Blood Ties

by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  The knocking came again, firmer this time.

  If Melinoë had followed me here to plead her case, well, things would get interesting. I might get my ass handed to me, but I wasn’t putting up with her bothering me in my place of residence.

  I rolled out of bed, bare feet hitting the cool floor. I should get some area rugs—pick something out, point Dad in that direction. Then he’d have a birthday gift settled and not quietly nudge me about it for the next six months and stress because I didn’t want anything.

  I did not bother with pants, just padded around the curtain and across the room for the door. If my visitor didn’t want to see me half naked, they should’ve considered that before showing up unannounced.

  I threw back the deadbolt and opened the door, energy lining the frame in sigils briefly flaring blue-white in my presence. It scanned every person who crossed the threshold and stored information—brief flashes I could access—and always quieted when I approached, knowing it wasn’t necessary to record anything about its creator.

  A cop stood on my doorstep.

  A pretty cop three inches shorter than me, hair bound back smoothly, medium-brown skin, full lips. The emblem on her uniform signified OPP-OD—Ontario Provincial Police, Occult Department. Investigated crimes related to magic users, demons, or otherwise unexplained—like the ones I committed.

  Her eyes inadvertently did a sweep of me, lingering on my bare legs. Maybe on the tattoo on my left thigh—she always wondered about that one—but I liked to think she was distracted by the expanse of bare skin.

  I leaned against the doorjamb with my arms crossed, and grinned at her. “Greetings, Constable. Something I can do for you?”

  Constable Tanvi Chaudhary’s gaze shot back up to mine, heat practically radiating from her cheeks. Then her back stiffened and shoulders squared, wisps of dark brown hair brushing her cheeks as they fell from her bun. Her deep blue uniform looked uncomfortable and did nothing for her figure—which was considerably attractive, a fact I was intimately acquainted with.

  Yes, a serial killer who used to date a cop. I’m the person movies warn you about.

  In my defence, she knew exactly who—and what—I was before we got serious, even if she liked to pretend now that she thought I was evil.

  “You called me,” she pointed out, her voice husky honey that could relax me in just a few words—at least when she said the right things.

  “Which, at most, would’ve warranted a call back rather than a personal visit. So—is there something I can do for you?”

  She held up a tablet, gory photo of a dead man on his bed. Granted, it was taken in the bright light of day, but it did look kind of familiar.

  “Is there a question somewhere?” I asked.

  “Did you kill him?”

  “Of course I did.”

  Her whole body went tense—even more so than it had been—and she snapped the tablet case shut. “Elis—”

  “What, were you hoping I’d deny it? Cuff and interrogate me? Kinky.”

  “This isn’t a joke.”

  “I was about to put on a pot of coffee—you’re welcome to a cup.” I abruptly turned and sashayed for the small kitchen area, turning on the coffeemaker. While it began to gurgle, I pulled out a pair of mismatched mugs, and didn’t need to turn to know Tanvi stood near the counter watching me.

  “You can’t keep doing this,” she said quietly.

  “Mmm, pretty sure I can. And plan to.”

  “You’re going to get caught.”

  “If you keep showing up at my place accusing me of murder loud enough for my neighbours to hear, then yes, probably. Duh.”

  “You think I like showing up at a crime scene and knowing immediately that my ex-girlfriend committed the murder?”

  “I think if you didn’t, you’d find another line of work.”

  Her dark gaze narrowed.

  Neither of us said anything while the coffee brewed. It was by no means a new argument and would not be solved by us getting into it again.

  I poured the coffee, didn’t bother adding milk or sugar—she preferred both, but I wasn’t banking on her being here long enough to drink it—and set one on the counter before her.

  I took a sip. “Did you find my brother?”

  As predicted, she didn’t touch the coffee. “There’s no indication he’s missing.”

  “Except that he hasn’t been seen in a week.”

  “Your brother has disappeared more times than I can count.”

