Soul Breaker

by Clara Coulson

  “Huh. That’s odd.” Cooper tilts his head to the side as he trudges past me into a small kitchen decked out with stainless steel appliances. On his counter sits a line of dishes, covered in tinfoil. It smells like he was cooking something only minutes ago. “Look, I know I should have waited until work hours, but I…” He blows out a big breath. “Well, you’re here now. So why don’t you sit down at the table, through there”—he points toward his living room, filled with neat bookshelves and antique furniture, where one half of a dining room is visible past an entryway—“and let me bring everything to you?”

  “Bring everything?” I cock an eyebrow.

  Cooper gives me a smile over his shoulder and peels the tinfoil back from one of the plates, revealing a heap of scrambled eggs. “I was hungry, and I figured you might be hungry, too, so I made breakfast.”

  I’m not entirely sure what to think of a guy I met yesterday fixing me breakfast at his house at three in the morning after calling me over for “urgent business,” so I shrug my shoulders, dumbfounded, and reply, “Okay, then.” Following his instructions, I pick a seat at his (also antique) dining room table and slip my coat off, tossing it over the back of my chair. Cooper trails me into the room, holding four plates like a restaurant server. He expertly arranges them on the table and pulls all the foil off. Then he scuttles back into his kitchen for plates, silverware, and a blessed pot of coffee.

  Two minutes later, I’m helping myself to roughly five pieces of bacon, six eggs, and three slices of toast. What can I say? I’m a growing boy.

  Cooper loads up his plate while watching me eat, but before he digs into his own food, he slides out of his chair and grabs an old, heavy book off a nearby side table. I recognize it as one of the books he selected for research at the library earlier. “Hey,” I say, “aren’t books that old supposed to stay in the library?”

  Cooper raises a finger to his lips. Shh. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  “Ah, so you’re less of a goody-goody than I thought.” I wink at him.

  “Hah, you’d be surprised.” He chuckles nervously and returns his attention to the book. A page near the middle of the tome is bookmarked with one of those little plastic tabs you use in school. Cooper drops the book on the table with a thump, then picks up his fork and points it at me. “Anyway! I found it, the language from the writing on the wall.”

  I pause with a piece of bacon sticking out of my mouth. “Come again?”

  “It was in the second-to-last book I had in my lineup, lucky me.” He flips the book open to the marked page. “The language belongs to an ancient Mediterranean civilization that originated on the Italian peninsula: the Etruscans.”

  I swallow my piece of bacon, half-chewed. “Come again?”

  On the book page rests a sheet of folded white paper with two lines written on it. The first line consists of the symbols left on Jason Franks’ dorm room wall. The second line, I assume, is a translation. Cooper taps the piece of paper with his finger and says, “For those who defile the honor of the dead will have their souls thus broken. That’s what it says.”

  Thirty seconds pass where I gawk at Cooper Lee, a strip of bacon clenched in my fist, before my sleep-deprived brain catches up to what he said. “Are you telling me you searched through thousands of pages of text, found a dead language that matched the writing on Franks’ wall, and translated that writing, all in the span of a few hours?”

  Cooper picks up some egg on his fork and shrugs. “That’s kind of my job. You know, research.”

  I lean back in the chair and shake my head. Somebody needs a confidence boost. “Dude,” I say, “this goes way beyond research. You’ve got some serious skills.”

  “Um, thanks.” Cooper tries to hide a light blush behind a napkin. “But it’s no big deal. Really. I do this sort of thing all the time. Anyway, I thought you might want this for the inevitable morning task meeting for the case.” He passes the translation paper over to me. “The message is a bit cryptic, I think, but at least it clarifies the motive for the murders: Apparently your victims somehow defiled the dead, and it pissed somebody off. Maybe they’re grave robbers?”

  “If that’s true, they picked the wrong damn grave.” I toss the bacon into my gullet and chew thoughtfully. “But you’re right. Given the message, it must have something to do with a deceased person or people.” I grab a piece of toast and chomp down, continuing with my mouth full, like a total slob. “This is good work, Cooper. I mean it. We need all the leads for this case we can get. After we lost blue ugly in the garden and then that spirit burned its way out of HQ…the case is a mess, man. A huge mess.”

