Night Life

by Caitlin Kittredge

  "Yes," I said. "And he put his hand over my mouth to keep me quiet, but he was wearing cotton gloves."

  "We'll check for fibers," said the tech, "but to be honest, Detective, I doubt we'll find anything. This guy was a professional—not only did he manage to get into your house, he relocked the window so we have no way of knowing which one he used."

  "We found footprints in your rosebushes under the trellis," said the second tech, stowing her camera and producing a field print kit, "so we assume it was your bedroom window. He might have hidden in your closet."

  Then why hadn't I scented him? He'd smelled of char and death—not something I'd be likely to miss.

  I looked over at the bedroom window, an old wooden thing with wavy glass that wouldn't stay open if your life depended on it. A man, climbing on a rickety trellis from the outside and attempting to jimmy a heavy window … he'd have to be a Hexed ghost.

  The techs had opened my closet and were examining my shoes. "Do you notice anything missing, Detective?" asked the female tech.

  "No, but when you're finished my Dior pumps better not be," I said. The fragrant roses peered back at me when I looked out the window, not a petal out of place.

  Then I saw something that chilled me. The metal latch at the top of the window frame was covered in a thick layer of white paint. Intact and pristine, matched with the rest of the frame.

  "Did you find forced entry anywhere else?" I asked the techs behind me, "like the kitchen door, or a downstairs window?"

  "No, ma'am," said the male tech. "Just the footprints outside."

  "Thank you," I murmured. I backed out of the room and then hobbled downstairs as quickly as I could. I felt the frissons up my spine and crackling over my scalp, the were—and human—reaction when something is Not Right.

  Mac met me. "Tech dug the bullet that hit you out of the wall. He can't figure it out. Some kind of soft metal?"

  "Silver," I whispered.

  Mac's eyes widened. "Silver bullets? Are you shitting me?"

  "Does this arm look I'm shitting you?"

  Mac whistled. "Really works, doesn't it?"

  "Yeah, unfortunately. I'm just lucky he has lousy aim."

  McAllister grabbed my unwounded arm and guided me into our bathroom, shutting and locking the door. "Tell me what really happened, Luna."

  "I woke up, and there was a nutcase in my bedroom who attacked me with a knife and told me to leave Stephen Duncan and another witness in the case alone."

  He frowned. "Why would he tell you that?"

  I looked down. "I, um, I've sort of been investigating him. And his father."

  "For what?" Mac shouted. "Stephen likes to murder prostitutes! Al Duncan is the district attorney, for God's sake! Hex, Luna, please tell me you didn't go to his house."

  He knew me too well.

  "Shit!" he exclaimed when he saw my expression. "There's no way I'm going to be able to spin this, Luna—you're through."

  All the tension boiled over and I snapped, "Thanks for the prognosis, Mac. Now would you like to hear about the witch who tried to murder me, or shall we continue the lecture?"

  Mac sat on the toilet lid and gestured me to the lip of the tub. "Witch?" he said with a sigh. "Keep going. I knew it could only get worse."

  "After he had me subdued, he …" I shivered at the memory. "He rubbed my hand in my own blood, and then he opened his jacket and made me touch his chest. It had markings … like tattoos, only they were skin. Brands."

  The electrical spark that had hit me when I touched him now caused my chest wound to throb and made my hands shake.

  "Did he say anything else?" Mac asked.

  "He said, 'Now you're marked, and we see everything you do.'" I didn't believe him, necessarily, but telling Mac after the witch had ordered me to be silent made my heart flutter arrythmatically.

  Mac rubbed his chin. "Marked for what? And who's we?"

  "Hexed if I know, Lieutenant. After that, I hit him and got away, and he chased me downstairs, shot me in the hallway with the silver, and I was hiding behind the refrigerator when Sunny got the drop on him with my gun."

  "And after that?"

  "After that, he got away," I told Mac, looking him in the eye, "and I was glad to see him go."

  "He knew you're a were," said Mac. "Why bring the silver otherwise?"

  "And he's a witch," I reminded him. "He had to have magicked his way in here, and using my own blood, and his markings …"

  "Well, if he's not a blood or a caster, what the hell is he?" said Mac.

