Hell yeah. Famous last words. Some guy sidles up to you in a bar and offers you godhood. And you say yes. Dumb. Over thirty years had passed since the Shift. By now every moron should know to watch their mouth and not accept bargains with random strangers, because when you said yes to magic, your word was binding, whether you meant it or not. A life wasted. All I could do now was to find the killer and punish him. Just once I would’ve liked to be there before this sort of shit happened so I could nip it in the bud.
“That’s when all the shapeshifters left,” Maggie said.
“That’s right.” Cash nodded. “They ran out of here like their tails were on fire.”
“These shapeshifters, do they come often?”
“Once a week for about a year now,” Cash said.
“They drink a lot?”
“One beer each,” Maggie said. “They don’t drink much, but they don’t cause any trouble either. They just sit by themselves in the corner and eat barrels of peanuts. We started charging them for it. They don’t seem to care. I think they all work together, because they come in at the same time.”
In times of trouble, shapeshifters snapped into an us-versus-them mentality. The world fractured into Pack and Not Pack. They would fight to the death for one of their own or to protect their territory. This was their hangout, their place. They should have waded into this fight, and in this case, the Pack Law would be on their side. Instead they took off. Odd. Maybe Curran had come up with some new order forbidding fights. No, that didn’t make sense either. They were shapeshifters, not nuns. If they didn’t blow their steam off once in a while, they’d self-destruct. Curran knew that better than anyone.
I filed this tidbit to puzzle over in the future. Right now the guy in the cloak was my primary concern.
Joshua was killed for a specific purpose. The guy had gone through a lot of trouble, starting a fight, busting walls, arranging Joshua to impersonate a human butterfly, and infecting him. It was unlikely he’d done it just for kicks, which meant he had some sort of a plan and he wouldn’t stop until he followed through with it. Nothing good could possibly come from a plan that involved turning a man into a syphilis incubator.
“We run a quiet tavern,” Maggie said. “Usually guys don’t want to fight here. They just want to get a drink, shoot some pool, and go home. If there is a fight brewing, they’ll talk shit for a while and wait for Toby and Vik to break them up. But this . . . I’ve never seen anything like this. That man threw one punch, and the whole crowd exploded. People were screaming and fighting, and growling like wild animals.”
I looked at Vik. “Did you fight?”
“I did.”
“And you?” I turned to Toby.
“Yeah.”
I glanced to Cash. He nodded. I could tell by their faces they weren’t proud of it. The bouncers were paid to keep a cool head, and Cash was the owner.
“Why did you fight?”
They stared at me.
“I was mad,” Vik offered. “Real mad.”
“Angry,” Toby said.
“Why?”
“Hell if I know.” Vik shrugged.
Interesting. “How long did the fight last?”
“Forever,” Toby said.
“About ten minutes,” Maggie answered.
That’s a long time for a fight. Most bar fights were over in a couple of minutes. “Did it get worse with time?”
She nodded.
“Did anybody see Joshua die?”
“It was all a blur,” Toby said. “I remember hitting somebody’s head against the wall and . . . I don’t even know why I did it. It’s like I couldn’t stop.”
“I saw it.” Maggie hugged herself. “The fight broke out.
Joshua was in the middle of it. He was a big man and he knew what he was doing. I was screaming for them to stop fighting. I was afraid they’d bust up the place. Nobody listened to me. Joshua was mowing people down with his fists and then that man grabbed him and they hit the wall. The man dragged Joshua to the pole, grabbed a crowbar, and stabbed. Joshua was wriggling on the crowbar like a fish. That bastard put his hand on Joshua’s face. A red light flashed and then he walked away. I saw Joshua’s eyes. He was gone.”
This just got better and better.
Maggie hugged herself. Cash put his hand on her shoulder. Neither said anything but I watched the haunted expression ease from Maggie’s face, as if she drew strength from him.
One day I’d find someone to lean on as well. It just wouldn’t be Curran. And I really had to stop thinking about him, because it hurt.
“Did you see any part of the man during the fight? Anything at all?”
