Demon Fate

by Tori Centanni

  The energy ball slammed into the corner of Carlyle’s tent. The support rod split and the tent keeled over, swaying sideways.

  “What is this? Some kind of robbery?” Carlyle yelled at me.

  “That wasn’t me,” I said, cold flooding my veins.

  I was already conjuring demon fire. Most witches couldn’t just pull magic right out of the air but I had demon magic. This mage had just attacked the wrong witch.

  I turned to see someone in a gray hoodie pulled tight over their head to obscure their face. They wore a black trench coat pulled over the sweatshirt and jeans, making it hard to see the cut of their build or determine much about their appearance.

  Another ball of energy grew in their hand.

  I threw a ball of blue fire at them. The fire fell short, landing a foot shy of their plain black boots, scorching the pavement.

  They tossed what energy they’d gathered and ran. I jumped out of the way and the energy ball smacked into Carlyle’s table, toppling it over into the tent. The tent swayed but managed to stay upright.

  I chased after the mage. They weren’t getting away that easily.

  I bolted around the building, conjuring demon fire as I ran. Good way to deplete my energy but I didn’t care. I saw the black trench coat round the corner and picked up the pace. My sneakers slammed against the concrete as I ran as fast as I could.

  I bounded across the street and followed the mage into an alley. I caught up with them when they hit a dead end.

  I held my fire out and, panting, said, “Stop!”

  They conjured a ball of green energy. I threw my flames at their coat. The trench coat ignited and the mage swore. They had a low voice, but I couldn’t tell much from that. Could still be any gender. They flung their energy ball at me. I dodged and it hit the dumpster behind me, putting a dent in the green metal.

  Ice shot down my spine. Whoever this person was, they had a lot of power to play with.

  The mage conjured water to extinguish the demon fire. It didn’t work—water couldn’t do anything against demon flames—but their magic dampened mine and the fire ran out of power. Smoke rose around them and they conjured yet more energy.

  I pulled at my reserves, trying to make a bigger fireball. But fire magic, even demon magic, took energy from its user, and I could only do so much at a time.

  They tossed their new ball of green energy at me. The golf ball slammed into my arm and the fire I’d been conjuring went out. I swore. Pain exploded in my shoulder.

  “What did I ever do to you?” I yelled at the mage.

  No answer. Instead, fire grew in their hand. It was red and orange fire—mage fire, not demon fire. Mage fire was a rare enough trick. Most mages stuck to energy, air, or water, sometimes earth. Fire was hard to work with and apparently a struggle for even the most skilled mage to conjure. Very few used it effectively.

  That was good. It gave me a place to start figuring out who my mystery attacker was. Assuming I survived this encounter.

  I didn’t have any shield charms on me, so I’d do what I did best: fight fire with fire.

  I took a deep breath. I willed my energy to flow into my uninjured arm and then out of my palm as a ball of bright, blue flame. I gathered the biggest fireball I could muster.

  Their fireball came rushing at my face. They hadn’t even aimed for my jacket. Jerk.

  I tossed my fireball right at theirs. The fires met mid-air and exploded into a mass of flame, leaving a cloud of purple smoke behind. Smoke and ash filled the alley. The person in the trench coat rushed past me before I knew what they were doing, using the explosion and smoke as a distraction.

  I started to follow when the darkness came down on me again. I was about to break into a run when the shadows swallowed the world. Sound evaporated with the light and my vision narrowed to a fine point. I blinked and the world was gone. Everything was empty and quiet.

  I stood perfectly still, trying to figure out what was happening.

  A minute later, color began to return. Tiny pricks of purple and blue again, and then pink, and soon color whooshed back into the world along with the ambient noise of cars on a distant road and toads croaking in some nearby copse of trees.

  I swayed, unsteady, terrified.

  When things were normal again, I took a tentative step forward, not trusting the world to stay put. It did, but I didn’t know for how long.

