Demon Fate

by Tori Centanni

  Demon Fate

  Brimstone Magic - Book 5

  Tori Centanni

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Thank you for reading!

  Also by Tori Centanni

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Tori Centanni

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by Lou Harper at Cover Affairs

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  Only two kinds of people steal from supernaturals: those with a death wish and those who honestly don’t know any better.

  Not that there was any excuse. Stealing from anyone was bad. It was just that stealing from, say, your friendly neighborhood Mage Guild was a lot more likely to get your hands blasted off with a ball of searing hot magic.

  Of course, that was assuming they could find you. That was where I came in.

  As a witch and private eye, I, Dani Warren, was often hired for jobs like tracking down the thief and whatever they stole. Which was why I now stood in the Mage Guild’s Headquarters, trying very hard to ignore the popcorn kernels exploding in the nearby microwave.

  “When did the chalice disappear?” I asked Mark Hanberg, the Guild Leader.

  A young woman stood in what could only be described as the “break room” making the popcorn. It wasn’t a full kitchen. Countertops lined the back wall of this downstairs den, complete with a small bar sink and mini fridge nestled beneath the counter.

  The young woman was probably in her early twenties. She had blue streaks in her hair and wore a lot of rings. Mages seemed to love rings. Supposedly they could charge the rings to hold extra power for magic spells, but I wasn’t sure that was true without infusing the metal jewelry with brimstone. And since brimstone was a demonic substance, it was illegal to use.

  “The chalice was taken two nights ago,” Mark said, walking over to the built-in bookshelves that displayed lots of ornate looking vases, cups, daggers, and other ceremonial tools. It would have looked a lot more arcane if the shelves weren’t flanking a big screen television in a room that looked like it had been decorated in the early 80s, complete with a brown, orange, and yellow afghan draped over the tan sofa. Mark tapped an empty space on the left shelf. “It was right here.”

  “And there were no signs of breaking or entering?” The den was a large room but it only had a couple of windows, all intact. It also had a sliding glass door that led to the yard of this split-level house. I noticed a dowel of wood shoved in the track of the door to keep someone from opening from the outside.

  Stairs in the den led up and there was a hall at the back beyond the kitchenette that led to more bedrooms.

  “None. Everything was locked up tight when we arrived and found it missing.”

  “Including the rooms down that hall?” I asked.

  Mark nodded, although I was going to look for myself.

  “And you’re sure…” I started.

  Pop, pop, pop, pop.

  “Hayley, are you almost done?” Mark growled, annoyed.

  “It gets louder when it’s almost finished,” she said, equally irritated. “Sheesh. I didn’t know you were bringing some detective down here.”

  The popping continued for a little longer, and then she withdrew a giant, inflated bag from the microwave. The whole den smelled of movie theater butter and salt, and my stomach growled.

  Hayley marched up the stairs to the upper floors of the house and Mark sighed. “Sorry. Our headquarters has become sort of a halfway house lately. A lot of mages got swept up in that awful demon-worshipping group over the summer and some of the survivors had nowhere else to go.”

  I shivered, remembering. I’d fought a lot of those mages. I might have killed one or two of them in self-defense. I didn’t usually aim to kill but sometimes in the heat of the moment, magic got more intense than intended.

  That particular group had been drinking demon blood and summoning demons to get blood and power, and that had gotten a lot of their ranks killed, too. It was dangerous, illegal stuff, and the group’s leaders hadn’t cared who died as long as they got to summon their arch mega demon from below. I’d managed to stop them, just barely, but they’d done plenty of damage along the way.

  “That’s what I was going to ask,” I said. “Is there any chance someone from your Guild took it?”

  Mark frowned deeply at this but he didn’t immediately discount the idea, either. I could tell he was worried about that possibility. “It is solid silver and might be quite valuable,” he said, but then he shook his head. “But I can’t imagine anyone here would do that.”

  “Sure,” I said, nodding, though I wasn’t going to cross that possibility off my list just yet. “What’s the significance of the chalice?”

  Mark blinked at me and then his brow furrowed. “It’s used in a mage ritual.”

  I did not roll my eyes but it was an effort. “What ritual?”

  “Our rituals are secret. As a witch, you should be well aware of that.”

  I was. The Mages were a lot like the human Masons in terms of being a secret order. They had their own mythology and legends and did their own secret rituals. Of course, unlike Masons, mages were born with their powers. One was either a mage or they weren’t. It was like being a witch. You may only be a quarter or eighth mage, but if you could conjure magic in your hands, you were in. If not, see you later. Revealing their secrets was strictly against the mage’s code.

  Mages mostly hung out in groups of other mages. The fact that mages had worked with witches in the demon fan club just proved how powerful and persuasive Wilder, their evil leader, had been.

