by CT Knight
“Something’s been bugging me,” I said. “You say that your sister was kidnapped this morning and you spent the day looking for her. Then you went to the club.”
Her eyes flickered. She wasn’t expecting the question. “That’s what happened.”
“But you saw the Acolyte leaving your sister’s home.”
“Right.”
“But you didn’t actually see him with your sister?”
“I heard her scream.”
“Couldn’t you have just shifted and chased after them?”
“I tried but…” She swallowed. “He must have used a warp spell. I hit the ground outside of her house and there was no sign of them. Not even a scent.”
“You’d have to be a dog type for that.”
She shook her head as though disgusted at the thought of being a canine shifter. It was a cliché, cats and dogs being enemies, but there was an old reason for it. An ancient clan thing. You’d think they’d have gotten over it some time ago but it’s just like religions that don’t get along. No one really knows the first argument but the parents kept passing the disdain down.
“Anyway. You saw the Acolyte and heard her scream then spent the day looking for her before searching at the club.”
“You don’t believe me?” she asked. It was hard to tell if the hurt in her voice was real or not.
“I’m just wondering if even you remember all the details correctly. These sorts of things can be traumatizing and—”
“I said it’s what happened.” She was adamant. Too adamant, like she was done with the matter and wanted to move on. I had been in this business long enough to know when someone was holding back. All I knew for sure was that the Acolytes and the threat of them was real. That was enough to keep moving forward, regardless of Sasha’s story.
“So, listen, when we get to this place, things aren’t going to be what they seem,” I warned.
“Isn’t it like that for all warlocks?”
“I guess that’s a fair point.”
I had her pull up to the curb, right in the fire lane. She protested that choice. The last thing she wanted was a parking ticket on top of everything else. I reminded her things weren’t as they appeared.
As soon as I stepped on the red painted curb, the red faded. I knew the concrete had been enchanted so I crouched down and whispered, “Lanigiro trever.”
Sasha mouthed the words and gave them some thought while the rest of the red turned into regular asphalt color.
“Revert original?” she asked.
“You catch on quick. He put it there to avoid anyone parking in front of the building. It works as long as you don’t know who you’re dealing with.
Sasha looked up at the dilapidated structure. “A warlock lives here?” she asked with some disbelief.
“Well—”
“How is this place not condemned?”
“Who says it’s not? Doesn’t mean no one owns it.” I stepped to the run-down building and grabbed hold of a single nail between the address numbers nailed to the wall. “But it’s also not where we’re going.” I smiled and twisted the nail then pushed it to the right. A click unlatched the lock and the door pulled back while stairs revealed themselves going under the building.
Sasha stepped backwards. I can’t say I blamed her. She was leery from general knowledge of warlocks. I was leery because I was putting my life at risk. But when it came to customer service and a big payday, no one could tell me I wasn’t good at the job. Risk was the only way I was getting good referrals.
I reached a hand out to her. “It’s OK. I promise, I’m in more danger here than you are.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“If anyone knows where your sister is, it’s this guy.” I had to admit, I sounded a lot more confident than I felt. I knew this warlock would have the answers. There was no question of that. It was easy to be sure when armed with that knowledge. Any hesitancy or shake in my voice was simply due to my walking into the dragon’s den.
She took my hand and we headed down.
Like any entry into a secret lair, each step forward lit up more of the space. But instead of motion sensor lights, it was motion activated torches. Each one burst to life and bathed the gold and obsidian walls of the hallway in their glow. Sasha was startled with each torch, I just rolled my eyes. Warlocks and their opulence. Was all the melodrama really necessary?
We stepped into a larger space. A long red carpet led to a set of steps that led to a platform with a throne on top of it. I was both glad and annoyed there was no one sitting in it even though we needed the owner. Behind the throne was a curtain and behind that was a surprise to anyone who didn’t know the warlock.
I glanced back at Sasha whose eyes darted back and forth between statues that stood in random spots around the gallery. Each one of them stood in different poses.
“What are all of these?” she asked.
“What, those? You don’t need to worry about them,” I said it like I was literally trying to downplay what I knew was a bad situation. “Those are just his enemies.”
“He made statues of his enemies?”
I laughed. In hindsight, that was probably my first mistake. “Sort of. He made his enemies into statues.”
“Arthur Pendragon!” the voice boomed throughout the gallery. “You dare show your visage in my hallowed sanctuary.”
“You might want to get down,” I told Sasha. She did as suggested and took cover behind one of the statues. “Hallowed? I’d hardly call this place—”
“Silence!” the voice shouted as a blue beam of light shot straight for me.
CHAPTER 7
I put my back to the charging beam and ducked my head down. The blast pushed me forward but I’ve been hit by harder so staying on my feet was easy enough. Of course, similar magic beams didn’t always have an added side effect. There was more than just concussive force in that light.
“Impossible!” the voice shouted. “How are you not a stone pillar added to my collection?”
