“Jesus,” Delarosa mutters. “I can’t believe those kids were stupid enough to venture into the Eververse. First fucking rule of magic: don’t go to the Eververse.”
A true statement. The first rule of the Unified Magic Code, as written by the ICM, is “Don’t travel to the Eververse.” It may not be a difficult thing to accomplish, a portal between here and there, designed for Earth-born passage—it’s much easier than summoning an Eververse being to Earth, because our world comes with a lot more restrictions on form and function. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to hop into an infinite universe of magic and mayhem. People who journey to the Eververse rarely come back intact, if at all. There are too many short-tempered, sharp-clawed things there, ready and waiting to devour a puny, fragile human who dares to tread into forbidden lands.
The fact those kids broke into the Etruscan Underworld, stole an important object of some kind, and lived (for a short time) to tell the tale is impressive. They must have had some extensive guidance from their buyer.
I chew on my tongue for a moment and reply to Delarosa, “That buyer must have promised them a shit-ton of money. The way they were talking, it was more than enough to set them all up for life. College kids, faced with a lifetime of student loan debt and lackluster office jobs…An exciting supernatural heist with a boatload of money as its prize probably seemed like the ultimate dream come true. The buyer played to their dreams, and they played right into his trap.”
“The buyer was supposed to get the ‘treasure’ while the kids took the fall for the theft. The fall being their deaths at Charun’s hands.” Harmony sighs. “He probably never intended to pay them at all. He was going to take this treasure and bolt, leaving the kids to face Charun alone.”
“Bit of a hiccup though,” Ella adds. “He didn’t get the ‘treasure.’ Brendon was scheduled to trade with the guy after the boathouse meeting. Which means whatever the kids stole is still in this city somewhere.”
“And Charun’s not going to stop until he recovers it.” Ramirez raps his nails on the tabletop. “The buyer likely knows about the park incident by now—if not, he’ll know by morning, when the story breaks on the news. If he’s as smart as he appears at first glance, he’ll drop out of sight. We’ll never find him without a name, and I doubt any of the surviving kids know that name. Brendon never named the guy during the boathouse meeting, did he?”
“No. He didn’t.” I tug at the strap of my sling to tighten it an inch. “That bastard buyer is going to get off scot free.”
Frustrated mumbles fill the room for the next minute or so, and then Delarosa quiets them with a hand wave. “One question I still have—maybe I missed something—but how the hell did Charun get here, to Earth? The summoning circle suggests he was brought here by a human sorcerer, but none of the college kids were sorcerer level, were they?”
A dull throb grows in my head as I fight off a flashback to the holding cell, the fiery escape of the spirit, and the ash-rendered corpse of… “It was Ally Johnston. Or, should I say it was the fire spirit inside Ally Johnston? Given what the kids said in the boathouse, it seems like Johnston was a new recruit. My guess is that Brendon recruited her because she had a bigger internal magic store than the rest of them; he wanted someone with a little extra firepower, if you will, to accompany the group on their heist. Johnston was probably borderline witch level but fell under the ICM’s radar. She didn’t have any training, and she didn’t know much about the supernatural community. She was perfect for Brendon’s needs. A trump card to utilize if something went wrong, easy to manipulate and control.
“But what Brendon didn’t anticipate was that a spirit would follow them on their escape from the Underworld—he expected corporeal creatures, like Charun.” My stomach convulses, and I have to pause to suck in a slow, deep breath. “At some point, on their way out, the fire spirit possessed Johnston because she had more power than the others. And without any anti-possession training, she was helpless to resist. It took her and used her to get out of the Eververse, through a portal that only Earth-born bodies could pass through. Once it was here, it used its own knowledge plus Johnston’s power to summon Charun, so the Underworld’s furious guardian could track down whatever was stolen.”