Maggie shook her head. “Just the cloak.”
Biohazard’s techs would’ve taken statements before they let the brawlers go. I’d bet a chocolate bar nobody had gotten a look at the John Doe in the cloak.
A ten-minute fight, fifty eyewitnesses, and no description. That had to be some kind of record.
“Okay.” I sighed. “What about the critter in the cellar? What do we know about it?”
“Big,” Vik said. “Hairy. Big teeth.” He held his hands apart, demonstrating teeth with his fingers. “He was like the spawn of hell.”
“How did this spawn get into the cellar?”
The smaller bouncer shrugged. “I was trying to make my way to the bar, where the shotgun was, and then some asswipe hits me with a pool cue and I take a tumble down this stair and hit my head a bit. Once the room stops spinning, I try to get up and I see this huge thing coming down. Wicked fangs, eyes glowing. I’m thinking I was done for. It jumps right over me and into the cellar. I slam the door shut and that’s that.”
“Did anybody see this beast come in with the man who killed Joshua?”
Nobody said anything. I took it as a no.
“Did it try to get out?”
Both bouncers shook their head.
I rose to my feet and pulled Slayer from my back sheath. The opaque saber caught the blue light of feylanterns. A light mother-of-pearl shimmer ran along the blade. Everybody took a step back.
“Lock the door behind me,” I told them.
“What if you don’t come out?” Maggie asked.
“I’ll come out.” I unlatched the heavy wooden door, opened it, and ducked inside.
Darkness mugged me. I waited, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom.
The cellar lay quiet, steeped in shadows and the thick odor of hops and liquor. Dark curves of large beer kegs defined a narrow path. I moved forward, ready to dodge at any second. My back and knees hurt. The last thing I wanted was something big with teeth the size of Vik’s fingers jumping at me from above.
Nothing but moonlight, crawling through the narrow slit of a high window to my right.
A black shadow stirred against the far wall.
“Hi there.” I shifted my stance.
A low throaty whine answered me. A very plaintive whine, followed by heavy wet panting.
I took another step and paused. No flash of teeth. No glowing eyes.
My nose caught a whiff of fur. Interesting.
I put a bit of excitement in my voice. “Here, boy!”
The dark shadow whined.
“Who’s a good boy? Are you scared? I’m scared.”
A faint sound of a tail sweeping the floor echoed the panting.
I slapped my leg with my palm. “Come here, boy! Let’s be scared together. Come on!”
The shadow rose and trotted over to me. A wet tongue licked my hand. Apparently he was a friendly kind of demonic beast.
I reached into my belt and clicked a lighter. A shaggy canine muzzle greeted me, complete with big black nose and infinitely sad dog eyes. I reached over and slowly patted the dark fur. The dog panted and flopped on the side, exposing his stomach. Wicked fangs and glowing eyes, right. I sighed, flicked the lighter off, and went to rap my knuckles on the door. “It’s me, don’t shoot.”
“Okay,” Cash called out.
A meta
llic sound announced the deadbolt being slid open. I cracked the door slowly to find myself staring at the business end of the machete. “I’ve got the spawn of hell cornered,” I said. “Can you get me some rope?”
In ten seconds I had a length of chain in my hand thick enough to hold a bear in check. I felt the dog’s neck—no collar. Big surprise. I looped the chain and slid it around his head, and opened the door. The beast docilely followed me into the light.
It stood about thirty inches at the shoulder. Its fur was a mess of dark brown and tan, in a classic Doberman pattern, except his coat wasn’t sleek and shiny but rather a shaggy dense mass of rank curls. Some sort of mongrel, part Doberman, part sheepdog or something long-haired.
Vik turned the color of a ripe apple.
Cash stared at it. “It’s a damn mutt.”
I shrugged. “Probably got scared during the fight and just ran blindly through the bar. He seems friendly enough.”
The dog pressed against my legs, rubbing a small army of fetid bacteria into my jeans.
“We should kill it,” Vik said. “Who knows, it might turn into something nasty.”
