Blood and Treasure_An Urban Fantasy Novel

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Is that what you told your wives before you killed them?” I asked, shaking my head. “Did you tell them something was wrong then too, or did you just let them go on believing everything was okay right up to point when you sliced their throats, or knocked them over the head with something? You’ll have to forgive me. I’m a little fuzzy on the details. I’ve been out of town for a while.”

  This caused his eyes to go wide. He lay there on the floor, realization dawning across his features. He didn’t know all of what was going on, of course. To do that, he’d have to be down with the whole ‘warlocks, demons, and all the rest exist’ thing, and I had neither the time nor inclination to educate him on any of it right now. He did seem to realize I wasn’t his friend, and that I held him responsible for the things that happened to the women he claimed to love, and I was going to make him pay. Well, good enough. He didn’t need more information than that anyhow.

  “I was-I was acquitted,” he said breathlessly, looking up at me from a bathroom floor which was probably spotless before Gary smeared this guy’s blood across it.

  “I’m not a judge, Colin, and I couldn’t give two shits whether or not you were acquitted. We both know it doesn’t mean you’re not guilty.” I grinned malevolently.

  Colin’s face seemed to settle. I knew that look, the resolved set of his mouth and the determined crinkle of his brow. He knew what I planned to do, and he was going to try to talk his way out of it.

  “How much?” he asked. “How much do you want? I’ll go to the damn ATM and we can be done with this.”

  The flippant tone in his voice pissed me off more than even his cocky smirk had.

  “Money might have gotten you out of things before, you pompous asshole, but it won’t save you now.”

  The incredible bastard literally scoffed at me. “That’s what everyone says at first. I’ve lived long enough to know that everyone has a price, especially when they say they don’t.”

  My eyes pulsated red as indignation sent a flush of energy through me. “If that’s what you’ve learned, then you haven’t lived nearly long enough.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Actually, you know what, I’ll bite. How much would it cost to bring back your dead wives? I’ll take that much.” The smug calmness in his eyes reverted back to panic, and he screamed for help. I’ll be honest, for half a second, I was almost worried someone would come in here, but when no one did, I let out a satisfied smile. These walls were soundproofed. No one could hear him scream.

  “Shut him up,” I said to Gary, who immediately laid a foot so forcefully against his windpipe, I knew Colin would never speak again, not that he had much time left to give it a try or anything.

  He fell back to the floor, writhing and struggling as his legs flailed in horror at what was happening.

  I moved forward and crouched down. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions for me, Colin. You’d probably like to know who I am. You’d probably like to know what I am. You probably still want to know who I’m talking to. Well, I’m not going to answer any of those questions for you. I going to let you die the same way you almost certainly let them die, confused and afraid. Before I do that though, I just have to know something. I just have to feel it to be sure.”

  As Gary jumped out of the way I pressed a red glowing palm against the man’s chest. The energy probably wouldn’t have sucked him up anyway, but there was little need to chance it.

  Colin’s muscled tensed as I touched him, probably in an effort to get away. There was no use in trying. Once I was latched on, I was the only one who could have pulled myself off.

  The demon roared to life inside of me, eagerly gulping up the man’s life force. I felt it all, all the privilege, all the pettiness, and then all the darkness. Over the years, I had ‘eaten’ enough of the world’s worst to get the running theme about them. It was here inside of Colin too; the insatiable need to destroy, the hunger to kill. He had done what he had been accused of. I had no doubt now.

  I pulled away, leaving him looking at me in abject horror.

  “I was going to do this slowly,” I said to him through gritted teeth. “I wanted you to suffer for what you did, but I can’t stand to look at you anymore.”

  I plunged my palm back against him, unleashing my full potential and ripping the essence right out of his body. Still, even with my demon side feasting, something inside of me wasn’t at peace. The reason I didn’t want to look at Colin anymore, the reason I wanted it done quickly, was because I’d recognized the darkness inside of him too intimately. It was no different than mine really, just focused in a different way.