  That was true. I wondered if Melinoë was aware of his wanderings. In those instances, though, he’d always been trackable by his passport, if you knew who to ask and what name to look for. “All I asked was whether there were any John Does in the past week his age, height, general description, or any I should go look at.”

  She set her tablet down on the counter, tapping on the screen for a moment before turning it to me. “Swipe left. Seven in the past week.”

  The coffee wasn’t sitting right in my stomach, suddenly a cold heavy lump.

  I looked at the first photo, a shot from the morgue. Twenty-something man, body in good condition. Full face, short hair. Not Dev.

  Nor was the next one. Or the one after that. It felt like revolver and a game of Russian roulette—each one that wasn’t him, no matter how relieved I was, made it seem that much more likely the next could be him.

  The silence was interrupted by Tanvi’s radio chattering—a 10-14 and it must not have been urgent if she wasn’t moving to go.

  I got to the seventh and let out a breath. None were Dev, even accounting for the discoloration and damage to the corpses. Realistically, I didn’t think he’d be among them. I still figured he was dead, but the Aanzhenii wouldn’t leave a body.

  At least not a recognizable one.

  I spun the tablet back to her and leaned my hip against the counter, lifting my coffee to take a sip. “Thank you.” I meant it, too—I did expect maybe a text either telling me to fuck off or a list of morgues to check, not a home visit.

  She snapped the cover closed and scooped up the tablet. “I’m sorry you’re worried about your brother, but I can’t risk...”

  “Helping me,” I finished for her.

  Tanvi gave me a pained look. “I’m assigned to a case where you’re the killer and you couldn’t even give me plausible deniability.”

  Okay, fine, but no one would ever say I lacked honesty. Just...patience, forgiveness, compassion, etc. But I prided myself on never lying. “You’re kind of the only cop I know, but fine—I’ll ask the morgue myself next time. I’m sure that won’t raise any red flags.”

  “I just mean...” A heavy sigh and around and around this argument carousal went. Again. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything, but we’re not friends, Elis. I can’t do you favours like this.”

  We never really were friends, no. We’d had that volatile, opposites-attract kind of relationship that was often adversarial. Passionate, but not really “friendly”.

  And truthfully, I didn’t have a lot of “friends”. I had good contacts and acquaintances, but not a braid-each-others-hair-and-spread-our-secrets kind of friendships. Not even when I was younger. I was too aloof for many years, then I became a killer and that sort of hobby limited my relationship options. It wasn’t like I was a sociopath but most people hear “murders men” and assume there’s some kind of damage there.

  In the back of my mind I’d been considering also asking Tanvi to look up Melinoë for me but that was probably out as well.

  “I’m serious about the ‘not murdering people’ thing,” she reminded me.

  “He wasn’t people, he was a walking, talking bag of douche. I’ve eaten stalks of celery that deserve more compassion—and that had more sentience.”

  She bit off whatever else she was about to say and marched around the corner, the door opening and closing a second later.

  I dumped her untouched coffee in my mug.

  Five

  The Apartment on the Cor
ner of Magic Alley

  That night after midnight, I was crouched in front of my brother’s door picking the lock.

  I swore I wouldn’t. I didn’t particularly care if he was in trouble. But...Dad. If something had happened and I didn’t warn Dad about it, I wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive me.

  Devdan’s apartment was on the west side of the city. “Magic Alley” as it was unofficially called, though it wasn’t an alley—more like four square blocks where half the magic users in the city lived and worked. Magic supply shops, back-alley spell exchanges, witches dispersed among various apartments and townhouses. A handful of humans lived in the area, but the housing turnover rate was high for them.

  Interdimensional demons popping up at inopportune times didn’t help.

  Dev’s apartment was tucked on the top floor toward the back, the hallway curving out of sight of the other doors. The deadbolt was tricky, but I’d been taught how to pick a physical lock as soon as I had the fine motor skills for it. The magical variety had followed closely thereafter.

