Curses & Blood

by Kim Richardson

  The mid-demon flinched. The eyeball slipped from his fingers and landed with a plop on the floor. “You don’t have to yell. I’m right here,” he said, irritation flashing in his dark eyes. He grabbed the flattened eyeball and placed it next to the other one. “The eyeballs are a nice touch. It gives a whole new meaning to ‘see you soon.’”

  My eyebrows lowered, my mood souring. “I think whoever did this is psychotic.” As a Dark witch, I’d seen my share of eyeballs and other parts of the mortal anatomy floating in jars filled with formaldehyde. But I’d never actually used them in any of my spells or curses. That was a whole other level of Dark magic. I liked being bad. I didn’t want to become evil. There was a thin line between being bad and being evil. Once you crossed it, there was no going back.

  “But it also tells me,” I continued, “that these guys are structured and organized. They’re planners. There’s more than one. They took their time doing this right. And it’s obvious they know what they’re doing.” It would take an average witch hours to pull this kind of ritual off. But witches killing witches? That didn’t make sense.

  I looked at Faris. “What is Naberius’s specialty? What is he known for in the Netherworld?” I put my hand up. “Apart from owing you souls.”

  Faris grabbed a corner of the bedsheet that wasn’t stained with the victim’s blood and wiped his hands. “He does have a knack for business. Not bad at spells. But in the Netherworld, Naberius is known as the ‘go-to-demon’ if you will. He’s the one you call when you need something. And when I say something, I mean, if you’re low on souls or you want a hit on the demon’s husband you’d been banging for two months. He does a pretty good job of removing all evidence that would lead back to you.” I didn’t want to know. “He’s our jack-of-all-trades. You need something badly enough, Naberius can make it happen. And that goes for the human or half-breed that summons him. Naberius is the demon to summon in your hour of need and desperation.” He looked at Lars. “All for a price, of course.”

  I glanced at the dead witch. “So, they sacrificed Lars to Naberius—but for something in return.”

  Faris moved his head from side to side, pondering. “Yes. That logic seems to fit.”

  “And if we continue on this same logic,” I paced around the room, “it would mean the same people who killed Sarek killed Lars. But if they already have this book… why would they need to sacrifice Lars?”

  The mid-demon looked inquiringly at Lars. “For information? Maybe he knew something they wanted.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Witches did this,” said Logan after a moment.

  “Now, wait just an angel-freaking moment,” said Faris as he closed the distance between him and Logan. “Just because it looks as though a witch did this sacrifice doesn’t mean it is a witch. Remember the mages, Boy Scout?” he added, his expression mocking. “Or have you forgotten already?”

  His brown eyes dark, Logan’s stare was iron-hard and cold. “I’m just calling it like I see it, demon.”

  Great. Not this again.

  My eyes shifted between them. Logan stood with his arms crossed over his chest and a strange smile on his face. Faris’s face was twisted with a misplaced satisfaction and confidence in him as he eyed the angel-born. The mid-demon wanted to fight the angel-born.

  “Enough with the pissing contest. It could very well be witches,” I said, before Logan and Faris got into another one of their spats. My eyes traveled over the level of details in the runes and the perfect circle and star. Not one thing was out of place. Not a rune. Not a squiggly line. Not even a drop of blood. The circle was damn near perfect and far better than any I’d ever drawn. Impressive. “It could also be werewolves. Most of them might fear magic, but I’ve seen one that was skilled enough to pull off something of this magnitude.” My pulse rose at the memory of that dark-skinned werewolf female who’d sent us to the basement to be tortured. She might have worn a pendant to ward off magic, but she was skilled in it too. She could pull this off.

  I pressed my hands on my hips. “Could be humans too. But we won’t know anything for sure until we know why Lars was sacrificed and what book they took.”

  It seemed as though the deeper I got with this case, the more confused I was, and the further away I was at actually solving the murder of the faerie. And now his colleague.

  Why me? “I have two dead Gray Council members. I need to report this.”

  Faris eyed me carefully, and I didn’t like the tightness in his jaw. “Sammy darling. You forget that they’re going to ask you why you were here.”

