Death March: Black Magic Outlaw Read online

  It was only a matter of time before more and more proof of spellcraft got out. Agent Bell had caught me fighting an ogre. It was only through dumb luck that the shadow had obscured my identity.

  At the same time, I was believing less and less of what I saw in pictures and videos. Photoshop had changed the game. Computer graphics were so sophisticated and ubiquitous that I'd just watched a perfectly realistic video of an all-giraffe high-diving team.

  Technology giveth, technology taketh away.

  "Okay," I announced, getting my bearings. "The killer enters peacefully through the front. No signs of forced entry and Marie was doing her thing. She's likely in the middle of a reading when Manifesto reveals who he is. He overpowers her and the son comes at her cry of alarm."

  I stomped into the kitchen and skirted the trail of blood. "Manifesto chases him. The boy's about eighteen, not huge but not a wimp. If he's running after seeing someone attack his mother, there's a good chance our killer is a big guy. Or intimidating in some way."

  Shen snorted. "Could just be he had a weapon."

  "It's possible, but..." I pointed to the knife rack I passed on the counter. A knife was missing. A long bread knife with a handle that matched the others was bloodied on the floor a few steps down. "How was the piper killed?"

  "Stabbed, we think."

  "Interesting. So Manifesto's not necessarily strong. He took out an older woman with his hands but used a knife on the others. But still something made the boy run instead of helping his mother." I pondered that a moment before returning to the scene at hand.

  "Manifesto grabs a weapon here and goes to work. The boy turns to defend himself. Defensive wounds on his hands and forearms, but also wounds on his back, which means he turns to run again. Then Manifesto drops the knife and..." I frowned and stepped back, processing the pattern of blood on the floor. "I think he goes back to work on Marie. Extracts his mementos. Some time later, he hears the boy coughing or something, picks up the crystal ball, and comes back in to finish the job."

  Our eyes landed on the final murder weapon. It was a clear orb, similar to the one Emily used but older, as it had an almost golden imperfection throughout. The spellcraft anchor sat on the kitchen counter, shiny and wet.

  I chewed my lip. "Where's the blood?"

  Shen cleared his throat with a prideful smirk. "The killer washed it off. I found it in a bucket in the sink."

  He said it like it had been an inspired move. I checked the sink and saw why. The bucket of water was mostly empty now, no doubt a result of Shen's bungling. The murky color of blood clouded the leftover water. It could've been easy to miss. Except...

  I leaned my nose into the sink and sniffed. My eyes scanned the counter tops and spotted the scattered white grains.

  "No," I said. "Why would Manifesto wash the blood off this but not the knife on the floor? Either he was wearing gloves or he doesn't care if the police have his prints."

  "Do they?" asked Simon.

  "They didn't tell me what physical evidence they had besides the notes."

  His face slackened.

  Shen brightened up. "Gloves would be suspicious. If the killer doesn't have a record, maybe the police don't have his prints on file so he doesn't care if they get them."

  I nodded. It was the first smart thing he'd said all day. But it was hard to be sure either way without getting a true forensics team involved. That was the downside of vigilante justice. With the Society handling this investigation, they were essentially blocking the police from doing theirs. And while we could see lots of things they couldn't, they had science on their side.

  "You're wrong about the crystal ball," I told Shen. "Manifesto wasn't washing off the blood. That's salt water in the bucket." I opened a few cabinets till I found the large can of iodized salt with the spout still open. Salt water really screwed with the Intrinsics. Not that it interfered with their existence so much as it blocked the flow of energy through spirit. "The killer was erasing his magical tracks. Marie Devereaux must've seen something in the crystal before she died."

  I hurriedly flipped on the faucet and washed fresh water over the orb. I gave it a good wipe and dried it off before finding a box of jumbo plastic freezer bags and dropping it in one.

  "What are you doing?" asked Shen. His voice was territorial. He still didn't accept that this was my investigation.

  "I'm collecting evidence I might need," I said. I used another bag to grab the bloody bread knife without touching it.

