“You don’t think I have anxiety? Trust me, the rush of nervousness practically knocks me out. The pills are the only thing that keep me from going crazy and losing my shit.”
“We’ll see.”
We approached the front door. “Is your back door locked?”
“Always.”
“Check it,” I said. The boy ran to the back and double-checked it. When he came back, I closed the front door behind us. “Lock it.” He slipped out his keys and locked it tight.
“Are we going to see your necromancer friend now?” he asked, dropping the keys back in his pocket.
“Her name is Serena. She devours dorks like you for breakfast. If you’re not confident, she‘ll eat you alive. I would tell you to act confident, but I don’t have that much faith in you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re a skinny geek who oozes insecurity.”
“That’s why I’m in a band, man. We’re really good. It makes me cooler than I really am.”
“I don’t think anything could make you cooler than what you already are.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“No.” We got into the Chevy and I turned the engine.
“Where does your necromancer live? Does she have, like, a coven?”
“She’s more of a loner,” I said, turning onto the road. “She’s done a lot of bad things. A lot of bad people are trying to get her. She’s in a safe house.”
“She can really do magic?”
“She’ll tell you she can.”
“You don’t believe in magic?”
“Magic is just the science of Mother Nature most people don’t understand. A hundred years ago, a cell phone would be considered magic. But it’s just science.”
“Can she raise the dead?”
“You don’t want the answer to that, kid. You’re not ready.”
“I’m twenty-four. Stop saying I’m a kid.”
“You are.”
“Whatever,” he said, crossing his arms. He turned to the window.
“That reaction is exactly what a kid would do.”
“Whatever.”
I let him sit and stew in his own juices for a while. I chugged my grape drink and tossed the empty can at Augie’s feet. I didn’t feel good about bringing him into Serena’s toxic orbit. She poisons everything. She couldn’t be trusted but she was my nearest ally with the skills I needed. Sadly, she was the only necromancer in town.
Probably because I killed the last one. Besides, she owed me one. Hell, she owed me twenty.
Now, I would just have to make sure Augie didn’t sell his soul to her to get his mother back. I knew he would if he could. What bothered me more, though, was that Serena would be willing to take it.
Chapter 12
The Witch’s Deal
It took us almost two hours to get to south Chicago with traffic. It was a decent neighborhood we ended up in. Not the absolute worst, but certainly not the best. It was the best place to keep Serena hidden from her enemies.
And the woman had enemies to spare. Trust me on that.
After all the devious things she’s done, it was shocking she was still alive. I’m surprised I haven’t killed her myself. She could’ve ended the world several times over if I didn’t stop her. But she was handy to have around when you needed someone with magic.
I pulled up to the apartment complex and parked in back. I was glad I had an old truck and camper that didn’t look like it was worth anything. If it was a newer, shinier vehicle, it would be stripped and put on cement blocks before I had the chance to lock the doors.
This apartment building looked like everything else in this neighborhood, old and worn out, but it had a guard in the lobby and an attendant at the front desk.
I noticed the magical wards built into the frame of the doorway as I entered. There were sigils built into patterns. It looked like fanciful decoration to the untrained eye. There were no wards that could stop Forevers, but for most evil things, this place was protected up the yin-yang.
That’s a technical term by the way.
When I checked in with the person at the service desk, she called Serena for permission to come up. When she hung up the phone, she waved us through and we headed to the elevator. It opened when we got there. Augie followed me inside.
“Why all the security?” the kid asked.
“It’s a safe house.”
“Like the witness relocation program?”
The elevator doors closed. I pushed the button to the seventh floor. “Something like that.” I shifted a little in the elevator. I checked that my Glock was still safe in its holster. The hunting knife still sheathed on my back. And the demon dagger safe on my waist.
All was good.
I didn’t like it when a magic user knew I was coming. It gave them way too much time to prepare. You could never be too careful when a witch was around. Especially when that witch was Serena Acosta.
The elevator doors opened to the seventh floor. Augie followed me down the hall as I looked for room 7D. When we reached it, I gave the kid a stiff warning.
“Don’t agree to anything,” I said. “No deals. Don’t act too eager or desperate. And don’t give her your full name.”
“I got it, I got it. Act like I know what I’m doing.”
“Fat chance of that,” I said, raising my hand to the Glock. Before I knocked, the door opened and Serena stood with a welcoming smile.
“Solomon,” she said. “It’s been too long.”
“Not long enough if you ask me,” I said. I pushed my way in past her.
“By all means, come on in,” she said, closing the door behind the boy. “I see you brought a guest so I’m assuming you didn’t come for a quick romp in the hay.”
We waltzed in and stood by the couch. The whole place smelled like incense and lavender. The shelves and walls were filled with jars of herbs and spices she used for spells.
A bookshelf sat in the corner, filled with a library of books I knew to be texts on the craft of magic and necromancy. Books that could upset the nature of the entire world if the public took magic seriously.
