“Celestial Helen Roberts,” said Gav from behind the inspector. “She died at the scene. Inspector, I’d like Devina to come with me.”
Thanks, Gav.
“Don’t think I haven’t seen you covering for her,” he said. “If you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself on probation.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Gav said.
Shaking my head, I followed him. “What’s with him today?”
“Three murders in the space of twenty-four hours,” he said, leading me into the office. “It’s never happened before. Certainly not here. People are talking, the newspapers have got hold of it… it’s been a disaster.”
Given the huge bags under his eyes and his sallow complexion, I figured he’d taken the brunt of the backlash himself. He sank into his chair, his prosthetic leg clunking against the desk.
“I figured, but I’m here to help, not cause trouble.”
“The inspector doesn’t see it that way.” He exhaled heavily. “I didn’t know he’d pin all the suspicions on you. You weren’t in town last night, were you?”
“What’s it to him if I was?” I shot at him, anger sparking. “He knows I’m not capable of killing someone like that. And if he thinks I’m in league with warlocks, he can talk to their leader about it. They’re not the killers.”
Not even Nikolas’s brother. Neither of their magic matched the aura I’d seen on the victims. White, with dark spots, almost as though corrupted from the inside.
“Devi,” he said warningly. “I’d sincerely advise you to avoid associating with any netherworlders at all for the duration of this investigation.”
“Assuming I’m even allowed to stay,” I said. “What if the netherworlders have the answers? They know demons. Possibly better than our archives.” I mean, the information on arch-demons was locked away. Nikolas had one for a parent. That fact alone made him a valuable asset. And for all that he’d yanked me into another dimension last night, he had saved me from being caught at a third crime scene. And returned the pentagram.
Hmm.
“The warlocks are fast becoming the main suspects,” said Gav. “Mostly because if a new demon was on the loose, it would have attacked at least one regular human by now. The only place it could possibly blend in is amongst other netherworlders.”
“Assuming it’s even permanently in this dimension,” I said.
“What does that mean?”
I shrugged. I might trust him, but I wouldn’t confide every detail of last night’s excursion to anyone, not while I was the guild’s suspect. “Some demons can cross through dimensions.”
“Like that warlock.”
I sighed inwardly. “He’s from the shadow realm. His aura doesn’t match the victims’. I used some of that aura-seeing potion yesterday, but it’s probably worn off by now. The victims’ auras… I don’t know how to describe it. They were sort of… spotted. Like patches of darkness were spreading across them. I’ve never seen an aura that wasn’t one colour, so I don’t know what it is.”
His brow crinkled. “Patches? If they were killed by a demon, their aura would remain the same colour. It should have.”
Unless they were corrupted.
You wear a demon’s mark.
A chill broke out on my arms. “Can a person be marked by a demon without knowing it?”
His puzzled expression remained in place. “No. I mean, theoretically… people have summoned demons without knowing what they were doing, but they have to agree to have a mark put on them. You think the victims were contacted by a demon?”
“They must have been,” I said. “Wait—the last victim. Was she anywhere near the crime scene originally?”
His gaze met mine. “No,” he said. “She was at home. Her flatmate confirmed it.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “So they’re really the same.”
“They all appeared in a place they couldn’t have been,” he said. “Whether that was the same magic which killed them remains to be seen.”
“No clues?” I asked. “None at all? Same manner of death and everything? They were all novices, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “Not the same age, though. Louise was almost a Grade Two. And there was something odd about her case. A dead vampire was found near her house several hours later. It appeared that he’d walked into the sun of his own accord.”
My heart lurched. Had he killed himself over her death, or had someone else? “Is his body here? I mean, what’s left of it?”
That sounded insensitive, but some vampires turned to ash when they died.
“The vampire’s leader took his remains back, as is custom,” he said. “Why?”
“Looking for any connections,” I said. “Three celestials and a vampire dead in the space of a day. All from bursting into flames… technically. I mean, vampires catch on fire if they look too closely at a light bulb.” Quiet, Devi.
Gav gave me a long-suffering look. “It’s none of my business what novices do in their free time, but I did hear the rumours. Vampire venom, thankfully, doesn’t work on celestials.”
“I know that.” I’d dated one myself back in my rebellious phase. When I’d broken every rule…
They will burn the sin out of you.
My hand clenched beside the seat. Maybe someone did want the celestials to fall. But honestly, if I were an arch-demon wanting to conquer the world, I’d come up with something more dramatic than killing a few novice celestials. However the others were reacting, it was nothing compared to the wars that had ravaged worlds like the one I’d been to last night. But no matter how many times I told myself that the celestials had more sense than to go to war over a single lone demon, a sick, cold feeling remained inside me.
I couldn’t tell him my theory. Gav might put up with a ton of crap from me, but he believed in the celestials, and he believed in our mission. I wouldn’t find answers here. No… the warlocks were the only ones who might know the truth.
Even if Nikolas had implied the celestials might be involved deeper than we knew.
