by Tracy Sharp
She stood up, the red haired girl beside her, and gave me a little wave and smile. "That was trippy. Let's do that again, sometime. Not."
Strummer tipped his head to the red haired girl. "This is Fiona. I called on her earlier in the day to help us." She was as pale as the dead, but beautiful, her hair coppery under the nightshine.
"Why not," she said. "I had nothing better to do."
"You were wrapped in ghosts," I said to her, remembering the fog that had enveloped her. "Like Strummer's tracker demons."
"No, not like the trackers. My ghosts are protection. They camouflage me and can also act as a buffer, as Astrid experienced earlier. The trackers don't do anything but track, and they need to be summoned by a conjurer." She shrugged. "Anyway, I'm glad I came when I did. I was able to save at least one person from a trip to hell."
9
Candace
"Enough fun and games. I need to get back to work." Candy began walking back to the parking lot. There was a slight waver to her walk, but she hid it well. Ever the tough cop.
"Are you kidding me?" I followed her. "You almost drowned, and I had to chase you into hell. You don't think you maybe need the night off?"
She looked straight ahead. "No. What I need is to get a fresh change of clothes and my ass to work, before I get fired. Can you give me a lift to my bike or not?"
I heaved a sigh, but I did get it. Despite what was going on, she did have a job, and she needed to eat and pay her rent. But I was pretty certain this was more about keeping herself busy so she didn't sink into a puddle of screaming hysterics. Hell was a scary place, and now she knew it was real.
It was one thing to be told it was real by her supernatural investigator friend. It was altogether another to experience it herself.
I was freaked out. She must be tripping.
She suddenly looked up, as if she was looking at someone, and headed forward, nodding. "Of course, I can help you."
I followed her gaze. There was no one there.
I stared at her, and then glanced around at the others, coming up behind us. "Are you seeing this?"
Strummer looked at Candy and nodded. "I'm not surprised."
"What? That she's lost her mind. I think hell was too much for her." I heard the panic in my voice. But when I turned back toward her I saw who she was talking to: a dark haired teen in jeans, sneakers and a Five Nights at Freddy's t-shirt. He had the pale pallor of a kid who never goes out into the sun. Times had changed since I'd been in high school. This kid probably couldn't dribble a basketball if his life depended on it. But I bet he could riff on a computer like nobody’s business.
And he never would again. I knew a ghost when I saw one. Candace was conversing with one of the recently dead. His lips moved, and I couldn't hear him. So I stepped closer and concentrated. When he turned to look at me I heard his voice, as if it were an echo from some far off place.
The demon Baal has taken another shape. There was an opening and he took it. He's with the conjurer now. There isn't much time. He has found a servant in the one who conjures the shade.
"Where can we find this conjurer? Who is it?" I asked the kid.
Candy dug her cell from her soaked pants pocket. It was amazing that it was still there, but it was waterlogged, and wouldn’t work.
“Ezra, give me your phone. Mine isn’t working since my little swim. It needs to dry out.” To the kid, she said. "I need all the information you can give me, I'll also need you to go down to the station and make a statement. How do you know all this?"
Rae giggled from somewhere behind us. "That's awesome. I love when they don't know yet."
She wasn’t yet thinking straight. Assuming the kid was even alive, which he clearly was not, how would she explain this information at the precinct? Unluckily for him, he was as dead as they come.
"Candy, he isn't going down to the station." I placed a hand on her arm.
Candace glared at my hand. "Ezra, let me do my job."
But when she turned back to the kid, a jagged, red gash had appeared on his throat. His lips moved but his voice was in our heads. There isn't time. Follow the fire devils. They will lead you to Baal and November Night.
His wound gushed, soaking his black t-shirt and making it look oily in the darkness, and then he dropped to his knees, grasping his throat. We were seeing his final moments as he’d experienced them. It was ghastly.