The apartment was full of clutter, death, and magic. The same three words you could use to describe Serena.
“This is August,” I said. He smiled at her in his goofy way.
“Augie,” he said. “Augie McKenzie.”
The stupid idiot gave his full name. Magic users can gain control over you if they know your full name. This wasn’t going to go well for us, I could tell.
Serena held out her arms and hugged him. She sensually kissed him on each side of the cheek before pulling away. “In my culture,” she said, “we give friendly greetings.”
He touched his cheek. “The witch culture?”
“Italian,” she said.
“Uh, Okay,” he said, blushing.
Never once did I see her give me that kind of welcome. She was already trying to influence and manipulate him. Trying to turn him on so he would be attracted to her, which wasn’t a hard thing to do to a millennial hornball.
She had a caramel complexion and raven hair that dropped past her shoulders. She was ten years older than Augie, but knew how to work her talents. Her sex appeal included. With her awareness and attitude, she was as sexy as they came.
And just as devilish.
Augie was already smitten. I had to be careful. His brain wouldn’t be the body part he’d be using when talking to her. I needed to take extra effort to make sure he didn’t screw this up and kill us both.
“Solomon,” she said, “did you come for a threesome? I knew you’d be up for it someday.”
“Keep your fantasies to yourself, Serena,” I said. “We need your help.”
Augie’s voice quivered. “My mom’s life force was drained by a Forever Person,” he said. “We need your help to get her back.”
She scowled. “The dead can’t come back once they’ve been drained,” she said. “Your mother is dead.”
; I stepped between Augie and Serena. “Her spirit is in Ghostworld,” I said. “We need your help to free her so she can move on.”
She spoke in a condescending, childish manner. “Ohhh, does Mommy want to go to Heaven?”
There was the Serena I knew. Heartless. Ruthless. Sociopathic.
Augie scowled, taken aback by her sudden change in tone. “Ivy said you could help us get her soul back from Poe.”
Serena gestured for us to sit on the couch. To be polite, we did. She sat in the love seat across from us.
She crossed her legs as she sat down. She wore a black skirt and tall, black boots that ended before the knee. It was no accident she was dressed like that. She dressed sexy on purpose when she wanted to gain the extra hand. And when she really wanted something, she would forget to put on underwear.
And this was a day she really wanted something.
“Alexander Poe?” she asked.
Augie got excited. “You know him?”
“I know of him,” she said. Serena glared at me. “Solomon, if you think I’m getting involved with Forevers again, you can shove it up your ass.”
I cocked my head to the side. “You’re always involved with Forevers,” I said. “This is no different.”
“Alexander Poe is a businessman, for the lack of a better term. He deals with the high-rollers in the underworld. If you want something, and that something usually has to be pretty ugly, he’ll get it for you. He’s in as deep as they come. He’s practically the mafia of the underworld.”
I grinned. “So you’re saying you have him on speed dial?”
She sneered. “Hardy har har.”
I sighed. “He’s dealing in human trafficking now,” I said.
“Why would I want to get involved when I thought the whole reason you put me here was so I could be safe from that world?”
“Serena Acosta,” I said. “As long as you’re alive, you will never be safe. They will always hunt you. You know too much. Especially after the last fiasco where you almost destroyed the world. Remember that or has it conveniently slipped your mind?”
“I wasn’t trying to destroy the world, you self-righteous son of a bitch. I would’ve been able to control him.”
“How do you figure that?”
“At the end of my spellcasting, I added in that he would be under my control. So you see, my dear Solomon, I had it all under control. I would have had a god in my pocket, completely under my thumb.”
“Is that a fact?”
“It is.”
“Would that be before or after he erased you from existence?”
“Oh ye of little faith,” she said, turning her gaze from me. “You can’t have faith in me sometimes and not others, Solomon. It makes no sense.”
“I have faith in your abilities, Serena. Not your intentions.”
“Fair enough.” She uncrossed her legs as if reminding Augie she had them.
Augie leaned forward, unconsciously led by her manipulation. “Can you help us save my mom?”
“I can,” she said. “But will I? That is the question.” She tapped her chin as if in doubt.
I grunted. “What do you want, witch?”
“Well, you ruined my chance to control a god,” she said pulling her hair off her shoulders. “So if I can’t have that, I think you know what I want.”
“Your desires change with the wind,” I said. “Even you can’t keep up with what you want on a daily basis.”
“Again, fair enough,” she said. She stretched out her arms and wiggled her fingers, as if grasping at something. “What I want is my very own, itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, harmless, very own Forever Person.”
I leaned back. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I want you to find me a Forever when it first spawns into our world. I want to be there for him. To raise him as my own. I want to be a mommy.”
I shook my head and grumbled. “Absolutely not, witch.”
“Don’t start name-calling,” she said. “It’s not that big a request.”
“Why don’t you just get a Seer and find one on your own?” I asked.
