Rise (Camille Bishop Book 3)

by Ravin Tija Maurice

  Within a minute a blip appeared. A bright yellow spot appeared downtown, close to the entertainment district. It blipped three times, and then went off.

  Without thinking I wrote down the location, and then took a photo of my computer screen of exactly where it stopped. Then I waited, hoping it was some sort of glitch.

  Nope.

  The blip never came back.

  There were not enough cuss words that I could string together to express my emotion.

  Grabbing my phone, I called Millie.

  “Something's wrong.” I said when she answered.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Eric never showed up for work. He lied to me about what he’s been doing when he disappeared before, and not even a good lie. I just tracked his phone, and the little light flashed like three times then stopped. And has not started back up and that was like 10 minutes ago.” I blurted out, any signs I’d been annoyed with her completely gone.

  “Could something be wrong with the software?”

  “No. I checked.”

  “Could he be with another girl?”

  I huffed. “Fuck you Millie.” I hung up. Tension started to build in my neck, as I slowly moved it around to try to loosen it more pain began to build in a new spot. I needed help and I needed it fast, and I didn’t have a lot of options.

  Trying Eric's phone one more time, I prayed to a deity I didn’t believe in that I overreacted. Still no answer. This time I left a message.

  “Hey, it’s Camille. I don’t know where you are, but please call me.” I hung up before I started to cry. My options at this point were limited. Either I went on my own, saving myself some embarrassment if it turns out to be nothing; I called Millie back and sucked up so they went with me, and potentially dealt with Ledo's stupidness; I called Lorcan Fitzpatrick and told him he owed me; or I lied to Ted and asked him to drop me off. None of them were ideal; going alone caused the least amount of blowback.

  Packing my things slowly and methodically forced me to the realization that I could not go on my own. Sucking in my tattered pride, I called Millie back.

  “That was low of me. I apologise.” She said when she answered.

  “Hey, you might be right. And I'd rather you witness my epic embarrassment than risk walking into something unprepared.” But you are prepared, meat head, you have the fucking sword.

  She chuckled. “I'll pick you up in 20 minutes.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “No.”

  “Balls.”

  “Hey now, the boy has been instructed to be on his best behaviour. You need to be as well. Besides, Nya can stand in between you.” I heard Nya's voice protesting in the background.

  I exhaled loudly, not even realizing I'd been holding in breath. “Fine. See you shortly.”

  Ted prepared to leave as I went to talk to him.

  “You ok?” he asked when my head popped in the doorway. “Still nothing from him, huh?”

  “I will be. I'm sure he’s fine. But Millie is coming to pick me up so I am heading out. I finished up any work lying around and since I don’t have any clients at the moment, I thought it might be ok. Day is almost done anyhow.” It took Ted putting a hand on my shoulder for me to look at him. It took every bit of strength I had not to burst into tears.

  “Hey, just relax. Go have fun. I am sure he'll turn up.” He kissed me on the forehead, and I turned tail and dashed out to the building to Millie's waiting SUV.

  20.

  “So where is it?” Ledo held nothing back when I got in the vehicle.

  I unfolded the map I'd printed out and pointed at the little star. Millie nodded in acknowledgment and started driving. Leaning to one side I rested my head against the cool glass of the door.

  “Where's what?” I grumbled.

  “The sword. I know you have it.” Ledo’s voice felt like a cheese grater on my nerves.

  “If I did don’t you think it would be a bad idea to piss me off right now?” I checked his expression in the rear view mirror. Regulating my breathing took a lot of work.

  “Nya, can you scry for Eric?” Millie asked.

  “What's that?” I said.

  “It’s the magic equivalent of a tracking device. Sort of.” Nya replied. “Now shut up for a minute and I will see.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?” I whispered to Millie.

  “You could do it too if you bothered to listen.” She smiled as she spoke. “I'm glad you called. I have had a weird feeling about him for a while.”

  “Oh! That reminds me. They have arrested someone for Jesse's murder. Not le Fay.”

  Millie's eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

  “Could they have spelled someone into becoming a killer?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the girl that Jesse was pimping. Turns out she’s a black widow killer or something like that. And they found some of his belongings at her house. But Harold and his family told me they killed him. Could they set it up to make it look like this girl did it?”

  She looked shocked. “They could, but I couldn’t imagine they were smart enough to pull that off. It’s a lot more work than you might think.”

  “Have you heard anything about them lately?”

  “No.” Millie looked back at her children, and they both shook their heads no. The action seemed a bit rehearsed.

  “I got a hit on Eric.” Nya’s eyes now looked totally white, her pupils and irises glazed over. “He's in a dark room, looks like a basement. There is someone there but I can’t see their face.”

  “Does it look like he's in trouble?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell. He has a weird expression on his face.”

  The tension in my neck flared up again. Grabbing my pill bottle out of my pocket I dry swallowed two Percocet’s. Pushing up my sleeves, my hands were bright almost glowing white and pulsing like some kind of crazy beacon.

  “New tattoo?” Millie asked before I could hide my arm.

  “Yeah.” I flashed it to Ledo. “That’s the only sword I got.”

