The Charms of Death

by Richard Amos

“You!” he’d taken over the bollocks talk. “You did all of this!”

  “Yawn!”

  “We’ll kill you! You and your family! The world—”

  Let the blood boiling commence. “Make one more threat about my family and I’ll rip your throat out.”

  He slammed his fists on the door, the sound reverberating through the office. Sounded like he had a mean punch on him.

  Two could play at mean.

  “God wants you and yours dead!”

  “Does he now?”

  “Yes!” the siblings replied in sync.

  “Hold that thought.”

  I darted up the stairs to our storage floor where we kept all the books and potions and charms and magical traps—all the fun stuff. I took a bottle of purple liquid from the shelf. It was a special concoction made by my bestie, and witch, Naomi. I didn’t have a huge supply of it, so only used it on the most deserving of knobheads.

  The pounding on the door carried on.

  Man, they really wanted to kill me.

  Fine.

  Whatever.

  The coast was clear—just the twins out there in the snow. I flung the vial at them. The potion wouldn’t do any damage to anything. Not even them. An exploding potion would’ve been awesome, but I wasn’t about blow my own door in and spray their body parts everywhere, no matter how tempting that was.

  A cloud of purple smoke engulfed them. Moments later, they started howling with laughter.

  Ah, memories. Thank the universe for Naomi!

  The smoke dissipated, revealing the hot mess of the Ricci twins.

  They were laughing their heads off, bright red, panic all over their tear-stained faces. But they couldn’t stop giggling, going for it hyena style. Both of them looked up at me, clutching their chests.

  “Now fuck off.” I gave them a wave as they fell, struggling to get back up.

  Neither of them could answer, only try their best to run away, and doing a piss poor job at it with all the snow. I needed to kill them, go down there and stick my spear into their guts.

  It took everything to resist that—a serious amount of metal energy to not go murderous. The law would be a spanner in the works. The Conclave too. It was a given these two belonged to that crazy group, just like their mother, and had featured in a few Conclave videos preaching filth, mourning their mum and really driving home the Conclave’s selling point—supes and pod-born bad, the end of magic, and all that came with it, good.

  The Conclave was the biggest danger to all of us. No question. I didn’t doubt they’d try and take the reins of power at some point from the council and government. Their movement was on a terrifying up.

  Knobs.

  I watched Elena and Emilio scurry off like the rats they were.

  Squeak, squeak, fuckers.

  This was the first time since our first meeting they’d made a move on me. I’d been expecting it, waiting for the day. Now war was officially declared.

  They’d get theirs again and again and again. I’d find a way to bury them so deep that maggots would never bother to snack on their rotting corpses, being so far down they were on the doorstep of Hell.

  Fuck this.

  I fired off the quickest text ever to Dean, telling him I was going home. The office phone started ringing, but my chest was too tight, anxiety spiked to the max. Bollocks to the caller, to anyone who had a problem. It wasn’t mine!

  I stormed down the stairs, spear out, ready for a showdown. The twins had gone, not a threat right now, but their shrieking laughter still echoed down the street over the other side of the canal.

  Deep breath.

  I had to curb my rage, which was so hot it could melt all this white shit around me.

  I knew better.

  The grip of my spear had my hand throbbing. Just over the water, right there, howling in the street, easy pickings. Those twins would be dead quickly. I could end it all now.

  No. It wouldn’t end. It’d just be the beginning.

  I knew better.

  With another deep breath, I went in the other direction—the direction of home.

  SIX

  DEAN

  Dr. Geels appeared at the police station. She was the last person I was expecting to see.

  “Hallo!” she greeted us cheerily as she strode into the cafeteria.

  It didn’t look like she’d been out in the cold, but on a sunny holiday somewhere exotic. Her dark skin was glistening with a summery glow. The only give away that she was sharing the same plane of existence as the rest of the city was her big duffel coat.

  “I’ve emailed you my report,” she said in Dutch, plopping a briefcase on the table.

  I checked my phone for the notification. It was there, along with a text from Jake. Why hadn’t I noticed either? “Thanks.”

  Jake had gone home. An incident with those Ricci twins.

  “Why are you here if you’ve sent the report?” I asked.

  “Your cafeteria has the best blueberry muffins,” the doctor answered. “And I like to discuss the results.”

  I dialled Jake immediately.

  “Hi.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t notice my phone.” I got up and walked away for a bit more privacy. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just need to be at home. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Are you home now?”

  “About to burst through the door. How’s things?”

  “Dr. Geels just showed up at the station.”

  “Why?”

  “Wants to talk about the results of the autopsy on the human guy.”

  “Oh. I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Do you want me to come home?”

  “No. Take care of business. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep. Speak later.”

  “Okay. Bye. Love you.”

  “Love you.” He hung up.

  At least he was home, that was the main thing. He was rattled, which seemed to be a common state of mind for him lately. I was too. Those wretched twins…

  “Everything okay?” Lars asked as I returned to the table.

  “Yes. Sorry about that.” I sat back down. “Please tell us what you know, doctor.”

