I started to pull myself out of Second Sight when a bluish light appeared behind me. I whipped around, startled to see the ghost of Paulo walking through the wall toward the bed. The dark energy stirred and roiled faster as he approached. Paulo’s apparition looked like a puppet with its strings cut. He glided listlessly over the ground, his head tilted to one side as if listening to something that I couldn’t hear. As I watched, the energy shed the appearance of a bed and began pulling itself into a tight sphere of black.
“Paulo!” I yelled.
“What is it Frank?” Lou asked, swinging the flashlight back and forth wildly looking for something only I could see.
The ghost stopped where it was a couple of feet away from me. Paulo looked at me in confusion. His form took on more solidity and lost some of that ghostly white light. His eyes focused on me for a moment, and his lips parted as if he were going to speak, but then his eyes glazed over and his head tilted back the other way listening to whatever was guiding him. He floated forward another foot. The energy started pulsing in anticipation of something.
“Stop!” I yelled, and held my arm out as if I would physically stop him. I felt power lash out of me and strike Paulo, throwing up an invisible barrier between him and the darkness. I had no idea how I had done it, but it worked, so I focused all of my concentration on maintaining that wall. He made no attempt to move.
“What the hell is happening?” Lou yelled at me, but I made no attempt to answer.
The black magic, tired of my interference, transformed into a disembodied mouth filled with black daggers for teeth. Dark emerald tentacles spewed forth from its maw like a nightmare. It roared its hatred at me, then turned and rushed forward, smashing through my barrier and into Paulo. It wrapped around his energy like a black cocoon and carried them both through the wall and out into the night.
“No!” I yelled, and ran to the window. There was no sign of him out in the moonlit night.
“Frank, are you okay?” Lou asked. He grabbed my shoulder and spun me towards him. “Whoa.”
“What?”
Lou’s face went a shade paler before he was able to regain his composure. He flicked off his flashlight and we were left in the dark. The only illumination was a pale glow spilling in from the parking lot lights.
“What did you do that for?” I asked, unable to keep the frustration and anger I was feeling out of my voice.
“Your eyes, Frank,” he whispered. “They’re glowing.”
3
Lou and I remained quiet as we left the apartment and returned to his car. He studiously avoided making eye contact with me. As soon as we reached his car, I leaned down and looked at myself in the passenger side mirror. Whatever glow was there before was gone now. My normal dark brown eyes stared back at me from the mirror, unspectacular and uninteresting. I would love to have thought that he had imagined it, that it was a trick of the light in the apartment. But Lou saw what he saw and it had unnerved him.
Lou stood by his door and pretended not to watch me. I could feel his gaze drift on to me and then quickly away, as if worried he would get caught staring. I tried not to look at him out of the corner of my eye as I straightened and grabbed the door handle. My hands were shaking ever-so-slightly, and I released the door quickly so Lou didn’t pick up on it. What was happening to me? Nothing like this had ever happened before. My Second Sight allowed me to see magic, and sometimes spirits, but something had been different this time. Paulo’s spirit seemed like it was being controlled by some outside force. The way his metaphysical being drifted along like it was being tugged by an invisible line, sent to be absorbed by the dark magic trap that had no doubt been set just for him. But that wasn’t what really bothered me. What bothered me was that the apparition had listened to me when I told it to stop. Even if it was just for a moment, he listened to an order I gave him and stopped. I had felt my power form a wall between him and the black magic, not that it had done much good, but it was something I shouldn’t have been able to do and it worried me.
“Well,” Lou said, bringing me back to reality. “You want to tell me what happened up there? And while you’re at it you can tell me why we came here in the first place.” He leaned his forearms against the roof of the car and threaded his fingers together as if he were about to say grace.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I’ll explain on the way.” I looked over at him as I opened the door. He didn’t look away or even flinch. The discomfort of a minute ago was gone, replaced by our will to do our jobs and not let anything get in the way. I took one last look at the mural on the wall of the apartment building and made a connection I should have made sooner. “Hey, check it out,” I said, and pointed to the alien face. “Guess which apartment’s windows were used for the eyes.”
“Paulo’s.” Lou sneered as he said it. “So maybe it wasn’t the tenants of this place that someone was trying to send a message to.”
“Pretty effective message,” I offered. Lou just nodded and got in the car. I followed suit.
We were driving for a minute before Lou finally asked, “So where are we headed?”
“Howlerz. I’m going to tell Terri to meet me there so I can fill her in on what’s going on.”
Lou glanced at me and then shifted his eyes back to the road. “What is going on Frank?”
I took a deep breath and told him the story, but instead of telling him about the vision I had of Paulo killing Cassie, I told him that Paulo had confessed to the murder. Something had rattled me about the new abilities that I was exhibiting, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted anyone else to know about it. Lou may have already seen too much with my little glowing eyes trick, which was new to me as far as I knew. It wasn’t so much the new powers that bothered me as much as where they may have come from.
