Spell Caster Read online

  The SUV flies down the street.

  “Should I hit the button?” Amy says, a cross between excitement and concern written on her face. “Seems like a good opportunity to test it.”

  Ella glances at the center console for a moment, at the shiny red button that was recently installed. “Good a time as any. Go for it.”

  Amy presses the button, and suddenly, there’s a rave inside the SUV. The red and blue lights secured to the dashboard flash on, and a loud, grating siren breaks the air. The traffic in front of us, still thick from the dwindling lunch rush, parts like a school of fish, the drivers under the impression that the cops are blowing past to respond to an urgent situation. The fact that our vehicle is clearly one of the mysterious black SUVs favored by those Kooks at DSI doesn’t register until we’re a dot in the distance.

  As part of the concessions from the mayor’s office negotiated by Riker in the wake of the curse epidemic and the death of Commissioner Bollinger, all DSI vehicles now come equipped with police lights and sirens, thus allowing agents to respond in a more timely manner to active supernatural combat situations across the city. This concession rankled the bulk of the Aurora PD immensely, because they don’t want us conflated with them. But the police commissioner, Mahoney, signed off on it without too much fuss. I guess his experience at the art museum—the whole nearly getting assassinated by vampires thing—taught him a lesson about the necessity of DSI being a well-equipped organization.

  So we zip through the city streets unimpeded, buildings blurring by, until we take a sharp turn into an older residential neighborhood lined with duplexes in need of repair. Two blocks from the end of the street, on the left-hand side of the road, another DSI vehicle sits parked in one of the spaces allotted to the residents of a duplex with a weathered brick façade and a wrought iron gate left hanging open at the base of the stoop. Ella slams on the brakes and jerks our SUV into the only other available free space on the street, somehow squeezing us between a large pickup truck and a classic car without dinging up either one.

  She cuts the engine and says, “Cal and Amy, take the back entrance. Desmond, you’re with me at the front. Hostile is possibly a veiled practitioner, but I don’t know for sure. Byers couldn’t tell me much. Said he and his team went to interview a Jeremy Fletcher, one of Coble’s contacts, and were suddenly set upon by someone or something when they went to check out a suspicious noise on the second floor of the home.” She opens her door. “Weapons out. Be ready to use lethal force.”

  We hurry across the street, Desmond and Ella creeping up the stoop while Amy and I skirt around through the gap between Fletcher’s place and the duplex next door and emerge into a back yard that hasn’t been mowed in years. We crush the tall grass underneath our boots as we stomp up to the back porch, whose door hangs open at an angle, the hinges bent from long-term abuse.

  Amy yanks the porch door open all the way and motions for me to take point. I ascend the creaky steps and approach the back door of the building, which I belatedly realize is nothing but a screen door covered with what looks like a black trash bag.

  I give Amy the hand signal that means Kick it down?

  She nods.

  I kick the door in.

  The two of us storm into a laundry room at the same moment Desmond and Ella burst into the foyer through the front door, the hall a straight shot between the two entrances. They acknowledge us with a nod, and as a unit, we cautiously creep deeper into the building. I spy nothing in a darkened guest bedroom or in the sad excuse for a kitchen, most of the cabinets missing doors and the dishwasher out of commission. No sounds of struggle. No cries of distress. No signs anything is amiss in the duplex—which is a sign itself that something is terribly wrong.

  Where is Byers’ team?

  Ella is the first one to spot something out of place, when she spins to her left to peer through the narrow threshold that opens into a cramped living room. “Fuck,” she whispers harshly. Her gun swings to and fro as she hunts for a hostile in the room, but if there’s anyone under a veil hiding somewhere, she can’t sense them. She makes a subtle motion with her arm, beckoning me to come closer. I break away from Amy and shuffle up to the threshold, peeking around the frame to get a glimpse of the space. With my magic sense jacked up to eleven, firmly into veil-penetrating territory, I analyze every inch of the room.

