The Brimstone Deception

by Lisa Shearin

  The light didn’t come from the wall itself. It came from what lay beyond, and I didn’t mean in the next room.

  It was the portal, complete with sulfuric heat coming from it in waves.

  A shadow from the other side eclipsed the light.

  I took a step back, eyes locked on the opening.

  There was something just on the other side.

  Watching me.

  It knew I could see it and the portal.

  Terror put my gun in my hand, even though I knew that whatever was on the other side would laugh at my puny mortal weapon. I slowly backed away, my gun held low in a two-handed grip, trying to stop my hands from shaking.

  My terror made it past my lips with one word.

  “Ian.” I could barely hear myself.

  No response from the front room.

  I swallowed hard and tried again.

  “Ian.”

  An instant later, Ian was beside me, gun drawn.

  The shadow retreated.

  Ian looked where I was looking, body tense and ready for anything.

  He saw nothing.

  “Mac, we’re looking at a wall.”

  “And it’s not all there.”

  My partner looked like he was thinking the same thing about me.

  “There’s a big glowing gash down the middle,” I said.

  “Describe it.” His voice immediately went tight with apprehension.

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  “It’s a gash in the middle of the wall,” I told him, trying to be the analytical professional I was supposed to be. “It starts at the floor and goes up about six feet. The gash is closed, so it’s more like a seam, and where it comes together is . . .” I made a face. “Squishy. Like glowing orange Jell-O.”

  “Orange?”

  “Jell-O.”

  “And you can see it.”

  “I could also see the shadow of a thing on the other side.”

  “The other side?” Ian adjusted the hold on his gun.

  I suddenly needed a place to sit down, but I’d only be doing that after I ran all the way down to the lobby, probably to the accompaniment of my own screams.

  “Uh-huh. But I can’t see portals.”

  “That appears to no longer be the case.”

  I took another step back. “How?”

  “Don’t know.”

  We both looked at the wall: me at the portal, Ian at where I’d told him the portal was.

  “I take it the color means something?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  Ian had his phone out again, eyes still on the wall as if he expected something to jump out of it at any second. That made both of us.

  I waited for someone at headquarters to pick up. I had no doubt Ian was calling headquarters again, just as I had no doubt that orange wasn’t a good color for a portal.

  Sulfur stink plus hoofprint brand equaled a portal that in all likelihood went to a place I had no desire to go.

  And something in that undesirable place had seen me see it.

  Oh crap.

  5

  SPI’S lab team arrived, and so far demons hadn’t poured out of the wall.

  Both were good things.

  The seam had also stopped glowing and the wall appeared more solid.

  Good things number three and four. We were on a roll.

  Ian had left a voicemail for Vivienne Sagadraco telling her about me and the portal.

  He’d told me not to tell anyone what I’d seen until the boss gave the okay. I had absolutely no problem with that. I didn’t want to think about it, let alone get chatty with anyone.

  Just to be on the safe side, Ian had requested backup of the demon-fighting variety, and until they arrived, we stayed.

  I was happy to say that our wait was blissfully uneventful.

  I didn’t hold out the same hope for our investigation. When you were dealing with demons, you were guaranteed to get “eventful” by the bucket load.

  However, I knew that one thing would go right. When investigating a murder, SPI had one huge advantage over the NYPD.

  We had a necromancer on staff.

  Once we got Sar Gedeon back to headquarters, Bert could just ask the elf who killed him.

  * * *

  I didn’t think Sar Gedeon’s body could look worse.

  I was wrong.

  I was convinced that morgues had the same lighting as department store dressing rooms. One made you look dead; the other made you look so fat you wished you were dead. Neither even tried to be flattering.

  I looked at the elf. He didn’t look like he’d gained any weight, just lost more blood, or maybe it’d just pooled in his back and butt like I’d seen on CSI. Now if we could solve a murder in an hour like they did.

  I wondered briefly about putting “flattering morgue lighting” on my end-of-life request list.

  I’d be gone and wouldn’t care, but I’d rather no one see me on a stainless steel table looking anywhere near that bad. Though hopefully, some of me wouldn’t have been partially cooked, and I wouldn’t have had a sadistic killer rip his way into my chest and cut out my heart while his demon buddy held me down with his big ol’ cow hoof. I didn’t care who you were, no one looked good after that.

  We were six stories below Manhattan’s Washington Square Park in the lab of SPI’s world headquarters complex. Nearly as big as the park itself, the complex was centered around what we called the bull pen, which was where most of the field agents had their offices. Above were five stories of steel catwalks connecting labs, more offices, and conference rooms.

  We were in the morgue section of the lab. It was my first time here and I really wouldn’t have minded it being my last.

  Everything was white tile and stainless steel, and totally pristine—except for the burned brisket of a mutilated elf on the table. A table with troughs and drains.

  Normally when I felt this queasy, I went straight for the ginger ale and saltines.

  Our resident necromancer, Bertram Ferguson, looked like somebody’s grandpa. That is, if their grandpa was Santa Claus.

