by N. P. Martin
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Leona said, her voice at a normal level again. “Don’t try to eat the damn wolf while I’m gone.”
No chance of that. Blaez was staying well away from me, lying in the kitchen somewhere, I think. The wolf wasn’t afraid of me exactly, but it was afraid it would have to hurt me if I tried to attack it in any way. Ghoul or not, I was still Blaez’s master and thankfully the wolf respected that.
Leona returned a while later with Sanaka and they both took hold of me and led me down into the basement, which I let them do without protest. Lucky for them, I was going through another semi-catatonic phase, the hunger in me subdued for the time being. In the basement, they pressed me down to the floor, and I sat there in silence while they discussed what to do. Sanaka eventually came to the decision that he would summon the demon as I wouldn’t be able to do it. It could have been done without magick of course, but given the state I was in, I would have been lucky to be able to utter a single word, never mind an entire evocation in an ancient language.
So Leona (electing to stick around for the ritual this time) stood over me, guarding me, while Sanaka sat just outside the magick circle and went through the ritual. Sometime later, the room began to shake like a minor earthquake was happening. The temperature in the room also dropped (though I hardly noticed) and then I heard Leona take a sharp intake of breath before saying, “Jesus Christ,” to herself as if she had just seen something that was beyond her comprehension.
"What is this?" Baal’s voice seemed to cut through the fog in my mind, and I looked up to see the monstrous figure standing inside the magick circle.
Sanaka kept his voice respectful, his head slightly bowed as he addressed the smoldering demon, its orange eyes blazing. “I summon you on his behalf,” Sanaka said, gesturing to me. “He has done what you asked.”
Baal growled at Sanaka, then looked at me, its head moving from side to side as it did so. “You are soulless, human,” he said.
I stared back at Baal like he wasn't even there, the fear I felt in his presence once before now a distant memory. Baal growled and then turned his attention to Leona. In a flash, the demon crossed the room and wrapped one massive clawed hand around Leona's throat. She half screamed in fright as the demon's face came close to hers. "A delectable specimen," Baal said, almost to himself. Then he made a noise that was halfway between a growl and a moan of pleasure as he thrust a long, pointed tongue out of his sharp-toothed mouth and licked Leona's face, leaving a trail of slimy saliva on her skin. All credit to her, she hardly flinched, even though she must have been terrified.
When Baal released Leona, he turned and crouched down beside me. “There is nothing left of you, Mage,” he said, looking at me like I was just a useless piece of meat, which I kind of was.
The demon stood up and walked slowly towards Sanaka. “I want the souls I was promised. Or I take yours instead, Mage, as well as the girl’s.” Baal looked around at Leona and did something that could have been a smile or a sneer. “I might just take it anyway.”
Sanaka asked Leona for the box, which she warily handed to the demon before stepping back towards me again. Baal held the box for a moment, which looked no bigger than a matchbox in his enormous hand. “Not the one hundred souls I asked for.”
"No," Sanaka said. "Just one soul, but worth much more in terms of currency."
Baal growled but seemed satisfied nonetheless. “The curse will be lifted.”
“There’s one other thing,” Sanaka said.
“You want me to get his soul back.”
Sanaka nodded. “He will be in your debt.”
Baal stared over at me while he considered Sanaka’s offer. “It will be a large debt, I warn you.”
“Very well,” Sanaka said. “He doesn’t have a choice.”
The demon vanished from the room then. Leona started rubbing at her face like it was covered in some diseased substance. “It fucking licked me,” she said. “Can you believe that? It was disgust—”
Baal reappeared in the basement again with a glowing ball of light in one of its four hands.
My soul.
That semblance of light left in me seemed to react to the presence of my soul in the room, reaching for it, pulling me to my feet as if some invisible thread was between the soul and me. The demon came up to me, held the soul in front of my face, its luminescent beauty contrasted against the clawed hand of the monster who held it. Then without warning, Baal shoved my soul back into my body, his hard hand slamming against my chest, sending me staggering backwards into the arms of Leona, who caught me before I fell. It was the closest I ever came to experiencing rapture. As soon as my soul was back inside me where it belonged, a warmth began to spread through me as the light of my soul filled me up again, bringing with it an orgasmic sense of relieve as my humanity was finally restored. Then to add to this influx of joy even further, my magickal powers returned as well like a cascade of water coming off the top of a mountain to replenish a dried out river bed. It was glorious.
A smile spread across my face, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief, knowing I would never feel the likes of that again, basking in it until I remembered there was a massive demon still standing in front of me. “Thank you,” I said, standing on my own now. “I am in your debt.”
"Yes, you are, Mage," Baal said. "And don't forget it." The demon flashed his sharp teeth at Leona before backing into the center of the room.
“Before you go,” I said, knowing I was pushing my luck, but in for a penny, right? “I could use a lead on the person who started all this.”
Baal shook his head. “Humans,” he said. “Nothing is ever enough.”
“I’m in your debt already. A little information can’t hurt, can it?”
“Leave it, Creed,” I heard Leona mutter behind me.
