Graves Pact (Landon Graves Book 1)

by Matthew Stinson

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead and paced around. “I’m not sure. My… source said that a mortal couldn’t open a Gate without a solid reference. He needs a copy of the ritual. After what I saw at the scene and here, I doubt he has the resources to have made a copy.”

  “But now he’s possessed. Does he really count as ‘mortal’ anymore?”

  “I’m not sure what—” I rambled off half a sentence before I processed what the detective said. I spat a curse as my brain caught up. “He might not need it anymore. He fails one Gate, performs a summoning and gets himself possessed. Then, the demon calls the shots. It tries to take out the investigators while it accumulates what it needs for another try. But it doesn’t need a copy of the actual Gate spell.”

  Mendoza hadn’t slacked off her vigil in the slightest, still toting her shotgun and keeping one eye on the door. “Targeting you tells us something about the demon’s plan.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, rising up to my feet.

  “It means that we can still stop it,” she said. “The ritual is too sensitive for the demon to simply go straight after it. The fiend has to beguile allies to protect it while it gathers materials for the rite.”

  I agreed, adding, “The longer it takes to set up the Gate, the more of a threat we are.”

  “How long are we talking about?” she asked. “Days? Weeks?”

  “It’s only a matter of getting the right components,” I replied. “A few days are the most we could hope for.”

  She frowned pensively.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I’m thinking about what we should do. We can squat on this apartment and hope he comes back,” she said, glancing around.

  I could tell the idea of sitting idle lacked appeal to her. She had that much in common with Phil. If I’d thought it practical, I would’ve argued in favor of laying a trap for the demon-possessed man.

  “There’s no guarantee he’s coming back today and while we’re sitting here, he’s getting closer to opening his Gate.”

  “To Cedar Meadows then?”

  “I guess that’s as good a place as any.” I smiled briefly and motioned toward the door. “After you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The flickering fluorescent lights of the hallway hurt my eyes and made me instantly queasy. To my pact-tainted sight, it was like ambulance lights flashing red and white. The stink of sweat and stale coffee permeated the air. I noticed the chipped paint, amateur graffiti tags, and unidentifiable stains decorating the beige walls.

  I did some mental math about Oliver. Before he’d destroyed everything, the cheap apartment had adequate furnishings: a TV, a couch, coffee table, a mattress. Stuff he’d brought with him when he downgraded in life. I could almost relate to that slow, downward spiral.

  “You got something?” Mendoza asked, pulling my attention from my thoughts.

  “No, let’s go,” I said, breaking my pensive gaze from the busted apartment door.

  We turned and the lights sputtered, cutting out for just a second. With my Devil’s Sight, I saw the man before Mendoza did. He stood at the far end of the hall where a fire escape led to the back alley. As the lights reasserted themselves, Mendoza followed my eyes to the hooded figure in construction boots.

  Even at a distance, I recognized him as the same one who’d attacked me. Oliver Pontas. A dozen thoughts ran through my head, but luckily my gun came up as a trained response without me having to think.

  I had a shot, though difficult at that range. I didn’t have time to second-guess myself. Contrary to popular belief, we in law enforcement only fired our weapons for one reason—not to wound or intimidate. We fired when we intended to kill someone. I knew the danger this man posed, both the immediate and short-term.

  Mendoza picked a hell of a time to let her fury loose. I was halfway to squeezing off my first round when her divine presence swelled up. Recoiling involuntarily, I was fortunate that I didn’t fire a stray round. I missed my second chance to end the threat.

  He was far enough away that the detective’s shotgun was almost useless. Before she acted, I felt her tense up like a spring. The pins and needles sensation penetrated deep into my skin. I could barely move. Glad she’s not mad at me.

  With an alarmed expression, Oliver bolted toward a back door. My gut told me something was wrong. “Mendoza, wait.”

  Damn that woman’s reflexes. She was already sprinting down the hall by the time I forced the words out of my mouth. I had little choice but to go after her, my legs jerking in awkward motions as I overcame her divine influence.

