah,” he said, almost too soft to hear.

“You didn’t believe me. Hey, Louie, how are we on time? Have a way to go yet?”

“Little bit. Fifteen minutes till we get out far enough from the city.” He grinned into the rearview mirror. “Gotta find a good place for digging.”

“Kid,” I said, “because I’ve got nothing better to do, I’m gonna tell you a little story. A story about me and my pal Louie here, in fact. And when I’m done, I think you might have a better understanding of how you landed in this particular predicament…”

* * *

The day I got the call, I had a woman tied up in my apartment. No, not like that.

Desi Srivastava—honey skin, dark eyes, and a temper like a keg of compressed TNT—sat in the heart of a pentacle drawn in white chalk, her shoulders shifting as she squirmed inside a hospital-issue straitjacket. Beeswax candles burned at the cardinal points of the pentacle’s star, another propped behind a stone snake idol on my nightstand, positioned to cast the serpent’s shadow across her face.

“I’m never going to get this,” she grunted.

I sat on the edge of my motel-remainder bed, shoved against the wall to make room. A stick of sandalwood incense smoldered next to my left foot, sending up trickles of sweet-scented smoke, filling the apartment with a gray haze. The floorboards glittered dark purple all around us, the scattered shavings of a ground-down chunk of amethyst.

“Stop trying,” I told her.

She shot me a look that could curdle milk. “Stop trying? That’s your advice? Thanks, Yoda, real cryptic.”

“How many years did you spend at the circus, working that contortionist act?”

“Too many.” She showed me her teeth. “The pay sucked.”

“You’re relying on muscle memory. Trying to use your own skills and training. Don’t.” I pointed to the stone idol. “Every magician walks their own road. Their own path to power. You’ve got the strongest aptitude for working with god-forms I’ve ever seen. You can’t get out of that jacket, but Kadru, Mother of a Thousand Nagas, can. Let her.”

Desi turned her gaze to the stone. Her breathing slowed, her dark eyes narrowing to slits.

“You’ve studied her for weeks,” I said. “You know her aspects, her secret truths. Now wear the mask. Become her.”

She inhaled, impossibly deep. The breath escaped her black-painted lips as a slow, rattling hiss.

As she slumped to the floor, her spine rippling in ways no human’s should, I felt a glow of pride. Like a father watching his kid take off on her first bike ride, no training wheels. Then my phone buzzed against my hip. Great timing. I slipped off the mattress and padded over to the far corner of the room, cupping my hand over my mouth.

“Yeah?”

“Faust,” Louie said, “the boss wants to see you. We got a job.”

Not the kind of invitation I could turn down. When Nicky Agnelli talked, Vegas listened. I glanced over, watching Desi squirm, inch by wriggling inch, through the neck of the straitjacket. Her torso compressed to the width of a fist, then expanded, bones crackling and reknitting on the other side.

“I want to bring my apprentice in on this one,” I said.

“Dizzy? The goth chick? For real?”

“She’s ready.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to take that up with the man,” Louie told me. “Not my call. Come on down to Alize, he wants to do lunch.”

* * *

Out on the desert highway, the kid cut me off.

“Wait. You’re…being metaphorical, right?”

“That’s an awful big word for a dipshit smack dealer,” I told him.

“I mean, magic? And you’re saying a woman literally turned into a snake.”

I shook my head. “No, she took on the god-form of the mother of nagas and translated her spiritual attributes into—you know what? Let me give you a demonstration.”

I reached into my breast pocket and slipped a playing card into my palm. Queen of hearts.

“The thing about magic is, it’s essentially a lie. A con game. Now, I can lie to you”—I reached behind his ear, flicking the card between my fingers, brandishing it like a throwing knife—“by pretending to pluck this card from your ear.”

Then I let go. And the card hung, suspended in the air, inches above my open palm.

“Or I can lie to the universe and make it forget that gravity exists for a minute or two.”

He blinked, staring at the slowly turning queen. “That’s…that’s a trick, right?”

“Might be,” I said. “Might be a bit of invisible thread and a blob of wax to hold it in place.”

I twirled my finger. The card danced, spinning in the air between us, flitting across the car and back again, landing in my palm.

“Or maybe it’s the real deal.”

“Hey, kid,” Louie said, glancing into the rearview mirror. “Nobody ever had a little chat with you, told you about the weird stuff?”

His eyes widened in recognition. In the underworld, “the weird stuff” was sort of a code phrase.

“Just to stay away from it,” he said. “And…not talk about it. Ever. So why are we talking about it?”

I smiled. “Who are you gonna tell?”

He shrank back in his seat, the implication weighing him down.

“Now,” I said, “if you don’t mind, I’ll continue.”

* * *

The restaurant perched at the top of a casino tower, fifty-six floors above the Vegas Strip. A span of dark leather chairs and ivory tablecloths, where silent waiters with towel-draped arms poured dollops of red wine into waiting glasses. I wore my one good sport coat and a partially loosened tie that hung at an angle. Desi, torn fishnets and a battered army-surplus jacket. We weren’t the usual clientele. Still, a harried-looking host hustled us through the restaurant without a word, toward a big round table in the back.

Nicky Agnelli sat with his chair against the wall, a wolf on two legs, his eyes gleaming and hungry behind titanium-rimmed Porsche Design glasses. Identical twin blondes took the chairs to his left and his right, scooping gobs of black caviar onto tiny buckwheat crackers.

“Oh god,” Desi groaned, “not these two.”

“Be nice,” I whispered.

“They’re total bitches. Why do I have to be nice?”

“Because they’re not human,” I told her, “and they kill people for fun. So be nice.”

Louie the Tramp jumped up from the table, draped in a suit two sizes too big, and pulled out a couple of chairs. He gave Desi a nod and yanked me into a hug, kissing my cheeks.

“Here he is,” Louie said, “the man, the myth, the legend—”

“The ‘acutely aware of when I’m being buttered up.’ Hey, Louie. Are we it?”

“Nah, Tyrone’s on his way. C’mon, sit, sit.”

“Yes, sit down, Danny.” Justine, one of the twins, shot a withering look at Desi. “You must be tired, carrying that baggage around.”

Juliette, the other twin, wrinkled her nose. “I think it’s nice that he’s taking care of the underprivileged.”

Nicky sighed, resting his hands on their shoulders. “Ladies.”

Juliette looked Desi up and down. “I’m saying you dress like a homeless person.”

“Yeah.” Desi dropped into the chair beside me, rolling her eyes. “Thanks. I figured that out on my own.”

“I wasn’t sure. Because you seem dumb. As well as homeless.”

“Ladies,” Nicky said. “Please. Dan, thanks for coming out. Caviar? Hundred and sixty-five bucks an ounce, you ought to get in on this.”

“I like my fish fully grown and deep fried,” I said. “You got work for us?”

“Got work for you,” he replied. “Chill on that a minute, let’s wait until everybody’s here. Louie sounds like he might croak from emphysema any minute now. Don’t want to make him repeat himself.”

Louie thumped his chest. “Hey, I’m healthy as a horse.”

“A dead horse, you prick.” Nicky grinned. “Quit smoking already. You’re my best ear on the streets. I don’t need you dying on me.”

“And when I do, I’ll be a tiny, fluttering angel, taking a piss on your shoulder.”

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, a cloud passed over the sun. And Nicky’s eyes turned a cold, baleful yellow.

“More like you’ll be working for my dad in hell,” he said, flashing a smile with too many teeth. Then the sunlight returned, and his face shifted back to normal. “Ah, here we go. Tyrone, there’s this thing called punctuality. Look it up.”

Tyrone was a bald string bean, as tall as he was skinny, and he swooped in to hug Desi from behind. “Dizzy! How you been, girl?”

“Better than ever, at least that’s what everybody tells me.”

I clasped hands with Tyrone, pulled him in, and we clapped each other on the back. He made his way around the table, shaking hands with Louie.

“No caviar for this fat fuck,” Louie said, poking at Tyrone’s taut stomach. “He needs to lose a few pounds.”

Tyrone grinned and took a seat on my left. “Sorry I’m late, but it was easy to find you, Louie. I just followed the smell of cheap-ass cigars and Everclear.”

“You followed the smell of your mom’s—”

“Gentlemen,” Nicky said. The table fell silent. When the King of Las Vegas spoke, everyone listened.

* * *

“Wait a second,” the kid said, “who’s this Nicky Agnelli guy? I thought the New Commission ran Vegas. I mean, everybody says it’s Jennifer’s town now.”

“This was a couple of years ago. There’s been a regime change since. But back in the day, Nicky’s word was law.”

I still held the queen of hearts in my palm. I showed it to him, running my finger over the glossy, slick pasteboard.

“See, that’s life, especially when you live in our world. You might be riding high, thinking everything’s going just right. And one second later…”

I twirled the card in my fingertips. Now it was the ace of spades.

“…everything changes.”

* * *

I was never a big fan of French cuisine, but lunch in a Michelin-starred restaurant, on Nicky’s dime, wasn’t something to pass up. I ordered filet mignon, coffee-crusted and served up in a cognac cream sauce. Desi went for the Dover sole.

“Opportunity is knocking,” Nicky said, “and it’s a limited-time offer. Louie, lay it out.”

Louie nodded, sharp, taking out his phone. He showed us a photograph of a guy with a tailored suit and a bad comb-over.

“Meet Martin Goreki. Senior partner at Armitel Equity Management. Hedge fund manager, stock trader, paper pusher. Also, on the side, quite the budding cocaine entrepreneur.”

“A business,” Nicky said, “he’s been running without so much as a courtesy call to yours truly, let alone letting me dip my beak in. I can’t have that.”

“Gonna break his legs?” Tyrone asked.

“Gonna break his wallet,” Louie said. “Goreki’s making friends with the Cali Cartel, trying to set up a big buy. The meet hasn’t gone down yet, but a little birdie told me he’s already put the bid price together: a cool hundred Gs in bearer bonds. Fully matured, untraceable, cleaner than cash. And until he gets with his contact and makes the buy, those bearer bonds are sitting snug in a safe, in the man’s office at Armitel.”

“A hundred thousand dollars makes up for the cut he should have been paying out to me, plus interest.” Nicky glanced over at Tyrone. “I’m also thinking about having his legs broken, but that’s neither here nor there. Best part? He bought the bonds secondhand, with money he embezzled from his clients. We rip him off—and by ‘we’ I mean you—and he can’t even squeal to the cops about it.”

“There’s a wrinkle,” Louie told me, “which is why we need you on this job.”

Of course there was a wrinkle. He swiped his screen, bringing up a second picture. Now a man in his fifties stood at Goreki’s shoulder, wearing dark glasses on his narrow, rodent-like face, his long black hair tied in a ponytail. He wore an ivory suit, and his fingers glittered with silver rings.

“The man has a bodyguard. Ivan Koslov, special security consultant, formerly allied with a certain New York family. The Brighton Beach crowd, if you get my drift. Now he’s freelance and on Goreki’s payroll.”

“Bodyguard?” Tyrone squinted at the picture. “Doesn’t look too tough to me. What, does he do that krav maga kung fu shit?”

“He does the weird shit.” Louie looked my way. “He’s one of your crowd, so we need you to make sure he didn’t, you know, put a whammy on the loot or anything.”

I chewed on a sliver of medium-rare steak, juices bursting between my teeth.

“What do we know about the building?” I asked him

Another picture on the screen. This time, an office building under a clean desert sky. Ten stories or so, alternating lines of beige stone and glass the color of aquamarines.

“It’s over on North City Parkway,” Louie said. “Attached parking garage, most of the neighbors are also offices, so the whole block empties out at five o’clock. Armitel occupies the entire ninth floor, and there’s a key-card access door just past the elevators.”

I nodded. “Security?”

“Provided by building management. They use Gold Star Northwest, so you’re looking at five or six guys on patrol routes, pepper spray, maybe Tasers.”

“And pulling down minimum wage. I’ve taken scores guarded by Gold Star before. I know how these guys operate.” I glanced at Desi. “Mall cops. They’ve got orders to run and lock themselves in the security room if anything looks dicey. Occasionally you’ll get one who thinks he’s an urban ninja, but usually the only threat is if they manage to call the real cops.”

“Cut the building’s comm trunk,” Tyrone murmured with his chin in his hand. “End that nonsense quick. What about cameras?”

