Pound of Flesh: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Half-Demon Warlock Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  I saved his life a few years ago down in Morocco. He was about to be sacrificed to some fertility goddess by this coven of loon witches getting ready to drop him in a vat of boiling water.

  Normally, I’d have kept my distance from something like that. After all, witch business is messy business. I learned that the hard way when I tried to interfere with a rain cult back in Utah and found all the moisture pulled from my body. But this particular sect of them had already fricasseed twelve virgins along the border to appease their goddess of choice. Besides, what can I say? I was hungry.

  Turned out imps took the whole “saving your life” thing pretty seriously. Gary pledged himself to me after that and regardless of how many times I told him to beat it, he stuck with me.

  I have to say though, I’ve sort of gotten used to him.

  “I don’t get why they’re so into you though, seeing as how you’re so ugly,” he quipped. “I’d say it must be your personality, but that sucks too.”

  “Well, I guess I appreciate your honesty,” I answered in a low voice. “Must make you damned near a saint for putting up with me.”

  “It’s a thankless job. I’ll tell you that much.”

  I moved up the stairwell, passing a foggy, aged mirror. Though my reflection in it was a little distorted, it was clear enough for anyone to see that I wasn’t exactly the eyesore Gary made me out to be.

  That wasn’t all I saw. I also spied the sling across my left arm, a remnant of the fight I’d just had with this asshole and a reminder of why I was here.

  Though I’d threatened Charles Whitmore pretty effectively while reading him his rights, I had no delusions of grandeur he was going to keep quiet about what he saw back in the market.

  If being a cop for ten years has taught me anything, it’s that the minute you start twisting the gears on these wastes of space, they start singing.

  He’d unload everything that happened back there. I was sure of it.

  And, while no human in their right mind would ever believe any of the crap he’d spout off about red glowing eyes, magic spells, and death touches, humans weren’t my only concern.

  This was Atlanta, a place as full of the supernatural as any on the continent. Hell, it was part of the reason I settled here. All you can eat buffet for the souls of the unjust.

  The last thing I needed though was some serial killer, with a big mouth and nothing to lose, alerting the underground community that there was a new player in town.

  Flying under the radar was my biggest advantage at the moment, and I intended to keep it.

  To do that though, I was going to have to further discredit Charlie boy.

  I settled in front of his door, pushing my way through the crisscross of caution tape that signified it as a crime scene.

  Now that I had gotten inside without having to alert the building’s owner to my presence, I could simply flash my badge at anyone who might happen to see me go through. This didn’t look like the type of place where word of a cop dropping by in the middle of the night would come as much of a surprise.

  Gary jumped off my shoulder, all two feet of him landing nimbly to the ground.

  I looked him over, green, scaly skin, an oblong face studded with a pair of squared eyes and a forked tongue that flickered out of his slit of a mouth.

  “You got the stuff?” he asked, already tired of waiting.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered if all imps were as aggravating as Gary, or if I had just gotten lucky like that.

  “Right here,” I said, pulling a packet of white powder out of my brown jacket and tossing it to the imp. “Stick it in a crevice or something. Somewhere hidden.”

  “This isn’t my first time,” he sighed, catching the bag and shaking his head. “Have a little faith in your boy.”

  “My boy” scurried through the living room, disappearing into Charlie’s bedroom as fast as his legs would take him.

  The police had already searched this apartment but, given that Charlie had been responsible for half a dozen deaths in the city, you could bet that theirs would be far from the last set of gloved hands that would grace this shit hole before the whole thing was over.

  And the next ones that did would likely find a small plastic bag full of LSD.

  A drug charge wouldn’t make much difference for someone who was about to go down for six counts of murder, but it would lead everyone (human and demon alike) to believe that this guy was on some strong hallucinogenic. Which, in turn would help keep my cover.

  I looked around this place, my hand over my nose to block the stench.

  This entire place smelled like death, and not the quick death Charlie afforded the people of the ATL’s mini-marts.

  This was the rotting food, unkempt conditions, and musty laundry that signified slow death, depression, and disassociation.

  It didn’t come as a surprise to me. I had dealt with enough lunatics to know that most of the really dangerous ones were both sad and alone. It was part of what made them so deadly.

  Still, it was never good when someone had to live like this, even somebody like Charlie.

  My fingers traced the dusty counter of his kitchen/living room combo.

  Old Chinese food delivery fliers, moldy pizza boxes, and balled up napkins covered it.

  My eyes were drawn to a business card sitting on the edge of the counter.

  Picking it up, I saw that it simply read “Mr. Fulton.” No description, no snazzy little cartoon, not even a phone number. Just a name.

  Turning it over, I saw that some words had been hand scribbled on the back.

  “Where’s my payment, Mr. Whitmore? It’s been seventeen days and I’m beginning to think you’ve forgotten the terms of our agreement.”

  Well now, that’s certainly interesting.

  I stuffed the card into my jacket pocket just as Gary came bounding out of the bedroom.

