Last Breath

by Debra Dunbar

  Straight forward. The police turned to me and I nodded. What else was I going to say? That I suspected the victim of black magic? That I believed a demon had killed him rather than a random act of nature?

  “They say your odds of getting struck by lightning are about the same as winning the lottery,” Janice murmured. She’d moved close behind me and was staring at my foam sword with curiosity. “Too bad he didn’t buy a Powerball ticket.”

  I doubted one would have negated the other. And I was now wondering the odds of being killed by a demon. Probably a lot higher if the victim was involved in the dark arts.

  The ambulance left. The police left. Melissa left after texting her group to tell them the news of Ronald’s passing. In short time I was standing on the curb in the light rain, alone aside from a reporter who didn’t seem inclined to get back into her warm, dry car.

  “Can you show me where you found him?”

  I hesitated, not sure whether Janice just had a morbid fascination with scenes of death, or whether she suspected something. I wanted to go back anyway to get a picture of the sigil before it was disturbed. Not that I wanted Janice or anyone else seeing me taking a photo of a spot where a man had supposedly been electrocuted to death.

  “Sure. There’s blood though.”

  The idea of blood didn’t seem to bother the reporter. She fell in beside me, shortening her stride to keep pace with my shorter legs. “What were his injuries?”

  Yep. Morbid. Creepy. There are things you expect a reporter to ask about, and things you don’t. This was in the things you don’t category. “Nothing on his back besides bloodstains. It looked like he took the lightning strike to the chest.”

  There. That should do it.

  Nope.

  “So burned, blackened skin and fabric? Or melted? Most lightning deaths are from heart failure caused from the electrical charge, but a direct strike would have left burns.”

  This woman missed her calling. Why was she a Baltimore City reporter and not off in a CSI crime lab, or working for the FBI?

  “His rib cage was blown outward. Heart and lungs were missing. Judging from the small amount of blood and the damage to his cloak, I’d say the wounds cauterized with heat that also burned his clothing.” There. That ought to shut her up.

  And I just realized that I sounded as if I should be in a CSI crime lab or working for the FBI, not whipping up lattes part-time in the Inner Harbor.

  Janice stopped. From the shock on her face I wondered if I hadn’t gone a bit too far in my description. “You said his ribs were exposed, like something inside had exploded them outward? And heart and lungs were missing?”

  “Yeah.” I backpedaled, realizing that I was sounding way to knowledgeable, and pretty callous. “I’ve never seen lightning hit anything beyond a tree, though. And I’m no medical professional. I’m sure I was mistaken.”

  The reporter shook her head and began walking at a more rapid pace. I jogged to keep up. “Over there.”

  I pointed and we swerved left to arrive at the patch of ground with the sigil. Ronald’s body had smudged the outline a bit. Hopefully enough of it was undisturbed for me to get an idea of what demon it referenced. Now if only the reporter would go away so I could snap a picture.

  “Holy crap! David said one of their players had been killed—like really killed, killed. Is this where it happened?”

  I looked up to see Brandi approaching, somewhat out of breath. The rest of my team was jogging up. So much for a private moment to snap a picture.

  Luckily Brandi didn’t have the same scruples as I did. Nor did anyone else in the group. Everyone chatted excitedly and took photos of the sigil, exclaiming that they’d never known someone who’d died by lightning.

  “Umm. It’s kind of tragic that this happened to one of the players.” I tried to interject some humanity into the moment that was quickly becoming a paparazzi frenzy. “He was just here LARPing, and then he was dead. It could have been any of us.”

  “Could it?” Janice asked, leaning down to swipe a finger across the burned grass. She’d already taken her own picture of the sigil. “Why wasn’t there a fire? And why is the burned section greasy?”

  I knew why, but nobody would believe me if I told them. At least nobody present would believe me. Well, Janice might. She’d taken the reality of vampires and necromancers with very little convincing less than a week ago. Demons probably wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for her.