Candace stood, open mouthed and wide-eyed, staring at the spot the kid just evaporated into. "What the actual f––"
"He's dead, Candace. I'm guessing he was one of Baal's kills." I turned to Astrid, the small hairs at the nape of my neck rising.
She shook her head. "I don't remember a whole lot, Ez, but I know I didn't kill anyone."
The kid appeared again, this time making guttural choking sounds as he clutched at his wound.
"He's not dead yet." Candace moved forward, reaching out to stop the flow of blood from the kid’s wounded throat, panic making her voice shrill. “But he will be if we don’t get him some help. Call 911, Ezra. Now.” But her hands passed right through the kid.
“What... what...?” Candace stepped back, staring at her hands, then looking back up at the kid, who was disintegrating in thin air.
"It was your trip into hell," Strummer said. "You brought back a new talent when I pulled you out."
"Just an FYI," Fiona said. "You may have brought back more than one talent."
"Talent?" Candace’s face was incredulous. “Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?”
"You see dead people now," Rae said, an amused grin on her face. "You're an other. A freak, like us. Welcome to our world."
"Are you kidding me?" Candace looked at me, her eyes horrified.
"Did that seem like a prank to you?" I asked her.
"Oh, that's great. That's just great. That's just what I need. Now dead people are going to be popping out of nowhere and scaring the bejesus out of me. How am I supposed to do my job, Ezra? What do I do with this? I don't even know where to start. November Night? What does that even mean? Why do the dead have to be so mysterious? Are they that hard up for kicks?"
"I hear it does get pretty boring on the other side," Rae said.
"Sometimes they have to speak in code, because there are rules that we can't understand,” Strummer said. "They aren't supposed to intervene."
My cell phone was waterproof. It was one of the few things I’d splurged on. Being an invetigator/hunter of the supernatural can lead you to some pretty unusual places, and having once been soaked in ectoplasm, which had ruined my last phone, I’d learned my lesson. I dug out my phone and did a search on November Night.
There were several hits on nights in November, but only one that made sense. "Here she is, folks."
"She?" Candace said, stepping toward me. "She who?"
My screen showed an article by the Saint's Hallow News, accompanied by a photo. Beneath it was the name November Knight, and her age: 15 years. November Knight had apparently been a part of the Saint’s Hallow school talent show, where she did a magic routine in which she created fire in her hand. The problem was that the fire ball she'd produced had somehow flown from her hand and caught onto the stage drapes, setting a fire that quickly grew.
The article was dated a month ago. Apparently the fire hadn't been enough to cause November Knight to give up on fire magic.
Candace let out a harsh breath.
“What is it?” I asked her.
“I know who burned a couple of high school kids alive I their car last night. This girl is a sociopath.”
“That fits the profile of most sorcerers,” Strummer said.
"Follow the fire devils," Candace said. "They will lead us to November Knight. With a 'K', not like the time of day."
"Uh, guys?" Fiona pointed off in the distance at great clouds of billowing smoke. “I think I know where she might have been recently.”
"Oh, shit," I breathed.
"I'll search the surrounding areas." Rae crouched and li
fted off, flapping her wings quickly.
"Raven!" Strummer called after her. "Do not get too close to the smoke or the sparks!"
She did a circle above his head, as if letting him know that she understood, and then took off into the sky.
"A magical arsonist?" I said.
Strummer grinned. "There are stranger things."
Indeed there were.
Fire devils were burning up the entire street. A long line of firetrucks were doing their best to put the flames out. November Knight had apparently begun at her school, breaking windows and tossing fire devils into empty classrooms. She’d hit the church next door, and then moved on to tossing them into houses along both sides of the street, zigzagging like an over eager trick-or-treater.
Black plumes of smoke billowed into the air, and the smell of things charring rose up around us. Sirens screamed, cutting through the roar of the fire. We couldn't get too close to the burning buildings, because police and fire fighters blocked the street, trying to keep people safe. I searched the crowd for the fifteen year old girl whose black and white photo showed a dark haired teen wearing a proud smile, as fire rose from her hand.