A few months ago when the STS and I had busted up the dreamscape ring a vile of the stuff had been smashed in my face. Most other paras couldn’t stomach the stuff. Magic users and psychics were prone to mental breakdowns or death if they took too much of it. But apparently I was more tolerant of the magic-infused liquid. As it turned out not only did I feel fine afterwards, but it gave my powers a tremendous boost. The Recall, always a hit-or-miss ability, became reliable and crystal clear. My Sight became deeper and more in tune with the currents of energy flowing through the city. I had never mentioned to anyone that I had been dosed with the drug, so no one batted an eye when I requested to take some of the confiscated drugs from the STS and have it analyzed by someone who could identify the magic infused into it. Those vials of blue liquid were now sitting behind the false back of my nightstand. But I hadn’t used dreamscape in weeks. This sudden manifestation of a new ability couldn’t be because of that, could it?
I finished my story by telling Lou about the dark magic trap that had been set for Paulo’s spirit. Neither he nor I knew what to make of that. We pulled into Howlerz’ parking lot and sat in the car with the engine running. I called Terri and told her to meet me as soon as she could. When I asked Lou if he would like to come in, he declined. I didn’t blame him. The werewolf-run bar was accommodating to all forms of paras, but a human in law enforcement? He’d be wiping wolf piss off his shoes for weeks. And if it weren’t for the owner and I having been through some thick stuff together I probably would have suffered the same.
“So what do you think we’re up against here?” Lou asked, staring absently at the entrance to the bar.
I thought it over for a minute, and then said, “Honestly, I don’t know yet. That bracelet that Paulo had reeked of black magic, and so did the trap that was left behind.”
“Yeah, about that, what good is setting a trap for a spirit? They can’t die again can they?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “But in the hands of an experienced black magic user they could be forced into doing things, haunting a certain place or person. Or they might try to get information out of the spirit.” I rubbed at my chin and thought about that for a minute.
Lou turned to look at me. “What type of information could a dead guy give someone?”
“It’s said that once a spirit has crossed over it gains knowledge of things that aren’t meant for mortals. Time and space don’t hold them in place like they do with the living. But it’s mostly theory and conjecture.” I smiled crookedly at him. “Not many magic users like to converse with the dead, it’s weird.”
“Great. So we got some whacko black magic user who wants to learn the secrets of the universe.” He grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and squeezed until the leather creaked under his grip. “What the hell do I write this up as? You say a girl was murdered, but there’s no body. You said Paulo confessed to killing her anyway, and he blew his brains out, so arresting him is out of the question. Grand theft spirit is hardly something my unit is able to deal with, so what can I do?”
I sat there watching the anger wash over him and felt a twinge of guilt at my own feeling of happiness. It wasn’t that I enjoyed seeing him upset or feeling helpless, far from it. But seeing him like this made me realize how much he cared about this city, about keeping people safe. The last captain of the STS had been an office-bound asshole that wouldn’t be caught dead associating with a para like me. Lou and other officers like him made their organization what it was, and they needed a good man like Lou to run it. If we didn’t catch whoever had done this before someone else got hurt Lou would take a long time to forgive himself. It bothered me slightly that I knew I wouldn’t have the same reaction as Lou. Being an Inquisitor you learned quickly that people and paras alike would be injured or killed by the things we dealt with; you just did your best to keep the body-count as low as possible and keep the general public in the dark if you had to use unsavory methods to achieve your goals.
“You could have Charlene go over the apartment again tomorrow,” I said, referring to the hired witch the STS employed. “She might be able to find something I missed. Can you get someone to clean that graffiti off the wall?” I asked.
“Oh, now it’s graffiti? Half-an-hour ago it was a work of art.” He arched an eyebrow at me. He was spoiling for a fight.
I ignored him and pressed on. “If you get the walls cleaned up and leave some men to patrol the area the people might come back to their homes. That would be a step in the right direction.”
He snorted. “Yeah, proactive redecorating. That’s what I’ve been reduced to. And you’re going to track down the black hat that can trap spirits?” He smirked and shook his head. “I don’t know whether to be jealous or grateful.” His smile disappeared. “How the hell does the government expect us to compete with black magic and rogue vampires with just one witch on our payroll?”
“They don’t. That’s my job. If it spills into the human areas then you can complain about your payroll all you want, but until then this is on me.” I meant the words to be reassuring, but Lou gave me a frosty look.
“Not everyone is happy about that,” he said, grimacing. “Hey, your date’s here.” He nodded out across the parking lot.
I stared at him in confusion for a long moment, and then looked where he was looking. Terri had arrived and was making her way into the bar. What had he meant that not everyone was happy? I decided to let it go for the time being. “Funny,” I replied.
He looked at me, saw the frown on my face, and beamed. “Have you two been on your first “stakeout” yet?” he asked, using his fingers for the quotation marks.
I got out of the car and looked back at him. “Get bent, Lou,” I said, and smiled.
He snorted a laugh and said, “Love you too, sweetie.”
With that I slammed the door and went to meet Terri.
