by Jayne Faith
“That reminds me, I need to make sure Damien’s coming over tomorrow.” I pulled out my phone and sent a quick message to my partner.
“How are the magic lessons coming along?” Johnny asked.
“Slower than I’d like, but I’m making some progress,” I said. I gave a short laugh. “I’m probably the most difficult project he’s ever taken on.”
My Demon Patrol partner, Damien Stein, was a high Level III on the Magical Aptitude Scale. In fact, he was the most powerful crafter I knew. For the past couple of months we’d been meeting a few times a week so he could help me develop my skills. As a low Level I, I’d never bothered trying to hone my magical talents because my capabilities were so limited. But Damien had insisted that I could do more than I thought, so I’d challenged him to prove it.
Johnny shot me an appreciative smile. “That charmed whip he gave you is sexy as hell, sugar.”
I cracked a grin, remembering how I’d splattered gobs of magic all over my living room and tangled the whip in a curtain. “I’ve gotten a lot better than the last time you saw me use it.”
“Why didn’t you have it with you tonight?” he asked.
I touched the spot in front of my left hip where I usually had the whip coiled and then remembered. “He has it, actually. Apparently my skills have improved enough to warrant some upgrades.”
“That’s hot.”
I laughed. “Thanks.”
I could tell he was trying to recapture some of the ambiance from before Deb got the call from Jen. I appreciated his attempt to heat up the mood, but with everything I had weighing on my mind, I wasn’t feeling it at the moment.
I was already anticipating something else, which had become part of my nightly routine: bonding time with the reaper, as I’d started calling it. Part meditation, part appeal, I turned to the reaper soul and asked for it to help bring more images of my brother. Usually what came were random and sometimes disturbing images of demons, death, and a dark place that didn’t seem of this world.
Since the first time I’d done it two months ago, I’d received only one more glimpse of Evan, aside from the vision I’d had in my dream last night. My chest clenched at the memory. As in my dream, it appeared he was still at a secluded compound that served as a vampire feeder den. He’d looked thinner than before, barely moving except for slight shifts of his glassy eyes. One of his arms had hung limply, his inner wrist mangled from vamp fangs. The wound would heal, the vampire who’d created it would make sure of that, but it still made me ache inside to see it.
Tonight I was more eager than usual to try to get something useful. Maybe it was the knowledge that the reaper’s soul had consumed more of me and time was running short. The bizarre discovery of the maroon magic at Jennifer’s, and Detective Barnes’s accusation, had also put me on edge.
Johnny pulled up to the curb in front of my apartment and turned off the engine.
“Let’s get your new pet out of the trunk, and I’ll walk you to the door,” he said.
My stomach took a little dip as I realized he’d definitely picked up on my down-shift in mood, and I wasn’t quite sure if my reaction was disappointment or relief. Maybe a little of both.
With only a little visible cringing, Johnny carried the net containing the still-sedated minor demon up to my front porch. My next-door neighbor’s familiar, a pissy black cat who seemed to have something against me, appeared at the window. Its gaze roved over me and Johnny with feline dismissiveness. Then it zeroed in on the net and bared its teeth in what was probably a fit of hissing. It went full-Halloween, with arched back and puffed tail, its yellow eyes glued to the demon.
Johnny dropped the net near the door and stuffed one hand in the front pocket of his jeans. His eyes searched my face for a moment, a faint smile playing on his lips.
“Not exactly the date I had in mind,” he said.
I pushed a few stray strands of hair back with one hand, tucking them behind my ear. “Yeah, me either.”
He took a step forward, closing the distance between us and bringing us eye-to-eye. “Try again soon?”
I took a breath and nodded. “I’d like that.”
With a shift of his posture toward me, his lips met mine in a warm, lingering kiss. The masculine scent of his leather jacket and the freshness of his aftershave filled my nose. For a split second, my worries faded and I was tempted to invite him in to try to prolong the escape. A loud yowl from the cat next door and an answering yip from Loki inside my apartment returned me to reality.
