by CT Knight
Speaking of world-ending events, I’ll say this: knowing you are a potential walking end of the world scenario can make you feel pretty powerful. That I could just wipe it all away and all I’d have to do is make a fire from thin air. Basic, basic, level one wizardry. And it was intoxicating, sobering and terrifying.
I sighed. But not from being tired. More like from knowing something so simple could cause such destruction.
My desk was bare. And except for the note attached to its surface, glaring at me with its bright red stamp, it was the only uncluttered thing in the whole office. Its only real flaw was the scuff marks from the heels of my shoes. Kicking my feet up on the corner was always the highlight of my night. Sadly, the rest of the office was a disgrace to professionalism. The book cases had uneven shelves. The file cabinet had papers sticking out from the tops of the drawers. And those were the ones that would still close. And then there was my desk chair—comfortable as it was—worn down with padding sticking out from seams that held together a vinyl covering. To say that the place wasn’t pretty was an understatement. The wood in the floor was scratched, gouged and scuffed in addition to water damaged. I’d almost taken a few falls from the dip in the floor. But in my defense, the floor was pretty bad when I first moved in. I can’t take credit for much of the damage on that one. Not that the landlord hadn’t tried to blame me for it.
I took a second glance at the ‘rent due’ notice duct taped to the top of my desk. I could tell the landlord had pressed down as hard as he could on that stamp, ensuring I took notice. Mr. Costas was a stickler of a landlord but in his defense he had given me an extension. Even after all the times I’d tried to dodge him. I had every intent to pay up. I’m no swindler. But the private detective business wasn’t the most financially secure of professions. I felt like I was in a permanent state of trying to get ahead. Maybe a rate hike was in order. That or I needed to sell some stuff. Second-hand magic trinkets weren’t in high demand but I might have been able to get a few bucks out of some of mine. I sure didn’t have much regular world stuff of any value.
My couch against the wall was actual leather. Top grain stuff. Probably the only resalable piece of property I owned. It was pretty comfortable, too. But like the rest of the office, despite its high quality, it wasn’t very presentable. That’s what happens when you leave a pillow and a blanket ruffled up on it. And seeing as how it’s my bed, selling it was out. Yeah, work was home and home was work. All I’ve ever needed was a bathroom, a small fridge and a place to lay down. That’s what happens when your magic professors have you sleeping on a stone floor during your lessons. You get used to bare bones living real quick. Compared to those days, this place was a luxury suite.
Heels clacked on the black and white tiled floor in the hallway outside. The clock on the wall read eleven pm. Early for those who lived by night. There was more purpose in those heels than I was ready for. Especially after all the exercise I’d had that night. The third floor of the building had four offices. There was mine, an insurance agency and two empty offices. The insurance place closed up at five. That left me.
I wasn’t used to having clients come to the office. Certainly not this late. It was one reason why I never bothered tidying up. Word of mouth was how my business ran. Most cases were taken over the phone and then in person at a public place. Few people actually knew where my office was. The only reason I had a sign on the door at all was some goofy romantic idea of the private gumshoe.
As a kid, I had the chance to see the old detective noir mysteries on late night TV. There was the door with the frosted glass window. The detective’s name was on the glass and the silhouette of a woman, usually a femme fatale, would slowly step in front of the door. I watched my own door, waiting for that moment. It was a lot different in real life. It was less a shadow and more of a blurry form. But then there were only two lights in the hallway and they both pointed down. Not the best way to make a silhouette.
I watched my doorknob slowly turn. The romanticized version was not happening. The only reason anyone would even try the door this late was if they were robbers or if they were occult. My light was on so occult seemed the most likely.
“Just come in,” I said impatiently.
The door swung open quickly and the sound of an anvil falling must have echoed in the room because my jaw hit the floor. There she was, the same woman from the club, standing in my doorway. She was even more beautiful in full lighting. It was the first time I was embarrassed by the state of the place. But she either didn’t notice or she didn’t care as her eyes never bothered to look around. They stayed only on me. I felt like a deer in the headlights.
“Mr. Pendragon?” she asked, her voice the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. “I need you.”
Three words every man who’s ever been in love has desperately wanted to hear. Not that I was necessarily in love but I could tell I was falling.
“Um…” The connection between my brain and my mouth had frittered out. I suddenly couldn’t speak at all. It was fine in the club where the music was loud and everyone’s adrenaline was up. Mine had been especially high after all the running plus the music plus her proximity. It had been easier to overcome her allure. But now, there, in the quiet, my adrenaline stores all tapped out, just me and her…I’d have probably done anything she asked.
“I’m sorry it’s so late. I wanted to tell you earlier but I guess that familiar was—”
“Familiar?” I asked, snapping from my stupor. “How do you know about that?”
“I saw the demon run into the club. Once I saw you run in, I knew what you were after. That’s how I knew you were the one I needed.”
“Needed for what?”