I gave him my best version of a deranged stare. “The dog’s evidence. Don’t touch the dog.”
Vik decided he liked his teeth in his mouth and not on the floor and beat a strategic retreat. “Right.”
I’d kill a dog in self-defense. I’d done it and I felt bad about it afterward, but at the time there was no way around it. Killing a mutt who just licked my hand was beyond me. Besides, the dog was evidence. Ten to one, he was a local mongrel who had a panicked reaction to whatever magic John Doe in the cloak had been throwing around. Of course, he could also sprout tentacles in the night and try to murder me. Only time would tell. Until I’d watched him for a few days, the spawn of hell and I were joined at the hip. Which wasn’t necessarily a good thing, considering he tried his best to singe away the lining of my nose with his stink.
I took the dog to the medtechs to get cleared of the plague—he passed with flying colors. They drew some blood for further analysis and advised me that he had fleas and smelled bad, just in case I’d failed to notice. Then I took paper and pen from Marigold’s saddlebag and sat down at one of the tables to write out my report.
In the parking lot the inside of my ward circle blazed with orange flames. Three guys in heat-retardant suits waved their arms, chanting the fire into a white-hot rage. I couldn’t even see the pole or Joshua’s body inside the inferno.
The magic crashed. It simply vanished from the world in a single blink. The inferno in the parking lot began to die down. The guys in flame-retardant suits switched to flamethrowers and went on burning.
Patrice came up. “Nice dog.”
“He’s evidence,” I told her.
“What’s his name?”
I looked at the mutt, who promptly licked my hand. “No clue.”
“You should name him Watson,” Patrice said. “Then you can tell him ‘Elementary, Watson,’ when you solve a case in a blaze of intellectual glory.”
Intellectual glory. Yeah, right. I waved my write-up at her. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Deal.”
I handed her my notes. “The perpetrator is male, olive complexion, approximately six feet six inches tall, wears a long, sweeping cloak with a tattered hem, and likes to keep his hood on.”
She grimaced. “Don’t tell me. A guy in a cloak did it.”
I nodded. “Looks that way. Other fun characteristics are preternaturally hardy constitution and superhuman strength. There were roughly fifty people in the bar, but the m-scanner registered only one magic signature, probably our murderer. Fifty violent guys and nobody used magic.”
“Sounds unlikely,” Patrice said.
“It was a big brutal brawl. Nobody can explain to me why they started fighting, but apparently they went from zero to sixty in three seconds. I think our dude in a cloak emanates something that hits people on a very basic level. Makes them really aggressive. It’s also possible that animals run away from him, but we only have one test subject.” I petted the demon dog. “Your turn.”
Patrice sighed. “He’s a Mary.”
I nodded. Marys, so named after Typhoid Mary, were disease vectors—individuals who either spread or induced disease.
“A very, very strong one,” Patrice said. “Our guy didn’t just infect—and we can’t say for sure that he did, since the victim could have been syphilitic prior to the fight—but he actually gave the disease life, making it more potent and almost self-aware. The last time I saw this was during a flare. It takes a great deal of power to make a disease into an entity.”
Godlike power, to be exact. Except that no gods were prowling Atlanta’s streets. They only came out to play during a flare, which occurred roughly every seven years, and we had just gotten over the latest one. Besides, if he’d been a god, the m-scan would’ve registered silver, not blue.
“We have to find him now.” Patrice’s face was grim. “He has pandemic potential. The man’s a catastrophe in progress.”
We both knew that the trail had gone cold. I’d missed the chance to go after him, because I was busy crawling around and trying to keep his handiwork from infecting the city. He would strike again and he would kill. It wasn’t a question of if, but a question of how many.
“I’ll put an alert out,” Patrice said.
Find a guy in a cloak without any eyewitness sketches and apprehend him before he contaminates the whole city. Piece of cake.
“Can you find out more about the Good Samaritan who called it in as well?” I asked.
“Why?”
“You’re Joe Blow. You walk by and see me crawl around the fuzzy pole drawing shit on the pavement. Are you going to figure out immediately that I’m trying to contain a virulent plague?”
