Blood and Whispers, page 6
“No shit? Huh.” He sat back and took another sip, apparently processing that revelation. “Let’s say I believe you,” he said after a moment. “Then why would my mama never tell me that my grandpapa was a sorcerer?”
I shrugged. “That I can’t speak to. She must have had her reasons. You’ll have to ask her, I suppose.”
“She’s dead,” he told me flatly.
“Oh,” I replied quietly. “I’m sorry, son, I didn’t know.”
“This Arcanum,” he asked, changing the subject, “what does it do?”
“Argue and get in people’s way, mostly,” I waved a hand dismissively, “but occasionally it saves the world. It was founded a thousand years ago, in theory to protect humanity from the dangers of the magical world and to keep the peace between humans and other magical beings.”
“And that’s what my grandpapa did?”
I nodded. “Sometimes. Most of the time we sorcerers keep to ourselves. We have plenty of our own politics, but we don’t involve ourselves with everyone else’s. One of the Arcanum’s most sacred traditions is that we don’t interfere in normal human affairs. But when there’s some kind of threat, we respond as necessary. Antoine and I fought alongside each other for many years, against various forces that threatened the human race. I knew him well. I was sorry to hear that he’d passed.”
“I take it that’s what you were doing at Evan’s apartment, with that blue flash and putting my officer to sleep. Responding as necessary.”
I grunted affirmatively. “Well, I was seeing if there was anything worth responding to, at least. Evan was a sorcerer, too, so I had to check. Putting your officer to sleep afterwards was just to avoid going to lockup for trespassing when he discovered me there.”
“And was there?”
“Was there what?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Anything worth responding to.”
“Oh yes,” I answered somberly, looking him in the eye as seriously as I could. “Yes, son, there most certainly was. We have a pair of magical serial killers on our hands, Detective Henri Lajoie. One who set a trap for sorcerers. That’s what the flash of light you saw was: I was defending myself, and your officer, from a magical booby trap I’d accidentally set off. Whoever killed Evan was a mage—a powerful one, at that. I believe at least one of the killers is a Faerie.”
“Faeries are real, too?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.
“Yes,” I nodded. “But they aren’t cute little winged pixies out of a children’s book. Faeries are powerful magical beings from an alternate plane of existence called the Otherworld. Most of the pagan gods of ancient myths were Fae creatures of one kind or another. What I’d just found in my books, a few minutes before you got here, was a description of what sounded remarkably like the ritual for which Evan was sacrificed, and the name of the Faerie who designed it.”
“So you have a suspect?”
I shook my head. “In a manner of speaking, but not one the police can go after. Not only are you not going to be able to find the Avartagh without magic, if you do happen to encounter him, he’ll just kill you without a second thought. You don’t have the tools to defend yourself from something like him. You aren’t a sorcerer.”
“But you are. You can find this Avartagh and deal with him.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes, I am,” I answered, nodding. “And a Faerie killing an Arcanum-trained sorcerer like Evan Townes is a violation of a thousand-year-old treaty between humans and the Fae, which means I’m obligated to do so—to find the killer and bring him to justice. But I’m qualified. In this particular case, you aren’t. So I’m asking you to leave the heavy work of this investigation to me. No need for you to be in danger.”
“Mr. Quinn,” he began to answer, but I put up a hand and interrupted him.
“You can just call me Quinn, son. Most people do. No need for the Mister every time.”
“Fine. Quinn. I hear what you’re saying. And even if every word of it is true—and given how long I’ve been looking for answers about my family, not to mention what I saw in that video, I do want to believe you—that doesn’t mean I can just stop investigating. It’s a murder case, and I’m a homicide detective. Faeries or not, magic or not, my partner and I have a duty here.”
I didn’t answer for a second, just taking another sip of whisky and savoring it for a long moment.
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say.” I set down my glass.
“So where do we go from here?”
“Well, given that I can’t magically stop you from investigating—”
“You can’t?” he interrupted.
“No, mind control is taboo within the Arcanum. We believe in free will, even when it’s inconvenient. Which means that you’re going to investigate, and you’re going to get yourself hurt unless I make sure you don’t. Plus, I think I could actually use your help—I can’t be in more than one place at a time, and you’re better suited to follow physical evidence and forensics anyway. Who knows? We might get lucky. So we need to figure out how to work together.”
“And how do you suggest we do that?”
“Well,” I replied picking my glass back up and draining it, “I propose a partnership.” I looked him in the eyes. “We investigate together. You take care of things like physical evidence and victim background and so forth. I’ll handle the magical aspects and deal with the Faerie, and any sorcerer accomplices, if and when we find them.”
“By deal with him…”
“I mean kill him if necessary, or if possible, capture him and hand him over to the Faerie Court for justice.”
“Leaving no one for Philly PD to arrest.”
I shrugged. “That’s the way it goes, Detective. Humans haven’t built a prison that can hold either Faeries or sorcerers.”
He thought it over for a long few minutes, sipping his whisky while I poured myself another and waiting for him to process all of this. Finally, he looked back over at me.
