Graves Pact (Landon Graves Book 1)

by Matthew Stinson

  Breathing in deeply, the infernal creature turned and roared, “The mortals foolish enough to summon me adorn pikes in—” The monster tilted his head quizzically. “Landon?”

  “Hey, Alastor,” I said. “It’s been a while.”

  As a rule, I kept clear of all things supernatural. I had no desire to get dragged into the undercurrent of weirdness that permeated the world. Unfortunately, there had been a few instances where I absolutely had to summon Alastor. I couldn’t mess it up, so I studied that aspect of the occult in great detail. While I wouldn’t bet money on my ability to summon anything else, I could call up my patron rather consistently.

  “You bungled the part of the incantation where you invested the Calling with your identity. I didn’t know it was you,” the devil grunted, breathing out heavily.

  Dark gray steam rose from his shoulders, mass evaporating before my eyes. The muscles stopped bulging and his entire form shrunk. Once he reached an average human height, he shuddered and stopped. I always wondered how much of that effect was illusion and how much was actual physics-defying mass-shifting.

  “You waste your time and energy summoning me when you could simply call me forth with a thought,” Alastor said with displeasure. “And you didn’t even perform the ritual correctly. Disappointing.”

  The idea of mentally invoking trans-dimensional telepathy sickened me. I’d done it before and it left me feeling unclean, like dropping my brain in an overused port-a-potty. Only I couldn’t wash my brain afterward.

  Aside from the contamination and the pain caused by the link, I didn’t like one of the Fallen having a phone line into my mind, but that was an unfortunate fact of my life since I’d signed my pact. I just chose not to pick up at my end. Besides, I preferred to have Alastor where I could see him and I needed the devil to inspect my only clue closely.

  I thought of Alastor as a “him” only in the loosest terms, because as far as I knew, Alastor could manifest in whatever form he damn well pleased. So far, that had only been the menacing doom-beast out of a Dark Ages painting, but I’d read accounts of devils taking on multiple appearances. I supposed it depended on the creature’s goal. I guessed Alastor liked to evoke fear, especially when facing an unknown summoner.

  Stalking to the edge of the inner circle, Alastor stretched out a clawed hand. When he reached the invisible plane made by the summoning circle, the magic reacted violently, flashing white and screeching like nails on a chalkboard. The devil winced but pressed harder, the flesh of his palm smoldering. The noise became ear-piercingly painful.

  I watched silently, doing my damnedest to appear nonchalant. While I kept this cool exterior, my guts squirmed. I was sure I had done everything right, but I wasn’t an expert on ritual magic, only a practiced amateur. Alastor was the only thing I’d ever had the balls to conjure and never unless specifically instructed or when I absolutely had to chat.

  Alastor was my patron, so he wouldn’t kill me. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt me. Badly. The Fallen had funny notions about motivation and learning curves, especially in regard to their warlocks and witches.

  Finally, the devil relented, tearing his charred hand back from the field. He grinned, revealing a mouth full of yellow fangs gleaming with poisonous slime. “Not bad, Landon. You’re getting better.”

  The way perfectly formed words came out of such a horrible maw always unnerved me. His lips couldn’t even close over his teeth and his forked tongue didn’t move in time with the words. But Alastor’s dialect should have been the least of my concerns.

  I shrugged and hoped the sweat wasn’t beading on my face. “I’d love to catch up and gossip, but this isn’t a social call. I’ve come across something on a case. It’s definitely dark magic. Infernal, I think.”

  I pointed to the baggy I’d left on the ground and I saw my mistake. I stifled the urge to smooth my treacherous tie and I certainly didn’t look at the portion of the circle where the black satin Judas smeared the lines of salt and iron during my preparation. The circle was imperfect.

  “And you want my permission to pursue it?” Alastor wheezed with what passed for amusement as he snatched up the piece of parchment, deftly in spite of his clawed hands.