  There was something amiss, something beyond the apparent that I was failing to fully grasp. That was the problem with my instincts being warped by my pact. I never knew when to trust them. Mendoza’s righteous aura didn’t help matters either.

  The detective sprinted down the hall at Olympic speed, me trailing behind. She skidded to a halt, hitting the corner to exercise some measure of caution. Peering around the corner for a moment, she gave me a chance to catch up. Then, she pivoted and surged forward.

  I rounded the corner as she kicked open the inner door of the fire escape, revealing a set of stairs leading up to ground level and a back door. That outer door closed just before Mendoza topped the stairs. Going out into the back alley blindly was dangerous, bordering on reckless. She basically had two options: stop and open the door cautiously or hit the door running.

  The nagging doubt wouldn’t leave me. Mendoza was fast, but not that fast. There was no way she’d closed the distance between her and Oliver that quickly. The Exiled puppet master had wanted her to catch up. I was right behind her, taking the stairs two at a time.

  “Damn it, hold on!”

  Seemingly unhindered by the stairs, the Chosen threw her hip into the bar of the door at full speed, keeping her shotgun in both hands. The door flew open and I was momentarily blinded by the bright afternoon light washing in. My momentum carried me forward and I stumbled into Mendoza.

  For an instant so brief it barely registered to my senses, I felt cold slide over my skin. My stomach clenched at a sudden pang of nausea. As I opened my eyes, we weren’t where I expected us to be. I didn’t even think we were on Earth anymore.

  In the span of a second, we’d been sent somewhere else.

  The bleak, nightmarish cityscape perfectly modeled Denver in form, but the faces of the buildings were indistinct and all in subtle variations of a hazy slate gray color. Shadowy mist drifted up from the ground, undulating like greasy fingers to caress my feet. There was dim ambient light, like an evening under heavy cloud-cover, but I couldn’t see the sun.

  It’s dark here. I can see the dark. What’s going on?

  “Graves,” Mendoza said quietly, her eyes wide with alarm. She kept the shotgun raised, scanning slowly. “Where are we? What happened?”

  “Uh, everything is alright,” I said much more calmly than I felt. “Oliver drew us into some kind of trap.”

  I had no idea what was going on, but I wasn’t about to let panic take control. I vaguely recalled reading about some of the various nether realms that jutted up against Earth. They weren’t full, distinct planes of existence like Heaven and Hell. They were “easier” to enter for one thing. Apparently, any junkie hijacked by a demon can toss you into one.

  These places intersected and overlapped with the mortal realm. Supernaturally inclined beings could enter them by crossing Borderlines—the mystical boundaries between fundamental elements. The surface of a body of water and the edge between light and shadow were the two most commonly mentioned, but they could be created in a number of ways. I used smoke when summoning Alastor, but dust, fog, mist, clouds, and mud all acted the same way.

  The blending or stark juxtaposition of such primal elements interacted with ambient magical fields in ways I didn’t even pretend to understand. Borderlines bent things so that channels could be opened. It was the basis of all conjuration magic, as I understood it.

  “The door�
��” I said, thinking aloud. “It was a focus and a Borderline. The way the light fell across it… its purpose of dividing places.”

  I turned to look at the door, surprised to find what appeared to be a vertical surface of shimmering oil. A healthy amount of caution kept me from reaching out to touch it. There was no evidence of a sigil on the building’s siding, but I didn’t see any graffiti either. Just gray.

  “I saw the bastard,” Mendoza said, garnering my attention. Her gaze swept around the landscape taking in the sight of the simultaneously familiar and alien. “He was standing right by the door.”

  “He probably needed to trigger the sigil that brought us here,” I offered, spit-balling some kind of answer for her as I tried to figure out some answers of my own.

  I could see it in her eyes. She was adrift. She needed something concrete to anchor on. I tried to give her solid statements, but facts just weren’t in the picture right now.

  “Are… are we in Hell?” Mendoza asked as she stared out at the writhing darkness.

