Heart Strings (Black Magic Outlaw Book 3) Read online

  HEART STRINGS

  by Domino Finn

  Copyright © 2016 by Domino Finn. All rights reserved.

  Published by Blood & Treasure, Los Angeles

  First Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to reality is coincidental. This book represents the hard work of the author; please reproduce responsibly.

  Cover Design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design LLC.

  Print ISBN: 978-0-692-70387-8

  DominoFinn.com

  Chapter 1

  My kingdom for one night of sleep.

  A hideaway tucked into the Everglades isn't much of a kingdom, really, but it's what I had. An abandoned boathouse with a high corrugated ceiling and boarded up windows and doors, sans amenities like electricity or air conditioning, unless you count the airholes in the roof. Because of those, my bedroll's fitted into the one corner that stays dry when the Miami rains come. It was only drizzling now, but on the thin metal ceiling, it was enough to sound like the drum section of a parade.

  Radiating outward from my bed were any number of crumpled Taco Bell wrappers. Abominations, every single one of them, but supremely delicious. I made no apologies for the mess. It was my home now. A reality. A necessity. So I stared at my rusty ceiling, in the darkness, wondering why I deserved such an exciting life that I couldn't manage some simple shut-eye.

  Life on the lam looks sexy in the movies, in two-hour cuts, but I was living it 24/7.

  Cisco Suarez the shadow witch. The necromancer. The black magic outlaw. Man, those labels sound real neat. The problem is, I'm not the bad guy those monikers make me out to be. And there's nothing romantic about sleeping on the cold, wet floor.

  There are some perks to the whole black magic angle, of course. Animists like me can channel spirit energy to our benefit. For example, right now Opiyel, my patron, was enabling me to see in the dark.

  That was a good thing out here in the wild. People hear the Everglades and think, holy jeez, alligators, amirite? Believe you me, those little pansies are nothing to worry about. It's the spiders you need to look out for. Thus far my boathouse was arachnid free. That should've been enough to ease my mind and put me to sleep, but if I relaxed who'd keep an eye out for the spiders?

  I passed the time by admiring a loose photo of my ex-girlfriend, elegant eyes half hidden by blonde hair. Trust me, being dead for ten years will do a number on any budding romance, but ours was something special. Emily and I have a love/hate relationship. Or more like a pretended-to-love-me/secretly-conspired-to-have-me-killed relationship. Love/hate's less wordy.

  The point is, everything I knew was upside down. Returning from the dead, much like being an outlaw, isn't everything it's cracked up to be. But with the pain, at least I knew I was still human.

  Jeez, the infamous outlaw Cisco Suarez was feeling butthurt and staring at a picture of his college sweetheart. If I had a radio I'd play a Morrissey album or something. Thankfully, my little pity party was interrupted.

  A croak scratched the back of my mind. I reached for the silver whistle beside my bed. It's my fetish. Silver's important to necromancy and it helps me listen to the shadows. One of my Cuban tree frogs had something to report.

  I'd been stuck in this spot for a few weeks, so I'd done my best to build a small contingent of thralls. You might call them zombies. I kept several frogs: Kermit, Dig'em, Michigan J. I was already on Kermit Number IV because the local gators and snakes didn't have refined palettes. They'd gobble my little guys up, alive or dead. Guess times were tight in the Glades.

  I sighed and closed my eyes to see through Kermie's, expecting the gaping maw of a predator enjoying a snack.

  Flashlights. Bulletproof vests. Men wearing black march along the swamp in silence.

  I sat up.

  Four, six, seven men. SWAT gear, except the backs of their vests say—

  The DROP team. Looks like the police finally found me.

  Can't a guy get a break? You nearly burn down City Hall and turn a politician's front yard into the Thunderdome and all of a sudden you're Public Enemy Number One.