  I could have been him, if raised a different way. I could have been worse.

  As the last of his life force poured into me and I pulled away, feeling reenergized and almost giddy from the feeding, I couldn’t help but feel a bit dirty.

  “Get my fingerprints off of him, and take care of any security footage,” I said, slipping back into our old routine as I tried to shake off the uncomfortable comparison because, at the end of the day, I hadn’t become that dirt bag.

  “Sure,” Gary answered. “I just need to-”

  Before he could finish, a piercing buzzing noise infiltrated my head. Gary heard it too, because he crumpled to the ground. Three long and blindingly intrusive beeps sounded inside of my skull. The damned thing felt like it was going to split open, and then it stopped.

  “No,” Gary gasped, hopping back up and shaking his head. “No. No. No. That’s not possible. It’s not-”

  “Gary!” I snapped, blinking focus back into my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s an alarm system. It was set up ages ago. But, for it to go off, that would mean that the entire Astra coven was-” He stopped short. Then, looking up at me, he replied. “I think you were right. We never should have left.”

  22

  “Why, Gary?” I asked, my heart racing and my temper flaring as I looked the imp up and down. The look on his face was of pure, unabashed terror. His arms were outstretched, and his hands were balled into oblong fists. “Why should we never have left? What does that fucking alarm mean?”

  The noise that had just nearly split both of our skulls was loud and disconcerting enough I pretty much knew the answer. I mean, it’s not like people sound mystical alarms when they want Chinese takeout or anything. I mean, okay, there was that one time, but I’d been really drunk and trying to impress a girl, so I don’t think that counts. Either way, I needed to hear it from him. I needed the confirmation before I let myself flip out.

  “The Astra coven set it up around New Olympus.” He looked up at me. “That’s what they call the place, New Olympus. They swore they wanted to keep Renee safe, to help her reach her true potential. Part of that was vowing to protect her from all those douchebags who wanted to use her or kill her to make a name for themselves.” He shook his head. “You know how people can be.”

  “Gary! Focus!” I screamed at him.

  “The alarm means that someone or something is inside the inner sanctum. It means something that intends to do Renee harm is in there with her.”

  My heart leapt, colliding with my ribcage in sickeningly rapid succession. “The Tantibus,” I said breathlessly. “Goddamn it! I told you, Gary! I told you we shouldn’t have left!”

  “No,” he answered, his eyes wide and his teeth nearly chattering together. “This doesn’t make sense. The inner sanctum is guarded. Every witch and warlock in the coven is sworn to protect it. Even the children. If something is in there, then that means the entire Astra coven is-”

  “No,” I said, my jaw setting as rage began to supersede the fear inside of me. “Don’t say it. Renee aside, my brother is in there. My son is in there, for Christ’s sake. So you don’t get to finish that sentence. Do you understand me?”

  Gary stared at me for a lengthy moment and then, with a cracking voice, said, “I didn’t know, Roy. If I’d have thought-”

  “Not now,” I growled. “I don’t need a damn apology from yo
u right now.”

  “Then what?” Gary asked. “What do you need from me?”

  “I need you to get out of the way,” I muttered. “And get ready to jump.”

  I stretched my arms outward, letting my wingspan reach its full potential. With a shift in my personal chemistry, the red in my eyes disappeared, replaced with a hint of blue energy which swirled and surrounded my hands.

  “What are you doing?” Gary asked, his tiny, green body pressed against the far wall. Colin’s corpse sat on the floor, depleted and staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t have any energy left, and that meant he wasn’t of any use to me anymore. The truth was though- even if he did- even if he was alive and kicking, his life force wouldn’t help me now. I needed a different sort of battery.

  “There’s no way we can make it back to the inner sanctum in time. If the Tantibus is already there- if it made it to Renee- then it won’t matter how fast I drive. I need to teleport and, to do that, I need juice. Lots and lots of supernatural juice.” I said, my jaw set and my heart racing.