Louie swiped his screen again, bringing up another angle on the building. “Camera in the lobby, another up on nine, just outside the elevator and emergency stairwell. The security room is on the first floor and they’ve got at least one guy stationed around the clock, but it’s a coin flip if he’s actually watching the monitors.”

“I don’t gamble my freedom on coin flips,” I said, then looked to Tyrone. “What do you think, kill the whole electrical system, simulate a power outage?”

“You read my mind. Though without seeing what kind of backup generator they’ve got, and how they prioritized the feeds…what do we know about their alarm system?”

“GTL Security,” Louie told him.

“Cream puff. You can fool a GTL box with the foil from a stick of bubble gum if you know the trick to it. Yeah, I can work with that.”

“One other thing,” Louie said. “After the suits go home, they lock the place down tight. There’s a rolling security grate over the lobby doors, hardcore titanium, and since they’ve got twenty-four-hour security, it’s designed to be locked from the inside.”

I shifted in my chair, thinking. “Could cut our way through, but that’s a hell of a lot of noise.”

Desi reached out, tapping the screen with a sharp black fingernail.

“They’ve got restaurants on the first floor. A fast-food place. We could get in there easy.”

“Yeah,” Louie said, “but there’s no connection between the auxiliary businesses and the office complex. No doors, no way to pass between them on the inside.”

“They got HVAC.” Desi’s eyes glinted, an eager smile on her lips. “That means vents. I could wriggle through, open up the grate from the inside.”

Tyrone arched a thin eyebrow at her. “Girl, those vents are like six inches tall and maybe a foot wide. You’re tiny, but you’re not that tiny.”

“She can do it,” I said, sipping my wine as the entire table looked my way.

“If he says I can do it,” Desi added, “I can do it.”

Tyrone shrugged. “Starting to sound like a plan. What about the safe, though? We need a boxman.”

“Already handled,” Nicky said. “Paddy said yes, he’s in.”

I shook my head. “I’d rather work with Coop. He’s more reliable, more experienced—”

“And on the East Coast at the moment,” Nicky told me. “Trust me, I called him first. And yeah, you don’t have to say it, Paddy’s a prick. But he’s a prick with skills and his own gear, and most importantly, he doesn’t have anything better to do tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow?” I held up my open hands. “Whoa, not a chance. That gives us no time for recon. We have to case the building, test police response times, get our hands on the blueprints…I need a week, at least.”

“And I need a pony. Difference between us is I can actually buy a pony.”

Juliette’s eyes lit up. “We’re getting a pony?”

Nicky sighed. “No, babe, figure of speech.”

Justine leaned against his arm. “But we are getting a pony, right?”

Nicky pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Louie? Fill ’em in.”

“The meet with Goreki’s cartel buddy is set to go down any day now,” Louie told us, “and once it does, bye-bye bearer bonds. We’ve gotta move on this. Tomorrow night Goreki’s got an invite to a charity ball on the other side of town. He’ll be there, and so will his ‘bodyguard,’ hopefully giving you a window to get in and get out with a minimum of…you know. Weird stuff.”

I read the look in Nicky’s eyes. Cold steel. This wasn’t a job offer so much as a command performance, and while I wouldn’t have touched this score with a ten-foot pole on my own, I knew I wasn’t getting out of it.

“What’s the split?” I asked him.

“Louie gets five percent, matchmaker fee for setting this up and running the intel, and you, Tyrone, and Paddy get ten each.”

I nodded to my left. “What about Desi?”

“Hey, bring her if you want, but I didn’t invite her to the party,” Nicky said. “Pay her out of your cut.”

“She’s going to earn her keep, and I charge extra for rush jobs. Five percent for Desi, apprentice wages, and Tyrone and I get twelve percent each.”

“What about Paddy?” Nicky said.

“Fuck Paddy,” Tyrone said with a laugh. “He ain’t here. We won’t say anything if you don’t.”

Nicky pursed his lips, running the numbers in his head. He stared me down, and I gave him a taste of his own medicine, staring right back.

“Fine,” he said, throwing his hands up. “Twist my arm a little harder, why don’t you? Fine. But only because I know you can get the job done. I want to see you on my doorstep, morning after tomorrow, with a nice big present for me, okay?”

“I’ll wrap it in a bow,” I told him.

* * *

The kid had been silent, riding in the backseat beside me, his lips slightly parted. He was running the numbers, too.

“Wait,” he said. “A hundred thousand dollars in bearer bonds.”

“Yep. See, bearer bonds are special: they’re basically the same as cash. They’re not tied to anybody’s name or account, so it’s impossible to prove if they’re stolen. Which is great if you need to make some sketchy purchases—like buying a bundle of coke from the Cali Cartel, case in point—but if you lose ’em, you’re screwed. A score like that is pure catnip.”

“Yeah, but…twelve percent? So all you had to do was break into some office building, and you got paid twelve thousand dollars for it?”

My gaze slipped away, looking past him, out the window. Out across the endless desert night.

“No, kid. I didn’t.”

* * *

Sunset the next night found us on the east side of Vegas. Della’s was a pool hall, the kind with scratched-up tables, beer-sticky floors, and a regular crew of red-eyed barflies dead set on murdering their livers. We were just killing time, waiting for the call. Tyrone leaned across a table, taking careful aim, and let his cue fly. An orderly triangle of scuffed balls erupted in a hollow crack and a sudden burst of uncontrolled chaos as they shot in all directions.

My nerves simmered like the frayed end of an electrical cable. That old familiar tension right before pulling a job, when I stared down the double-barreled shotgun of my future: freedom and easy money on one side, a prison cell or a shallow grave on the other. By the end of the night, I’d find out. I nursed a Jack and Coke—just one, to settle my stomach and keep my mind right. Desi wandered over, cradling a margarita.

“It feels like we should be doing something,” she said.

“We are. We’re waiting. As soon as Louie’s inside man spots Goreki and his sorcerer buddy at the party, he’ll call and give us the green light. Drink your drink and try to relax.”

She took a sip. Her eyes met mine over the glass.

“What do you think we’ll run into in there?”

“Wards, maybe. Could have put a witch-eye on the bonds, to track them if they go stolen. Nothing we can’t handle. I just want to be sure the Russian isn’t on-site. Important rule: never get into a fight with another magician without studying them forward and back. Know thy enemy. Whenever possible, dox thy enemy.”

“I bet we could take him,” she said, a little bluster warring with the nervous energy in her voice.

“That’s a bad bet to lose. Okay, theory-craft: how would you kill me?”

She blinked. “Why would I?”

“I don’t know. I left the toilet seat up. I ate the last slice of pizza. If you had to take me out, how would you do it?”

Her brow furrowed. She looked me up and down, weighing her options.

“Well, you do that thing with your deck of cards. I guess I’d start by coming up with some kind of hex to neutralize them—”

I made my fingers into a gun and pointed at her forehead, pulling the trigger.

“Bang. And you are already dead. Because I’ve got four or five other ways to fight, including a very non-magical forty-five automatic. Another rule: never, ever fight on a magician’s own terms. Never let them see you coming, never let them control the battlefield, and if you feel the need to say anything to them, tell it to their tombstone. The correct answer to the quiz, by the way, is to come up behind me, ram an ice pick through the back of my neck, and keep walking.”

“Cheerful,” she said, flashing a wry smile. “Uh, newbie question here, but speaking of guns, shouldn’t we…have some?”

“Nope. Never on a B-and-E. If you get caught, you’re looking at automatic prison time just for carrying. Besides, what do you need a piece for? You’ve got weapons.”

She gave a hesitant shrug. “I guess. You’re sure I’m ready for this?”

“Desi, you’re the best student I’ve ever had.”

“I’m the only student you’ve ever had.”

“Technicalities.” I sipped my drink. “You’re a faster learner than I ever was, and you’ve got a natural talent. I wouldn’t bring you along if I didn’t think you could handle it. It’s my neck on the line too, you know.”

“Ours,” Tyrone said, stepping around us with his cue and hunting for an angle on the eight ball. “You got this, Dizzy.”

Down toward the bottom of her margarita, Desi rested one hip against the table and looked my way.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

She tilted her head and leaned a little closer.

“Why haven’t we ever, you know, hooked up?”

I laughed, then paused, seeing the flash of hurt in her eyes.

“It’s not you,” I said. “I’m not laughing at you.”

“Then what?”

“I’m your teacher, Desi. I’m not sleeping with my student. That’s all kinds of wrong.”

“I won’t be your student forever,” she said.

“No, but then there’s Roxy. We’re getting pretty serious. And I’m not screwing around behind her back.”

“Does she even know what you really do for a living?”

“Nope.” I lifted my dwindling glass to the light, counting water spots. “And she’s not going to find out. Roxy’s…normal. She’s the one spot of blissful normality in my life, and I’m looking to keep it that way.”

“You know I’m good at tarot cards,” she told me. “Wanna hear your future?”

“I’m all ears.”

Desi pushed away from the table, turning to face me. She poked a fingernail against my chest.

“You’re going to leave her, or you’re going to drive her away and make her leave you. You don’t want normal, Daniel. That’s a lie you sold yourself on. You thrive on chaos, and the only place you’re ever really, truly happy is when you’re standing in the heart of the storm.”

I shrugged and tossed back one last swig, finishing my drink, clinking the glass down on the lacquered rim of the pool table.

“Guess we’ll find out,” I told her.

Tyrone held up his cell phone.

“Just got the text from Louie. We’re good to go. Ready to do this?”

I put my arm around Desi’s shoulder, giving her an affectionate squeeze.

“Come on,” I told her. “Let’s get paid.”

* * *

“Oh, I get it,” the kid said, nodding slowly. “This is one of those stories. She stabbed you in the back, right? Or this Roxy chick did. Somebody took off with the money.”

I stared at him until he shut his mouth, and kept it shut.

“How much farther, Louie?” I asked, still staring.

“We got a little time yet.”

“Time’s funny,” I told the kid. “You’ve always got less than you think.”

* * *

We stole a dusty hatchback from a sleepy suburban tract. The house was dark, the owners fast asleep, and if everything went right they wouldn’t know it was gone until the morning.

“Mask up,” I said as we rolled toward the parking garage.

Desi leaned in from the backseat. “He didn’t say there were cameras in the garage.”

“It’s an automated ticket machine,” Tyrone said. “They’ve all got cameras built in. Don’t want ’em reviewing the footage later and catching a glimpse of our smiling faces.”

He pulled over just long enough to tug a black knit ski mask over his face. I did the same, and Desi followed our lead. He punched the button, grabbed a ticket in one blue-latex-gloved hand, and promptly tossed it to the concrete as the mechanical arm swung up ahead of us. We rolled inside, slow and easy, watching for security guards on the prowl.

We found Paddy in the garage, leaning against a panel van with his beefy arms crossed and a toothpick jutting out between his chapped lips. He spat it out as we pulled up, and as soon as he got a look at me, his eyes narrowed behind his mask.

“Oh,” he said, “it’s gonna be one of those jobs, then.”

“Nice to see you too, Paddy.”

He ignored me, walking around to haul open the van’s back doors. A pair of long, bulky duffel bags waited inside.

“If I’d known there was gonna be weird shit, I would have demanded more than an eight-percent cut.”

Tyrone and I shared a look. Desi, to her credit, didn’t say a word. Paddy slung one of the bags over his shoulder, metal jangling inside, and gave an expectant wave. “Well? The other one ain’t gonna carry itself. How about one of you actually does some honest work?”

I hoisted the bag and wished I hadn’t. It felt like fifty pounds of wet concrete, the nylon strap biting into my shoulder with every step I took. Paddy shot a look at Desi.

“I don’t recognize those eyes. Who’s the skirt?”

“My apprentice,” I said. “So mind your language.”

“Apprentice? She’d better not be getting a cut of the action.”

“When that’s any of your business, I’ll let you know.”

The four of us synchronized, coupling Bluetooth earpieces with our cell phones and getting on a shared line. For this part, once we were clear of the garage and back on the sidewalk, we took our masks off. Paddy found a spot to lurk by the lobby doors, out of sight from the road, both bags at his feet. Tyrone circled the building. We’d spent the day doing as much recon as we could manage. While the restaurants on the first floor weren’t connected to the office complex, they were linked to each other; a heavy steel door, down a short flight of steps and behind a concrete wall, looked like a utility-access hatch. Locked, but nothing Tyrone couldn’t handle. Desi and I stood outside the darkened glass window of a Jamba Juice. Out in clear view, watching the occasional pair of headlights drift by. I focused on my breathing, slow and steady, keeping my nerves in check.

