“You’re right, I should’ve been more specific,” I said. “It wasn’t you—it was what’s inside you.”
Dakota silently pushed her chair back from the table and rose. She lifted her shirt just enough so I could see her abdomen, and she rested her hands on the surface. Not enough time had passed yet, but she’d start to show before too long.
“How did you know?” she asked.
8
A mystic pregnancy. Very uncommon, and very little known about them. But there are a few things that people do know—conception is very dangerous for the woman, especially a human woman with no sort of mystic power. But if the pregnancy takes, then you’re dealing with one powerful fetus.
Other than that, we’re mostly in uncharted territory. You won’t find a chapter on this in What to Expect When You’re Expecting.
Dakota sat back down at the table and sipped her water. She looked up at me, fear filling her eyes. “So how do you know?”
“You’re talking about a mystic pregnancy,” I said. “And I know for sure why Cassie sent you to see me.”
Dakota pursed her lips in confusion. “Why?”
“Because I’m the result of a mystic pregnancy.” I pointed to my eyes. “That’s why I got these pretty things.”
“So it’s…not human? Then what is it?”
“It’s half-human.”
“And the other half?”
“My best guess?” I paused to take a drag on the cigarette. “Demon.”
Dakota pushed the chair away from the table. “You can’t be serious. You mean the Minister is a demon?”
“Either that or he’s working with one.”
She stood suddenly, staring at my eyes and her jaw became slack. “What you said about your mother…you’re—”
“Half-demon myself, yeah. We’re called cambions.”
“Oh my god!” Dakota backed away from the table. “Y-you’re a demon!”
I rolled my eyes. “Half. And the other half is human. I’m not like them.”
“But you came from Hell!”
“No, I was born in Gary, Indiana,” I said with a sigh. “Listen kid, I know this is tough for you to understand, but I’m one of the good guys. I was raised by people who fight demons.”
“How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick?” she asked.
“When you met Cassandra, did you trust her?” I asked.
Dakota didn’t say anything, but after a few moments, she started to nod. “Cassandra said you were…a magician?”
I rolled my eyes. “Not the best way to put it. I’m a dabbler, you might say.”
“And your mother…she went through what I’m going through?”
I scrunched the cigarette into the tray. “From what I’ve heard, yeah.”
“Well…did you ever ask her about it?”
“I couldn’t.” My gazed fixed on her and I could see her curiosity. She also started to flinch under my sight. “She died giving birth.”
“Oh…” Dakota looked embarrassed and devastated by my explanation. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“It’s not important. I’m just sayin’ that’s probably why she sent you to me.”
“Cassandra did a tarot reading. There was one card, The Magician. When I turned it over, it changed…into this.” Dakota shifted as she reached her hand under the table. She pulled something from her pocket and set it on the surface.
I reached out and plucked it, looking at my name, symbol, and information all printed on the card. Neat little trick, Cassandra. Transform the tarot card into one of my business cards.
“Paranormal investigator?” asked Dakota. “Is this the kind of thing you’ve investigated before?”
“I do a lot of different things,” I told her. “But I also don’t come cheap.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Yeah, kinda figured that.” I sighed. Last thing I wanted to do was get mixed up with a mystic pregnancy—especially for free. But I also didn’t want to leave the poor kid to fend for herself. If she had a cambion in there like me, there were probably some nasty individuals who’d have no compunctions about tearing the baby from her womb.
But this Minister guy…that could be the ticket.
I sipped the scotch as I thought about my options. I’d already helped out Stella with her grandson, so I’d filled my good-deed quota for this month. Even if Dakota couldn’t afford my fee, I might be able to get someone else to foot the bill. Someone who might be interested in a petty magician trying to create cambions…
I smiled. Oh yeah, I’m sure he’d be very interested in what I had to say about that.
“There might be something I can do for you, Dakota,” I told her. “But first, I have to look into your story. Get all the facts.”
“But what do I do until then?” she asked. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
I clicked my tongue, pondering the option. I didn’t like the idea of some stray hanging around my place alone. But at the same time, I knew she had to be protected until I could make a plan. If she went out there alone, sure, that baby might be able to protect her. But it might not. And a mystic pregnancy was the kind of rarity that tended to attract attention.
“You can stay here,” I told her. “You’ll be safe.”
“But…I was able to walk right in,” she said.
“Let me show you something.” I rose from the table and walked to my office. I opened the closet door and searched around until I found a blacklight, which I took back to the dining room and set on the table in front of her.
“What’s this?”
“Pick it up, go over to the wall.” I pointed to the wall beside the kitchen entrance. Dakota looked confused but she did as I said. I went to the panel and switched off the lights, the dining room darkening. “Now turn on the blacklight.”
Dakota followed directions and the long, thin light in her hand activated, creating a soft, purple glow. She looked at the wall and jumped at what she saw, letting out a yelp of surprise.
All along the wall were red sigils and markings, with Enochian text inside them. She held the light over the wall and traced one of the sigils with her finger, obviously marveling at the work. I flicked the light on again and the sigils all vanished.
“UV paint,” I told her. “Lets me put sigils on the walls without ruining my decor.”
