Demon's Vengeance

by Jocelynn Drake

  The doors were left standing wide open, allowing the sunlight to pour in. The old wood floor creaked as we entered. A quick look around revealed that nothing was disturbed or out of place. There was a mix of antique and modern furniture around the place, as well as the requisite flat-­screen TV and sound system. Books neatly filled shelves.. But what else would you expect?

  It was well known that upon conversion a vampire became instantly allergic to the sun and all foods and liquids besides blood. What a lot of ­people didn‘t know was that the vast majority of vampires also developed obsessive-­compulsive personality disorder. For some reason, nearly all of them became as neat as a pin and compulsively organized, particularly about objects. There was some speculation that it had to do with how their brain handled the information it was now receiving through newly heightened senses. No one knew for sure, but it meant that every nest and vampire house I had ever been in was incredibly orderly. It was fucking creepy.

  We continued through the house until we finally reached the sleeping quarters and located numerous bloodstains in the sheets. They had been attacked while they were sleeping.

  “I don‘t get it,” I said as I walked out of the third bedroom behind Gideon. “Not one of them made a sound? Not one heard a noise and woke up? No one fought back?”

  “Maybe they couldn‘t fight back.” The warlock stopped in the middle of the hall and rubbed the fingers of his left hand together as if he had gotten something on them, but I hadn‘t seen him touch anything. “There‘s a residue left here.”

  “Yeah, I feel it too. It’s from the dark magic spell we came to investigate.”

  Gideon shook his head, continuing to stare at his fingertips as if he could actually see the magic. “No, it’s under that. It’s almost sugary . . . like cotton candy or cooked caramel.” When I frowned and only shook my head, he pointed to the stairs leading to the third floor. “The scent of the blood is masking it. Go to the stairs.”

  Following his orders, I started to climb the stairs, but stopped on the third one. It was there, so subtle and soft that you could catch only the barest whiff before it was lost in the other magic hovering in the air. He was right. It was like walking into an old-­fashioned candy shop or the midway at some amusement park.

  “It’s . . . almost fey,” I whispered as I tried to analyze something that I was getting only the faintest hints of. “But the fey rarely have a quarrel with vampires. The bloodsuckers don’t prefer them for prey so they’re not a threat. And this . . .” I paused, waving back toward the bedroom where the murders had taken place. “The fey wouldn‘t be involved in something like this.”

  “Except for maybe the dark elves.”

  “Yeah, well I wouldn’t put much past the dark elves, but their magic doesn’t feel like this. It’s grittier. Maybe a brownie or a pooka? A red cap?” I suggested, but even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were wrong. The magic felt as if it should be fey but it wasn’t like any fey I had ever encountered.

  Gideon shook his head, letting his hand finally fall limp at his side. “We should keep looking.”

  All the vampires that had been in the house were now bits of ash out on the street. There were no corpses in the house, vampire or otherwise. Our killer hadn’t conducted the spell within the nest, which didn’t surprise me. I could feel the energy here, but not as strongly as when we walked through the apartment where the first spell was cast. That energy had crawled across my flesh and left me feeling dirty.

  My companion didn’t seem particularly surprised that we didn’t find anything either, but we had to search the house for any evidence. We had so few leads to go on as it was; we couldn’t risk overlooking any possibility now.

  “Where do we go now?” I asked when we were standing in the backyard. It wasn’t very big, but the grass was neatly trimmed and the flower beds were carefully edged with smooth river rocks. It probably would have looked beautiful in the summer, but right now it was all dead and barren.

  Gideon led the way across the backyard and through the gate to the neat redbrick house on the right. All the windows were covered with blinds and there hadn’t been a peep out of the occupants despite all the chaos that had whirled about the neighborhood. I could feel the eyes of the cops on us from the street as we strode up the front porch and entered the house without bothering to knock. Not that a warlock or witch would have knocked. Crap. Acting the part of a Towers asshole was a lot harder than I had ever expected it to be.

  We didn’t have to go far before we found four headless bodies sitting around a large dining-­room table. The glossy finish was now splattered with blood and bits of brain matter. While it was hard to gauge without heads, the four victims looked younger than the killer’s first. Their bodies were smaller and their clothing made me think that he’d grabbed four kids from the local middle school. My stomach lurched at the sight and it was a struggle to get my feet to move forward into the room. How much horror did I have to wade through before we finally caught up with this bastard? He tore through an entire nest of vampires, and now . . . kids.

  Gideon frowned as he carefully circled the table, picking up his robe so that the hem didn‘t drag through the growing pools of blood. “Go check the rest of the house. Find the owners,” he barked without looking up at me. His voice was gruff but emotionless. He seemed cold, but it was a lie. There was a tightness around his mouth and his jaw looked hard as if he was tightly clenching his teeth. The warlock had packed his emotions away so that he could find the killer that much faster, relying on the sharp focus of his mind to see him through the grisly scene around him.

