There are a hundred people in this city with a hundred reasons to have wanted to hurt them, but believe you me? I don’t think it was an accident that it was Callum and his afrite blood, far from incidental.
Now, I don’t want to go starting a panic just yet. I have a sharp as a tack investigator on the case and the very second I know something concrete my dear listeners, so will you. And if you’ve seen something?
Well, you know my scryglass sequence. Please, feel free to call in.”
Cold air filled his lungs and he awoke with a harsh gasp as he sat up. The white sheet he’d been under fell around his waist, leaving his chest bare. The poor mortician on the other side of the room let out a squeaking sound as he ducked around the desk. The woman on the other side of that desk chuckled.
“Callum Trezza,” she said, turning around to face him. He recognized her voice but only vaguely. She was beautiful, with concubus blue-violet hair that fell around her shoulders in loose curls and a sequined headband with beading that intermingled with those locks in a fetching way. Her fingernails were lacquered and painted dark blue. “I’m glad to see you up and about. I was just telling Martin what a wonderful job he’d done convincing the Hellwatch that you’re as dead as you’re supposed to be.”
“Dead?” he asked. His head was foggy. He remembered there was a party, for the new year, that it was chilly out but not as bad as it could have been, and that there had been someone in the alley outside.
Oh.
That was right, he’d been stabbed.
He reached up and ran his fingers over the wound. It was closed now, but still fragile like a freshly formed scar. A part of him acknowledged, at that strange distance that comes from knowing how bad something could have been and wasn’t, that it should have had stitches. Another part of him chilled at the realization that he shouldn’t have survived it.
“Oh yes, darling, someone got you good I’m afraid,” she said. “A bullet might not have made it in, and wouldn’t have had enough time to leech from you. Useless against a pure blooded demon, but all cambion resist them to one degree or another. A blade though, especially one coated in silver, is another tale entirely. You’re lucky I was there.”
She crossed to him on long and graceful strides, her hips swaying in her pretty teal dress. She reached out and touched the side of his face, turning it to get a better look at him, and he let her without fuss. He remembered her voice. Now that her hand was on him, he remembered her from the alley.
Don’t worry, I’ve got you.
“We’ve got a bit of a problem now, don’t we?” she asked.
“I’m sure my parents would be willing to help solve it,” Callum said, looking at her with furrowed brows.
“No,” she said. “I’m afraid not. You can’t go to them.”
It simultaneously made sense to him and didn’t. His sleep addled mind fought for a moment, trying to make sense of it, to fathom her meaning.
“They have resources,” he said.
“Yes,” the woman said, “but they are also very much in the public eye and I’m afraid if they know what really happened here their reactions will be off somewhat and somebody will notice. Do you understand? If the people who came at you last night know you are alive, they will understand immediately what a big mistake they have made. They will go to ground. We will never be able to catch them.”
We will never be able to catch them.
He looked at her now.
“If they go to ground they won’t try it again,” he said.
“They aren’t only going for you,” she said. “I’ve been following their actions for a while. They’ve been tracking down half-bloods hand over fist.”
Images of the rest of his family flashed through his mind and he fell silent once again. Every one of them.
“It will be much easier for you to catch them if they don’t know you’re there,” she said. “My name is Lena. Will you help me find the ones that did this to you, please?”
“Wait,” he said. “Who are these people to you that you care whether or not they succeed?”
“They’re killing cambion,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve noticed, I happen to be one myself. Perhaps I’ve got more demon in my veins than you do, but that doesn’t mean I’m safe.”
The sudden absence of her fingers left cool spots on his cheek as she turned to Martin.
“And you,” she said, “Will you prepare an empty casket for the family to bury and never speak a word of this?”
“If it’s what has to be done, Ms. Lena,” he said, sitting down in the chair behind his desk.
“Just until we get this figured out,” she said. There was a promise in her voice. “Callum? A few things.”
“I’m listening,” he said. He hadn’t made any promises, yet. A small part of him wanted to go home, anyway. To let her think he was going to obey her and then go to his father and figure out how to get the family involved in spite of all of this.
“First of all I’ve set you up a dead drop on the north end of town,” she said. “There’s a wisplight that glows green underneath an old way sign and a loose brick in that wall. If I find anyone that can help you they will leave you missives there.”
“That will make things easier,” Callum said. “I know just the light. My Mom used to tell me they ran out of clear glass and filled the lamp with recycled soda bottles.”
“I need you to promise me you aren’t going to tell your parents about this,” Lena said. She furrowed her brow. “I really am sorry but your father is infamous for his temper and if he doesn’t throw the right amount of fit over it no one is going to believe you’re dead. And your mother would tell him. You know that she would.”
The request was setting off all kinds of red flags. What she said though, made some kind of sense.
“I promise,” he said. “I won’t tell my parents until they’ve made the kind of spectacle they need to make. I’ll hide myself for now and help you figure this out.”
Lena smiled slightly, taking his hand in hers.
“Thank you,” she said. “There is one more thing.”