She turned her back to me and like any red-blooded male, my eyes followed down the line of her back, taking in the well-lit side of her, head to toe. She closed the door and I finally got a good long look at the tattoo on0 her neck. I recognized the symbol but I couldn’t remember from where. It was a cat’s eye between two banners with three stars each. It was rare but I knew it meant something.
“I would like to hire you,” she said as she turned back around. “It’s my sister. She’s been abducted and I feel she’s in great danger.”
“Did you try the police?” It was an automatic question. One I always asked. I’m not one to turn away a dollar or a beautiful woman but there are some cases that don’t require my expertise. Kidnappings are usually in that group. Of course, I did just fail at a case involving a stolen cat.
“No. It has to be you,” she said. Her eyes were starting to well up. She was already hard to resist and I doubted that she was even trying. If the tears started to fall, I was done. A string wrapped around her finger.
Before giving her a chance to explain what made me choice number one, I had to check something. Sure, she was a looker but I’d seen plenty of stunners in my day. But none quite like her which made her a mystery I needed the answer to. It took me a second longer than I liked to open one of the side drawers of my desk. If I was hoping to show feats of masculinity for the chance of winning her affections, I was doing a terrible job at it.
Finally, the drawer popped open, accompanied by a lovely metal on metal screech.
“Sorry about that,” I told her.
Inside the drawer were sticky notes, paper clips and pennies. More clutter. In the middle of it all was a single box adorned in red and white silk of an intricate pattern. I didn’t bother staring at the image of a man with stork wings on the top. I’d seen it enough.
“If you wouldn’t mind just standing there,” I said to her. The request must have seemed odd. The next action was probably stranger but the reasons for both were important. She was too alluring and I had to play the hunch.
I pulled out a glass lens from the box and gazed through it right at her. It looked like a normal magnifying glass and in some cases, that’s exactly what it was. Well, I also used it as such to read smaller print but its true purpose was so much more.
I moved the True Sight Lens on her then off her then back on, making sure that what I was seeing was accurate. With each movement, the woman changed from human to feline.
“You’re a shifter,” I said, probably sounding more accusing than I should have.
“You could have just asked,” she said, slightly annoyed at the way I’d revealed her.
Knowing this new information broke her allure but it didn’t make her any less appealing to the eyes. Still, it would help me focus more now that I knew the truth.
“That’s not a question you typically ask people,” I said.
“I suppose it’s not. Yes, I am a…” She swallowed. It was easy to tell she didn’t like the human word for what she was. No shifter did. It was plain to some and offensive to others. Clearly she was offended by it. But it was better than me butchering their preferred term. Hamnskitfare just isn’t in the English dictionary. It wasn’t in any dictionary. Not regular ones, anyway.
“Shifter,” she continued. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Your money is green like everyone else’s.” I tried to be indifferent. It would make the business of this go a lot smoother. For me, anyway. Especially since, despite her irritation at the mortal slang of her species, the water was still forming in her eyes. What is it with a woman’s tears bringing men to their knees?
I hardened my exterior a little more. “At least, now I know why you didn’t go to the police. You say your sister was kidnapped. Any idea who would want to do that? Did she have any enemies? Human or otherwise?”
“None that I’m aware of.” She approached the desk. It took everything I had not to fall victim again. Shifters each had their own sort of air about them. The werecats, for lack of a better word, were incredibly seductive when in their human forms. She wasn’t even trying to be. It was just a part of her personality. It would be frightening to know what she was capable of if she actually turned it on. And who could tell, as good looking as she was, I doubted she ever really had to. This was an automatic trait. One that only disappeared when she shifted.
She reached into her clutch and pulled out a pendant. “All I have is this.”
The bronze medallion didn’t look old but, like the tattoo on her back, it did look familiar. Except this time, I was sure of where I’d seen it. I grabbed the item and instantly felt a buzz of the arcane within it. A tiny rumbling stirred within me. I pushed it back down. It didn’t happen often but some items that had been touched by magic could stir the warlord. Not enough to come out but very much enough to remind me to stay in control.
I rushed to one of my uneven bookshelves and grabbed an old tome. The top of the book was totally clean despite the fact that it looked like it had been laying in a museum storage for years. The front leather was worn and ragged, less from its age and more from how much I used the thing. It was definitely old. Probably by five hundred to one thousand years. It was something I went through a lot of trouble to obtain and I was definitely not supposed to have it. But in my line of work, such tools were often necessary. I would just have to avoid that museum curator for the rest of my life.
I thumbed through the thing, my eyes flitting from the pages to the pendant.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“I’ve seen this image before.” My thumb ran over the engraving of an upside down, four-pronged pitch fork. The second spear was longer than the first and it pointed at a swirling cloud. I turned several more pages and stopped. There it was. Not exactly a pitch fork but a four pronged staff with the second arrow longer than the rest. There was no swirling cloud on this one though. Just the head of a large beast rising from the land.
My eyes glossed over, no longer focused on the image but only on what it meant.
“Mr. Pendragon?” she asked. Her voice seemed very far away.
