Death March: Black Magic Outlaw Read online

  I sighed loudly. It was a long story.

  The detective shrugged. He was an older guy with tightly curled black hair that was going gray. The kind of guy who'd seen a lot and had the questions to match. The kind of guy who lamented where society had taken a wrong turn.

  His partner was a quiet Cuban guy with greased-back hair and thick eyebrows. He'd done nothing so far but lean against the corner with his arms crossed.

  I twiddled my thumbs and frowned at the loose handcuffs chaining me to the table. Apparently Metro-Dade PD viewed beating down four chuckleheads as violent. I didn't like cold iron because it made escape into the shadows impossible.

  "Well, it's nice to meet you, Francisco. I'm Detective Darrow and this is Detective Peña."

  "Call me Cisco."

  Thus far I'd played things cool. I had to. Going full Baker Act and outlining the vampire menace would've gotten me nowhere. I'd briefly considered tipping the police off in a more reasonable fashion—telling them about the black van without getting into the supernatural nitty-gritty—but that was a no go as well. The van was long gone and so was the girl. The police would be in wildly over their heads.

  I had to look at the situation in the cold light of day. I was in custody for a simple bar fight. No assault charges. No attempted murder because apparently Tutti had disappeared. No firearms violations because they didn't have one. At most, I was looking at public intoxication and a slap on the wrist. It pained me to admit it, but the best course of action was revealing nothing at all.

  Detective Darrow stroked his mustache and nodded. "Okay, Cisco. That's a good start. We just want to sort things out here."

  A plastic bag on the table held my possessions. The silver dog whistle on black twine. A fold of small bills. The dog-collar bracelet. A cell phone. Car keys. My bronze voodoo knife, which luckily was more ceremonial than anything. Darrow had also set my belt pouch to the side, but for now he considered the ordinary items.

  "Do we need to ask you where you got the cash?"

  "It's not that much," I said.

  He nodded. "And the Knight Rider key chain? That thing must be an antique."

  "I have a thing for Firebirds."

  He leaned forward with a chuckle. "Who doesn't?" He considered the collar and whistle. "You a dog trainer or something like that?"

  "Something like that."

  He nodded silently. He was just getting started. Trying to build a rapport. I knew how it was. That didn't make me any less nervous when his eyes strayed to the belt pouch. He huffed once and unzipped it quickly, as if taking off a Band-Aid. The detective inventoried the contents one by one, announcing them as he did.

  "Two packs of matches, used. Two plastic 7-11 lighters. Five mini road flares." He paused, waiting for a response.

  I shrugged casually. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst."

  His eyebrows showed his skepticism, but he continued. "Two-dozen pack, colorful birthday candles. One uninflated metallic birthday balloon. The mirror half of a woman's plastic makeup kit." He watched me carefully as he spoke. "Three sticks of Crayola sidewalk chalk, various colors."

  I swallowed. "I don't like how the normal stuff gets dust all over your fingers."

  The detective paused for a beat and frowned. "Some kind of gel in a bright-red ketchup squeeze bottle." He flicked off the cap and recoiled at the smell.

  "This..." I stalled, scratching the back of my head. "It's, uh, kinda embarrassing."

  He waited without blinking.

  "Jock itch." I pointed to my groin. "Like a motherfucker."

  "Oh!" He tossed the bottle away from his face. Detective Peña laughed.

  The stuff was pungent, I'd give them that. I just couldn't tell him it was a homemade zombie toxin to numb wounds and prevent infection. Awkward personal problems were more effective at deflecting attention.

  Darrow turned to his young partner, still stifling a chuckle. "Well, you finish the inventory, goddammit."

  Peña's face fell flat and he approached the table. "Let's see. You got some plastic Easter egg containers filled with powder. What is that? Lye?"

  "It's for neutralizing the smell of cat urine."

  He rolled his eyes. "You got a little plastic container—"

  "That's a film container," commented Darrow.

  "Whatever. A black film container filled with dust and... What are those? Snake teeth? And a pill container with powder capsules." I opened my mouth to speak but Peña threw a hand up. "Let me guess. You get bad headaches."