“I’ve been chasing answers for so long that I really want to believe you, Quinn. But I’m going to need more evidence to go on than your word. How do I know you’re not just playing me?”
“Why on Earth would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re just a crazy occult enthusiast playing out your fantasies. Maybe you’re hiding something. But regardless, I can’t just operate on the assumption magic is real and you’re a sorcerer based on your word and the fact you knew my grandpapa’s name. Can you prove you’re a sorcerer somehow?”
“How about the video on your phone? Or the fact I knew your mother’s name, too?”
“That’s not conclusive of anything. A flash of light, an officer fainting, it’s all very suspicious, but it doesn’t prove you’re a sorcerer, let alone any of what you’ve said about the Arcanum or Faeries. You could have found my family background in public records if you looked hard enough.”
I thought about it for a minute. “I can. At least, I can give you some stronger evidence you can see with your own eyes.”
He got visibly excited—eyes wide, nostril flared, leaning forward in his chair slightly. “You mean you can do some magic?”
“No,” I answered brusquely and shook my head. “Not right now, anyway. I don’t perform on command, Detective, regardless of the reason. Magic is serious business.”
“Then what evidence are you suggesting?”
“You said there’s a second crime scene.”
His eyes narrowed. “Yes, there is. The killers struck again last night, and a neighbor discovered the scene this morning. It’s still being processed. Almost the same as the first one, except this time there were other victims.”
“Other victims?” I raised my eyebrows in question.
“Yes. The family who lived in the house were all killed, but they don’t seem to have been used for the ritual at all.”
“Hm,” I replied. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Take me there. If the killers set another trap, you’ll get all the proof you need. You can see exactly what happened at Evan’s apartment last night. If not, I’ll find some other way to prove that I’m telling the truth.”
“Okay,” he nodded, visibly disappointed I wouldn’t be conjuring a fireball for his entertainment. “That I can do.”
Chapter 6
Thirty minutes later, as the sun was starting to set, we pulled up to a public housing project, rows of two- and three-story townhouses around a common area. I could see a playground in a little park through the buildings as I got out of the detective’s car.
The townhouse we’d stopped at was blocked off with police barriers and a couple uniformed officers standing guard, along with a pair of crime scene investigators looking somewhat annoyed. Detective Lajoie had radioed ahead and told them to clear out of the building, so they’d had to stop processing the scene and wait for us.
The detective led the way, and the uniforms held up the crime scene tape for us to pass through. One of them handed each of us a pair of nitrile gloves to put on before we went inside. I felt the same sense of despair that had emanated from the previous crime scene, which would have driven off anyone but the police, who got paid to be in such places. No wonder the crime scene guys were irritable—they clearly didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary.
“The victim’s a woman,” Detective Lajoie told me as we approached the front door. “We’re not sure who yet. Jane Doe at the moment. Definitely not any of the people who actually lived here. The coroner will have to figure it out through DNA or dental records, if he can.”
I nodded. There were a few dozen unranked sorcerers in the city. If the killer was sticking with them, I probably knew the victim again. I tried not to wonder who it was.
“Are you ready?” I asked him.
He looked me in the eye as he put his gloved hand on the knob. “Are you?”
I nodded. Expecting an ambush this time, I’d prepared a counterspell ahead of time: a spherical shield to contain the trap, using a ring I’d slipped onto my left index finger as a focus. I felt a powerful ley-line node below my feet and tapped into its energy to fuel the spell before I stepped inside.
The detective led the way in through the front door, down the hallway, and into the living room.
The smell hit me first. The furniture had been removed from the living room, drying blood covered the floor, reddish-brown glyphs on all four walls. Apart from carpet instead of hardwood, it looked almost exactly like Evan’s apartment. But this time, arriving at a fresh crime scene that was still being processed, the body was still present. I could clearly see what I’d only deduced from the bloodstains at Evan’s apartment: the victims hadn’t merely been killed; they’d been violated. Defiled.
The corpse was flayed, the skin piled on the floor a few feet away. Her arms and legs had been severed and rearranged, with her legs extending from her shoulders and her arms from her hips. The elbows and knees bent at right angles, her hands and feet staked to the ground. Without eyelids her eyes bulged out, her mouth opened as if in an eternal, silent scream.
Despite her skin having been peeled off and cast aside, she was still recognizably a woman. Somehow that made it worse.
I tried not to breathe too deep. Just do what I had to do and get out, so we could let the crime scene unit guys do their work. I turned to the detective next to me.
“Stand behind me,” I instructed curtly.
Despite his best efforts to remain professional, he looked awful. Given the energy of the place, I didn’t blame him at all. But he nodded and stepped back into the hallway.
“Alright, you son of a bitch,” I muttered to the malevolent energy in the room, “give me your best shot.” I closed my eyes and calmed my mind, focused on pushing my emotions to the back, then opened myself to the magical energy in the room.
Once again, I tasted desolation and horror and terror and pain. And once again, that malevolent force rose and lunged for me. But this time I was ready. Without even a whisper or a conscious thought, I released the spell I’d bound to my ring.