  I couldn’t keep the tight frown from curling my lips into a sneer. “I’m going to take on this case whether you like it or not. I’m doing you a courtesy by letting you know in case it pisses off one your peers.”

  The lords of Hell never could get along, especially the minor ones like Alastor. They were always scheming, always vying for greater heights just to be pulled down. Humans were pawns as best. Mostly, we were so inconsequential that the denizens of Hell likened us to ants. Who cares if they step on a few hundred ants at a time?

  The devil snorted, then said in its gravelly voice, “Keep a civil tongue when you speak to me, thrall.”

  Even with the protection of the circle, I felt the compulsion to do as he said before my conscious mind comprehended it. I wondered how much the circle inhibited that particular ability. I knew it let energy like light and sound out, but kept matter safely within. Where did magic fall? It was a question for a wizard.

  Alastor examined the scroll piece closely, his square pupils contracting. “This is old by your standards. A potent spell.”

  “What does it do?” I asked. This was just about my only lead in the case.

  “This isn’t enough to determine that,” Alastor snapped.

  “Damn it, tell me something,” I said in frustration, not quite accepting the words at their given value. The Fallen reveled in their games. I didn’t want to get caught in one.

  “Don’t presume to command me, worm!” Alastor drove his clawed hand directly for the space above the circle where my tie had disturbed the powder. The compromised magic force-field held about as well as a wet paper bag, shredding instantly. The devil took half a step before colliding with the backup circle, his head rebounding with a satisfying thud and hiss.

  “It was a request,” I said with some smugness, though I was glad I had started the ritual with an empty bladder. “I need information. I’m not about to blunder into this unprepared.”

  Alastor glared at me, fluorescent green blood dripping down over his brow. The fury in his expression suddenly vanished and he bellowed an eerie laugh that sounded like a baritone hyena. “Every time I doubt you, you surprise me. There may be hope for you yet, Landon.”

  I never could tell when Alastor was messing with me.

  “So, can you think of anything?”

  “This magic is dangerous. It will take time to complete. A mortal practitioner would be a fool to attempt it without a whole diagram.”

  I pointed to the baggy. “The ritual’s invoker needs a new scroll?” Alastor nodded. “Well, I guess I need to see where you can get one. Or… could he have made a copy beforehand?”

  “It’s possible, although one cannot simply scribble the secrets of the cosmos on a piece of notebook paper with a ballpoint pen,” my patron chided. “One other piece of advice, thrall. This need not be the plot of my kind.”

  I scowled a bit, calling up images of the crime scene. “What does that mean? Who else would do this?”

  “Who truly knows the minds of men?” Alastor answered vaguely. “You make such self-destructive choices. There are so many ways for you to doom yourselves. Sometimes by accident. Sometimes on purpose.”

  I chewed on that a moment. Was it an amateur ritualist as I thought or, worse, a full-fledged wizard? The incomplete circle at the scene implied a novice skill level or an insane disregard for danger. Still, the size and complexity of the spell made that hard to believe. My perp was either talented or working in tandem with another party.

  “If he’s not acting on the orders of your kind, that probably means the summoner is a deranged wizard... or he’s taking orders from something with no regard for safety or the rules. Something like...”

  “...like one of the Exiled,” Alastor finished my thought.

  The Ex
iled.

  Alastor and its ilk didn’t use the terms “devil” and “demon”. They had their own names—unpronounceable in the human tongue. The best translations were “fallen” and “exiled” respectively. The Exiled didn’t make pacts. They weren’t beholden to the same rules in the realm in which they were trapped, so the bargains wouldn’t bind them like with the Fallen.

  That place—the Outworld—had been described as worse than Hell in the few books I’d read on the subject. It twisted those already wretched creatures into beings of ruin and destruction. I counted myself lucky that I hadn’t encountered one of the Exiled yet. Yet…

  “I’m dealing with a certified maniac,” I muttered. Why on earth would somebody deal with demons? Well… Why did I make a deal with a devil? The thought left a foul taste in my mouth. I tried to keep my mind open to other possibilities, as investigators were supposed to do. Tunnel vision was a bad trait for anyone trying to solve a crime.

