by N. P. Martin
When I turned on to Comptonville Street, a block away from the Sanctum, I walked into an underpass where the morning light had yet to penetrate properly. I had barely set foot inside when the gloom of the underpass turned to full darkness, and the light at the openings disappeared as if the tunnel I was in had become sealed off to the outside world. The question was, who sealed it?
Whoever or whatever sealed me inside the tunnel had a dark presence to it, that much was certain. The air around me became thick with the smell of black magic as if there were a hundred animal carcasses in there with me. But rather than be repulsed by the smell, a large part of me welcomed it. Or rather, welcomed the dark magic it was emanating from.
For a few elongated seconds I wanted nothing more than to drink that malignant magic in, to take it deep inside so I could indulge the twisted, dark places of my mind and psyche. Before the dark magic could get its hooks into me, however, I managed to fortify myself against it with my own magic, creating a forcefield of sorts around myself that manifested as a kind of glowing blue bubble. The light from my magic penetrated the darkness by only a few feet, and I could see nothing beyond that perimeter. Although I didn’t need my sight to know that there was an unmistakably evil presence in the tunnel with me.
"Show yourself!" I shouted whilst projecting a fierce sense of fearlessness, a necessity lest dark spirits turn your emotions against you, to take advantage of momentary weakness to bridge the gaps in their strength that will enable them to defeat you. "Why are you following me, spirit?"
Something flew overhead, like a large bat in the darkness. Then again, back and forth like the thing was trying to taunt me or make me afraid of it, which to be honest, it was doing a good job of, at least with the taunting part. When you only have a day or so left before your life as you now it gets decimated forever, you tend to be a little tetchy and a bit intolerant of annoyances like that, no matter how malevolent they were.
A raspy, whispering voice sounded throughout the tunnel, the voice seeming to bounce off the brick walls in every direction. “Creeeeeed…” the voice rasped. “Creeeeeeddddd!”
“Is that supposed to scare me?” I made a point of laughing at the thing overhead. “You obviously don’t know who you’re dealing with here. If you don’t fuck off right now, I’ll take great pleasure in banishing you to the Abyss where you will toil in your own insanity for eternity.”
I was about to open my mouth to spit more threats at the apparition when it felt like a freight train plowed into me. A great force broke through my protective shield like it was nothing, slamming me against the brick wall, the shock and heavy impact knocking the wind clean out of me as surely as a fist to the solar plexus.
And then right in front of me, there appeared a face. A terrible looking face with a malignant, twisted smile. The face was unmistakably human, perhaps even familiar, though it was too distorted for me to tell. I soon realized, though, that the face belonged no ordinary apparition. I was looking at the deliberate manifestation of someone's twisted soul, someone who existed in solid physical form somewhere else. The eyes that stared back at me were light green but swirled with darkness and malevolent intent mixed with sadistic enjoyment. It was difficult not to feel rattled by those eyes, by the depth of evil in them. But despite the cold fear those eyes inspired, I still tried to summon my magic to launch some sort of counter attack. My magic was blocked, however, by the much stronger magic flowing from the apparition, which put me entirely at the mercy of the thing that glowed faintly but clearly in front of me. "How do you know my name?" I asked in an attempt to buy more time to crack through its defenses.
"I know much about you, August Creed," the dark spirit said. "You used to know me also…" It trailed off and smiled grotesquely while it waited for the penny to drop.
"You killed that girl," I said. "You're who I was chasing. You cast the spell. You put this curse on me."
I tried to push back against the power that was holding me, but neither my magic or my physical strength moved me an inch. It was like a thousand nails had pinned me to the wall. “Why are you doing this? What have I ever done to you?”
The apparition's face came closer. Its eyes, full of strange and unfathomable darkness, bored into me. "You wouldn't leave me alone to complete my work," it spat, pushing with yet more force again, crushing my chest ever more painfully still as it mimicked the freight train it bestowed. "You had to keep pursuing me. The spell was my way of getting rid of you and myself in the process. With no one remembering me or what I did, now I can carry on my work in peace, without busy bodies like you meddling in things that don't concern them."
Son of a bitch. This was the motherfucker that cursed me, who put a ticking time bomb inside me. I stared into that face, trying to recognize it, but it was so twisted up and constantly shifting that it was difficult to make out properly. “Fuck you and your spell. I’ll have it lifted soon enough.”
"Ah yes, the demon." It laughed when it saw how much of a surprise it must've been for me that I could still show it on my face, despite the concrete scowl caused by being in so much pain. "You will never pay the demon what it wants. We both know you're too moral for that, Creed."
Despite the spell, this apparition—this person—still seemed to know things about me. No point asking how. He cast the spell in the first place, so he could control who it affected, choosing to keep his memories intact, to give him an edge I was sorely lacking. I wondered how long I was chasing him for before he cast that spell. Weeks? Months? Years even? "Hide behind your apparition if you want," I said. "I'll still find you. I'll stop you."
