City of Shadows

I’d been sitting idly at my hand-me-down desk tossing crumpled paper into the garbage can, failing miserably in an imaginary NBA tryout for the better part of a half hour now. I was just reminiscing about shit that has no business being remembered when my phone rang. I considered letting it go to voice mail. It’d been a rough couple days; the shrink really pissed me off, which shouldn’t have surprised me at all because most shrinks piss me off.

It’s not that they’re shrinks. It’s not that they’re trying to help by making you relive painful memories that needed to stay forgotten. What gets old is the side eye they try so hard to hide. It usually comes out when you tell them about stuff they know in their heart of hearts isn’t real. Things like kids turning into bats and flying into the sky, guys with octopus heads trying to rip yours off in a dark alley.

You know. Little things like that.

The phone kept annoying me. So, I gave up on free throws and answered the damn thing. “Garrett Investigations.”

“Ya know, Blake… I got a lotta respect for you and all. But respect don’t pay the bills. It’s been three months. You gonna tell me you’re good for it again or should I just move on with the paperwork?”

It hadn’t been three months. Probably closer to two and a half, but he was right. Respect doesn’t pay the bills. I’d been hanging on, barely qualifying for a loan from the Bank of Goodwill for the better half of a year. Bastard knew I was good for it. I just needed–something. Anything, really.

“Yeah, Mr. Bronson. Check’s in the mail. Post Office must have lost it in transit again. I’ll write you another one in a bit.” I closed my eyes and shook my head, imagining him crumpling his forehead into one of those poses that’s a cross between taking a dump and losing your ever-loving shit. Don’t knock me. You know what I’m talking about.

“Check’s always in the mail. This is getting a little old, Garrett. You flat broke again?”

I looked around my ratty office with its blinking overhead light and the fan covered in dust that was circling endlessly in death throes above me. Bookcases scattered the four corners of the office, well-loved paperbacks tumbling out from the mess left the last time someone tried to pick a fight with me in my office.

An old Irish Coffee stain had settled into the ink blotter on my desk, mixing with the dust patterns from the files I finally decided to shred. It made the whole of my desk look like one of those ugly abstract paintings they sold at auction for millions of dollars. Heh. Maybe I should try selling the thing as art. Maybe I’d get lucky.

Or maybe pigs would fly. Again.

Leftover fast food containers spilled out of a kitchen garbage can and were slowly taking over my floor. They’d have won the battle by now if my empty liquor bottles hadn’t made their last stand nearby, drawing a thin line that separated the office into little micro conflicts of trash. The exploded garbage fought a battle of attrition, and I reminded myself I should probably get off my ass and drop it in the dumpster.

Maybe later.

“Nope. Just fine, Mr. Bronson. I’m a fucking millionaire.”

“Jesus, Blake. Why don’t you go on one of those stupid ghost shows or something?”

“Because they’re all bullshit.”

“And you’re not?”

“Nope. Not at all.”

“Your card says you do birthday parties. You Bozo the fucking wizard now?”

“Times are tough all over. Guy’s got to expand his horizons.”

“You still making balloon animals with ‘magic’?” Mr. Bronson laughed into the phone. His laughter devolved into an emphysematic cough that hurt my ears.

“You still smoke three packs a day?”

“Naw. Cut back. Two now, max.”

“Then cut back to one until you get my check. Pension’s due to hit the bank account in three days. You’ll get paid and I’ll forget your stupid clown joke.” I slammed the phone down and settled back in my chair, grinding my hands against the broken leather arms and pulled out padding by the fistful.

It didn’t help, I liked my chair, and it didn’t deserve to be my sacrificial lamb. It didn’t help, but it sure felt damn good to break something. I sighed and took a swig from the closest half empty bottle. At least this one was a lager. Stale, warm, and full of that moldy, heady taste that comes from leaving it out for a week.

Christ. Had it been that long? A fucking week since I went home? Whatever. There wasn’t anything special there for me anymore. Not since Arianna left.

The chime sounded on my computer. I got a new e-mail. For a fleeting moment, I got hopeful. Maybe she was reaching out to me to check and see if I didn’t drink myself into a coma or something.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had plenty of vices in fifteen years as a cop here in Ashboro City. Drinking myself in a stupor was a new one. Matter of fact, I just found out about it two weeks ago.

Which coincided with the time Arianna up and left me.

The e-mail was spam. More junk mail trying to sell me dick pills, weight loss witchcraft or hair growth tonics. I don’t need any of them, thank you very much. I guess they picked a demographic and assumed that all ex-cops were balding fat men with a bad case of E.D.

Problem is, I didn’t retire on my own accord. You can’t rationalize irrational behavior. It was one of the first things I learned on the streets. But the truth is: Every cop does it. Every cop. And when another cop tells them something irrational that they just can’t place outside of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, they think you finally blew a gasket and went off the deep end.

They called it PTSD and gave me half my pay for the rest of my life. Long as I keep seeing the city sponsored shrinks and proving to them that I’m still batshit crazy.

But I’m not. Monsters are real.

I know. Took me a while to rationalize it too. Don’t think real hard on it or you’ll drive yourself nuts.

Been there.

Done that.

Got the pension to prove it.

I scrolled through more bullshit emails looking for any shred of Arianna trying to reach out, scanned headlines of junk mail in a conspiracy filled and beer-goggled haze. Checked my Face-tweet thing and gave up. The frustration was boiling over and I felt like I was going to explode.

Magic smoke blossomed up from my computer as the fan died and the motherboard gave up the ghost. The monitor fizzled and popped. The light above me flickered and blew.

Just fucking great.

I fried my third computer this month.

Apparently, I’m what they call a “Natural Mage.” Someone who was born with a portion of their brain unlocked, somewhere in the back. I don’t know. Didn’t much understand all that neurological nonsense when they explained it to me.

What I do know is this:

Mages have an aura around them that’s unstable. Kind of like an electrical field times a thousand. It freaks people out, they think you’re creepy, or you smell funny, or whatever. All I know is they can’t get away from you quick enough.

The things that stay behind are influenced by it. If you’re having a good day, maybe you go to a bar and hang out. Someone there gets lucky that night, wins a couple bucks off a scratch off, little things like that.

But if you’re having a bad day, then that repulsion is ridiculously overpowering. Bad shit happens when Mages have a bad day. And that’s why I fried my third computer this month. The aura overpowers mechanical and non-living things. A person can lose their job, their wife, their kids, their finances. A dog or cat can become aggressive suddenly, no matter how cute and cuddly Fido was five minutes ago.

A computer just fucking dies.

But I can throw a fireball.

So, that’s kind of cool I guess. If you have money to buy a new computer every time you feel the need to throw a temper tantrum.

I haven’t been a Mage very long. This shit’s pretty new to me. I’m still learning.

Really, all I’ve learned since I ascended is that I definitely need to learn how to control my temper and stress better. Maybe if I hadn’t been having such a crappy time of things, I would have been happier. And Arianna would want to stick around.

But.

Aura. Repulsion.

The thing about the aura though is it only affects those who haven’t become aware or accepted the fact that there’s shit that goes bump in the night. Once you know the really real is really real, the bad mojo goes away and the sensitive folk treat you like you’re human again.

Instead of this abomination.

A knock sounded on my door. I grunted and smoothed my grimy fingers through the dark brown mop on my head that I called hair. My fingers tangled in a knot and it hurt like hell.

The fan crapped out as a final how-do-you-do.

I limped over to the old tallow candles I kept on the bookcase just in case I got pissed off and killed the lights again.

But it sure put on a hell of a show for everyone that came expecting a love letter to Satan. Everyone pictures Mages and wizards as these wizened old Gandalf looking people. But we’re not. We’re human. Well, mostly.

I lit the candles the old fashioned way with my zippo. The room came to eerie light as the flames flickered across their skull bases. Since I had this sign on the door, it really set the mood. Kids love it at Halloween. And I pass out candy by the bucket, which is surprising considering I’m in the middle of a crumbling office building that was antique in the Eisenhower days. It read:

BLAKE GARRETT

PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS

NO JOB IS TOO BIG, TOO SMALL, OR TOO WEIRD

SUPERNATURAL SPECIALIZATION

So, with a sign like that–I figured it’s best to put on the show. My office is full of weird bric-a-brac that does nothing but look cool. Things like my skull sconces that the candles were now flickering in. Plus, it hid all the crap I needed to throw out. With a wave of my hand, I sent an incense cone smoldering, hiding the stink of week-old Chinese food.

The knock sounded again. I yelled at the door. It probably wasn’t the best way to welcome a potential customer. But, the only ones that have been by in the last two weeks were some stupid teenagers that wanted me to do a Tarot reading for them.

I don’t do Tarot. That’s for charlatans and harlequins. Plus, both the Legati and Didicit Magis frown on scrying the future. It’s bad for the business of whatever they’re scheming in the background this month. It’s so hard to keep track of politics.

The Legati Magis are black Mages, hell-bent on power and oppression. They believe that natural Mages should be treated like gods. I think they’re assholes.

The Didicit are assholes in their own right, but they’re not so bad. I guess, it would be better if they’d stop trying to kill me or get me to join them in their cause.

That’s when it hit me. Supernatural beings can’t just walk into a place uninvited. My office hours were from nine to five. I know I’ve had a drink or two, but it couldn’t be long past three.

What if it was another one of their errand boys here to subjugate me or offer me three wishes? I closed my eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath. I closed my eyes and whispered, “ Lumen Veritas, ” letting my breath linger over the last word.

The room lit up in a pale blue glow; there was a minor fireworks display going off by my front door, indicating that my wards were still in place. But nothing from the spooky side of the street popped up on my monster radar. The only thing besides my wards that caught my eye was just the simple red outline of a man standing there with his hand in his pocket.

He scratched his ass idly, I figured he was probably wondering why the hell I didn’t answer my door. I vaguely recognized the aura and heat signatures. The spell faded. I relaxed.

“You gonna stand there looking like the cat ate your damn goldfish or come in? And stop scratching your ass. It’s unbecoming.”

The door opened slowly, illuminating the figure in the threshold. Ryan Murphy laughed and stepped into my office.

It’d been maybe a year or so since he retired, but he still had that natural muscle that comes with years of training, now hid by the layer of fat that only comes with age and experience. His gait was elongated and awkward from the knife wound that gave him an early retirement, too.