  “Yeah. Sucks that someone got killed like this, but honestly it couldn’t have happened to a better guy,” Zac chimed in. “It’s like fate. It’s like divine retribution or something.”

  So Ronald was not a favorite. No wonder everyone was busy snapping pics and tweeting.

  “Melissa, their other mage, said he was new to the group?” I asked.

  Brandi snorted. “New to them maybe, but not new to us. He’s made the rounds and been thrown out of just about every gaming group in town. Arrogant asshole. And he cheats.”

  How did one cheat at throwing beanbags at an opponent? “Cheats how?”

  Brad shrugged. “I don’t know. In Other Worlds, he showed up with this insane character roll-up. We made him roll the stats again, just because he was plus twenty on everything. He got the same numbers. He always made his saves, always rolled max on his hit points. We made him use a set of our dice because we were beginning to think his were fixed. Still, the guy always came out on top.”

  “And if you argued with him, or took the last diet Mountain Dew, then your character began having the worst luck ever,” Zac added. “Ones every roll. I went through three characters in one night. It was no fun, so we told him not to come back.”

  Sounded like a real sore loser, as well as a sore winner. “Did he get back at you guys in any way after you threw him out?”

  “Food poisoning the next game night, but we couldn’t really blame that on him. He wasn’t even there, and the crab dip did taste a little off.”

  “Ronald was a total ass,” Charles added. “I don’t know what he was putting in his bean bags, but those suckers left a mark.”

  I looked down at the burned sigil in the grass. Either Ronald’s luck had run out, or some gamer with a grudge had rolled a natural twenty.

  Chapter 2

  THERE WAS A box waiting for me right outside my apartment door. Lately my great grandmother had taken to sending me an odd assortment of stuff in what I assume was meant to be a care package, but this wasn’t from her. I stared at it with the caution of a bomb squad technician while fingering the hilt of my sword because whoever had sent me the package was a mage.

  No one had ever stolen Gran’s packages, but whoever sent this wanted to make sure the neighbors didn’t walk off with it. There was a nasty hex attached to it that would deliver the equivalent of an electric shock to whoever picked it up. It was a clever spell, designed to go live only when the package reached its destination. Clever, because the folks at the post office wouldn’t take kindly to being zapped every time they touched the thing. The big black rune in the lower corner clearly told anyone knowledgeable in the magical arts what the hex was. It was easily dispelled with a single word.

  But still I hesitated. I wasn’t on particularly good terms with any mages since Haul Du had tossed me out. Maybe there was a bomb inside—a magical bomb that the wizard wanted to make sure detonated only in my face and not some random person’s. But why would any of them want me dead? I hadn’t done anything wrong besides hide the fact that I was a Templar from them during my initiation period.

  “Delens.” I held my breath. The rune faded and my shoulders slumped with relief when a thick black checkmark appeared in its place. I recognized that checkmark. It was the stick-figure equivalent of a bird, and the symbol Raven used to sign all her stuff.

  Normally I would have been irked that she hadn’t put the mark in clear sight and saved me the near heart attack, but she had good reason to be cautious about identifying this package as from her. All the mages
in Haul Du had been forbidden to have any contact with me once I was ousted. Raven had been my best friend, but she’d walked away from that friendship to stay with the magical group that had been her passion for the last decade.

  It still hurt, even though I understood why she’d made the choice she had. A friendship of six months, no matter how tight, wasn’t worth giving up the shared knowledge that came with being a member of Haul Du.

  But this? I’d called her last week to warn her about my disastrous attempt to summon the Goetic demon Vine. Hopeful that this might be some tentative first-step toward a renewal of our friendship, I picked up the package and took it inside.

  A note fell out as soon as I tore the paper off, and I opened it before the box itself.

  Thought you might need this since you’re clearly continuing your education on a solo basis. Please be careful. I’ll be really pissed if I see your obituary in the paper. R

  I smiled at the little check mark bird accompanying Raven’s initial. Whatever was inside, this note had made my day. Heck, it had made my year. When she’d turned her back on me and refused to return my messages, I’d thought I’d never hear from her again. Yes, she’d finally answered my call last week, but I figured that would be the end of it.