  “Perfect,” Alastor said, stretching his wings as wide as the circle allowed. “You’ve yet to fill your quota this lunar cycle. One so mad as to consort with the Exiled... surely has a spirit bound for my realm.”

  I gritted my teeth, none too pleased to be reminded of that little part of my pact with the devil. “You’ll get your soul. Now go. You aren’t needed here any longer. I release you.”

  I let go of the small knot of concentration I held.

  Though the blazing crimson rift formed, Alastor remained where he stood, proving his power over the mortal magic I could barely use. “We have a good thing going, Landon. Don’t screw it up. You’d hate the way it turns out.”

  With his last word in, the devil dropped the bag and stepped back from the broken inner circle, allowing the rift to suck him back into Hell. His limbs twisted and warped as he bent in on himself and imploded. The screeching noise, a cross between a record scratch and banshee’s wail, ceased as the flare popped and disappeared. The candles winked out in unison, the smoke rising in sinuous ethereal wisps.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

  “That went well.”

  Chapter Three

  “Yeah, this message is for Phil,” I said into the receiver after the beep, “I got a lead on that scrap from the scene. I’m going to do a little research on it tonight. Just chasing some paper trails. Nothing I need back up for. I’ll see you Monday.”

  The click of the phone echoed in my austere, sterile home office. The only sounds were the hum of the fluorescent lights and the squeak of my pleather chair. I idly wiped a smidgen of dust off the glossy black IKEA desk. Sighing with reluctance, I reached for the sparsely filled rolodex. I needed an unlisted address that I’d kept around in a rare flash of insight.

  The vast majority of occult shops in Denver had nothing but neo-Wiccan supplies and New Age crystal trinkets. I needed access to some hardcore grimoires, the kind not usually left to gather dust in bookstores or libraries. That sort of power changed hands often. Whoever managed to keep such tomes was invariably not someone I wanted to risk pissing off.

  It’ll be okay. I’m a regular charmer.

  Heading out to a warlock’s version of the public library seemed like a great way to spend the little that remained of my Friday night, so I got my coat and left. I popped Pretty Hate Machine into the CD player of my Buick and started driving. It took me ten minutes to get out of my suburban nightmare of a neighborhood and another hour to get downtown.

  Summoning Alastor after work had taken longer than I’d anticipated and midnight approached by the time I got off the highway. That didn’t mean much to me. I tried to remember what the night sky looked like before I’d made my pact. It was getting harder after five years.

  Instead of shadows and darkness, I saw shades of red like a photographer’s dark room. “Diaboli Oculo” as Alastor would have called it, because like all devils, he had a perpetual hard-on for Latin. The Devil’s Sight was one of my “gifts” for which my patron told me I should be grateful. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since, but it came in handy and saved me loads on my electric bill.

  I parked in a back lot and made my way through the alley to the main street. A harsh fluorescent light shone on the sign for Harkin’s Antiques, Apothecary, and Rare Books. It was the only store in the area open at this hour. I wasn’t sure if it ever closed.

  A bell above the door rang as I entered. The shop was quaint with its aroma of old leather, paper, and ink. Seven rows of chest-high shelves lined the back wall, each filled with various arcane texts of history and lore. Seven display cases occupied the space just inside the door, the bizarre contents out of place in the cozy little shop.

  Museums would have killed for such a collection of artifacts without any knowledge of their true purpose or inherent danger. Perhaps that was why they were safer here. I had no idea what the assorted trinkets did, but I was sure it was nothing a normal human would want to be responsible for.

  A counter sat against the wall to my left. The blonde Goth girl that manned the register didn’t bother to look up as I entered. As I approached, I asked, “You’re new, aren’t you?”

  She sighed and placed a bookmark in the pages of some paperback, snapping the book shut. “Find what you need and get out of here, creeper.”

  Creeper? “Well, I suppose that’s the right attitude for working in this shop during these hours. You may want to watch the door more carefully.”