We’d stayed close, despite all the bullshit that followed cops around everywhere they went. He hadn’t seen me since my Ascension and I tried my damndest to put on a happy face. No sense in making the aura stink any worse than it probably already did.

“Ass scratchers don’t get the high five or the handshake. Get in here and get out of the damn cold.”

Seeing a friend did actually make me feel better. Just a little. I beamed an awkward smile.

“Dude. Seriously?” He was taking in the show. And I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t entirely buying in. “Who the hell are you and what did you do to Blake Garrett?”

“Too much?” I laughed.

“Too much? Christ, this looks like Satan’s unholy temple.”

“Money’s tight. They turned off my power last week.”

“Jesus. Maybe you should drop the whole fraud thing and just focus on being an ex-cop trying to make a buck with years of investigative experience and street smarts?”

“Yeah. But then I’d be just some cardboard character in a Raymond Chandler book. This puts me in my own class.”

“Yeah. Your own class of seriously fucked up. It’s no wonder you’re broke. It stinks like a whorehouse in here.”

“Incense. Garbage piled up.”

Murphy laughed. “Ain’t that the truth? Seems like garbage always piles up around us.”

“And past us. We’re forgotten soldiers, man. You want a beer?”

“Is it cold?”

“Probably not.”

“Whiskey then.” I pushed my way over Mount Trashmore to the cabinet I kept behind my desk. I grabbed two glasses and found the good stuff I kept for when friends visited, or I had a really bad day. I poured two fingers each and brought the glasses back. We clinked them and said a toast to those we lost as I settled down into my old wingback chair.

Murphy took the one opposite me by the fireplace I kept for decoration. My bookcases flanked it. Like everything else, it was just for show. I pretended to push a button on an old remote control and whispered “Ignis” low enough for me to just focus my will, but nowhere near loud enough for Murphy to hear me.

The fireplace responded to my will. Magic is all about subtlety and nuance. It feeds off emotion. The less emotional you are, the smaller the spark. The bigger the emotion, well–the bigger the boom.

The room illuminated in a subtle glow, casting shadows across Mount Trashmore.

“Dude. You need a maid.”

“If my pension was bigger I’d have one.”

“But how? You got sixty-sixed, same as me. I mean, you’ve even been there longer too. And I’m sure your last gig before they shit canned you brought in enough overtime.”

“Judgments. Settlements. Liens and personal guarantees. You know, all the fun stuff you get when the media outright calls you batshit fucking crazy.”

“In their defense, you are batshit fucking crazy.”

“Whatever, Ryan. I know what I saw. You know what you saw. You were there, don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

“It was a bad crash. There was fire.”

“You know well as I do that it takes a lot of fire to turn you into extra crispy recipe. The corpse that was left had been left at least a month.”

“Maybe they had a Weekend at Bernie’s style party with one of their gang banger brothers?”

“Really, Murphy?” I wiped some condensation off my glass and took a slow and steady sip, trying to dull the memories that started to come flooding back. I felt my anger rising again.

The fire fed on it all, rising in time with my pulse.

“That was damn near fifteen years ago. Why are you here?”

“We’re friends. You’ve been a ghost long enough that I figured it was time someone came to bring you back to the land of the living.”

“I’m fine, Murph.”

“The hell you are.”

“Saw a shrink just last week. He said I’m still crazy. It’s all good.”

“That’s the problem, Garrett.” He sipped on his whiskey. “It’s just.” A pregnant pause filled the air. The fire crackled in the hearth, drinking in the razor’s edge we danced on. “Nice fireplace, by the way.”

“Got it on eBay. Open box model.” I lied, and bit back a smile by chewing on my upper lip.

“I’ve been having these fucked up dreams lately. The city’s burning down, people are rioting in the streets. Breaking things. Stealing shit.”

“Something happen in the news? They inciting another war against the police?”

“No. It’s nothing like that. But they’re so vivid, you know. I can taste the cinnamon burn of the tear gas. I can hear the shouts and screams. But they’re not just your regular anarchists. They’re being guided, like by an outside hand.”

“I don’t drink the Kool-Aid. So spare me your conspiracy theory shit.”

“No. Not like some secret black ops coup thing. Like they’re being guided. Stirred up and led into all this chaos and anarchy.”

“People get pissed off and break things all the time, Murph. Hell, I tore out another chunk of chair today because my computer took a dump on me. Again.”

“No. Dude. Listen. It doesn’t matter. Sometimes the dreams are broad daylight. I see them whacking cops left and right, setting fire to marked cars, burning police stations and government buildings to the ground.” Ryan downed the last of his drink in one big gulp and stood up suddenly, walking over to my desk. He chased the whiskey with my warm beer.

It was gross. Not because I’d already tasted it and knew it was dog piss, but because I was drinking that. I may have wanted more.

The wild look in Murphy’s eyes told me I’d definitely be wanting more. So, I did the hospitable thing and stood my gimp ass up and limped over to the desk, taking his glass with my right hand. I carried them over to the bar cart and poured us two more fingers each.

He thanked me with a nod. “Day or night man. There’s always these creepy fucking red eyes staring down at us from up above. Sometimes I see a clawed hand, sometimes I see a giant freaking sword dangling in midair above the Archon Towers downtown. A giant freaking sword, Garrett.”

“Nightmares suck. We all get them. Comes with the territory. I ain’t met a cop yet who don’t have ‘em.”

“They always so real like this?”

“Sometimes they are.”

“Still though, it’s got me wondering. With all the weird shit going on around town lately, maybe you weren’t so wrong after all.”

I perked up at the mention of that. “What do you mean weird shit?”

“Dude? You don’t watch the news?”

“Not in fifteen years. Old anger dies hard. They did me dirty. I’m still paying the price for their bullshit. Will be the rest of my life.”

“Oh dude. You’ve been missing out.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“They’re saying The Vampire is still around. Saying you caught the wrong guy.”

“No way. We had DNA three ways. On every scene. Same ritual. Same blood. Same hair. Same saliva. I got him. Defense had to plea it out, they knew he’d fry at trial.”

“Then there’s another fucked up copycat running around. Four more since last month. Listen, I did some snooping. Called in a few favors. Your guy pled. We kept most of it out of the papers. The pattern. It’s the same.”

“So you’re telling me Baron Von Murderer is a fucking patsy?”

“Patsy Cline, my friend. All day and all night long.”

“Blood. Saliva. Fucking VCR tape CCTV. We had him cold.”

“There’s no doubt he was there, he did the shit he did.”

“Then he can’t be a patsy. Guilty as charged.”

“No. I think he’s a fall guy. There’s somewhere higher up in the food chain that was making all the decisions for him.”

“I don’t buy it.”

“Look, I know they shit canned you right around the time of trial and you missed out on all the good stuff. You know why he pled, right?”

“Um.” I paused, taking a sip of the warm whiskey. It burned good. “Because he was guilty as sin?”

“No. Because the state depo’d him and he was batshit crazy. Like… you look like Mother Theresa in comparison.”

“Yeah. Thanks for the compliment. I think.”

“No. Like he’s nuts man. He went on and on and on about weird stuff, man. Said he was mind controlled by some vampire, they made him drink blood. He did all sorts of weird shit with this wavy knife. Said something in Latin a couple times.”

“Latin?” My ears perked up. “Ryan, what did he say in Latin?”

“Said he had to come clean. That if he didn’t the Umbra Venatori would be coming for him. Then he went nuts and started crying. Said some more weird shit. Started shaking real bad. Told me it wasn’t his fault. The Alps made him do it. Thing is, guy’d never been to France. Couldn’t point Switzerland on a map. I find it hard to believe he went nuts in some mountains on the other side of the world.”

“Ryan. Who else knows about this?”

Before he could answer, glass shattered behind me. There was a sudden thud and something went squish. We both turned our heads as a worm climbed across my stained carpet, scaled Mount Trashmore and beelined for Ryan Murphy’s head.

I got up too late. Retirement has not been kind to me.

The thing jumped from the trash pile and splattered against Murphy’s head. It wiggled its way down and jumped into his mouth. He gasped, choked and stood up, trying to cough it back up.

The thing persisted. Murphy went down, unconscious.

The thing slithered out of his throat just long enough for me to see it wasn’t a worm.

It was a fucking finger. It retreated from Murphy’s mouth and crawled its way back toward the crash.

I turned toward the hole in my window, found a broken brick littered with shards of glass. I picked up the brick and tossed its ruins onto my desk with a thunk. There was a severed hand underneath it.

I stood transfixed as the hand picked up the finger like a pen and wrote a note in bloodied script:

MR. GARRETT:

I BRING YOU A PRESENT FROM OUR MUTUAL ACQUAINTANCE.

YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND US.

THE GAME HAS BEGUN.

PLAY OR DIE.

The dead man’s hand vanished in a cloud of green mist, leaving a sticky ichor in its wake.

Maybe I shouldn’t go looking for trouble. It always seems to find me just the same, regardless. I’m not one for coincidence, but there’s only two mutual acquaintances I could think of that are wonderful enough to send a brick flying through my window. Assuming Mr. Bronson wasn’t already pissed at me for skipping two months’ rent, he’d be even more pissed at having to repair a busted out window. I wasn’t going to get my security deposit back.

But right now I had bigger things to worry about, like one of my best friends dying on the vine right in front of me. It’s not every day that a sociopathic black magician breaks into my office and tries to kill my best friend.

So, yeah. He got my attention. Message delivered. Received.

I puzzled over it.

Now, I haven’t been a Mage for a long time, but I’d been something else a lot longer. It was a dark, primal side of me that I tried my damndest to tap down every time it showed up again to fuck with me.

Murphy said something about the Umbra Venatori. And that brought shivers to my spine. The flames in the fireplace fed on the anger surging through me. If they wanted me involved, then they got their wish.

I’m an Umbra Venatori, a Shadow Knight. By birthright, not by choice. Trust me. Not by choice.

It wasn’t like you just type “Shadow Hunter” into a job search message board and get all sorts of results. No. It was something more ancient than that.

The Umbra Venatori exist on a plane beyond mortal reach, in a land known as the Venici. It lies just on the other side of the Merosian Gates, a barrier designed to keep the things that go bump in the night from, well, going bump in the night.

My father was one. Not my adopted father, my actual father. The guy I never met because I didn’t have a chance. When Lord Michael Wilfrey showed up at my doorstep twenty years ago, telling me my father was dead, I called him an asshole and threw him out of my shitty one-bedroom apartment.

