Gambit: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  The needle comes out clean. I replace the sheath and tuck the syringe into its packaging, button my pants, and bury my paraphernalia in the bathroom wastebasket. Then I put away the vial and wait, expecting to feel something. After a minute or so, everything still feels the same. My nose is still throbbing. The bullet wound in my thigh still hurts. There’s no indication at all that I’m in physical contact with a powerful magical energy. Maybe I should try casting a spell.

  I start with a simple candle spell, a cantrip meant to produce a small flame in my hand equivalent to that of a cigarette lighter. When the spell goes off, a torch of pale flame erupts from the tip of my thumb to scorch the ceiling tile four feet above my head. The surge of power makes me go cross-eyed, a high so exhilarating it feels like running jet fuel through a lawnmower. I extinguish the spell just as the bathroom door creaks open. Claws skitter across the floor tile.

  “Are you quite finished?” Ersatz asks, poking his head under the stall.

  “How about a little privacy?” I say, straightening my posture to hide the spell’s euphoric effects.

  Ersatz sniffs. “What’s that smell?”

  “What smell?”

  “There’s a burning smell in here.”

  “I don’t smell anything,” I tell him, grabbing my backpack and evacuating the stall to wash my hands.

  “I know what burnt things smell like,” he insists, “and that is a burnt smell.”

  “It’s probably your upper lip.” I dry my hands and wait for him at the door. “Ready?”

  He gives me a sour look before climbing my leg and slithering into my backpack.

  The Charles Altuna Hope Center is a brooding old manor house at the edge of town, where New Detroit’s urban wasteland meets the suburbs of Redford. The surrounding houses are turn-of-the-last-century at best, as drab and unkempt as the orphanage’s bare-spotted lawn. I’m amazed at how far the Arden-ghost has managed to move in a matter of hours. Upon consulting Calyxto’s clay dish, the final hash mark does indeed put our quarry somewhere in the building. “This is the place,” I confirm. “It’s not abandoned like the homeless shelter, is it?”

  “Nope,” says Felita, pulling up the orphanage’s website on her phone. “It’s open for business.”

  We get out of the car and stand on the sidewalk, watching and listening.

  “It’s the middle of the day,” I point out. “Shouldn’t we hear the sound of children playing? Or crying because they haven’t been adopted yet?”

  Felita clucks her tongue. “That’s mean.”

  “Just saying. This place is as quiet as the grave. It’s creepy.”

  “Let’s go inside,” Ersatz suggests. “I’ll wager we can find a caregiver who will provide assistance.”

  I almost cast a detection spell before remembering Ersatz is still in my backpack and not in physical contact with me. I don’t want to give away the demon blood in my leg unless I have to. I sprinkle some residue onto my palm from one of the four remaining vials and make a show of casting the spell as though the dust is my only source of power.

  “What did that do?” asks Felita.

  “It lets me see magical energy.”

  She looks at the dust on my hands. “Casting spells is hard when you’re not an othersider, huh?”

  “Bane of my existence. Magic is too good to pass up, though.”

  “Anything I can do to make things easier once we get inside?”

  “You’re pretty strong in your human form, right?”

  She nods. “Fast, too. And I can take a beating.”

  I snap my fingers. “That’s the one.”

  “You want me to take a beating?”

  “I want you to clear a path between me and Arden. Whatever’s in the way, get it out.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to hurt the kids.”

  “I don’t want to kill them, or banish their souls. That doesn’t mean we won’t need to knock them around a little. I doubt this is going to be a pillow fight.”

  “Got it.”

  She seems unfazed by the prospect of hurting a bunch of human children, but maybe that’s not so remarkable. Maybe werewolves think of humans as their less-impressive cousins, or as a separate species entirely. Maybe we’re no better than rodents in their eyes; a plague on society they’re forced to tolerate. Quim basically thinks of himself as a human with superpowers he’s scared to use. But there I go comparing changelings to lycanthropes again.