  “So?” Gary asked.

  “So I’m scouring for some,” I answered, letting the blue energy my warlock side produced jut out away from my body and through the walls. It would ride the air, like waves on the water, until it found someone I could use. Vampire, demon, angel—it didn’t matter. This was an S.O.S call and any supernatural in a two-mile radius would be unable to say no to it.

  Usually, this wasn’t the sort of thing I traveled in. Bogarting energy from unsuspecting (and probably unwilling) supernatural creatures was bad etiquette and a really quick way to make a bunch of enemies. It wouldn’t take more than a simple locator spell for any pissed off witch to figure out who the S.O.S. wave was coming from, and if that happened I’d probably be very vulnerable to retaliation. I couldn’t worry about that right now though. There was a thing out there trying to kill Renee, a thing that very well may have already killed my brother and my son, not to mention my ex-wife and every person I had known growing up.

  I didn’t have time to play around. I had to do what I had to do and deal with the consequences of those actions later. I just had to hope there was enough energy out there to power my jump.

  I strained my muscles, both physical and magical. I could feel my magic feelers scouring the restaurant and then, once I found it empty of anything that could help- outside of it.

  The first person I found felt like a druid, though with a lot less energy. Druids were rare these days, with less than a hundred actually practicing right now. More than likely, this person was the descendant of a druid, some Irish kid with small traces of magic in his or her blood. I pulled at the energy, taking it for myself. This kid, wherever they were, would get weak. They’d probably think they were having a fainting spell but, given that more than likely they didn’t know the semi mystical nature of their lineage, I wouldn’t be in much danger of pissing off anyone who could hurt me.

  It also meant I still didn’t have near enough power.

  The next person my feelers found had a bit of a voodoo flavor to them. A priestess maybe, perhaps a disciple. The refined nature of the power, the way it felt polished and shone, let me know this was no ‘in the dark’ Druid descendant. This person knew exactly how much power they had in their body, and they were probably proud of it.

  This was just the kind of person I needed to find; the sort with enough power to tap into, enough power to get my ass where it needed to be.

  I felt the voodoo guy push back. They didn’t want me taking their power, and I didn’t blame them. It was beyond rude. Still, I wasn’t about to stop now, not with so much at stake.

  A surge of energy pulsated out of me, lending more severity to my feeder’s effectiveness.

  With a jerk, I pulled the voodoo magic away from the guy. It ran toward me as I commanded it to, rushing forward. I grabbed ahold of it before it even reached me, twisting it into the shape I needed it to be. I had just made a potentially powerful energy. This much magic was nothing to sneeze at. But what choice did I have?

  My body started to glow, readying to transport me and Gary right into the inner sanctum, right into the mouth of whatever was going on.

  “Now Gary!” I yelled as my entire body lit up.

  My imp ran at me, jumping toward me as the energy took hold.

  He grabbed my shoulder, taking a familiar spot atop it, a spot he hadn’t taken since I’d returned from Hell.

  “Party on, Wayne,” he said, digging his claws into my shoulder for stability.

  “Party on, Ga-” I started, but the force of the magic pulled me away from my own voice.

  I expected to land quasi peacefully inside Renee’s super special throne room. Instead, a force pushed me backward, and when the world came into focus, it was just in time for me to see the floor smash into my face.

  I both heard and felt my nose smash against the hardwood, but I didn’t have time to bother with it. Still full of voodoo magic and the energy of a murderous douchebag, I popped back up and wiped my bloody nose with the back of one hand.

  “What the fuck?” I asked, looking around and seeing I was at the foot of the twisting stairs, and definitely not in the throne room.

  “The sanctum has a blocker spell,” Gary said. “That’s probably what stopped you from getting inside. I guess I should have mentioned that.”

  “Yeah. Probably,” I said, looking around, and batting down a little irritation directed at my imp friend. Seriously, at this point, he should have known better. The common area was eerily empty, but it was also very intact. This place looked abandoned, but unharmed. Whatever happened here either wasn’t as big a deal as I’d been afraid of, or it happened so quickly and effectively, there hadn’t been time to react.