My voice seemed even farther as I muttered, “Ignis Spiritus Chao.”
CHAPTER 4
I slammed the old book onto my desk. A museum curator might have taken issue with the action, but things were made a lot sturdier in the ancient days. They could take the beating.
Every page was written in old Latin. It was a language I’d studied when learning magic but most of it still eluded me. Nine times out of ten, I’d guessed at the English translations. They were usually close enough.
“What is Ignis Spir…Spiritu—”
“Chaos Bringer,” I told her.
“What is that?” The look in her eyes was different than the thoughts in my head. It wasn’t the first doom bringer I’d read about. It wasn’t even the first I’d dealt with. While she was showing the start of genuine fear, I was more concerned than scared. Not that doom was a thing to be taken lightly.
I walked to my couch and dropped onto the leather seat. I wasn’t ignoring her question, just trying to figure out the best way to answer. For anyone not acquainted with the world of the night, it would be easy to assume all the creatures of the veil knew the old stories and the old ways. Anything that seemed magical must have known magic, right? Kind of like how everyone from a small town had to know each other. But it wasn’t even a little bit like that. Many of the fantastical beasts and beings were really no different from humans. They didn’t all hold some wealth of ancient knowledge and most of them didn’t live forever. It took me a while to wrap my head around it, too, but once I did, most of the mystique was gone. Of course, that didn’t mean many of them were any less dangerous. A vampire could still drain and change a human. They were usually stronger than humans as well. Knowing what I knew didn’t make it any safer to go out at night. Armed as I was is what did that. But that was all kind of true for NYC anyway. Vampires and denizens of the dark or not.
“I just realized something,” I told her. “I don’t know your name.”
Names were powerful forces in the world of the veil. They could be used to control people, and in some instances, kill them. Humans pass them off so easily without ever thinking twice about it. Generally speaking, it was a fairly safe thing to do but some held their names with a little more security. She wasn’t one of those people.
“Sasha,” she said. Even saying her own name was alluring.
“Well, Sasha. Where to start? I don’t know how read up you are on anything outside of angels and demons. I can tell you there are more forces outside of those, though. Most think Heaven and Hell are the end all be all. They’d be wrong. The Chaos Bringer is one of the four Deities of Destruction.”
“The what?” She looked at me as if I was crazy. Like I said, just because they seem mystical, didn’t mean they knew all about the mystical.
I cleared my throat before moving on. Honestly, despite the fact that she came to me, I still felt like a comic book geek trying to impress the prettiest girl in town that my hobby was cool. Only in this case, it was my job. “Deities of Destruction. Chaos, Calamity, Sorrow and Sin. I don’t know what they really are. Maybe demons. I know they’re not angels. Either way, any one of them could destroy the world. Hence their name. The Chaos Bringer itself is something like eighty stories tall. I’d call that a skyscraper-sized terror demon.”
“What’s the difference between the four of them?” she asked.
“Well, if any one of them shows up, Earth is done for so I guess it doesn’t really matter.”
I took a good look at the pendant, flipping it over between my fingers. It was the same image on both sides and was fairly new looking. Probably a recent press. “This pendant is from an ancient order that revered the Chaos Bringer. The Acolytes of Chaos.”
“What happens if the Chaos Bringer appears?”
“Its name is pretty self-explanatory but if that thing actually showed up here…Imagine all living things fighting with each other then laughing hysterically then crying uncontrollably only to return to fighting. Wars would no longer be between countries. They would be between individuals. Everyone and everything would be fighting. Crime rates would rise to untold numbers. Bottom line, care for one’s neighbor would go right ou
t the door. Human and veil alike. It would be chaos defined.”
“And the Acolytes revere this thing?”
“The ancient order thought that by worshipping it, they could save themselves from its control and then inherit the Earth at its side.”
“Did that work?”
“The old order died.” I stood from the couch and walked to the bottle on my desk. I offered a drink to Sasha. She declined. Probably not very professional of me but end of the world scenarios tended to bring out that sort of thing. “But not from the Chaos Bringer. If the story is true, half of that thing showed up just before three mages appeared, binding the Bringer and sending it back from wherever it came from.”
“Are the mages still around? It wouldn’t surprise me if they were.”
“Me, neither. But I doubt it. The question is what do the Acolytes want with your sister? I know there’s a blood ritual involved in the summoning but why your sister?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shifting her weight. It was a subtle sign of deceit. One I barely noticed and didn’t really register. Even movements like those, involuntarily hinting at a lie were attractive when she did it.
“Anything special about your sister? Couldn’t they have just as easily taken you?”
Her eyes narrowed as though my question hit a nerve. The expression was more easily registered than her weight shifting. Enough to let me know there was more going on here than a simple kidnapping case. Obviously if the Acolytes summoned the Chaos Bringer, I was going to have bigger problems but until that time, things were not wholly as Sasha had said they were.
“When was the last time you saw your sister?”
“Just this morning. I went to her house. There was stuff all over the floor, like there had been a fight. But all I found was that pendant.”