  I smirked. "Guess you're a detective for a reason, Detective."

  He snorted. "It is, you have to admit, an odd assortment."

  "Yet not incriminating in the least."

  "Don't forget the last one," reminded the senior detective.

  "Oh, yeah," said Peña, shaking the small pouch to produce the sound of rattling objects. "A variety of shotgun shells." He turned the bag over and let the plastic cartridges tumble to the table.

  "According to Florida records," noted Detective Darrow, "you don't have a firearm registered in your name."

  I crossed my arms over my chest. "I also don't have a firearm. What can I say? You got me. It's weird to have those."

  My shotgun was the one possession I owned that could be stuffed into a shadow box, an incorporeal vault of spellcraft that others couldn't access. It meant I didn't need to worry about carry laws.

  Peña dropped the bag onto the table in frustration. "You're that Cisco Suarez guy who was dead, right?"

  The mood in the interrogation room turned.

  If we were being technical about it, I'd died three times. But I wasn't about to fess up to the popo. As far as they knew, Cisco Suarez disappeared eleven years ago. A victim of an occult ritual turned bloodbath. Presumed dead.

  After living on the streets like an outlaw, my best friend Evan and his wife Emily had helped me go legit. Got my death certificate rescinded. Filed for a new ID and set me up with some clean money. There'd been a bit of a media frenzy over my mysterious reappearance, but I wasn't special enough to stay in the news.

  Cisco Suarez wasn't off the grid anymore. It was a small price to pay for getting my life back.

  "That's me," was all I said.

  The young detective leaned on the table in an aggressive display. "What's your deal, Suarez?"

  I met his eyes but didn't talk. Before Peña could lose his temper, Darrow waved him away.

  "Surprisingly," tempered the more experienced detective, "a guy like you doesn't have a criminal record, unlike the other jokers we picked up from the dive bar. Is it true what we've heard? That you've recently become a police consultant?"

  It was like I didn't have secrets. My friend Evan was a lieutenant for the City of Miami Police. This "connection" of mine had ironically brought me more trouble than it kept me out of. Even now, the department interviewing me was Metro. County police were entirely different than City, meaning I couldn't ask Evan for a favor and have this dropped.

  So I had to suck it up and play their game.

  Darrow leaned back and stroked his mustache. "What is it you consult on, specifically?"

  I leaned on my cover story. "I spent a lot of time in South America and the Caribbean after my kidnapping. Saw a lot of crazy things."

  "Such as?"

  I shook my head. "I dunno. I might write a book someday. You could say that, after what happened to me, I'm fascinated by voodoo culture."

  "An occult expert, then. If there's a crime scene with decapitated chickens and saint figurines, they consult with you."

  I smiled. "It's pretty boring stuff, actually."

  "I'm sure it is." The detective sighed and rubbed his eyes, taking a moment to collect himself. "I'll be straight with you, Cisco. You seem like a decent guy. I don't have a problem with you. Neither does my partner, despite his gruff attitude." Peña hissed. Detective Darrow leaned forward. "But I need to know what you were doing in that alley today, son."

  Damn him, this was the part
that gave me the most trouble. Sincerity. Give me verbal sparring and posturing all day, but this cop looked like he wanted to make a difference.

  I assured myself that the best help I could offer was keeping them ignorant of the nest of vampires I'd stumbled into. Even if it meant getting charged with a misdemeanor.

  Before I could muster the appropriate tact for a friendly "no comment," the interrogation door opened.

  A rail-thin black woman with hair bigger than Oprah strutted in. She was tall even without the heels, and her stern expression took less guff than her no-nonsense pants suit. She placed a business satchel on the table and seemed to move and speak a mile a minute.

  "Thank you for your prompt alert, detectives. I'll share word with the DA that you've been more than helpful." She pointed to the mirror. "I caught the end of that and can take over from here."

  The detectives watched her evenly.

  "You were done with your line of questioning, weren't you?"