  Though I do my best to ignore the two DSI agents lying dead on the couch.

  “Clear,” I mutter when my scan turns up nothing. “No magic at all.”

  Ella lowers her gun, eying the two murdered agents, one male, one female, with a pained expression. They’re both young new recruits, probably among those “in the know” who were affected by the recent escalation of supernatural threats in Aurora, among those who decided to stop cowering and do something to protect their families and friends. People with good hearts and good intentions. People with a brave streak in their souls.

  If only those qualities meant something to the monsters that prowl these streets.

  The two agents are slumped against one another in the center of a sunken couch, a puddle of blood growing beneath them. They both bear the same wounds that Sarah-Jane Coble suffered, three precise stab wounds made with a rounded weapon. Their eyes are open, half-lidded, both of them staring blankly at the floor, at the red streaks that indicate they were dragged from where they fell on the carpet. That they were situated on the couch after they died. That they were posed.

  “So much for a simple murder case,” Amy says as she slips past me, meeting Desmond at the bottom of the stairs. “Looks like we’ve got some kind of serial killer on our hands.”

  “We need to figure out why these people are being targeted.” Desmond adjusts his grip on his gun and places his foot on the first step. “But first, we have to see if anyone’s left alive.”

  “Right.” Ella turns away from the living room. “Ground floor clear?”

  We all nod.

  “Then up we go.”

  The team ascends the staircase in a defensive formation, Ella and I facing backward, guns aimed at the foyer, Amy and Desmond facing forward, guns aimed at the top of the stairs. But nothing attacks us from either direction, the house eerily quiet and still. The only background noise besides our own footsteps is the faint din of traffic on a busy four-lane highway a few blocks west. That kind of deep, all-encompassing silence doesn’t bode well for the fate of Byers and his other two teammates, or this Fletcher guy who owns the place.

  We reach the second floor without incident, but find more signs of disaster. Blood smeared across the walls and floor, a few streaks identifiable as handprints and footprints. The heavy smell of copper hanging in the air, along with the undercurrent of something more rancid, the clear indication of bowels vacated in the moments after death. A DSI-issue handgun lying partly underneath an overturned side table, spent shell casings littering the floor a few feet off to the right. Corresponding bullet holes cut through the ceiling, strangely enough, though the drop-down door to the attic is padlocked shut.

  Only one of the two bedroom doors on the hall is open, the one nearest to us, and a fresh blood puddle is slowly creeping across the threshold. My team approaches with caution. On Ella’s mark, we surround the doorway, all four guns pointed into the room, seeking out hostile targets. But we don’t find anything dangerous. We don’t even find anything alive.

  A civilian, who must be Fletcher, is sprawled against the wall. He bears the same three stab wounds we’ve been seeing over and over, but he also has several deep lacerations on his arms, and one of his hands is badly broken. Defensive wounds.

  Unlike Coble, Fletcher attempted to stop his killer from inflicting the lethal blows with their unidentified weapon, but it was all in vain. He earned shredded skin and cracked bones for his efforts, and suffered the same fate as Coble anyway. I wince at the idea the only thing he bought himself was a minute more pain and suffering before his life was snuffed out.

  And yet, Fletcher had it easy co
mpared to Byers.

  The poor young captain lies sprawled on the faded carpet about six feet away from Fletcher. His body is riven with deep cuts, arms and legs nothing but ribbons, face almost unrecognizable. His mouth hangs open in an unfinished scream, blood dribbling out between his lips. One glazed eye is wide with fright and pain, while the other is missing entirely, gouged out by the rounded weapon. I don’t spot any other obvious stab wounds on his person, which I take to mean the blow to his eye is what killed him. The weapon must’ve penetrated his brain.

  At least it was quick in the end, I think in a pitiful attempt to make myself feel better. At least he wasn’t left to slowly bleed to death from all the cuts.