  Right. “I’ll tell them the truth. That I came for information. That’s all. Information to help further my investigation. They’ll believe me.”

  The mid-demon made a face. “With your track record, darling, I’m not so sure.”

  I pulled out my phone. “They knew what they were getting when they hired me. If they wanted someone who was afraid to get their hands a little dirty—”

  “They would have hired Boy Scout here,” finished Faris, his grin spread to his ears.

  Logan opened his mouth to protest—

  And then a crash came thundering from the hallway and shook the apartment.

  CHAPTER 9

  A jolt of adrenaline pounded through me. Eyes wide, I looked at Faris. “Naberius?” I thought perhaps the demon had come to retrieve the body to use its skin for a new coat or maybe a new pair of boots. Who knew? Demons were strange like that.

  Faris shook his head, his face darkening as he lifted his gaze toward the bedroom door. “That sounded like the apartment’s front door blasted open. Naberius wouldn’t announce his arrival like that. He’s a demon duke, not a demon douche.”

  Very true.

  The lights flickered and went out, leaving us with only the light from the still-burning candles. Swell.

  Logan vaulted to the doorway before I could stop him and peered out.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  He lurched back out of the line of fire as guns barked. Bullets sank into the wooden doorframe, just inches from where his head had been, topping his hair with splinters of shattered wood.

  Heart thrashing, I sprang to the other side of the doorframe and crouched low, pressing my back against the wall.

  “Who the hell is shooting at us?” I hissed, keeping my voice low. My body trembled as the energy of my sigil rings surged through me, instinctively answering my sudden panic. Enough energy flowed through me to make my skin prickle. I gritted my teeth as I strained to keep it inside of me, right at my fingertips, before I accidentally released it. I didn’t know much about guns, but that definitely sounded like a semi-automatic weapon.

  I heard the sound of shoes scuffling the floor and Faris leaped toward the wall to squat next to me. “Perhaps the same people who played jump rope with Lars’s intestines.”

  Nice. That didn’t make sense. It’s not like we interrupted their ritual, if these were the same guys. By the looks of the witch’s grayish skin tone, Lars had been dead a while. The ritual was over. So why the gunfire?

  I stole a glimpse at the hallway beyond the bedroom door but only saw walls and shadow. “I’m not getting any witch vibes.”

  “Same here,” said the mid-demon. His eyes flashed. “Exciting, isn’t it?”

  My lips parted. “Not really.” I watched Logan on the other side of the doorframe. His face had lost all expression, but a storm brewed behind his eyes. He crouched on the balls of his feet, looking like he was about to do something stupid. If he moved now, the bullets would tear into his flesh like he was made of paper.

  “I don’t know about you,” I said, trying to hear the sound of footsteps approaching with a spell readied in my mind, “but I don’t know any witches who use guns. You think they’ll shoot me if I step out?” Stupid question, I know. But if I could see who was shooting at us, I could hit them with my magic.

  “One way to find out.” Faris grabbed a red and gold pillow off the bed. “Don’t shoot,” he cried, in a mo
ck imitation of a woman’s voice. “We’re coming out!” And he tossed the pillow into the hallway.

  Bullets ripped through the pillow, showering the air with white feathers. More bullets tore into the floor, the wall, and the ceiling, coming from some point out of sight around the corner and filling the air with chunks of drywall and dust.

  Faris leaned against the wall. “Does that answer your question?”

  Anger knotted my gut. I didn’t like feeling trapped, but I hated being shot at. My breath hissed in and I froze at the sound of heavy boots scraping against the hardwood floor. They were coming closer.

  The two scuffing sounds joined, and I stiffened at a sharp crack of metal scraping metal. Someone was reloading a gun. I listened, not moving or daring to breathe.

  I blinked through the dust and debris. “How many do you think are there?” It sounded like two or possibly three. We could take them and keep one alive to question him or her.

  “Five. Perhaps six,” said Faris, and Logan’s head snapped toward him.