“I’m inside,” we heard Tyrone say, the earpieces crackling. “And just hit pay dirt. I’ve got electrical, comms, everything linked to the street-level restaurants.”

“Less yapping, more doing,” Paddy growled. “I’ve got my ass stickin’ out in the wind here.”

I motioned for Desi to shield me with her body, standing between me and the traffic as I fished out my lockpicks. Not much camouflage. I’d have to work fast. I ran a finger along the oilcloth case, gliding over a dozen picks in a rainbow of shapes and lengths, as I eyed the front door’s lock. I tugged out a pick and a tension rake, then crouched down, eye to the keyhole.

“How are we looking, Tyrone?” I murmured.

“Found the alarm box. Sixty seconds. Don’t move until I say go.”

My pick rasped along the pins, helping me to draw a map of the lock’s inner workings by sound and feel.

“Oh, evenin’, officer,” Paddy said. “Oh, me? Standing here with two bags of safecracking gear and a ski mask in my back pocket? Oh, I’m not doing anything suspicious at all—”

“Paddy, shut up. Dan, I’m almost in.”

So was I. The tumblers rolled, the lock teetering on the edge of surrender.

“Alarm’s cut,” Tyrone said. “Go!”

The lock clicked. I stood and shoved the handle forward in one smooth motion, Desi darting under my arm and slipping inside. I yanked the door shut, pocketed my picks, and walked away, fast.

“Desi’s inside. Tyrone, meet me back at the lobby doors.”

The three of us waited. I glanced up the steps at the heavy metal grate just behind two pairs of polished double doors. If Desi couldn’t pull out the stops and deliver, we were in for a long night. I didn’t rush her. Didn’t say a word.

“So what are we waiting for?” Paddy griped. “What’s she doin’ in there, anyway?”

“Wait for it,” I said.

Then a sound rustled over the earpiece, slow and slithering and serpentine. A faint, rattling hiss.

Paddy’s eyes went wide. “Aw, fuck me. What is she doing, Faust?”

I savored a swell of pride and bowed my head, putting two fingers to my temple.

“Hail to you, Kadru, mother of nagas,” I whispered, smiling. “We welcome you.”

The only response was a faint, indulgent chuckle. Then she went silent.

Ten minutes later, movement caught my eye. Desi, her mask on and moving fast, jogged across the lobby floor. She crouched down, unlatching the grate, and hauled it up and open before unlocking one of the doors from the inside. We scrambled to tug our masks into place and lug the duffel bags up the steps, one eye on the street as we hustled inside. Every second counted, but I still couldn’t resist pulling Desi into a quick, tight hug.

“Knew you could do it,” I told her, and her smile lit up the lobby.

Not a rent-a-cop in sight. The lobby was a long, wide stretch of deep-gray marble, doors on one end and elevator banks on the other, with a few granite benches taking up space along the walls. A pair of art installations loomed up ahead to the left and right: twisting, turning cyclones of colored glass, each about the size of a small truck, one tinted orange-red and the other icy blue.

“Sun and the Moon,” Tyrone said. “Heard about these. Chihuly designed ’em. Each one’s crafted from fifty interlocking pieces of blown glass.”

He caught my look and shrugged.

“What? I like art. I know things.”

“Paddy, Desi, head up to the ninth floor. You see any guards on patrol, jump ’em and zip-tie them. Make sure to grab their radios, too. Me and Tyrone are going to take control of the security room. Don’t start drilling until we give the all-clear.”

I wasn’t exaggerating when I told Nicky I wanted a week just for recon. The key to any successful heist is information; I don’t like to make my move until I’ve worked every angle and found a solution for any possible emergency. The last thing you want on a job is an unexpected surprise. But that was exactly what we got when we hit the security room door and stormed in. We expected a half-asleep guard, maybe two—not a couple of empty chairs and abandoned video screens.

“This ain’t right,” Tyrone said. “Somebody on a bathroom break?”

I shook my head, running a finger along the control console. “They’d call another guard to relieve them. I’ve read Gold Star’s training manual; they never leave cameras unmanned. Instant firing offense. Hey, you two up on nine yet?”

Paddy’s voice echoed through my earpiece. “Yeah, quiet and clear. I’m working on the card lock now.”

I nodded to Tyrone. “Kill the feeds. I’ll watch the door.”

While he got to work, prying up a corner of the console and snipping wires, I lingered in the doorway with my ears perked. Not a sound. No distant footsteps, no radio crackle.

“Maybe Louie got old info,” Tyrone said. “Hell, it’s an office building, not a bank. They don’t really need around-the-clock security. Maybe building management cut ’em loose.”

“Maybe, but…” I bit the inside of my cheek, frowning. “Desi, Paddy, get back down here. I’m calling it. We’re scrubbing this job. Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Bugger that,” Paddy said. “You leave if you want, but this is like taking a rattle from a baby’s crib. It’s free money.”

Tyrone set the console lid back into place.

“Hey,” he said, “alarm’s cut, no guards, he’s got a point—we already did the hard part. Twenty minutes and we’re out of here a hundred grand richer.”

“Damn it. Okay, fine. Let’s check out the ninth floor and see how it looks.”

It looked like a cubicle farm, an entire floor of fabric walls ringed by private offices for Armitel Equity’s big winners. I took a steadying breath, stretching out my psychic senses. They wriggled forth, invisible to the naked eye, glowing in my second sight like squirming violet sea anemones. Sniffing for threads of magic, for wards or occult traps.

Nothing. Even standing right outside Martin Goreki’s office door, the entire floor was as spiritually dead as the paper-shufflers who worked there.

“Why would you hire a sorcerer for security,” I murmured to myself, “and not use him?”

Paddy didn’t care to speculate. He roughly shouldered past me, shoving open the office door and turning on the light. And froze, staring across Goreki’s mahogany desk.

At the open panel on the opposite wall. And the black iron safe, the door hanging wide, completely empty.

That was when the burglar alarm went off. Squawking like an air horn, blaring across the cubicles. Desi clapped her hands over her ears.

“What the hell?” Paddy shouted at Tyrone. “You said you cut the alarm!”

“I did! Dan, where’s the loot? Who cleaned out the safe?”

I waved them to the elevators, running fast. “It’s a fucking setup. Let’s go! Leave the bags, we gotta move.”

The elevator glided down to the first floor. I could barely hear it chime over the siren’s wail. We burst out the rumbling doors, out onto the polished marble. Running between the tall sculptures of spun and colored glass, the lobby doors in sight.

Then a whirlwind of sand blew across the lobby, carried on a hot gust of wind, and coalesced into a nightmare. Its form wavered, rippling, never holding together for more than a second or two. I made out a drooling crocodile snout, patches of armored hide, baleful and misty eyes as it towered over Paddy.

A claw curved like a scythe, two feet long, thrust into Paddy’s open mouth and punched out the back of his skull.

He crumpled to the marble in a cloud of blood and powdered bone. My deck of cards leaped from my breast pocket, riffling into my outstretched hand, crackling with raw power. I flicked my fingers and sent two of them flying, slicing the air like screaming hornets. They passed right through the creature and kept on going.

The apparition thundered through the lobby, bearing down on Tyrone. The scythe whipped out and Tyrone collapsed to his knees, howling and coughing up blood, clutching his belly as his guts spilled out around his fingers.

“Desi,” I shouted, “get behind me!”

Desi ripped her ski mask off, black hair flowing and eyes blazing bright as she squared her footing. She hooked her fingers in a ritual gesture, the first part of a warding spell.

“I can do this, Dan. I can do this.”

The apparition turned her way. It snorted a cloud of sand from its crocodile snout. Accepting the challenge.

My mind raced. It wasn’t a demon, and my senses didn’t taste anything that felt like sentient life. A construct of some kind, controlled by an enemy mage. Which meant—

“Desi, get back! That spell won’t even—”

The scythe lashed out. The world went silent, slow motion.

Desi’s head hit the floor a couple of seconds before the rest of her body did. Bouncing, rolling, her big, dark eyes staring up at me.

Couldn’t grieve, couldn’t ache, had to bottle up my screams and fight. A puppet meant a puppeteer. Had to be close, in visual range, somewhere in the lobby—

I gripped a card in each hand. Then I spun, dropped to one knee, and let them fly, powering them with my rage and my pain as they streaked for the glass sculptures. The Sun and the Moon shattered, bursting into a rain of glittering shards that scattered across the marble floor. Exposing the nook where Ivan Koslov had been hiding, waiting for us. His concentration broke, and the creature vanished on a puff of white sand.

Panicked, he whipped out a snub-nosed revolver and opened fire. I dove for cover, keeping low, as wild bullets whistled past me and blasted chunks out of the wall. He raced in the other direction, right out the front door and into the night.

I couldn’t chase him. Tyrone was still alive. Looking bad, but sucking in air through his clenched teeth, lying in a puddle of his own spilled intestines. I crouched beside him, reached into my pocket, and gave him a ballpoint pen to bite down on while I checked him out.

“Hold on, buddy. It’s bad, but you’re gonna get through this. I’m going to get you some help, just—”

Tyrone stopped breathing. No final death rattle or shudder, he was just…gone. Like flicking a light switch. I closed his eyes.

Then I ran.

* * *

“Here’s good,” I told Louie.

He pulled off the highway onto an access road. More the suggestion of a road, worn and faint and wobbling across the flats toward the red rocks in the distance, tires slipping and kicking up sand as they struggled to keep hold. He drove for another couple of minutes and killed the engine. The headlights stayed on, twin beacons drawing long strokes of yellow light in the starless dark.

“Out,” I told the kid.

He stood in the headlights’ glare, frozen. “So…that’s it? That’s the end of the story?”

I walked around and opened the trunk. Took out a shovel and tossed it his way. He caught it on instinct.

“Just the beginning. While I tell you the rest…start digging.”

* * *

Nicky ran his business from the back room of the Gentlemen’s Bet, a dive strip club on the sour side of town. He was conferring with Louie over a couple of glasses of Irish whiskey when I kicked his door in.

“You son of a bitch,” I shouted, not sure which of them I was angrier at. “You are fucking dead—”

The twins were faster than they looked. Stronger, too. Juliette leaped over the desk in a blur, her sister clamping onto my left arm and twisting it behind my back.

“Danny,” Justine growled in my ear, “you’re one of the only people we like. Don’t make us hurt you.”

Nicky pushed his chair back, rising, eyes wide. “Wait, wait, hold on—what’s this about?”

“What it’s about,” I snarled, “is that your intel was shit. The safe was empty, and Goreki’s pet mage was on-site. He ambushed us.”

Louie and Nicky shared a worried glance.

“Wait,” Louie said, “where are the others?”

“Dead. They’re dead, Louie. My entire goddamn crew.”

“That can’t be right. My guy confirmed that Ivan Koslov was at the party, right next to Goreki the entire time. I mean, he was in the room with both of them.”

I shot a look at Nicky. “Did you arrange this? Were you trying to get one of us whacked?”

Nicky straightened his tie, taking a deep breath to keep his temper in check.

“Dan, you’re distraught, and you’re saying some really unwise things. I’m gonna be generous, because we’ve got history, and let that slide. But don’t push it.”

“I want your guy, Louie. Who is he? What’s his name? He was in on this, and I want him.”

“I’ll find him.” Louie looked up to the ceiling, shaking his head. “I’ll track him down, and we’ll go talk to him together, okay? You got my word on it. He’s always been reliable. I’ve known him for years. This has to be some kind of mistake.”

Nicky sighed at the twins. “Ladies? Let Dan go. He’s not gonna do anything stupid. Are you, Dan?”

I stood frozen as they released my arms, adrenaline raging through my veins.

“We’re done, Nicky. You two just got my friend killed. You got my student killed.”

“I didn’t tell you to bring her along. That was your choice. And Tyrone was a big boy, he knew the risks.”

“We’re done, Nicky.”

“We’re done,” he told me, “when I say we’re done.”

* * *

Louie leaned back against the car and chuckled.

“Yeah, you and me had a little bad blood for a couple of days, didn’t we?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t know you’d gotten played as badly as the rest of us. Not at that point.”

The kid was digging, silent, his shovel chipping away at dense-packed sand.