  Even though it was only the first week of November, Bert knew better than to wear anything red. The belt loop on his jeans had long since turned over their challenging job to suspenders. Today’s suspenders were navy, the plaid shirt dark green, making him look less like Santa Claus and more like an understated lumberjack. Bert was big, not in an excess of fat, but bigness of big.

  The necromancer’s strength and speed were equally notable. Bert attended a crime scene only if there was a dead body, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t still be living perpetrators lurking around. For all his size, the necromancer could outsprint most SPI field agents to reach the safety of his armored van, though it was more like a laboratory on wheels. Not being eaten by the monster du jour was a powerful motivator.

  Outside the morgue lab, Bert had met me with his usual bear hug. And as usual, I’d had to stand on tippy toes to even try to get my arms over his shoulders to hug his neck. I and everyone else at SPI loved Bert Ferguson.

  He regarded me with his bright blue eyes. And yes, like Santa’s, they did twinkle.

  “I understand you had unexpected company at lunch,” he said.

  “Ian or the guy having the bad trip?”

  “Yes. Which one ruined your date more?”

  I blinked. “You knew about my date?”

  “Everyone knew. So which one was it?”

  “I’ll have to think about that and get back to you.”

  Bert chuckled. “Take it easy on him, he’s—”

  I waved a hand. “I know. He’s just doing his job.”

  “That, too. You don’t have any big brothers, do you?”

  “No brothers, period. No sisters, either.”

  Bert gently patted me on the shoulder with one big paw. “You’ve got a brother now. And he’s going to take care of you whether you like it or not.”

  “I’m getting that impression.”


  The morgue tech stuck her head out the door. “Whenever you’re ready, Bert.”

  6

  DETECTIVE Fred Ash had asked to be present for the pre-autopsy questioning. Before starting work at SPI, those were two words I never thought I’d hear together.

  A few supernatural members of the NYPD enjoyed SPI headquarters privileges. Fred was one of them. When crimes involved supernatural perps or victims, shared information between SPI and select members of the NYPD had brought criminals to justice many times. It was a working relationship we all valued.

  Ian and I were in the morgue because with me able to see the portal the killers had used to enter and leave the scene of the crime, this case was going to land on our desks with a resounding thud.

  I’d called my manager, Alain Moreau, about what I’d seen. He hadn’t been in his office, so I’d left a voicemail. My being able to see portals was the earth-shattering equivalent of a documented visitation from the Almighty himself, so I expected my vampire manager to come crashing through the morgue door any moment now.

  The tech left to give Bert more privacy to work, so it was just the four of us. Five, if you counted the corpse we were about to have a conversation with.

  Bert sure wasn’t creepy and neither was questioning the victim of a violent crime. But when said victim hadn’t survived the perpetration of said violent crime . . . if that didn’t say creepy loud and clear, I didn’t know what did.

  One heaping helping of nightmare fodder, coming up.

  I’d seen Bert communicate with the soul of a newly dead person once before—one that hadn’t been murdered. A silvery mist had risen from the body and stopped to hover directly above it. The form was vaguely the size and shape of the body it’d arisen from. There was no face, no features, and of course, nothing that could be used to speak. The investigating agent asked the questions; Bert spoke for the dead person.

  Anyone who didn’t know Bert or was unfamiliar with how a necromancer worked would consider this an arrangement ripe for fraud. Though I’d like to hear their explanation for the body-sized and -shaped mist, and the details that only the victim would have known that came from Bert’s mouth.

  Not only was Bert legit, he was considered one of the best at his craft, period.

  The process itself was quite simple and relied solely on the power of Bert’s necromantic magic, which was considerable.

  “Sar Gedeon.”

  The boom of Bert’s deep and resonate voice filled the morgue’s tiled walls and then some. I jumped in spite of myself. His voice and the power behind it didn’t ask the dead elf to come and talk to us, it commanded him.

  Nothing happened.

  At least that was the way it looked. How it felt was like I’d been turned into one of those long, skinny balloons that clowns used at kids’ birthday parties, and Bert’s magic was hell-bent on twisting me into a poodle. Ian and Fred looked equally uncomfortable.

  I swear I heard my joints pop. I sure as hell felt it. You didn’t have to be a sensitive to feel magic on the level of Bert’s.

  I sucked in as much air as my lungs could pull in. I knew I was going to need it. Not that I minded not breathing in a room dedicated to cutting open and examining dead people who, like Sar Gedeon here, had met their ends in less than peaceful circumstances. However, there was only so long living people could stay that way without air. Mouth breathing was preferred, but morgue air had a taste, too.

  Or maybe it was just me.

  In the interest of being able to eat at some point today—and keep it down—I kept my breathing shallow.

  Tiny drops of sweat beaded on Bert’s forehead and upper lip. He could chat with the dead in his sleep—and he had. It wasn’t hot in here. SPI’s medical team kept it cold for obvious reasons.

  The necromancer was having a problem.

  I hoped it was the necromagic equivalent of technical difficulties and not a certain elf corpse fighting back.

  But when Bert’s brow creased in a scowl, I knew it wasn’t heat or overactive sweat glands.

  Neither Ian nor I said a word or even moved. Heck, I already was barely breathing.

  “Damn,” he said simply.

  The pressure in the room, and on my body, immediately vanished.