I faced the front and kept my eyes moving. Just because the beam came from the throne didn’t mean its launcher wasn’t already somewhere else. “The price of Gorgon Oil has dropped, lately. You didn’t know?” Gorgon Oil was the only thing I knew that could prevent being turned into stone. I was just glad the beam wasn’t fired at my legs.
An angry yell shook the whole gallery. I thought the entire place was going to come down on top of us. It probably wasn’t a good idea to have poked at the hornet’s nest but I figured he wanted me dead anyway. No point in giving into fear. Besides, I knew this guy. He’d slip eventually. Though, admittedly, eventually was going to take too long.
The ground beneath me felt charged and I leaped back just in time for a set of spears to blast up from the floor. They were made from the same materials as the floor and the red carpet. “You studying alchemy now?”
“I am a master of all forms of magic!”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m here. So if you could just—”
“You’re too late for explanations!”
A flicker from the right caught my attention as it grew closer. I faced it. There was no way Gorgon Oil was going to block the giant fireball streaking toward me. I only had one chance to keep from being barbecued.
Sometimes the parlor tricks worked best, even against overpowered magic users. I threw a smoke bomb down, shattering it and releasing a thick plume of white smoke then made my way out from behind it to get another vantage. Before I could get three feet from my little distraction, an iron vice grabbed my throat and lifted me into the air.
“You thought to deceive me with dime store illusion?” the warlock asked, staring me dead in the eyes.
He must have been ten feet tall and that was when standing on the floor. Here we were, hovering three feet up. Well, he was three feet up, I was more like eight.
“It’s worked before,” I managed to say. It was surprising how many times a simple smoke bomb had foiled s
ome of the nastier denizens of the dark. I had made it a point to always keep one or two on me for just such occasions.
“Arthur Pendragon, you will suffer as no other has. I will cast you into the deepest pits of Tartarus only to pull you out again. Your entrails will be lit afire as I shovel fetid wine down your throat…” He kept going like that for what seemed like an eternity. I knew he wasn’t bluffing but I also knew he liked the sound of his own superiority which gave me some time to form a plan. I looked him up and down. He was the whole package. The red cape with the gold chain closing the collar in. The all black suit with the straight hem. His boots were red to match the cape. And his white hair flowed like a lion’s mane. As costumes went, it was a pretty good one.
“I’ll bet you’re a real hit at Halloween,” I said, interrupting whatever horrible fate he was currently going on about.
“Pendragon!” he shouted.
I couldn’t come up with anything besides a bullet to the head but since I needed him alive and because I didn’t know if a bullet would actually work, blunt force would have to do. I shot my leg out at his side but he only blocked it.
“Well,” I said, pulling at his fingers to try and free myself. “That’s all I had.”
My whole body tensed as his mouth grew unnaturally large. He was going to eat me? All of that bluster and power and that was all he could come up with? I hoped he was ready for disappointment. The only dinner I’d had was a few drinks and after all the running and fighting, I probably tasted like a restaurant’s dumpster scraps.
“Stop it!” Sasha shouted, rising up from behind one of the statues. “I need him!”
The warlock’s mouth immediately closed as he turned his attention to her. That wasn’t the only change.
He released me and while an eight foot-fall isn’t all that bad, it still sent a sting through the bottoms of my feet.
His stature slowly changed. The cape turned to what looked like a sheet. His hair was still long and blonde, less majestic and two days shy of a washing. The guy had gone from ten feet tall to somewhere in the vicinity of five-foot- four inches. And all that remained of his suit was a black T-shirt and a pair of black slacks. To say this kid looked unimpressive was an understatement. Certainly nothing like the man that had met us. But I had to give him credit. Less impressive appearance or not, he had a way with the ladies. Or at least the confidence to fake it.
“Well, hello,” he said, strolling up to Sasha. “And who might you be?”
I rubbed at my neck, sure there was a handprint left on it. “This is Sasha. Sasha this is—”
“Maury,” the warlock said. “Maury F. Degrasse. At your service.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it. I half expected Sasha to reel away but she stood as if impressed. “Anything you need, girl. Don’t hesitate to ask.” He held out his hand and expensive trinkets just appeared. Silver, gold, diamonds. And I was pretty sure I saw a pair of car keys. If Sasha was a gold digger of any sort, she’d have been crazy to not turn her charms on the geeky looking kid trying to woo her. Though she seemed to be doing fairly well without having to try anything.
“What is it about you?” Maury asked as he walked around her, appreciating her appeal. She looked at me as if I had an answer.
“I know what it is,” Maury continued. Hamnskitfare.”
The word made Sasha smile. I guess it was nice to hear someone use the proper verbiage to describe her.
“How can you tell?” she asked, genuinely enthused.
Maybe I was wrong about Maury. Maybe he really did have a way with the ladies.
“I’m a fan. I’ve tried doing it myself but it’s never as good as the real thing. If you know what I mean.”
“I wouldn’t know the fake thing,” she said. If she wasn’t trying to be seductive about it, she wasn’t doing a very good job.