  As the white pushed up my forearms it stung and throbbed, making me flinch in pain. Millie watched me curiously. Once the pain dulled they became itchy, and I felt the tips of my fingers digging in a little too much.

  “How many of those painkillers are you taking a day?” Millie asked me quietly.

  I smiled. “Not enough.”

  “Camille.”

  “One thing at a time, goddammit. Are we almost there?” Looking outside my window, we were a few blocks away from Chinatown and where we parked to go to Madam Vo's. The streets were empty, everything moist from a recent rainfall.

  Millie parked out front of a three story red brick semi detached house with rows of similar looking places around it. Everything smelled like wet dirt. Nya got out and did her little trick with the parking machine ticket while I stashed my laptop in Millie's trunk.

  Once the doors were shut and locked the four of us stood on the sidewalk and looked around. The rumbling of a streetcar going by a few blocks away made the ground feel like it shook. Everything seemed dingy, even the plants. As if someone painted this landscape with a wash of brown paint.

  “Where to now, boss?” Nya asked me.

  “I don’t know. The software wasn’t specific. The scry didn’t show anything?”

  “Nope, just basement. Concentrate on him and his power, and what it feels like to you, and maybe you can sense him.”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on Eric. His smile, his eyes, the warm feeling when he touched my skin. His energy.

  Something of him prickled on my skin, faint and gently tickling along my edges. In my mind I could see an alley, brightly colored graffiti surrounding me.

  “There's something but its weak.” I said aloud.

&nbs
p; “Could he be blocking?” Ledo asked.

  “He's a Merlin. If he blocked we wouldn’t find him.” I didn’t hide my distaste for him. Ledo's presence and my annoyance kept me motivated, the faster I got away from him the better. The way he looked at our surroundings, his repulsion quite clear, made me contemplate punching him more than once.

  The hint of Eric stretched out to me again. His magic knew me and attempted to attach itself, the bond that we'd formed while being intimate extending to our powers. Everything inside me reached out for him like an octopus tentacle and latched on to what I could.

  But it felt weak, like it started to fade.

  I opened my eyes, pointed at the fourth house in a row and said, “This way.”

  As we started forward the front door of the house opened, and a dark head peered out, looked around, and quickly retreated back inside.

  “Is there something you all can cast so they don’t know we’re coming?” I asked.

  “You realize you’re going above and beyond for a dude who's probably just boning another chick, right?” Ledo tried to laugh but Nya punched him in the shoulder before he could. Turning to him, I got right up in his face.

  “Fine. Ok. Sure. He’s cheating on me. Let’s go walk into that public embarrassment, and you can watch as your mother and sister stop me from committing murder. Again.” Smiling big with teeth, I pivoted and continued towards the house. Logic brain told me to hold off and make a plan, but the devil on my shoulder said they already knew we were here the second we pulled up, it’s too late to prepare now. So go kick the door in and get your man.

  Stomping my way up the rickety wood steps, I got a whiff of something warm and metallic as soon as I reached for the door. Trying the knob, it didn’t budge.

  Concentrating on the lock, I twisted it again as hard as I could and it snapped, turning fully and opening. Stepping through the doorway I stopped and listened, everyone else pausing behind me.

  “Is that blood?” Ledo whispered loudly, sniffing the air. “I am so not prepared for a fight.”

  “Then go wait in the car, wussy. “ Nya snapped at him. I wanted to high five her, but it seemed inappropriate at the moment.

  “You two are like a bunch of little kids. Shut your traps, we need to find Eric.” Millie didn’t bother whispering but didn’t yell either, just spoke in that forceful Mom voice that made it clear she wasn’t messing around.

  Following where my magic directed, we began walking through the rundown house. Furniture lay in pieces, falling apart and dirty, with rugs so filthy and crusted with dirt it almost looked made of mud. The smell of unwashed bodies and rot filled the room, with the overtone of metallic and burning plastic that seemed to establish residence in your nostrils. Boxes with tin cans full of cigarette butts and other smoking paraphernalia littered the room. It reminded me of the crack house we found Bucky’s phone in so long ago.

  Wow. If Bucky could see Bliss now, I wonder what he would say? Maybe I should ask Maritza about their involvement in his death.

  We got to the kitchen in the back and saw no signs of life on this floor. Tempted to split us up to cover more ground, I opened my mouth to suggest it when I heard a noise coming from beneath us.

  I leaned over and whispered to Millie. “Check out the back door and see if there is another entrance to the basement from outside.”

  She nodded, and quietly crept out the broken screen to take a look while I stood in front of the tall thin door that I assumed led to the basement. Millie quickly returned, letting me know what I’d already suspected.

  Only one way in and one way out.

  “Nya, you and Ledo can stay up here and guard the door.” I told her quietly.

  “And let you and my Mom walk into the lion’s den alone? No thank you.” She shook her head. “I’ll take my chances with you.”

  I made eye contact with Ledo for the first time in a while. Before I could say anything he said, “And let you get my family killed? Fuck off with that shit.”

  “He could be down there having an orgy.” I said to no one in particular.

  Millie put a hand on my shoulder. By the look in her eyes I knew she thought the same thing I did. “Let’s hope so.”