  Crap. This was bad. Six crazies with automatic weapons who wanted to shoot our heads off. Damn. I loved my job.

  “If either of you have a plan,” I said. “I’d love to hear it.” To use my sigil rings on them, I had to be in proximity of my opponent—or at least I had to see them so I didn’t accidentally spell an innocent. Even then, with most witches, we had to conjure our magic. That took effort and time. A gun was a hell of a lot faster. A gun could shoot faster than I could voice my spells.

  The moment I stepped out into that hallway I would be torn apart like a Dark witch piñata. I preferred to keep all of my body parts. Thank you.

  “Don’t look at me. I’m no hero,” said the mid-demon. “The only person I care about is me.” His face squished at my reaction. “What? I thought I was supposed to be open and honest about my feelings.”

  “That’s just great, Faris.” I turned my head to the side, my heart pounding against my temples.

  A sudden feeling of disconnect rippled through me just as I felt the eerie sensation of numbness, as though every last drop of power from my sigil rings had been plucked from me.

  Panic pulled at me and I stared at Faris. “You felt that?”

  The mid-demon had a frown on his face. “Yes. I felt that. Mine too.”

  Logan watched us, his eyes narrowed. “What?”

  My eyes found the angel-born. “They just put up a ward against magic. A strong one. It means I can’t use my magic. Neither can Faris.”

  Without my magic, I had nothing but my charm to save me. And I didn’t think my selfie smile would save my ass.

  Panic stirred, settling in a familiar place in my soul. I kept my face blank, trying hard not to let it show. Especially in front of Logan. It was a hard thing to admit, but without my magic, I was practically a human. Damn. That was a scary thought.

  The thought lit a wave of fury in me. These bastards had taken away my magic. But they couldn’t take away the Dark witch. I knew my magic. I knew my spells and my wards. I could remove it with two things. One was to kill the one who’d invoked it, and two was to find the ward itself and destroy it—either by erasing it or just drawing a line through it. This ward wasn’t going to last.

  And when it failed, they were dead.

  “What do we do?” asked Logan.

  I took a breath and lowered my voice. “We need to find the actual ward and destroy it. We could also kill the one who created the ward. But it could be any of them. It would take too long. And we can’t risk that.”

  Logan cursed, and when I looked at him, his eyes were on me. A flicker of anger lit through his expression, and in his hand was a gun.

  “Since when do you carry a gun?” I’d never seen Logan with a gun before. Ever. The gun was dark silver and bulky but small enough to have been hidden somewhere on his body. A soul blade wouldn’t be much help against a volley of bullets. Okay. He had a point.

  “I always carry a gun. Just like I always carry a blade.” Logan’s eyes were wide and wild. “One thing’s for sure. We stay here. We die.”

  “Boy Scout does have a point,” said the mid-demon.

  Logan met my eyes, calmly and defiantly. “Grab anything you can use as a weapon.”

  Faris reached out and grabbed me.

  I wiggled out of his grip. “Dumbass.”

  Logan’s expressed turned wicked. I could see he was about to do something noble and very stupid.

  “Logan…”

  “I’m going in,” said the angel-born. “Look for the ward. I’ll cover you. Stay down.”

  “Stay down? Wait!”

  In a blur, Logan vaulted out of the bedroom door, gun blazing. I wondered if his angel essence had equipped him with supernatural speed. Or maybe he’d watched too many James Bond movies. Perhaps both.

  The angel-born was fast. I’d give him that. But he wasn’t faster than a bullet.

  Logan hit the wall, his arm straight and shooting. Gunfire erupted, and bullets smacked against the wall next to him. He ducked and dropped to the floor, rolling with bullets grazing his body, but none touched him. They either had really bad aim or Logan was just lucky.

  It was a bloody miracle he was still in one piece.

  “Damn it!” I yelled and snatched up the six candles on the floor, trying not to burn myself.

  Faris looked at me. “I know I’m supposed to be supportive and all in your decisions… but I gotta tell you… this here,” he waved a finger at me, “candles aren’t going to help us.”