  “If I know what kind of ritual, I might have a better understanding of who would want to take it,” I pressed.

  Mark’s brow managed to wrinkle further. If the theft was ritual-related, it meant one of his people was the culprit and he desperately didn’t want it to be the case. “I doubt it was stolen for such purposes,” he insisted. He pulled out his phone and typed something. “I just sent you a photo of the chalice. I trust you can recover it.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said. He’d given me a check for tonight’s work but was refusing to pay more until the chalice was returned. Normally, I’d refuse jobs that didn’t pay upfront, but I wasn’t exactly swimming in options. Business was slow and I had to take what I could get.

  Clearly, Mark now thought this part was done. He headed for the stairs to show me out.

  I didn’t budge. “Have you had any non-Mage guests over lately?”

  Mark gave me a dubious look, as if he was starting to doubt I was the right woman for the job. “We don’t invite strangers into our headquarters. This house is for mages only. You are the exception.”

  “Nosy neighbors?” The house sat at the end of a dead-end dirt road off a main road near many other residential houses, set apart only by a basic six foot fence around the backyard. It was private but it wasn’t isolated.
If you squinted through the trees, you could see the lights from a house behind this one.

  “No,” Mark insisted. “I’ve never even met our neighbors.”

  “And nothing else was taken? You’re sure?”

  He already told me that was the case but it seemed like a lot of work to rob a house full of mages for a single silver chalice. It might be worth twelve, fifteen grand if it was pure silver (doubtful, despite Mark’s insistence). If it had magical properties Mark wasn’t telling me about, it might be worth a hell of a lot more on the magical black market. But even so, it was a lot of effort to go to just to steal one item. It wasn’t like the thief’s restraint kept the theft undetected. There was no reason they couldn’t have pilfered a few more items while they were at it.

  “Nothing else was taken,” he insisted, fingers tapping impatiently on the stair railing. I was pushing it but hey, I already had his check in my pocket. And this was vital information.

  I was a good private eye, but I needed a foundation to work on.

  “All right,” I said. “Thanks.”

  His shoulders relaxed and he nodded. I did a quick check of the windows in all of the downstairs bedrooms—no signs they’d been pried open as far as I could tell—and I followed him up the stairs. On the main level of the house there was a kitchen, living space, and a hall that led to several more bedrooms. Five people were gathered on a large sectional, passing the popcorn back and forth while watching a movie.

  “I do appreciate your help,” he said.

  “Good. You,” I pointed to the young woman with blue streaks in her hair, Hayley. “Come with me.”

  “Is that really necessary?” Mark asked.

  “Yup. I have to interview everyone here.” The group on the sofa exchanged looks.

  Hayley got up. “She’s trying to find the stolen chalice. No big. Just don’t eat all the popcorn.”

  Interviewing all of the mages at the Mage Guild Headquarters took another hour, and none of them had any leads. No one brought friends over for movies and pizza. No one saw any meter readers or electricians creeping around the property in the weeks prior to the theft. No one had any idea who stole the chalice and none of them would tell me what ritual it was used for.

  Mark was right that it was a waste of time, but that was the thing about detective work: a lot of it was actually spent eliminating avenues and possibilities to get on the right track. It was time consuming, but it was part of the job.

  Since there were no suspects, I headed the places one goes to look for stolen supernatural goods.

  The Bazaar was a small flea market set up in the parking lot of an office supply mega store that had gone out of business. No real estate remained vacant in this area for long, but for the past six months, supernaturals had used the parking lot of the abandoned building to hold this strange and mostly-illegal market.

  Wards had been cast around it to keep mortals—particularly mortal cops—at bay. They mostly worked, although sometimes the lights in the market were too bright and shone through the wards, leading to a human coming over to investigate. Magic wasn’t a perfect science.

  Only a handful of tents had been set up this evening. I went straight to Carlyle’s tent of stolen wonders, glad his was one of the tents still around.

  The imp was digging through a Tupperware bin full of wares, his back to me, and he didn’t see me approach. I stood in front of his booth, arms crossed, until he turned around. He jumped about a foot and then recovered, acting like I hadn’t just startled him.

  Carlyle was shorter than me by a few inches, putting him around five-two, with thick black hair and tiny little black horns that stuck out of his head. His eyes moved from side to side like he was scared about who else might be with me.

  “I haven’t got any brimstone, witch,” he said, defensively. “Ain’t a market for it now that the Council is out for blood.”

  The demon-worshipping group that had wreaked so much havoc had also attacked the Council, getting a demon to possess one of their more heroic agents and then using him to throw bomb spells around one of their headquarters. That kind of thing made the Council understandably paranoid and the crack down on demon paraphernalia had increased tenfold. Having it before had been risky. Now, possessing even a tiny bit was asking to be thrown in the dungeon without so much as a sham trial.