  “You put it in the air duct?” I asked.

  “How’d you know?” he asked, leaping from the ground and landing back on my shoulder with a thud. Why the little bugger couldn’t walk like a regular human was beyond me.

  “And you say humans are predictable,” I muttered.

  “Is that an entire pint of lo mien for $4.25?!” he asked, reading the dusty Chinese food menu. “We’ve got to get in on that!”

  “You just ate,” I scoffed, remembering the trash heap he’d leapt into a few hours ago and the way imps would eat just about anything. Having finished what I came here for, I started toward the door. “Besides, they won’t deliver to us.”

  “You don’t know that!” he said as I ducked under the police tape and made my way back out onto the stairs.

  “We live thirteen miles from here, Gary. They’re not delivering four dollars’ worth of lo mien to us in the middle of the night.”

  “We could always have it delivered here then,” he suggested, splashing a fanged grin across his face.

  “I’m not eating Chinese food in a serial killer’s filthy apartment just because you can never manage to keep your belly full.”

  We wound our way down the stairs and back out onto the street. The cold air tonight and felt good against my skin.

  “I didn’t hear you complaining about my belly back in Los Angeles when we had that termite problem.”

  “Do you want a ‘thank you,’ Gary? Do you want a thank you for eating seven thousand termites from the walls of our apartment? Walls that you ended up munching through anyway?”

  He folded his arms and turned his head away from me.

  “Well,” he scoffed. “Not like that, I don’t.”

  3

  The next day I was all set to dig up another dirt bag and try to put this whole “eating” thing behind me for the moment.

  I had gotten my demon side all riled up with the promise of sustenance, and after being denied like that, all the Gummi Worms in the world weren’t going to keep the cravings from screwing with me.

  Unfortunately, the voicemail I received
first thing this morning informed me that at least some of that time would be spent with the district attorney.

  That didn’t surprise me. It was common practice for the DA to interview the arresting officer when it came to cases like this. Any other time, I would have been grateful for the cream puff of a morning that I was about to enjoy.

  But this wasn’t “any other time.” This was right now, and right now, I was getting pretty damned antsy.

  Still, I slapped on my best “good guy” face and drug my jonesing ass downtown to get this over with.

  This case was going to be statewide news at the very least. Luckily for me, the media never cared about the good guys in this sort of thing. This would be all about the monster, and that was just fine by me.

  I pulled a few strands of licorice out of my pocket and bit the tops off them as I strode into the DA’s office. The place was as quiet as a tomb when I walked in, so I took a seat across from the empty secretary’s desk.

  Looking around, I couldn’t help but notice how damned messy this place was.

  Boxes overflowing with papers lined the walls, the trash bins were filled to the brim with garbage, and I was pretty sure the half eaten breakfast burrito sitting on the desk across from me wasn’t from this morning.

  And here I’d thought Charles Whitmore had lived in a pigsty.

  A slender door positioned just behind the desk swung open.

  A woman stepped out of it, her head buried in an open manila folder.

  She was definitely a sight. Jet black hair spilled from the top of her head and morphed into full, natural curls as it met her shoulders. Her face, slender and almost fragile featured, was covered in the most perfect olive skin that I had ever seen, and the way her tight little body was crammed into her business suit had been known to drive me crazy in the past.

  The end of a pencil played with her full lips as she stood in the doorway, still looking down at her work.

  “Must be pretty interesting,” I said.

  She looked up, screaming and jumping backward.

  The folder fell out of her hands, papers spilling to the already messy floor.

  “Jesus Christ!” she screamed, her right hand clutching at her chest. “You scared the hell out of me. Where is Amanda and why didn’t she tell me that you were here… whoever you are?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” I answered, standing up, stifling a grin, and extending my hand to her. “Well, I don’t know the answer to most of that. I am able to tell you who I am.”

  She looked me up and down, examining my hand before she decided to take it.

  Shaking it firmly, she said. “That won’t be necessary. It’s ten o’clock. I assume you’re Roy Morgan.”

  “And I thought I was the detective around here,” I grinned.

  She was polite as she nodded at me though I could tell that my attempt at charm had mostly fallen flat.

  “Let me pick these up and we’ll go into my office,” she said, kneeling down.

  I joined her, half squatted on the floor and helped her with her papers.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, jerking them from my hand. “Those are confidential. You should really-”

  “Be more careful with them?” I asked.

  “Fair enough,” she said, blinking, and this time the smile on her face had just a hint of genuine amusement in it.

  I caught a glimpse of a name as I handed her the last of the papers back,

  Nickolas Cypress.

  “Let’s go, shall we?” she asked, standing, pressing her skirt flat with the palm of her free hand, and looking down at me.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” I said, standing and following her into her office.

  If the room out front was a disaster area, this place was a quarantine room.

  Nearly bare brown walls complemented a spot and clutter free white tile floor.

  The papers on the mahogany desk in the center of the room were in tidy little stacks and the waste paper basket was empty and clean enough to eat out of.