“I tried,” she said with a heavy sigh. “But it seems my reputation has been tarnished, by you,” she said, pointing at me, “and is quite widespread in the community. Thanks for that by the way.” She smirked an ugly smirk at me. “None of the Seers will work with me. They say it would only end in their death. I would say their vision is shortsighted but, apparently, I’m a wanted gal and they think that by helping me, they literally see themselves dying in the future. They’re probably not wrong, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have what I want, does it?” She leaned back in her chair and puffed out her lower lip, pouting.
I interlocked my fingers and started twiddling my thumbs. “Yes, that does mean you shouldn’t have what you want,” I said. “In fact, you should probably be dead by now. Or locked away in an underground prison, or at the very least in a deep coma where you have nightmares of the worst kind.”
She sat up. Her pouting disappeared. “Solomon, if I didn’t know you loved me, I would almost take offense to that.”
Augie was fixated on her legs, but managed to spit out a few words. “Why do you want a Forever Person?”
“I want to be the mother I never had,” she said, grinning. “I want something of my own. Kidnapping them never works. Driving them to do my will doesn’t work either. And spells go wonky on them. Their biology is different than ours, even though it mimics human DNA. My talents are wrapped up in the natural laws of this universe. My spells don’t have the same effect on them as they do on normal people. So I need one to study. One of my very own.”
“And these people spawn in the world from nothing, right?” Augie asked. “I remember reading in Ivy’s book that they manifest from nothing.”
“They manifest from the darkness of the universe,” she said. “Where the veil is thin between worlds. Only very special Seers have the gift to know when they’re going to spawn. And where. They may or may not know who it will be, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? Opening a brand-new gift and discovering what’s inside.”
Augie scrunched up his face. “What does it matter if they’re new?”
I butted in. “Forevers are confused when they first spawn,” I said. “At their most vulnerable.”
She rolled her eyes. “Solomon, I swear, you make me sound like a creeper. My desire is much more holistic than that.”
I scoffed. “Even if you had a newly-spawned Forever, what makes you think you could control him?”
“I’m not a monster, Solomon. I don’t want to control him. I want to raise him. Maybe influence him so he feels I’m his mother and loves me and listens to what I say. But no more than any other parent. To mold him into the person he can become.”
“A person like you,” I said.
“Better than me,” she said, tossing her hair. “If that’s even possible.”
“You want to further your studies on how magic effects them,” I said. “So you can develop a magic system that works on them.”
“Well, since you brought it up,” she said. “Would that be so bad?”
“You’d be the only person on the planet who would have knowledge of the magic that controls Forevers.”
She examined one of her fingernails and looked up at me. “That would boost my rep, don’t you think?”
Augie’s knee was knocking up and down. “If we agree to this, you can save my mom?”
“I can’t save your mom,” she said. “Her body is dead to her. But I can give her the keys to transition into Heaven. I can make sure she finds peace.”
“Deal,” Augie said. He threw his hand forward for a handshake.
I knocked his hand down. “No deal,” I said. I threw him a sour look. “You don’t understand what kind of power she’ll have if she gains this knowledge.”
“I don’t care,” Augie said. “If she can help my mom go to Heaven, I’ll do it. With or without your help. I don’t
even know how to find a Seer, but I will. If it helps my mom have peace.” He turned to her again and went to shake her hand. Before I could stop him, she jumped and shook it.
“Deal,” she said. “But you better deliver. Or your mother’s suffering won’t be the worst thing you’ll have to deal with.”
I shook my head at Augie. “August, what have you done?”
“I found a way to save my mom,” he said.
I groaned. “Now I have to make sure you don’t fuck up and lose your soul too.”
“Where do we begin?” he asked her. Her manipulation worked. He trusted her too much already. August was a fool. A naive, desperate fool. I knew this wouldn’t end well. I should have left him at home. This is what happens when you go with your heart over your gut. You get screwed.
Serena stood and gathered jars of herbs and equipment on the table. “First, I put a few things in a care package that we’ll need. And after, you’re going to introduce me to your mother.”
He looked at me with steely eyes of determination. “We’re going to save my mom.”
Chapter 13
That Old Black Magic
Serena sat between us in the front seat of my truck as we made our way to Augie’s house. He popped some more pills like they were Jolly Ranchers.
His pill bottle was still in my pocket. “Where’d you get those pills?” I asked.
“I had a few loose in my pocket,” he said. “I keep them there for emergencies. It’s a habit.”
“It’s a bad one,” I said.
“For God’s sake, Solomon,” Serena said. “If the boy needs his medication, let him take it.”
“It’s not medication,” I said. “It’s a sedative.”
Augie raised his voice. “What’re you talking about? These pills help me be normal.”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “They help you to be normal. Like everybody else. Why would you want to be mediocre like everybody else?”
“I need these,” he said.
Serena turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “What’s the deal, Sol?”
I tightened my grip on the wheel. “I don’t think anything is wrong with you, August.”
Memoirs of a Monster Killer: Killing Forever Book 1 Page 7