He let the blanket fall to his waist revealing bare chest and gave her the most unamused look. He did not, however, let the blanket fall to the point of allowing her to see his blue boxer shorts.
“What do you need, Augury?” he asked. There was a resigned note in his voice.
“I want you to come with me,” she said, “to the place where the second body was found. I found something and I think you should see it.”
He yawned, rubbing the remaining sleep from his eyes.
“Good thing I get so much sleep that I can just interrupt it whenever I want,” he said, getting to his feet and moving to the dresser. He didn’t bother to check and see if Augury was looking or not, it really didn’t matter.
“This is important,” she said, emphasizing the ‘t’ sounds.
“I’m working on it,” he grumbled.
“Alright,” she said. “I have to assume you’re going to take the door so I’m headed back out the window and I’ll see you out front.”
He sighed.
“Fine.”
There was a beat of pause before he turned back over his shoulder to glance at her.
“Augury.”
“What?” she asked.
“How did you get through the wards?” he asked. “Actually, nevermind, I don’t think I want to know.”
She grinned and gave him a mock salute before dipping back out the window. When he met her in the front, she glanced up at him.
“Really? The claymore?” she asked.
He shifted the weight of his sword on his back.
“It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
Less than an hour later the two of them were walking down a cramped alley and she led him over to a hole in the brickwork of a rundown building and gestured to him as she ducked in through it.
Augury had to duck. Barghest had to practically fold himself in half to get in. She extended her fingers and a plume of hellfire lit up the back wall. By the time he was in the little chamber, still hunched over uncomfortably but able to see everything, there was a glyph emblazoned on the wall behind the body.
“It only shows up against hellfire,” Augury said.
“I take it you checked with a nephil?” he asked.
“Oh yeah, let me just call one up, because there’s so many of them,” she said. Then paused. “I should ask Ophelia, shouldn’t I?”
“I’m just saying we don’t know if it’s only hellfire. It could be any magical fire,” he said.
“Most nephilim don’t produce flame in the first place, but yeah, I hear you,” Augury said. “Do you know what it means?”
“I can’t say magic is my expertise,” he said. “I mean, I’ve never seen this at any of the sites the Hellwatch has investigated before.”
“Right,” she said, “that’s why you deigned to work with trash like me, I remember now. Still, there are glyphs I’m used to and ones I’m not. This isn’t a summoning glyph.”
“What other sorts of things do you use glyphs for?” he asked.
“Is that actually a question?” she asked, realized he was serious, and sighed. The flame between her fingers went out. “There are warding glyphs, that typically just drain a little power from a larger source instead of summoning an entire demon to do the job. There are the kinds that draw from a person’s own soul to work like the ones the nightingales inscribe on the bottoms of their tongues to stop them from lying. Most of those are bindings but there are a few people use to break the limits of their bodies. Some of them are names, some of them are just lines. That is until you put intent into them. Not every glyph is old enochian. They get made up all the time.”
“I’ll probably have more questions about that later,” he said, “but for now, what do you think it means?”
“Mr. ‘I don’t like speculation’? Asking me to speculate? Unfortunately, I have no idea,” she said. “My best guess right now is that it’s a calling card.”
“Why would you leave a calling card that most people can’t see?” he asked. “Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”
“Depends on who you want to know,” Augury said. “He wasn’t calling out to the Hellwatch maybe, but cambion? Those are the victims. It would make sense for him to want them to know.”
“Whose going to think to look around a crime scene except…well. Us?” he asked.
“You’d be surprised,” Augury said. “Even if I weren’t being paid, I’d still be here. There are more cambion in the city than nephilim but there still aren’t a lot of us and we have to do what we can to keep each other breathing.”
A pause, and then.
“To make sure that when something happens to one of us, someone answers for it. No offense, Tin Can, but the Hellwatch isn’t always great at protecting the city’s inhuman residents.”
He watched her for a moment. The thought came surging into his mind that maybe if there weren’t so many unlicensed summonings, they would have the man-power to take care of them better.
The man-power and the time. Somewhere in the city a clock was chiming to let him know it was three in the damn morning.
But Augury was an unlicensed summoner and he really did need her help, so he erred on the side of discretion and kept that one to himself.
“Well, would you look at that,” a male voice said from out in the alley. “Looks like we caught the Alpha Hellhound.”
Barghest could only see them from their chests down. The five men were in waistcoats sans jackets and the one in the front had an imp’s long tail curled around the front of his shoulder, wrapped in the long knit scarf that was threaded through his collar.
As far as he could tell, they hadn’t seen Augury.
“What are so many people doing out past their bedtime?” Barghest asked. He ducked lower to move out of the hole in the wall and the fireball the imp threw broke and scattered on his breastplate. “Oh it’s gonna be one of those days.”
He reached behind his back and drew his claymore into both hands. The man with the scarf took an unsteady step back and the four other guys with him brought guns out.
“Six on one, guns to a sword fight,” he said. “Yeah, I’d say that’s about even.”