  The smell of blood grew stronger as we descended down the basement stairs. I went first, Millie behind me, Nya and Ledo took up the rear. Luckily the staircase itself wasn’t too treacherous and I made it down without falling. The wood felt rickety, only made worse by the weight of four adults. The unfinished railing almost gave me splinters.

  When we reached the bottom, one overhead light bulb hung from a string, swinging in the middle of the room, casting a strange light over the scene in front of us.

  The floor looked like dirt, which explained the state of the upstairs. My eyes immediately went to the back wall. Bodies hung shackled about six feet high to the cinderblocks. The light made it difficult to make out any of them, but I did catch a glimpse of what looked like a very dead Tobias Kinkaid, blood covering the front of his body.

  In the middle of the room strapped to a chair sat my sweet Eric, his head leaned to one side. He looked unconscious, thankfully. Cuts ran up his arms and a strange symbol covered over his heart, scratched in with what looked like the tip of a very sharp object.

  With her back turned to us, a woman teetered in big plastic heels close to the back wall. She wore a lime green thong bikini and her dark hair piled in a massive beehive on top of her head.

  “Millie.” I said quietly.

  “Yeah?” She whispered.

  “I think I know where the demon went.”

  Hearing that phrase, the woman turned around, Bliss’s maniacal smile made me cringe.

  “I was hoping you would come.” 21.“Let him go.” I growled between clenched teeth.

  “I told you when I took this body, blanchmains. I want power. This man has the power I need.” Pointing towards Eric, Bliss’s voice sounded dark and twisted as it spoke the demon’s words.

  “You knew it was in Bliss’s body?” Millie snapped. “I asked you! Repeatedly!”

  “And you would have thought I put it there and I didn’t! I just didn’t stop it from happening!” I yelled back. “But that’s a fight for another time!”

  “WE should leave you here to deal with the mess you created!”

  “I didn’t create it! We can summon my mother right now and you can shit on her about it. All of this,” I made a big circling hand gesture, “is on the genius who wanted to bind my powers.”

  The demon twitched, a strange clicking noise coming from its mouth. “The ritual is already begun, blanchmains. You cannot stop it now. You just have to watch the Merlin die.”

  “Back up guys.” I barked at my people, and as I tried to level my breathing I felt sparks shooting out of my fingertips. My magic began to swirl inside me, including this new part that felt like live electricity shooting through my hand.

  My sword hand is singing.

  “This must have been what was off about him.” Millie told me. “It must have latched on to him somehow. Did you guys encounter it recently?”

  “I had to go to Ren for fucking Lorcan Fitzpatrick.” My eyes never left the demon. “Is that when you did it? When my back was turned?”

  It cackled. “Surprise!”

  “Take me instead. Let him go. I won’t fight you.” I told it calmly.

  It laughed again. “You're a terrible liar.”

  “Alright. Fine. I’m going to gut you like a fish. Then, if you manage to survive and one of those bodies is actually Tobias Kinkaid, they’re going to destroy you. And I am going to laugh my ass off as I watch you burn.”

  It went to move forward and I mirrored its movements. Holding out my hand, I sent out my power and latched in to this thing inside Bliss's body and tried pull it out. The demon continued to laugh, a hideous bird like cackle that sounded
nothing like the body it currently inhabited.

  “You need blood magic.” I heard Lilly‘s voice like a whisper in my head. I blinked and she appeared beside me, no weird eye thing this time.

  “I don‘t know any.” I said, Millie asked me from behind who I was talking to.

  “You have to draw blood. Any blood while you are performing the ritual. Do what you would normally do, but draw blood while you do it.” Lilly directed.

  “Millie!” I yelled, my eyes never leaving the demon. “What do I do?”

  She sobbed in the back, her voice cracking with pain. “I don‘t know.”

  The demon broke free from my tether, knocking me back a few feet. It laughed again, the sound rung off the walls like a loud gong and we were forced to cover our ears.

  “Lilly says I need blood magic.” I told Millie.

  “No. You can‘t do that to yourself.” Millie said. “He would not want you to do that to yourself for him."

  "I won’t let him die like this!” I screamed at her. A surge went through my body; unsure if it was magic, or energy, or just my blood, I knew I needed to act fast.

  Standing up, I screamed as loud as I could. It reverberated through the room like a shock wave, sending everyone flying back. It pushed Eric on the chair against the wall, but not hard enough to knock him free. Paying little attention to the other‘s behind me, I advanced on the demon. Wiggling my fingers and flicking my wrist, I summoned the sword.

  Gripping the handle with the blade pointed down, I started forward. She attempted to swing at me, and I used my left arm to block it. Punching forward with the sword, I slashed at her stomach. Blood began to seep from the wound.

  The demon ran its well-manicured fingers through the red. It licked the tips, like a kid licking something sweet off its fingers.

  “You‘ll have to do better than that this time. “ It said with a grin. In a blink it came at me, luckily I moved fast enough to toss it off and send it flying at the wall.

  “You can’t just kill it. You have to banish it.” Lilly said. “Remember that spell I taught you for your ex-boyfriend? That should work.”