  I glance at the translation paper, then at Cooper. “This message may help answer a lot of questions, which is why”—I slide the paper back to his side of the table—“you should present it at the morning meeting yourself.”

  Cooper almost chokes on his eggs. “What? No! I’m an archivist. We don’t go to task meetings. We just, you know, sit at our checkout desks and flip through books and…”

  “No objections.” I point my toast at Cooper’s reddening face. “You’re obviously a smart, skilled agent, Cooper. You deserve credit where credit is due. And don’t say you’re just an archivist. Ella Dean herself said archivists are as vital as every other agent at the office, to my face, this afternoon. So I’m sure she’d agree that you should present your own findings at the meeting.”

  Cooper’s cheeks are bright pink now. “B-B-But I’m not invited.”

  “I’m inviting you, right now.” I drop my toast back on the plate and dig the sticky note out of my pocket, holding it up for Cooper to see. “I have my own findings to present anyway.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure then.” Cooper drops his gaze to the table and takes a deep breath. “You should know I’m not a very good speaker though.”

  “Won’t get better if you don’t practice.” I turn the sticky note over and over again on my palm. The ink on the note is smudged, like someone wrote it in a hurry.

  Cooper mutely nods, then starts eating again, eyes on the note in my hand. “So, is that the message that was left on your door?”

  “Yup.”

  “Did you see who left it?”

  “Nope. He or she knocked a few times, stuck this on the door, and, I assume, ran off.” I drop the note on the table, next to my plate. “By the time I opened the door, the guy was gone. Fast, too. And quiet.” I gulp down the last of my coffee. “I honestly thought it was big blue ugly, at first, come to finish the job.”

  “Who is big blue ugly exactly? That’s the second time you’ve mentioned him.” Cooper sips his own coffee and redirects his gaze to my sling. “Is that who hurt you? I heard you got hurt at a confrontation at the garden—it was in an office-wide email—but they didn’t give specifics on what hurt you. At least, not in the email I received. But I don’t usually get the juicy stuff in my inbox. I didn’t even hear about the spirit escape until a buddy of mine from Analytics told me about it.” He shrugs. “Archivist. That’s my lot.”

  “Oh, so you didn’t see my awesome drawing, then?” A flash of anger swells up in my chest—or is it protectiveness? In my opinion, all DSI agents should be informed when there are threats like blue ugly and the fire spirit roaming around Aurora. DSI people tend to be targets, given our “meddling” in supernatural affairs. Plus, Cooper’s technically on this case with Ella, Riker, and me. He should be in the central loop, not in some dusty corner, waiting for scraps. Hm, wonder whose ass I’ll have to bust to correct this little issue?

  Cooper frowns. “Drawing?”

  “Describing blue ugly is not sufficient. You have to see this thing to believe it. Eight feet tall. Ugly as sin. Has a giant-ass hammer as its weapon of choice.” I rap my fork against my coffee cup, chuckling. “You got a pencil and some paper I can borrow?”

  But Cooper doesn’t budge to retrieve my needed supplies. His blond brows furrow, and he runs a hand through hair flat on one side, like he fell asleep at a desk.
His other hand falls to the still-open book on the table next to his food, and a hesitant but steady finger starts flipping through the musty old pages. Five. Ten. Twenty pages. Cooper scans each one and then moves to the next, faster than I could ever hope to analyze such a dense, complex text.

  “Uh, Cooper, what are you…?”

  He slams his finger on the bottom half of what seems like a random, faded page. “Big blue ugly,” he whispers. “Charun.”

  “What?” I drop my fork, and it clatters on my crumb-covered plate. “Charun? What is Charun?”

  Cooper hefts up the heavy book and turns it around so I can see what’s written on the page. Or, rather, what’s drawn on the page. The ink has been washed almost white with time, but there, on the page of a book written centuries before I was born, is a clear depiction of the same creature that handed my ass to me in the Memorial Garden. Above the creature is written its name, Charun, and between the name and the picture lies a brief description: Psychopomp of the Etruscan Underworld.