The imp vanished from the shoulder of the man with the scarf and he took another two long steps back as the four other men leveled their guns. The imp grabbed onto the front of his breastplate then immediately let go as the metal burned its little hand.
Barghest shook his head.
“Now are we going to do this, or are we just gonna walk away—”
He was cut off right on the tail end of his last word as a gun discharged, lighting up the alley with the flash of it. The sound cracked through the brick street, leaving his ears ringing.
A ward flared to life on Barghest’s breastplate, and the bullet pinged away, rolling down the bricks. He watched it roll.
“Alright then.”
He slashed out with his claymore and more bullets discharged into his plate as he swept across the four men in front of him. Suddenly, there was a heat at his back.
One of the four men, a redhead with as many freckles as Augury, stumbled back pressing a hand to his bleeding midsection. One of the others, this one with dark hair, pointed his pistol between Barghest’s eyes, his hands trembling so hard that Barghest almost would have taken the risk that he wouldn’t hit.
It hadn’t occurred to him until now just how young some of them were.
Something farther down the alley flared bright gold and orange.
Barghest gripped his claymore in his off hand for a moment and lashed out with his free one smacking the boy’s hand out of the way and gripping both hands and wrists in his much larger one. He squeezed hard and twisted, the gun clattering to the bricks and discharging.
“The thing about guns?” he half-growled. “You typically don’t want to be that close.”
The boy whimpered. Barghest more saw it than heard it with the gunfire around them. The smell of sulfur bit the air. A jet of fire came whiz
zing past his head and into the chest of one of the dark-haired men, blasting him back into the far wall with a crack.
Things started to quiet down. Three of the four men were neutralized, the fourth nowhere to be seen. From what Barghest could see, the imp was gone, and the summoner on the other end of the alley was tied up in a loop of rope and being held over the shoulder of a lithe full-blooded afrite that had not been there prior.
Augury appeared at his shoulder. He gave her a sidelong look and quirked a brow. Between them in that moment was the unspoken ‘you know what you did’.
“What?” she asked. She knew what. He snorted.
Barghest took the moment to spin the boy he was still holding around and cuff him properly. The freckle-faced man was leaning against the wall and desperately trying to hold his guts in while the man Augury had caught with her fireball was a charred corpse. At least, Barghest hoped he was. She’d caught him full in the face with that.
All of them were wearing Gate Street yellow.
“Hold this,” Barghest said, pushing the kid into Augury’s arms. He stepped over to the man he’d cut open and took a knee, his armor creaking with the motion. He leaned his claymore against his shoulder. “Let me look.”
There were two ways this could go. Either they could do something to help keep the man alive until they got him to a proper doctor or he was just on borrowed time. If it were the former, he’d do whatever he could. If it were the latter, better to put him out of his misery.
“No,” the man gasped. Barghest reached out to pry his fingers away, anyway. The cut was deep, but not as deep as he’d originally thought. He couldn’t close the wound, but he could bind it shut.
“Augury,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Can we get some bandages or something?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder.
“Slag,” she called. The afrite was at her side in seconds. “You heard the man.”
She pulled her purse out of her pocket and passed it to him. “Leave the summoner with us, we’ll keep an eye on him and I guess Barghest will get this guy to the hospital?”
She was looking at him now.
“I assume that means you’ll be taking these two back to the Hellwatch Headquarters, then?” he asked.
“I guess I could,” she said, “but consider. They’re going to make us play nice while we ask them questions. And it probably isn’t safe to bring Slag there.”
“So then are you taking this guy to the hospital or am I doing all the leg work?” he asked.
“No dice on bringing them back to my place, then?” Augury asked.
“No,” he said, flatly.
“I’ll take this guy to the hospital and meet you at HQ,” she said, sighing.
CHAPTER NINE
Casting Shadows
“Hey, Daelan City, having a good night? I’m not. I guess I won’t be giving my well thought out report on psychic headlice because it ‘can’t be proven’ and is ‘too scary and subversive’, so I’ll be taking calls tonight.
Coincidentally, so will my manager. Please look up his sigil sequence and let him know how disappointed you are not to be able to hear my findings, won’t you?”
Callum was sitting on Sam’s bed with his arms crossed.
“We can just add ‘lying to the hellwatch’ to the list of things you owe me for,” Sam mumbled. He dropped into his desk chair, legs on either side of the back and arms crossed over it, giving Callum a hard look that made his dark blue eyes seem almost dangerous.
“You were going to have to do it eventually anyway,” Callum said. “Besides, I am getting information. This is getting me somewhere.”
“Deeper into trouble while you try to keep your secret and more under my skin while I try to hold it for you,” Sam said, pursing his lips. “It’s time.”
“We need to wait,” Cal said immediately. It was a pity that Sam couldn’t see it when it seemed so obvious to him. “I spoke to Lena—”
“Of course you did,” Sam said, cutting him off. “Listen—”
A loud high scratch at the window killed their arguments in their throats. Callum got to his feet and crossed over, peering against the glass. A moment later there was a harsh ‘thud’ sound and a pair of incandescent eyes the size of fists were staring into his and he took a shocked step back again.