  Despite the heavily applied dark makeup, the girl looked like she was fresh out of high school. She rolled her eyes and made as if to begin reading her novel again. It irritated me. I was only trying to give a fair warning to a young woman who undoubtedly saw some of the state’s shadiest characters come through the doors. As far as I knew, Harkin’s was the only store of its size and reputation in the region.

  “I need to speak with the owner.”

  The girl found her place and began reading, though she mumbled, “He’s busy.”

  “I’m sure he is,” I said, struggling not to grit my teeth. “I need his expertise.”

  She shrugged indifferently.

  My temper flared and I broke one of my rules.

  I didn’t like using Vox Compos—the Voice as I called it, because I’d read Dune and that was a good enough term for it. It was draining and the power didn’t always work. When someone resisted the compulsion, they often knew something was wrong. It was also hard to gauge someone’s willpower, especially by sight.

  I wasn’t really taking that into consideration though. What could I say? I was aggravated.

  “Listen to me and listen well,” I intoned, calling up my otherworldly power. The girl looked up with wide and somewhat vacant eyes, mouth agape. “Treat those that enter this shop with deference, fear, and respect.”

  It wasn’t like I demanded those things, but for her own good, the girl should err on the side of caution when interacting with supernatural beings. “Now fetch Harkin.”

  She nodded slowly, the compulsion taking effect. She stood up woodenly and I slumped from the exertion. She disappeared behind a set of wooden shelves and I was glad for the chance to catch my breath.

  Messing with free will was exhausting, even such a minor push as that. Shorter term suggestions took less power as did instructions the subject might already be willing to do. I doubted I would have succeeded if the compulsion needed to last longer than a minute.

  “Are you harassing my staff?” Harkin asked a short time later as he came out from the door hidden by the leftmost bookshelf. I noticed that the blonde didn’t join him. I stifled the pang of shame at using my pact-granted power.

  I was a warlock. My powers weren’t nice. That was why I tried to butt out of supernatural business whenever I could. It’ll only be a few days. Then things can get back to normal.

  I didn’t like being reminded of the horrible mistake I’d made in signing my soul away. Aside from my monthly tithe to Alastor, I could almost forget what I was. Pretending to be only a normal human FBI agent was
nice.

  The balding pudgy man wore a well-tailored vest about a hundred years out of style. The gold pocket watch and chain shouted that he wanted to be mugged, especially in this neighborhood. Any thug who tried his luck would surely regret it though.

  I didn’t know what Harkin was, but I wouldn’t make a move against him unless my life depended on it. No one dealt so openly with the supernatural unless they had the mystical firepower to go toe-to-toe with the major leaguers. For all that power, he appeared to be nothing more than a middle-aged man, even to my pact-enhanced senses.

  “Just giving some friendly advice. I don’t want her getting possessed and joining a nunnery.” My tone was off-hand, but the example I gave wasn’t made up.

  “Alice did not join a nunnery,” the rotund store owner said, shaking his head. “What do you want, Mr. Graves?”

  I pulled out the plastic evidence baggy and slid it across the counter. “I need to know where I can find a complete one of these.”

  Harkin took out a pair of glasses from his vest pocket and donned them. He studied the corner fragment of the scroll for a minute, then looked up. “This is some serious spellcraft.”

  “Yeah, I gathered that much. Where would someone get a hold of something like that? Or the supplies necessary to make a copy?” Harkin stared at me suspiciously. I know I’m a warlock, but what the hell? “I want to know so I can stop him, not so I can make a copy. I work for the FBI, remember?”

  Going to Harkin four years ago had been one more in a long line of mistakes. It clued him into who and what I was. Information was his currency and I’d given it up for free. But I had been desperate for answers that my patron wouldn’t give me. Harkin knew everything I needed… if I could only afford the price.

  His gaze lingered and his mouth twisted pensively. “This is heavy magic. The kind that can garner the scrutiny of the Powers.”