A hush of pity falls over the room. For a girl whose unfortunate ignorance led to her terrible death. I have no idea how long Johnston’s mind remained intact after the possession, but even if it was a fraction of a second, it was still too long. Powerful spirits can rip a human mind to shreds, drive you to madness in moments, cause you unfathomable, inescapable pain. Mentally, I curse Brendon, over and over and over. That arrogant twat lured a girl to a death that no one deserves. Even Betty Smith, for her part in this fiasco, didn’t deserve to go out with that spirit burning through her soul. (Or with bullets in her face.)
In the midst of our mourning silence, a small voice whispers, “Tuchulcha.”
A dozen pairs of eyes, including mine, redirect themselves to the doorway. Cooper Lee stands there, partially hidden behind the wall. His face is twisted in nervousness, scrunched up, like he isn’t sure whether he’s welcome in the task room or not—perhaps he feels he can’t stand in solidarity with a bunch of beat-up warrior types. He’s holding a book to his chest, a worn old tome, and I realize it’s the same one he’s been using to research Etruscan mythology.
Ella tilts her head to the side and ushers the archivist into the room. “You can join us, Cooper. It’s okay.”
Cooper shakes his head. “It’s fine, Ella. I was just about to head home for the night. I stayed a little late to finish up my work for you guys. I have some findings for you.” His lips stumble over the last few words, and I get the sense that he’s lying, especially when he refuses to meet Ella’s eyes, much less my own. Then it clicks in my tired brain. He stayed late because he wanted to be here when we got back from the raid. He was worried.
The skinny archivist slips into the room, handing off a stack of printed pages to Delarosa, who’s closest to the door. He says, “The ‘fire spirit’ is called Tuchulcha. He’s one of Charun’s assistants in the Underworld. He’s not nearly as powerful as Charun himself, but, as I’m sure you all already know, he shouldn’t be underestimated. He seeks out strong hosts so that, when he leaves those hosts, he can take all their power with him and use it to his advantage while in spirit form. Hence the fiery escape from holding.”
“So Kinsey’s right. He took Johnston because she had the most bang for his buck.” Ramirez plants his face in his hands and groans. “Damn, we really screwed up. We assumed the spirit had exhausted most of its power during its escape from the holding cell. But it didn’t because Johnston had a witch-level power store instead of a minor practitioner’s. So this Tuchulcha had more than enough energy left after its breakout to blow up the boathouse without a new host.”
Ella scoots her chair back and grabs her coat, slipping it on. “Let’s be honest, guys: We led Tuchulcha to the kids. He was probably following us around, making us do his work for him. Once he had eyes on his targets, he called in Charun to help him finish the job. And that, friends, is how our raid went to hell.” She eyes the clock on the wall. “Now, since our lead captain is apparently going to be on the phone all night, I’m heading home for a nap. And I suggest you all do the same. We can’t salvage this case if we devolve into sleep-deprived zombies.” She stares at Ramirez, daring him to challenge her “suggestion.”
Ramirez pushes the wireless mouse out of his reach, moving his own chair back at the same time. “Agreed. Keep your phones on, folks. You’re on call for the duration of this case. Go home. Get some rest. Eat a good breakfast. We’ll recap again in the morning, hopefully with Riker, and figure out a strategy from there.”
Liam Calvary, still gazing off into the infinite space of a painkiller trip, lets out a low, confused whining noise. “But I don’t get it.”
Delarosa grabs the younger man’s shoulder to guide him into a standing position. “It’ll make more sens
e when the drugs wear off, buddy. I’ll drive you home.”
“No, no,” Liam slurs. “The treasure. What’s the treasure?”
Delarosa sighs. “You mean the object they stole, Liam? You want to know what the kids stole?”
“Yeah, exactly.” His lips form a lopsided grin underneath the wad of gauze. “What item could be important enough to make these monsters come up here to recover it?”
All the agents in the room consider that question for a moment. Because it’s a good one. None of the kids ever explicitly said what they took from the Underworld. And since we don’t know where the “treasure” is either, we may have to wait to find out what it is until one of the survivors is coherent enough to tell us about their jaunt into the Etruscan Underworld. By that point, Charun and Tuchulcha may have already recovered the object, through whatever means they consider appropriate.