  “I don’t get it,” Amy says in a low tone, respectful of the fallen captain despite her earlier criticism. “Why didn’t he fire off any beggar magic?”

  Spurred by the question, I examine the room at large and find she’s right. When fighting a powerful paranormal enemy, DSI agents almost always use their beggar rings, even in confined spaces like this. Because the property damage is far less important than apprehending a dangerous paranormal creature or rogue practitioner and preventing them from dealing further harm to the city and its inhabitants. But in the bedroom, there are no scorch marks on the walls or ceiling. There are no holes punched into the floor by a force blast. I don’t spy any damage in the room that could’ve been caused by an attack from a beggar ring, not even the more innocuous options like water and ice.

  “Maybe the assailant was holding Fletcher captive?” Desmond says. “Could be Byers didn’t want to risk catching a civilian in the crossfire.”

  “I don’t know.” Ella kneels beside Byers’ body. “If the perp had a hold on Fletcher, who was the primary target of the attack, then they likely would’ve killed Fletcher first, tossed him aside, and then engaged with the interfering DSI agent. But look.”

  She points to a few red marks on the floor that break off from the blood puddle gathered around Byers’ body and trail to the dented wall where Fletcher expired. The marks clearly came from Fletcher’s shoes, which are stained bright red. It appears as if Fletcher was cowering behind Byers until the captain fell, then got dragged through the puddle of Byers’ blood and thrown into the wall, where he was ultimately stabbed to death.

  However, that scenario means Byers couldn’t have hit Fletcher with an errant attack. He had no reason for not employing his beggar rings. So why hadn’t he?

  “We’re missing an important factor here,” Ella says.

  “Let me check something real quick.” I backtrack into the hall. Desmond steps into the threshold behind me and leans against the doorframe to act as my backup in case something rushes me from the other bedroom or from the stairs. I meander about halfway down the hall and come to a stop next to the overturned table with the gun tucked under it. Alongside the gun, I notice, are dozens of shards of tarnished glass. As I track my focus up the wall, I find an obvious rectangle, a lighter color of paint, where a mirror was hanging.

  The glass that shattered during Byers’ desperate phone call.

  Thing is, the little pile of debris is on the opposite side of the bedroom doorway from the stairs. Which means the killer didn’t come up the stairs to attack Byers’ team. So unless the perp can walk through walls, or teleport, they had to have broken into the home via the second floor. Turning slowly, I hunt for an alternate access point to this floor. There’s no window at the end of the hall, overlooking a backstreet, and besides the master bedroom, where Fletcher and Byers lie dead, there’s only a doorless linen closet, the other bedroom, and the…attic.

  My attention flicks up to the attic again as I think of it, and I immediately spot something that wasn’t there when we first reached the top of the stairs. A thin stream of blood has curled around the lip of the attic door, a single drop clinging to the edge, threatening to fall to the dingy carpet below.

  Stomach in knots, I tiptoe toward the attic door and rise as high as I can without jumping to get a better look at the padlock securing the door. Upon closer inspection, it’s obvious the lock isn’t closed all the way. It’s also obvious that it was unlocked by magic, that same dark-blue aura I observed back at Coble’s house tucked inside the lock mechanism.

  That’s how the killer accessed the hall. Through the attic.

  “Got something over here,” I say. “Need a helping hand.”

  Desmond marches over, and Amy takes his position in the doorway, watching both our backs as Desmond gives me a boost so I can yank the padlock free. After I tuck it into an evidence bag and stuff the bag into my pocket, I grab the short length of twine acting as the attic door’s handle.

  As Desmond lowers me, the door comes along for the ride, swinging down to reveal yet another puddle of blood that had been gathered on the wooden panel. The puddle runs down the back of the door, over my glove, and onto the floor, soaking into the carpet. I pointedly ignore my stained glove and unfold the rickety set of steps bolted to the door. The hinges let out an awful shriek, breaking the gloomy silence.