“What are they for?”
“They’re wards. They keep out unwanted mystic elements. Prevents them from entering without an invitation, or from seeing what I get up to in here.”
“So how could I get in?”
“Might be that thing you’re carrying is more powerful than we imagined, or it might be something else. Who knows—maybe I actually do want you here and I just don’t know it yet.”
Dakota blinked. Clearly, she didn’t get what I was saying, but that was okay. I took the blacklight from her and walked back to my office. As I walked, I shouted so she could still hear me.
“The point is, you’re safe here for the time being. At least until I can figure some stuff out.” I put the blacklight back in the closet and grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair. As I stepped out of the office, I saw Dakota standing in the corridor and staring at me. I closed the door behind me.
“So, I can stay here for now then?” she asked.
I huffed. “Yeah, I suppose. For now. You can help yourself to anything in the kitchen.” I pointed at the big-screen TV in the living room. “I’ve got a smart TV that’s connected to Netflix, Amazon, whatever you want. Feel free to get your binge-watch on. But there’s just one rule.” I knocked on the office door with each word for emphasis. “Stay. Out. Of. This. Room.”
“What’s in there?”
“That’s my office. Lots of dangerous mystic stuff in there and the last thing I need is you opening up a portal to Purgatory.”
Dakota nodded. “I’ll stick to the TV.”
“Good.” Just to be sure, I hovered my hand over the door handle and whispered, “Se
ro.”
I pulled my jacket on and went to the foyer.
“Where are you going now?” she asked.
“Cassandra sent you to me,” I said, taking my trench coat from the front closet and putting it on. “So I’ve got to have a word with her.”
Cassandra’s spot was over in Albany Park, about a half-hour drive northwest of my building. The skies were already beginning to show the first hints of the approaching night. I glanced at the docked smartphone on my dashboard and saw the time was already around five, right before I pulled on to I-90/I-94-W. I stepped on the gas, speeding up as the ramp merged onto the highway.
This whole thing was bugging me. I didn’t like coincidences. I was even starting to second-guess whether or not I should pay a visit to Eden tonight. If this plan was going to work and I was going to get paid, I’d need some more proof to take to Raziel.
That’s where Cassandra came in. If she could point Dakota in my direction, maybe she could also point me in the Minister’s direction. My foot pressed down on the accelerator and I swerved between the lanes of traffic. The exit for Pulaski Road was fast approaching.
My car wove through the lanes, pulling off the ramp and slowing down just enough to roll to a stop at the light. Impatiently, I tapped my fingers on the wheel, waiting for the light to change. As soon as it did, I was off.
A few turns later, and the strip mall was in my sights. I pulled into the lot and parked, opening the glovebox to remove the revolver and slide it into the holster beneath my jacket. Probably wouldn’t need it. But you never knew what might happen when you were around Cassandra.
I locked the car and walked up to the door, pulling it open. The scent of jasmine burning in the air invaded my nostrils as I walked through the shop, finally coming to the back area.
Cassandra sat in her large chair, the hookah hose between her lips and the water bubbling from the glass structure resting on the ground. The smoke flowed past her wrinkled lips with deliberate movements, as if she controlled its ebb and flow with her mind. Those fogged, eerie eyes stared right into me.
“Luther Cross. So good to…see you again.” She cackled at her joke.
I rolled my eyes and walked closer, standing before her with my hands clasped in front of my waist. “I see you sent a stray to visit me, Cassie. You know how I feel about that.”
“I did nothing of the sort, young man,” said Cassandra. “You know just as well as I do that the cards hold the power. I have no control over what image they show.” She reached a bony hand towards the table in front of her chair and patted a deck of tarot cards.
“Maybe so. But now I need you to do for me what you did for her.”
“Oh? You fancy a reading?” She smiled.
“Not interested in playing card games with you, Cassie. I need information; that’s why I’m here.”
A sharp intake of breath on her part. She exhaled and then took another draw on the hookah, the bubbling of the water filling the silence. While the smoke flowed from her mouth and nose, she held the hose out towards me.
“Go on.”
“Why not?”
I took the hose and placed the wooden mouthpiece between my lips. When I sucked on it, the water in the pipe’s glass base bubbled once more and the active coals atop the foil-wrapped bowl at the hookah’s summit glowed a bright orange, heating the tobacco beneath. I could feel the smoke flowing into my mouth and taste the mix of sweet and sour flavor.
“Double apple—nice,” I said, the smoke billowing from my lips as I spoke.
“Now come, let ol’ Cassie give you a reading.” She reached for the tarot deck and shuffled the cards faster than she seemed capable, deftly moving them in her hands with practiced precision. When she finished, she set it on the table. “Go on, cut.”
“Cassie, I don’t have—”
“Cut. The. Deck.”
“Fine.” I held the hose between my lips with one hand, my other moving to the deck and taking half the cards off the top.
Cassandra took both halves and assembled them into one pile. She drew one card and laid it down on the table. I looked down at it and my lips tightened. The card featured a red demon, grinning wickedly, batlike wings protruding from his back and mammoth horns on his head. A naked man and woman were both bound and chained to the post the demon perched upon. An inverted pentagram was emblazoned at the top of the card.