I saw a few teenagers here and there, hanging out on the outskirts of danger down the road. But I didn't see November. I walked down the street, searching faces.
Astrid moved ahead of me. "I'll take the left side, you take the right."
The sound of sirens, roaring fire, frantic shouts from fire fighters, police, and homeowners was disorienting. I tried to block them out as best I could. I didn’t work.
Strummer walked behind me. I glanced back and saw him looking up at the sky, searching for Rae. "Where is she?"
I said, "She has no clothes. She won't just land and start walking around with us."
Strummer continued searching the skies. "It's amazing how fast she can find something to wear when I'm not around."
Then I spotted Raven. She was sitting in the back of an ambulance, a large fire department sweatshirt over her small frame, and a pair of sweats billowing around her legs. She wore a pair of sneakers that looked too big for her. When she saw us, she winked, and then continued talking to the EMTs who were taking her vitals.
Strummer saw her and smiled. "See? She's incredible at blending in."
Astrid came up behind us, “Does that mean November Knight is still around here?”
"She's here somewhere," Strummer said. "I can feel her."
“Strummer, can you send out your tracker demons to pinpoint where she is?" This was from Fiona, who came up on the other side of me.
He shook his head. "She's been all over this street, leaving remnants of her magic everywhere. And with all the smoke, we'd just be adding to the difficulty the firefighters have in seeing what’s around them."
"Just keep walking and looking. She's here somewhere," I said.
"How do you know? Maybe she took off to avoid getting caught?" Astrid said.
"Because arsonists love to watch the mayhem unfold. They love to see the chaos they've caused, and to soak up people's reactions to what they've done." I continued scanning. "They're like murderers who inject themselves into the investigation. They get a kick out of it.”
Strummer said, “She's here. I can feel it. I can feel her smirking."
And just as he said that, I noticed a teenage girl in a black hoodie standing alone, leaning against a huge old oak at the edge of the city park. She was wearing a self-satisfied smile, and as I approached, she barely noticed. Her eyes were moving over the unholy mess she'd created, narrowed and glinting with unabashed glee.
But then she seemed to notice I was almost upon her and her gaze shot up to me, and then flicked to Astrid, Fiona, and Strummer, skittering over us like two spiders.
"November Knight," I said. "You’ve made quite a mess"
She moved to run away but I caught her by the sleeve. It took her half a second to slip through the hoodie. She took off running with almost superhuman speed.
"Holy, shit," I said, going after her. She was too fast to be a regular human being. She had to be half-shifter or she had the help of something otherworldly.
"Baal," I huffed out, panting as I tried to keep up with her, but she ran to the water and bounded into it, diving beneath the surface. "Damn it."
"Do not follow her," Strummer said, coming up beside me. "It's a trap. She is trying to lure you back into hell."
"What's with everyone suddenly wanting to lure me into hell?"
“Peer pressure,” Raven said from behind me. “Just say no.”
I ignored her. “Seriously. I’m not that special.”
Strummer stood next to me, looking at the water . "No? Are you certain about that?"
I gave him a questioning look. "What are you asking me?"
"You aren’t certain,” he said. “How much do you know about your parents?"
I shrugged. "Only that my mother gave me up when I was a few hours old."
He glance at me. "I'd say that's a clue that there's more to you than meets the eye, Ezra."
I felt myself prickling. This was a sensitive subject for me. “Yeah, me and about a billion other babies.”
“You weren’t like those billion other babies, though, were you?”
His soft voice was annoying the crap out of me. I wasn’t in the mood for riddles. "Whatever. What are we going to do about our little sorcerer arsonist? How do we get her back?"
"We do not. She's waiting for you in hell, hoping you will follow her. I now think that she’s been employed by Baal, with her payment being the promise of more dark magical power."