“How deep?” he asked me, his voice small.

“Six feet long,” I said. “Doesn’t have to be all that deep. Two feet should do it.”

* * *

Desi’s apartment was a cramped little studio, a walk-up above a gelato shop. The air in the stairwell smelled faintly of strawberries and limes. I picked the lock on her front door and let myself in, toting an empty gym bag on one shoulder.

We might not be organized in the world of magic, but we have our traditions. When one of us goes down for the big sleep, it’s custom for her friends and family to clean out their lodgings; grimoires, notebooks, occult paraphernalia, and ritual tools, it all has to go. Can’t have people who aren’t clued in stumbling across that stuff. We call it a locust job. Usually easy to find volunteers: on a locust job, you keep what you take.

This one, I had to do on my own.

Secondhand furniture, bought from thrift stores on the cheap. Clothes scattered everywhere, empty pizza boxes piling up on the kitchenette counter. The little apartment was a burst of spontaneous chaos, the wake of Hurricane Desi. I felt her in the stillness now, standing silent in the heart of the storm, hearing traffic grind by on the street outside her dusty window. I imagined her walking out of the bathroom, or through the door at my back, giving me her big-eyed smile.

But Desi was dead, and my memories were the only place I’d ever see her smile again.

I wandered over to a cluttered vanity, the tiny scalloped table filled with jars and brushes, potions and creams. My gaze drifted to the mirror. She’d tucked a photograph into the bottom edge of the frame, just above her hairbrush.

Me and her. My arm around Desi’s shoulders, both of us grinning into the camera, the dancing fountains of the Medici glittering behind us. I remembered that afternoon. She’d made her first real breakthrough, casting a spell of her own without any help from me. I took us out to celebrate.

“Stupid fuckin’ kid,” I muttered. I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a second, and smile.

I kept the picture.

She had an old, battered laptop, the silver clamshell festooned with stickers for bands I’d never heard of. I powered it up while I rummaged through a low, overstuffed bookshelf by the futon, plucking out a few choice titles. One of her folders on the laptop was marked Diary. I looked back at the picture, thinking about our talk at the pool hall.

I erased the diary file without opening it. Her secret thoughts were hers, to take to the grave.

Nothing incriminating in her email, nothing that could tie her to the occult underground. I was just doing some housekeeping when the laptop pinged, a fresh alert coming in: “This is a reminder for your Spirit Airlines 7:30 flight. Make sure to check in now!”

I squinted at the screen. Desi hadn’t told me about any plans for a trip. As I was puzzling it out, my phone buzzed against my hip, an incoming text message. “This is a reminder for your Spirit Airlines 7:30 flight. Make sure to check in now!”

I called the airline. Twenty minutes of arguing, low-level social engineering, and borderline bribery got me the answers I needed. We weren’t the only two people with tickets we’d never ordered: someone had made reservations for Tyrone and Paddy, too, putting us all on the same flight to New York City.

The empty safe, the lack of wards and guards, the ambush in the lobby, and a paper trail. All the pieces clicked together.

* * *

The desert night carried a chill that cut to the bone. The kid was sweating, though, standing in a tiny trench as he dug his own grave.

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“It was an inside job,” I told him. “Ivan Koslov and Louie’s inside man conspired to rip Goreki off. Ivan cleared out the safe—as his security specialist, he’d have the combination—and the inside man fed Louie a line about this amazing, easy score.”

“We all make mistakes,” Louie said with a shrug.

“So Ivan grabbed the bonds and waited for us to show. The idea was to kill all four of us, hide the bodies, and make it look like we’d fled to New York with the loot. Nicky and Goreki would both be chasing ghosts, while Ivan and his pal laughed all the way to the bank. They didn’t count on one of us surviving the ambush.”

“So did you find him?” the kid asked. “The inside man?”

“Sure. But I found Ivan first.”

* * *

Nicky sent me a peace offering. His personal seer, a psychic with a knack for remote viewing, tracked Ivan down. He was on his way out of town, bags packed, his own ticket in hand, but he stopped off for lunch first. The Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop on Cheyenne, quick and casual. He ordered a turkey sub and a bottle of water, sitting toward the back with his roll-on suitcase at his side.

He bit into his sandwich. Then he winced, spitting the chewed mouthful into his napkin. Pulling back the bread, he stared down at the thin white layer of sand on top of the sliced turkey.

He had about two seconds to get the message. That was all I gave him before I came up behind him and drove an ice pick through the back of his neck. The spike tore through skin, muscle, and cartilage, spearing out from his throat. I wrenched the pick free, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and kept walking, stashing it inside my hip pocket all in one smooth movement. I was halfway out the door before anyone noticed he was dead.

Louie called me. His voice was faint, labored, desperate.

“Found…found the fucker. He shot me. He shot me, Dan.”

“Where are you? I’m coming right now.”

He wheezed out an address, a high-rise condo about two blocks from the Strip. I barreled up the stairs to the third floor, looking for 305. The door hung wide open. In a stylish, modern living room, the air-conditioning on full blast, Siberia-cold, I found two bodies. One was still breathing. Louie sat propped against the wall, one hand still clutching his silenced .22, the other clamped to the wound in his side. Blood spread like spilled wine across his Italian silk shirt, and his hair was plastered to his scalp with cold sweat.

The other man, I didn’t know. He had two bullets in his heart and a long-barreled .357 in his outstretched hand, his corpse sprawled out on a storm-gray rug.

“I shoulda waited for you,” Louie gasped. “I wanted to make good, you know? Make it up to you. So I confronted the bastard. He got the drop on me. I got him, though. Got him good.”

“Stop talking.” I put my arm around him, standing on his good side and hoisting him to his feet. “Save your strength. C’mon, let’s get you out of here.”

I took him to Doc Savoy, Vegas’s number one fix-up man for problems you couldn’t bring to a real hospital. Real hospitals kept records and had to report gunshot wounds. The Doc only took cash, no insurance, but he didn’t talk to cops. Once Louie was all patched up, he filled me in: the dead man, Fields, was a long-time informant and matchmaker who had been reliable for years. Solid as a rock.

What he didn’t know, until he’d dug it up that morning, was that Fields had been investing his dirty money. Investing it with Martin Goreki, who “lost” it when he needed cash to buy the bearer bonds. Fields smelled a rat, got tight with Ivan, and that was when they hatched their plan. And it would have worked, flawless, if I hadn’t survived the ambush.

* * *

The kid leaned on his shovel, out of breath. Standing in a shallow grave, six feet long and two deep. I reached under my coat and took out my pistol. I held it loose in my hand.

“And that’s the moral of the story. You break the rules, you cross the line, you reap the consequences.”

Louie chuckled. He could smell the kid’s fear, same as me. He liked the aroma.

“Shoulda learned that lesson sooner. Maybe we wouldn’t be here right now. Dan, you wanna do the honors?”

I raised my gun in a slow, steady hand…and swung it around, aiming it in Louie’s face.

“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

He took a startled step back, hip thumping against the sedan door. “Whoa. Whoa, Dan, what the hell are you doing?”

“You almost got away with it, Louie. Almost. Hell, you skated for two years, that’s pretty good. Thing is, I was pulling a job up in Reno last week. And the wheelman on that job? He was Fields’s brother. We got to drinking, and got to talking. He confirmed every bit of that story, all the pieces he knew. Yeah, Fields invested his money with Goreki, Goreki ripped him off, and he was definitely tight with Ivan. Just one little problem, Louie…Fields didn’t go in for any heavy stuff, as a rule. He didn’t own a gun.”

“That’s…that’s crazy. That doesn’t mean anything. Dan, I was shot—”

“I know. And I thought it was weird. I mean, nice building, nice neighborhood. A hand cannon goes off, and nobody calls the cops? Hard to mistake that sound for anything else. Now a twenty-two with a suppressor? That sounds like a door slamming, a backfiring car. I went and talked to Doc Savoy about that bleeder I brought you in with. Been a while, but Doc’s got a memory like a steel trap.”

I took a step closer to him, sighting down the barrel of the gun, aiming for a kill shot.

“He didn’t pull a three-fifty-seven slug out of your side, Louie. It was a twenty-two, just like the two bullets the coroner dug out of Fields’s chest. There were three men pulling the bearer-bond scam: Ivan, Fields, and you. You murdered Fields to shut him up and cover your tracks. Then you shot yourself someplace nice and nonlethal. Gave yourself a war wound and instant deniability.”

“You’re crazy. You’re just—that’s not proof. None of that is proof—”

My free hand slipped into my breast pocket and came out with a single slip of colorful paper.

A bearer bond.

“I went to your house last night, Louie. You were smart, not cashing these in. Keeping ’em nice and hidden for a rainy day. Stashing it all in a bag in your crawl space, though? Not so bright. First place I looked.”

He knew it was over. I saw his face fall, bluster turning to despair turning to ice-bladder fear. He opened his mouth, started to say something. I knew this part. This was the part where he would beg, bargain, offer me anything he could think of in exchange for his life.

I didn’t need to hear it. So I pulled the trigger and shot him between the eyes.

Louie’s corpse hit the sand, silhouetted in the sedan’s headlights. The kid froze. He stared at me, then at Louie, then back to me. I holstered my gun.

“So,” he said, barely louder than a whisper, “what now?”

“Now? Now you roll his body into that grave and fill it in. Tamp it down nice and tight.”

He blinked. “Are…you going to kill me?”

“Nah. Thing is, Louie had a bad back. If I made him dig his own grave, I would have been out here all fucking night. I’ve got better things to do.”

He climbed out of the trench, then stopped again, uncertain.

“What…what about the dead kid who overdosed? And his dad, the cop?”

“See, you weren’t paying attention. I said hypothetically those things happened.” I raised my hand and pointed west. “You’re gonna want to walk that way, about twenty minutes. Should be able to find a ride once you reach the highway. You can either keep going, all the way to Salt Lake City, and try your luck there, or you can come back to Vegas and follow Jennifer’s rules. This was your warning. You only get one, kid, so think hard.”

“Wait,” he called out as I opened the driver’s-side door. I paused, looking back at him. “Can’t I get a ride with you?”

“Nope,” I said. “Car’s full.”

He stood dumbstruck in the headlights as I reversed out, tires rumbling into a three-point turn, and drove down the access road. I glanced in the rearview mirror.

Tyrone and Paddy sat in the backseat, silent, their sightless eyes staring back at me. Desi sat beside me. Her long black hair flowed behind her, the faintest hint of a smile on her black-painted lips. A long, sad smile. Her luminous hand reached toward mine, almost touching. Almost.

I wasn’t lying about the car being full. Just like I never lied to myself, believing that revenge would make my ghosts go away. I didn’t feel good about killing Louie, didn’t feel much of anything at all. And the dead were still with me. I was their wheelman now, all the way to the end of the line.

All the way to the gates of hell.

* * *

Continue the Daniel Faust series here:

http://craigschaeferbooks.com/faust/

* * *

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About the Author

Craig Schaefer's books have taken readers to the seamy edge of a criminal underworld drenched in shadow (the Daniel Faust series), to a world torn by war, poison and witchcraft (the Revanche Cycle), and across a modern America mired in occult mysteries and a conspiracy of lies (the Harmony Black series).

Despite this, people say he's strangely normal. Suspiciously normal, in fact.

Schaefer lives in Illinois with a small retinue of cats, all of whom try to interrupt his writing schedule and/or kill him on a regular basis. He practices sleight of hand in his spare time, though he's not very good at it.

Contact Craig here:-

- @craig_schaefer

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craig@craigschaeferbooks.com

Chase The Dark - Pippa Dacosta

A Soul Eater Short Story

New York’s sewers are infested with gators. As Ace Dante investigates, it becomes clear that there’s something far worse beneath the streets, and it’s out for revenge.

* * *

I eyed the sewer gator side-on, careful not to stare him down. Looking too long in his reptilian gaze would reveal his soul and probably piss him off. I couldn’t risk either if I wanted to leave the sewer with all my limbs attached.

Most of the gator’s body was submerged beneath the slow-moving water, but occasionally, ridges along his tail broke through the surface as he swept it back and forth, keeping himself steady in the stream. Gators had the patience of the gods. Some gators were gods, but not this one. The background hum of magic I’d used to track it here radiated from his body, but also from our immediate surroundings. The chill and stink of mildew, stale urine, and worse did a grand job of hiding the gator’s magical resonance, but the magic saturated the sweating walls of his makeshift home. He’d probably been roaming the sewers for years.