And then I called my father, the guy who raised me from childhood when my actual parents were too busy with whatever to bring a kid into the world. And he was alive and well, so. Suck it, Wilfrey.

It wasn’t entirely a kidnapping, but it was damn close. Something happened; I woke up in a strange castle somewhere. Time moves different there, so the three years I spent on Venici only turned out to be three or four days.

I woke up back in my bed, convinced it was a fever dream from whatever I had the night before.

They were warriors that moved in the shadows, dedicated to hunting those that escaped from Venici and put them down before they could wreak untold casualties on Earth.

When the rest of the Umbra showed up, that meant dangerous things were moving in the shadows again. I figured it wouldn’t be too long until I ran into another Shadow Knight and hoped it would go better than the last three times we had run into each other.

Ashboro City belonged to me. It was my corner of the world, their job was to go fuck up someone else’s town while I dealt with all the nasty things here.

Oh? Did I mention that they want me dead too. Well, not all of them. Only a few. Turns out they have shallow self-esteem and can’t stand the thought of their ego getting bruised.

Kinda like a bunch of cops I used to know too.

Still, my mutual acquaintance pool was kind of shallow. Ashboro City was like going to Kansas. It was a flyover state that nothing stuck around in for a long time. Which is a real damn shame considering all of our wonderful accoutrements. Like crack dens, prostitution brothels, rampaging gang wars. It was a place that you’d think the supernatural forces would want to stick around in for a bit. Maybe buy a minor piece of land, settle down. Get themselves a couple succubae, start a family, get a Barghast.

Most of the big time supernasties took up residence in nearby Lyton, which was a good three or four-hour drive to the west.

The Vampire was something different.

I had just made Detective grade, maybe a month or two before the bank robbery that ended my career. Couple dead bodies popped up in the woods, some lakes, a cemetery or two. Nothing major. Just symbolic. But things got weird when body parts disappeared from crime scenes and the stiffs ended up drained of blood with strange puncture marks on their throats. The media took a liking to the weirdness, and named it “The Vampire Serial Killer.”

But it wasn’t an actual vampire. From what I heard, those things were nasty. And they don’t have DNA. Or fingerprints. Or souls, really.

They don’t do ritual magic. They -are- magic.

Ritual magic is for the learned Mages, the ones who weren’t born with super powers unlocked. The ones who study the right books. The ones who didn’t have a wickedly unstable aura around them that made them stink to high hell.

They’re all over the world. You can find them in every city. They’re doctors, they’re lawyers, line cooks and cashiers. They’re the dangerous ones, despite what the Didicit Magus says.

I thought we had him cold.

But if what Murphy said held any weight, that meant he was working for someone.

But who?

I mean, cops take witchcraft and voodoo calls all the time. Usually no one buys it, you’d talk them down off their crazy perch, and promise that there’s no magic curse on them. You’d tell them they need to relax. And then you’d go about your business.

Except, sometimes they ended up dead. Or in a padded room.

Turns out curses are real.

Curses are real bad news.

And you know what they all have in common? They’re all ritualized. Kind of like The Vampire’s story. Ritual murders are the worst murders. Unnecessary deaths to further personal agendas that go beyond your usual gang warfare and domestic violence.

Because when you invoke a ritual, it echoes into Venici. Every ritual brings the world a little closer to the Merosian Gates falling and the supernasties coming down hard on our world. Black magic has the worst kind of effect.

I mean, the whole point of the Umbra Venatori was to stop it cold before it starts. But, they’re always tied up on whatever political bullshit they have going on between the other supernatural forces that move in this world.

But, gods forbid, a Shadow Knight meddles in the mortal world and tries to save a kid from a Kobold that’s about to eat its damn face. No. That’s crossing a line. That’s going too far.

Yeah. The Umbra can kiss my ass too.

I don’t play well with others, in case you haven’t figured that out yet. To the supernatural world, I’m just a pawn in their game to be maneuvered across their board in whatever way they see that fits their current agenda.

And I don’t buy it.

Because people are important, too.

And what’s the point of stopping a monster if it’s not for the greater good.

If you’re not doing it for the right reasons.

Listen, the world’s messed up enough already. No sense in throwing Grimm’s Fairy Tales or a D&D compendium of scary shit in there. It only makes things worse.

And that’s why I do what I do. That’s what we’re supposed to do.

I swore an oath to protect the citizens of Ashboro City, and no two-bit shrink or bureaucratic bullshit will stop me from doing that.

So, if the Vampire is here, then I had work to do.

Only, I figured this one wouldn’t pay my bills.

Which would just make Mr. Bronson even more pissed off at me.

So be it.

Murphy stirred in the background. My attention was elsewhere. That made me figure I’m either a shitty friend or just too intense for my own good. But I checked his pulse and breathing before I got distracted by more important things. I knew he’d be fine, Mages of that caliber don’t set out to outright murderize an innocent person. They just try to make things awkward for him.

And maybe gross and squishy too. No one would believe he’d nearly been choked to death by a dead guy’s finger (ick!), they’d chalk it up to swallowing his chewing tobacco or choking on food or something less scary.

So, I knew he’d be fine and wasn’t at all surprised when he sat up and gave me the stupid dog head cock. It was a straight up “what the fuck just happened” look. And as he stood up, I chuckled to myself.

“You drank too much, I guess. Whiskey hit your windpipe and burned the shit out of your throat. You’ll be fine. It’s been maybe thirty seconds at most. You’re going to have a hell of a headache and your mouth might taste funny. But you’ll be fine in a few.”

“You trying to kill me dude?”

“No. I can’t afford those kinds of potions. Don’t have the right ingredients. It’s just crappy whiskey. I mean, I thought it was good. Bottle cost me maybe forty bucks, max.”

“This is worse than the time we drank fireball until we puked.”

“Yeah. It’s got a bitch of a hangover. You’ve been slacking on me these past few months?”

“Naw. My drinking muscle’s working just fine.” He drawled, “I exercise regularly.”

“Get a taxi, just in case. I’ve gotta run out for a few.”

“Vampire thing?”

I nodded.

“Fuck it. I’m going with you.”

“The hell you are. I’m retired. No need for me to carry your weight anymore.”

“Piss off. I’ve saved your ass enough times over.”

That was true. He had. Ryan Murphy had gotten my ass out of a frying pan half a dozen times over our career. Saved my life a few times too. If this scheme was bigger than I thought all those years ago, I’d need all the help I can get. “Fine.” I sighed. “But I’ve got work to do.”

“I figured. What’s our first move?”

“Figure out who the hell just threw a damn brick through my window.” I pointed out the shattered glass in the picture window behind me. “And I’d like to know who sent me this love letter.” I showed him the note.

“Jesus fucking Christ! Is that blood?”

“Definitely not Jesus’s blood, but yeah.”

“You shouldn’t be touching that without gloves man.”

“I’m not a cop anymore. The rules of evidence no longer apply.”

“But the rules of mortals still do. Christ, it’s still wet. You’ll catch something.”

“That’s the point.” I turned away from him and set to work.

There’s few people with enough magical juice to partially reanimate a corpse. Especially a part of it that had already been severed from the rest of its battery. This thing had some serious firepower. I just hoped the few tricks I had up my sleeve would be enough.

I set the bloodied cable bill gently down on my desk, knocking over the last of my beer. It puddled onto the floor, making the room stink like a frat house. I didn’t have the luxury of calling for forensics or pulling DNA and running it through CODIS. No, I had to do this the old-fashioned way.

“ Lumen Veritas ” I spoke, waving my hand over the overdue cable bill. There was a subtle shift in the air and the room illuminated in a pale gray light. “ Inveni Id” Smoke gathered around the paper, pooling up in a tiny cloud. I stepped over my desk and breathed in the smoke as it faded.

I coughed.

It’d been a while since I’d had a smoke; before I could think on it anymore I sucked in deep and swallowed the smoky air down into my lungs. It burned and tasted like a cross between the iron tinge of blood and lavender.

It wouldn’t last long. Spells like this are subtle. The blood had already dried by the time I invoked what I’ve taken to calling “Marco Polo.” If I had fresh blood or hair, it would be better. But we work with the tools we’re given.

You know the reason all those find a kid kits always have hair samples attached to them? It’s not for DNA. It’s for when the police give up because your kid’s been missing two days now and you were at your wit’s end. That’s when I get an awkward phone call from someone that used to be my boss to promise me a bunch of money to keep it quiet and make it quick.

People don’t ask me too many questions anymore. They just trust that I still have an excellent cop’s instincts and leave me to do my job. I’m pretty sure they’d throw me in a padded room if they had any idea how I found missing kids.

You can’t just tell people you eat magic smoke from half-dried blood or burned hair. They look at you funny. And then they ask questions. And more questions.

I hate questions like that.

I waved a hand to shut Murphy up before he asked me a stupid question. I could see his mouth moving dumbly as he tried to gum out words to make a coherent sentence. After a beat, he gave up and plopped down on the chair, which suited me just fine.

I closed my eyes, and Marco Polo showed me a picnic bench against the shores of a lake. Everything was covered in a green haze, like an impermeable fog that just wouldn’t break. A swan glided across the water without a care in the world. I could hear voices, children playing, and the faint ringing sound of someone playing horse shoes nearby. Assuming the dead guy was still in Ashboro City, there were only a few places with a lake or pond that big. And they all had benches, just like that. And horse shoe courts. I bet you can’t even find a pond in your city that doesn’t have a bird in it.

Hell, sometimes the magic works. But mostly, it’s just this. More dead ends that need unraveling. But I had a hunch on where I should start. It’s not a perfect science. It’s not even science. Science has trial and error, it’s peer reviewed.

Magic is just magic. It works based on willpower. And despite my best guesses, I still had a belief in my heart that the guy with the missing hand was long dead, anyway. And so, I didn’t believe Marco Polo would show me exactly where my missing stiff was. No, this was more basic. More of a best guesstimate, if I could even call it that. It was a close approximation of where the guy was before he died. Either way, a lead was a lead.

And the first rule of any talented homicide detective is you need to exhaust all leads. Everything is workable. And so I set out to go to work.

“Got something. Let’s go.”

I stepped over Mount Trashmore and went to the doorway where I kept my walking stick. I opened the drawer, grabbing my revolver and a couple of random objects that I’m just too uncomfortable leaving behind. I opened my door.

And stepped right into the woman who was standing there.