  "I was gonna do that."

  "No. I want you to oversee cleaning down the house. We need to get a rush on that. Make sure they don't clean anything we might want."

  "But that's bitch work."

  I glared at him evenly. He blinked and appealed to Simon.

  "Let's just do what the man says, Shen."

  The illusionist scowled and stormed out.

  "He's a handful," I said in a mocking tone like a concerned parent.

  "You have no idea."

  I ran my eyes over the kitchen and the boy, making sure I wasn't missing anything. "There's one more thing. Manifesto's first note included a cipher. The FBI says it's gibberish but I don't buy that. Have you guys cracked it yet?"

  Simon hooked his hands on his hips and shook his head. "It's not a normal cipher, and we only received a photocopy of the letter so we couldn't inspect it for enchantments."

  I grunted. "Same."

  "I notified my source in the paper to let us have a look at the original if there's another. Depending how many people see it, they may need to turn it over to the police, but they could stall them a bit. I have a picture." He pulled out his phone again.

  "Send me what you have." I begrudgingly gave him my number and he transferred the evidence to me.

  On my last pass of the boy's body, I noticed more blood than usual welling around the mouth. It was likely from lung perforations, but I opened it for a peek. My face darkened.

  "The boy was an animist too?"

  "What?" asked Simon, half distracted.

  "The boy. His tongue was cut out."

  Simon's face twitched. "That doesn't make sense. The boy spoke in tongues, if you pardon the phrase, but he didn't do any public shows. Marie was keeping his talents secret until he got older."

  "But you knew," I pointed out.

  "Sure, a few of us knew, but our organization thrives on secrecy."

  "Shen?"

  He shook his head. "Clueless."

  I washed my hands in the sink. When I was done, I spun around and rested against the counter. "The Society has a leak."

  Simon chortled. "No way in hell."

  "Somehow the killer knew the boy was a target as well. It wasn't bad luck that he was here. It was the perfect opportunity to take them both out."

  He frowned somberly.

  "What if this is intentional? A little house cleaning by Margo or GR Winthrop? He tried the same thing with me before."

  "It's impossible," he asserted. "Look, going rogue to take out Connor makes sense. That guy was an animal we were forced into a working relationship with. Margo was too conservative to take action, but if Winthrop took a shot I'd believe it. But outing Society members like this, sending notes announcing spellcraft to the newspapers—that goes against everything Winthrop and the Society want. We stand to lose more than anyone if the feds make these connections." He grumbled. "This just goes to show why having an outside actor like yourself is necessary. If Manifesto somehow knows our people..."

  He trailed off. It was a good point but he was too eager to dismiss the possibility of an inside job. I, however, couldn't take that chance. If I couldn't trust the Society before, this was a whole different ball game.

  Shen returned to the room, slipping his phone into his pocket. "The cleaners are on the way. Anything else we need to discuss?"

  Simon opened his mouth but I beat him to the punch. "No," I said in a rush. "We're finished here." I glared at Simon forcefully enough that he got the message. We made our way b
ack outside.

  Chapter 10

  Simon made his way to the Lincoln. Darcy waited on an idling motorcycle closer to the street, holding her helmet and looking at me. I broke away and met up with her.

  "Still hanging around these assholes, huh?"

  "They pay the bills," she said matter-of-factly.

  "Pay for this, you mean." I pointed to the sleek sports bike. It was bright red, and so was the helmet she held to her stomach. "These things are suicide machines, you know."

  She glared at me. Normally I'd chalk it up to rebellious teenage apathy, but considering she could literally float she was fairly safe from getting thrown.

  "I know what you're thinking," she said. "That this is all a trap of some sort."

  I snickered. "Actually I'm leaning toward an inside job."

  "Close enough." She scoffed, but in a playful way. I figured the two of us were something like friends. Or... close enough. "I want you to know Marie was a nice lady. She wasn't a grifter. She was wise and kind. Nick was pretty cool too." She saw my puzzled face and added, "Her son."