Harmony rises from her chair and zips up her jacket, shivering despite the warm air in the task room. “You know, given all that’s happened, I’m not entirely sure I want to know what they stole, much less find it. I’m kind of fond of keeping my head on my shoulders.”
Nobody adds anything to that statement. Nobody disagrees.
The meeting breaks up a few minutes later, and we all head off into the dreary night.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Two steps from my rusty pickup truck, parked in the corner of the bottom level of the dimly lit garage, I realize I forgot something moderately important before I left the office. “Aw, hell,” I mutter and dig Jack Brendon’s key out of my pocket. I tucked the heavy key away when Navarro was working on my arm, intending to drop it off with the analysts for evidence processing once the infirmary released me from its grasp. But, fixated on the events at Holden Park, I forgot.
Grumbling, I turn on the cool concrete and march back toward the garage entrance to the building, passing several other agents from the task room. Some of them give me curious looks, but none of them care enough to say anything. Or maybe my face is contorted in an annoyed expression that convinces them staying silent is the better option. Either way, I head through the automatic office doors, swipe in with my ID card at the turnstiles, and take the elevator upstairs to the fourth floor. When the box dings like a microwave and the doors roll open, I all but dash into the hallway, eager to get in, out, and home quick enough for a good night’s sleep.
But I only make it a couple of steps before I almost run face-first into Cooper Lee. He yelps, dodges to the right to avoid a collision, and stumbles into the wall. A folder full of papers flies out of his hands and bounces off the floor twice before it comes to rest underneath a water fountain. Three hundred odd pages scatter across the tiles, as Cooper looks on in dismay.
“Ah, jeez. Sorry, Cooper.” I bend down and start collecting the papers, aware they were probably in some order that will take an hour to replicate. Smooth move, Kinsey. “Thought you said you were heading home for the night.”
He scuttles over to the water fountain and retrieves the emptied folder. “I was about to leave, but then I got a call from Nakamura’s team. They’re out in Riesling—it’s a small town about fifty miles north—dealing with some sort of malicious supernatural sea creatures terrorizing the shores of Lake Huron. I’ve been prepping a bunch of research for them for the past few days, and now they need it. Like, right now—as in, somebody’s downstairs in the lobby, waiting for the package.” He hesitates and stutters out, “A-Apparently two people got eaten yesterday.”
He spins around, one slow, complete, devastating circle. His bottom lip wobbles a bit, like he’s about to go down sobbing, though his eyes don’t tear up. “Oh, God,” he groans out. “I have to reorder all these pages. Why didn’t I use a freaking paperclip?”
I continue gathering papers for him, inwardly cringing. I’m torn between being an asshole and leaving—I really need some sleep, okay?—and staying here to help him fix his research material before the agent downstairs has a conniption fit. He looks so distressed, though, gazing, forlorn, at the papers on the floor, that I bury my body’s bone-deep need for rest and say, “Hey, don’t sweat it. I’ll stick around and help you get your stack back into shape. Is there a meeting room open? If we work together, we can probably reorganize this stuff in ten, fifteen minutes.”
Cooper gawks at me for a long second. “Really? You’ll help?”
“Of course.” An idea strikes me. “If you’ll do me a favor.” I dig the key out of my pocket and hold it up. “I forgot to drop this off at the evidence desk earlier, after the raid. Those analyst guys tend to raise a stink whenever I bumble procedure—which, admittedly, is often—and I’m not in the mood for their backtalk tonight. So, how about you take my key to evidence and deal with the cranky analysts, while I take your research downstairs and smooth talk the guy past the delivery delay? He’s a detective, yeah? So he and I are on the same level. Sort of.”
Cooper pouts for a second, considering my trade, and then a look of relief washes across his features. “You know what? I’m familiar with one of the analysts on evidence duty tonight. Brittany Regent. We were in the same graduating class. She’s nice to me.” He chuckles. “All right, then. You deal with the scary detective, and I’ll take the friendly analyst.” He shuffles forward and snatches the key from me, stuffing it into his own coat pocket. “Now, can we get this mess off the floor before a janitor sweeps it away?”