  Darrow let out a neutral sigh and nodded. "He's all yours." He stood and shook his head quietly at his partner.

  The woman smiled. "Would you please re-collect his possessions before you step out?"

  "Peña will take care of it."

  The veteran detective exited while the junior partner scooped my possessions back into the belt pouch. As we waited in silence, I studied the newcomer. I'd seen enough cop shows to assume she was a lawyer, but then her jacket fell open and I spotted the badge on her belt. She was a fed.

  Chapter 4

  I don't know if Peña was supposed to take my stuff or not, but after organizing it he left it on the table and walked out. Part of me thought he did it to annoy the fed who sent them packing.

  "Cisco Suarez," said the woman idly as she dug into her satchel. "Your story is an interesting one."

  "Stranger than fiction," I quipped.

  "I doubt it. But then, I've read some strange books." She slipped a laptop from her bag and powered it up while she stood. The woman chewed her lip and rapped the keys for a few minutes, forgetting I was there.

  I tapped my fingers on the table. "And you are...?"

  "Of course. I'm Special Agent Rita Bell." She held out a firm hand and I shook it without standing. I was cuffed but had plenty of leeway with the chain.

  "The FBI? It was one fight with drunken asshats."

  Rita Bell leaned on one hip. "Mr. Suarez, you're not here because of a back-alley dustup outside a Wynwood dive bar. The local police have already released the other men. They, uh, attributed their wounds to accidental mishaps. One man claimed to have broken his hand punching a wall."

  I chuckled. A wall would've been softer. "So I'm free to go then?" I asked hopefully.

  She smacked her lips, neither confirming nor denying. The special agent sat down and said, "I'd like to show you a few things first." She spun the laptop around as a video played onscreen. It was grainy security footage from outside an airport warehouse. A large ogre was throwing around a man with a white tank top and red cowboy boots. I blinked evenly.

  "This video feed was recorded several months ago." I held my tongue as she recited the date. An observant person might notice it was the day before the issue date of my driver's license. The man in the video pulled a shotgun. It fired wide as the ogre clocked him in the face. I winced. It's not easy to give me a black eye like that.

  The more I watched, the less worried I was. Because the ogre, as monstrous as it was, didn't look like much more than a 'roided-out lunatic, and the debonair gentleman kicking his ass had a blanket of shadow rippling over his identifying features.

  Lucky coincidence. I definitely didn't remember that part.

  "Shall I let you draw your own conclusions?" asked Agent Bell.

  "I get it. The red boots. But you have to understand, this was after my story had gone public. I was all over the media. Cosplayers were rocking the Cisco Suarez look citywide. This is probably some prank."

  She frowned. "Don't you find that people who refer to themselves in the third person are narcissistic at best, sociopathic at worst?"

  "You're the one with the criminology degree." I flitted my gaze to the security footage just in time to see the brawl disappear into a storeroom, where it had ended. Despite being caught on video, I'd somehow escaped incrimination. "Besides," I said, "it's hard to tell what's going on here. Looks like the video's corrupted."

  "Yes, well, let's work with what we have, shall we? I want you to tell me what you see here."

  I cleared my throat and glanced at the two-way mirror. I wasn't getting any help from there. "Look, Agent Bell, if you want my expert consultation, tell the FBI to stop being a bunch of cheapskates and pay me my normal rate. You don't get free services by dragging me into custody in handcuffs and pretending I'm a suspect."

  It took her a minute, but she eventually smiled at my deflection. Like, a full-on grin of admiration. I like to think she admired my stones, but she could've been screwing with me.

  "You are, of course, referring to your work as a police consultant. Is that right?"

  I nodded carefully.

  "So your expertise is not some sort of elaborate cover?"

  I furrowed my brow. "No. I'm really an expert."

  "Mind if I test you to see for myself?"

  "Try me."

  She folded the laptop closed and pulled a manila folder from her satchel. She rifled through some photocopies before laying one before me. It was a letter with eccentric handwriting and symbols.

  To Whom It May Concern at The Herald,

  This is my manifesto.