  The manor house’s front doors are unlocked, and at a push the left one swings inward with an echoing creak. A high-ceilinged foyer with antique wood floors leads to a baroque banister winding up a steep, worn staircase. Felita follows close behind, inhaling to take the scent of the place.

  I stop when a sparkle of blue light catches my eye. On a ledge above the open staircase, my detection spell outlines a creature with deep burgundy skin. It perches on emaciated limbs, watching us, two leathery wings sprouting from its shoulders, a pair of stubby horns jutting from its forehead. This is no poltergeist. It’s a full-fledged demon. I turn back to Felita, tilt my head toward our demonic receptionist. She nods.

  I’m startled when I look down and find my whole body glowing blue as well. It’s as though the demon’s blood has made me an honorary othersider. Ersatz won’t know it unless he feels the sudden and inexplicable urge to start casting detection spells. He’s never needed to before; he’s got a sixth sense about the supernatural.

  We turn down a side hallway, leaving the upstairs alone for now. The manor is set up for a large number of residents, as evidenced in its industrial kitchen and grand dining hall lined with long tables. Rudimentary drawings color the walls where budding artists have embarked upon their earliest creations. We find no children in this section of the house. Yet in each empty room, in those out-of-the-way places where dust bunnies gather and shadows are omnipresent, the demons wait.

  Most are small; all are motionless. Patient. They, like all other living beings, are in want of something. Their particular desire may be different from yours or mine, but it’s nothing so foreign as to be outside the realm of human understanding. Dominion. A fertile field upon which to sow the seeds of control. Our vices are what give the demons authority over us. The more we give into those vices, the more powerful they become.

  And so they wait behind the rocking chair, above the fireplace, in the toy chest, on the TV. My handgun is snug in my appendix holster, but Ersatz was right; mundane bullets aren’t going to solve this problem. Demons follow opportunity, and their presence here is an omen that one or more nefarious events have taken place nearby. They, like many supernatural parasites, don’t typically barge into a person’s head and take over. They wait for an invitation. They take hold faster that way, and their grip is stronger.

  I’m struggling to understand what’s going on here. Arden Savage’s corpse is home to a poltergeist, an evil spirit of the dead who haunts the physical realm. Demons are evil spirits too, only they’re spirits of the living with physical forms. Although Ersatz said they were similar, I never thought I’d find the two hanging out in the same place.

  With the expansive main level cleared and not one mortal to be found, we make our way to the front staircase and begin our ascent. Ersatz climbs out and drapes himself across my neck, a position I’m sure is less comfortable than he makes it out to be. The demon above the staircase gives its wings a flap as we pass beneath, reseating itself on the ledge.

  The stairs groan under our feet. A layer of dust lies over the top three steps, broken by recent footprints. I consider drawing my gun, but I don’t want to risk it with kids around. I’ve got Ersatz, and magic will do just fine.

  At the top of the stairs is a big landing where couches and a low coffee table have been arranged to form a sitting room, possibly a place for prospective parents to interact with the children. Toys are strewn across the floor, and a demon who looks like a mix between a frog and a shark squats in the corner, its throat pulsing beneath rows of serrated teet
h.

  We pass room after room down a long hallway of open doors and empty beds where dust motes blaze with noonday light. The routine of this place has been broken, and I don’t like the implications. Most of the rooms look to house between two and four children. There are no children, and no demons, in any of them. That’s because the demons are in the children, I surmise, and they’ve got other plans.

  Chapter 18

  The last door at the end of the hallway leads into the orphanage director’s private living quarters. We give it a quick check—living room, bedroom, bathroom—and find evidence of a simple lifestyle lived by a simple man. There’s a holy crucifix on his desk, and a larger one hanging on the wall above his reading nook. I pocket the smaller one, unable to come up with a single good reason not to. Then we retreat down the hallway to the sitting room, bewildered as to what we should do next.

  “Does this look to anyone else like a low-budget haunted house at a traveling amusement park?”

  “But for all the very real demons,” says Ersatz.

  “Where is everyone? Did anyone see a basement door?”