  Was this some kind of mage spell? Some kind of new curse? It felt like demon magic but there was no other sign of demons or demonic energy.

  I shook myself and rushed forward. At the mouth of the alley, I stopped, my head swiveling in both directions as I sought any sign of which way the mage had gone, but he’d gotten away.

  And I had no idea what the heck was happening to me.

  Chapter 3

  “You could be ill,” Penelope said. She sat perched on the arm of my sofa, watching me with her big black eyes. Her black hair was tousled in a stylish way and she wore a black skirt with gray blouse that fell off her shoulders.

  “Yeah, I could be,” I said. I felt my forehead. It didn’t feel hot. Other than randomly sinking into total blackness, I felt perfectly fine. “You’ve never heard of anything like that?”

  Penelope was a crow shifter whose actual age and history were unknown to me. She played her cards close to her chest and I respected that. As a woman with her own secrets, I wasn’t going to pry into someone else’s. This was largely why she and I got along despite having little in common. We both knew one of the other’s biggest secrets—that she was a shifter, that I had demon magic—and neither of us pressed the issue or demanded answers from each other.

  She tilted her head and studied me before saying, simply, “No. Perhaps it’s another curse.”

  I shuddered at the thought. I’d been cursed by a half-faerie half-witch. Either her ink had run out of magic or I wasn’t cursed long enough for it to do any lasting damage, but I watched the curse ruin other people’s lives. I’d gotten lucky and I wasn’t ready to roll those dice again.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. The blackout had started before the mage attacked. Plus, mages didn’t do curses. They weren’t exactly known for subtle magic.

  “Perhaps you’re merely overextended,” she suggested.

  I sighed. That was more likely to be right. I’d been doing my best to keep myself busy. Money was good, sure, but piling on the case load also helped keep me from getting into trouble. Or thinking about the other things I’d rather be doing.

  An image of Conor Ramsey popped into my head. Tall, dark, and currently avoiding me like the plague. Or so it seemed. Not that I’d gone out of my way to contact him after we’d left the worst vampire party ever. He’d agreed not to turn me in for my illegal demon magic, but he also thought I should be finding a way to eradicate it, like it was some kind of disease.

  I glanced at the window behind Penelope. The gray of dawn was slowly brightening outside. It was beyond time for bed.

  “I’ll get some sleep and hope it’s just exhaustion,” I said. I knew that was probably a little too optimistic, but with nothing else to go on and a job to do, I didn’t have much choice.

  Penelope stood and nodded. “Then rest.”

  She swept out of my apartment and across the hall. I shut the door and locked both deadbolts and the door knob.

  I hadn’t planned on spilling my guts to Penelope but she’d seen me come in. We were the only two tenants in our building, and the only two residents besides our landlord, a vampire named Silas. The building had eight units, four each on the second and third floors, but Silas kept five of them as storage units for his collection of junk.

  I changed into pajama shorts and an old t-shirt and then washed my face. I studied myself in the mirror. My brown hair was a little stringy and in need of a wash. There were dark circles under my eyes. I felt wrung out, not least because I’d used a ton of demon fire tonight on the mysterious mage, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary. And the first blackout hap
pened before I’d used much magic so that hadn’t been the cause.

  I shook my head and turned off the bathroom light. Maybe I really did just need more sleep and a few more vegetables in my diet. A woman couldn’t live on pizza rolls alone, much as I sometimes tried.

  I crawled into bed and hoped for a fresh start tomorrow.

  My dreams were weird and full of darkness that harbored strange monsters, but when I woke up, I couldn’t remember specifics. Not that it mattered.

  Unless you were a witch who was good at divination, there were rarely answers to be found in dreams. Answers were out in the real world. You just had to know who to punch to get them.

  I showered and dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt that said Ask Me About My Sword—a gift from Silas, who bought it from a game store—and my leather jacket. I tied my sneakers and put my sword in its sheath. And then I headed out to find the missing chalice and identify the mage who’d attacked me. Not necessarily in that order.