  “So,” Cooper says, swallowing hard, “is that your big blue ugly?”

  “Yeah.” The words come out more softly than a whisper. “That is exactly my big blue ugly.”

  Cooper sets the book on the table and gapes at me in utter horror, plus a dash of awe, attention stuck to my sling like flypaper. “Uh, I really hate to tell you this, Cal, but I’m pretty sure you got off lucky in the garden. Like, super lucky. Because unless you’re pulling my leg here, you had a showdown with Charun, Etruscan death demon and guardian of the Underworld, who, it just so happens, wields a big-ass hammer.”

  A minute ticks by in complete silence. Then I move. My last piece of toast sits forgotten as I push back my chair, stand up, head for Cooper’s front door, open the door, step out onto the landing, and scream, at the top of my lungs:

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Jesus, that thing is ugly,” says Ella Dean while chewing on a blueberry bagel. She’s seated two chairs down from me at the rectangular task room table, gaze glued to the scanned image of Charun projected onto the screen on the opposite wall. Between her and me sits Cooper Lee, fidgeting after each sentence he speaks; the Archive tome on the tabletop before him now sports several more colored bookmarks. A couple minutes ago, Riker, at the head honcho spot at the table, asked Cooper to explain Charun, in detail, to the attentive class of DSI agents scattered about the room.

  Oh, and the ICM reps, too. Erica the witch is here, leaning against a wall, and an older man I assume is Allen Marcus (no introductions were made) loiters nearby. Neither of them look too happy about the fact that an Etruscan death demon is roaming around Aurora, threatening mass destruction. Erica in particular has gone a bit pale and keeps nibbling on her bottom lip—this must be her first big Eververse “issue” as a full-fledged ICM member. Marcus, obviously more experienced, wears a sour expression but otherwise looks unfazed. That man has seen some shit.

  Cooper takes a sip of his cooling coffee and clears his throat. “S-So, given the message written on the wall of Jason Franks’ dorm room, I think we can reasonably conclude that the motive for summoning Charun was to take revenge for some perceived slight against the dead. Which dead, in particular, I don’t yet know.”

  Delarosa, who was relegated to late-night “monster hunt” duty after Ella bumped him out of the main detective running yesterday, yawns and says, “Do you have any idea what that slight might have been?” He scratches at his dark, graying stubble. “It’s going to be hard to track down the summoner if we don’t know why they put forth the effort to summon a demon from a long-dead culture. I mean, jeez, there are easier ways to get vengeance, even easier magic ways. There are hundreds, if not thousands of better-known entities they could have summoned from the Eververse to kill Franks and Wilkins. Why Charun, the Etruscan Psychopomp? That’s so obscure. There had to be a specific reason they chose him over others.”

  “I-I’m sorry, sir.” Cooper Lee slouches lower in his chair. “I can’t even begin to guess why the summoner picked Charun. Besides the honor of the dead message, there’s no indication of what ‘crimes’ the victims committed that could have pushed the summoner in the Etruscan direction.”

  “What about the fire spirit?” Riker chimes in. His arms are crossed tight against his chest, and his lips barely move when he speaks, body language betraying the leg pain he’s trying his best to hide. “Are there any beings in the book that match what Kinsey saw in the interrogation room? Hideous creature that can turn into a ball of fire at will?”

  Cooper wrings his hands in his lap and bites his tongue. I nudge him with my elbow and give him a thumbs-up under the table. After a nervous moment passes, he collects himself, flashes me a brief thank-you smile, and answers, “Not that I’ve found so far, Captain. I’ve searched through all the major entities, but none of them resemble the fire spirit. There are some minor entities I have yet to investigate though—I ran out of time before the meeting. I’ll continue my research after we break and get back to you ASAP if I find anything.”

  Riker eyes Cooper for a second, evaluating the anxious agent, then nods. “Thank you for your insight, Cooper. I’m glad you decided to join us this morning. Your findings will likely prove invaluable.”

  Coopers sputters out, “N-No problem, sir.”