"I'll see what I can do," the demon said. "But in return, I want their soul. Or I will take yours instead, Mage."
“You drive a hard bargain, but it’s a deal. So when—”
The demon vanished before I could finish.
“Jesus, Creed,” Leona said, coming around to face me. “You really know how to push your damn luck, don’t you? Oh, and by the way.”
“What?” I asked.
She punched me in the face, and I fell over.
37
Mindfuck
"WHAT THE HELL was that for?" I asked, one hand clamped over my smarting nose.
Leona stood with her hands on her hips staring at me, a different look in her eyes now. Before when she looked at me, she would often come across as guarded, like she didn't want to fully reveal herself. But as she looked at me then, her blue eyes seemed more naked now, her true self revealed in them. Clearly, her memories of me had returned now that my curse had been lifted. "You know what that's for," she replied casually, her tone suggesting that I fully deserved the violence she just wrought.
“I don’t—” Then I remembered. “The restaurant. The night before all this happened to me.”
“I told you never to stand me up, Creed. You left me sitting.”
“In my defense, I was working. I just forgot to call you and let you know.”
She stepped forward and kissed me, more passionately than how she kissed me the other day. “This is very weird, by the way.”
"What?" I asked, so glad to be back to normal. So glad to have my girlfriend back, even though I did enjoy the time I spent with her when she didn't know me as well.
“It’s like I’ve been hanging around with a different person the last few days, or like someone pretending to be you.”
“I imagine it’s a bit of a mindfuck.”
“Mindfuck. Yes, that’s exactly what it is.”
“I must agree,” Sanaka said from behind Leona. He was standing patiently looking over at us. “A strange sensation indeed.”
“Well, it sure is good that you both remember me again. Think about how weird it was for me, knowing everything while you two didn’t even remember me. That wa
s a mindfuck.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Leona said. “You always get it harder than everyone else, don’t you?” She was smiling as she said it.
Before I could reply, Sanaka said, “I must go now. I have my own business to take care off.”
“Anything I can help with?” I asked.
He shook his head, a more knowing look in his eyes than before. “You have a killer to catch.”
“Yeah, thanks for reminding me.”
Sanaka smiled once more then vanished as he teleported out of the room.
“So what now, Creed?” Leona asked. “I seem to remember a guy I met a few days ago at a murder scene who described going down on me like deep sea diving. You want to go diving now, Creed?”
My jaw went slack. “Now? I mean if you want, I don’t really…I’m not—“
Her sudden laughter cut me off my fumbling reply. “You should see your face. You look like a terrified virgin whose girlfriend just asked them to fuck her.”
I shook my head. “You’re a cruel woman, Lawson, I tell you. At least give me a chance to get back on form before you mention the dirty deed again.”
“Alright,” she said, having finished laughing at my expense. “What do we do now then?”
“Well,” I said, still shaking my head at her. “The other me, the one who brought up the deep sea diving at a murder scene a few days ago, has already been assigned to you by Brentwood. I'm sure that still stands unless Brentwood has suddenly remembered that he hates me, in which case I'll get a phone call soon telling me to stay away."
"He thinks you're unpredictable and he doesn't like that."
“I know.”
“Though I think he’ll keep you on this. He wants this killer caught.”
“I think we all do.”
“You think that disgusting demon will come across with a lead?”
“It licked your face,” I said, unable to keep from smiling.
“Screw you.”
“How was it? Was it like a giant slug crawling over your skin?”
Leona punched me in the shoulder and was about utter a stream of expletives when my phone rang. The caller ID said, Forsyth. I answered, still smiling at Leona while rubbing my sore shoulder. “Forsyth. What can I do for you?”
Forsyth was a vampire lieutenant who ran the neighborhood in which I lived. He was one of the few vampires I had any real dealings with. By their nature, vampires liked to keep their business in-house and as such rarely required the services of a Mage like myself. As I lived in Forsyth's neighborhood, however, our paths often crossed, usually when trouble of some sort brewed. Like that time the year before when a giant wererat decided to make its home in the sewers. I know, I'd never heard of a wererat before either, but they did exist, and they turned out to be as nasty and ugly as you would expect. Not only that, every normal rat for miles seemed to flock to the wererat, seeing the beast as some sort of god or leader. The wererat, eventually identified as a man named Smickle (a lowly office worker with a grudge against everybody it seemed), used his rat pack to terrorize various businesses in the area, even robbing a couple of banks in the process (presumably he needed the money for something, though I never found out what. It wasn't for toothpaste or breath mints, I can tell you that for certain after coming face to face with the thing.) Forsyth was most grateful when I hunted the wererat down and killed it (after it tried to kill me, helped by hundreds of rats…I still have bite marks on me). As a show of gratitude for my occasional help, Forsyth often gave me information when I needed it. Like all vampires, he was well connected. You would be too after fifteen hundred years of being on Earth.
“I just had the strangest experience,” Forsyth said. “You suddenly popped into my head for no reason, like I just remembered again who you are. It’s hard to explain…and weird. Did something happen to you?”
“You could say that. It’s sorted now, though.”