  I went to two shops known for fencing supernatural goods, one in the local outlet mall and another in a narrow retail space wedged between an appliance repair shop and a reptile supply store. Neither had the chalice but both shop keepers promised to let me know if it came in.

  Reluctantly, I headed to the place I’d hoped to avoid going to: the warehouse.

  The warehouse was a squat building with a rounded roof surrounded by other one-story storage and industrial buildings near the freeway in North Everett. There was some ambient noise from two streets over, where more exciting shops and businesses—a fast-food pizza joint, a gas station with a mini mart—sat. Over here, it was quiet and dead for the night. Street lights illuminated the area but not well and no one was around.

  The warehouse’s main entrance was a giant garage door, but around the side was a plain white door with a dim light fixture mounted above it.

  I knocked on the smaller door and then listened. Nothing happened. I knocked again. No answer.

  I stepped back and stared up at the light fixture. A small camera had been affixed to the side, next to the lightbulb. I waved to it. “I know this is Rian’s storage facility. Or one of them. Let me in.”

  Rian was a dragon, though I’d only ever seen him in human form. He had golden red scales on his wrists and the back of his neck, and streaks of red in his inky black hair. I had no idea how big his dragon form was, but in human form, he was formidable enough. He’d hired me to do a few jobs over the years, mostly chasing down people who owed him money. He worked largely as a loan shark, although I knew he ran a less-than-legal casino and like so many immortals, he had a bit of a hoarding problem.

  This place was where I’d been sent to turn in an object he’d paid me to retrieve last year.

  I didn’t know if anyone was inside, but I figured dragons, like most supernaturals, were paranoid and protective of their shit.

  Sure enough, a young man of Asian descent opened the door. He wore a security uniform, complete with a walkie talkie clipped to his shirt.

  “You’re Dani Warren,” he said. It wasn’t a question. I was guessing he sent the footage of me to Rian, who’d told him to open up.

  “I’m looking for this chalice,” I said. I showed him the photo and then peered behind him. The warehouse was filled with steel shelves which held bins and boxes of goods. From what I could see, everything was neatly labeled. It might have been a dragon’s hoard, but it was well organized.

  He squinted at the photo. “Don’t have it.”

  “Has Rian seen it? Maybe been offered it as payment for money owed or something?” I asked. That was how Rian got most of his stolen wares. He wasn’t a thief but he wasn’t picky about how he got paid so long as he was.

  The guy spoke into his radio, asking if anyone had paid with a silver cup lately. The answer came from a woman’s voice, who took a moment before answering in the negative.

  My shoulders sank. I’d known it was a long shot, but sometimes long shots hit their mark. This one clearly hadn’t. It was already after nine o’clock and so far I’d hit nothing but dead ends. “Well, thanks anyway,” I said.

  The radio crackled again and I couldn’t make out the words, only the voice.

  “Wait,” the guy said. “Rian wants to see you.”

  I frowned, cold sloshing in my stomach. I had never crossed the dragon—I wasn’t stupid—but it was a lot like being told to go to the Principal’s office. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in trouble. “Sorry, can’t. I’m sort of busy.”

  “He has a job for you,” the man said.

  “I’m already on a job,” I said. But of course, Rian already knew that or I wouldn’t be here.

  More radio crackle. Something about a car. The security guard went to the door and opened it, gesturing for me to go out. A sleek town car pulled into the alley and parked.

  “You called me an Uber?” I asked, trying to make light of the situation, though I knew it was Rian’s own driver behind the wheel. My pulse raced. I really didn’t have time for this.

  “Get in. Rian believes he can help you,” the guard said.

  Or he thought I could help him and didn’t mind derailing my current job for his own convenience.

  I had two choices: fight this guy, who was probably some sort of supernatural being or at the very least, a trained fighter, while getting on the dragon’s bad side, or get in the car and do what the dragon crime boss wanted me to do.

  I got in the car. Sometimes, the choice was easy.