“Yah know, we have a lot in common …” Sounds of swirling water drowned out my words. I wet my lips, tasting something gritty that must have splashed there during my descent into New York’s storm water drainage system. “Not the digs, although I’d wager yours are more spacious than mine.”

The gator drew back his set of clear eyelids to get a better look at the guy who’d crashed into his pad. I didn’t look like much. I was drenched from the thighs down, and pushed by the current, my duster coat clung to the backs of my legs. But like all river beasts, the gator might be incapable of seeing the wrongness in me, but he would sense it. “We’re both urban legends.”

I slowly—so slowly—reached my hand behind my shoulder and curled my fingers around Alysdair’s grip. Once I revealed the sword, Snappy would either turn tail and dive or go on the offensive, in which case our little standoff would get primitive real fast.

“The problem is, one of us needs to stamp out rogue magic in New York, and the other is a pest.”

Inch by inch, Alysdair slid free from its back sheath. Glowing spellwords along the blade cast a liquid green light down the concave tunnel, rippling over decades-old brickwork. Now that I could see without the aid of a spell, I noted where the water flowed over a weir behind Snappy’s snaking tail. If the gator bolted, that’s where he’d go—deeper into the maze-like drainage system.

I mentally cursed Shu. She was sitting in a warm, dry office, pushing pencils and crunching numbers. One of these days, I’d drag her ex-demon ass on a job and force her to wade through four feet of shit in her expensive fur coat.

“If you could just roll over and let me stab you in the gut, that’d be grand.”

Green light flickered in the gator’s slitted eyes, illuminating a sliver of intelligence. That was all the warning I got.

The gator exploded out of the water, launching his five-hundred-pound bulk missile-fast, like something straight out of a wildlife documentary—and I was the dumbass wildebeest who’d wandered too close to the water’s edge.

I had a second to realize that Snappy was less gator and more Nile crocodile before instinct shied me to the left in a hail of water and jaws. I spun, reversed my grip on the sword, and plunged it straight through Snappy’s armored hide. He roared, and in the cramped tunnels, the thunderous sound rattled the bricks and my bones.

A split second was all I needed to jump onto the croc’s back and wrestle him under control, but as I adjusted my weight, about to leap, his tail whipped in and swept my legs out from under me. My back hit the water hard. Foul water flooded into my throat and burned my eyes, but that would be the least of my worries if Snappy got his jaws around me and rolled. I didn’t plan on winding up as croc food—not today. I kicked out, thrashed around, and found the floor. Pushing up, I burst through the surface, Alysdair aglow in my hand, and spotted Snappy’s ridged back disappearing over the weir.

“Oh no you don’t!” Diving forward, I snagged the croc’s tail in one hand just as he plunged over the edge. Under I went, dragged along by the gator and the current. My shoulder cracked against something hard and unforgiving, but I had him—or maybe he had me, depending on your perspective.

I snatched a gasp of air and twisted to keep from losing my grip. Brickwork blurred by and water rushed—black bubbles obscuring my vision.

“Easy job,” Shu had said. “Just another sewer gator sighting. You can sit here and help with the accounts or make yourself useful and check it out.”

Right. I should have taken the accounts. It wasn’t like the gators were harming anyone. If anything, they kept the sewers clear of rats and cats; two things New York could do without.

“Hurz—” As I tried to fling out the spellword, sewer water spilled over my tongue. The word twanged back, slapping me upside the head for shoddy casting. I’d had better days.

I saw flickers of floating debris and heard the torrential rush, and then I slipped over the edge of something high enough to lodge my heart in my throat and plummeted into the dark.

Snappy’s tail slipped from my grip, then I hit the plunge pool with a back-cracking thwump and sank like a stone. The churning waters spat me out. Gasping, I clawed at a nearby service platform like a drowned rat.

Snappy cut through the water, torpedoing for me with the single-minded focus of an apex predator about to chow down on man-steak.

“Hurzd!” I yelled and flung out a hand, directing the spell at the gator, then crumpled into a spasm of coughs. But the croc froze, suspended at the surface of the pool as water gently lapped against his scaled hide.

The spell beat at my head, releasing waves of heat and draining my strength with each passing second, but I had enough juice to know it would hold.

I turned, bracing my elbows on the platform. Alysdair glowed in my right hand, illuminating a chamber that was easily the size of my modest apartment. Three tunnel mouths gaped, and high above, to my left, the waterfall plunged in, roaring endlessly. I wasn’t getting back out that way, but Snappy had made it out, so there had to be a way to circle around. The water was rushing toward somewhere—hopefully the Hudson and not a sewage treatment plant. I’d worry about my escape later. Right now, I had an angry dinosaur castoff with his sights zeroed in on me.

“I’m just gonna lay this out. It’s nothing personal, peaches. I know you’d rather be—” The coughing started up again. I hacked and spat, trying not to think about what I’d swallowed. “Rather be cruising the Everglades. I hear that …”

Something shiny and white caught my eye.

Shiny, white, and oval—suspiciously egg-shaped. I heaved myself out of the water onto the rickety service platform and landed in a soaked heap next to a nest of garbage.

“Sekhmet’s ass.”

The clutch of eggs were eight strong, each the size of an exercise ball. No way those eggs had come from Snappy. He was big, but not prehistoric big.

What else was patrolling these tunnels?

I wiped my face and rubbed the grit from my eyes.

“You’ve been holding out on me, Snappy,” I said, raising my voice against the thundering water.

The croc grumbled and strained against the spell, stretching my control. I winced and mentally tightened the hold.

Snappy and whatever else was down here weren’t your average everglade-variety flushed pets. I had a suspect, but if I was right, it meant this little pest-control job had turned into a clusterfuck of monolithic proportions.

“Is this Sobek’s doing?” I asked the croc. Just uttering the god’s name in these dark, damp tunnels brought back memories I’d rather forget. That was the problem with living as long as I had: the skeletons no longer fit in my closet and needed their own damn apartment. “He got out, huh?”

Sobek made my wild nights look like grocery runs. Some—scratch that—most gods were sociopaths; the others were off-the-chart crazy. Sobek was the latter.

Snappy’s cold, primeval eyes fixed on me while he likely imagined all the ways he could rip me limb from limb. I wasn’t getting answers from him, not like this anyhow.

Alligator sightings had increased of late. People couldn’t tell the difference between a gator and a croc, especially not when it was slithering out of sight down tunnels and drains. In all likelihood, there were more nests down here, and more crocs, and a bunch more trouble.

“Easy job,” I heard Shu’s taunts once more. I was going to kill her.

Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with the gods. I could hope, right? All I had was one nest and one overgrown lizard with an attitude problem. It might not be a disaster—yet.

Snappy was still glaring at me. If I killed him, like I’d planned to, I’d be stuck down here with nothing to go on. This thirteen-foot-long croc was my only lead.

“Back in the underworld,” I began, shifting my waterlogged weight, “I’d patrol the River of Souls with Khuy. He was part croc and loved nothing more than a good bargain. My mother, too. Ammit, the Great Devourer. Not my real mother, you understand. She loved to barter, wager, haggle—when she wasn’t eating souls. As you probably know, she was also part crocodile. I’m betting you understand every word I’m saying and that you’re partial to striking a little deal. So how about you cut the lizard act and switch to your human alter ego?”

A few degrees of warmth fell away at Snappy’s stony glare.

“Or I could take Alysdair to your gut and turn you into a nice pair of boots for my business partner.”

Snappy’s gaze remained unchanging.

I waited, contemplating what might happen once I released the hold spell. If Snappy came at me again, I could always throw the same spellword at him and stop him dead. I’d burned through my magic reserves, but it was that or let him get a death grip on me.

“I’m releasing the spell. I figure you know who I am. Screw with me and the next few seconds will be your last.”

I severed the spell. It recoiled with a whip-like sting, leaving a mild ache in my chest.

Snappy’s tail stroked the water. He drifted over, carving through the ripples. His nostrils, eyes, and back ridges were the only parts of him visible above the waterline. Closer, he floated. With Alysdair humming in my hand, I was ready to thrust the blade the second the gator sprang.

Just as I tensed for the strike, the croc’s body rippled, mimicking the water around it. His back ridges smoothed out, his snout shrank, and in a blur that my mind struggled to fathom, a human body emerged from the liquid quiver that had encased the croc.

Snappy gripped the platform with two very human hands and heaved. Two things became clear: Crocodile shifters retain a smattering of scales all over their human-looking bodies, and Snappy wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, male.

She hauled herself out of the water, onto her feet, and padded, buck naked and dripping wet, toward the eggs. Who knew reptile shifters had the kind of curves that could derail a man’s thoughts, sending them deeper into the gutter than they already were.

“I know you, Soul Eater,” Miss Snappy crooned, the words humming at the back of her throat, lending her speech a musical quality. Her accent evoked memories of warm river evenings and desert winds and was outright hypnotic to that part of me I’d left in the underworld, the part where all the memories hid—the old me. I could have listened to that voice for hours and fallen into its melody.

I grinned at my mistake. I hadn’t spoken with a river shifter in so long that I’d forgotten how seductive they could be.

She crouched and ran her scaled hand over the surface of one of the eggs. Alysdair’s green light poured down the patches of smooth scales running the length of her spine. “You don’t remember, but I remember you, Nameless One, favored by Ammit. I once visited the Halls and watched you weigh the souls of the dead. I’ve never forgotten you.”

Something sharp and hungry flittered in her eyes. My ego wanted to believe it was admiration, so maybe I’d let it. Were her memories of me from before or after I’d taken to stealing souls and drinking them down like an alcoholic who’d fallen off the wagon? Probably best not to spoil her rose-tinted recollection. I could use her admiration to get answers, if admiration was truly the look in her reptilian eyes. Maybe she was just eyeing me up for a midnight snack.

I staggered to my feet and followed the path of her gaze to the sword in my hand.

“I could put this away,” I said, “but I need the light it’s casting.” And its sharp edges to ward off frisky crocs.

She chuckled a smooth and dark sound like molasses. “I will not eat you.” She clucked her tongue. “Your man bones would get stuck in my throat.”

“What’s your name?”

“Kiya. Your friend, Khuy, was my brother.”

I remembered Khuy and his fifteen siblings. Three were female, and I recalled exactly how my mother had barred them from the banks of the River of Souls. They’d been curious, all of them, but one more so than the others: the girl with golden-bronze skin and greenish-blue scales. I’d caught her sneaking to the riverside and threatened to eat her soul if she ever returned. She’d been smaller then, little more than a pest. Nobody swam the River of Souls—besides me, when Osiris wasn’t looking. I’d deliberately frightened the wits out of her. A few centuries on, we’d both aged, and Kiya in ways that made me grateful I hadn’t gutted her.

“How is Khuy?” I asked.

Her green-tinged lips turned down. “His soul flows with the river.”

Damn. Khuy and I had enjoyed a few good times before I went on the kind of bender that got me cursed and kicked out of the underworld. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

She peered at me from the corner of her eye, either consciously knowing to avoid my gaze or instinctively skirting the fringes of my intrusive glare. She’d seen me in the Hall and knew I could cut her down with a few words and the stroke of my sword, but I didn’t sense fear in her, just that same curiosity I’d seen in the small hatchling girl. She knew English and spoke it well. Was she passing for human these days? It had been a while since I’d spoken with anyone from my home. Hearing her talk, seeing her here—maybe she’d fill me in on everything I’d missed.

Later. Right now, I had a clutch of eggs to destroy.

A step was all it took for Kiya to whirl and block my approach. A hiss sounded from deep within her chest. “Come no closer, Soul Eater.”

The eggs couldn’t be hers. Even as a croc, she wasn’t substantial enough to produce such large offspring. But all river beasts were sensitive when it came to their hatchlings. My surrogate mother terrified the entire Egyptian pantheon, but that hadn’t stopped her from doting on her younglings—all except me.

“Step aside.”

“No.”

“I can make you.” We already knew my spellwords could grip her, and I had several at my disposal. Add to that my knack for compulsion and she really didn’t stand a chance.

She held her head slightly bowed, her chin dipped against her shoulder. The stance was respectful, and I might have believed it if I hadn’t grown up around beasts who knew exactly how to play the gods by sucking up to their monumental egos. I’d done the same often enough.