“Ooo, yeah,” Maury said, dropping just a little bit of the mystique he’d gathered. “The only question, now, is: which type are you?”
“That’s enough,” I said, tired of the back and forth. There wasn’t time for it, anyway.
“What do you want, Arthur?” Maury asked, still admiring Sasha.
“It’s what she wants,” I said, motioning toward Sasha.
“What she wants is between me and her,” he said, raising one eyebrow.
“Her sister was abducted just this morning. We need to know where she was taken.”
Maury let his head drop. I could tell he was irritated. Which was funny considering he was just trying to kill me. That was just another effect cat shifters could have, clouding men’s minds. Of course his was cloudier than mine seeing as how he was a sixteen-year-old—I assumed— virgin.
“You know, for a detective, you’re not very good at your job,” Maury said.
That got my hackles up. “Say that again.”
“Oh, relax, Arthur. Wouldn’t want you releasing the warlord.”
“Warlord?” Sasha asked.
“You didn’t know?” Maury asked.
I tried my best to silence him. It wasn’t relevant to the case so there was no reason to divulge the information.
“Old Arthur Pendragon, here, is possessed by an ancient feudal warlord. It comes out whenever he uses magic. Pretty nasty stuff. I mean, I don’t have to worry about it but, then again, I am—”
“Is this something I should be concerned about?” Sasha asked, looking at me.
“No,” I told her. “I’ve got a handle on it.”
The look in her eyes was doubtful. If Maury cost me this case, I might very well let the warlord out and see if this warlock really could handle it.
“She was abducted just tonight.” I changed the subject. “What do you know?”
“Fine,” Maury said, linking his arm in with Sasha’s and leading her toward the curtain behind the throne. “You do know there are more ways than magic to find missing persons, right?”
“Yeah, well, you’re better at that than I am,” I told him, playing to his ego as I followed after them both.
“Look, Pendragon, I know we’re both in the same business, sort of. Magic and creepy crawlies, that sort of thing.” He grabbed the curtain. “But that doesn’t mean you gotta live in the past. You gotta get with the times, man.” He pulled back the curtain to reveal a sight that I will never get used to in a place like that.
CHAPTER 8
The room, or rather the man-cave as I had little doubt that was what Maury called it— though, knowing him, the word sanctum was probably thrown in there somewhere— was full of posters and wall scrolls of various models and anime characters. There was no TV, just a screen and a projector and what I’d guessed was the latest in high-end sound systems. A brown leather sectional that probably sat seven was in the middle of the room in front of the screen. Last I checked, Maury did not have a job. So either he conjured up all this stuff on his own, a strong possibility, or he just materialized it from various showroom floors. Really, either of those weren’t out of the question for him.
On the opposite wall stood a desk with an extreme game computer set up. Three screens were hooked together and the mouse and keyboard glowed, their colors changing every few seconds. It was all so hard to believe that anyone with as much power as Maury had would still have a set up like that. If I had his magic skill, I could think of so many more things I would do. It was easy to forget that he really was just a kid. An immensely powerful kid but a kid nonetheless.
The computer screen displayed a website with a native video player. On the player was a petit redhead talking into a cell phone camera. I rolled my eyes at the video.
“…and if you’re just getting here,” the red head said. “I’m Crissy Cordell, inside Sacred Heart of Chicago Hospital where I’ve been informed that Winston Radatta is now in the ER with multiple broken bones after an altercation with, I think it’s safe to say, Scarlet…”
I tuned the rest of it out, taking in more of the sights of the room. It was strange to feel more in awe of all the technology than
it was to be of its owner.
Maury sat right down at the computer desk and cracked his fingers. The kid looked more at home there than he did as a ten-foot-tall warlock.
“Who is that?” Sasha asked, pointing at a newspaper hanging on the wall.
“You’ve never heard of Scarlet Strike?” Maury asked.
Sasha shook her head.
“Don’t get him started,” I said, making my way to the computer desk.
“Scarlet Strike is Chicago’s brand of justice. She doesn’t just beat up the bad guys. She puts a gun to their heads and pulls the trigger.”
“And the police let her do it?”
Maury scoffed. “As if they could stop her.” He waved his finger at the newspaper. “We need someone like her, here. I’d bring her myself but I’m the kind of guy that likes to ask a lady first.” There he went again with that eyebrow.
“Because with all of the other weirdness we’ve got going on, here, New York needs one more with a mask. No thanks. Chicago can keep her,” I said.
Maury paused the video of Crissy and opened up a new tab on the computer.
“So, we’re looking for a sister. If there’s information out there, the dark web is the place for it. I just need something to go on.” He looked at me, waiting for more information. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pendant. It clinked on the table and Maury’s eyes went wide. It was a reaction I’d not seen in him before.
“You’re not ready for them,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter. They’ve got her sister and I need to know where.”
Maury picked up the little pendant. “Acolytes of Chaos. You know the history, right?”
“Yeah, I know. Could you just find out where they are?”
Maury leaned back his chair and sighed.