  The light was low, the bulb over his door having burned out at some point in the past week when he wasn’t around to complain. I got the final pick in place and unlocked the door, the bolt clicking back as I rose.

  I silently opened the door and slipped inside.

  Magic flared around the doorframe—the same warding I’d been taught as well, though with his own spin on it. The threads were deep orange and braided with red in various spots—blood magic, a heavy line of defence that wove straight through the walls, floor, and ceiling.

  A light switch waited to the left, but I left it in favor of a penlight; if Dev was in trouble, if there was any chance someone might be watching, I didn’t want to overly advertise my presence.

  His loft was sparsely furnished, at least on the lower level; a set of steps directly ahead led to his room which, unless he’d grown out of some lifelong habits, would be a nightmare to go through. I started on the main floor first, checking the drawers of the hutch on my left, the small dark bathroom next. What I was looking for, I couldn’t say.

  Except that Melinoë had one theory about what happened, and I couldn’t let that cloud my judgement. I was not a typical investigator, but if I was, I’d try to start without assumptions.

  The license wasn’t just a piece of paper—I did have to earn the fucking thing.

  Nothing interesting in the medicine cabinet. The bathroom was polished and clean but smelled faintly of toothpaste and wintery soap—it still smelled lived in, even though he’d been gone long enough for dust to gather around the mirror.

  My penlight aimed at the floor, I turned and started out of the bathroom.

  As I nearly collided with someone, my heart leapt to my throat and my fingers twitched, magic rushing to my call in preparation, lighting the space more than my penlight had.

  Melinoë took a single, quick step back and stopped. Didn’t raise her hands or say anything, her brows lifting in silent question.

  I coiled magic back, the sparks rolling back up my arm and disappearing. “I have a lot of free time right now and I was curious.”

  “Mmmhmm,” was all she said.

  I rolled my eyes and passed her, continuing toward the kitchen. Glanced through the cupboards, the drawers. Tried to wrack my brain and think back to where he used to hide things when we were kids. He was eight years older than me, though—we were hardly playmates. I was the annoying baby sister who would throw spells at him and he wasn’t allowed to retaliate because he was older.

  “You got past his door.” Melinoë followed a few steps behind me as I crossed the living room. “He said his wards were locked with blood magic when he was out and only he could pass.”

  “We do share some DNA—more than you and he do, so how did you get in?”

  “He gave me a magical...passcode. So to speak.”

  How trusting.

  The warding was customizable—plenty of witches would pack a lot more restrictions to keep blood relatives out as well, but Dev and I had very few of those. No other siblings, and on both sides of his family nearly everyone had been wiped out thirty years ago. We grew up with each other, our dad, my mom, our aunt, and my parents’ friends who acted like relatives.

  I paused by Dev’s desk—his laptop was missing, a faint layer of dust interrupted by a square indicating it had been moved fairly recently. Within the last week? Maybe. No spare papers, no notepad with anything important jotted down. He’d have used his phone for that anyway, but I checked none the less. The potted devil’s ivy to the left had grown rubbery and lifeless—I’d have to water it before I left. Maybe take it back with me, as there was no reason for the plant to die because Dev disappeared.

  Along the top shelf above the desk were family photos—he got the habit from Dad, I figured, who had them all over the place—and the pics were old. Dad and Dev’s mom when they got married—a selfie, nothing formal. She was pretty if not a little plain, wavy blonde hair parted down the center and falling over her shoulders, her eyes a vivid green. Dad looked the same, of course—other than a trim, I didn’t think he’d even changed his hairstyle in thirty years.

  The pictures had been in our house until Dev moved out. It was one of those things I grew up around but didn’t ask about, how all these pictures of a dead woman were in Dev’s room as well as the drawing room. My mom didn’t like that room and I didn’t entirely understand why except that the knotted heavy tension in the room whenever Dev’s mom was brought up was enough to choke me.

  Hanging over one of the photos of his mom was a chain—normally it had an old wedding band on it, a gold one made of Celtic knots.

