by Clare Kauter
Ed stared at me silently for a beat. “The bookshop?”
“Yes.”
“In Gretchen.”
“Yep.”
“You mean Witches’ Brew?”
“Yes.”
“The café-slash-bookshop owned by Sherriff Hecate? The one that also happens to double as Hellfire Shire’s Magical Police Headquarters?”
“Yes.”
“Of course we need to go there,” he said, shaking his head. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Despite his obvious qualms with my plan, Ed actually turned out to be quite useful in its execution.
“Fine,” he said, once he’d resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to talk me out of this particular harebrained scheme. “Let’s go upstairs.”
“Excuse me?”
He rolled his eyes. “How many times? Do you really think I would try to seduce you right now?”
I shrugged. “I thought maybe you were trying to distract me.”
He folded his arms. “Would that work?”
“Obviously not,” I replied, “but I wouldn’t put it past you to try anyway.”
“Well, sadly for you, this is not an attempt to get you into bed, as much as you might wish it was,” he said. “I have a crack in reality in my bedroom which I can use to get back to earth.”
My eyebrows rose to such heights that they became one with the rest of my hair. “Seriously? You have an unregistered gateway?”
Ed smiled, obviously excited to be sharing this secret with someone. This was Big News (hence the capital letters). Cracks in reality formed the gateways between worlds and realms, and as such they were hugely regulated. (You should see the customs line getting back into Australia after a little day trip to Hell.) There were only a couple of ways you could bypass the red tape – Satan could pull you into Hell at will, naturally, or Death could create a portal so you could step between worlds. If you were a spirit, you could be summoned. There might have been other ways, but they were the only ways I’d ever seen. So the fact that Ed had a crack was a big deal. (A crack in reality, duh – get your mind out of the gutter.)
“Show me,” I whispered.
He jumped to his feet and raced up the stairs and I jogged behind him, the nausea I’d been experiencing from my earlier trip through the door forgotten. I followed him into his room and watched eagerly as he opened the door to his cupboard. He pushed some clothes aside (ghost clothes, I noticed – slightly translucent and glowy so they didn’t look weird when he wore them, or get left behind when he teleported places without consciously teleporting them too), and behind them I saw a large crack like a lightning bolt extending from the floor to the ceiling. In it was the same swirling blackness as the void in Death’s portals.
“Wow,” I breathed. “I’m really going to have to suck in my stomach to get through that.”
Ed snorted with laughter. “Are you ready to go?”
I shrugged. “No time like the present.”
He stepped through first, taking my hand to guide me as I crab-walked through the crack. When I came out the other side of the void it was night time, but rather than the reddish glow from the moon I was used to from spending so long in Hell, the world around me was bathed in blue. I looked up at the sky, or what I could see of it through the trees (we were in some sort of forest), and smiled at the sight of the stars. It was good to be back.
“Where are we?” I asked Ed, glancing around. I’d stepped out of a crack in a tree, only obvious now because I knew it was there, and I wondered if I’d ever be able to find it again. After all, we were in a forest, and there was hardly a shortage of trees.
“Don’t you recognise it?” Ed asked.
Looking around again, I realised that many of the trees were eucalypts, which meant…
“We’re in the Black Forest,” I said. “Near my house.”
Ed nodded. “I have my own personal shuttle to your place whenever I like.”
Just my luck. Even if I managed to clear my name – despite being seen with the stone as well as with a wanted criminal – and if I somehow managed to finally get my licence, I’d still never be able to be rid of Ed. Great. Why had his crack had to lead directly to my door?
I knew why, of course – I lived in Hellfire Shire, one of the places where the barrier between Hell and Earth was particularly thin. It was inordinately hot and heavily populated by magicals, as you might expect. There were a number of places like this around the globe – a select few locations where a crack between the worlds could have appeared. I’d just been unlucky that Ed had ended up with a Hellfire Shire portal rather than a Death Valley one – although for tonight’s purposes, it suited me perfectly.
I’d lost track of time while I was in Hell, and looking at all the moonlight filtering in through the forest’s canopy, it looked like it could be full moon here on earth. That was not good. If it was full moon, the forest would be teeming with magicals and Ed and I would be in a lot of trouble. Someone was bound to recognise us. Not to mention that at full moon the bookshop stayed open until midnight or later, which would make breaking in kind of difficult.
I sent out my magical feelers to check for nearby energy, but there were relatively few people and creatures nearby. Phew. It must have been the lead-up to the full moon rather than the big night itself.
“OK,” said Ed. “What now?”
“Now we –”
BANG!
Something crashed just to our right. I sent out my magical feelers again and found that the space had filled with energy. I panicked momentarily – could it be grabbers coming for us? – then realised that I recognised the energy of the people approaching. A witch, a faery, a shifter and a centaur. They weren’t visible yet, but they had clearly locked on to me as their energy was moving in my direction at an alarming rate. At least, Dick’s was.
I looked at Ed, panicking. What were we going to do now?
Ed shrugged apologetically.