“These younglings are innocent,” Kiya hissed. “Would you prevent their souls from living again, Nameless One?”

Apparently, she hadn’t heard about my addiction to souls, and those little lives were ripe for the picking. I’d done worse. Much worse.

“Whose eggs are they?”

She cocked her head with a quick jerk and her double eyelids flicked, but she didn’t answer.

“Does Osiris know you’re cruising the sewers?”

Silence.

“At least tell me why you’re here. If these hatch, you can kiss this cozy little setup goodbye. Urban legends don’t live long. If a maintenance crew sees you, they’ll send teams down here with high-powered rifles and they won’t stop until you and those innocent younglings you’re protecting are all dead.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Or worse, what if Osiris hears you’re squatting beneath his city? You don’t want him noticing you, Kiya, believe me.”

I didn’t want to hurt her, nor did I want to destroy the eggs, but New York wasn’t ready for the likes of her, and if those eggs hatched into monstrous, magic-infused Nile crocodiles that would need a whole lot more than rats to feed on, it would be my ass on the line when the city was thrown into mass panic.

She opened her mouth to answer, but a ground-trembling growl shook the chamber, sprinkling mortar dust from the brickwork above. That was no subway train.

Kiya bolted and dove off the edge of the platform. I dove after her and surfaced near the mouth of a run-off drain.

“Wait,” I spluttered, unsuccessfully treading water as Alysdair weighed me down.

She hauled herself over the lip of the pool. I snagged her ankle. She yanked it free and kicked back. Her heel clocked me in the jaw. My teeth slammed together, narrowly missing my tongue. Pain rang through my skull, rattling my nerves. I shot my hand out and snatched her foot. Managing to get a grip, I yanked. She fell to her knee and kicked back, but I had her. While she clawed her way forward, I pulled, dragging myself into the mouth of the tunnel behind her.

“Don’t make this harder … than it already is,” I panted.

Her scales shimmered over her body and the flesh beneath my grip shifted, shaking me off.

In the next blink, she was running.

“Hurzd!” I threw the spellword and locked her rigid. “Gods-dammit. I can’t let you run free down here.”

By the time I climbed to my feet and trudged through the three-foot-deep waters to stand in front of her, her entire body was trembling, her scales hissing together. It didn’t take a genius to figure out she was furious.

“I’m warning you, Soul Eater,” she said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “It’s been a long time. I am not who you think I am.”

I stepped close enough to feel the heat rising off her body. “Neither am I.”

“Go,” she warned, low and quiet. “If he finds you, I’ll lose—”

Power spilled into the tunnel behind her, as thick and cool as a sudden rush of water. A god’s power. I sucked in a breath and held it, folding my magical signature tight around me and tucking any telltale signs of my existence away, but as I did, I released the spell holding Kiya still.

Her cool, soft hand touched my cheek. “I thought it would be different.”

What would be? Maybe another place and another time, I’d find out, but not here and not with a god’s presence bearing down on us.

“You shouldn’t be here. This isn’t your world.”

Kiya stood firm, like she had with the eggs. “Nor is it yours, Soul Eater.”

She was right. This wasn’t my world, but someone had to protect people from the old gods, and I was the only sucker stupid enough to try.

“Go home.” I pushed a compulsion through the words, delivering it with a punch of power. I’d already burned through most of my magic, so the compulsion was little more than a suggestion, but she’d felt it.

Kiya’s eyes widened. She hadn’t believed I’d force her. Maybe her childish memories had painted me in a good light, but now she’d met the man she’d seen weigh souls in the Hall of Judgment, and like meeting your favorite rock star only to discover he’s a monumental asshole, she saw a fraction of the monster I really was.

A crocodile the size of an MPV struck from behind her. I saw it happen—one second ticking so slowly into the next as its jaws thrust into the tunnel, dropping open and rotating. Teeth the size of my forearm clamped around Kiya’s tiny body—and then she was gone, plucked right out of the tunnel as a wave of water flushed in, scooping me up like a damn doll in a washing machine. Even if I could have gasped a breath to loose a spellword, tossed around the torrent, I had no direction and no target. Up was down, and over and over I rolled. My lungs burned for air and my heart thudded hot and hard inside my chest. Alysdair was gone. I clawed at the occasional blur of bricks, but the flood barreled on. My shoulder, hip, and back cracked against the walls. The dark surge of unconsciousness pushed in from all sides, drowning me in a new threat, and then the sudden fire of pain cut up my right side, yanking me back into consciousness, just as I fell and snagged onto something.

Water poured over me from above while I dangled in the air over a black river. Stars twinkled in the distance—no, not stars. I blinked. The city skyline. Then whatever my coat had snagged on gave a metallic groan and I fell, slapping into the surface of the Hudson hard enough for it to burn.

* * *

I crawled up the muddy bank several miles downriver. Shukra stood on the nearby pier, a hand on her hip and her spotless snow-white fur coat aglow in New York’s nighttime lights. She’d pulled her mass of smooth black hair into a plait that had more in common with a scorpion’s tail than a hairstyle. Shu could find me anywhere, and I her, thanks to the curse that bound us together. All we had to do was follow the path of least resistance.

She watched me drag myself through the mud until I got close enough to see the crooked smile on her lips.

“I quit.” I spat mud to the side. “Tomorrow, after I get my sword back.”

“I thought stupid was more of a calling and less of a career choice.”

Rolling onto my back, I showed her my middle finger. “Sobek’s back.”

“The god you snitched on?”

“You know about that, huh?”

She made a dismissive pfft noise. “I had a bet with the demon Shezmu that Sobek would devour the Soul Eater. I lost. He was insufferable for weeks. ”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“It’s okay. I ate his tongue.”

She wasn’t lying. Shu’s soul was a rotten, fetid thing. She was damned from the DNA up. Osiris had thought it amusing to bind us together: Soul Eater and a demon sorceress—eternal enemies. Ha-ha. Five hundred years later, he was still laughing. Shu and I had learned to live with each other, only because we didn’t have a choice.

The sounds of a nearby grumbling ferry engine and the distant beat of helicopter rotors soaked into the quiet, reminding me I’d been swimming in New York’s shit for the past few hours. I turned my head. Shukra was still there. Her unimpressed scowl wasn’t getting any lighter.

“It gets worse.”

She sighed. “With you, Ace, it always does.”

* * *

Shu admired the unrolled print of New York’s sewer overflow system spread across my desk as I tucked a three-thousand-year-old iron dagger into my belt. The blade was one of two, cast from meteorite iron. The other sat in a museum, alongside the boy-king Tutankhamun’s funerary hoard. The pair never rusted, and the only nick in my blade came from the time I’d tried to stab Osiris with it. Besides Alysdair, it was the only weapon potentially capable of ruining Sobek’s day. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would slow him down.

“You sure it’s him?” Shu asked, running her fingertips over the spaghetti map of tunnels, drains, and underground reservoirs.

“I got a good taste of his magic and nature doesn’t make crocs that big.” I moved up beside her. Sobek had enough juice that I knew roughly where to find him, but that didn’t make the thought of going back down into the sewers any more appealing. “It’s him, all right. But I don’t know why he’s collecting eggs beneath a city of eight million people.”

“He’s a god.” She shrugged. The gods had been known to level civilizations for no other reason than because they could. “The girl? How is she caught up in this?”

If Kiya was still alive, that meant Sobek needed her. “Not sure, but she seemed genuine.”

“You knew her?”

It was my turn to shrug. I hadn’t told Shu I’d recognized Kiya, but she must have caught something in my tone. “It was a long time ago. The world and our place in it have changed since then.”

Shu was weighing her next words on the tip of her tongue, which meant I wouldn’t like what came next.

“What?” I asked.

“Don’t let her crocodile smiles draw you in.”

I scooped up my tumbler of vodka and smiled into the drink. “I didn’t know you cared.”

Her lip curled in her typical thin, bloodless version of a smile. “I don’t want to dirty my boots coming after you.”

That was more like it.

I swirled vodka around my mouth, burning off the foul taste of mud and something like diesel, and swallowed. I’d have liked to chase it down with a few more glasses, purely to keep the cold at bay once I went back beneath the streets, but I needed my wits, dull as they were.

“I grew up with river beasts.” I set the empty glass down and scooped up my coat from the back of my chair, where I’d hung it to dry. “They taught me all I need to know about lying.”

A dank garbage smell wafted from the leather. I’d showered, but the rich smell of decay clung to me. I’d better get used to it. None of this shit would go away until I’d dealt with it.

“And Osiris?” Shu inquired in that oh-so-careful tone of hers, the one she used when she was treading carefully but failing miserably at it.

I hesitated, shrugging my coat on. The last thing I needed was another psychotic god involved. Osiris could dress himself in all the trappings of modern life he wanted, play the mayor, and fool the world, but that didn’t change who and what he was beneath the human act.

“Leave him out of it. With any luck, he’ll never know.”

An opportunity like this to settle an old score, Osiris would drag it out and make a spectacle out of it. There wasn’t any need to get him involved. I’d go back into the sewers, destroy the eggs, and convince Kiya and Sobek to go home. By nightfall, I’d be kicking back with vodka on the rocks.

Shu tapped the map, indicating a nature reserve nestled between three cemeteries on the Brooklyn-Queens border. “This is the site of the old Ridgewood reservoir. It’s nothing but trees and marshland now. You sure you want me there?”

“You remember the report of the missing jogger and the dozens of stolen pets from that neighborhood? There’s no way Sobek is living in the sewers, but he isn’t wandering the streets either, or we’d know about it. He wouldn’t know subtlety if it kissed him on the lips. He’s been imprisoned for centuries. He’ll want to be topside, but he’ll be hiding. Ridgewood isn’t far from where you found me. It’s perfect croc territory.”

“You don’t really think he’s eating pets?“ She saw my hard expression and nodded. “I might start liking him.”

That earned her a glower. “At least it isn’t children—yet. I want you there with Plan B. If I’m wrong, you can fish my body out of the Hudson and tell me you told me so.”

Shu’s eyes brightened at the thought of my carcass. “My money’s on Sobek.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

Shu didn’t care what happened to me. All she cared about was that I lived through it. My fate was her fate.

“You ready to show Sobek whose city this is?” I asked.

Mischief ringed her dark eyes with a hint of green. “You mean, show Sobek how Osiris owns New York and you’re the god’s little bitch?”

That was one way of putting it. “Exactly.”

“All right then.” She purred a guttural, back-of-the-throat noise that no human could make. “I haven’t maimed anything worthy in at least two weeks.”

* * *

The trip back into the sewers was just as unpleasant as the first, but at least I knew a prehistoric asshole was lying in wait. What other surprises could there possibly be?

The flow of water had risen above my thighs, and a bitter chill snatched at my breath, but after fifteen minutes, a blessed numbness crept in. Rain had rolled in over New York earlier that evening and showed no signs of letting up. That was a problem—these tunnels were designed to flood—but one I couldn’t do anything about. All I had to do was get in, do the job, and get out. Fast and dirty. With any luck, the runoff wouldn’t gather momentum for another few hours. By then, all this would be over.

I’d uttered a spell to light the way, but its constant hum nibbled at my concentration with needle teeth. Occasionally, when the sewer opened up, the spell weakened, briefly contracting as the darkness pushed in. Retracing my steps into the bowels of the nest should have been straightforward, but each turn and intersection looked like the one before.

I was beginning to doubt my navigational skills when a lick and fizzle of magic signaled I was close. I waded toward a duct opening and found myself back in the plunge-pool nest chamber, the air warm, wet, and ripe with magic. Perfect for incubation.

Egg casings lay shattered and strewn across the platform, their hatchling surprises gone. The chamber waters took on a whole new sinister edge. Eggs that size meant each youngling had to be half my size and strong enough to take fatal chunks out of me.

Standing in the mouth of the duct, I regarded the black, sloshing waters, and my heart thudded in my throat. Wrestling crocodiles was not in my skillset.

A shift in the air touched my cheek. My hand shot to my dagger, but the point pressing into my lower back froze my hand at my side.

Alysdair. I’d know the feel of that soul-sucking sword anywhere.

A low, deadly hiss sounded. “An interesting weapon, Soul Eater,” Kiya mused, her words fluttering against my neck. “How does it work?”