“Is anyone here acting weird?” I asked, not at all subtly. “I mean, the inspector’s heading the investigation, and he’s taking issue with me acting alone. I take it everyone involved is meant to report in to him, and not to… er, meet with contacts alone.”
“Devi,” he said. “Don’t speak to the warlocks.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said heatedly. “And for the record, I got more information from five minutes with the warlocks than I did from years working here.”
“Warlocks cannot be trusted. According to our doctrine, they’re aligned with hell.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I snapped. “Good lord, pull your heads out your arses for one second and imagine I’m right. You hired me. I have contacts. You didn’t say I couldn’t use them.”
I was so screwed. I couldn’t believe I was taking the word of a warlock, but I never did trust that the celestials had our best interests at heart. Their goal was winning the war against demons. Which meant one of them summoning an arch-demon was about as unlikely as Inspector Deacon suddenly developing a personality. But if anyone other than the warlocks had the know-how on summoning a powerful demon, it was the celestials. Their knowledge was purely theoretical, but the warlock was right—they did hide a lot of things from their recruits. If someone had gone dark, it might go unnoticed. Of course, they lacked a motive for randomly murdering novices, but it couldn’t hurt to have a poke around and see if anyone was up to no good.
In a detective show, the good guys being the murderers would be an obvious conclusion. Here, it’d take some logical stretching to figure out how anyone here would begin justifying the murder of innocents, but demons were the definition of corruption. Bringing the celestials down from the inside would be the perfect revenge on us for killing so many of them.
“Devi,” said Gav quietly. “Please, please don’t aggravate the inspector. He’s one mistake away from putting you in a cell for the duration of thi
s investigation.”
“Then I’ll go,” I said. Do as Clover suggested, and strike out on my own. It was how I worked best, after all.
I figured I’d leave via the lab to see if they’d got in any new stock of rare ingredients. Instead, I found two staff members in conversation, including Mr Roth—former leader of this very guild, before the inspector had stepped in.
“Celestial Lawson,” he said. “What are you doing in here?”
I gave him a false smile. “Working on the case. I keep my props in here.” I aimed for the stores, checking for anything out of place on the shelves. It didn’t look like anything demonic had been removed since yesterday, but I double-checked just in case. Of course, the main prop was the pentagram—the only device big enough to hold a high-ranked demon.
Suspicion flared, unexpectedly. The inspector had claimed that very office as his own. There’d be irony in him being the bad guy, but he was an obvious choice, however unlikely it was that high-ranked demons were even interested in talking to him. He was a total bore even by celestial standards. Besides, if he’d used the pentagram recently for summoning a demon, I’d have seen the residue when I’d used it myself.
“Er, Mr Roth?” I asked. “Has the inspector been in here at all?”
“No, he hasn’t,” said the leader of the guild. “He’s been run off his feet all day—and all night, too. We all have.”
I nodded. “Just curious. I wondered—can I see the last body? I’m still on the investigation.”
Mr Roth shook his head. “The inspector would need to authorise it.”
“You hired me,” I said.
“I did, when I was the leader of this guild,” said Mr Roth. “Unfortunately, Inspector Deacon now takes that title, and he’s the acting authority until the crimes are solved.”
Bullshit. I bit my tongue. I should have seen this coming. The inspector was too power-mad to resist the chance to grab even more authority over the city, but his new position also made him the centre of attention. Surely he wouldn’t be able to sneak off and talk to demons without someone taking note of his absence. So much for that theory. Guess I didn’t get to hit the guy over the head with a pentagram after all.
“Okay, I’m off, then,” I said. “Good luck with the investigation.”
Without seeing the body, I couldn’t be certain the death had transpired exactly the same as the others did. But I hadn’t been to the crime scene yet. The inspector hadn’t said I couldn’t. And for all our inter-dimensional adventures, I still didn’t have Nikolas’s phone number. If he had one, considering he apparently lived in a castle when he wasn’t in this realm.
I shouldn’t want to talk to him. He had no reason to help me solve the murders, aside from apparent curiosity and the drive to clear his own name, and I still wasn’t absolutely certain another warlock wasn’t involved. If the conflict did come to war, I’d have to stand by the celestials. Demon mark or not, that was where I belonged. We’d been set against one another from the moment the Divinity had chosen me. And if I lost sight of that mission, I’d lose myself.
Even if part of me had been lost ever since I’d watched Rory die.
Chapter 12
Thankfully, it’d stopped raining by the time I departed the train station at the high street. Everything had a grey, washed-out look. I couldn’t help thinking of the wasteland that lay here, in another world. A world in ruin. Like so many others. Dienes’s world, too. Even if I’d grudgingly accepted that not all warlocks were pure evil, the idea of demons wreaking havoc on this realm didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I needed to disconnect myself from the warlocks as soon as possible. Solve the crime, and then disappear from the inspector’s sight before I got locked in a cell.
That was what a sensible person would do, anyway. But sensible people didn’t wind up working with warlocks in the first place—let alone walking to my third murder site within the last two days.