  The only sign that anyone had even been in this room in the last decade was the pair of tan high heels resting upright beside the desk.

  Looking down, I noticed for the first time that the woman I was talking to was barefoot.

  “I’m sorry about the mess out there. We’re in between administrative assistants at the moment. Amanda is a temp, and obviously not a very good one.” She swung around the back of the desk and fluidly took a seat. “My name is Renee Cypress. I’m the Assistant to the District Attorney.”

  Cypress? I thought. Just like the name of the guy on the paper.

  I filed that away and decided to latch onto another tidbit.

  “Assistant?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “I bring down a serial killer and I can’t even meet the guy in charge? Tough town.”

  “I assure you, Detective Morgan, I’m more than capable of handling things on my own for the time being. The District Attorney is on vacation right now, but he’ll be back in time for the trial. What I’m doing now is some preliminary--”

  “Grunt work,” I finished. “Yeah. I know the drill. This isn’t my first bust, lady.”

  She smiled at me again, though it was the kind of tight, painful smile that let me know what she really wanted to do was scream.

  “Ms. Cypress or Madame ADA will do just fine, sir,” she answered.

  “Madame ADA?” I asked, unintentionally chuckling really damned loud. “You’re not serious.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, spinning around in her chair. “We can ask my Harvard degree if I’m serious.” She pointed up to a framed piece of paper on the wall. “Harvard degree, do you think I should be treated with respect in my own office?” She spun back around and leaned forward in her chair. “I think we both know what it said.”

  She was smart and sardonic.

  I think I’m in love.

  “Look,” I said, throwing my palms out and bowing my head. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sure you’re great. I’ll call you Your Highness if it makes you feel better.” I smiled again, leaning forward to meet her. “And while we’re in the business of monikers, how about you call me Roy?”

  “Whatever gets this done quicker,” she sighed, her mouth turned down in a way that - even more than her words - made me think she was already tired of me. “I just had a few questions I needed some answers to, Dete-Roy.”

  “Shoot, Your Highness,” I answered.

  This time, the grin on her face was all amusement.

  “You’ve been in town less than a month, transferred from Boston. Is that correct?”

  “You’re reading me like a book,” I quipped.

  “Good,” she said, making a mark in red pen on a paper in front of her. “And yet, somehow you managed to crack a case that had the local police department stumped for twice that time.”

  “Impressive, right?” I smiled.

  “Right,” she said. “I’m curious as to what your methods were.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you,” I answered, narrowing my eyes and sitting back against my seat. I did follow her though. She knew something was up. I just had to pretend I didn’t.

  “I’d like to know how you found Charles Whitmore in the first place. What brought you to be at that convenience store on that particular night?”

  Since “locator spell” isn’t usually a kosher answer, I opted to go another way.

  “Thirst,” I said flatly.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “I was thirsty. Hence the market. Hence the capture.”

  “Are you telling me that you stopped in for a soda and just happened to stumble upon the Minimart Monster?”

  “God, is that what they’re calling him?” I asked, turning my nose. “Who comes up with this garbage?”

  “Roy,” she said. “Answer the question. You just happened to be passing by a store fifteen miles from where you live while you were off duty?”

  “Well, I was out there for a very s
pecific reason.”

  “Which would be?” Renee asked, her red pen at the ready.

  I leaned forward, a touch of ruefulness dancing around my mind. “You ever been on Craigslist? Specifically the Casual Encounters section?”

  She dropped her pen along with her smile.

  “I think I have enough here,” she said, standing. “If we need anything else, I’ll either give you a call or leave a titillatingly worded message in the bowels of the internet for you to find.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, standing and heading toward the door. My eyes fell over her again, noticing that she definitely wasn’t too hard on the eyes. “You know,” I started. “All of my encounters don’t have to be so casual. If you’re ever interested in--”

  “Let me stop you right there, Roy. I’ll give you the English version of what my mother used to say to my father back in the old country when he’d bring up the idea of having more children.” She put a hand on the doorknob. “I’d rather put my eyes out with hot pokers.”

  Now I know I’m in love.

  “I’m glad you want to play so hard to get,” I grinned. “I love the cha--”

  And then it settled over her, the stench of the grim reaper, the undeniable sense of death.

  This woman was about to be murdered.

  Dammit. Goddammit.

  4

  My plan for the rest of the day was to hang around Renee Cypress like I was a Kardashian and she was the rest of the country; unwanted, often times unseen, but always right around the corner. I wasn’t sure how she was going to meet her end, but I wanted to keep it from happening if I could.

  Unfortunately, plans don’t always go the way you want them to though. Especially if your demon half is beginning to have some mad hunger pangs.

  It had been way too long since I had either metaphorically or literally fed the beast, and my faculties were starting to punish me for it.

  If my demon half got out of control, there was no telling what I would do, and it was far better to take out a child molester or an abusive husband than to flip my lid and sink my teeth into a bus full of nuns or something.