The pressure increased in my chest until it felt like my sternum was going to cave in. Then I felt icy fingers push up under my ribs. "Then perhaps," the apparition said in that raspy whisper. "I should just rip out your soul now, devour it whole…" The cold fingers pushed further inside me as they grasped at my soul. My teeth gritted against the scream that wanted to come out of my mouth. He was going to do it, whoever he was. He was going to rip my soul right out of me, finish me there and then.
As I felt the fingers tighten, images of my family flashed through my mind. Scenes of walking through green fields of tall grass with my brother and sister as we tried to take possession of and control the birds in the sky, quickly followed by images of them all dead and then of Leona, of her blue eyes and the soft smile she reserved only for me, and then my father's face, cold and stern, his gray eyes beaming his disapproval as always.
And that's when it hit me. There was only one way to fight back against the apparition, and that was to channel its dark power into me. The channels were already open thanks to the demon summoning, and the apparition's hands were inside me, which meant they could act as a conduit. So with the last of my concentration, I focused on tapping into the vile black magic that powered the apparition, taking the darkness in before the apparition, and the killer behind it, even knew what I was doing. Its face flared up in rage when it felt me draw on its power, but by then it was too late. The balance had tipped in my favor. With the scales now evenly weighted, I had enough to push back against it, and a deeply pitched scream of rage exploded from me as I blasted the apparition with its own power, sending it reeling back.
And my, what dark power it was. Darker even than the power I experienced at the demon summoning. This was another level, despite there only being a minuscule amount of it nonetheless raging through me. With that kind of power, and with enough of it, I got the sense that it would be possible to destroy entire worlds if one so desired. I also got the sense that whoever the person was manifesting as that grotesque spirit, they planned to do just that. They planned on plunging the world into eternal darkness.
"You yet surprise me, Creed," the apparition said as it floated around me, maintaining a respectable distance this time as I followed it, tendrils of black magic trailing from my fingertips like snakes. "You willingly taint yourself with the foul stench of my magic." It moved hypnotically like a cobra in the darkness a
s it spoke. "Do you like it, Creed? Does it eclipse your weaker light magic? Does it fill your body with pleasure and your mind with dark desires that you even now grow impatient to fulfill? Do you want to give yourself to it, Creed?"
The blacker magic was seeping deeper into me, almost like the apparition was somehow coaxing it to do so. And as much as I wanted that to happen right then—as much as I wanted to give myself, as the apparition said, over completely to a much darker power—I still had that voice inside me somewhere, faintly but insistently reminding me of who I was and what I still had left to do.
"Fuck you," I snarled at the apparition, forcefully compelling the black magic out of me. Which goddamn hurt like hell I can tell you, like thousands of tiny barbs pulling at my skin, shredding my flesh internally.
“Coward!” the apparition screamed at me.
When I expelled the last of the black magic from my body, I quickly uttered a spell that a split second later filled the entire tunnel with a blinding white light that even I had to close my eyes against. Then I heard a high pitched scream from the apparition. A second later, I opened my eyes, the bright light in the tunnel now giving way to natural daylight.
And no apparition.
25
Mr. Black
BACK INSIDE THE Sanctum, I made myself a coffee and sat at the kitchen table just as the morning sun streamed through the grimy window, the bright but cool rays feeling good on my skin. The light was a welcome contrast to the darkness I had just faced in the underpass…and the darkness that was still inside me.
I can’t keep letting dark magic inside me like that, I told myself. It wasn't good for me, especially the way it always left me feeling like all I wanted to do was plot out some nefarious plan to bring darkness to the world.
Speaking of which, whoever was behind that apparition in the tunnel (Mr. Black, as I had just now decided to name him) also wanted darkness to descend on the world. Quite how Mr. Black planned on doing that, I wasn't sure yet. Obviously, rituals involving human sacrifice were a big part of the plan in order to channel power from a Dimension Lord, which appeared to be working for the guy because his power was like none I had ever encountered before. It was blacker than black. And as to the motives of that headcase…well I wouldn't have liked to speculate. Who cared anyway? He was clearly just insane, consumed completely by his own lust for the darkest of powers, and by the power itself.
One thing was certain, though. I would hunt Mr. Black down, just like I did before. Once I got out from under the spell he had cast on me that is. I would be more careful about my pursuit than I was before, however. Maybe I didn't fully know who I was dealing with last time, which is why I wasn't prepared enough when I finally caught up with him. I wouldn't make the same mistake again, that was for sure.
My phone rang, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Where are you?” said Leona Lawson.
“Home. Why?”
"You might want to meet me. There's been more murders. Same MO as the last girl."
I sat forward in my chair. “Did you say murders plural?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“What?” Leona asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Tell me where you are.”
Leona gave me the address of the crime scene.
“On my way,” I told her.
* * *
I pulled the Cadillac up outside the address Leona had given me. An abandoned warehouse in Bayside, across the bridge in Bankhurst. The warehouse was one of many that were due for development along the edge of the shipyards. A fleet of black SUVs and Sedans were parked outside the crumbling warehouse, with men in dark suits and ear pieces guarding the entrance to the building.