  I needed to follow his example, but I was just grateful to be away from the nightmare in the dining room. The living room was empty except for an ugly floral-­patterned sofa and love seat set placed around a coffee table heavily laden with magazines. As I wandered down the hall, the smell of rotting flesh hit me. Raising the sleeve of my jacket to my face, I pushed open the first bedroom door. The remains of an elderly ­couple still in their flannel pajamas lay in the queen-­sized bed. Judging by the degree of decomposition, they had been dead for several days at the very least.

  The ­couples’ throats had been slit while they slept. It wasn‘t the fastest or most painless way to die, but they hadn‘t been the target of the killer‘s latest spell. He had just needed their house in which to work.

  Continuing down the hall, I drew in a somewhat clear breath of air while I explored the rest of the first floor. A quick inspection took me through a spare bedroom, a bathroom, and a tiny eat-­in kitchen. Most of the house was untouched. The kitchen had some empty food containers and broken dishes from where the killer had obviously ransacked the owner’s goods, but he hadn’t stayed here long.

  After a ­couple tries, I finally found the door that led down to the basement and I kind of wished I hadn’t. There weren’t any dead bodies waiting for me, or even reanimated vampires looking to tear out my throat. No, it was more of the strange writing.

  The lower level had been turned into a family room/entertainment area with a massive sectional couch placed before a large TV. Upon taking over the house, the killer had pushed everything to the far side of the room and ripped all the pictures off the wall, throwing them onto the pile. He then covered three of the walls with more of the writing that was part of the spell this asshole was determined to perfect. It looked even more ghastly and horrifying that he’d written it on top of wallpaper laced with delicate rosebuds.

  The meaning of the writing was still lost on me, but I didn’t need to understand it to feel sick when looking at it. Pulling my cell phone out of my pocket, I snapped more pictures of the words, adding them to the ones I had taken at the first apartment. Someone somewhere had to be able to understand this stuff. Though I was beginning to feel like I didn’t want to meet the person who could read this shit.

  Footsteps echoed on the stairs as I returned the phone to my poc
ket. I turned to find Gideon standing on the bottom stair as his eyes skimmed over the writing on the wall. He looked a little paler than when I’d last seen him, but then he’d spent a lot more time with the victims.

  “I found the owners,” I said, breaking the silence. “He killed them while they were sleeping. They’ve been dead several days, allowing him time to set up the house as he needed it before doing the spell again.”

  Gideon said nothing as he walked over to the nearest wall covered in the cryptic writing, his brow furrowed as he examined every inch of it. I stayed silent as I watched him move from wall to wall, waiting for him to finally make an announcement of how he figured it all out so that we could catch this bastard.

  “He’s getting better,” Gideon murmured as he reached the last wall. His voice had been so low that I wasn‘t sure if he was talking to himself or if he was talking to me.

  “Less mistakes,” I replied, noting that the killer had marked out fewer sections than at the Florida apartment.

  The warlock gave a little grunt of agreement before turning back toward me. “You realize that he chose this house for a reason.”

  “Because it was owned by an elderly ­couple?”

  Gideon shook his head. “Whoever this is, he’s strong enough to take out vampires. A pair of humans, regardless of their age, isn’t going to trouble him. No, he wanted this house because it was close to the nest. He used the spell this time to raise the corpses.”

  “If the goal was to raise the vampires after he killed them, why didn’t he just do it over at the nest house? Why here?”

  The warlock looked back at the wall. He had pulled his wand out and was slowly rolling it between his fingers with both hands in a sort of nervous gesture. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him doing that. Whenever the warlock was thinking deeply or anxious, he preferred to have his wand in his hands, as if it could help him focus his thoughts—­or maybe it just gave him a sense of control.

  “I think it was a time factor,” Gideon said after a minute. “He needed time to prep. This type of magic isn’t easy to harness and even harder to control, from what I’ve managed to learn. I think he also needed the corpses to be relatively fresh. Vampires don’t keep well after they’ve died. Well . . . died a second and final time.”

  “He killed the old ­couple so he could have the house next to the vampires. Killed the kids to fuel the spell. Killed the vampires . . . to what? Raise the dead?”

  “And to send us a message.” Gideon shoved the wand back into the holder up his sleeve. “He knows that we‘re hunting for him.”

  “Of course.” I gave an indifferent shrug, shoving my hands into my pockets. “Anyone would be able to guess that if you use magic, you’re going to catch the attention of the Towers.”

  “Yes, but you were the first to notice that the dead were trained on anyone using magic. Prior to me casting the spell, they only attacked if you got too close to them, which I think was more of a reflex left from their prior state.” Gideon gave a little shake of his head as he stepped closer to me. “No, they started violently attacking only when we used magic. They were commanded to attack any witch or warlock who appeared in the area.”

  I gave him a little smirk, though I wasn’t quite feeling so amused. “He’s sending the Towers a warning? That takes some balls.”

  “Or he’s just insane.”

  “I thought that went without saying,” I grumbled.

  “Or . . .” Gideon said, pausing as he looked over his shoulder at the wall again as if he were rereading the writing there, even though I was sure that it was just gibberish to him as well. “He knows something that we don’t know.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I have no idea,” Gideon said with a frustrated sigh.