My jaw dropped. No, now was not the time for Ed to betray me again. For Satan’s sake, couldn’t I just once have someone on my side? “Don’t you dare,” I hissed.
“Sorry,” he said, and popped out of existence a split second before the others appeared.
“Halt!” ordered Dick.
“I’m standing still,” I replied.
Then all hell broke loose.
There was a flash as a dark figure rushed in from the left side and tackled Daisy. It moved too fast to see, but when it stopped – crouching over her as it held her head to the side, ready to bite – I recognised it. Vampire James, also known as Pierre: the vampire who’d sworn to kill me. I was guessing that was why he was here in the forest near my house, but it looked like he’d been distracted by the scent of delicious faery blood.
Henry and Hecate ran over to Daisy to try and help, but James/Pierre batted them away as easily as if they were just a couple of pesky flies at a barbeque. I panicked as I watched them try and cast spells at him only for their magic to be absorbed into his skin. He was a magician, and last time I’d seen him it had been apparent that he’d gotten into some really dark stuff lately. He didn’t have an energy field like other magicals anymore. Instead, he had a vacuum that seemed to suck all the light from around him. I wanted to help the others fight him off, but Dick was in my way and to be honest, I didn’t know what I could do.
Another figure streaked across the clearing, hitting James and tackling him away from Daisy before he could chow down on her. Jessie – or Honey, as she’d introduced herself to me the night she’d told me about how my magic blood had cured her – had arrived, and she was trying to keep James/Pierre from murdering Daisy. I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched her hold James/Pierre down. She was still struggling a little to keep him at bay, but at least the fight was more even now.
I wasn’t going to be able to stick around to watch the show, however, because while everyone else had been distracted, Dick had ope
ned a portal next to me, and now he was grabbing my hand and yanking me through.
I’d been caught.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It became immediately apparent that Dick was not planning on handing me over to The Department. In fact, I don’t think Dick was planning on anyone ever seeing me again. The moment we’d exited the portal – now back in Hell, judging by the blood-red glow coming in through the small window of the attic we were in – Dick had bound me to a chair with some sort of spell I didn’t recognise. Cords of his weird, fuzzy energy had wormed their way around my torso, arms and legs and bound me to the chair, and if I struggled at all they tightened.
Casting at him was also out of the question. Not only were my hands bound, but the ropes seemed to be somehow dampening my energy, like the spells over the prison I’d visited earlier. I didn’t have the energy to cast. I was helpless.
I took as deep a breath as the bonds allowed and tried to look on the bright side. Hey, at least I’d found the murderer. And it wasn’t Henry! That was exciting. Of course, the fact that I was tied up and completely powerless in a room with a psychotic murderer who ate eyeballs and poisoned children was not ideal, but at least I’d solved the case, right?
To distract myself, I decided to look around the room and take in my surroundings – at least as much as I could without angering the magical ropes slithering all over me. Unfortunately, the surroundings offered little comfort. It was like being in Dick’s private museum of anatomy, including specimens from just about every magical creature you could think of. Perfectly preserved in jars along one of the shelves, suspended in some sort of yellowish liquid, were a number of disturbing items including a Medusa-style snake hair scalp with the snakes’ yellow eyes still open and staring out into the room, a paw and hoof hybrid, obviously removed from a live shifter mid-transition, a tiny fae baby, very pale and with miniscule points on its ears, a shrunken wolf’s head, and plenty of other repulsive stuff I couldn’t get a good look at because if I turned my head, the ropes binding me tightened around my neck.
I stopped inspecting the room after seeing all that. This little attic was gruesome, that much was apparent. What a disgusting place to die. And at the hands of a little toad like Dick, as well. I suppose after all my murders I kind of deserved an end like this, but somehow I’d never have imagined this grubby little centaur being responsible for taking me down.
“Admiring my collection?” Dick asked.
“I’ve never admired anything of yours other than your rare moments of silence,” I replied. As terrified as I was, I didn’t want to give Dick the satisfaction of showing my fear. I wanted him to feel as pathetic as ever.
“Oh, very brave, very brave,” he said as he clip-clopped towards me. “Perhaps you’ll be a little less cavalier without” – he reached into my pocket and removed the Doomstone – “this at your disposal.”
My heart sunk as the stone was taken from me. I’d been hoping it had one last trick up its sleeve that would somehow save me from Dick, even if my magic was too dampened for me to cast.
“It won’t work for you,” I said, although I didn’t really know that. It hadn’t worked for Ed or anyone from The Department when it was in their possession, but Dick’s magic was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. He could open portals, for Satan’s sake. I hadn’t thought anyone but Death was capable of that. Dick’s magic was meant to be light, and yet he’d somehow managed to open the passageway into the third floor of the library. Clearly, based on his previous murder and attempted murder, he was into some pretty heavy dark magic. Maybe he would be able to get the stone to work.
“Pfft,” he said. “If a child like you can get it to work, I’m sure I can. Besides, I have a distinct advantage. I have one of the companion objects.”