Johnny pulled back with a good-natured chuckle.
“Thank you,” I said, reaching into my pocket for my house key. “Let’s talk tomorrow.”
“Sounds good.” He walked backward a couple of steps. “’Night, sugar.”
I watched him turn and go down the steps to the walkway. As he went around to the driver’s side of the Mustang, I spotted the glow of his phone in his hand. Would he look for another place to spend the night? I wouldn’t completely blame him. I wasn’t dating anyone else, but I had no illusions that he wasn’t.
With a small sigh, I grabbed the net, went inside, and flipped on the living room light. Loki hopped around me, growling at the demon and darting in to get a closer look at it.
“Down, boy. This one isn’t going to hurt anyone.”
Not knowing what else to do with the net, I went into the kitchen and set it in one side of the double stainless steel sink. I shooed Loki outside to keep him from worrying around the demon. While I waited for him, I rummaged in the fridge, realizing that we’d never gotten around to eating. I pulled out a piece of leftover pizza and ate it cold.
Loki and I settled on the sofa with the lights out, and I closed my eyes and focused within. The pressure under my breastbone was still there along with a faint gnawing sensation that the pizza hadn’t subdued. I felt the stir of the reaper’s soul, like a whisper of cold breath curling around my heart, as it sensed my attention trained on it. In my mind’s eye, I brought up the most recent image of Evan and held it.
I felt the shift inside my head, a slipping or turning, before anything else changed. I clicked into the mind of a demon so swiftly I started. My heart jumped with the hope that the demon I’d connected to had seen my brother. I opened my eyes to the yellow and blue tones of my necro-vision. My pulse jogged as I scanned eagerly for a glimpse of Evan. But the scene was a very familiar one—my own dark kitchen.
The sofa shifted as Loki moved, and over his low growl I heard soft scrabbling noises of claws against metal coming from behind me. Apparently the minor demon was awake, and I’d connected to it.
“Show me,” I whispered and probed deeper into its brain, trying to get to its memory. I pictured Jennifer’s back yard and the trails of blood red magic. If the demon had been perched with the right line of sight, it might have caught a look at the thief.
The image blurred, distorting and then dissolving, and when it clarified it showed a partially obscured view of the back of Jennifer’s house. There was a tree bough blocking some of the yard, but I could see the back door.
I sucked in a sharp breath. There were some visible trails of maroon magic. I watched, barely breathing, as a breeze shifted the drying fall leaves of the tree where the demon sat. Through its senses, I could smell the presence of the other minor demons nearby, the ones that had escaped when I’d trapped this one.
Then someone, a man bathed in blood-red magic, came into view. I knew what I was seeing had already happened, that it was only the memory of what the demon had seen, but my heart pounded in anticipation. The demon’s night vision was extremely sharp, and if the man would just turn this way, I might get a good enough look at his face.
He moved quickly but carefully, making no noise. Even dressed in a full-length duster, it was obvious he had an athletic build. By his posture and the easy way he moved, I guessed he was probably mid-30s or younger. At the back door, he paused with his hand on the knob and looked out across the yard, giving me a three-quarte
rs profile view of his face. I froze, zeroing in on his features and locking them in my memory.
The man disappeared inside. I hoped the vision would continue so I could watch him emerge and perhaps get a more direct look at him and see whether he’d left with the scrying mirror. But the vision was already dissolving.
I swallowed and blinked hard as my eyes once again showed my current surroundings. Behind me, the demon’s movements were sounding feistier, and it was beginning to make annoyed little screeches. I stood, looking toward the dark kitchen. What should I do with the thing? I had a couple of brimstone burners from work, so I could easily kill it. I’d hoped to get more information out of it, but I wasn’t going to be able to sleep if it flopped around in the net and screamed all night.