“Generally, you stick the pointy end into people you don’t like.” I must have walked right by her camouflaged in two feet of water. Damn, she was good.

“You know to what I refer. This is an enchanted sword. I feel its pull.”

I wasn’t about to tell her how Alysdair ate souls, especially when she had the tip stuck in my back. The sword wasn’t fussy. It would swallow me down like anyone else, but not without the spell. Without the words, it was just a sword with attitude.

“Show me your hands,” Kiya ordered.

I lifted my hands. “I came back to talk.”

“You came back to kill the younglings.”

“They shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you.”

The tip of the sword dug in deep enough to elicit a gasp from me. I needed my kidneys, what was left of them.

“Five hundred years, Nameless One. They say you’re afraid to return.” She pressed herself against the back of my shoulder. “You should be.”

Her words dripped with venom that hadn’t been there before. There was more to this than protecting the eggs. This was personal, and I had no clue why. “Put the sword down. Let’s talk. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You already did.”

Had the roar of the waterfall gotten louder? The current tugged at my coat, dragging it to one side as the water clawed a few inches above my knees and carried on climbing.

“You don’t remember,” she said, “but I do. I saw you weigh those souls. I believed you were a god of honor, that you punished the guilty and ushered the innocent into the afterlife. I watched you on the dais that day, with the power to weigh the life in your hands. You were Justice, and I believed.”

I had a hunch where this was going, because it always went there. She knew about my crimes, knew exactly what I’d done. I wasn’t her hero; I was the villain. And denying it wouldn’t do me any good; it was all true. “I’m not a god.”

“No, you’re not. You’re a nightmare.”

A rumbling started deep in the tunnels.

“Who was it?” I asked, turning my head to get a look at her over my shoulder. Scales shimmered across her cheek, highlighting the intensity of her scowl. Her slitted reptilian eyes cut deep into me. “Whose soul did I take?”

The corners of her green lips turned down and trembled. “Did it mean so little?”

I swallowed the taste of guilt, remembering the high, remembering how all those souls had filled me up and made me glorious with power. I’d slipped deeper and deeper into the trap of addiction, weighing soul after soul and lying. Damned, I’d tell the gods. They’re all damned. Lies, so many lies, and all so I could gorge on power.

“Centuries, I waited,” Kiya hissed, “but you did not return.”

I couldn’t return, but I doubted Kiya cared about the details. As far as she knew, I’d left the underworld with my tail between my legs, cursed into Osiris’s service. For the gravity of my crimes, it wasn’t justice. In her eyes, and in the eyes of all those I’d wronged, I’d gotten off with a slap on the wrist. They didn’t know the truth. And really, would it matter if they did? I was the liar, the thief, the monster.

“When it was clear you were never coming back, I decided to come to you.”

“If it’s any consolation, five hundred years is a long time. I’m not the same man.”

She laughed a shrill animal sound at that. “Of course you are.”

The rumbling grew louder, shuddering through the bricks beneath my boots.

“I knew Sobek would help me. The others are too afraid of you, but not the River God. He ha—”

A wall of water poured into the chamber with the force of a subway train. I had a breathless second to snatch at the air before the torrent picked me up and slammed me against the bricks. Pain cracked up my spine and exploded inside my skull, shattering my consciousness into a thousand pieces and burying it under the black.

* * *

The smells of leaf mulch and wet grass clogged my nose, and the patter of rain stirred consciousness back into my throbbing head. I was alive, that much my aching body made clear.

“Ah, it wakes.” The voice was male, gruff from little use, and came at me like an arrow shot from my past.

I squinted in its direction and laid eyes on a god I’d last seen kicking and screaming down the Halls as the jackals dragged him away. Sobek sat at a jaunty angle on a tree stump, knees drawn up. A hacksaw rested across his naked, scaled thighs. A red and black brocade tailcoat hung from his narrow shoulders. The seams had peeled apart and much of the fabric hung in tatters. With its high collar and pirate cuffs, it looked like something a costume store had tossed in the trash. He’d found the coat in the sewers, probably the same place he’d found that rusted saw. I’d seen a few crazy-ass things in New York, but a crocodile god in tails was new.

The smile on his narrow face looked like the one I must have worn as I watched him sink all the way into virsosurae—the only prison capable of holding him. Only, too many teeth filled his smile.

He didn’t look ancient and didn’t act it either—at least he hadn’t when I knew him. Back then, he’d been a trickster, a keeper of chaos, and a player of games. Now, seeing him slide his green-eyed crocodilian gaze over me, I figured his motives were a little simpler. Just like Kiya had said, he’d suffered for centuries, locked away, while I’d spent my time cruising around the mortal world, seemingly without a care. I’d be pissed too.

Revenge.

Live long enough, and all your mistakes will come back to hunt you down. Trust me, I know.

I wet my lips and scanned the forest clearing, looking for Kiya among the shadow-wrapped trees, but in the low light and with my head throbbing, I could be looking right at her without knowing it. How long had I been unconscious? No more than an hour? We had to be within city limits. The charcoal sky held an orange hue, but the heavy patter of rain drowned out any city noises.

I tugged on my wrists, which were bound together behind my back. Had my hands been free, directing a spellword would’ve been the quick and effective way out—if Kiya had been my jailor. But my words would slide right off Sobek and probably lash back at me hard enough to knock me out. I had power, but not enough to compel a god. Not anymore.

“You dragged Kiya into your vendetta against me?” I asked.

Sobek barked a sharp, shallow laugh. “She came to me.” He stabbed a finger at his bare chest between the lapels of his fancy coat. Hopping off the stump, he swaggered across the uneven ground, hips and shoulders swaying like the crocodile he was inside. “Five centuries, Soul Eater.” He said my name with a throaty hiss. “I blunted my claws scratching the name of my enemy into the walls of my little stone cell.”

No points for guessing whose name that was. I shifted and managed to heave myself into a sitting position. Rotten leaves stuck to my clothes and water soaked into my pants, gnawing at my bones. Marshland. With a stroke of luck, this was Ridgewood and Shu would ride in on a white steed to save my ass. Any second now. Right on cue … or not.

“What name did you use?” I asked, looking up at the god bearing down on me. “I have a few.”

He crouched to my eye level and peered into my gaze, knowing if he looked too long I’d see his soul and know exactly what he was made of. We’d been down this road before.

Flicking my eyes away, I said, “Don’t do this.”

He draped his arms over his knees. The hacksaw dangled from his grip, its rusted teeth lined up like those in his crocodile smile.

“Nameless One, they call you. The cursed thief. The liar. And here, in this world, it’s Ace Dante, isn’t it? Cute.”

He’d been watching me and waiting down in the sewers, building his nests, slotting whatever plan he’d concocted together.

“What are you doing here, Sobek?”

“Having some fun. What else?”

His idea of fun had been creating a flood to sweep away a year’s worth of crops, or dragging children to their deaths below the surface of his domain, or sinking a few cargo boats to pass the time. That was before I’d revealed his rotten soul to the gods, and thanks to me, he’d had five hundred years of imprisonment to concoct a new idea of fun. He’d have a riot in the Hudson.

“The people in this city made of lights and noise, they don’t know”—he clicked his tongue, added a dramatic pause, then performed an equally dramatic hand gesture—“what you are.”

“What I am is wet and hungry.”

He swept a hand toward the tree line. “They don’t know there’s a beast among them. A creature made of all the wrongs, made of sand and dark magic, who would devour them all if he believed he could get away with it.”

“I’m not like I was.”

“We shall see.” He clapped his hands together, the crack sounding like gunfire as it hurtled through the dark.

“Whatever you think you’re doing here, don’t. Take Kiya and those younglings and go home. I won’t warn you again.”

He chuckled, insanity leaking from the bubbling sound, and took a few backward steps. “You didn’t warn me when you told them all what I’d done. You didn’t warn me when the jackals came. And don’t lie and say you were doing the right thing. I know lies. You are no hero, Soul Eater. You wanted me out of the way.” He paced through the mulch, back and forth, back and forth, his bare feet kicking up leaves. “Well, Sobek got you. Sobek got you good. Sobek told them what you really are, and they got you. THEY GOT YOU TOO!”

If there was anything I hated more than gods, it was gods who were batshit crazy. Sobek had never been the pillar of sanity, and five hundred years spent in isolation hadn’t helped. I couldn’t reason with the insane, which meant my only option was Shu and Plan B—if she made it in time.

I could break the twine binding my wrists if I leveraged it at the right angle. I shifted, got my knees under me, and staggered to my feet. Sobek’s pacing halted and the god looked me up and down, a tight snarl pulling at his top lip.

“You ate her brother’s soul,” he said, “and you don’t care, do you?”

A painful jolt struck my heart, sudden and vicious. Did he mean Khuy? “No, I—”

“Did his soul taste sweet? Did you enjoy devouring your friend?” Sobek’s green eyes glowed with malice. “I see that you did. Sobek knows you. Sobek knew the real you the moment you turned on him. Hiding in plain sight, you were. Before then, I hadn’t thought you worthy Ammit, of the Great Devourer. I didn’t understand how a god so great as her could take you in. But I let your differences blind me. I see you now, Soul Eater. I see your soul, and it is a black, hungry thing. You look at me—at us—and you see sustenance.”

“That’s not true.” But it was, and the hammering in my chest, the panic in my head, proved it.

“Liar!” he bellowed, and that single word sailed into the rain-soaked night. “Your lies,” he hissed, “do they taste like acid on your tongue?”

“Enough!” I snapped the twine and rolled my shoulders. “Go home—”

“Go home, go home.” He laughed and spread his arms wide. “An abandoned place inside the beating heart of this human city. A … what is it they call it?” He clicked his fingers. “A nature reserve? I like this home, and I will show them what you are, Soul Eater. I will make them believe there’s a monster among them. They’ll see … they’ll see good.”

My fingers itched to wrap around his throat. “What did you do?”

“The younglings, they are so feisty … and so many. Do you think that was the only nest I stole? Oh no, no, no … there is a labyrinth beneath the city, and I will let the young out to play.”

“How many?” My heart hammered harder.

“Hundreds … hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.” Sharp teeth clicked behind his wicked smile. “She has so many. She will not miss them, the mother.”

Dread sank in my gut, turning it to stone. Had they all hatched? Were they working their way through the sewers, about to give New Yorkers a wake up call? Oh, hey. The Egyptian gods? They’re real, and here’re some rabid, magically enhanced Nile crocodiles to prove it. Have a nice day.

“Sobek, gods-be-damned, stop this now.”

He threw his head back and laughed, insanity warping the sound and turning it into a high-pitched howl.

I reached for my dagger, but my fingers grasped air. Kiya must have taken it. Spellwords wouldn’t work. I needed to stall him until Shu got here. What else did I have over a god?

“A bargain?” I flung the offer at him.

He turned one reptilian eye on me, suddenly interested. “Bargain?”

“A deal. You always liked a deal, Sobek.”

“Mm …” The sound rattled in his throat. “And what is it you can offer me, Soul Eater? I am free. What more do I need but the sky above my head and the earth beneath my feet?”

Think fast. “Do you have my dagger?”

Right on cue, Kiya peeled from the trees, the camouflaged skin of her arm rippling where she embraced Shu against her chest, and in her hand, she held my dagger, its tip pressed against Shu’s neck. Fury blazed in my business partner’s eyes, but not fear. She could stop this at any second. I lifted a hand, palm out, and tried to convey a “don’t do anything rash” look to Shu. We were still on the right side of control, though barely.

“You killed my brother,” Kiya snarled. “You swallowed his soul.”

Shadows moved across the forest floor, rustling between the bushes and through the reeds. Low and deadly rumbles sounded in the dark. At least I knew where the younglings were.

“I didn’t know,” I replied, looking Kiya in the eye. It was true. I never would have taken my friend’s soul had I been in my right mind, but the hunger, the desire to devour—I’d lost my mind to it. “His death, my sins, it’s between us. Leave this city out of our grievances.” I swung my gaze back to Sobek. “A deal, right? Call back the younglings, all of them. Send them home. Then take up my blade and kill me. I won’t fight you.”

Sobek’s broad grin twitched like a living thing. “Now, now, Mister Ace Dante. You cannot trick a trickster. We are all liars here. Besides, I do not want you dead. I want you punished!”

“No deals!” Kiya snapped. “I’ll kill your woman.”