  I was once like you are. A man with sanitized ideas. A man, if not in control of the world, then at least in compreehension of it. But that was before my eyes were opened to the Other Kind.

  I have been chosen for this holy mission by a choir of angels. They tell about those who would confound and marvel us into submision. They leave me fully aware of the coming flood. So, like a prophet, I must guide humanity to high ground.

  Doing so will come with a body count.

  You will discover the first casualty of war on Tuesday when his maid finds him in permenent repose in the bathtub. The deft hands he used to ensorcel our minds will never be found, but I have inclosed a fingernail to prove my words and my conviction. It was taken while he was still alive.

  Do not attempt to acertain my identity. I am too smart for you and my holy mission would never lead me into your hands. I have been chosen. I will never die. I use my grace only to reach out, as they did to me, in an effort to promote sheep to sheperds. Are you a sheep?

  If you do not print this letter and cipher in full in tomorrow's edition then I will have to cull a few more from the herd. It is for their own good. This is my manifesto.

  Agent Bell watched silently as I studied the note for a minute. "What is this?"

  "As an expert on the occult, Mr. Suarez, I was hoping you could tell me."

  "Cisco."

  "Very well."

  I frowned. "My expert opinion is: Find this nutcase and Baker Act him."

  She cleared her throat. "The Baker Act. The Florida law allowing unwilling institutionalization of the mentally ill. That's what you think this is?"

  My brow furrowed. "You don't?"

  The special agent stared at me, spurring me to extrapolate. Or trying to, anyway. I was still trying to figure out what I was doing here.

  The bar fight, the security video, and this letter: they weren't linked. Each had nothing to do with the other.

  "Can you identify the occult markers in the letter?" she asked.

  I flapped the paper in my hand. Normally I'd use my shadow sight to inspect the Intrinsics, but this was a photocopy, removed from physical contact with the original.

  "Well, there are the obvious ones," I started. "The Other Kind is a reference to whatever he fears."

  "His persecutors. Who are they?"

  "It just says they marvel us into submission. It's not a lot to go on."

  She nodded. "A
ny other markers?"

  "You see the usual second-coming-of-Jesus stuff. A new prophet, chosen by angels for a holy mission to storm the coming flood. Sorry to disappoint you, but it's more pseudo-Christian cult stuff than my area of expertise."

  I was hoping to disappoint her to death, but Special Agent Rita Bell kept at it. "It's interesting that you skipped the part about him not being able to die."

  "Interesting?" I arched an eyebrow. "Isn't that par for the course with these nutjobs? They think they're above our banal existences."

  "Banal is a good word." She pressed on. "What do you think of the cipher?"

  I examined the note. Two short lines of letters in no apparent order. The first line was "wivo ivo wero ev" followed by a strange spiral symbol. The second line was similar and ended with the same symbol, like a period. "This is a code, right? You replace A with B, B with C—that sort of thing. What's it say?"

  "It's gibberish," she said. "Meant to frustrate us and spin our wheels. Inspired by other killers of the past."

  "Killers?"

  "Manifesto is a killer, Cisco. The body of the Marvelous Mordane was found exactly as this letter states."

  "The famous illusionist? The guy who does card tricks? Wasn't that over a month ago? Wait." I sat up. "Why haven't I heard of this?"

  Agent Bell pursed thin lips. "Of the Manifesto Killer? You don't think the Herald and the New Times are stupid enough to play this killer's games. This is an FBI matter. We don't need a public spectacle."

  "But his threat."

  She pulled another letter from the folder and placed it before me. "This came two weeks later."

  To the Sheep at The Herald,

  This is my manifesto. It is meant as a warning. It is meant as a salvaytion from this wicked world. I was reborne in blood. Did you not think I was prepared to shed some from the innocent?

  But there are no innocents when it comes to complicity in deceit. The wool over your heads will smother you.

  Two members of upstanding Miami society were killed this week. Shot point blank in the back of the head with a 20-gauge. They are sheep no more. You will comply. This is my manifesto.