  My grumpy captain hides an uncharacteristic smile behind his hand, pretending to rub his nose—because even he can’t not like Cooper Lee—and switches his attention to me. “So, Kinsey, now that we’ve established we’re dealing with an Etruscan death monster, tell us about your mysterious nighttime visitor.”

  “Wish I could, sir, but he was too fast for me. My guess is that somebody got cold feet about this dark magic business when it turned sour with, you know, death, and decided to clue DSI in. Might have seen me at the garden.” I clap once and point at an analyst named Clarissa Sheehan sitting a few chairs away from me. “But, name or no name, he left me a nice, cryptic message: a website address for a local ‘occult’ fan forum. I immediately guessed the forum might have some connection to our case, since these sorts of organizations tend to appeal to a younger demographic, and our victims, so far, have been college students. So I asked Agent Sheehan here to see if she could hunt down a member list for the forum that we could then cross-reference with all involved parties in the case so far.” I nod at Sheehan. “Please, tell us what you found.”

  Sheehan tugs on her messy bun and organizes a few printed pages on the table in front of her before replying, “Well, the website wasn’t particularly secure. I was able to obtain a complete member list—an email address list—after poking around for about fifteen minutes, no official inquiry channels needed. Then I compared the email list to the case profiles of our victims, Franks, Wilkins, and Johnston.” She makes a deliberately dramatic pause that annoys everybody but me. “They were all members of the website.”

  “But wait,”—I say, cutting off Riker as he opens his mouth—“there’s more!”

  Sheehan flips to another sheet of paper. “I searched through the forum records for posts by our victims to see if I could find more specific connections between them. As it so happens, all three were part of a biweekly meet-up group of magic aficionados, concerned with finding ‘real’ magical texts and performing the spells contained in those texts. Their last meeting was two days ago.”

  An uncomfortable silence fills the room for a minute.

  Riker sighs and rubs his temples. The motion highlights the dark bags under his eyes, the deepening wrinkles at their corners, the bleary irritation on his lids. Not for the first time, I almost wish the commissioner had forced Riker on extended leave. He should be on a beach in Hawaii, relaxing between physical therapy sessions, not in the middle of a murder investigation. Stubborn old ass.

  After a whispered swear, the captain says, “So it’s likely we do, in fact, have a case of naïve kids dabbling in the wrong sort of magic.”

  “That’s one dimension of the case
, I believe.” I pick up the remaining half of my jam-slathered bagel and rip it to pieces. “But not the whole story. Can’t be. Given the complexity of Charun’s summoning, there must be an experienced sorcerer involved in the equation somewhere. Minor practitioners or not, ignorant kids couldn’t have created that circle.

  “As such, I have three theories. One, the totally ignorant kids managed to summon the fire spirit, who then used Ally Johnston’s body to summon Charun. Two, a not-so-ignorant minor practitioner tricked the other kids into helping him summon the fire spirit, who then used Ally Johnston’s body to summon Charun. Or, three, an experienced sorcerer either summoned both the fire spirit and Charun, or summoned the fire spirit and used it to help him summon Charun. But where the other kids fit into that scenario, I don’t know.”

  I direct my gaze to Allen Marcus and Erica. “Regardless of what exactly happened, though, there is no way the ignorant kids themselves summoned Charun. Right?”

  Marcus steps away from the wall, toward the table, and strokes his beard. “Correct, Detective. I’d say the summoner of Charun, if indeed human, had twenty years of circle crafting experience, minimum. Summoning is a particularly difficult magical specialty, and there are few masters who teach it, since Eververse summoning is largely restricted by the Council. I’ve already put a call in to Council headquarters, asking if they have information on a potential sorcerer in the Aurora area, but I haven’t received a response yet. If and when I do, I’ll pass the information along to you all.”

  Riker looks thoughtful for a moment, then points at Sheehan. “You have the full roster for that meet-up group, correct?”

  “Yes, sir,” she says. “I have my team building profiles for all the members as we speak.”

  “Good.” He picks up a pen and begins to twirl it around in his fingers. “I’m wondering if, perhaps, a sorcerer infiltrated the group under the guise of playing a mentor-type role for these young magic enthusiasts.”