“The key?” I guessed.
He looked impressed. “Someone’s done their homework.”
I shrugged and felt the ropes tighten a little. “I just love learning.”
Dick smirked. “I suppose you were hoping to call him yourself,” he said.
I frowned, having no idea what he was talking about. Call him? Who? As ridiculous as it was, the first thing that flashed through my mind was that Dick wanted Death’s phone number too. When I realised that was absurd, I asked, “Call who?”
Dick put his hands on his hips. “Come now. There’s no use in pretending. I already know what you’ve been up to.”
“I’m really not sure you do,” I said.
He sighed. “I caught you looking through the book.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You’re the one who’s been murdering people.”
“Yes, but that’s only because I discovered the rituals before you, isn’t it?”
Rituals? Plural? What exactly was going on here?
“Sorry, I’m a little bit confused. Can we start from the beginning?” I said. “Act like I’m a complete moron and I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
Dick sighed. “Fine, I’ll bite.”
“Please don’t,” I said, remembering Gnawlack’s missing eyeballs.
Dick grinned, and I found myself staring at his teeth.
“You must know why I’ve been performing sacrifices,” he said.
I shook my head gently. “No, I’m afraid I really don’t.”
He sighed. “Honestly, I expected better, even from you,” he said.
Not the first time I’d heard that.
“As you may be aware,” he continued, “centaurs aren’t usually blessed with extraordinary magical gifts.”
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
“I was no exception,” he said. “I was born with rather average magical talent. So I’ve had to come into my powers by going the long way round.”
The same way he came into his stories, it would seem. I nodded, urging him to continue, but felt my bonds tighten and ceased moving my head.
“I take my powers from demons,” he said.
I raised my eyebrows. That method was new to me. “How?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me that business,” he said. “I know you’re well versed in demon summoning.”
“Not so good at stealing their powers, though.”
Dick frowned. “Then how did your magic come about?”
I would have shrugged, but I didn’t want to anger the bonds. “Naturally?”
He snorted, then neighed a little. “I very much doubt that,” he said. “But no matter. I’m sure I’ll be able to get you to talk later, when we get to the more… interesting part of the evening.”
I gulped. Whatever I did, I needed to keep Dick distracted for as long as I could. I had no desire to get to the ‘interesting’ stuff. “But back to stealing powers from demons,” I said quickly.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “It’s quite simple, really. Summon a demon and then drain him.”
“Drain him?” I repeated.
Dick nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Summon a demon and absorb his power by channelling the energy from within the circle into myself. Of course, I had to start small – tiny, fledgling demons at first – but the more I drained, the more power I gained, until eventually I became as powerful as I am now.”
I guess that explained where all the disappearing demons had ended up. In Dick’s belly.
“If you’ve been summoning demons all this time and you’ve grown so much more powerful,” I said, “why did you let yourself get arrested yesterday? Why not just take us all down?”
He twitched a little at that question. “Because I didn’t think I could get away with having murdered four people.” He was wrong about that in my experience, but I decided not to correct him. “And because as strong as I am, I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to take down those three. Daisy is fae, Hecate is a notoriously powerful witch and Henry – well, Henry just really hates me.”
Henry wasn’t alone there. “So you needed to eat a few more demons before you were strong enough?”
&nbs
p; He nodded. “That’s why I set free that demon you summoned outside the club,” he continued. “I was hoping to try and summon him for myself, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I let you bind him. Ooh, he would have been a juicy one.”
“Right,” I said. A thought occurred to me. “You haven’t, uh, been feasting on souls as well, have you?”
Dick raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realise anyone had noticed they’d gone missing.”
“Oh, nothing gets past me,” I lied. Everything got past me. I was terrible at picking up on things. I’d thought I could trust Ed, then he’d abandoned me at the first sign of trouble. I’d even helped free the psycho who was about to kill me from prison. I was useless.
“I used some souls to call on a particularly… sumptuous demon.” The way Dick talked about demons was the way other people talked about roast potatoes and gravy. Like he wanted to devour a bucket of them at the first chance he got. “Unfortunately, it didn’t work, so I had to resort to sacrifice.”
“That’s why you’ve been killing people? To build up your sacrificial credit for whoever this crazy demon is?”
Dick nodded. “Partly. And I’m so close, too. If you hadn’t saved that wolf cub, I’d already have called him.” He sighed. “I put so much effort into framing the wolves and goblins for the murders, too. I used werewolf dentures to eat the eyes out of the goblin leader, and I tracked down goblin poison to kill the girl – and yet you got in the way of everything. I suppose this shall round it out nicely, killing you in the end.”
Eek, he was back to talking about killing me. Time to distract him. Stat.
“Who exactly have you been trying to summon?” I asked.
“The king of demons, of course.”
“The king of demons?” I repeated, my eyes widening. “So that’s the king that everyone’s been talking about?”
Dick rolled his eyes. “No, you idiot.”
If I hadn’t been held in place by his strangling magic tentacles I would have slumped. “There’s another king? Really?”