  I rolled off the padding and slipped on my jeans and red alligator boots. My white tank top was already on. I hung the black twine and attached whistle around my neck and strapped my belt on, complete with giant skull-and-pentacle belt buckle and nylon belt pouch full of useful tokens for black magic. Lastly, since I go above and beyond the bare minimum of flair, I wrapped a black-leather spiked dog collar around my right forearm.

  Most wizards have robes or long coats, but I'm not most wizards.

  I turned to the single metal shelf against the wall. Jars of dirt, powder, and dried animal skin rested next to a bona fide set of metal vampire teeth and an enchanted burlap breathing mask. I had mundane stuff too. An old family album where I'd found Emily's picture. A toothbrush. I had stuff, is my point, and I didn't have the time or means to take it all.

  My eyes fell to the reinforced lead safe in the corner. You couldn't see it through the closed door, but a single item was nestled inside: an antique bull powder horn with gold plating and Taíno pictographs. The Horn of Subjugation. In case it isn't obvious by the name, it's a spooky necromantic artifact.

  "Wake up, Spaniard. We've got company."

  Two orbs of red, like stoplights, burned into existence and focused on me. Around the eyes, a skull materialized. Then the rest of the body. A feathered helmet and breastplate. Pantaloons. A rapier and a flintlock hanging on a belt. Meet my tenuous ally: the ghost of a long-dead conquistador trapped in the Horn. A wraith.

  "I thought you said this place was safe," he rasped.

  I grimaced. I always did when I saw the Spaniard. His stockings were torn and he wore fingerless gloves. It would've been better if his entire body was bone but sickly green patches of flesh wrapped his arms and legs. In my line of work I was used to seeing unnatural death, but this guy took the cake.

  "What can I say?" I muttered, stuffing cash and a burner phone in my pockets. "The police found me."

  The wraith didn't have eyebrows but he seemed to raise one. "The authorities. Humans. Any occultists among them?"

  I shook my head. "Not an animist in the lot. Just semi-automatic rifles."

  "What's the problem then? You are well equipped to dispatch them."

  "The problem," I said, hoping this time the apparition would hear me, "is that I operate with a different set of morals than you do. I'm a good guy. The cops outside are good guys. I won't kill them."

  He crossed his arms. "But they'll kill you."

  "Yeah, well, they don't know any better."

  The situation did seem kinda unfair, but I wouldn't give the wraith the satisfaction. In life he was in an army of conquerors, subjugating the native Arawak people of the Caribbean. As far as I knew, the Spaniard had practiced his black arts on Taíno slaves. His attempts at mastering death went swimmingly until the local shamans ensorcelled him into his powder horn and sealed it with enchanted gold.

  That's a long way of saying I couldn't trust the wraith a whole lot. But he had helped me through my recent troubles and pledged to help me further. In my book, actions speak louder than horrifically skeletal appearances, and the Spaniard had been straight with me so far.

  The apparition watched me study the safe the Horn was locked in. "Have you found the key?"

  The key.

  After some recent (and heavier than usual) poltergeist activity, I'd found the lead safe in a junkyard. I was operating on limited information at the time and thought the Horn was the cause of my problems. Maybe it was partially to blame, but that's neither here nor there. I'd hoped the lead lining would block any spirits from getting out.

  If it was a deterrent, the Spaniard hadn't gotten the memo.

  Even with the safe useless, it was the most secure place in my hideaway. I couldn't exactly keep an antiquated object of evil on my display shelf. Only, in the last week or so, I seemed to have misplaced the key. So now the police were bearing down on me, and I was stuck because I couldn't spirit away the artifact.

  "If you will not kill them, you must run."

  I gritted my teeth. "I can't hand you over to them."

  The wraith shrugged. "I can deal with them, if you allow it."

  "That's no better than me doing it myself. No hurting cops," I stressed. Seriously, the older you get, the more set in your ways you are. Imagine how hard it is to change the mind of a five-hundred-year-old necromancer.

  An emotionless sigh escaped the apparition's ivory jaw. "Very well, brujo. If you like, I can cloud the minds of the mortals instead."