It looks like Division has the place locked down tight, I thought. I saw no sign of the city cops or even the FBI, which meant that Division was keeping this one tight under wraps, as they always did with magic related murder and mayhem.
As I got out of the car, two tall men in black suits came walking over, their guns visible under their jackets. "You can't be here," one of them said as he moved to force me back into the car again. "Get the hell out of here now." His hand went to his gun as he stopped two feet from me.
“Relax, will you?” I said, holding my hands up. “I’m here by request. Lawson sent for me.”
The guy took his gun out and aimed it at me, as did his partner. “Get back in the car before I shoo—”
“Let him in, Martinez.” It was Leona, standing in the doorway that led into the warehouse. “He’s with me.”
Martinez, a heavy set guy with dark, gelled hair, lowered his gun, but still held it in his hand as he looked at me as if I was the cause of the murders inside. "Can I go now?" I said to him. "Unless you want to shoot me. You look like you really want to shoot me."
With tightly clamped lips on his shaking head, this Martinez fellow grudgingly stepped aside, clearly having already decided in a mere ten seconds that he hated everything about me. Sometimes on mostly military trained personnel who're incapable or reluctant of looking past a superficial impression—in my case the weird front of an unruly cowboy without his Stetson—I could be known to have this affect on them. I shook my head at him as I walked toward the warehouse.
Leona held the door open for me. "This way," she said, her face grimmer than usual, which told me the scene inside wasn't going to be pretty (not that murder was ever pretty). For her part she looked gorgeous in her pant suit, attire she didn't wear nearly often enough if you were to ask me, her preference being the utilitarian practicality and comfort of her fatigues and coat. She wore it well, though, the trousers tight around her muscular thighs and curvy ass. Women in power suits were always a turn on for me. I thought about telling her that but decided against it when her face told me it would be inappropriate. Still, she looked sexy as hell.
“You’re all very serious, you know that?” I said as I went inside. “That dude wanted to shoot me. Wanted to.”
Leona shook her head. “Stop exaggerating, Creed. You’re lucky you’re even here. Brentwood didn’t want any unauthorized personnel on the scene. He doesn’t want this getting out and causing a panic.”
“Brentwood? He’s here?”
She pointed toward the center of the large warehouse where Division personnel stood around what appeared to be an arrangement of dead bodies with small piles of something beside each one. "He thinks you might be useful in this particular case. Don't give him any reason to think otherwise."
I made a tutting sound. "As if I would do that."
Brentwood spotted us walking across the floor. He excused himself from the conversation he was having with two other dark-suited personnel. Then he started toward us before we could get to the murder scene. From a distance, and through the crowd of people, I saw a number of bodies on the floor, maybe five or six, arranged into a circle of sorts. I also saw a lot of blood and what disturbingly looked like piles of guts on the debris-strewn floor. Brentwood loomed into view before I could take anything else in.
"You must be Creed," he said, not bothering to offer his hand. Brentwood was a tall, well-built black man with a perfectly smooth bald head and wide eyes that seemed to bore right into you. Like most of his team, Brentwood also had a special forces background, moving on to the CIA after the military. His back was always poker straight, his chest and shoulders always pushing out his unwavering self-confidence. Like everyone else there, he was dressed in a dark spook suit.
“Yes,” I said, a stupid smile on my face. “That’s me.”
The head of The Division gave me a hard look. “Is something funny?”
“Funny?” I shook my head. “No, it’s just—”
“We know each other already, I know. Lawson already filled me in. Did I like you?”
“Not really.”
“Thought as much.” He looked me up and down for a second. “Anyway, you’re saying the sick son of a bitch who did this has done it before? Only no one remembers, is
that it?”
“Pretty much,” I said.
Brentwood sighed and shook his head. "This job gets stranger every goddamn day."
“You say that a lot,” I said as I pondered if he's who Leona adopted it from. “Just something I know about you.”
There was a moment of awkwardness, at least for me, as Brentwood glared. Then he said, “Come on, I’ll show you the scene.”
When Brentwood turned to walk away, Leona looked at me and shook her head. Before I could even ask what, she strutted after Brentwood.
It was as I said to her. Division personnel was deadly serious about everything.
26
Synchronized Swimming
BRENTWOOD DISMISSED ALL personnel at the murder scene by telling them all to go and get coffee. By the time I approached the scene, it was just him and Leona standing there, Brentwood staring expectantly at me as I rushed to take everything in. "Have you ever seen anything like this before?" he asked. “Because I sure as shit haven’t.”
Looking at the bodies and the shocking amount of blood around the scene, I doubted if anyone had ever borne witness to such horror before. Seven different bodies lay on the floor with a summoning boundary circle drawn around them, although there was so much blood, you could hardly see the circle anymore. Judging from the symbols I could make out around the circle, I would have said they were the same symbols that were present at the last murder site. But like I said, there was so much blood it was hard to tell.
Son of a bitch, I thought. Mr. Black must have done this before his apparition cornered me in that underpass.
And by the looks of things, the killer was stepping things up. A single victim was one thing. Seven at once was quite another. “Seven sacrifices,” I muttered to myself.