  If I closed my eyes I could still see those brands on his chest, black and swirling like a monstrous tentacled creature.

  "Strong," I finally said. "And he's after me for something."

  "Estevez has the investigation under control," said Mac. "So what can I do for you, Luna?"

  I stood up. "You can go home, Mac, and let Sunny and me get some rest."

  "What if the witch comes back?"

  I thought of that shadow over me as I swam up from sleep. "He won't. He got what he wanted."

  Mac sighed. "I'm staying the night, Detective, whether you like it or not. You may be able to take on anything this side of a called daemon, but your cousin is only human, and a traumatized one, too." He opened the door. "Show me what couch I'll be sleeping on."

  * * * *

  After I got my arm stitched and bandaged by paramedics, who thankfully didn't ask how a graze wound had gotten burned, they gave me painkillers and I slept dreamlessly for the first time in weeks.

  Mac had left when I woke up and Sunny was sweeping broken glass in the kitchen. I came as far as the door in my bare feet. "Sorry about your herbs."

  She waved me off. "I can always get more from Grandma."

  "Sorry you had to be here when this all happened."

  Sunny stopped sweeping and came into the living room. "I'm the one who should be sorry."

  I bunked. "Why?"

  She sat on the edge of the sofa and chewed on the end of her index finger, a habit I'd teased her about mercilessly when we were younger.

  "My dispel didn't work," she said finally.

  "He wasn't a blood witch, Sunny," I said. "You're not responsible, trust me."

  "And that's another thing—if he's not a blood witch, then what is he?"

  I sat next to her. "We'll figure it out."

  "Maybe Grandma…"

  "Without Grandma."

  Sunny hugged a throw pillow. "Who, then?"

  I patted her on the leg. "I'll find somebody."

  * * * *

  I turned on my laptop and surfed to Google. The first search term I tried was occult experts. A bunch of "psychic" readers and right-wing sites warning about the dangers of associating with weres and those of the blood were all I got.

  Occult knowledge was more of the same. Strings for combinations of the words werewolf, were, occult, supernatural, and paranormal turned up fantasy art sites, a meeting forum for "vampires"—which held a lot of photos of humans dressed in black and blood red with pasty white makeup—and some local ghost-hunting sites, one of which advertised a tour of "Nocturne City's Most Haunted!" in bright flashing letters. Ghosttown was at the top of the attraction list. I hoped the happy hunters liked getting eaten by creatures.

  My fingers paused.

  Meggoth. Search.

  A lone link popped up, a PDF file attached to Nocturne University Library. Graduate thesis, written in 1970. "Faces of Meggoth: Daemon Invasion in the Modern World." Jacob Hoskins was the author. Maybe he could give me some answers, like why the name Meggoth sounded so damn familiar.

  I clicked to an alumni directory and dialed the main number.

  "Alumni Affairs."

  "Yes, hi. My name is Luna Wilder. I'm trying to get some information on a former graduate student of yours. Jacob Hoskins?"

  There was a pause and the perky voice breathed for a few seconds.

  "Hello?"

  "Information about alumni is confidential," she stated, "bu
t in this case Hoskins is still attached to the university. What is the nature of your inquiry?"

  "I'm a detective with the city. I need to talk to him about a paper he wrote in graduate school. 'Faces of Meggoth'?"

  I could almost feel the frost that fell when I said the words.

  "I'm sorry," she snapped. "No more information is being released at this time." The dial tone buzzed in my ear. Rude bitch. She might as well have given me an invitation to come snoop.

  I went upstairs, did fifty round kicks, fifty push-ups, and a hundred sit-ups to take my mind off the complications that seemed to be piling into my life with alarming frequency, and then went back to sleep until noon.

  * * * *

  Built on the grounds of the former Blackburn estate, Nocturne University had been educating the metropolis and the surrounding coast since Theodore Blackburn had turned his enormous mansion over to the city in 1870. The double homicide that occurred shortly before, involving Mrs. Blackburn and a female servant, had been a great motivator. Students dared one another to go into the cupola at the top of the now-library, and the police were still called to pull them out with a fireman's ladder.