  I would have laughed, but I was still reeling from the fact that I’d been drawn into an alternate dimension where I was seeing inky black shadows for the first time in five years. “This isn’t Gehenna, Hades, or Hell. No, we’re somewhere else.”

  “You gonna be more specific than that?” she asked. “Because I’m out of my depth here.”

  Judging by the environment, I took a stab. “The shadow realm. It’s… shallower than other dimensions. Closer to ours. Like a cloudy mirror of it.”

  I hoped she didn’t ask me anything else about it, because I’d just exhausted my knowledge. I didn’t feel her emitting celestial radiation and I hazarded a guess why. She was running solo—no divine backup in this place for some reason.

  I could still feel Alastor’s vile influence, so I knew I had my power, meager as it might be. It told me something about what it meant to be one of the Chosen. She didn’t have some angel’s hooks buried inside her. I had something festering in me, inseparable, while her mantle of power could come and go.

  It cleared something up for me. Mendoza didn’t get her power from God. She got it from the angels who worked for Him. Or whatever was really going on up in heaven. The angels had limits to their power where the Creator had none.

  “It must be tough,” I said, though she didn’t acknowledge it. “You get used to knowing they’re always watching. Now, you’re alone.”

  Mendoza whipped her head and glared wildly, like she had just realized she was trapped in a cage with a rattlesnake. I was a little jazzed that I rated such a response but mostly offended by the lack of trust. I supposed I deserved it.

  “Relax,” I said, recoiling from her horrified stare. I spoke calmly, trying to put her at ease. “We’ll figure a way out of here.”

  My words didn’t have the intended effect. “You mean you don’t know how to get out?”

  Affronted, I said, “Excuse my ignorance. It’s not like I spend my winters in Hell to avoid the cold! I don’t know how to cross over into nether realms. All I’ve got are theories.”

  Scowling, she turned her head away and said nothing. I shook my head and started looking around, performing my own inspection. As I walked, I noticed the ground had a sort of bounce to it, like the tough rubber they put under some playground jungle gyms.

  Kneeling, I didn’t see any gravel, trash, or other debris. The ground was… sterile and devoid beneath the wisps of shadows. Mendoza pulled out a small flashlight and the beam swept in front of me, cutting through the darkness like a knife. I noticed the delay with which the oily shadows oozed back in. The unnaturalness disturbed me. Is this darkness alive?

  “Should we… look around?” Mendoza asked.

  Thinking over it for a moment, I replied, “No… this was our way here. I want to see if I can figure out if it’s a way back.”

  The fog seemed especially thick around the doorway. I dry washed my hands before reluctantly reaching a hand out, flinching as my skin came into contact with the cold, oily surface of the door. I applied pressure and watched as my hand slowly sunk through.

  With my arm wrist deep in the liquid door, I felt empty space beyond. “I think I can push through, not that it’ll do much—”

  An ear-piercing shriek split the air, cutting off my last word. The sound bounced off the walls oddly, making it difficult to track. I whirled my head around and looked to the pale gray, sunless sky. Suddenly, I was very concerned about my hand being stuck in a tar pit of a door.

  Because this place wasn’t creepy enough on its own. Of course there had to be something living here to make it even worse.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Graves…” Mendoza said. “What the hell was that? What lives here?”

  She saw my wide eyes and instantly knew that I had no idea. She cursed and put the butt of her shotgun to her shoulder with the smooth motion of someone familiar with its use. Looking toward the sky, she started scanning for trouble.

  I fought the primal urge to tear at my wrist like some animal in a trap. The black semi-tangible material grudgingly released me, my hand slipping out slowly. I looked around wildly, glancing back to see strands of the tacky substance peel away from my hand like cold pitch.

  In my peripheral, I saw a blurry winged creature flying through the air. Whipping my head, I lost track of it as the thing disappeared behind the roof of the next building. I caught only a glimpse of a long sinuous tail.