  "Oh." I took a breath and scuffed the concrete with my boot, unsure what to say.

  "Ha," she laughed. "You're worried about me and I'm worried about you."

  I smiled. "If there's one thing I proved, I can take care of myself." I looked back. Simon was waiting in the car and Shen had stayed in the house. "And some of these Society guys might seem okay, but it's the organization as a whole that I don't trust. I'm as capitalist as the next guy, but they care about money, not people."

  "And I'm not some naive brat who doesn't know that."

  "Fair enough," I conceded.

  We were both silent a moment, emphasizing how little we actually knew each other. She slipped on her helmet. "Good luck, Cisco."

  I nodded. "Take care of yourself."

  She twisted the throttle and peeled down the street. I wasn't sure why I gave a damn. Trying to save everybody was a surefire way to guarantee disappointment. I marched back to the car and told Simon where to drop me off.

  As amazing as it was, he was unusually quiet too. I decided to enjoy it for once and thumbed through my phone, making sure I had any photo evidence that might come in handy. Everything appeared to be in order.

  Then I backtracked over my already long day. The murder, the Society, the feds, the cops. I swore I was forgetting something. As my thoughts drifted to the Wynwood dive bar, I decided to take advantage of the Society's knowledge.

  "Simon, you ever heard of the Obsidian March?"

  He arched an eyebrow. "Uh, yeah. They're only the largest vampire clan in the Western Hemisphere. And a major pain in the ass at times, but that's par for the course with Nether creatures."

  So they weren't subhumans; they were fiends from the underworld. Which suddenly lent sense to the name Obsidian March. The silvan circles were well known in the Nether. Less discussed were the various marches in the super depths. "What kind of vampires are we talking about?"

  "The OGs of vamps. They're upirs, classic old-world variety—think Count Dracula. Only they're not like the movies. Humans can't turn into vampires. Those legends started because they can expertly hide among us for years. By the time one gets exposed... well, let's just say people would rather think their friends and lovers were turned than believe they'd been vampires all along. That and they collect familiars like Pokémon."

  "The familiars can't become vamps?"

  "More like mindless thralls. Put it this way: many so-called meth and heroin users aren't addicted to meth or heroin at all."

  My eyes widened. It seemed familiars shed a whole new light on the Florida Man mythos.

  "Also," he continued, "with the possible exception of powerful sorcerers, vampires can't shape-shift into animals or fog or any of that. They do have a natural monstrous form, though."

  Interesting. I wondered how much I knew about them at all. "What kind of magic do they run?"

  Simon shrugged. "Common stuff for the craphole they come from. Human guises, super strength, fangs and claws. In the Nether their true form has shiny skin resembling a black carapace. It's pliable armor."

  "I've seen it."

  He nodded. "Then you know how nasty they can be. Fortunately, it taxes them to hold their monstrous forms in the Earthly Steppe. They keep it to a minimum if they can help it. If not, sunlight forces them back to human."

  "It doesn't kill them."

  "If only." Simon paused and furrowed his brow. "Why the sudden interest in the Obsidian March anyway?"

  "Just had a little run-in with them. It's why the cops picked me up in the first place."

  His palm slapped his forehead. "Hey, Cisco, I need you to focus here. Eyes on the prize. The name of the game today is the Manifesto Killer." He hissed. "It would be just like you to start a crusade against a powerful supernatural faction in the middle of my investigation."

  "Technically it was your investigation that interrupted my crusade."

  He sighed. "What, are the vampires a pressing concern? Is there something that needs to be dealt with immediately? After the Manifesto business is done, I can have someone arbitrate if it'll ease your mind."

  I frowned and shook my head. "No. The little girl's already dead."

  He snorted. "Animals. You want your mind blown? The Obsidian March is responsible for over half of all human trafficking in South Florida. Which is, if you're not aware, a metric fuck ton. On the plus side, they don't get involved in human politics. Even though we can't afford an open war with them, they know people like us would retaliate if they tried to take control. So they're content to operate in the background, defending their territory mostly against other netherlings, as long as their supply keeps coming."