  "A glamour?"

  "More like a suggestion."

  I frowned. Subjugation. I'd seen something of the wraith's power over the mind before, when he'd made a two-bit santero shoot himself in the head. I wondered just how powerful his manipulative magic was. It wasn't affecting me—at least I didn't think so. Generally, compulsions are more difficult on those familiar with spellcraft. But it didn't make me immune, either. I knew from horrible experience just how vulnerable I really was.

  "Fine," I said. "But only enough so they don't notice us."

  The Spaniard smiled. "I will merely block the scene from their minds. They will see the dank boathouse interior, but your possessions will be so unnoteworthy as to be invisible."

  I nodded.

  "There are two complications," he noted.

  I double-checked Kermie's sight. The combat-ready poli
ce were swiftly moving down the swamp path. They'd be inside within a minute.

  "Hurry."

  The wraith tilted his head. "I am ready, but I cannot mask your presence. A living being, the object of their desire—it is too much."

  Normally I could disappear into the shadows. It was kinda my thing. In this case, it was risky. My hiding spot would last only as long as the shadow remained, and every single DROP team officer had high-powered LED flashlights affixed to their guns.

  I glanced at the doors. The near one that faced the path (and approaching police) was boarded over. Several metal roll-up doors that opened to the concrete boat platform were currently shut tight. Opening them would be loud. There was one more door, identical to the first, at the far end of the boathouse. I'd be headed that way anyway, deeper into the Everglades.

  I started to the rear of the building. "I'll be back when it's over," I told him.

  My companion raised his hand for me to stop. "It's not so simple, brujo. While I am bound to the Horn, my magicks require the presence of another occultist."

  I twisted my lips, hearing this information for the first time. "You can't act without me?"

  "In the sense you speak of, no."

  I was starting to understand why so many people wanted the Horn.

  Twenty seconds till entry.

  "Screw that, amigo. I'm not signing my soul away today."

  "My requirements are less dramatic than that. I merely need you to be close at hand and willful of the suggestion."

  His words chilled me. If his power indeed couldn't have been used without my consent, however implicit, then that meant I had wanted that santero to die.

  "Once the working has started," continued the Spaniard, "I can manage without you."

  I opened my mouth to tell him I'd changed my mind, but the sound of boots sloshing in mud ended the conversation. I moved away from the doorway, deeper into the large room.

  The boathouse has a high ceiling that overhangs the front of the building, sort of like a covered porch where the boats roll out to. Although the building is mostly shielded from the rain, a couple areas of the overhang are exposed to the outside where the wall is broken away. Access is as simple as getting on the rafters that crisscross overhead. Not as far as the ceiling but still unreachable.

  I leapt as high as I could and reached out for the wood beam. A coil of shadow unfurled from the ceiling and snaked around my wrist, yanking me several feet higher until my arms found purchase. As far as shadow magic goes, that was a gimme.

  Something slammed into the barricaded front door. It smashed open violently, but only a crack. That's why it was barricaded. Strangely, there wasn't a follow-up strike. Everything went completely silent except for a single toiling sound, like a coin rolling on the concrete. My confusion turned to shock when the entire boathouse exploded in a brilliant flash of white.

  Chapter 2

  A flashbang. Step one of breaching a building. My grip on the rafter loosened as a shockwave battered against me. I reflexively snapped my eyes shut and turned away from the light. Legs dangling, I heaved myself onto the beam just in time to hear wood splintering below. Those were the door supports, still hanging tough.

  My eyes burned. The spellcraft that gifted me with shadow sight made my retinas especially sensitive to light. I blinked away the charm, black tears falling from my eyes and restoring them to their normal green color, but when I forced my eyes open I couldn't see anything but white. For the moment, I was blind.

  The pounding on the door below culminated in a loud crash, followed by debris skidding along the concrete floor. Booted footsteps marched over what was left of the makeshift barricade that secured me from the wilderness. So much for keeping the spiders out. And I had just fixed that door after a zombie high priest knocked it off its hinges.