Arianna stared at me and shook her head. I give her credit, because I was feeling all sorts of things at that moment and felt like my aura was going nuclear. How do you explain it? When you haven’t seen the woman that you love in two weeks, that first glimpse is just like the first time your eyes met. We locked eyes. Her steel blue met my dumpy brown; I just melted.

There was no soul gaze or anything romantic like that. I think I may have lopped my head and started panting like a dog. My legs were shaking and I needed to lean on my staff for support. I needed to sit down. I needed to think.

I needed to speak.

I needed to say I’m sorry.

But I can’t apologize for my soul. A Mage’s aura is a powerful thing. I ascended about a month ago, and since then things have been shitty at best and craptacular at worst. The tension boiled over. I may have farted or sneezed. Or, who knows what I did that Jenga’d our relationship into oblivion. All I know is I’ve been having a rough go of things lately, I mean - going to sleep and waking up able to throw a fireball is something video game nerds like me could only dream of.

But, everything has its price. My head still throbbed from whatever they did back there in my skull. And if Arianna was the price for power, then I didn’t want it any more.

I can’t just find Gandalf and tell him to give me back the one ring though. It doesn’t work like that. Look what happened to Gollum.

At that moment, I felt like Gollum.

A tragic hero in a story I no longer understand.

What I wanted to say was I’m sorry. I’m sorry for every bone-headed thing I ever did in the past or would do in the future. What I said was something between a primitive grunt and a dog barking. I’m not sure how to even translate it into English.

And she just sighed and pushed me away, moving to sit in my favorite chair. She wore a long cardigan that only accented every curve of her body. She flicked a hand through chestnut hair and pushed a few stray wisps out from her face.

And dare I say it? Did I see it?

A tear. She was crying.

And that just melted me more. I wished at that moment I was a better Mage than I was, because all I wanted to do was turn into a slime and drain down into the floor.

Because, honestly - I did. I felt like slime. Not the big blue ones from Dragon Warrior that kick your ass late game. I mean one of the early yellow ones, that still kick your ass and make you feel like a fool for not hitting the attack button quick enough.

“Jesus, Blake. You look like shit.”

Yeah. That made me feel a whole hell of a lot better. I opened and closed my mouth a few times. She stung me good. The truth hurts. And it cuts deep to the bone. “It’s been a rough few weeks.” Good job, stupid.

“Why didn’t you come home? I waited and waited.”

How do you respond to that? It was an honest question. It had a simple answer. But the truth is, I didn’t know why I didn’t come home. Maybe it was because I was terrified of the abomination I had become, or maybe it was because I was a stupid pig-headed idiot. “I. I couldn’t.” I stammered, my voice croaked. I slunk down into the chair next to her defeated.

Ryan piped up to break the awkward silence: “Maybe, uhm. Yeah. I should go. Just uhm. Call me. Yeah, call me when you’re ready to follow up on that lead you got.” He couldn’t get out of the damn office fast enough. The door slammed awkwardly closed.

Silence stretched.

“You’ve been sleeping here?”

“Yeah. Damn couch has a broken spring. Think I threw my back out.”

“Jesus.” She settled back, taking in the anarchy my office had devolved into. “This isn’t like you, Blake.”

“I just.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been busy. When was the last time you took a shower?”

“In the bathroom sink, this morning.”

“Seriously? Christ.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just - it’s just I know what pushed you away and I wish I could control it but I can’t. It’s so damn hard.”

“Please spare me the wizard nonsense again.”

“It’s not nonsense.”

Her eyes shot daggers at me. “I get it. But maybe once in a while you should try talking to the doctor instead of spouting off about your Lord of the Rings fantasies.”

“I wish they were just fantasies.”

“Blake Garrett. You need to listen to me. And you need to listen to me right now. You got a bad break from the media. Listen, I work for the damn news and I tried like hell to get them to cut the story, but I was over-ruled over and over and over again. I pushed so hard, they fired me from anchor and demoted me to the newsroom. But to keep going on, reliving the same day over and over and over again. You need to listen to yourself. Because something bad happened, doesn’t mean you need to let it consume your life.”

I bit back a smart-ass comment. It wasn’t the right time, so I sat there sullen and let her castigate me.

At this moment you’re probably wondering why I didn’t just summon a fireball to prove to her that I wasn’t stark raving mad. Elemental magic is still elemental. It’s primal. The laws of physics still apply when you summon aether from the netherealms and subjugate it to your will. And then there’s the whole emotional mana thing. Right now I was feeling all kind of ways. I didn’t think I had the strength or the willpower to control it.

And I loved that girl.

I only passingly liked my shitty office.

Summoning fire in this state would turn us both to ash just as surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

But, even more important than that: Magic doesn’t work if you don’t believe in it. You can’t see what’s not there until you know it’s there. It works kind of like those weird moments where you are talking on a cellphone and look around your house for your cellphone. I mean, yeah. You can see the fallout, but you don’t need to know how a building burned to watch it burn. You just see flames and smoke, you don’t need to know about ignition points or accelerants. You just know the fire burns.

Every person needs to come into the Supernatural in their own way and at their own pace. Unless you actively seek it out, it’s just another force of nature. It’s just another subtle wind blowing in. Sometimes people get exposed the hard way though. Sometimes a giant Kobold comes out of a dark alley and tries to eat your face.

You can’t rationalize something that is irrational. It’s panic inducing. It’s fear in its own primal nature.

It’s why most of the crazy serial killers that Dateline or 20/20 run on are human. Because most of this stuff comes from the Venici Plane, they exist in a shadow form until they’re exposed for what they really are.

“I know. Arianna. I just. It’s tough. I’m trying, every day. The headaches aren’t as bad any more. And I haven’t seen a goblin or a troll in like three days. So, there’s progress. The last guy gave me some self-meditations to work through when things get weird. I’m going to try them. I’m so sorry for pissing you off. I love you and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you or us.”

“I know.”

I couldn’t tell if that wound stung more than the bullet fragments in my knee.

“Please come home.”

That felt a little better at least. Her request was a cool waterfall pouring over my aching body. I’d absorbed her words deep into me and relished in the relaxation that it brought. I almost felt like I was on top of the world.

Almost.

“I will, soon as I finish this job.”

Lightning crashed outside. My door flew open.

The troll was on me before I could blink.

I had wards, but I’m a rudimentary Mage in a world that I understand nothing about. At their best, they serve as a giant alarm system right now.

Problem is, an alarm system doesn’t work after the bad guy already breaks down your door. That was what the lightning was. I mean, I thought it was pretty cool when I installed it. The wards work like a giant cleansing shower.

It strips Unseelie Glamor and exposes whatever breaks down my door so I can at least see what’s trying to kill me because it’s really hard to fight back against something you can’t see. Unseen enemies are the worst kind.

I heard Arianna scream as the creature came barging through my door. I shushed her and brought my staff up to guard, green-blue sigils came to life along the base of the staff, a shield snapped over me just as the creature bore down. It struck my shield with the force of a slow freight train, pushing me back.

I went ass over feet across Mount Trashmore, spilling empty Chinese food containers and beer cans everywhere. As I fell, my shield dropped and I scrambled for one of the aluminum cans. I grabbed it and threw it weakly at the troll.

You’d think I’d just shot the damn thing with how it reacted. Its mottled gray flesh exploded into a burning stink that overpowered my incense and trash, filling the room with the stink of rotting meat. Pale flames flickered across its shoulder. The thing swatted comically at the flames, reminding me of an old Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Not like I should be laughing at something seven feet tall and covered in mottled fur, something with teeth as big as my damn hand. But this wasn’t my first rodeo. I’d seen trolls before, they were stupid.

But they took a kicking and kept on coming. When it couldn’t swat away the flames like an angry bee, it lunged at me, shattering my crappy desk into splinters. The thing fell on all fours and snarled as it stood up, swiping at the space my body had occupied just a moment before.

“My what big hands you have.” I couldn’t help myself.

“The better to crush you with, wizard.” The thing snarled again and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“That’s not how this story goes.” I kicked at its shins, the troll ignored me and began to squeeze.

And squeeze.

“Blake!” I heard Arianna scream. “What the hell is that thing? Ohmygod ohmygodohmygod…”

It was either the atmosphere crackling and popping or my ribs. I wedged my staff in between us and pulled, I gave the thing a halfcocked smile and asked in my best Sylvester Stallone impersonation: “That the best you got? Repellum! ”

Runes flickered across my staff, an unseen force came swirling up from the aether and pushed the thing halfway across the office. The troll slid on its rear and smacked against the far wall, cracking the drywall - and what I suspected, the concrete exterior too.

The whole room shook with the force of the blow. The troll ambled back up to its feet. Its claws skittered across the floor as it tore my desk to splinters and lunged.

It failed to account for the fact that I’d been a raging drunk for the last two weeks. Its bony foot made contact with my aluminum army of cans and I swear, it yelped like a dog stung by a bee. It was almost cute. The thing took a few steps back, guarding its position behind my desk and stared coldly ahead. I watched its eyes darting left and right, as it ran cold calculations in its tiny brain.

And then the giant monster did what any giant monster would do.

It picked up the biggest piece of my freaking desk and threw it at me.

I scrambled to the side, barely dodging it and taking a glancing blow across my shoulder that hurt like hell. If nothing was broken, then I sure as hell separated it. Pain clouded my vision. Stars exploded behind my eyes. The thing was on me again, hurtling toward me like a giant furry missile. It wrapped its arms around me and began to squeeze. Harder and harder until I felt my insides go squish. Then the thing grabbed me by the neck and started to twist.

The walls of the thing’s arms were closing in fast. All I could smell was the musk coming off the troll’s body, something like a mix between moss and rotting vegetation. A blue haze settled across the room and vanished in the blink of an eye. The atmosphere changed, suddenly charged with an electric buzz. Hope replaced my anger and swallowed the pain. I let it settle against me for a moment, focusing my will.

When I was sure it was now or never, I pulled the trigger.

I grabbed the thing by its giant skull, wrapping my hands around its head. “ Ignis!” I screamed the word as loud as I could, channeling all the rage and anger and pain into my voice.

Pain is a powerful motivator.

The thing’s skull erupted into a gout of flame, the air filled with the stench of burning flesh.

I fell to the ground in a heap and darkness swallowed me whole.