The corner of the street was cordoned off with police tape. A brief scan from a distance didn’t give me any information. With the body gone, all that remained were ashes, washed away by the rain. This was a public place. No wonder there’d been an uproar. What I needed was a witness to question. The streets hadn’t been deserted last night, and there’d been a large number of people going in and out of the pub. But it was closed at this time, with blinds over the windows like a vampire’s den in daylight.
The normal-looking pub on the opposite corner was open, however. I strode casually inside and peered into the gloom. Nobody was around except for a disinterested-looking barman slowly polishing a glass. He spotted me right away—not hard, because there were no customers. And he was definitely human.
“Hi.” I walked over to him. “I’m Devina, and I’m investigating the murder that occurred outside your pub last night.”
“Celestial.” His gaze darted to my wrist, which was covered. He’d guessed what I was anyway, then. I often wondered how people could tell. Maybe it was how I walked.
“Yeah. I’d like to know if you or any of your customers witnessed the girl’s death.”
He looked at me strangely. “A dozen people saw, at least. It’s all over the news. Caught on camera and everything.”
Why hadn’t I thought of that? Well, to be fair, demons were tricky to catch on camera anyway. I should have asked Fiona if there’d been any new videos on DivinityWatch. Amateur move, Devi.
I pulled out my phone and ran a search, immediately finding two videos of the street outside, already with tens of thousands of views. What better way to get attention than to upload a video of someone being brutally murdered by a demon.
“Are you at least going to buy something?” the barman asked.
“Sure, I’ll get a coke,” I said absently, pressing play.
The person filming had been leaving the bar next to this one, I knew from the angle, and must have hit the record button almost instantly after the victim had appeared. Jumbled voices filled the background, and the camera’s focus zeroed in on a woman surrounded by a crowd, screaming. I quickly turned the volume down, but the sound wormed into my head, brought me out in shivers. There were words in the screams, but too indistinct to hear them.
The camera holder moved closer, pushing through the crowd, and the woman’s sightless, burning eyes stared directly at me. Then she slumped against the wall, her screams dying to a faint whimpering. A couple of people tried to help her but dropped their hands. Then the video cut out.
I found another, but like the first, the person had started filming after she’d appeared—however that had happened. I couldn’t see people’s auras on camera either, for some reason. But I’d bet it was the same as the others. White patched with darkness, like a shadowy infection. A demon’s mark.
After last night, I’d almost be inclined to blame Nikolas’s brother, but he didn’t have the ability to skip through dimensions or set people on fire. No… someone, human or warlock, had summoned the demon. But a human had nothing to gain from a demonic war. Not even a celestial.
Bracing myself, I replayed the first video, this time with the sound on.
“They’re coming!” screamed the victim. “They’re coming to burn the sin out of you. All will fall—”
This time when I looked up and saw Nikolas sitting next to me. I didn’t jump. Much.
“Little early for drinking, isn’t it?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes at him, my hand shaking as I closed the video tab down. “It’s just a coke. I suppose your being here is a coincidence, right?”
“I don’t think it’s wise for you to be here,” he said in a low voice, too quiet for the bartender to hear.
“I’m still on this case, whatever they say,” I said. “Two videos of the murder last night, but no actual clues.”
“Videos?” He arched a brow. “This is entertainment to the humans?”
“It’d be evidence in any normal crime. Anyway, this one was the same as the last two.”
“Who was the victi
m?”
“Another novice,” I said. “Same method of killing. I need to talk to an actual witness to find out how she appeared from thin air, but I think if anyone had seen the demon itself, there’d be more stories floating around social media.” I’d skimmed through the trending topics, and every one of them said the victim had appeared from nowhere.
“There were no witnesses to the victim’s disappearance before she ended up here?” he asked.
“None,” I said. “That’s a common theme, too. The demon seems to have caught all three of them alone. Which is probably why the celestials are so on edge. The only person not under watch is me, but considering the inspector wouldn’t give a shit if anything happened to me anyway—” I broke off as the bartender approached, but a glazed look entered his eyes and he walked away. “Nice,” I said to Nikolas. “Do you do that frequently? Can many demons use the same trick? Like your brother?”
“My brother, thankfully, doesn’t have that ability,” he said. “And if he was the killer, I’d have found a more permanent way to disable him yesterday.”
So he’d guessed my suspicion. “All right. I had to check. And by the way, your celestial idea doesn’t pan out. Everyone’s accounted for, and the inspector has everyone under watch to avoid any more attacks. Including himself. Not to mention that pentagram is the only device they have at the guild which can hold a high-ranked demon, and nobody had used it recently when I borrowed it.”
He looked at me calmly. “Yes, I guessed as much myself. But I suspect that there are areas of the guild you aren’t allowed in, correct?”
“You’re right.” I’d thought over my options last night, and all of them came back to the same point. The celestials might not be behind the murders, but they did have information they refused to let anyone get their hands on. Such as the movement in demonic dimensions. I couldn’t be the only person who contacted the netherworld on a regular basis. “First, I’ve got a question. That castle is yours, isn’t it?”
Celestial Magic (Celestial Marked Book 1) Page 11