  My face twisted in disgust. "That's sick."

  "Preaching to the choir, my man."

  "Why don't you guys do something about it?"

  His gaze fell for a moment. His attitude sobered. "I could say because they outnumber us, but the real reason is because it's not profitable to do so." He saw my incredulous look and shrugged. "Hey, you want honest? I'm being honest. I don't call the shots. I'm not one of the fat cats—and don't tell Margo or Winthrop I ever called them that. It's life, Cisco. I survive, they survive, and shit happens."

  Part of me wanted to smother on the guilt trip. An enforcer like him didn't lay down the law, but he had enough agency to make a stink about it. Try to effect change. At the very least, he didn't have to be so Zen about it.

  But we were almost at my drop-off spot and I needed to think practically.

  "If sunlight doesn't kill them..." I prodded.

  "Right. Don't waste your time with garlic or silver or wood. What gets them good is a heartstrike. Upirs store all the blood in their bodies there. They're like blood camels, except with hearts instead of humps. It's their magical core. You pierce that and they'll go down real quick."

  I grunted. That was pretty damn helpful, actually.

  I suddenly noticed we were two blocks from the dive bar. "This is it," I said. "Stop here."

  The car pulled over. Simon held out his hand and I shook it. "You have my number now, Cisco. Call me if you uncover anything."

  I nodded and he took off.

  I stood on the sidewalk and took a deep breath. Freedom. It wasn't too late in the day yet either. Once again I got the uncanny feeling I was forgetting something important. As I strolled to my car, my train of thought was interrupted by a cry for help.

  I spun around. A woman, I thought. She called out again. "Somebody, help!" It came from the alley. I turned my boot on the concrete and raced toward the sound. I rounded the corner and skidded to a stop when I saw them.

  The alley between buildings was in heavy shade. And no one here needed any help. That had just been a lure to draw me here. I ground my teeth and faced them.

  Chapter 11

  "Funny," I announced with a cocky tinge, "I was just talking about you guys."

  Tutti strutted triumphantly from the wall whe
re she'd been feigning helplessness. The two bouncers from this morning were with her and fanned out to surround me. It was a stupid trap. I could've backed away and made it to sunlight within seconds. But I reminded myself that it wasn't fatal to them. Probably only slightly more inconvenient than it was for me.

  Tutti coyly shuffled her hands behind her back. "You left so early, mister. We never had a chance to kiss goodbye."

  She looked a lot different than she had earlier. Still a bit too thin to be healthy, and the same dirty-blonde pigtails, but she now had a fresh coat of makeup. A cut-off white button-up and a plaid miniskirt showed off long legs. She would actually be attractive if she wasn't trying to murder me.

  "You're not the brightest set of vampires, are you?" I asked.

  Contempt marred her smile and she pulled a pistol from behind her back. "Bright enough to get the drop on you."

  I smiled at first, taking in the two thugs as their human forms brandished long black claws. It was too amusing to stifle my laugh.

  "What is it?" she snapped.

  I shook my head. "You lured me into a dark alley, and you know I'm a shadow charmer. That's what I would call a miscalculation."

  "You try something and you're a dead man."

  My eyes flashed. "Been there, done that."

  "Either way, mister, you're coming with us."

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  She sneered and pointed the gun at my knee like she was gonna shoot.

  I jerked my wrist. A talon of shadow swiped up from the ground and knocked the pistol loose. One of the thugs lunged and I didn't waste time. I warped the darkness into a lance and pierced him straight in the heart. He whimpered and collapsed forward. I tried the same move on the other but he rolled to the side. They were quick when they wanted to be.

  Tutti ran to the wall. My shadow pursued as she hopped up the brick, took a few vertical steps, then launched out and over my head. I barely had time to throw up my forearm. The tattoo running its length flashed brilliantly as her claws raked against it. My boot shot into her stomach and sent her to the floor.