  Evidently not. And hope was a beautiful thing. I opened the box and gasped to see the contents. It was a book, an old book nestled in clean white silk. I cradled it with the packing material as I gently pulled it from the box, careful not to get any of the oils from my hands on the fragile cover.

  It was a first edition copy of the Lemegeton, translated from the original Latin, Hebrew, and French texts by Fra D.C.D.D. and Petra Marcus. Draping the silk over my fingers, I opened the cover and again caught my breath. Librarians, including Templar ones, might frown upon those who underlined in books and made notes in the margins, but magicians loved these insights by those who had come before them. Especially if the one making the notes had been Aleister Crowley himself. I traced the dark, scrawling script with a silk-covered finger and marveled that Raven had parted with such a treasure.

  She’d given it to me. Monetary value aside, this book was priceless and she’d given it to me. I wrapped my gift carefully in the silk and stored it back in the box before putting it on the shelf with my other treasured manuscripts. Then I picked up my phone.

  It went to voice mail. I hadn’t really expected her to pick up. Yes, this was hopefully the narrowing of the breach between us, but I was still a Templar and I’m sure she didn’t want to suffer the same fate as I had when it came to Haul Du.

  When the beep came to leave a message, I said everything I could in two words before I hung up. “Thank you.”

  Less than two seconds later my phone beeped with a text.

  Miss you.

  I missed her, too. Hopefully this was a sign that in spite of her choice to stay with Haul Du, Raven and I would always find a way to be friends.

  Chapter 3

  AS MUCH AS I wanted to immerse myself in my new book, I had work to do. I needed to catalog the contents of Ronald’s pockets before I forgot what they were, go through all the scraps of paper I’d taken off his body, and see if I could figure out which demon the sigil burned into the ground under his body belonged to.

  I also had a date—a real date with a human male. Zac, the guy from my LARP group, to be exact. I should have been excited. I knew Zac was excited. He’d barely contained himself when I’d said yes to his invitation. He’d reminded me twice at the LARP about what time he’d be at my apartment to pick me up. He’d already texted me to confirm yet again.

  I wanted to cancel. A guy died in the park, and there was a lot of research I needed to do. Maybe I could ask him to reschedule—like, reschedule for some time next month.

  But growing up meant doing things you didn’t always feel like doing, like eating your broccoli or memorizing those Latin verb conjugations. I might have run out on taking my Oath of Knighthood, but I wasn’t the kind of woman who would cancel at the last minute on a guy with the lame excuse of having to wash my hair or research demon sigils.

  And I knew in my heart that I needed this date. It had been far too long, and I was two steps away from becoming a nun. If my landlord hadn’t been so vehement about the no-pets clause in my lease, I probably would already have at least two cats roaming my apartment. I was considering taking up knitting. Well, no, not the last one, but I did miss having a pet. And the dating situation was becoming dire. If I was fantasizing about hot vampire guys and seriously thinking of cancelling a date to spend the evening reading the Clavicula Salomonis Regis, then I needed an intervention.

  Zac was cute. He was fun. And he was crazy about me in a very flattering, if somewhat stalkerish, fashion. I’d do what I could for the next few hours, go on my date with Zac. Enjoy myself. Then finish up when I got back. Baby steps.

  That decided, I sat down, pulled out a notebook and started writing. Fifteen minutes later I had what looked like a shopping list of magical supplies. Now to make sense of it all.

  If the herbs and items in Ronald’s pockets had a magical purpose, then they were separated for a reason. I grouped the items together, and began to research what spells they would most likely be used for. It was a long and carpel tunnel causing project, so I took a break midway to read the papers I’d found in the dead man’s largest pocket.