* * *
The bar was dark, lit with soft red and blue hues from discreet tract lighting. The smell of tobacco hung heavy in the air as plumes of smoke clung to the ceiling. A general rumble of conversation was overtaken by a jukebox near the back that was cranking out some old rock song. As I walked past the bar area to the booths where Terri would be waiting, I noticed a slight drop off in the volume of the conversations. This never failed to happen when I came here. Even though I had a decent relationship with the werewolf community, I was still an Inquisitor, and therefore met with suspicion. The owner of this establishment, Eric Masters, was the Alpha male for Oakland. The pack leader and overall authority for all things wolf. I had known him for a couple of years. I considered us friends, but we each knew that if something happened that caused us to come into conflict, we would do what was best for our respective communities. Even if it meant that the two of us would be on opposing sides.
I walked down the row of booths until I came to where Terri was sitting. She looked up at me as I approached and waved her hand at the empty seat across from her. Dropping myself into the seat, I took a quick look around to see who was sitting near us. A lot of the faces were familiar, and some even nodded a greeting to me when I caught their eyes. Most of them, though, were watching one of the three stages that were placed in a loose triangle formation throughout the bar. On the stages were the main attractions of this place: shape shifting demons known as Simlons. They were in the guises of beautiful women though everyone here knew what really lurked beneath the false flesh. They danced around brass poles that ran up through the stage and into the ceiling. The show, while admittedly impressive, wasn’t the reason that I came here so often. It was the security. Howlerz had been set up as a place of recreation for all races, even humans, though very few ever came here. A system of wards and enchantments had been set up to prevent violence or magic inside the bar. It had been Eric’s idea to give the magic wielding patrons that came here frequently to either pay money for their drinks and private dances or make a “donation.” For the small price of placing a protection charm or enchantment on the establishment they could drink and be entertained for free. This was one of the safest places in Oakland’s Second City.
“So did you find anything interesting?” Terri asked. One of the first things I had taught Terri when she agreed to be my apprentice was that even though Howlerz was great for security it sucked for discussing ongoing cases. Most of the clientele here had superhuman hearing and could pick up on our conversation as easy as if we were sitting at the same table as them. Any detailed debriefing would have to be done somewhere else.
“Lot’s of interesting stuff happened at our mutual friends’ house,” I said as I wiped crumbs from the tabletop. “None of it was very good. What about you? Any chance you can track what we were talking about earlier?”
She took a sip from her soda. There was already a dark red ring on the end of her straw. “No, not without an object to base the spell on. I’m sorry.”
I waved away the apology. A young woman with long blond hair came up to our table, a big smile on her face and a pad and pen in her hands. “What can I get you folks tonight?” Terri ordered a refill for her drink and I ordered a hamburger with fries. She thanked us, told us it would just be a few minutes, and walked away.
Terri and I sat in companionable silence for a minute. She took small sips from her drink and I glanced around the bar for Eric. Every time my eyes were drawn back to Terri and the way the cranberry streak in her hair picked up the red lighting. Normally it was a bright red, but in here it looked darker; the color of freshly spilled blood.
“What?” she asked.
“Huh?” I replied smartly.
“What are you staring at?” She looked over her shoulder trying to see what I was looking at. My face flushed hot as I realized I was busted. Then she said, “Oh, never mind.”
Past the row of booths where we sat was one of the stages. One of the shifters had chosen to look like a dark-skinned, raven-haired beauty and was busy doing acrobatics on the pole with only a pair of high-heels on. I didn’t know which would be more embarrassing, having Terri think I was staring at her or at the shifter on the stage.
She turned back to me and smiled. “Maybe we should wait until you’re not too distracted before we discuss busine
ss.”
I grunted and frowned at her, which just made her smile wider. After I felt that I had glared for the proper amount of time, I said, “Not much to discuss as far as I can tell. Until we find something solid we’re up a creek without a paddle.”
Terri looked like she was about to respond when we heard glass shatter in the back towards the kitchen. The whole place went deadly quiet in an instant. In a normal place a couple of broken glasses wouldn’t mean much, but in a bar where nearly everyone had inhumanly fast reflexes and the grace of predators in their movements it was very out of place. A couple of men had risen out of their seats to see what was happening. Terri and I followed suit, standing and looking around, but not knowing quite what to look for.
A man came bursting through the doors of the kitchen and out towards the bar. He was shorter than me but more powerfully built. He wore blue jeans and a biker leather jacket that looked too small for him and his wide set shoulders. The fury that flowed across his dark features showed me that this man had let his beast roam too close to the surface for too long and it had established itself as a permanent part of his personality. Eric had sometimes let that part of himself show through, but he had his beast well under control. This man wasn’t a pureblood like Eric, and obviously discipline wasn’t high on his list of priorities. As he drew closer a glint of chrome on his hip caught my eye. Slung across his waist like an old-west gunfighter was a belt that held twin pistols; handles pointing outward for a crossover draw. It would have been ridiculous if it didn’t make me brake out in a cold sweat. Wolves didn’t carry guns. They didn’t need them. So why did he?
Demon's Play Page 3