“Tixi,” he growled. She tapped against the window with her tail above their heads, bidding to be let in. Once he’d opened the window, he asked, “How did you even manage to find me here?”
“I followed the scent,” she said. “Tess told me to keep an eye on you and she said you’d get me caramels.”
Callum’s heart sunk like a stone were tied around it.
“If you don’t tell her where you found me I’ll get you more,” he said.
“Three bags more,” Tixi said.
“Two.”
“Four,” she chimed, delightedly.
“Fine,” he said, “four.”
“Letting yourself get blackmailed by an imp?” Sam asked, raising a silver brow. “And I’m sorry, did she just say Tess? As in Cassander?”
“Hush,” Callum said. “Tess can’t find out either. She’s already in enough danger without.”
“And yet she knew to send an imp after you,” Sam said.
Tixi looked for a moment like she might speak, and then thought better of it. Callum squinted at her and her little clawed hands took her tail between them and threaded it through her fingers.
“What?” he asked.
“Another bag of caramels,” she said, “and I’ll tell you.”
“That makes five,” he said, realizing he wasn’t getting out of this one.
“She already knows,” Tixi said. “I’m not going to tell her, but she already knows.”
Sam made a scoffing sound and looked at Callum.
“Do you hear that? You’re doing a shoddy job keeping your own secret, now can we drop this?” he asked.
“She suspects,” Callum said. “She can’t know. Not for sure, not until I tell her.”
Tixi looked dubious but said nothing. The idea of Tess having figured it out…well. She had gone to the summoner’s academy, she was nearly licensed. She remembered geometric patterns designed to call and bind demons of extreme power and they said sometimes a complex sigil was the difference between life and death. She’d trained her memory. So maybe she did know.
But he wasn’t going to confirm that for her, not yet. There was too much happening.
“Sam,” a voice in the hall said. Ophelia’s voice. Sam and Callum exchanged a look.
Callum got to his feet and knocked over the waste bin on his way to the closet. Tixi preened on his shoulder and stayed silent as the closet door closed.
“Is everything alright in there?”
She sounded muffled now that she was through two doors.
“It’s fine, you just startled me,” Sam called. “Give me a second, I’m putting pants on.”
Through the slats in the closet door, Callum watched him toss several pieces of paper back into the waste bin before he went and opened the door.
Ophelia stood with her back straight and her arm folded, silver hair falling around her shoulders, loose for once. She was wearing her glyph-etched hellwatch breastplate, and her eyebrows knitted together as she saw Sam.
“I’m visiting the upper district,” she said. “I wanted to know if you wanted to come with me or if there was anything you wanted while I was out.”
“Thank you,” Sam said, “but no, I have a lot to do tonight and there’s nothing in particular I need.”
There was a pause before she asked, “I thought I heard you talking, is everything alright in here?”
“Talking out loud helps me focus, Mom,” he said, softly enough that Callum almost didn’t hear it. He leaned forward and opened his arms and she took him up in a hug.
“You know sometimes your father is like that, too,” she said. She kissed Sam on top of the head and when she pulled
back, she smiled at him. Callum’s heart ached with envy. There was a beat of a moment there where he might have stepped out of the closet and ruined everything just then to see his mother smile like that at him.
Except she wouldn’t. She would cry and she would be angry and she would never let him leave the house again. So he stood and watched.
“I love you, Mom,” Sam said. “Be careful.”
“I will,” she said, “and you do the same. I’ll let your father know I’m going.”
The door closed between them and after her footsteps faded, Sam walked back to the closet and yanked the door open.
“Do you see that?” he demanded. “She comes in here and just takes my word for it and I keep having to lie to her because of you. Knowing you were right there.”
“Sammy,” Cal said.
“No,” Sam said, “don’t ‘Sammy’ me, this is horrible and you are horrible for making me do it.”
The silence stretched between them and Callum furrowed his brow, dropping his eyes from his brother. He took a deep breath and let it out, steadying himself, pulling for calm that did not want to come.
Sam was right.
He was horrible for making him a party to this. But he didn’t have a choice. Not yet.
Colors ran and mixed in the water as Corvin Verida washed the paint from his hands. He scrubbed until it ran clear beneath them, and ran a knuckle down the glyph on the front of the faucet to turn it off.
Deep breaths. Calm. He didn’t want to look too eager. He didn’t want to look like he cared at all or this was going to become a problem.
His room was a sanctuary from the people downstairs. He had what he needed up here. Paint, brushes, a window for light during the day. Privacy. That was the most important thing.
Dozens of canvases depicting the view from outside his window, the one tree in the Verida family’s courtyard in all four seasons, peered down at him. Behind them, were his more interesting works.
Portraits from memory. His mother, with her pinched features and austere eyes. His father, strong hands clutching beer cans and a snarl always just behind his lips. Corvin was particularly fond of that picture; he’d captured that moment like a real professional.
Torchlighters Page 18