  Blackburn Hall had been built later, a long brick building resembling England's Parliament. It housed three floors of faculty, and after consulting a directory I found Hoskins on the second, in a tiny office with a casement window and floor-to-ceiling bookcases.

  I knocked on the open door. Hoskins jumped and slid his glasses up his nose. He was very thin, with pulled cheeks and wispy close-cut hair. Milky gray eyes stared at me from behind the plain wire-rims.

  "Mr. Hoskins," I said, holding out my hand. "I'm Detective Wilder. I tried to find you through the Alumni Office, but—"

  Hoskins shot out of his chair and pointed with a long scarecrow finger. "Get out! This is harassment!"

  "Whoa!" I held up a hand. "Mr. Hoskins, I just want to talk."

  "It's Professor, no thanks to you people. Now leave my office!" He reached for the phone on his desk. "Right this instant, or I'll call Security!"

  I shut the door behind me and approached Hoskins. His eyes got big and his breathing got fast. Sharp copper teased my nostrils.

  "Professor, you don't have to be afraid of me," I said. "I just need to ask you some questions."

  He slammed the phone back into its cradle. "I have had enough questions to last me a lifetime, miss, and I don't care to answer any more." He pointed at my shield. "You may be young and pretty but that still marks you as a thug."

  Just my luck that the one guy who might know something hated cops. "I'm not here in an official capacity," I told Hoskins, keeping my voice low and soothing. "If it will make you feel better…" I unclipped my shield and tucked it away. "There. Now we're just two people. Talking."

  He regarded me for a long moment. I stood in the center of his carpet feeling very exposed.

  "I suppose you're too young to remember," he said finally. "I apologize for my previous behavior. To you. Never to the police." The word wasn't so much spoken as spat.

  I gestured to the leather sofa facing his desk. "May I sit?"

  "No," said Hoskins stiffly. "Tell me what it is you want." He sat abruptly in his chair and began squaring off file folders with the edge of the desk.

  "Um… okay." I shifted my feet. Between the severe expression and the prissy accent, Hoskins must be a master of humiliation with his students. I certainly felt on the spot.

  Hoskins flipped open the top folder and marked a grade with a fountain pen. "Get on with it."

  "You wrote a research article called 'Faces of Meggoth' when you were a graduate student," I blurted. "I need to know what Meggoth is."

  "You mean whom," said Hoskins, not looking up.

  "Fine, yes, who?"

  He sighed and closed the folder. "I am going to regret this, Detective Wilder. I can feel it already."

  I sat down so I could look him in the eye. Hoskins immediately stood again. "You can call me Luna," I offered.

  "Meggoth is one name for an entity that has bewitched blood witches and bedeviled the rest of us for many thousands of years."

  Entity…

  The circuit clicked on. Meggoth. Entities. Rituals. Headlines thirty years old splashed across the front page, along with a picture of two bodies, one the killer's and one the sacrifice.

  "Cedar Hill," I breathed.

  Hoskins's lips compressed to invisibility. "Now you see why I resent intrusion."

  I stared, seeing the mousy professor before me thirty years younger but with the same glasses, holding a mug slate as the camera flashed in his eyes.

  "What happened to you, with Cedar Hill…," I started.

  "You have no conception of what I went through," said Hoskins. "So don't spread your sympathy here. The only reason I still hold this job is because I had already achieved tenure. I lost countless speaking engagements, my book deal. My entire life was tainted. And it was all your department's fault."

  I couldn't meet his eyes, because he was right. In the early 1970s, anyone accused of being a blood witch met with Salem-level furor. Hoskins had been arrested prematurely, on the flimsiest of evidence, and was only released after weeks, when a primitive lab found that his blood type didn't match what the Cedar Hill Killer had spilled at the last awful scene. By the time the Nocturne PD caught Marcus Levinson, it was too late and he'd murdered more women.

  Hoskins had retreated to his desk. "Get out. This time I mean it."

  I sucked in a breath and started to talk instead. "Professor, I know I have no right to ask for your help now. You had your life ruined because Marcus Levinson was rich and protected, and that was a terrible mistake. But there's going to be another one made if you don't tell me what I need."