  “No luck?” I asked. Way to go, Captain Obvious.

  Bert shook his head. “No soul.”

  Ian made his own four-letter contribution. “We waited too long.”

  “The soul didn’t leave,” Bert told us.

  “But you said—”

  “It was torn out.”

  Ouch.

  “A drug lord with no heart or soul,” Fred drawled. “Anyone else love the irony?”

  Stereotypically speaking, I knew that demons had a thing for souls, but I thought they tasted sweeter or something when the owner signed it over voluntarily. Delayed gratification and all that.

  “How do you even do that?” I asked.

  Bert drew a breath. “Well, first the—”

  I waved my hands. “No, no, that was rhetorical. I’m sure that’s one of those things I’m better off not hearing about.”

  I’d discovered there were a lot of those in our line of work. Too often I’d been told details that’d ended up with a supporting role in my nightmares. In our profession, I had plenty of those, too.

  Ian looked likewise reluctant to receive enlightenment. Considering what my partner’s past careers were, that said a lot.

  “I can explain without offending,” Bert assured us.

  “Will it help us find the demons that did this?” Fred asked.

  “No, but—”

  The detective held up a hand. “Then I’m ignorant, too, and happy about it.”

  “Expanding one’s knowledge is good.”

  “So is me being able to eat lunch,” I said. “Fill us with knowledge when we’re not standing over the visual aid.”

  “Where’s your curiosity?”

  “Hiding behind the remains of my appetite.”

  “Very well.” Bert stepped forward so that his ample belly was right against the side of the stainless steel table. “If you don’t want to hear how Mr. Gedeon’s soul was removed, you certainly will not like remaining in the room for what I’ll need to do now, since there’s no soul to communicate with.”

  My stomach dropped. Being a science type, Bert had never been one for exaggeration.

  “If you say we’re not gonna like this, I’m thinking I should leave right now. We’re here because we need to hear his testimony. We have tape recorders for that kind of thing, right?”

  Bert nodded. “There is a video and audio record of every interaction.”

  Fred snorted. “Meaning if you barf on the body, kid, it’ll be playing on the break room TV within the hour.”

  “Bert wouldn’t do that.”

  Fred grinned evilly. “No, but I would.”

  Ian gave us both a look that said he was the adult and we were twelve. “You were saying, Bert?”

  “A warning, though,” the necromancer said. “Depending on the level of residual energy remaining, the body could . . .” He hesitated. “Let’s see how to put this delicately.”

  Fred shifted uneasily. “Just say it, Doc.”

  “Move.”

  “What?”

  “Move. The corpse could move.”

  I stood utterly still. “Could you be more specific?”

  “Jerk, spasm, flail. I’ve even had one punch me.” Bert grinned. “Packed quite a wallop, too. Impressive for a deceased.”

  If a corpse sat up and took a swipe at me, I’d be using a lot of words, but “impressive” wouldn’t be one of them.

  Then without any warning, Bert placed his bare-naked hands right on the corpse’s face.

  Ick didn’t even begin to cover it.

  This wasn’t a doctor examining a corpse; this was a necromancer about to do some seriously spooky shit.

  Maybe this was his way of getting back at us for not letting him expand our horizons wi
th a treatise on soul ripping.

  Bert lifted the fingers of his left hand slightly and repositioned them. None of us could miss the dimples left behind by the pressure of his fingers.

  Just like Play-Doh.

  Please don’t move your hand again, I said silently.

  Thankfully, he didn’t. But that image had been branded into my brain, like that cloven hoofprint on the dead elf’s chest, and it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  “I’ll be able to see what his eyes saw in his final seconds of life—hopefully including his killers. It works like an imprinting. If any images remain, they would be in the eyes.”

  Bert settled his fingers around the orbital bones surrounding the corpse’s eyes.

  Then he did what you couldn’t pay me any amount of money to do . . . Okay, I’d probably do it for some amount of money, but it’d have to be absurdly huge.

  Bert leaned over the table, putting his face close enough to kiss the corpse, his eyes less than two inches from Sar Gedeon’s.

  There was nothing Bert Ferguson wouldn’t do in the name of science.

  Unlike before, there was no joint popping, no chest constricting, and I could breathe in all the air I wanted to, though considering that it still smelled like roasted elf, I only took in what I needed to keep from passing out.

  No one moved, including the dead elf. I was sure I wasn’t the only one grateful for that.

  Bert was breathing in and out, the breaths growing loud and labored, the speed increasing until they were short gasps. His hands and face were whiter than the tile behind him.

  I didn’t know what to expect; but to me, it looked like Bert was in trouble.

  I shot a sharp glance at Ian. His face bore signs of worry bordering on alarm.

  Fred spat a silent curse.

  We all knew the cardinal rule—do not disturb a practitioner in the middle of a magical link or incantation. I didn’t know the reason behind it, but every ounce of common sense told me that snapping a link of any kind between a living person and the spirit, soul, energy, whatever of a violently murdered person couldn’t be anything but bad.

  But for Bert’s sake, not breaking that link would be worse.

  If we did nothing, I had a feeling there’d soon be two corpses in SPI’s morgue and no one left to talk to either one of them.