When I finally woke up, Arianna was still sitting in a corner and rocking herself gently. She had that wild-eyed look that only comes with experiencing the really real for the first time. I didn’t need to read her aura to look for the blue-green glow of those that are supernaturally aware to know that she’d been touched. I scraped some of the ash from the troll’s head off my shoulder and looked down at my t-shirt. It was an old Iron Maiden shirt I got from a tour way back when. I liked it, a lot. The shirt was covered in the sticky ichor of black blood that the Unseelie creatures were notorious for coating in a goopy mess every time they died.

I shrugged, my shirt would end up just another gun cleaning rag in a pile in the closet. You can’t wear that stuff out in public. You get all sorts of dirty looks, people think you’re a crazy vagrant.

Which, I guess - I kind of was at this point.

There was no amount of comfort I could give her, though I knew the feeling would pass in time, it still sucked to experience. I mean, hell - I’m still living with the consequences of my first encounter with the really-real. I moved to sit down on the floor next to her, careful to avoid the bubbling pile of ichoric acid that the dead thing was carbonating on my floor as it faded down into wherever those things went when they died.

I wrapped her in a hug and let her rock gently against me until the babbling stopped. She turned to me and sighed. Tears marred her makeup, ruining her eye shadow that ran in rivulets down the side of her face. I couldn’t help myself.

She was still beautiful to me.

“It’s okay.” Yeah. I picked the absolute worst words possible. I’ve never been good at emotion. Blame it on being a cop. “I know. It sucks. You’re going to have a headache. You’ll second guess yourself and see things that really aren’t there for a while. It’s just shock. It’ll pass in a week.”

“What the hell was that thing?”

“A troll. Unseelie Court’s big dumb foot soldiers. Nothing I can’t handle. They usually only send them out from Venici when they want to prove a point. Or send a message.”

“Like what?”

“That big dumb thing? He was young still. Probably a warning from the Dark Elf King that he knows I know.”

“Which means?”

“Either they’re going to help me or kill me. Kind of hard to tell with them.” I just shrugged.

“Seriously?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. I’m sure it won’t be the last time.”

“So they’re real?”

“What’s that?”

“Monsters.”

“They can be.”

“Blake, none of this makes any damn sense.”

“And it never will. The Elves are the least of any of our problems. They just stomp around and make some noise. They don’t usually take human conflict personally. Elves live a lo-ong time. A lifetime to you and me is seconds or minutes on their clock.”

“But it was here. I saw it.”

“I know. I killed it.” I pointed lazily toward the bubbling pool as it slowly receded into the floorboards. “That one won’t bother us anymore.”

“But there’s more?”

“Probably more of them than us.”

“And He’s back.” The way she said it, made it sound like a capital H.

“The Vampire? Yeah. Ryan was telling me.”

“Do you think that thing was involved?”

“Well, I mean. Considering, something tried to kill Murph right before you walked in the door, I find the whole Unseelie assassination attempt a little passe’. I don’t think it was here to kill us. I haven’t pissed off the Fair Folk in a while at least. I think this was their way of subtlety. And you know I’m not one for subtlety.”

“Blake, it tried to -kill- you.”

“No. It was just a big friendly hug from Bigfoot.”

Silence stretched into minutes. She chewed her lip deep in thought. The movement made her dimples stand out. I stood up and ruffled her hair like a kid who just learned a valuable life lesson. It was stupid. It was patronizing. I shouldn’t have done it.

“How?”

“Blew its head off with magic. No big deal. Just a tiny spark in the right place and kapow.” I mimed an explosion with my hands and smiled meekly.

“Won’t that…have consequences?”

“Probably. I’ve got a mind to meet with the Fair Folk and tell them to leave their big uglies on the other side of the bridge. But, that’s a long term goal.” I laughed. “You know how I am about goals.”

“Shitty at meeting them?” She stood up and smoothed her cardigan back over her body.

“Well yeah. That. Too. But I’ve got priorities you know. Murph said The Vampire took four more bodies recently. I need to make sure he doesn’t take a fifth.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Elementary, my dear Watson.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“The hell you are. It’s dangerous.”

“Remember what happened the last time you said that?”

“You came along anyway. We got shot at by some knuckleheads in a stolen car. It crashed. Two of the three kids died in the crash. The other went to jail for like three years.”

“But nothing bad happened to us, right?”

“Technically or physically?”

“Face it, I’m your good luck charm. You need me along. Especially if you’re chasing after a supervillain.”

“Supervillains live in the panels of comic books. Psychopaths walk our streets.”

“But you just killed a monster. You’re a super hero.”

“I’m no hero, Arianna.”

“To me you are.”

Well, isn’t that sweet. Two weeks ago she wanted to kill me, now I’m her damned knight in shining armor. Problem is, my armor doesn’t shine. It’s blackened and bloodied and tarnished. Truth is, I got lucky with the troll. They’re damn mean sons of bitches. It was dumb luck and perfect timing that got me through that one. The last time I fought a troll it almost ripped my head clean off and if it wasn’t for Wilfrey’s balls, I wouldn’t be standing here right now. That troll just picked a really bad time to try me. If I hadn’t been drinking myself into a stupor these last two weeks, there wouldn’t have been steel cans laying all over my damn office.

“Thanks, but save your praises for the fire department. America’s heroes and all that.”

“Don’t start with that again. You were a damn good cop.”

“Emphasis on was.”

“You’re still a good man.”

I nodded in appreciation. But now wasn’t the time. There were four dead bodies with their murder cases getting colder by the minute.

If I put the right guy away the first time, they would still be around today. They’d still be going home to their kids after their daily nine to five. Least I could do is make sure there wasn’t five. I swore that I wasn’t going to let the bastard get away.

Not this time.

Not again.

“Got work to do. If you’re coming, meet me around back. Give me five minutes to get my stuff and we’ll hit the streets.”

She smiled for a minute, I could see the devil’s thoughts flash behind her eyes while she chewed her lip, gauging whether or not she should ask me.

So.

I beat her to it.

“No cameras. No press.”

“Come on, Blake! Think about what I can do with the exclusive…It can be your redemption story.”

I shook my head defiantly. “Remember that whole thing just now with the Troll?”

She shuddered.

“Think about everyone else that watches the news. Then think about their kids. Imagine that times…what, there’s a hundred thousand in this city? Figure about a quarter of them will tune in for an exclusive about this sadistic son of a bitch. Then imagine that reaction amplified all across the city and its metro. At exactly the same time. No cameras.”

It was true, the fallout from twenty thousand people all of a sudden becoming aware of the supernatural would send shockwaves throughout the metropolitan area.

It would be a nuclear apocalypse. Arma freakin’ geddon.

Once you’re aware, you’re aware. That means the supernasties get to take their kid gloves off. It wouldn’t be unexplained untraceable missing persons, it would be ravaged corpses in broad daylight.

The food pyramid would turn upside down.

Imagine for a moment the lions hunting you. In broad daylight. Downtown. On your lunch break.

Yeah. It could be that bad.

But, probably worse.

I watched her jaw set and her body sag, defeated. Deflated.

Yeah. I know she was trying to do the right thing. But, I don’t need the publicity. Yeah, maybe it would bring in some more business. Yeah, it’d be nice to clear my name.

But I kind of liked everyone thinking I went off the deep end.

It meant that I was unhinged, that I was dangerous.

For the most part, it kept the assholes out of my life. And I didn’t need any more of those popping up at all hours. Hell, it’d kept the teenagers from toilet papering my house on Hallow’s Eve the last ten years.

That was worth its weight in gold. That stuff is a bitch to clean up. Especially when it’s wet from rain or midnight dew.

Arianna stepped through the door. When it was closed, I counted to ten to make sure she was gone, listening to her retreating footfalls. I didn’t give in and move until I heard the elevator down the hall chime that it was ready for her.

When I was certain she was gone, I locked the door and stared at the threshold. I knew I needed better wards, but I didn’t have the skill to craft them myself. Not yet at least. Hell, the alarm bells took me a week of solid meditation.

So, I did what any crazy bastard would do.

I Macgyvered the hell out of some miscellaneous crap I had laying around my office. It’s amazing what you can do with a can of lighter fluid and some old rags. I stuffed them into one of the empty beer bottles and set it by the door and balanced it with an old Chinese food container. Simple, really. Harmless, mostly.

I stepped back and admired my work, adjusting things an inch or so here or there.

Satisfied, I closed my eyes and centered my breathing. I opened up the tiny well of energy deep inside my soul and drew it up from my mind. I imagined a trip wire, picturing an effervescent fishing line. In my mind’s eye, I threaded the wire inside the bottle, stuffing it in tight. I tied a portion of the leftovers outside the bottle, wrapped and tied across the mouth.

I imagined the line stretching out across the floor, just beneath the jamb. It threaded end to end, right at about my ankle’s height. I slipped it through the door and wrapped it around the door handle. When I got about halfway up the door, I imagined myself setting a piece of packaging tape there and attaching the wire to it.

I opened the door and touched the part that my tape was on and exhaled slowly “ Initium ignis” , sending a sliver of will out and directed it through my hand. When I pulled my hand away, the fire run was clearly burned into the door where my hand had just been a moment before. I double checked each side to make sure everything was set.

I bit back a laugh as the rune melted back into the wood.

Let ‘em try that shit again.

It was rudimentary, but it would get the job done. The rune was a kill switch. Anyone that didn’t hit the right spot with the exact amount of will would be in for a rude awakening. Now I just needed to remember to unlock the door when I got back home.

Or I’d burn myself to cinder and ash.

I stepped out into the hallway, a new pep in my step.

There was work to do.

I still drive a cop car. Well, that’s kind of an overstatement. I mean, it’s a beat up Chevy Impala with close to two hundred thousand on it. It’s in the perfect flavor of government too, dirty white. I made them leave the spotlight installed when I bought it at auction. I had one of those stupid magnetic signs that I bought cheap from Bill Sach’s print shop down the road.

We decided to keep the Ashboro City crest in the center: An angel with its wings open, clutching a small child in its arms. In the background was the skyline of the city against Lake Crystal. The placard had my name on it, mirroring the sign on my door.

It was close to rush hour and cars were piling up on the interstate, clogging Ashboro’s arteries with a multicolored worm of traffic that stretched up and down the interstate for miles. Traffic was heavier than normal and I checked my mental calendar to make sure I didn’t sleep past a holiday or something.

Maybe it was the sinister clouds in the sky and the forked tongues of lightning that licked across the skyline in my rearview. But it seemed like everyone wanted to get out of here as quick as possible.