She drew a mask from the cluttered desktop Martin was sitting behind and offered it to Callum.
“We don’t need rumors circulating. That can be just as harmful as your father’s reaction if not more so,” Lena said. Her lips quirked. She had chosen a bold red for them. “Let them think you’re dead. All of them. You are going to become their worst nightmare.”
Like a hero from one of those radio dramas, Callum thought. He liked the sound of that. He’d have been lying if he tried to say otherwise. He put the mask on. It was a perfect fit, with no need for buckles or ties, and he immediately wondered how much witchcraft had gone into its construction.
“Martin made it for you while you were out,” Lena said. “I provided a few magical alterations. Consider it a token of our thanks.”
How had she known he was going to accept it? She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. His father often used that tactic, and Callum knew the kinds of things that happened to people who didn’t listen. This woman? She was definitely far more demon than he was. He was in over his head.
It would be easier to work around her if he kept her happy.
Callum took the mask back off and turned it over in his hands. It was made to cover the top half of his face, leaving the mouth exposed. The color was a matte grey, inscribed with sigils that gave off a faint glow. Not quite summoning, but calling on power from another plane.
“Thanks,” Callum said, looking over at the desk. “Why do you care? I know you’re on the slate, too, and that’s a reason, but this seems way more personal than that.”
It came out before he could think any better of it. Lena considered him, and the corners of her ruby lips twitched into a smile.
“I have my own reasons to hunt these people,” Lena said. “They have a long history of personal misdeeds. I might tell you about them eventually, but I haven’t known you long enough to go t
here, yet.”
He wasn’t sure how he felt about any of this. But it wasn’t going to be forever, and the faster he could track down the person responsible, the faster he could get back to his family. “Is there any reason I need to stay here?”
“No,” Lena said. “Oh, and Callum?”
She jerked her hand and something metal caught the light. He snatched it out of the air and found himself holding a key.
“My place is the apartment over the Ninth Gate. You’re going to need somewhere to sleep while we get this worked out.”
Callum nodded to her. “Expect me in late.”
“Will do,” she said.
Callum shut the door behind him. He gave his word. He would feel awful breaking it. He couldn’t tell his parents what was happening, not until they’d made a spectacle out of themselves. But he never promised he wouldn’t tell his brother.
Ophelia threw open the frosted glass double doors of the Hellwatch station and started right for Barghest’s office. Several agents sat at desks with typewriters and manilla files strewn across them, wisplight lamps flickering. One or two had perches with long-tailed imps sitting, their curved toes clutching the bar like bird talons. The treble scent of the room sparked a thousand memories.
Several people turned to look at her as she passed, but none of them said a word. There were a few new faces, trainees that didn’t know her, but plenty more that did and not one of them seemed willing to get between her and Barghest’s office door.
She barged in without knocking. The room was sparsely furnished, with two filing cabinets pushed up against the back wall and a single metal desk in the middle of the room. Barghest sat behind it, his massive frame dominating the workspace. On the near side of the desk was a red-headed woman holding a take-out box with a pair of chopsticks perched between her freckled fingers.
“What have you found out?” Ophelia asked.
“It’s an active investigation, you know protocol,” Barghest said.
“He’s my son,” Ophelia said.
“I know that,” Barghest said, “but you know that we can’t give anyone preferential treatment.”
“I know the job,” Ophelia said. “I worked here for years.”
“And you know that even if you still did I couldn’t let you on this case,” Barghest said. “He’s family. You’re too close to the situation. And anyway, isn’t this your PI?”
“No dice, Tin Can,” the red-headed woman said. There was an awkward slurping sound as she scarfed down some noodles. “She didn’t hire me.”
“Who hired you?” Barghest asked, furrowing his brow.
“That confidentiality clause is a bitch, isn’t it?” the woman asked.
“You didn’t have to include that,” Barghest said.
“I did for this client,” the woman said. “Paid too well to turn it down.”
Ophelia’s fingernails were digging hard into her palms. Barghest seemed to notice, because he sighed and said, “We’ll sort it out later.”
“There isn’t anything you can tell me?” Ophelia asked.
Barghest looked at the red-head, pointedly. “There’s nothing I can tell you.”
Ophelia followed his gaze to the woman.
“Augury,” she said, getting to her feet and extending a hand to shake. “How about you come with me and we’ll go grab a coffee. I’ll…see what I can do.”
“Ophelia,” she said, taking Augury’s hand and giving it a firm shake.
“I’m aware,” Augury said. “Can’t be around this guy for more than twenty minutes and not know who you are.”
Barghest grunted in response and Augury grinned.
“We won’t be long. Don’t fish the stick out of your butt without me,” Augury said, and moved for the door. Ophelia stepped back and opened it, glancing between the pair of them with a lightly quirked brow.
Barghest gave a shrug, massive palms facing upward. Ophelia turned to follow Augury back into the hall.
“So you’re a private investigator,” Ophelia said.