  Groaning, I walked over to the pile of furniture and pulled out an old metal folding chair the owners had probably saved for family holidays. Setting it on its legs, I sat down and crossed my arms over my chest. “Fine. Tell me what you do know.”

  “It‘s not much.” Gideon walked a short distance away with his hand resting loosely on the top of his head.

  “You’ve got to give me something. I’m working blind here and it’s not a feeling I care for if this asshole managed to take out an entire nest of vampires.”

  Gideon stopped in front of one of the walls of writing, dropping his hands back down to his side. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely over a whisper. “I think this is Death Magic.”

  “Death Magic? What the hell is that?”

  Turning back to face me, Gideon looked at a loss for words as he tried to formulate his answer. He started to pull out his wand again, but shoved it back into his sleeve in frustration as if he’d caught the nervous tick. “The magic we do, what nearly all creatures use, it’s based on the energy generated from living creatures. It’s why there’s so much energy available around us, but there’s a limit to how much and how quickly a creature can draw in that energy to use for a spell.”

  I nodded, agreeing with his explanation. Leaning forward, I balanced my elbows on my knees. “And Death Magic?”

  “The user pulls the energy straight from the life of a person who has been killed quickly and violently. I think it’s also necessary for the user to have caused the death, but I’m not completely sure about that aspect.”

  “I don’t understand. How can the power drawn from one life be tempting in comparison to what is around you? And why does he keep going after kids for the spell?”

  “Two reasons. The power comes from the number of years that a person has left in their life, hence his choice of victims being kids. More years equals more power.”

  “Okay.” It was perverse and disgusting, but I could understand it.

  “And because all that power comes to you all at once. I’m getting the impression that there are no limitations to how much you can take in. It can be more powerful than what we use.”

  “Who the fuck came up with this style of magic?” I shouted.

  “No idea.”

  “Then who was using it before it fell out of fashion?”

  Gideon gave me a look saying that he wasn’t amused by my question. “Again, no idea.”

  “Then what’s the purpose of this magic? Other than being unbelievably brutal, immoral, and reprehensible, why stop using it? As you said, it’s more powerful.”

  “Most likely because it is difficult and limited in its application.” Gideon turned around to face me, his hands dropping back down to his sides. “Death magic, as far as I can tell, is only used for raising the dead.”

  “Okay, so this shit fell out of favor ages ago. If no one has used it for a long time, that really kind of limits who might know about it.” This time it was my turn to pause because I really didn’t want to voice this fear aloud. “Could this be someone from the Towers? Someone gone rogue?”

  “You mean, like you? Or those runaways we took so much care getting properly settled and protected this fall?” Gideon asked snidely.

  “Not quite,” I said, clenching my teeth. “I was thinking someone more along the lines of Darius Courtland.”

  It was the first time I had brought up the warlock’s name since my appearance before the council that resulted in Reave’s death and my being named a guardian. The guy was a fucking prick who left me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. He’d love to see the council wiped out so that he could place himself on a throne to lord over the entire world.

  “There are plenty in the Towers like Courtland,” Gideon conceded with a shake of his head. “I don’t see how using Death Magic would help him achieve his goal. There are easier ways to amass power.”

  “But everyone in the Towers knows about them,” I countered. “It would be a lot harder to fight him if we don’t understand what he’s using. Besides, if this magic can raise Lilith to this world, she might ha
ve promised him something that he couldn’t walk away from.”

  Gideon paced back and forth in front of the spell, tapping his wand against his jaw. “That is a frightening idea, but I don’t think we should limit our search to just the Towers.”

  “Then who could be doing this? I mean, Death Magic isn’t common, so it’s likely that it has to be someone who has been around long enough to have seen it performed or at least hear about it. Right?”

  “Yes, making it one of the long-­lived races,” Gideon agreed.

  I glared at him and got to my feet. “I hope you’re not about to point a finger in the direction of the elves. They’ve been through enough because of the Towers and this kind of thing isn’t their way.”

  “They have been through a lot, which would give them an excellent reason to strike back at the Towers. Raise Lilith, and they’d have all the firepower they need to strike back at the Towers.”

  “Except that this isn’t their way,” I argued, pointing at the words that seemed to radiate evil.

  “True.” Gideon frowned and made an exasperated sound. “Well, except for the dark elves. There isn’t much that I would put past them.”

  “True, but since Gaia’s gift, I think all the elves are more focused on increasing their numbers the old-­fashioned way.”

  “Then what are we left with?”

  “There are others out there that could remember it, but I don’t know who would take this ugly path,” I said, flopping back in the chair.

  “We can’t pursue this line of thinking anyway,” Gideon said with disgust. He stood with his fists balled at his sides, facing the writing. It was like he thought he could pull out the killer’s secrets if he could just intimidate the writing enough. “What if we figure out a race or two that could be capable of this? What then? Tell the council so the Towers can launch another genocidal purge like what happened to the dragons, unicorns, and too many other races to count? We can’t allow that, not when I’m sure that this is only one person acting.”