  Dr. Geels had found herself a blueberry muffin during the interim. She took a bite of her cake, chewing thoughtfully. For some reason, even after slicing up a dead body, she couldn’t help her craving for baked goods. “Wonderful.” She opened her briefcase to fish out some paperwork, adjusted her spectacles and began. “The victim’s name is Sander Greven. Twenty years of age. Served six months in prison for petty theft when he was nineteen. No family to contact. He died from severe trauma to the back of the skull. From his affliction, and the bruises on his cheeks, it’s very clear he was murdered by the assailant grabbing his head with both hands, driving the skull repeatedly into the ground.”

  “There wasn’t much time between me opening the door and seeing Sander dead,” I said.

  She nodded. “Then the killer must be pod-born, with the power of great speed and invisibility—to a degree, it seems. There were pod-traces on Sander’s neck, as well as more fingerprints. Each pattern of the print was laced with pod traces. But Sander himself is fully human.”

  “So this Thomas Ark is definitely pod-born, then,” Lars cut in.

  Dr. Geels nodded. “Also, there were two puncture wounds on the right side of Sander’s neck.”

  That made me sit up. “Vampire marks?”

  “Yes. He wasn’t a vampire, but a human servant.”

  “Which means he probably works for Brem.”

  “I would imagine so, yes.” She took another hearty bite of her cake.

  “This really makes no sense,” Lars said. “Have you got beef with Brem?”

  The relationship between the vampire mafia-type lord and us wasn’t exactly friendly, but we tried to keep out of each other’s way. Apart from an incident in December, there hadn’t any more contact with the arsehole. />
  “No.”

  “Then why did that man come to see you?”

  Ill intent? Was that it? Maybe wasn’t coming to us for help.

  That theory didn’t sit right, and Thomas Ark still hadn’t been brought in.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “No. That’s the extent of it,” the doctor replied.

  The information was mostly confusing and didn’t bode well. I really didn’t want to have to deal with Brem. He wouldn’t help, just aim to cause trouble, or try and trick us into working for him. The bastard liked to trap people.

  “At least we have some more stuff to go on.” I made some notes in my phone. “Now we just need to talk to Thomas Ark.”

  I still wanted to rule everything out and needed to get in touch with Mila. I sent her a text, seeing if she was around this evening to talk.

  She was.

  Officer Evi burst into the room, panting. “Oh, God!”

  “What?” Lars was on his feet, hurrying over to his maybe-girlfriend. “What happened?”

  She took a moment to catch her breath. “There’s been a murder and…and Thomas Ark isn’t home.”

  A WOMAN’S body was impaled on a spiked fence at Vondelpark. By the face. The rest of her was slumped against the fence while the spike went up through her mouth, bursting out the back of head.

  There was blood everywhere, and a lot of witnesses who’d been playing in the snow.

  The consensus was this:

  There’d been a scream, a woman struggling on the ground. She was thrashing violently, crying for help. But there was nothing there, not until her body started to float through the air as if being carried. And then the carrier appeared. The figure of a human man, shimmering, not quite there, held her in his arms, resisting her kicks and struggles, then yanked back her hair before driving her face down onto the fence spike. She’d died almost instantly, then the shimmering figure ran away until it vanished from sight.

  I made notes while the witnesses spoke. The whole place was turning into a circus. Even in adverse weather, the media still managed to show up. A corpse skewered on a fence was more than enough to make the news.

  The police were controlling the crowd, doing their best to usher them away. Lars, who seemed to be a full-time detective for the police while still not officially receiving a promotion, had officers out in the city hunting Thomas Ark. Thanks to his criminal record, there was a face to the name—actually seeing his face was going to be tricky, though.

  It was safe to assume Sander Greven had been coming to Jake and I for help, if this latest killing was anything to go by. I didn’t like that he’d come to our home, but the ill intent theory was dead. He’d been stalked by this pod-born killer and been too late to escape him. The goblin was something different.

  I’d forgotten to ask Jake about the goblins!

  Later. It wasn’t like I could do anything about it right now, nor was there a visible link between the two incidents on our doorstep for the moment. Maybe one would come up, but I had to focus on the present.

  “Another autopsy,” Dr. Geels said. “I was thinking I had a light schedule today.” Then her phone rang. “Hallo? Yes. Yes. What did you just say? Oh dear.” Her face transformed from the usual passive to one of shock. The phone slipped from between her ear and hand, disappearing into the snow.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Sander Greven is missing.”

  SEVEN

  JAKE

  I hugged my daughter until she got fed up, smothering her in my cold, snow-covered clothes, then listened to her tell me about her spelling lessons as she hugged the radiator after our contact.

  “Sorry,” I told her. “Daddy should’ve taken his coat off first. You’re just so squishable.”

  She giggled. “Silly Daddy!”

  Getting back to telling me about her day, she’d completely nailed the word ‘superficial’. Didn’t quite get why that word, but it was awesome all the same. I was proud of her and so happy to be home.

  “Are you alright?” Sophie asked quietly.

  “Yeah, just decided to come home.”

  She knew there was more to it than that but left it alone.

  “Glad you home, Daddy.”

  I stripped off my coat and scarf. “How about some hot chocolate?”