"Perfect.” Just what I needed to hear. “Can you pull her back out, like you did with Candy and me?" I stared at the surface of the water, expecting November Knight's head to bob up and start moving away from us. I couldn't believe she'd resort to going into hell to draw me in, all for more dark magical power. Dark magic eventually eats away at the user, body and soul. Nothing in this world, or any other, is free.
Strangely, I wondered how Candy's shift was going, now that she'd done a short stint in hell and come out of it being able to see the dead.
Strummer eyed the lake warily. "I could, but I'm not certain we wouldn't be pulling some really nasty things out of the lake along with her. I'm pretty sure she's made some friends down there."
"Wonderful," Astrid said.
"We’ve lost this battle. Let's go plan for the next one," Fiona said. "We need a strategy; this little hell raiser is more trouble than we thought she’d be."
Even fighters of evil need to eat, and we'd all missed lunch and dinner, so we ordered a pizza from the first restaurant we came to. This happened to be Mr. Cheesie’s Pizza on Main Street, just two blocks over from the devastation November Knight had created with her fire devils. We sat outside at a picnic table facing the lake, and ate slices of pepperoni and cheese pizza. The large pie I'd bought was almost gone.
"Okay," I said, swallowing down the last of my second slice. I tapped November's name into a search on my phone. "Let's find out more about Ms. Knight."
Fiona sat back, a huge slice cradled in both hands. "Why can't one of us just go in after her?"
Astrid quirked an eyebrow at her. "Are you volunteering?"
"Well, no, but if I have to, I will. This kid is freaking dangerous." Fiona stared at the surface of the water, which now reflected a rippled image of the moon. She chewed slowly, her brows furrowed. "We can't just wait for her to come out. She could emerge anywhere. It would be pointless."
"Well, I'm not willingly strolling into hell to grab her and bring her back," Astrid said. "Being possessed by that demon was all I can handle for one day." There was a slight quiver in her voice and she placed a half-eaten slice of pizza back into the box.
Fiona turned to Strummer. “You could pull me out., and my ghosts would protect me while I’m in hell.”
“Your ghosts would try, but I think you might under-estimate the strength of some devils.” Strummer picked up her half-eaten sli
ce and took a huge bite, a thoughtful look on his usually expressionless face. "I could pull you back out, but you may not come out alone, or you may not be the same as when you went in. Like what happened to Candace. Or, if a demon decides to latch onto you, it may come along for the ride when I pull you back out. Any number of things could happen. Also, your ghosts may get trapped in hell. You could lose them forever. Going into hell purposely is a bad idea. Many of us will end up there soon enough.”
"Well, what then?" Fiona looked at Strummer with shining eyes. "This kid is going to kill people. She's just getting started."
"We entice her out with something she wants, or because of something she doesn't want to happen." Strummer took a long swig of a bottle of raspberry iced tea. I wouldn’t have taken him for a fruity flavored iced tea kind of guy. But, people will surprise you.
I kept glancing up at them as I did my search. Finally, I found something interesting. It was a photo of November alone at a lunch table, apparently at school, looking as if she were staring into space. Someone had taken the pic with their phone and captioned it: I'm a loser freak with no friends.
I showed the photo to the others.
"Nice," Astrid said. "Jerks."
"There's also a video online. Hang on." I clicked on the video and we watched it, my anger on November's behalf rising. This was one long video of a series of short clips of practical jokes, mean comments, and malicious laughter directed at November. November stammering through a class presentation, bravely trying to speak over heckles and titters. November from behind, walking to her locker and discovering a small mirror taped to her locker door, with a sign above it that read, ugly ass freak. November in gym class; being knocked to the floor during a basketball game. November walking home from school being taunted by several teens who walked behind her. Someone spat in her hair.
The video was ten minutes long, and the torture of this girl was excruciating to watch.
"Well, that lovely video shows motive," Strummer said. "An angry, bullied, powerless girl turns to the dark side for protection and revenge."