  “Just grab something and find the damn ward!” I pressed myself against the doorframe, the sound of gunfire deafening as I risked a peek around the edge. Shadows stretched and settled in the hallway, but Logan was gone. All I could make out was debris and more shadows.

  “I see it,” shouted Faris from the other side of the door frame and I pulled my head back. “On the wall behind the couch.”

  “Night vision?” I asked, slightly impressed and envious. If my magic was functioning, I could have worked out a night-sight sigil in three seconds flat.

  “Like a cat’s,” said the mid-demon, a hint of his white teeth showing in the darkness.

  I turned around so I was facing the doorframe, and my heart stepped into my throat. I hated this. We were going in blindly, literally and without magic. But I had no choice. These bastards were going to kill us. They were going to kill Logan.

  Gunfire erupted in a roar of furious thunder. It was a damn war zone, and the neighboring humans had probably called the cops by now. Bullets shot and packed in the wall, somewhere near me. The sound of windows crashing in Lars’s expensive apartment was barely audible over the firing of bullets.

  Please be safe, Logan.

  “Wait for the sound of them reloading,” I said quickly, my voice thick with tension and barely perceptible. “And then we run for the ward. Whoever gets there first destroys it.” Then it was payback. We’d see how much their bullets could stop a volley of fireballs aimed at their heads.

  Faris gave me a small nod. “Got it.”

  I flinched at another burst of gunfire from the far inside the apartment. Time slowed. It felt like hours as Faris and I leaned against the wall next to the doorframe, waiting for that one-time opportunity.

  Then, for a blissful moment, the gunfire abruptly stopped. My ears were ringing, but the shooting had ceased. We only had a few seconds, but a few seconds was all I needed.

  This was it.

  Gathering my wits, I dropped the candles because, let’s face it, it was a stupid idea.

  And then I sprang out of the bedroom and bolted down the hallway.

  CHAPTER 10

  I sprinted toward the living room with Faris next to me. Shapes came into view. A table. Chairs. A body that lay on the floor. A second later, and I would have tripped. Light came from the tall windows, mostly from the moon. Surprisingly enough, it was bright enough to make out the apartment once you knew what you were looking for. Just one couch was placed against the far
wall.

  I made for it.

  Just as I leaped over the body, the shooting started up again.

  Gunfire erupted all around me as I raced for the couch. Hunching my shoulders and ducking my head as best I could, I cast my gaze around, looking for Logan. I couldn’t see him, but I saw them.

  Three of them were in my line of sight. Dressed all in black, military-style, they were fully equipped with bulletproof vests. Their faces were hidden behind black SWAT face masks.

  I heard a metallic, ratcheting sound behind me and spun my head in time to see a strange man point an automatic weapon at me. I threw myself to one side and heard a brief explosion of gunfire.

  Bullets tore up the floorboards next to my boots as I started screaming like a banshee, hoping to propel my forward momentum with an added surge of adrenaline. It didn’t really work.

  Eight feet. I was almost there. The trouble was, I would be right in the open, in the line of fire once I got to the ward. I had nothing but the couch to protect me. And it wasn’t made of metal.

  Five feet. I could see the ward clearly now. Three squiggly lines within a large diamond. It was still wet, made of the conjurer’s blood, which explained why it was so powerful to even affect a mid-demon’s magic. Blood magic hurt like a bitch, but it worked.

  A thought occurred to me. How did they even know a demon was here?

  Someone cried out. What is Logan?

  A ribbon of panic pulled me. I was maybe three feet away from the ward when something slammed into my shoulder and pitched me sideways to the other side and over the couch. I landed on the hardwood floor in a roll and stumbled into the wall. Owww.

  Grunting in effort and using the couch as support, I pulled myself up.

  Faris had his hands clamped around the armed man’s gun, yanking and cursing as he struggled to pull it free. But the man was thick, large, and equally strong. The gun was locked in his grip. Normally, Faris would have easily broken the man’s neck. Not only could the mid-demon not work his magic, but it looked like the ward was affecting his supernatural demonic strength. Damn that ward. I had to destroy it before Faris got himself shot.