It was as if being stuck in the city when the sun went down was as close to Armageddon as you could possibly get.

Which was only partly true. Daylight kept all of the beasts at bay, the spirits and fae couldn’t stand to be out in the beaming light of the daytime sun.

That meant the only creatures petering about in broad daylight were the ones you should only be partially afraid of. The daytime spirits were stronger than the bottom feeders that came out at night, most of them kept day jobs and secrets. I’d run into a few in the last several years, they preferred to keep to themselves and not stick around too long once they smelled the mark on my skin.

“You got any idea about this newbie?” I asked Arianna over the thrum of my emphysematic engine.

“He may be crazier than the last one you dealt with.” I caught her trembling out of the corner of my eye.

“Crazier than me?”

“Blake, no one’s crazier than you.”

Heh. That seemed true enough. “Either way, I’m sure the journalist in you is just dying to come out. What are your sources telling you?” I had been a really bad boy toward the end. When something particularly juicy came across the scanners and the city’s public relations was hush, I sometimes worked too much and too hard. I’d take work home and forget a report was in my briefcase, or I’d happen to be reviewing crime scene photos when she snuck up behind me.

What can I say. I’m a sucker for a pretty lady.

Government and public relations are like oil and water. They never mix well, and especially not for a long time. So, if I could stick it to the PD during my tenure at the end that was a small price to pay.

Say what you want about me. The public has a right to know if they’re safe in their beds at night. Which is why, despite the protests of the Venatori , the Didicit, and the Legati , I never denied that there are evil things out there ready to rip your face off in a dark alley.

That’s kind of important to know.

You know, in case you happen to take a certain dark alley late at night to shortcut your way back home and come face to face with a kobold and a sharp knife.

Arianna did her best to let me tell the truth, which is probably why we both got blackballed out of our jobs. The newspapers and evening news can only take so much of a crazy guy talking about monsters as if they were real.

The Venatori would much prefer if I stopped talking about my dark lineage. So much so, that the last time the Discovery Channel approached me wanting to do one of their crackpot special evening shows, I took them up on it.

I came home from the interview with two black eyes, three broken ribs, and a stab wound in my abdomen. Had a hard time explaining that one away.

Last I heard, the producer got disappeared right around the time their tv studio went up in flames.

“So, pretty much the only lead I have is that the last guy was found in a cemetery.” I felt like an ass. Arianna had been speaking the whole time I was lost on memory lane. I really needed to focus more.

“The city’s over two hundred years old. We’ve got a lot of those around these parts. Your source give you a name or address?”

“Mount Pleasant up in the Highlands.”

The light up ahead turned red and I slammed on the brakes a little harder than I should have. “Mount fucking Pleasant?” I turned to stare at her wide eyed. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“You know the place?”

“It’s a goddamnned vortex.”

“A what?”

“Babe, that place is bad news bears. We don’t go there. Ever.”

“It’s just a creepy old cemetery.”

“And Annabelle was just a scary doll. That’s a no go zone.”

“Come on now. I find it hard to believe that no one ever goes there.”

“The last time someone was buried there was damn near two hundred years ago. Bad Things happen there.”

“That’s just folklore.”

“City utilities hasn’t maintained it in ten years because every time they send a mower up there, the engine blows. Last time someone tried, the mower ‘hit a buried tombstone and flipped over’ OSHA was pissed. The poor bastard was eviscerated.”

“You’re worried because there was an industrial accident?”

“I’m worried because I was there. It wasn’t an accident.”

“I pulled the reports. It was our top story for three days. That’s a long lead time in tv news.”

“Arianna, you just watched me turn a troll into extra crispy original recipe. There’s no such thing as folklore. It’s real. All of it.”

The light turned green; my car shuddered as I put pressure back on the gas. The transmission thunked between first and third. “You gotta have something else. That’s a dead end.”

“It’s the most recent report. From two days ago. I’ve been up in the Highlands, your friends still have the road leading up there blocked off.”

“And for damn good reason.”

“We need to check it out.”

“Arianna! It’s a Dead End.” I said, emphasis on the Dead and End. “For both of us.”

There’s some places in the supernatural atlas that are off limits for everybody. Mount Pleasant was one of them. The place was a spiritual black hole, a giant spinning vortex of things that I didn’t have the balls to tussle with. I knew of at least two cadres of ghouls that had taken the place and claimed it as their territory. A warlock built a lair underneath one of the crumbling necropolises. Poor bastard thought it would be a really cool way to summon the devil.

So, like all stupid kids, he got all zooted up and tried. Summoning is hard enough. It’s even harder when you’re on all sorts of substances that would make the Feds look twice. It failed spectacularly.

Which is to say that one of the upper denizens of Infernum called that place home now. It still plays soccer with the poor warlock’s desiccated head. And who knows, maybe at birthday parties they play pin the devil horns on the dead guy.

The last time I’d been there was for the public works accident. I did my damndest to cover it up. The magnetic field of spinning dark energy helped. A lot. The poor crime scene girl got her ass chewed out when the camera and all of its spare batteries took a dump in the middle of processing the scene. Things like that happen. But not to seven batteries, two of which were just charged that morning.

The pictures she did get were all swirly, full of black and white lines spinning endlessly in the middle of the sky. It didn’t matter what she took pictures of, she got the same results.

Which is probably for the better. Lawn mowers don’t tend to eat entrails. They just eviscerate you and leave it at that. The poor bastard’s intestines looked like stolen sausage links that led back to a pack of ravished feral dogs.

Which isn’t that far from the truth.

Ghouls are nothing, if not connoisseurs. Three cops opened fire on things that they couldn’t explain as being there. They were shooting at nothing more than ephemeral shadows. Normally you have to worry about shooting and missing so many rounds. Not this time. Every projectile landed on the ground within feet of their target. There was no mushrooming, no bloom, no indication that the rounds hit anything but empty air and just fell to the ground.

I mean they looked damn perfect.

Training found some money to replace the rounds and no one ever spoke of it again.

The city put a big ass fence up not too long after that, even going as far as to spend thousands on fancy no trespassing signs that you could see clear as day from the roadway. And I don’t mean four signs. I mean they put them up every ten feet, just in case the public couldn’t read the big warning signs. Two more ‘industrial accidents’ happened while they were fencing the place in. One guy lost an arm, the other lost a leg. Official record was that the ladder gave out underneath them and they impaled their limbs on the spikes of the iron fencing.

No one bothered to question it.

And for good reason.

It’s not a place anyone in their right mind would want to spend any time in.

But, she was adamant.

Which meant, buckle up big boy. This was going to be a lo-ong day.

“You said it’s still cordoned off?”

“It was this morning…”

Fuck. Okay fine. I’ll play.

I picked up my phone and dialed Ryan Murphy.

“Sup buddy?” He answered on the third ring.

“Hey man. Listen, I’ve got a lead on The Vampire and need your help.”

“Let’s do this. Where we going?”

“Meet me up in hell in the Highlands, about twenty minutes.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Wish I was.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“Fuck.” He said after a moment. “Alright. See you in hell.”

The phone disconnected.

Yeah. This was going to be a long day.

Hell was as colloquial as you could get for a place with that much dark energy. I took the switchbacks carefully as we climbed up the hillside and left city proper and pushed out into the Highlands.

It’s a particularly wealthy area on top of it. Most of the development sprawled out from downtown, setting up in homeowners’ associations that micromanaged every portion of your personal life. From simple things like the colors of your house, all the way up to the not-so-simple things like income thresholds and family size limits. The neighborhoods this far up in the hills were gated enclaves of wealth and prosperity. Police cars rarely showed up here, and when they did - they were the talk of the town. I made a mental note to check online chat boards for the neighborhood gossip. It’d been a while since I’d been this far up.

Mount Pleasant Cemetery was on an off-road that led out into the greater countryside, where those not fortunate enough to own their dream fifteenth hole view McMansion lived on their own acreage or piece of land buried off the backroads.

I figured they both liked it that way. Classist warfare was in full effect here, the enclaves had their own grocery stores, everyone else had to use County Road 810.

Which just so happened to be the road we were traveling on now.

It was a bucolic drive with dozens of large oak trees with full shade canopies that stretched across the roadway, the hillside gently rolled up and down across the pavement. Dark arteries stretched out every couple miles, indicating dirt roads that the everyone else lived off of.

Mount Pleasant sat just east of milepost one fifty, on a shell rock road that was pitted and broken. The state parks service had a few hiking trails this way, but other than that - we were in full ghost story territory.

The cemetery was built in the mid-1700’s and sat on hallowed ground belonging to the church. Tories burnt it to the ground several years later during the Revolution, they took the priest hostage and did things to him that you don’t do to a priest.

It’d been abandoned ever since.

Sometime in the late 1970’s, the city’s historic board got deeded the land and tried to turn it into a historical attraction.

Things hadn’t gone well for it since.

I took a right at MP 150 and headed up the drive, climbing higher in altitude. My stomach twisted in knots, and I found myself blinking back the throbbing pain in my head just behind my eyes.

It wasn’t altitude sickness.

I stole a glance over to the passenger seat where Arianna was sitting shotgun. If I felt this bad a half mile out, I couldn’t imagine what she was experiencing now that she was aware of the supernatural energy that surrounded the world.

“You feel that?” She asked after a moment. The color in her voice was gone, drained of all natural emotion. Her voice sounded hollow.

“It’s the vortex. A black hole that just spits out negative energy. Try to take deep breaths, it might help a little bit.”

“It’s so. Awful. Ohmygod…” She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. Frown lines formed all across her head and she rubbed her temples as if willing the pain to subside. “My head is pounding.”

“Yeah. That’s kind of what this place does to people.”

“I got this terrified voice screaming in the back of my head telling us to turn around.”

“Probably smart.”

“We can’t. This is the only lead we have.”

Getout….getout….go away….. I heard the sinister voice deep in my mind telling me the same thing. It spoke in a constant susurration, filling in the silence with perfect visual cues of what the creatures here wanted to do to us.

I parked the car about a quarter mile from the perimeter, I could see the flashing lights up ahead, yellow and red crime scene tape blew gently in the breeze. I parked the car and we got out. I stretched my back and my neck until something popped and a white flash of light filled my vision.

The crunch on gravel behind us made me jump. I reached into my duster and thumbed the hammer on my revolver back, half cocking it. I didn’t take my hand out of my pocket.