Without turning on any lights, I walked into the kitchen and watched the magic-laced net writhe around in the sink. Its glow had faded as the sedative had worn off, but the magic that kept the demonic energy contained would persist for quite a while. The nets weren’t meant for long-term capture, though, only as an intermediary to use when it wasn’t practical to zap a minor demon with a stun gun. The idea was to trap the demon in the mesh and then drop the whole thing onto a brimstone burner. I tapped my lip with a fingertip, thinking.
Unable to come up with a decent solution for keeping the demon quiet the entire night, I realized I’d either have to kill it or set it free. If I let it go, there was a good chance it would return to Jennifer’s house—minor demons tended to stick near where they came through from their dimension to ours.
It completely went against my Demon Patrol training to let the creature live, but . . . I wasn’t on duty, was I?
I lifted the net from the sink, went into the back yard, and under the cover of night I sliced through the magic-laced webbing with my pocket knife. Taking several steps back to keep clear of angry talons, I drew my stun gun just in case the creature decided to try to dish out any payback for being held captive.
The bat-like demon shook free of its prison, hopped a couple of times on the patio, and then took flight. Within seconds it blended with the darkness and disappeared from sight. I could still sense it heading west, though. Toward Sunshine Valley and Jennifer’s house?
I went in and locked up, changed into the Demon Patrol Recruit t-shirt I liked to sleep in, and crashed.
The next morning, Damien arrived after my morning run and calisthenics and just as I started on my second cup of coffee.
My Demon Patrol partner was lean and tall, with a patrician noise, medium blond hair, and fine bone structure that suggested he was of high-bred stock. That was actually the case—he came from the most notorious mage family in modern times. Now firmly rooted as an old-money family of the East Coast, the Steins’ power went back generations. Mages kept themselves apart from the rest of the supernatural community. They were extremely powerful and equally secretive.
Damien had come west, here to Boise, in part to escape his lineage. Though his abilities couldn’t even touch what a mage could do, he was the most powerful crafter I’d ever met—an extreme Level III on the Magic Aptitude Scale. But as he said, in his family anything less than mage-level talent didn’t count.
“Morning,” he said as I let him in. He lifted the whip that was coiled in his hand. “I upgraded the charm to use fire magic as well as earth magic. It’s time you learn to sling flame along with earth.”
I grinned in anticipation, realizing I’d actually missed practicing with the whip and carrying the weight of it on my belt.
“Sweet,” I said. “Show me what you got.”
Chapter 4
MAGIC WAS MORE fun to sling around in the dark, when you could really see the glow of it, but most of our practice sessions took place in daylight hours. Earth magic, which manifested as green in the visible spectrum, was the easiest and most abundant energy to work with, and thus the one I knew the best. Not that I was any sort of expert. Up until recently, I’d only learned enough about using magic to be able to call it up without hurting myself, and I’d never pursued more refined skills such as stirring spells or making charms. I’d always assumed my low-level ability just wasn’t worth developing and felt more comfortable relying on my service weapon, my wits, or if all else failed, my sprinter’s speed.
Damien believed that magic ability could be not only highly honed, but in some cases bumped up. When he’d first told me he’d discovered how to change a person’s aptitude, I’d been incredulous. His claim went against one of the basic laws of the supernatural world: magical aptitude was a fixed quality. The ability emerged at puberty, and you were stuck with whatever level you tested at, end of story.
I was a 1.3 on the Scale. Damien tested at 3.99, which was the highest the Magic Aptitude Scale registered. He hadn’t outright said so, but I speculated he’d acted as his own guinea pig in the aptitude-manipulation research he’d mentioned, and his score hadn’t always been practically off the charts.
He wanted me to become more skilled at my current level before he attempted to help me bump it up. He’d hinted that the transition to a different level was pretty hairy and potentially quite dangerous. At first I hadn’t really cared one way or the other about altering my ability, but the more I practiced, the more interested I became in knowing what it would be like to command more magical juice. It seemed to have awakened my competitive side. Or maybe it was just that for the first time in my life my magic actually seemed interesting.
He passed the whip to me, and I felt a pleasant zing of energy up my arm as the charmed object connected with my magical capacity. I waited while he poured himself a mug of coffee from the pot in the kitchen, and then we went out to the back patio.