  “I’m not looking for brimstone,” I said. I never was. I’d used it exactly once and that was how I’d gotten myself possessed by a demon. Worst three days of my life. Somehow, I’d fought it out and stranger still, it had left behind some of its magic, making me the only witch I knew who could wield demon fire and see demon shadows. That’d be pretty badass if it weren’t also super illegal. “I’m looking for a silver chalice.”

  Carlyle frowned. “If I have such an object, it won’t be cheap.”

  I groaned. Carlyle would try to up-charge for water if he thought a witch needed it for a spell. That was precisely why I never bought from him. I only came by to check his stock for items I was tasked to find.

  I pulled out my phone and pulled up the photo of the chalice that Mark had sent me. In it, the chalice was sitting on the shelf behind a couple of mages who wore ceremonial robes and smiled. I enlarged the photo to highlight the chalice and turned the phone around to show the imp.

  “It’s this one. It was stolen from the Mage’s HQ last night. Have you seen it?”

  Carlyle examined the photograph for far too long. The problem with fencing stolen goods was that people like me who came looking for them weren’t going to pay a markup to get them back. It was bad business to tell me the truth.

  “Don’t think so,” he finally said.

  I growled at him and pulled the phone back. Then I put my hand pointedly on the hilt of my sword. “Why don’t you double check?”

  He plastered on a fake smile and turned around to dig through his wares to see if he had it.

  I started to speak, to offer to look for him, since I didn’t trust him to reveal the chalice if he had it, but my vision suddenly swam. My brow furrowed in confusion and I struggled to stay upright as my vision narrowed to a fine point.

  And then the world went black.

  Chapter 2

  Color returned slowly. The darkness had swallowed up everything until hues of purple and blue began to creep back in. Thick black shadows, dark as obsidian, swirled around me.

  Demon shadows.

  But these were too big, too all-encompassing. These demon shadows had swallowed up the world and left nothing behind.

  My pulse raced and my head throbbed. The darkness sucked the sound out of the world, too, like some kind of black hole. All I could hear was the blood thrumming in my ears.

  A scream rose and died in my throat.

  Where the hell was I?

  The tent was gone, Carlyle had vanished.

  Demon shadows danced around the edges of my vision as pink and purple began to highlight the world again. Slowly, I saw shapes emerge but it was like they were under some kind of weird Instagram filter that made them dark purple or blue.

  The outline of the stall came back, its white tent now veiled in purple hues. A blur of blue motion caught my attention and I drew my sword.

  “Hold your horses, I’m looking.” Carlyle’s voice sounded distant and watery, but I could make out the words.

  It was as if my ears were clogged with water and were slowly draining. Volume increased. Shadows retreated.

  I blinked and suddenly light exploded in front of me.

  The Bazaar was back, illuminated by dim camping lanterns as before. Carlyle stood in front of me, hands up as if caught in the act.

  “You can put away your sword. I don’t have your cup,” Carlyle said, his voice shaky.

  I swallowed, uneasy. Looked from side to side. The woman in the next tent, a kitchen witch who was reading Tarot cards, watched me curiously.

  I frowned, confused, heart still pounding. It was like I’d been sucked down into the Underworld only I hadn�
��t moved. I’d been standing here the whole time. Hadn’t I? I hated that I wasn’t sure.

  The blur of motion I’d seen a moment ago must have been the imp in front of me. Not a demon. But still.

  Terrified to do so but unsure what else to do, I blinked into my shadow sight. There were no demon shadows clinging to the tent or anywhere else. No trace of demonic activity.

  But then what had I just seen? What had happened?

  I blinked back and Carlyle was staring at me like he was scared I might throw a grenade into his stall. Or like I was a grenade. I licked my lips which suddenly felt dry.

  “You okay?” he asked, frowning deeply.

  “Do you have the chalice or not?” I asked impatiently, sheathing my sword. I wasn’t about to explain my freaky experience to him.

  “No. Like I said. It ain’t here.” He said it so plainly, so automatically, that I believed him. The way he was looking at me, like I was a gun ready to go off, I didn’t think he’d lie.

  “Where else would someone unload a stolen magical object?” I asked him. I had a few ideas but this was Carlyle’s business, and his information was bound to be more up to date than mine.

  I saw the green light in my periphery before it registered. For a second, I thought I was being pulled back into the strange watery world of darkness. But then the green got brighter and my brain clicked: an energy ball.

  Mages could conjure elements and throw them around. They were the sorcerers of the supernatural world, able to cast and throw spells immediately. Witches generally had to cast them in advance and carry them around loaded onto stones or gems or pieces of paper. Mages could wield their magic in an instant.