Ryan Murphy stepped out of a late model Challenger. His black leather coat blew in the breeze and his steps were full of swagger. Clearly, he wasn’t feeling the same way we were. I watched him reach across the dashboard and pull a gold shield off the rearview mirror. He dropped it across his neck and let his badge hang down across his chest. He had his retired id card snapped to his belt, along with his M&P pistol open carry. On his offhand hip, he wore a leather mag pouch and pair of hinge cuffs.

I laughed despite the creeping dread that clawed its way up from my belly. “There’s no way you’re going to pass the sniff test.”

“Wanna try it?”

“Actually, I kinda wanna see how this shakes out.”

Ryan had left on better terms than I had. But still, the word “retired” was in big bold red letters stamped across his police id. It didn’t take seasoned murder police to figure out one and one isn’t three and he didn’t belong here anymore than I did.

“Uhm. Murph. There’s three of us. How ya going to get us past the crime scene log?”

“Past the log? There’s no passing the log. You sign in just like you would any other time.

“Ookay.” I shrugged, rolling my shoulders back, feeling the tension creep up through my body again. I focused on stretching, on breathing, on doing anything I could to keep my brain from dreaming up fun and exciting ways the demons would rip us to shreds once we were past the gate.

Murphy took the lead, swaggering forward like he owned the joint. We made it about thirty yards before a kid stopped us. I didn’t recognize him, and judging by how perfectly pressed his uniform was and how his badge shined in the midday sun, I guessed he hadn’t been around very long.

We stopped partway up the driveway, taking in the outer perimeter. Murphy put his hands on his hips and cocked his head upward, letting the fancy sunglasses he wore slip just beneath his eyes. Arianna and I kept back a ways, taking up a staggered formation.

I took a tactical pause. There’s no way this was going to work.

The cemetery looked just as I had remembered, not that it was hard to forget the images seared into the back of my mind. Wrought iron bars surrounded the perimeter, sharp arrowheads were decorated with a filagree wrap. They stretched up and around the cemetery.

They were designed to keep people like us out. And to keep the dark things in. Iron was dangerous to the things that lived on the other planes.

Rusted gates hung half off their hinges, they swung with each gust of wind and let out an eerie howl as the hinges fought back. Yellow crime scene tape delineated the outer perimeter from the inner perimeter. Outside the yellow tape was where all the lookey-loos could hang out. It was the command post, where you checked in with the zone officer, put your name on a piece of paper and got permission to go upstairs. The red tape high up on the hill delineated the inner perimeter, that was where you’d get front row tickets to the greatest show on earth.

There was a reporter in a blue windbreaker huddled up against an ancient hickory tree. His photographer was busy fussing with the camera, I watched him pantomime that he had no freakin’ clue what was going on.

I knew. Remember how a Mage’s aura manifests? Dark energy has a whole different way of fucking with things. Nothing ever worked this close to a vortex. Hell, I was surprised that our cars didn’t peter out and die on the way up the hill. That much bad juju really effects people and things differently. Plus, let’s not forget our friendly neighborhood demon.

True enough, the gates were designed to keep creepers out. Because the dark energy from Infernum drew them like moths to a flame. Everything that just wasn’t right usually found its way to places like this. How they got out was always a whole ‘nother story.

Cemeteries were naturally closer to Manere, what we all commonly call “purgatory.” It’s supposed to be the waiting room for both heaven and hell. Problem is, Manere was in the in-between. It wasn’t anywhere close to heaven, and just a little too close to Hell. It’s a vicious, violent place controlled by things that that I’d rather not speak of.

The things that manifested over from Manere were not Casper the Friendly Ghost. They were tortured souls who gave in to their inner demons, they were your wights, liches, ghouls and vampires. And they were Bad. Capital “B” bad.

Murphy swaggered over to the uniform standing by the gate. He nodded and patted the guy on the shoulder, like they were best friends. He waved us over.

We obliged.

Hell, I just wanted a front row seat to Murphy getting knocked down a peg.

“Good afternoon, sir.” The rook said. I read his name tag: Muñoz.

“Josue. It’s good to see you again, been a few weeks.”

“Yeah.”

“Road still treating you good?”

“I mean. I’m here. You know living the dream.”

Murphy nodded. “Major Posten tell you we were coming by?”

“Consulting, right?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“Pay good?”

“It fills the gaps that the pension leaves behind.” Murphy smiled sadly at the kid. “I’ve got two associates with me today, Arianna Gonzalez and Blake Garrett. Chart them in under my name, use ‘consultant’ as the reason.”

The kid busied himself with scribbling our names down. “Blake Garrett? Really?”

I stepped up to him. “Yes. Really.”

“I heard you went off the deep end.”

“The rumors of my craziness are highly exaggerated.”

“Everyone that’s been here a minute talks about you guys like you’re living legends.”

“Well. We’re living at least.” I scrunched my face up into what I assumed was a jovial smile.

The kid blanched in front of me. “Is it true? What they say about you, I mean?”

“That I work too damn hard and sleep too little? Absolutely.”

“No. That you see ‘things’ out in the streets.” I’ll give it to Muñoz. He was trying to be nice.

“I don’t lie, kid. Never have. Never will. It’s not my style. I’ll shoot you straight.”

“Seriously?”

“They’re real, kid. Every last damn one of them. I pray every day that you guys never have to see what I see or fight what I fight. How long you been here now?”

“Five years in August.”

“See anything that ever makes you feel..” I searched for the right words and came up empty. “…kind of strange? Like there’s something beyond your peripheral vision that you just can’t place? Run a ‘bando and watch a window open and shut when you’ve already cleared it? Seen a light flicker in a window that shouldn’t have power?”

The kid chewed his lip in quiet contemplation.

“Here’s an easy one.” I send him a ground ball. “How you feeling right now? I mean, while you’re standing here bored out of your mind running a crime scene log?”

“Honestly.” Muñoz paused. “Kinda nauseous actually. Been a busy morning and I grabbed fast food breakfast. Coffee tasted like piss and I feel like I gotta take a dump.”

I laughed because there was no other way to respond.

“Like, I’ve eaten there before though in the cruiser. They don’t screw with the food or anything, but I just don’t feel good. There’s this itching feeling on the back of my neck that tells me I need to get the hell out of here as soon as they clear on the hill. I honestly hope I never have to see this place again. I’m just filling in the beat today. O’Conner called in sick.”

“O’Connor work this beat a lot?”

“Every day for the last five.”

“You know him? Well?”

“I mean, he sits on the other end of the table from me. We work the same district. We get along well enough.”

“You got his number?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking soon as I get out of here, I’m going to call him up and give him a ration of shit for calling out today and sticking me here.”

“Do that. Then tell him to call me.” I reached into my pocket and fingered a business card. I passed it to him. “Phone’s always on.”

Murphy muscled me out of the way. “Don’t listen to Dr. Doom over there.”

“Dr. Doom is an authoritarian who believes peace can only come through an iron fist. Doom thinks he’s the smartest, most perfect man in the whole world. I’m Dr. Strange. I’m the endearing asshole that you all love to hate.”

“Whatever. Officer Muñoz, got any idea what we can expect when we get up the hill?”

“Honestly. I made it to the other side of the gates when I first got here, wanted to be nosy, you know. They’ve had units out here for like two days now and I just wanted to see what all the fuss is about. But, Dr. Strange is right. Man. As soon as I crossed those gates, the only thing I could think about is wanting to get the hell out of there. I didn’t make it much past the gates. Something stunk. Like worse than a rotting corpse. It was just so. So. So. Wrong.

I’m more than happy to hold perimeter down here. Whatever they got going on in the red tape, I don’t think I want any part of.”

Murphy nodded in understanding. He thanked the kid and waved us forward. Once we were out of earshot and up the hill a ways, I turned to Murphy and said, “really? Consultants?”

“What? Don’t give me that Captain America bullshit. I didn’t lie to him.”

“Seriously?” At least he got his reference on point that time. Dr. Doom, I mean come on. I’m not that egotistical. Or maniacal.

And his magic was better than mine. Dr. Doom was the poster child for the Legati Magus. They were full of blustery assholes just like him.

“No. Seriously. Major Posten arranged it for me as part of a retirement. They said I couldn’t work cases anymore on account of my knee being all ginzu’d up, I failed two fitness for duty tests. But, they knew I wasn’t going to hang up my boots and go quiet into the sunset like an old west gunslinger. So, he arranged a consultation agreement with me. I don’t know how much red tape he had to cut through to get the contract approved, but I’m sure it had something to do with paying me a flat fee instead hundreds of hours of overtime for our already thin ranks up in murder police.”

“Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night.” I shrugged.

“No. It’s for real. Got my own official laminated ID card and everything.” Murphy pulled on his id, the elastic band stretched up and he flipped it over. On one side, he had his retired credentials. The other side had a picture of him smiling in a fancy suit and tie. In big bold letters at the top above his name, the word “consultant” was clearly printed.

“They usually call me at least once a week. I got the call late night after I left your place. Major Posten is in it in a bad way with this thing. They need all the help they can get. It’s a b-movie double feature up there man. Maybe you can help from the spooky side of the street.

“Cameras haven’t been able to capture anything, so if we have documentation on the scene it’s all hand written and sketched out. They’re saying the new 5G tower they put in at the top of the hill screws with cameras. Turns all their photos into some weird blurry thing. So, they’re going super old school.

They got two dead kids up there and a few goats. It’s fucking weird.”

I stopped cold in my tracks. “Did you just say goats?”

“Yeah. The three Billy Goats Gruff.” He laughed. “Come on, you won’t believe this shit.”

“None of this bothers you?” Arianna asked, her voice cracking.

“Nothing bothers me anymore.” He shrugged.

“Seriously? You don’t feel anything?” I asked him pointedly.

“Nothing more than usual.”

“How’re your nerves?” I pressed.

“Flaring up in all sorts of ways like usual. It’s the hair on the back of your neck kind of nerves. That I need to move carefully, because this is major Bad Shit.”

So, he -was- feeling something. It was just mis-identified. He was chalking it up to a career in policing, which I guess is a fair way to lie to yourself.

But I had three problems with what I was told.

First, two bodies is one more than I knew should be up here.

Second, Murphy’s steps were slower, more measured. He was trying to take everything in and coming up empty handed.

Third, there were goats around.

I wouldn’t normally bat an eye at something that weird. But, it left me with two choices. Neither of which I liked.