  Felita shakes her head. “We might as well check for one before we give up.”

  We’ve just started down the stairs when there’s a scratching sound from above. I glance at the winged demon, still perched stock-still on the ledge. The sound didn’t come from him. It came from higher up.

  There’s a crack in the ceiling plaster, and a pinch of dust floats down to join the rest on the upper few stairs. “I don’t think we should be looking for a basement. We should be looking for an attic.”

  Calyxto’s clay dish seems to agree. Instead of a series of hash marks displaying a path from my position to his, there is a single glowing dot at the center. You have reached your destination, I can imagine my GPS saying as I study the ceiling. My heart thumps. “He’s right above us.”

  We work our way down the upstairs hallway, checking every bedroom and every closed door, stepping around skeletal demons and insectile demons and tall hulking demons who look like fiendish bird-minotaurs. Every door is a closet, every new hope a dead end. That is, until we enter the director’s quarters.

  When Felita closes the door, there’s a thin vertical gap in the wainscoting on the adjacent wall. She brings her face close to take the scent. “Blood,” she whispers. She pushes with her fingertips. The wall opens with a click, and the hidden door swings into a dim alcove where bare wooden steps ascend into darkness. “After you.” She moves aside and does her best Vanna White impression.

  “You’re too kind.”

  I step into the alcove and sniff the air, but all I can smell is dust and damp. The temperature rises by five or ten degrees on our way up the steps, until we find ourselves in a stuffy upper room which, judging by the peaked underside of the roof, stretches the entire length and width of the building.

  The area in front of us is stacked high with a wall of old furniture, blocking the larger area beyond the upper landing from view. It’s too dark to see past where I’m standing anyway, given the thin slatted attic vents providing our only light. Felita can see just fine, and so can Ersatz. As for myself, I eschew the candle spell in favor of the easier-to-control illumination spell, which creates a glowing ball of white light without the heat of an open flame.

  I touch Calyxto’s clay dish, since it’s close at hand, transferring the light to it. As I move to circumvent the furniture wall, Felita grabs my arm. “Wait,” she whispers. She shakes her head, then flicks her eyes upward. “They’re everywhere.”

  I look up. Thick, like bats on a cave ceiling, they swarm by their hundreds. They’re hanging from high rafters and wedged into cubbyholes between crossbeams and squatting on dresser shelves and bedposts. Each one different, each one glowing in effervescent blue.

  This is fucked up. My skin crawls. For there to be this many demons here, something heinous has to be going on; something so evil it defies imagination. The demon’s blood boils inside me, and somehow I know the truth of it in my bones.

  I round the wall of furniture until I’m within sight of what lies beyond. Amidst the array of furniture spread across the vast room lies a group of gothic-looking apparatuses that would put any medieval dungeon to shame. Suspended by chains from a tilting slab made of thin plywood is a man I can only assume is the orphanage’s director. The board behind him is dark and wet. His collared blue button-down and khaki slacks hang in tatters from his body. This device was never meant for him; only for his favorites. The ones he invited here with promises of sweets and games and midnight milk and cookies.

  The children are there too, surrounding him. All the children of the orphanage, panting like winded marathon runners. When my light hits them, they turn red smiles in my direction. Their hands glisten; their stares are vague and cold.

  I stop.

  I turn to Felita.

  “Run.”

  Calyxto’s clay dish slips from my hand and shatters on the floor, dispelling the light and shrouding the attic in darkness. I raise my hands and call forth the banishment ritual contained within the spellvault belt, letting the pressure surge through my chest and build in my forearms. I can’t see a thing, but I can hear them coming. Children’s feet padding on the slats; demonic skitters across the ceiling.

  Some bitches are about to get banished.

  Drawing from both Ersatz’s energy and the demon blood within me, I release the banishment ritual. A burst of sacred energy explodes from my palms in a white fiery stream, bathing the room in pale light. Like the candle spell in the fast-food bathroom, the force of it is far stronger than I expect. It drives me backward so hard I have to catch myself on my heels to keep from falling over.