"Well, that's good. So tell me, Creed, when are you planning on doing that job I asked you to do…last week, was it? See, there it is again, the weirdness. How come I completely forgot that I asked you to do that? It's like some freaky mind trick. I don't like it."
“I didn’t either,” I said, looking at Leona, who was texting on her own phone now. “Listen, I’ll find your man, vampire, whatever for you. There’s just someone else I have to find first. You heard of the recent murders that were more like sacrifices?”
"I heard something," Forsyth said in his overly theatrical voice. "I heard they were strange and brutal. I don't know much else, though before you ask. If you want, I could look further into it for you, but you must promise to come around soon and have a drink with me so I can admire that tremendous ass of yours."
I shook my head, used to Forsyth's shamelessly flirtatious behavior by then. "Sure. I'll wear my tightest jeans." I raised my eyebrows at Leona who shook her head as she threw me a look.
“Super. See you soon, Creed. I’m still weirded out, you know, by the fact that I feel like I’d forgotten you. I could never forget you, Creed, that’s what’s so weird. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t—”
"Bye, Forsyth." I hung up the phone, knowing he was tittering to himself right then.
“You finished your flirting now?” Leona asked.
“Forsyth. You’ve met him. You know how he is.”
“Yeah. We gotta go.”
“Go where?”
“Take a wild guess.”
“More murders?”
Leona nodded. “In Lafayette. It's bad this time apparently." She began to move out of the basement, and I followed behind her.
“What, it wasn’t bad the other times?”
“It’s worse this time.”
Blaez stood in the living room staring at me as I came out of the basement. “It’s okay, Blaez," I told the wolf. "I'm back." I crouched down as Blaez approached, ruffling his dark fur. Then I looked up at Leona. “How many victims this time?”
Leona gave me a grave look. “Too many to count.”
38
The Roundhouse
I WAS QUIET on the drive from the brownstone to the crime scene, which was over on Lafayette. Now that I'd gotten my mojo back (mostly anyway…my magick power was still in the process of regenerating) it was time to concentrate all of my energies on tracking down Mr Black. The evil son of a bitch was stepping things up with every murder (although he wouldn't have seen his heinous acts as murder, but as sacrifices, a means to a nefarious end). He was getting close to whatever endgame he had planned, which meant he had to be stopped as soon as possible. The only problem was that I didn't have a single goddamn lead on the guy. Aside from the spectral form that ambushed me a couple of days ago, I had no clue as to the killer's real identity. It was even more frustrating that just a few days ago I knew exactly who Mr Black was. I must have done if I was able to track the guy to his next murder scene. But thanks to the spell cast by the killer, all former traces of his identity had been wiped out. At that point, Mr Black could have been anybody.
Maybe the demon will come across with a lead.
Something else I wasn’t comfortable with. Did I really want to be in debt to a demon?
Yes, if it helps to catch this killer.
Looked like I didn’t have a choice then.
A small sigh escaped my lips, and I looked at Leona, who was driving as erratically as ever as she headed for the expressway exit up ahead. “You alright?” I asked, settling back into my relationship with her, enjoying the deeper connection between us again.
"I just want to catch this creep before he kills any more people," she said, yanking hard on the steering wheel to overtake the car in front. "This is my town, and I don't like motherfucker's painting it with innocent blood."
“I get you.”
Leona hated Blackham city when she first arrived. Coming from West Virginia, she was used to wide open spaces and huge skylines. City life got to her. In case you haven’t guessed, Leona is not a people person. Although she could interact qui
te expertly with others when she needed to, she preferred her own company. So being around so many people in a packed city like Blackham was a struggle for Leona, as it was for me at first as well. You get used to it, though, and if you hung around the city long enough, you even grew attached to the place, as both Leona and I had done. Despite our backgrounds, Blackham is where we called home, for better or worse, and we could both be protective of that home, especially Leona.
“Thanks, by the way,” I said to her. “For helping me. For trusting me when you didn’t even know who I was. Knowing you, I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Yet you did. Why?”
She turned the SUV off the main road and into the Lafayette neighborhood. Lafayette was a shithole. That’s about the only way to describe the place. A sprawling rats nest of low rent housing and rundown tenement buildings that spilt over into nearby Little Haiti. Not a place I had visited very often in the past. Not too much magickal goings on there. Gang-related activity was the only thing that happened in Lafayette. Once upon a time, the place was up and coming, but something happened during its development, and most of the investment got pulled. Of the businesses that were built in that development stage, only a few survived, mainly just essential services like corner stores and a gas station. And a cinema, believe it or not. Which is exactly where we were heading to.
“You seemed to be telling the truth,” Leona said. “You knew things. That was enough for me.”
"Admit it," I said smiling. "You just couldn't resist my Irish charm again, could you?"
A smirk creased her lips. “Wise up.”
“That’s what I thought.”
As Leona negotiated the narrow streets while we headed for our destination, I stared out the window at the dilapidation all around us and the human detritus in the form of gangs, bums and drug addicts that littered every street. I used to think that parts of Ireland were bad until I came to the States and saw what real poverty and degradation looked like.