  My hand finally came free, numb with cold. Feeling returned slowly, pins and needles stinging my fingertips. I didn’t trust it just then, so I awkwardly drew my gun with my left hand.

  “Graves,” Mendoza breathed with urgency.

  I turned quickly, following the detective’s shotgun to the small creature sitting in the alley street a dozen feet from us. I noticed more as they lined up on the eaves of the buildings like gargoyles, peering down with hungry curiosity. I found it hard to believe that the loud shriek came from one of them.

  Onyx skeletons were the only constant about the creatures. Dull-gray wisps rose from the shiny black bones in place of flesh, waving like hair underwater or slow motion flames. Their eyes were pinpoints of blue light set deep in the sockets of ebony skulls.

  They seemed to be waiting for something.

  The gentle stirring of the air gave me a split second warning.

  I yanked Mendoza down with me as a larger version of the creatures swooped overhead. From my kneeling position, I watched the great undulating beast as it banked off the side of the apartment. The little ones scurried out of the way as it gracefully rolled midair, landing with a muffled thud.

  It paced back and forth with feline grace for a moment. Then it stalked up to the apartment building and scaled it like a massive gecko to gain some kind of vantage. Maybe it needed the added height to get airborne.

  With only the frame, I found it difficult to categorize the creatures. Watching the way the big one swam through the air reminded me of a snake in water. Calling it a reptile felt right. Like a dragon made of gray shadows. A little dragon. A drake.

  The shadow drake sank its onyx claws into the side of the building as though it was made of soft clay. Its arms and legs worked mechanically as its head and torso remained steady, like a cat stalking a mouse. I had the good sense to be terrified.

  Mendoza had the better sense to shoot it.

  The roar of the Remington thundered across the painfully quiet shadow-scape. The flash of light from the muzzle hurt my eyes and my ears registered only keening deafness. I felt more than heard the barks of the shotgun as she continued to fire. Spent green shells tumbled through the air trailing real smoke.

  Errant pellets from the spray disappeared within the wall, leaving no evidence of damage. The buckshot scattered off the “bones” of the drake with little effect, though it recoiled. The blasts must have been painful to the creature in some way, because it spread its wings and hissed at us. Though I couldn’t hear it, the sound drew more unwanted attention.
/>   “Oh jeez,” I said as I looked around us. “It’s got friends.”

  Dozens more of the miniature versions of the shadow drake skittered across the ground and walls. Some flew clumsily through the air, circling us like vultures with the scent of a dying animal. A chorus of chirps and cries gathered more of the little beasts by the second.

  “We shouldn’t fight them here,” Mendoza said with quiet intensity.

  “Yeah, running sounds like a good idea to me too.”

  Mendoza nodded her head westward—or what I thought would be westward on Earth. I knew she had no plan, but I complied immediately. It wasn’t like I had any better ideas. I easily kept pace with her jog. Unfortunately, so did the shadow drake and its spawn.

  Panting breaths turned my mouth bone-dry in the waterless realm. Without signage or distant landmarks, I lost my bearings after only a few turns. With no streets signs, no sun, and the mountains obscured by thick fog, I had no means to orient myself.

  Smooth pillars—maybe light poles in the real world—lined an open field of hazy shadows that cleared up at chest level. I thought that it might have been a road. Mendoza grumbled and scanned around. “We need to be some place they can’t just surround us.”

  I got the sense that the only reason the creatures hadn’t swarmed us immediately was for the thrill of a hunt, however short. They darted about at the edge of my sight and around the corners of the nether realm structures. Their body language came across as playful. Playful like cats and killer whales.

  “Let’s keep moving,” I said with confidence I didn’t feel.

  We both renewed the light jog, the chattering of the drakes granting a sense of their voracious desires. The malleable ground made no sound at the impact of their claws and the pervading mist muffled the flaps of their wings. The bored creatures were hunters, naturally stealthy and cruel enough to draw out the chase.

  “Over there,” Mendoza said, nodding toward a cluster of buildings that we approached.