  Chapter 4

  Rian’s house was a little way outside of town, on a ridge overlooking the dark waters of the Sound. The house was long but only one story, though I suspected it burrowed down into the mountain for a few stories.

  The car pulled down the long driveway and stopped in front of the house in a roundabout that circled a fountain. The driver got out, rushing over to open my door. I climbed out of the car and stared up, impressed by how a single-story house managed to be imposing. It had a high, steeped roof and dark trim that made it look taller than it was.

  A woman I’d met briefly before greeted me at the entrance.

  “He’s in his study,” she said. “But first I’ll need your sword.”

  I was hesitant to let go of my weapon. It was enchanted to be preternaturally sharp, which made it valuable and the spell was a pain in the ass to cast. Plus, last time I’d checked my sword at some supernatural person’s mansion, it had been stolen and used to behead a vampire in a clumsy attempt to frame me for the murder.

  But the woman’s hard eyes brooked no argument. I took off my sheath and handed it over. She opened a closet that was full of metal lockers. She put my sword inside one, locking it carefully before sliding her keys back into her pocket.

  Then she led me to an elevator. As suspected, it went down, with buttons for three underground floors. She hit the button for the second floor and we descended in silence.

  Rian was in a large room at one end of the hall. It had glass double doors that were open and the walls were lined with shelves that held all kinds of treasures: gorgeous antique vases, china plates with hand-drawn designs propped up on stands, glass sculptures, silver and gold bowls, chalices, and other eye-catching treasures.

  Rian’s desk was large enough to sleep on top of and totally devoid of anything at all. Just a polished oak surface, empty and shining.

  He sat in a high-backed chair, hands folded on his desk. His red-streaked hair was neatly combed and he wore a red silken shirt beneath a black blazer. He had gold rings on several fingers and I could see the hint of reddish gold scales on his wrists when he moved his hands. He nodded at me and then dismissed the woman with a wave.

  “Sit,” he said. It wasn’t a request.

  I sat.

  “I understand a ceremonial chalice was stolen from the mages two nights ago.” He met my eyes. Again, it wasn’t a question, but I nodded to indicate he was correct. “Very strange. A ceremonial dagger was taken from me four nights ago.”

&nbs
p; Ice ran down my spine. Two ceremonial magical items stolen in a single week was more than a coincidence. It was a crime spree.

  He produced a photo from a drawer and slid it across the surface of the desk. It was the kind of photo you’d see used for an auction. The silver dagger was placed on a bed of blue velvet next to a quarter for size comparison. The blade was about six inches long and the hilt was ornately carved into the image of a phoenix, its tail feathers intricately traced in the metal. It was breathtaking. I wondered what kind of ceremony it was used for but knew better than to ask. Like the mages, this dragon wasn’t going to reveal his secrets.

  “Where was it taken from?” I asked instead, studying the photo as if it might reveal a clue.

  “My casino,” he answered. “It was on display in a hall there, along with several other precious items. We rotate them out.”

  Rian’s casino was up near Tulalip Casino, which was legal and run by a local Native American tribe. Rian’s business was decidedly not legal. It sat maybe a mile up the road on the other side of the freeway. It looked like a flea bag motel from the outside, which it had been in its previous life. Rian used wards and payoffs to keep the mortal authorities off his back for his illegal gambling den and loan shark operation.

  “Risky move. Don’t you have pretty good security?” I asked. This guy had a dude posted in his storage warehouse. There was no way the casino wasn’t rigged to the nines with cameras and alarms, and crowded with guards.

  He smiled tightly. “Top notch.”

  “So don’t you have footage of the theft?”

  He shook his head once. It was a quick motion. “The thief disarmed the cameras. They were out for sixty-four seconds. When they came back on, the case was empty and the dagger was gone.”

  “And your guys haven’t figured out who the culprit was?” I pressed. Losing a minute of footage was hard but surely they had images of the thief. There could only be so many people in the vicinity of the dagger before and after the cameras cut out.