I almost laughed. Shu was no woman, nor was she mine, but now was not the time to enlighten our crowd. Shu would do it for them soon enough.

I let my smile out to play, the soul eater smile, the crooked one, and gave my wet coat a flick to dislodge the mud and leaves. “I’ve crawled through sewers, swallowed things I’d prefer not to think about, and what little honor I have left has been dragged through the mud. So you all want to play dirty?” All eyes were on me. The crocs’, Kiya’s, Shu’s, and Sobek’s. I kept my gaze on Sobek and held my hand out to the side, toward Shu and Kiya. “I can do dirty.”

Sobek’s slippery smile grew, and I knew that look. Just like old times.

“Cukkomd!” Command. I threw the word at Kiya, freezing her solid. The compulsion pulled between Kiya and me, instantly sinking in and binding her to my control.

Sobek’s nostrils flared in indignation.

“Throw me the blade,” I commanded Kiya. “Attack Sobek.” I pushed the compulsion deeper, burying it inside her soul. I couldn’t command her to kill a god—that can’t be done—but I could keep him busy.

Kiya’s eyes glazed over. She flung the dagger at me, shoved Shu forward, and lunged for Sobek. At the same time, the undergrowth erupted in a boiling mass of reptiles.

I snatched the dagger out of the air and yelled at Shu, “Deal with them!”

She was already on it, hands out, crackles of energy dancing between her fingertips, a spell spilling from her lips.

I bolted for Sobek as Kiya swept a low punch at his middle. He backhanded her aside as if he were swatting a fly. She posed no real threat to him, but she did buy me time. I tackled him, throwing my entire weight into him, and slammed him against the nearest tree hard enough that the trunk cracked. He let out a strangled cry and punched the butt of the hacksaw into my cheek. Something inside my face cracked, flooding the right side of my face with splintered needles of pain, but I didn’t have time to hesitate. I slammed my free palm under his chin and jolted his jaw shut. I didn’t want the god throwing spellwords around.

Warm, slippery blood poured over my hand wrapped around the dagger handle. I’d punched the blade deep into Sobek’s side. I had him pinned, but it would take more than a dagger to stop a god. I didn’t have the power I’d once reveled in, but all the gods feared a part of me—the very reason they shied away from me.

“Listen up, Lizardman,” I growled.

He whipped his head to the side, trying to yank his jaw free. I pinched my fingers into his cheeks and gripped his face tighter, then peered into his eyes. He couldn’t look away and wouldn’t. As my gaze sank deeper, he wanted me to see into his rotten core. If I got a taste of a soul as black as his, it would drag me down with it. Before, I’d seen his soul and shied away, preferring to reveal his sins than deal with them myself, but now I had a city of eight million innocent people—eight million souls—to protect. It may not make up for the sins of my past, but it would sure go a long way toward lifting the guilt.

Laughter bubbled up the god’s throat. He didn’t think I’d do it. The old me wouldn’t have. I’d stolen the light, the innocent, those who should have been granted an eternity in the afterlife. Only the lightest, the sweetest, the most innocent would do. But the old me was gone.

I twisted the blade and watched pain pinch his eyes. “I’ve never taken a god’s soul,” I murmured. The truth was: I wasn’t sure if I could, but with Plan B fallen by the wayside and countless hungry crocodiles bearing down on me, I was running out of options fast.

The pain in his eyes hardened, turning into fear.

“That’s right. Even the gods fear the soul eaters.” My gaze drilled deeper, hunting that raging, swirling nightmare at his center. The deeper I dug, the more the edges of his soul shied away. I reached and it recoiled, slipping around my grasp, but I’d have it. A little further and the god’s tattered soul would be mine.

“Not … a … hero.” Sobek squeezed the words through his teeth.

“People change. Sometimes, monsters do too.” I sank the hooks into his lashing soul and got hold of its oily mass. The dark slithered and shuddered, but it was weak. Five hundred years spent stewing in his own madness had beaten Sobek’s soul into submission. All I had to do was take.

I hesitated as reality fell away. The darkness I was about to consume would poison me from the inside out. Everything I’d worked for in the last few years, every good deed, every sacrifice I’d made to lift the darkness from my soul—I was about to drown it all in Sobek’s child-eating, murderous madness.

“Ace, no!”

Too late, Shu. Someone has to hold back the dark. If I closed my eyes, if I looked away, if I let him go, I could survive with the pieces of my ragged soul intact. But Sobek wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t be bargained with; he couldn’t be persuaded. He was a predator at heart. This was just the beginning.

Maybe it was better this way. It would take millennia to cleanse the rot from my soul, and I didn’t have that long.

“Ksav ovoae, Kuir Aosar.” Step away, Soul Eater. With the smooth, calm female voice, a heady and suffocating power washed over the marshland, pushing against my back and numbing my senses. There are gods, and then there are the “don’t fuck with me, I created the universe” gods. Plan B had arrived.

A chorus of clicks and grumbles joined the sweet push of power. All around the marsh, animals twittered and croaked, joining the crocodiles in their chorus.

Slowly, carefully, I unhooked my grip on Sobek’s soul and withdrew, stepping back.

He snatched at my coat. “Do not leave,” he pleaded, double eyelids furiously blinking. “Do not leave me with her. A deal—let’s make a deal. Sobek likes deals. We’re the same. Sobek knows you. Help me … please.”

I plucked his grip free and watched his expression fall and all the color drain from his face. The smattering of scales paled to a milky white, and with good reason. His gaze flicked over my shoulder, and what he saw pushed him back against the tree. He was a hair’s breadth away from running, but he wouldn’t get far.

I kept my gaze low, turned slowly, dropped to a knee in the sodden earth, and spoke the old words. “Ovamems uk sra Woaek, Musrar uk sra Reqar.” Opener of the Ways, Mother of the River. “Forgive my actions, Neith. Your son and I—”

“Seramca.” Silence.

The weight of her power lashed at my thoughts and turned them over, rifling through the memories of the last few minutes.

When you can’t beat a god, summon one who can.

“You think to devour my son, Kuir Aosar?” Neith’s flowing voice wove around me, sweeping me up. Her words held no malice, but they didn’t need to. She could strike me out of existence with the click of her claw-tipped fingers.

“Your son is not meant for this world.” I glared at a patch of turned-over leaves and listened to the crocs grumbling. Shukra was close, and Kiya too, but I didn’t dare lift my head. You don’t look upon a goddess without an invitation unless you want to spend the next decade displayed somewhere public for the entire pantheon to see. The danger of bringing in a bigger, more badass god was that they could always go biblical. But in Sobek’s case, it had been a risk worth taking.

“I do not take kindly to your sorceress summoning me, Nameless One.”

A golden glow lapped at my knee, where I’d sunk a few inches into the mud. Neith stood close, close enough that the weight of her power leaned on my wits, numbing the edges. I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. I should have felt anxious, but I couldn’t gather my senses together to feel much of anything, other than submission. Unlike Osiris, Neith had no intention of hiding who and what she was. I didn’t need to play games with her. It was both terrifying and … refreshing.

“My apologies. We were left with—”

“And to find you, of all creatures, daring to consume my son’s soul. What am I to do with a soul eater?”

This was probably the part where I should remind her who owned me, but I was still clinging to the vain hope that I could keep all this from landing in Osiris’s lap. If he knew I’d gone over his head to bring Neith in, the repercussions would give me new nightmares.

“K-kill him, mother,” Sobek stuttered.

Power, sharp and bright, lashed through the clearing like lightning. I flinched, expecting to feel it slice through me, but when the seconds ticked on and the pain didn’t come, I peeked at where Sobek had been standing and saw wisps of smoke rising off the scorched tree.

“Soul Eater.” Neith’s hand settled on my head. I ducked low, but that didn’t stop the pins and needles of power from stabbing down my neck. Her light flooded in, burning through my closed eyelids. “I know what you would have sacrificed here, I saw your intentions, but a mother is nothing if she does not have her children.”

Even if those children are monsters, I finished silently.

“Indeed.” She chuckled, and I flinched. She knew my thoughts. Damn, what else did she know?

“I also know it only takes a little light to chase away the dark.”

Her hand lifted and the painful brush of power faded. When I finally lifted my head, Neith and Sobek had vanished, Shu was plucking leaves from her ruined coat, and Kiya was attempting to corral the crocodiles to one side of the clearing.

“You!” Kiya snapped as I approached. “Stay back!”

I lifted my hands. “I can help you if you help me. Stay here, help me get these and any stray crocodiles under control, and I’ll protect you and them.”

Fear gathered in her eyes. “I cannot stay here. I do not like this world.” She looked around as though seeing the clearing for the first time and murmured, “But I cannot get home without Sobek.”

“Find all the younglings. They’ll listen to you. Bring them here. I’ll talk to Osiris about getting you home.”

“You will?”

I wouldn’t tell him everything, and the favor would come with a price, but I’d killed her brother and now she was stuck here. Nothing could erase what I’d done. Getting her and the crocs home was the least I could do. I owed her that much.

“Can you get them all here without anyone seeing you?”

“Yes.”

“Then we have a deal?”

“Agreed.” She eyed me like she still wanted to pick her teeth with my bones. Most people—once they got to know me—gave me the same look. She’d get her revenge, but not today. Today, she had the younglings to protect and a nature reserve to call home. She turned away and I let out a breath.

Somewhere in the distance, carried on the damp breeze, a car horn blared. New York lived and breathed just beyond the trees. Another day, maybe a week, or, if I was lucky, a whole month might go by with no godly bullshit creeping into the city.

I flicked my coat collar up and caught Shu eyeing me out the corner of her eye. “What?”

“You owe me a new pair of boots.”

* * *

The dagger was back in its box, tucked away inside my desk, and Alysdair leaned against the filing cabinet, the enchanted blade hidden inside its sheath. Kiya had left it outside my office door as a clear indication that she knew exactly where to find me.

Down the hall, Shu’s phone was ringing, but in my office, in the dark, all I listened to was the patter of rain against the window and the rumble of nighttime traffic. I pressed an ice pack against my cheek, the ghost of Sobek’s punch still aching.

“It only takes a little light to chase away the dark.”

When a goddess like Neith talks, you damn well listen. She knew her son was rotten to the core, and she knew I’d intended to drink his putrid soul down. Considering most gods couldn’t bare to look at me, her response had been … surprising. I’d expected her to deal with Sobek—and she had—but I’d also expected her to screw with me. Instead, she’d been nice. That was more unsettling than crocs in the sewers or a mad reptilian god in tails. Gods weren’t nice—not without a reason.

But it was done. Sobek was gone, for now, and Kiya was otherwise occupied with herding crocs.

I lifted my drink and eyed the clear vodka inside, wishing it had all the answers. Maybe if I kept drinking, one day I’d find them.

My cell rang, playing the chorus from “Red Right Hand” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. I threw back the vodka, closed my eyes, and let it burn down deep.

Just one loose end to tie up.

Tossing the ice pack on the desk, I lifted my cell, keeping my eyes closed, and answered. “Osiris.”

* * *

Continue the Soul Eater series in Hidden Blade, #1 Soul Eater

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* * *

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About the Author

Born in Tonbridge, Kent in 1979, — "Wait a second. Let's cut to the chase. I write kick-ass urban fantasy novels with conflicted characters, breathless action, and no-holds-barred dialogue. My books may not leave you feeling all fluffy and warm inside, but they will excite you. There will be plot-twists, there will be angst, probably a few dead bodies, and very likely your favorite character will turn out to be the bad guy. Don't say I didn't warn you—”

—Pippa's family moved to the South West of England where she grew up among the dramatic moorland and sweeping coastlands of Devon & Cornwall. With a family history brimming with intrigue, complete with Gypsy angst on one side and Jewish survivors on another, she has the ability to draw from a patchwork of ancestry and use it as inspiration for her writing. Happily married and the mother of two little girls, she resides on the Devon & Cornwall border.

Contact Pippa here:

- @pippadacosta

- pippadacosta

www.pippadacosta.com
pippa@pippadacosta.com

Copyright © 2016

The Bull Demon King - J. A. Cipriano

The Black Door - Domino Finn

Dance of the Dead - Sonya Bateman

Hard Row - Ambrose Ibsen

Angry Spark - Al K Line

Family Business - Rob Cornell

Valentine Blues - James A. Hunter

A Drive In The Country - Craig Schaefer

Chase The Dark - Pippa DaCosta

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