  The life of an outlaw animist.

  I was above eye level and in complete darkness, but still in an exposed position. I slid along the rafter, still blind, hoping to hit the wall before being noticed. I guess it was finally time for something to go my way because I found safety before being brushed with an errant beam of light (or bullet). I nestled snugly into the overhang, resting on the wooden beam, careful not to make a noise by touching the corrugated metal, and drew the shadow over me.

  "Clear," came a voice from the front door.

  "Clear," answered another officer from the back.

  Two brilliant flares pulsed through my already-white vision and I ducked low. They were looking around with their flashlights. At least my sight was returning.

  "He's not here," complained one of the men.

  "Keep your guard up," ordered another. "Double-check the shadows."

  I recognized the voice with the good ideas because he was a friend of mine. Did I not mention that my best friend, Evan Cross, commands the DROP team?

  Evan knows I'm an animist. He has ever since high school, when he was the blond-haired star quarterback of the football team and I was that weird kid that played with dead things. He's seen me dabble but doesn't trust black magic. Maybe he's the smart one. Ten years ago, I discovered the Horn of Subjugation. Soon after, a sect of creatures calling themselves the Covey killed me and my family. That's a pretty solid I-told-you-so.

  Except, for some reason, I came back. A few weeks ago I woke up in a dumpster in South Beach. Muscles, tattoos, the works. I found out I was a super-powered zombie hit man during my absence. Besides killing the vampire who'd murdered me, I crossed paths with the rest of the Covey as well as one corrupt politician—the city commissioner who happens to be Evan's boss.

  So my buddy's in a bind. He totally means well, but he's compromised. Working for my enemies, lecturing me like some self-righteous hard-ass. Admittedly, I don't adhere to the most legal of operating practices, but don't take his side. I may have decked Evan but he shot me. And did I mention he married my ex-girlfriend, Emily? With best friends like him, who needs enemies?

  The rest of the DROP team was a different story. I'd never shared beers with them or congratulated their graduating the police academy. The only time they'd ever seen me was a recent confrontation that turned into the scene of a ghost movie. The DROP team saw some things they probably shouldn't have that night. One of their own died. I bet each and every one of them had recurring nightmares. More to the point, each one personally blamed me.

  Evan might have a soft spot for old Cisco Suarez, but everyone else on the team wanted blood.

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw them up close and personal for the first time.

  "This is a wild goose chase," grumbled a squat officer. He was bald but young, with hard eyes.

  "Keep it contained, Sergeant," said Evan, pacing to my sleeping corner.

  He kicked a fast-food wrapper and shined a flashlight at the lead safe and the metal shelf. It didn't do a whole lot of good. He turned away as if he'd just inspected a blank wall. The wraith's magic was impressive; mine would've failed there.

  "I want men searching the perimeter," ordered Evan.

  The sergeant clicked his teeth. "He's not here, Lieutenant."

  "I know that. I want to check for evidence that he ever was here. Our target's been in the wind for two weeks. We need to narrow down his whereabouts." Evan looked past his grumpy sergeant to a skinny detective. "Check the perimeter, Mullen."

  "Yes, sir," came the voice. Mullen marched outside with some others, leaving the two alone.

  They looked around in silence for a few minutes. Then the sergeant chuckled coarsely and shook his head. "Maybe this Cisco character was never here at all."

  From a few feet away, Evan shifted his flashlight beam to his subordinate's face. "What are you trying to say, Sergeant?"

  A smile. "Nothing."

  "No, Garcia, I'm not letting you off the hook that easily. I want to know what you meant by that."

  The sergeant's face tightened and he pushed Evan's flashlight away. "Fine," he grumbled. "It's just that some of the guys are talking. They think maybe you have a connection to this guy. That you're protecting him." Look who had the good ideas now.

  Evan's cold eyes burned. "Is it some guys talking or you?"