Patrice pursed her lips. “Not likely.”
“Whoever called it in knew what I was doing and knew enough to call Biohazard, but didn’t stick around. I’d like to know why.”
Half an hour later, I dropped Marigold in the Order’s stables and surrendered the dust bunny to the assistant stable master, who also was in charge of collecting all living “evidence.” We had a slight disagreement as to the living status of the dust bunny, until I suggested that he let it out of the cage to settle the issue. They were still trying to catch it when I left.
I dragged the dog into my apartment and into my shower, where I waged chemical warfare on his fur. Unfortunately, he insisted on shaking himself every thirty seconds. I had to rinse him four times before the water ran clear, and by the end of it, a wet spray blanketed every inch of my bathroom walls, my drain was full of dog hair, and the beast smelled only marginally better. He’d managed to lick me in the face twice in gratitude. His tongue stank, too.
“I hate you,” I told him before giving him leftover bologna from the fridge. “You stink, you slobber, and you think I’m a nice person.”
The dog wolfed down the bologna and wagged his tail. He really was an odd-looking mutt. Once the diagnostics from Biohazard came back, if he was just a regular dog, I’d have to find him a nice home. Pets didn’t do well with me. I wasn’t even home enough to keep them from starving.
I checked my messages—nothing, as usual—took a shower, and crawled into bed. The dog flopped on the floor. The last thing I remembered before passing out was the sound of his tail sweeping the rug.
CHAPTER 3
I MADE IT TO THE OFFICE BY TEN. I’D HAD ROUGHLY four hours of sleep, awoken in a foul mood, and my face must’ve shown it, because people took pains to move out of my way on the street. Of course, it could’ve been because a giant fetid mess of a dog trotted next to me, growling at anyone who came too close.
The office of the Order of Merciful Aid occupied a plain box of a building. When the magic was up, it was shielded by a military-grade ward, but now while the technology had the upper hand, nothing distinguished the bastion of knightly virtue from its fellow office
buildings. I climbed to the second floor, entered a long drab hallway, and landed in my tiny office, painted plain gray. The faithful canine companion flopped on the carpet.
I pushed the button of the intercom. “Maxine?”
“Yes dear?”
“I believe I’m due two cookies.”
“Come and get them.”
I looked at the canine companion. “Me cookies. You stay.”
Apparently “stay” in faithful canine companion language meant “follow with enthusiastic glee.” I could shut my office door in his face, but then he’d probably howl and be sad. I had enough sad in my life right now.
We trotted down the hallway and crashed to a halt before Maxine’s desk. She surveyed the demon dog for a couple of stunned seconds, then reached under her desk and produced a box of cookies, each the size of my palm. The scent of vanilla hit me. I did my best not to drool. One must maintain the sleek and deadly image, after all.
I snagged two cookies, broke one down the middle, picked the chocolate chips out of one half, and gave it to the mutt. I chomped on the other half. Heaven did exist and it had walnuts in it. “Any messages for me?” Usually I got one or two, but mostly people who wanted my help preferred to talk in person.
“Yes. Hold on.” She pulled out a handful of pink tickets and recited from memory, without checking the paper. “Seven forty-two a.m., Mr. Gasparian: I curse you. I curse your arms so they will wither and die and fall off your body. I curse your eyeballs to explode. I curse your feet to swell until blue. I curse your spine to crack. I curse you. I curse you. I curse you.”
I licked cookie crumbs off my lips. “Mr. Gasparian is under the impression that he has magic powers. He is fifty-six years old, terribly unhappy because his wife left him, and he keeps cursing his neighbors. Magically, he’s a dud, but his ranting scares the neighborhood kids. I kicked his case to Atlanta’s finest. I’m guessing they paid him a visit and he’s a bit upset that I didn’t take his magic mojo seriously.”
“People do the strangest things. Seven fifty-six a.m., Patrice Lane, Biohazard: Joshua was a shapeshifter. Call me now.”
Magic Bleeds Page 4