“You got it.”
Even though I only have one arm to use, Cooper and I manage to get the research stack back together in ten minutes, working out of a cramped, two-person meeting room near the elevators. Once he’s satisfied that the papers are in their proper order, he grabs a paperclip and a rubber band from the closest supply closet, secures the stack, and hands the finished package off to me. “Be careful, please,” he pleads, as we’re parting ways. “And thanks for your help.”
I hit the elevator button and say with a wink, “No problem, man. If Brittany gives you any crap about the key, let me know.”
“I will.” He darts off down the hallway, toward the analyst area, and disappears around the corner. But a second later, as the elevator doors are opening again, his head pops back around the wall, and he shouts, “Night, Cal!”
Snorting—Cooper’s kind of a trip—I reply in kind and step into the elevator. It takes me to the ground floor, where I meet with one Detective King, an older agent who stands half a head taller than me, is twice as broad, and has a thin, puckered pink scar curving down one side of his face, where something with claws almost got the better of him. But didn’t. I imagine because he strangled it to death with his bare hands before it could. Christ, no wonder Cooper was scared of the guy.
Thankfully, King is in too much of a rush to do more than grumble a short complaint about the tardy package. He takes off for the front entrance the second the research lands in his hands. Past the glass doors, I can see a car waiting for him in the front lot, another agent in the driver’s seat. I wonder briefly, as King exits the building and hops into the vehicle, which drives off a moment later, why Cooper didn’t just email the research to Nakamura’s team. Then I remember an academy lesson that mentioned something about the dangers of digitizing certain types of written spells and magic instructions.
Hm. Whatever. I’m done for the night.
I take the stairwell back to the garage and all but run toward my truck. No more distractions. No more delays. I’m going home.
The garage is now clear of the meeting attendees, and there are no sounds except my heavy breathing in the cool night air, my footsteps on the hard concrete floor. I round a support pillar, revealing the line of empty spots that lead to my truck, still parked all by itself in the corner. But the second I catch sight of my trusty vehicle, I see something else, too, and I scuff my feet to a stop, one hand sinking to the gun holstered on my thigh.
It’s not Charun or Tuchulcha, though, come to finish off the annoying Crow.
Nope. It’s Erica the witch.
She’
s lounging on the hood of my truck, typing something into her cell phone, nonchalant. Despite what must have been a brutal battle with Charun in the darkness of the woods, hours of physical and magical exertion, she looks like she just stepped out of her front door in the morning, fresh and rested. When she hears me coming, she dons a smirk and glances at me over the top of her phone. “Well, hey there, hot Crow. Been looking for you. Got time for a quick bite to eat?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Erica drives me in my truck to a twenty-four-hour diner tucked between a defunct bowling alley and a Laundromat. It’s one of those Mom and Pop places that’s had the same menu for thirty years and ignores trends like gluten-free and the much-exalted (or reviled) vegan diet. Erica parks my truck in the empty lot of the bowling alley, and we walk across to the diner, both of us shivering in the pre-winter air. Once we’re inside, a kindly older waitress tells us to pick our seats—there’s no one else in the place, so we have the full selection—and the two of us slide into opposite sides of a booth with cracked leather cushions.
The moment my ass touches the seat, I ask in a low tone, “What happened to Charun?”
Erica, who hasn’t spoken a word to me since we left the DSI garage, hums and replies, equally quiet, “Slipped us outside of Terrence Town. We got a couple guys out searching still, but odds are, he’s off the radar for the night.”
“Ah, I see.” So much for the powerful witches and wizards saving us from the big, scary monster.
After we put in a coffee order and start perusing the menus, Erica picks up the conversation again. “Fancy footwork out there earlier. Almost thought you had that Etruscan beast for a minute. Too bad you can’t conjure up a bigger charge in those rings of yours.”
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