  The ring was gone, though. Dev wouldn’t’ve left that behind.

  Small garbage bin by the desk—empty but for a couple of Kleenexes. I turned away from the desk and shelf, and finished in the living room—honestly, it was all pretty boring—then hit the steps, jogging softly up to the loft.

  As predicted his bedroom was terrifying. Bed unmade, clothes strewn around what was probably a laundry basket beneath the pile. Books stacked high on a second desk. And dresser. And nightstands. Sure, you could get digital grimoires and demonology textbooks, but the physical copies were still popular—there was a contingent of witches my age who were trying to digitize older works, but plenty of them had entities tied to the actual books themselves. Making copies? Well, there were enough substantiated claims to suggest entities could haunt digital files as well. Get a few too many fucked-up computers and even skeptics get careful.

  I did another sweep of the bedroom with my penlight. Where were his actual supplies? The biggest spells—magic that affected a larger area or a lot of people, that really fucked with the world—still benefited from magical items. Dev had to have some somewhere, plus I knew there were several books he’d never leave sitting out like this.

  I went for the nearest windowless wall and looked for a seam or secret door or anything that seemed out of place.

  Melinoë still hung by the top of the stairs, watching me. “I told you I have all his stuff from the motel. What do you expect to find here?”

  “Important lesson we both grew up with...” I moved to the next wall, crouching to peer under the dresser.

  She sighed and walked to the bed to sit, rifling idly through the nightstand without really seeming to look. “Which is?”

  I dropped flat on my stomach and shone the penlight under the bed. “Don’t keep everything important in one place. Mom had a whole network of supplies and safehouses squirreled all over the city. Dad was big on keeping backups.” When I found nothing, I rose to my knees again and twisted to shine my light around once more. “If you didn’t find any clues at the motel, either everything was on him or there’s something to find here. He has to be keeping his supplies around here somewhere.”

  “You’re looking for some kind of...a hiding place? A glamour? Or like a safe?”

  “With security, you have to consider who is most likely to break in.�
�� Thanks, Mom. Dev might not have liked her but she was plenty wise and he listened. “Around here, anyone able to make it past the warding and get inside is going to see through a glamour.”

  She rose again and paced, wandering around the room and peering out the doorway at the top of the stairs. “Look up.”

  I glanced at her; she was peering at the ceiling outside the door.

  I tipped my head back and shone the light upward, but didn’t see anything.

  Melinoë pointed. “The ceiling out here is about two feet higher than in the bedroom.”

  Hmm.

  I climbed to my feet and focused on the ceiling this time, checking for any sign of a seam, anything off.

  “You think there’s a crawlspace we can access?” she asked.

  “Or a hidden room,” I mumbled. “It’s how we were raised.” Dev was tall—taller than me by five or so inches. He’d have something custom installed...easy to access, for him. He’d lived here for a few years and I didn’t know if he rented or had bought the apartment outright, but he had the money to subtly alter things without a landlord knowing. He was secretive by nature—had to be something here. Nothing too complicated, but not something that could be accidentally knocked open.

  I reached up with my empty hand, fingers splayed and palm up, and felt along the air. Magic rolled from my fingertips toward the ceiling, testing and tasting the expanse of white for anything that seemed...

  A jolt ran through my arm; not painful but still startling.

  “What?” she asked as I paused.

  “There’s something here. I can feel it, I just can’t...” I tested again with my magic and a deep burnt orange sparked against my blue. This time the shock was sharper and I jerked my hand back with a hiss, my fingers tingling and magic rolling back up my arm reassuringly.

  Melinoë stepped over softly, her leather coat creaking in the silence. Her head was tipped back, hair falling away from her face, and she studied the ceiling. Then she reached up as I had, her fingers moving in a graceful, circular gesture.

  The ceiling seemed to bubble, an oily black rising to the surface. It gathered and grew, coiling around and around until a circle about two feet in diameter formed.