  “Yes please!”

  “Cool. A quick break, then we’re getting back to it.”

  “Cool, Daddy.”

  I ruffled her curls. “Fancy a mug, Soph?”

  “Sure.”

  “To the kitchen!”

  “To the kitchen!” Lou repeated, charging into the lead.

  A CALMNESS HAD FALLEN over me. Not a full blanket, more like the most delicate rice paper in the world. But I was doing better than I had been, soothed by the hot chocolate and the presence of my daughter, our home a happy shell around us.

  Lou was in the living room making the most of her break from her lessons, eating a ham and gouda cheese roll while watching a documentary about humans possibly moving to mars.

  “I know you have a business to run,” Soph said, “but I think this is the best place for you right now.”

  “Is it bad I ignored the phone?”

  “Do you feel bad?”

  “No.”

  “There’s your answer, Jake. Your priority is your family, and they were threatened. Anyone in the same position would’ve done the same. I would have.”

  Soph’s wardrobe of bright colours always cheered me up and helped with calming me down. Yellow trousers, orange jumper, pink cardigan—she was her own rainbow and I loved it. Her blonde hair was tied up in an orange ribbon, and there was even glitter on her fair cheeks.

  I nodded. “But wouldn’t most people worry about whoever had made the call?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I’m a PIA. I’m supposed to care.”

  “I wouldn’t be so hard on yourself. You can’t be everywhere at once, and these are extenuating circumstances. There will always be problems in the city, throughout the world.”

  “Maybe I should’ve redirected the phones.”

  In my desperation to get home, and seriously fuming state, I hadn’t given any of that stuff a second thought. Normally, when out of office, a call would come to our mobiles via a redirection so we wouldn’t miss a potential case, and at least give prospective clients a chance to leave a voicemail.

  “See, you do care,” Soph said.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Guilt and me had a funny relationship. I had a lot of it when it came to Lou, as did Dean, but where it used to eat me up back in the day over my late ex-husband, over pretty much everything, it didn’t now. As along as the people I loved more than myself were happy and safe, that’s all I needed. Yeah, I wanted to help the people we helped, and would go all out to right a wrong or solve some crazy mystery. But I had a line. The line had been crossed this morning, so here I was.

  The wards would keep Lou safe. They were hardcore, having a hardcore creator in Mila Young. Nothing better than being a physical presence, though—for reassurance.

  “Do you want me to go?” Soph asked, taking a delicate sip of her cocoa.

  “Not at all. Stay if you like. Unless you want to go.”

  “I can stay. I enjoy the lessons.”

  “Then she’ll have two teachers today.”

  Soph smiled. “I think Louise would love that very much.”

  “HOW DID YOU UNDERSTAND THAT, LOU?”

  She’d solved an algebra problem. While my eyes had glazed over, along with my brain, my four-year-old had gone and added x and y and divided by fuck knows what.

  “Shit.” I immediately got up and shoved a euro into the black box decorated with silver stars.

  Lou nodded, saying nothing.

  “Well done,” I added.

  She gave me the thumbs up. “I love numbers.”

  “You can tell Daddy doesn’t,” I replied.

  “Daddy doesn’t need to
. I’ll help you if you ever need me.”

  “Aw, bless ya cottons.”

  She grinned, loving it when I said that. “Bless your cottons, Daddy.”

  “Cheers.”

  Another thumbs up.

  “What about this one?” Sophie suggested.

  Lou returned to the coffee table, hunching over her workbook.

  What a cosy way to learn, in a warm living room, all comfy and stuff.

  It was snowing heavily again and it was starting to worry me. How long was this load gonna take to thaw out?

  Bollocks to it. I read the math problem too. “Ah! I know this one.”

  “Me too, Daddy!”

  I high-fived her. “Let me see you do it.”

  A boom on my front door. “What the fuck!” I yelled.

  Talk about Deja vu from last night.

  I was on my feet immediately.

  “Daddy?”

  Glancing out the window, I saw a man in the snow. Getting up, looking extremely familiar. Was he naked?

  “Shit!” I hissed.

  “Daddy? I’m scared.” She was in Soph’s arms.

  “Wait here. I’ll be back.”

  Tears rolled down my daughter’s cheeks. “It’s okay. Just wait here.”

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  This dickhead was going down fucking hard.

  Spear in hand, I was outside, staring down my stoop at the naked body of the man I’d seen dead last night, repelled by the wards once again. He was covered in stitches where surgical instruments had cut into him, pale as a corpse, dead as a fucking doornail.

  So why was he staggering towards me, his arms outstretched like a zombie?

  I knew how necromancy worked. It reanimated a corpse, and you could see it happening with the purple energy present on the body, usually dancing around the head. And the necro would be nearby controlling. Also, if the body was being sent to be incinerated in Deathwell, Amsterdam, by a necromancer, as was common, the corpse would simply stroll away, take no detours, only make its way silently to the city’s necro HQ to go get its ash on.

  Not this one. Where was the purple magic? Where was the necromancer?

  “I wouldn’t move,” I warned. Useless talking to a dead body because—

  “Help…”