The first was the saner, more normalized theory that goats were used in a ritual. That scared the crap out of me because ritual magic was dangerous and full of dark energy. If The Vampire was responsible for using ritual magic, it meant that it was trying to summon something much bigger and nastier than it. And I didn’t like my options there.

The second theory was that they weren’t goats, but Satyrs brought in from Venici . And after my chance encounter with a troll, if there were goats around, that was even worse news. Satyrs aren’t the happy fat flute playing things that you see in the Disney movies.

No, they were much, much worse. The High Elves used them as cannon fodder in their ridiculously stupid war against the Dark Elves. Satyrs and trolls are like oil and water.

They just don’t mix.

And those bastards over in Venici think it’s just some sick joke. Seriously, the High Elves keep trolls as prisoners of war and use them to torment the Satyr into fighting in their endless war. They promise their families a better life if they die in valiant combat.

But, the Elves are not like the rest of the fae. They don’t deal in bargains. They lie. They don’t keep promises unless it furthers their own agendas.

Buncha backstabbing bastards up there. The only way you can get them to keep a bargain promised is if they sign it in blood.

Unfortunately, the Satyrs are too dumb to realize whose blood is required to seal the deal.

We stepped across fallen tombstones, tripped over strangling roots, and dodged the boughs of an ash that dangled precariously close to my head. Birdsong filled the air, insects buzzed across the horizon, dotting it in grey clouds. The stench of mold and rot permeated.

The overgrown brush gave way to a dirt footpath lined with dozens of prints in varying shapes and sizes, spreading out across the crest in a circular pattern. Red crime scene tape flickered ominously in the breeze.

My knee buckled and I felt tremors starting as we got closer to the scene. The wind picked up in an ominous howl and trees bent at the waist, buckling against the sudden onslaught of nature’s wrath.

Thunder rolled across the distance and I saw the faint flickering out lightning scattering the sky.

Bird song went silent. Dark wings took to the skies as a murder of crows fled their perch and headed west, out beyond the cemetery gates.

An electric buzz filled the air. Ozone lingered. Everything went still and quiet.

“Just fucking great.” Murphy cursed as he scuffed his boots against a rock. “It’s going to pour.”

“Dude. I don’t think that’s rain.”

The voice in the back of my head perked up instantly. Itsatrap…itsatrap…trap….it’s a. Leave. Get out. Go.

Movement shattered the silence, footfalls sounded like glass braking. The pane shattered, tinkling to the ground in hell’s bells. Three detectives I didn’t recognize shuffled their way down the hill, sliding across the washed out dirt path above us.

Murphy skittered across the path and met them downwind of us. They talked in hushed tones and all I could make out was the detective’s mustache moving up and down in time with his words. They shook hands and broke off, running down the hill in a frenetic pace.

“Scene’s ours.”

“Seriously?”

“No one wants to be caught out here in a thunderstorm.” A civil alert buzzed across my phone.

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM AREA. SEEK SHELTER NOW.

I shrugged it off and put my phone back in my pocket.

The wind howled and the tsunami started.

And that’s when the wight attacked.

It rose out of solid ground, materializing in front of us at the base of a giant marble obelisk. Long skeletal arms groped about in the torrential downpour as the wight climbed up from its earthen berm.

The creature paused for a moment, considering its prey. I checked my surroundings, everything was covered in a fine mist, water sluiced across the wash, cascading down into a rampaging waterfall that coalesced just above my ankles.

Arianna retreated back behind an old oak tree and willed her form to shrink to nothing as she curled up into a ball. I faintly heard her chanting to herself as she rocked back and forth.

Lightning cracked in the sky above, illuminating the graveyard briefly in eldritch light. Murphy had staggered his stance into a modified weaver and drew down on the beast. In the torrent, I heard him screaming commands at the thing.

Problem is, the dead don’t play by the rules. They have a real problem with authority.

“Ryan, you asshole! Get down. This isn’t your kind of fight.” I shouted at him and gripped my walking stick tightly in my left hand. The crystal handle flickered a crimson glow. Sigils illuminated the length of the wood. “ Iactare Lapis!”

I channeled my will into the shape of a fist sized stone and let it fly. The magic missile struck the wight square on the jaw.

And I swear to the gods above.

The fucking thing laughed at me.

There could be no doubt. I was definitely punching out of my weight class. The thing hovered in the air twenty feet in front of me and just laughed. Its laughter echoed throughout the hillside.

Murphy answered with the rapport of gunshots. He emptied his magazine in about three seconds. Cloth and bone spurs flew off of the thing’s chest, turning to dust as they blew out and into the wind.

With a flick of its hand, a gout of dark fire manifested and threw Murphy and me back close to fifty yards. I felt something crack in my chest and knew I’d broken a rib. Murphy sprawled out on the ground next to me, dropping his useless pistol as he fell.

“ Repellunt! ” I shouted, pouring as much of my will as I could feasibly do to a monster. It moved an inch if it moved a mile. The biggest rule of a fight is never give up hard fought ground. So I took my inch and stepped closer to the wight.

Its cold aura assaulted me. Visions swam in my head. The thing cocked its head and opened its jawbone into a broken tooth grin. “Iactare Ignis!” I threw a fireball.

The thing swatted it like a tennis ball.

So, I threw another.

And another.

My staff grew hot in my hands, the wood burning into the bare flesh. “Ventus!”

A tiny tornado, barely bigger than a mouse skirted across the ground, blowing the thing’s robes and exposing a tiny portion of bone. It waved it off.

In that instant, I drew my revolver and fired. Putting two rounds into the thing’s shin. Bone shattered, spurs flew out. The thing dropped to a knee. I aimed the next shot for its head.

It twisted into nothingness.

The bullet hit a void and vanished.

The wight popped up behind me and cold cocked me.

I felt my head spin around with the impact and fell to the ground.

The fucking monster just sucker punched me.

Black fire bloomed from its hands. The thing blew me a fiery kiss that I just barely dodged. It floated past my head and set the brush smoldering.

I twisted my staff as I rose, pushing it out in a low sweep designed to take the thing off its leg. My staff hit with a solid thunk. The reverberation made my hand go numb with the impact.

A shadowy bolt struck me hard across the sternum, knocking the wind out of me. I forced a breath out through my clenched jaw and tasted blood.

“Iactare Lapis!” It spun down into nothingness again and my reply hit only empty air. The stone thunked into the trunk of a nearby tree, burying itself halfway in.

I circled slowly around trying to find the beast.

It made its way onto the high ground.

And it was sending black flame hurtling toward me.

I sidestepped, catching third degree burns on my shoulder. I redirected the derecho down onto my shoulder, cooling it slightly. It still burned, but I could live with it.

The wight raised its hands and I felt my body raising in response, my feet left the ground.

It rag-dolled me across a couple stones, I felt each and every impact in the deepest part of my bones. The last one dropped me damn near twenty feet down the side of the hill, forcing the last of my air out of my lungs. The thing flickered in and out of existence, materializing on top of Murphy’s downed form. It lifted its hands and he went flying down the hill with me.

He stirred, grunted and lay still.

I ran over to him, checking for a pulse.

He was still alive, but damn near unconscious. I slapped him a couple times and shouted at him. “Wake the fuck up dude! Not the time! Not the-”

The wight knocked me on my ass again.

It was playing with me.

It’s not polite to play with your dinner.

As I spun across the ground like a human javelin, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Murphy was up. He was moving. Maybe, just maybe the two of us could take it. But, that meant we had to do something stupid.

Stupid’s kind of my middle name. I have a bad habit of coming up with dumb ideas at inopportune times.

“We got this. He ain’t got shit on us. Wait for my signal.” I grunted and forced myself to center my breathing, which is kind of hard with a cracked rib.

I stood up, gathering my will around me as I lifted my staff. I was scared shitless and facing one of the biggest bads in Manere. And that made me dangerous. “ Iactare Ignis!”

The fireball rushed out of my staff, fueled by my emotions. It was massive, larger than anything I’ve ever channeled before. With a flick of my wrist, I sent it hurtling down range. The fire burned hot, sucking the oxygen out of the air and smoldering with desire to burn the world to cinder and ash.

It pushed forward like a freight train barreling down a dark country road and engulfed the wight. It struck home.

And consumed.

When the wind and the rain had extinguished the blast, the wight still stood there, basking in its unholy aura. I had burned off its blackened robes and the thing stood naked in front of me, charred bones broken into compounded fracture.

It charged.

Wights move damn fast. In the time it takes to blink, the thing cleared the ground in front of me and simply stared at me. Yellow and red pinpricks of light blinked back at me through its hollow skull.

The thing lifted one of its charred hands and began weaving in intricate patterns. Bruised smoke manifested in the air in front of me. Anger smoldered on its skinless face.

The smoke twisted and churned. It came for me.

“Frigidus Ventus!” I twisted my staff, directing its energy toward the smoky tornado. Ice coalesced on the trailing edge of the smoke. “Repellunt!” I screamed, straining against the will of the monster in front of me. Attrition was fought. The smoke condensate and blew against the current of the wind. Frozen mist blackened with the thing’s dark energy pushed back and up. Dropping like an acid rain on the creature’s head.

The thing reared back, stunned. I took a chance.

“Gelida! I screamed at the top of my lungs, the air temperature dropped to near freezing. Ice coalesced on the tip of my staff, frost gathered on my hands and eyebrows.

The thing tried to summon up more of the dark smoke as ice crystals formed on its trailing edges.

Frost settled on the ground.

The mist rose and froze.

But it was too late.

The spell had started to take effect. Ice crystals danced across its skull, I watched the lights in its eye sockets go dim. A thin skein of frost settled around the wight’s form, solidifying and expanding.

I turned the thing into a party favor ice cube.

Murphy stood up and dusted himself off. He looked at the ice cube monster and just shook his head.

He reloaded a clip and double tapped the thing right in the eye sockets.

My pretty ice cube shattered, crystals tinkled to the ground.

The wight broke into a thousand tiny pieces.

I made it a point to step on as many of them as I could, breaking the ice into little black smoke poofs as the creature crunched underfoot.

Murphy leaned back against a tree, panting heavily. “Jesus fucking Christ almighty.”

That was the understatement of the year.

I pushed my mop out of my face and shrugged, “Welcome to the club.”

“Fuck.”

I kicked the thing’s skull like a soccer ball, knocking it as far away from its remains as I could.

Then I did the stupidest thing possible.

I picked the damn thing up.