“I can’t tell you who hired me,” Augury said. “They were real specific about that. But I can tell you what I know. You were on the scene right away, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” Ophelia said, softly. “My husband and I, we…found him.”
“Did you see the wound?” Augury asked. “Was he breathing when you found him?”
“I thought he was,” Ophelia said. She stared at the tile floor as they walked, her hands clasped in front of her now. She could still see the alley in her mind as if she were still there. “He was on his back and…”
“Take your time,” Augury said.
She could almost feel the blood, hot and sticky between her fingers as she tried to put pressure on the wound. She did everything she could have to keep her son’s blood inside of him but it was too late.
Ophelia had seen plenty of bodies. Stranger’s bodies with unfamiliar faces. This was not the same.
That was why Barghest would have stonewalled her even if she hadn’t quit the Hellwatch a quarter of a century ago.
“And I couldn’t save him,” Ophelia said. “If I had been some other kind of nephil, maybe. But I’m not.”
“Did you see the wound?” Augury asked.
“Of course I did,” Ophelia said, furrowing her brow. “I just told you, I tended to him immediately, I had to find where he was bleeding to put pressure on it.”
“What did the cut look like?” Augury asked.
“Didn’t you see it?” Ophelia asked, an edge coming into her voice.
“Yes,” Augury said. “It had started to knit itself shut. Was it like that when you saw him?”
Ophelia’s throat ran dry.
“No,” she said. “What are you saying, Augury?”
“Nothing,” she said, “except that this is what I saw. There are hundreds of things that could have caused a postmortem healing like that but I had to be sure it happened after…after he died. Was there anyone else in the alley with you?”
“No,” Ophelia said, “or Joey and I would have done for them right then and there.”
“Ballsy thing to be saying in the middle of the Hellhound’s den, that’s for sure,” Augury said with a little smile. “Try to really think for a second, did you see anything like footprints in that alley before people trampled all over it? I know bricks aren’t easy, but sometimes…”
Ophelia stopped in front of the mess hall doors and shut her eyes, thinking.
She had turned the corner. She and Joey had been laughing, but she no longer remembered what about. And there he had been, lying on the brick road.
At first she thought he had to have been someone else. She remembered telling herself it must have been and when she got close enough to see his face, she’d stepped out of her heels and run to drop beside him.
His hair had been soft and sweat-dampened. There was blood saturating the front of his white button up shirt and between the brickwork. It had been cold and sticky against the bottoms of her bare feet. She remembered some of it had pooled in patches. And she remembered…
“There were high heeled shoe prints,” Ophelia said. “I had assumed they were mine, but I took my shoes off before I got there.”
“That would be the human in you,” Augury said. “Human minds were designed to focus on what’s important and right in front of them. I can’t imagine there’s anything more important in the world to you, what are a pair of shoes compared to that?”
Her voice was even and she nodded to Ophelia without pressing. She wasn’t wearing a Hellwatch uniform, but she was good at the job. She would have to be; Barghest wouldn’t have tolerated an outsider if she wasn’t competent.
They stepped into the mess hall; it was empty and Augury walked right over to the coffee maker. Her finger ran along the side igniting a glyph that brought the heated parts of the machine to life. Ophelia watched the parts light up; there was a minor flame spirit bound to the inner mechanisms and brown liquid began to flow and cur
l through transparent tubing from the base of the contraption into a funnel at the top. It was the same mechanism they used to make cars move in Charon.
Augury set the coffee pot beneath the spigot. Ophelia took a seat.
“You know Barghest is a sucker for the rules,” Augury said. “He’d tell you everything if he thought he could.”
“I know him,” Ophelia said, dryly.
“You knew him,” Augury said. “That was more than twenty years ago. I’ve been working with him for the past ten.”
“You don’t or he wouldn’t let you tell me either,” Ophelia said. This time there was a little quirk of a smile against her lips.
“I am a contractor,” Augury said. “The rules apply to me a little differently. Listen, I’ll do my best to keep you informed. I’m not always going to be here but I can drop you notes when I have the time.”
“I would appreciate that,” Ophelia said, sighing. “And I suppose you’ll want me to let you know what we find out as well?”
“Well,” Augury said, “it would certainly make the work go faster and whatever Barghest says about it, I know you’re not going to stop looking. I wouldn’t, if it were my family.”
“No sane person would,” Ophelia said. “Alright, you have a deal.”
“Good,” Augury said, and flashed her a grin. “Now how do you take your coffee?”
Callum Trezza perched on the edge of a nearby mausoleum as a pair of collared rakshasa lowered an empty casket into the ground in front of a headstone with his name on it. The glyphs along the collars around their throats and cuffs around their wrists flared red against the evening shadows. They were large demons with mouths crammed full of tusks and striped faces. The Summoner’s Academy associated them with wrath.
His eyes, particularly his night vision, were keener than most thanks to the afrite blood he’d inherited from his father, but the mourners were still difficult to see from this vantage point and he didn’t dare move any closer. It would be too much of a risk that someone would see. He was, he reminded himself for at least the third time, supposed to be in that coffin.
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