  I sweep the stream across the room to cut a swath through the oncoming tide. Felita ignores my advice and charges into the fray instead of fleeing. She wasn’t lying when she said she was fast and strong; instead of circling the furniture wall, she vaults over it and lands in the thick of things, plowing through children and tearing demons limb from limb.

  It’s lights out for us once the banishment spell is exhausted, so I concentrate on the children. I’m pretty sure this spell will only exorcise their demons and not their mortal souls. Pretty sure. Were I to hit them with a second spell once the demons were gone, though, they’d definitely wind up like Arden—soulless. They bound across beds and sprint between furniture, closing in on me. The demons swarm from above, dropping to the floor like roaches.

  Every demon I hit vaporizes, returning to the realm from whence it came. Every child stops in its tracks, most toppling to the ground, shocked and disoriented as their demonic occupants evacuate their bodies. I’m backing away, pushing every possible ounce of power into the stream, when something heavy crashes into me from the right, throwing me to the ground. Ersatz flies off my shoulders and spins away into darkness.

  Vials crack and shatter within my backpack as I roll over and aim my spell at whatever just hit me. It’s Arden Savage. He spreads a hand to discharge a column of corkscrewing black energy in opposition to mine. They meet in the middle with a flare of illumination. It’s a good old-fashioned wizard’s duel, and at first, I’m winning. In fact he’s barely able to hold me off until the first demon reaches me.

  My already-battered face isn’t ready for another beating, but it’s what I’m in for. The demons come hard and strong, piling on while I maintain the ray of banishment focused on Arden Savage. They attack me from head to toe in a crush of teeth and claws and fists, an army of evil rugrats with murder on their minds. Arden’s beam of darkness is winning. I’ve got no idea what it’ll do to me if it connects, but I can’t imagine I’ll enjoy it. Without Ersatz beside me, I’m drawing my power wholly from the demon blood, and the demon blood is running out.

  At some point I become aware that Ersatz has begun casting spells and is helping Felita deal with the hordes. I lose sight of my allies in the swarm, but only briefly. Felita crosses the attic in an instant, barreling toward Arden despite being
covered in a legion of biting, clawing demons who leap onto her more quickly than she can tear them off.

  I anticipate what’s going to happen before it does, an impending car wreck I can’t look away from. Felita is going to knock Arden off his feet. When she does, they’ll both be caught in the stream of my unobstructed banishment spell. Good in Arden’s case; bad in Felita’s. Once I snuff out the spell, there’s no turning it on again. No banishing the poltergeist and putting all this behind me.

  It strikes me then that I’ve started to trust Felita. To like her, even. Though I’m still not a hundred percent sold on her motives for helping me, I understand where she’s coming from, and I understand the value of kindness for kindness’ sake. There’s too little of that going around these days. Felita isn’t just an ally of dubious intent anymore. She’s a friend. And that makes cutting off my banishment spell entirely worth it, even if it means letting Arden go free.

  I stop the spell a fraction of a second before Felita arrives. She crashes into Arden at top speed, and they tumble across the floor together in a heap. Demons and children overwhelm me, swamping my vision as they crowd around to take turns. I won’t last long unless I can get out of here fast. Then I realize I don’t have to go anywhere. I just have to remove everyone else.

  While the underworld’s finest bite and scratch and beat me senseless, I draw upon the final reserves of demon blood and cast the sort of spell I’ve always wanted to use but have never had the occasion to. The sort of spell I wanted to use on that ogre on the five-thirty crosstown last Friday afternoon. A shockwave spell.

  The pressure in the room suctions toward me, as if I’m the center of some ethereal vacuum. Time drains like blood. For the briefest moment, everything goes quiet.

  A sphere of force explodes from my core, catapulting my attackers in every direction. The spell has fulfilled its purpose, except that I failed to account for the structural integrity of this old house. The attic floor disintegrates beneath me in a storm of splintering wood, and I plummet through the hole and crash onto the orphanage director’s four-poster bed.