  The latter thought sent chills through my spine.

  “We need to get up there,” I said to Gary who stood up and brushed some temporal dust of his shoulder. “We need to make sure Renee is-”

  Before I could even finish the sentence, a loud boom erupted from up those insanely tall stairs.

  Fire rained down along with pieces of those stairs, pieces of that room.

  And then, as if to put a final point on just how horrific this situation was, one of Cer’s three heads slammed bloody and dead at our feet.

  We were too late. We were way too late.

  23

  “Jesus Christ,” I stammered, looking at the bloody, disembodied dog head. Cer had been a hell of a sparring partner. The K-9 had very nearly taken my leg off, and that was when I was just trying to get around him. Who knew what would happen if he was really set on attacking me. The fact that he was very likely now dead meant the Tantibus was even more deadly than I’d imagined.

  “No,” Gary said, walking over to the head and giving it a pet across its bloody forehead. His faced twisted painfully, and his mouth pulled back, revealing angry teeth. My mind went back to something Gary said when I first returned, right after Cer and I had our little confrontation.

  He said the animal was his best friend, and now he was dead.

  “Gary,” I said, flinching as more broken, burning pieces of the winding staircase crashed to the floor around us. “I know this sucks. I know you probably need some time to process, but I’m afraid we don’t have it bud. I’m sorry, but-”

  “I’m going to kill it, Roy,” he said, his spider eyes moving to meet mine. “I’m going to find that nightmare thing, and I’m going to rip it in half.”

  “No, you’re not,” an ethereal voice sounded from over us. Looking up into the mess of smoke and flame, I saw a glowing figure descending toward us. The light was so bright, so blinding, I knew it could only be one person.

  “Renee,” I muttered, not so much as averting my eyes as the brightly lit figure neared, features growing more and more defined. As she floated down, moving her hands so that all of the falling debris deftly missed Gary and me, I saw the condition she was in.

  My girlfriend was beat to hell. Her face was cut and bleeding and
arm had a huge open gash across it. My eyes blurred with anger. Seeing her hurt felt like someone had tried to carve my heart out of my chest with the claw end of a hammer.

  The Tantibus had gotten to her, and she’d barely made it out.

  “If you kill her, Gary, then the portal will open. Marco will be free, and the others with him.” Her feet made contact with the hardwood below, and my heart slowed just a beat or two.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, looking her over, trying to decipher more clues as to the state of her condition, and attempting to keep the frantic pace of my worried heart in check.

  “I’m alive, which is more than I can say for the rest of them,” she answered, her eyes falling on Cer’s decapitated head.

  “Oh God,” I reacted, my body tensing and my heart picking up the beat I’d lost again and adding at least ten to it. “What are Scott? What about Luc?” My heart pounded even faster, even more ferociously as the last name spouted from my lips. I didn’t even want to say it. I didn’t even want to think it, but what chose did I have. Hell had followed me back home, it seemed, and it might have taken my son as a result. “Renee, is my son de-”

  A whoosh of energy knocked me backward, throwing me against the wall and pinning me there. I couldn’t move. My hands seemed plastered against the wooden wall and my feet might as well have been cemented to the floor.

  Renee looked over at me, a fear present in her eyes that I hadn’t seen since her days as an ordinary girl in the attorney’s office. “She’s got him. The Tantibus has Roy,” she gasped. Renee started toward me, floating over the floor with the tips of her feet dragging across the hallway. I wanted her to stay away, to run from this thing which had been sent with the sole purpose of murdering her. I couldn’t speak though. It was all happening too quickly. “What do you see, Roy? She can look like anything. She can make you see anything. She can-”

  Darkness, complete and uninterrupted took Renee’s place as well as that of the entire room. Everything was gone; all light, all sound, all everything. I was in an abyss, lost in a vat of nothingness.