Loki came with us, heading straight for a corner of the yard to sniff around the stone figure that stood there. It was actually a gargoyle in statue form, the creature I’d helped free from the clutches of Gregori Industries a couple of months back. She, not it, I reminded myself. Johnny had scanned the creature and informed me the gargoyle was female. She often roosted in my yard despite the fact that she and Loki weren’t exactly best buddies.
I gripped the handle of the whip and let the tail unfurl. Drawing up some earth magic, I flicked my wrist and sent the whip straight out with a satisfyingly crisp snap.
“Before we move on, I feel as though I should mention something,” he said. He set his mug down on the glass-top patio table.
His serious tone piqued my curiosity. “Sure, what’s up?”
“My family caught wind of my involvement with Gregori Industries and the gargoyle,” he said. One corner of his mouth pulled down a touch. “I knew they would disapprove, and I wasn’t wrong.”
He’d been tense after we’d rescued Roxanne’s brother and the gargoyle from Gregori Industries, but weeks had passed and he hadn’t mentioned any fallout, so I’d assumed he’d worried for nothing.
I straightened with alarm. “You’re not moving back East, are you?”
“No, no.” He shook his head and then shoved his fists into the pockets of his khaki jacket. “But they’ve forbidden me from taking part in anything else that’s . . . high profile.”
“I see.” I peered at him, trying to gauge how he really felt about the demand. “So, no more big, flashy, press-saturated rescue missions.”
“Right. And I’m fighting it, but they want me to come back and swear some kind of oath before the Mage Council.”
I tilted my head in confusion.
“They see me as a loose cannon,” he said. I fought the urge to snicker. Damien was one of the most rule-conscious people I knew, and he’d spent most of his life within institutions—first the world of his patrician family of mages, and later extensive schooling. “They’re afraid I’m going to give away mage secrets. Not that I really know all that much.”
“Oh. Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.”
“They’re also insisting that I quit Demon Patrol. Because it’s too . . . too . . .”
“Low-brow? Blue-collar? Embarras
sing to the illustrious Stein family?” I offered. The thought that the Steins were trying to shame him out of his job irked me, but the idea of losing him as a partner made me downright unhappy.
He scratched at the back of his neck, clearly a little uncomfortable. “Something like that.”
I regarded him for a moment, thinking about how much he’d done for me in the short time we’d known each other. On the surface, he seemed whole-heartedly devoted to guiding me as I developed my skills as well as helping me get out of jams. I had no doubt his actions were genuine on one level, but I also sensed it all could be part of a larger agenda. Like how he’d joined Demon Patrol as a means to learn about local demon activity, with the implication that once he’d gained what he needed he’d move on. A tiny part of me couldn’t help wondering if in some way our relationship might eventually get the same treatment.
I shrugged a shoulder. “Eh, let’s not worry about it unless they find a way to press the issue. You’re an adult. You have your own life. We’ll figure it out, right?”
He gave a weak nod. “Sure. Right,” he said with forced brightness.
A beat of silence passed.
“Okay, back to school.” Damien crossed his arms, seeming to shake off the previous moments. “Fire magic. Worked with it before?”
“Yeah, but it’s been a very long time.” I rolled my head a little, trying to relax. The mere mention of fire energy made me edgy.
It had been over a decade since I’d touched fire, actually. My mother, who’d been my mentor when I’d come into my ability, had shown me how to draw fire magic, traditionally the second type of magic a new crafter learned. But my control was poor, which made it dangerous for me to try to use it. Earth magic was my elemental comfort zone, if I had one at all. You couldn’t burn your eyebrows off with earth magic.
“So you can call it up at least, that’s good,” he said.
He bit his lower lip for a moment, maybe thinking about whether I had a fire extinguisher on hand. But on second thought I doubted that was really his worry. Hell, with his command of magic, he could easily douse any of my misfires in an instant. The tension across the back of my shoulders eased a little. He wouldn’t let my house burn down.