  He dropped his pen and buried his face in his hands. "I can't help you!"

  So much for sweet-talking. I leaned down so I was right in his line of sight when he looked up. "Tell me who Meggoth is."

  Hoskins quivered and his eyes glistened. "He's the shadow of rage, Detective. He's the wanderer between worlds. Meggoth is just one name for something that is older and more terrible than anyone knows."

  My gut twisted. "A daemon."

  "The daemon," said Hoskins. "One of only three to survive the Descent. If you believe legend."

  Ask me a week ago, and I would have laughed in his face. Now I wavered between incredulity and just plain fear.

  "But he can't be here," I said. "Uncalled daemons don't exist. Daemons don't exist at all, if you listen to most witches."

  "A few hundred years ago bacteria didn't exist, if you listened to most men of medicine," said Hoskins. "Daemons exist, Detective, as power. That's what Marcus Levinson wanted." He ran a hand through light, thinning hair. "Daemons can be channeled like any other energy. Levinson knew this, and he kept trying. Failing to call a daemon through and killing again and again with his rage mounting each time, reaching so desperately for something he could not comprehend."

  "Levinson was insane," I told Hoskins gently. "Even if he hadn't been an amateur witch, he would have killed those women for some other equally flimsy reason."

  "You are so very- sure, Detective," said Hoskins. "Why is this?"

  I debated with myself for just a moment, then pulled down my collar and turned so Hoskins could see the four circular bite scars along my shoulder where Joshua's double fangs had pierced me.

  He didn't shy, just took off his glasses and breathed on them, then leaned in for a closer look. "I see," he said finally. "In that case, Detective, may I advise you to be cautious. The Cedar Hill Killer may have failed in his workings, but there is no reason to believe the next witch will."

  "Little late for that," I said. "I've already had someone attack me over this mess. Maybe you could you tell me what sort of witch uses a victim's blood instead of their own?"

  Hoskins rolled his eyes upward. "In some tomes there are accounts of witches channeling energy directly through their bodies without the use of blood ritual. I assum
e your assailant was versed in this sort of magick."

  "That sounds bad."

  "Oh, it is," he agreed. "Extremely so. To gain power that way, your witch would have to feed his body almost constantly with energy—have a working circle cast on him at all times."

  "Branding," I said.

  Hoskins nodded. "Skin branding would certainly be effective. I am sorry I can be of no further assistance."

  I opened the door and let the late-afternoon sunlight stream into Hoskins's cramped little office. "Trust me, Professor, you were a bigger help than you imagined."

  He shuffled his feet a bit and almost smiled. "I wonder to this day what Levinson was really trying to accomplish with those rituals."

  I wondered that, too. The time line of Cedar Hill was all wrong for the killer I was tracking, but in a lot of ways Marcus and Lilia's killer were the same—insane, sadistic, and with an eye toward black magick.

  "If I find out," I told him, "you'll be the first to know."

  Thirteen

  The next day found me angry and sore from the impending phase, stalking down a side street near the university. A fine rain, mist really, fluttered around me and landed on my eyelashes, blurring the neon signs in the shop windows.

  Devere Street was pure Old Nocturne: tall brick buildings, iron fences encircling the trees, and lampposts that still burned gas. Basement businesses peered out from behind burglary grates.

  Second Skin was one of them, a door and a tiny storefront painted black with snarling Chinese dragons rampant around the innocuous hand-carved sign. Neon advertised body piercing; a tiny pentacle was painted in the corner of the window, a nod to the old practice of signaling witches and weres that they were welcome. I pushed open the door, and discordant chimes jangled.

  Below-ground dimness and the smell of murky incense washed over me. I squinted against the smoky half-light. "Perry?"

  "Back here," he rasped. I stepped around the counter, a hunk of black wood plastered with flash, and entered the tiny back room. Contrastingly bright, the walls were covered in flash and a few oil paintings, the only pieces of furniture a black leather dentist's chair and a drafting table. Perry sat with his back to me, skinny body hunched, his ponytail lying across his shoulders like a sleek black snake.