  A receipt for fast food. A grocery list. An address. I was just about to reverse look-up the address when there was a knock at my door. It was at least an hour before I expected Zac, and I’d had few other visitors since I’d moved to Baltimore. Well, except for one. I waited, hoping, but the locked door didn’t swing open. I knew that he’d hardly be able to come by when the sun was up, but I hadn’t been able to help my irrational anticipation. Tamping down my disappointment at who wasn’t at my door, I went to answer it.

  It was Sarge, his nervous smile oddly contrasting with his buff, bouncer physique.

  “You got a moment to chat?”

  Not really, but I could hardly turn him away. Sarge was cool, one of the people I felt the stirrings of a fledgling friendship for. Normally I don’t think I’d have much in common with him beyond weight training routines, but Sarge was a blood slave. His connection with the local vampire Balaj meant he was one of the few people in the city I could discuss the supernatural with without being accused of being a looney. And he was one of the few sources of information on vampires who didn’t want to drink my blood.

  “Sure! Come on in.”

  Sarge eyed my sword on the table and made a beeline for the sofa, launching right into his reason for the visit before his butt had even hit the cushion.

  “Geraldo is going to dump me. We’ve been together for six months, and I know that I tempt him to indulge more than he probably should. I can’t help it. I want him. I want him all the time, and… we had a fight.”

  Okay. Time to have a girlfriend support session with a man in love with a vampire. I moved my notes from the couch onto one of the few places on my coffee table not covered with books, then got him a pint of ice cream.

  “Here.” I jabbed the spoon into the open container. “It’s cookie dough. Makes everything better.”

  I was just glad I had it to offer. A few days ago there was nothing in my apartment but some Ramen noodle packets and instant coffee but last night, when I got home, my monthly biological event led to my finding twenty-five hundred dollars in my tampon box. The vampires had paid up and Dario must have snuck in and placed it in my usual hiding spot for cash. It bothered me that I hadn’t seen him since the last confrontation with the necromancer. He could have waited to give me the money in person, or left a note of some sort. Nothing. Just a wad of hundreds in a tampon box.

  I’d buried my disappointment deep, hid most of the money back in the box, and went to an all-night grocery, grateful that at least I was a regular sort of girl when it came to my fertility cycles.

  So I had ice cream, milk, real coffee, a quart of potato salad, and
a roasted chicken. And I’d replaced my Emergency Beer—just in case.

  Sarge’s relationship problem might have warranted ice cream, but it didn’t rise to the level of Emergency Beer. No, that ten dollar bottle of Belgian was only to be broken out in case of a demon summoning gone bad, or if I was the one crying over a vampire.

  “So… what happened?”

  They probably didn’t have a lot of time left as a couple before Geraldo either broke it off, or lost control and killed Sarge. He wouldn’t mean to, but vampires couldn’t resist taking too much, or drinking too frequently from their blood slaves for long. At six months, their relationship had lasted longer than any I’d read about in my textbooks.

  “The last two nights have been the usual. He takes care of his needs once he awakens, then I meet him around midnight. We spend the night together and he leaves my place before dawn.” Sarge stabbed the ice cream with the spoon a few times. “We have sex. He marks me as his own. Sometimes we watch a movie or play ‘Call of Duty.’”

  Sounded like most relationships, outside of the biting. “So, why the argument? I don’t mean to be ignorant, but Geraldo seems pretty attentive.”

  Sarge appeared determined to kill my pint of cookie dough ice cream with that spoon. “It’s not the same. You’ll see. Sex is good, but sex when they really drink from you is amazing. That’s what I want, and I don’t want to wait eight weeks for it.”

  I winced. Clearly there wasn’t enough hit from whatever narcotic was in the vampire venom to sustain Sarge in between deep feedings. This was the nature of a relationship with a vampire, the life of a blood slave. Their venom was a drug that created a dependence and cravings that couldn’t be ignored. At first it was manageable, but over time, the need was all a blood slave felt. Textbook cases had a blood slave living for four months before the vampire took their life. Geraldo seemed to have amazing control, but with Sarge pushing him, he’d eventually step up the feeding frequency until his partner was an anemic husk. Eventually Sarge would die.