The shield sprung closed around the attack, a translucent blue-tinged sphere of pure energy trapping the magic within, mere inches from my face. The spell was strong, but I was stronger, and I’d been expecting it. To my magic-enhanced eyes, it appeared as a writhing mass of darkness, streaked with shifting veins of angry crimson and violet within the bubble of power around it.
As quickly as it had appeared, it began to dissipate, but I bared my teeth and hissed, “Oh, no, you don’t. Let’s see what you are.”
I directed my will into the sphere, into that foul cloud, and forced it to stay in place. I worked my way through the structure of the underlying spell and neutralized it, but rather than letting it evaporate into nothingness, I stabilized it. I pushed some of the ley-line node’s energy into it, making it visible to the naked eye.
I heard the big man gasp behind me as he could suddenly see the dark cloud shifting around within the floating sphere.
“There’s your evidence, Detective.”
“It’s…that’s…” he trailed off, evidently at a loss for words.
“It’s evil made manifest, that’s what it is,” I finished for him. “Now, this next part is going to be a lot more boring to watch. But it’s a great deal trickier, so I’m going to need a few minutes to work.”
Hearing nothing in response, I nodded and turned my attention back to the room in front of me.
I focused first on everything but the ambush spell, carefully studying every aspect of the magic in the room, starting from the outside and working my way in. There were subtle layers of energy throughout the space, and peeling them back, I confirmed the hints of Fae magic I’d expected. Faerie magic tastes differently to that used by humans or other magical creatures from our world—the Otherworld is so steeped in magic that it’s part of its residents’ very being. No other creatures can replicate that energy, and I’ve never encountered a Fae who could disguise those traces in its workings. There was definitely a Faerie present at this sacrifice.
I turned my attention to the corpse, noting without surprise that she had been a sorcerer as well, probably of about the same level of talent as Evan. That made sense—no logic in stepping back and targeting ordinary humans once you’ve started harvesting mages. That would just take longer to build up the required energy for the final working, whatever it was.
Convinced there were no further secrets to pry from the rest of the room, I finally turned my attention to the malignant ambush spell held captive in my trap. I wanted to study it, to see what I could find out about its creator.
The first surprise was that there were no counterspells to prevent such an investigation—anyone skilled enough to develop such an ambush should have known enough to incorporate such defenses. Either they had major gaps in their skillset, which was always a possibility with a rogue sorcerer, or they hadn’t planned on anyone examining their work. Such things were child’s play for someone like me. I’d learned how to study the structure of another’s spell when I was an apprentice—my first master had taught me how to craft my own spells by having me dissect his workings. And given the ley-line node right under my feet, I could easily overpower the spell and make it reveal its secrets.
Slowly, cautiously, I teased it apart, working my way through it with care. Every sorcerer develops patterns in creating his or her workings, almost as reliable as a fingerprint. More like a signature, really, as the patterns change over time, but they remain true to the practitioner’s character and mind. I soon realized that the malevolence and anger emanating from the spell weren’t natural to the sorcerer who created it; they had been added after the basic structure was in place. Whoever had built this trap was cold and calculating, and definitely wasn’t Fae. But I couldn’t tell with any certainty what kind of creature it was. Humans aren’t the only species that use magic and don’t call the Otherworld home.
Finished with my examination, I let the spell dissipate and closed myself to the energy around me. Detective Lajoie and I were once again alone in the room, with just the unnamed victim’s remains for company. But I sensed more death toward the back bedroom.
“I’d like to see the other victims,” I said quietly, turning to the detective.
He looked shaken, far beyond the simple effects of the residual energy in the house. He’d just seen, firsthand, genuine magic. Something wondrous and terrible and inexplicable, undeniably right in front of him. He could no longer comfort himself with the possibility that all of this was a lie or a trick or a fantasy. He now knew the truth, that this really was a world beyond Horatio’s philosophic dreams. It was a hard thing to accept, even for those who already suspected it. Even for those who hoped for it.
He swallowed. “This way.” He stepped past me to take the lead.
There were four bodies, as I’d been told. A woman lying on her back, limbs askew, the expression on her face one of surprise, not fear. Her neck was clearly broken, but otherwise she hadn’t been hurt at all—no signs of the torture that had been inflicted on the poor victim in the living room. Her three children were lying haphazardly around the room, looking for all the world as if they’d just been thrown in there without a second thought. From the skin lying next to her, the woman in the living room had been Caucasian, but this family were black, like most in this part of Philly. I wasn’t sure what the connection was. Maybe they were friends who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The detective had said they were the ones who lived in the house, but clearly they hadn’t been the target of the ritual. No blood spilled at all, in fact. Just four necks broken, then the bodies casually discarded.
I didn’t believe in a single omnipotent God. Not after having met so many purported gods in my life and having helped kill at least one. But I’d seen a crucifix hanging in the hallway. If Jesus and his purported Father were real, they definitely weren’t Fae, of that I was certain. But just in case, for the sake of this woman and her children, I closed my eyes and asked her God, if he were listening, to take care of them.