The rage boiled inside me so quick, even I was surprised when I kicked over the table, scattering the cards along the ground. I threw the hookah hose on the ground and turned my back on her, half-tempted to charge right out.
“Good thing I didn’t light any candles,” Cassandra deadpanned.
“The hell was that all about, old lady?” I looked over my shoulder, glaring at her out the corner of my eyes.
“The Devil—that was the card,” she said as she bent down to pick up the hose. Once she settled back into the cushions, she began smoking the hookah again. “Luther, you focus so much on the imagery without even considering the deeper meaning.”
“And what does my tarot reading have to do with Dakota Reed?”
“A very good question,” she said. “What do you think it means?”
I grunted and lowered my head, placing my hand on my brow to think. I’d never been much of a tarot fan, so I didn’t give ’em too much thought. The archetypes and imagery helped some people work their magic, and Cassie sure as hell loved using those cards for her readings. But for me, I could never establish that relationship you had to have with a tarot deck in order to work real magic. Whenever I did it, it never felt much different from consulting a magic eight-ball.
“I think it means a demon raped my mother and now someone’s done the same to Dakota.”
“Try again,” said Cassandra. “Pick up the card and look at it.”
“What’s the point?”
“Just indulge an old blind woman.”
I sighed and crouched down, picking through the cards, flipping them over one by one until I found The Devil card. I sat there, perched on the balls of my feet with my knees bent, staring at the card.
“What do you see?” she asked.
My eyes focused on the man and woman chained to the post. “Bondage. Captivity.”
“Held by what?”
“The Devil.”
“And what does The Devil represent?”
“Lust, greed, negativity, self-obsession…”
“Exactly.” Cassandra sucked on the end of the hose. “This card represents your current state, Luther. If you’re going to help this girl, you have to understand your limitations—and come to grips with what it is that’s holding you back.”
“Maybe this self-help crap works on the norms, but why do you think it’s gonna work on me, Cass?”
“Just consider what you’re doing here, Luther. Consider what this girl represents.”
“I didn’t come here for self-reflection, I came to find the bastard who did this to her.”
“I can’t help you with that.”
I scoffed. “And why not? You had no problem sending Dakota to me.”
“That was different and you know it. I can only put people on the path, Luther. It’s up to you to find the way.”
Damn, this woman was infuriating. Always with the cryptic nonsense. Y’know why most magic types stay so cryptic? It’s because they’re stumbling around in the dark, too, and are just using it to cover up their own—
On the ground, something distracted me. I knelt and picked up the card staring me in the face. More than any of the others scattered, this one called to me. A woman in robes, seated on a throne in the forest, a crown atop her head.
The Empress.
Maybe I did have a lead—someone I could talk to about this.
9
Cassie’s reading gave me a hint of who I should meet. My eyes caught sight of the tarot card resting on the passenger seat. The Empress. Oh, I’d speak to her soon enough. But first, I had somewhere else to be tonight. The Camar
o accelerated down the Kennedy, heading towards the Chicago skyline, standing stark against the darkened sky with the bright lights of the beautiful architecture.
My destination was the heart of the Loop. Specifically, 233 South Wacker Drive. To the tallest building in the city of Chicago. The parking garage was located just across the street from the Willis Tower. Didn’t quite care for the name change—shouldn’t matter if Sears was out of there or not, the name had history.
After choosing a spot, I exited the garage, putting on my sunglasses as I stepped outside and crossed the street, approaching the hundred-and-ten-story building.
The Willis Tower lobby was just ahead. I walked inside and approached the elevators, which stood mostly full, with a few other people cramming in. I pushed my way through the crowd and ignored the buttons, just stood still in the center of the elevator with my hands in my pockets.
One by one, the elevator dropped everyone off at their floors until I was the only one left. After the final person disembarked, I approached the control panel and with my finger to trace a symbol above the buttons. While I did that, I muttered a few useful words in Enochian.
A distortion in the air appeared and a large, white button formed where I’d traced my finger. I smiled and pushed the button. The elevator hummed to life again, rising with incredible speed.
Once it slowed to a stop, the doors opened, and a bright, white light filled the car. I stepped off and the light faded. That was another good reason for the sunglasses—that moment when you first set foot in this place could be disorienting.
The floors were pristine white, so much that they almost glowed. The walls were all constructed of glass without a smudge on them. All the tables, chairs, and counters matched the floor’s bright surface. The wait staff, dressed all in white, almost blended in to the surroundings. They moved across the floor, carrying trays of food and drinks to the various guests seated at tables scattered around the place.
A circular bar sat in the center of the club, with several bartenders manning different points. Here, you could get any drink on Earth—and some that weren’t. Multiple levels of the club housed more tables, and on a raised dais was a beautiful, raven-haired pianist dressed in red, her white-gloved fingers dancing expertly across the keys. Just past the stage was a large opening in the glass wall, leading to a massive open-air patio with more tables and a fountain. Guests gathered, looking out over the city of Chicago.
Devil's Due (Luther Cross Book 1) Page 5