  I test the first step for stability, and then point my gun straight up as I climb with caution. Poking my head into a dark attic space is a very bad tactical decision—particularly if I want to keep my head attached to my body—but I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, seeing as there’s no other way inside. So I inch the top of my head into the musty space until my eyes sit just above floor level, and crane my neck to take a quick but thorough survey of the room. I refuse to stare at the two obvious dead bodies crumpled on the loose plywood boards a few feet away from me until I’m sure there’s no menacing creature lying in wait in a dark corner.

  The only creatures I see are a few small, twitching shapes on the ceiling I peg as bats.

  After I take a moment to gather my courage, I haul myself into the attic space. The ceiling isn’t high enough for me to stand upright, so I crouch as I finally let my eyes drop to the two dead DSI agents. An older woman, maybe late thirties, and a younger man, fresh out of high school. The woman has the same three stab wounds as most of the other victims, but the man only has one, the blow to the chest. Going by their positions on the floor, it seems the woman used her own body to shield the man after he suffered the first strike.

  I have the sudden and horrible thought she may have been a mother.

  “Calvin?” Desmond calls up to me.

  “They’re up here. The other two,” I confirm.

  His shoulders slump. “Can you tell what happened?”

  Daylight beaming through a circular hole at the very end of the attic jumpstarts a vague outline of the way the whole attack went down. “Attic window,” I reply. “Think the perp broke in through there, probably after climbing onto the roof or jumping from an adjacent building. Byers’ and his teammates, who were down in the living room talking to Fletcher, must’ve heard the perp breaking in. Three of them, plus Fletcher, came upstairs to investigate. When the perp used magic to break the padlock on the attic door, two of the agents rushed the attic to try and get the drop on the perp, only to get killed instead. Byers, hearing his teammates fall, shot through the ceiling, either to kill or to stall the perp.”

  Desmond sighs. “But it didn’t work. The killer descended from the attic, cut Byers and Fletcher off from the stairs, and forced the pair into the master bedroom before brutally murdering them both. Then, because the perp was aware there were two more people in the living room…”

  Ella’s voice cuts in, “They proceeded downstairs and killed those agents as well.”

  Amy and Ella appear at the base of the attic steps and stand next to Desmond, expressions solemn.

  Amy grinds her heel into the stained carpet. “If those agents were still downstairs after the perp finished off Fletcher and Byers, then the perp must be able to move ridiculously fast. It has to be some kind of Eververse monster, right? A human can’t move that quickly, not without magic”—she glances up at me—“and you don’t sense enough residual energy for that to
be the case, right?”

  I shake my head. “No way any speed spells were cast here. They produce a lot of waste energy, even when performed properly.”

  “Could it have been a vampire?” Desmond asks.

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.” I drop my feet back onto the top attic step. “Not really their style. Not gory enough.”

  Amy observes the bloody scene in the bedroom again, and shrugs. “He’s right. There are usually more shredded organs and dismembered limbs when an angry vampire tears into somebody.”

  In my head, I situate the four scenes side by side: Coble dead on her bedroom floor, the agents slumped on the couch in the living room, the gory mess laid out in Fletcher’s master bedroom, and Byers’ two remaining teammates, the first to die, embracing on the floor of the attic in front of me. Guilt stabs my stomach at the idea we could’ve saved most of these people if we’d arrived at Fletcher’s place a little earlier. But I crush those feelings underfoot even as I taste bile rising in my throat. Because I know dwelling on my failures until I’m on the verge of tears won’t get me anything but a(nother) trip to DSI psych. And a chat with a shrink won’t help bring this perp to justice. Nor will it stop the perp from taking more victims.

  Keep your head on straight, Cal, I tell myself, recalling a recent lecture from Ella. Keep it clear. Keep it calm. Keep it steady. Keep it calculating. And extrapolate the answers from the clues. You are smart enough to do this. Figure it out: what do the conditions and arrangements of the bodies tell you about the perp?