At the Behest of the Dead (6 page)

“Sorry
, Phin. I got my reputation and all.”

I shook my head.

“It’s no big deal. Just heading into Seattle to check out a few murders. Probably back before you go to bed at eight. Don’t worry. I plan to cut you in on ten percent.”

“Very funny
, and it’s thirty! I make thirty.”

“You make thirty if you send the job my way. You didn’t do shit
, but I thought I’d show some respect.
Capiche
?” I added with a roll of my eyes.

“Fine. T
wenty.”

“Carlisle,
I am hanging up this phone, and when I hang up you aren’t getting anything. Got it?”

“Fine.
Ten percent.”

“Did you hear anything from the Whitfield woman?”

“Her check bounced. You believe that shit? What kind of a world do we live in when you can’t even trust a sweet old lady?”

“That’s because she wasn’t an old lady.”

“What are you talking about? She had grey hair, glasses, and a cane. Spoke real slow – you met her.”

“I met someone. I asked the cop about it and she sai
d there was no murder in Alear Park.

“
Lemme do some checking around. See what I can find out on the old … whatever she was.”

“She was working for someone. The whole thing was a setup. Someone left a summoning pentagram and a surprise for me. And when I say surprise I don’t mean a gift. It was a demon.”

“All this occult crap freaks me out, know that Phin? I like you and all but I try not to think about the magic and stuff like that.”

“You’re a wonderful pimp, you know that?”

“Phineas, for the last time I’m not a goddamn …”

“Hey Carlisle. Does this sound like a p
hone hanging up?” I clicked off.

Chapter Three

B
efore I left for my trip to Seattle, I took the dog to a kennel for a couple of days. It was the least I could do considering the little runt played some part in the mystery I’d been tricked into and I had no idea how long I might be gone.

If
Thora’s story was a bunch of bullshit then who had the dog even belonged too? The best lies were always grounded in some sort of reality, so maybe her husband had been involved after all. Either way I couldn’t just let the dog tear my place to shreds while I was out and about.

Thora
would have to wait. Right now I had a good paying job.

The tools of my trade are unique. Each witch or
warlock has a particular set but I consider mine to be the most varied. Perhaps not the strongest in each discipline, but I had my moments. When I’d picked necromancy, my guardian, Salazar, told me it was just as good as any other as far as he was concerned. Since the league didn’t like necros, it was my petty way of sticking it to them. I was only nineteen at the time and didn’t know a damn thing. Had I to do it all over again, I probably would have picked something that relied on less digging around in the dirt. You can’t imagine how bad a human corpse can smell after a few days of rotting.

I ran my hand over a hidden glyph on an ornate door in the hallway. It responded by warming to my touch and pulsing, wood expanding, as the passageway became corporeal. The door swung open to reveal my stash.

The closet didn’t exactly exist in this world. It expanded to something like a walk-in closet, with a workstation for quick potions and a grounding stone so I didn’t fry my ass to a crisp when dealing with elementals.

Shelves lined the walls
, and on those shelves existed a collection that had taken me over a hundred years to put together. Books, scrolls, vials, wands (don’t laugh, they were in fashion a few centuries ago), stones, and more than a few scarred bones. It was a curio shop for the damned.

I took an etching stone and placed
it in a pouch. Charcoal sticks went alongside them and then a large leather worked chest piece with a pair of straps that went over my shoulder and one that wrapped around my waist. I concentrated and imbued it with a heavy spell of shielding. It was no coincidence that the middle plate covered my heart. It was an old and cruel piece of metal that had demons claws etched for each point. No matter how loose I wore it, part of the talons always bit into my flesh and that’s how it became stronger, at my expense.

There is always a price for playing with the best toys.

I took potions from my work shelf, noting each on a slip of paper so I could bill the cute detective an exorbitant fee later on. I took two vials of brimstone. A special blend that I imbued with a little acetyl because it could incinerate just about anything that got in my path.

Moonwater
was next. A small dose in case I ended up in the dark. I could rely on my eye salve but this was a tried and true formula that would last for hours. A concoction of virgin blood and soft clay for animal control. Other things, probably unnecessary, joined the vials on my bandolier. I took some lead chunks in case I needed ammo. I wouldn’t be caught dead with a gun, but you never know when a few peppers of hot lead could turn the tide in a battle. Yeah, yeah. I hear the irony in that statement.

I pulled out a vial from the night before and remembered that’d I’d trapped a demon in it. I stared into the depths of the murky fog that occupied the glass container and nearly dropped it when a few eyeballs focused on me. Maybe later I’d take hi
m to my workstation in the backyard and drop him on a binding stone and send him back home. Or maybe I’d leave him there as the world’s greatest watch dog.

I put him on the dining room table so I didn’t forget about his damned soul when I was done.

I was going in ready for a fight because that little voice in the back of my head (you know the one) was babbling quite excitedly.

Armed and armored, I strode to the shed and drug out my giant pitchfork. It wasn’t the tines that made it look old.
The wood had been bound by brass straps a couple hundred years ago so it wouldn’t split in wet weather. The device came from a solid maple branch that was too large to wrap my hand around. There was a solid groove around the center where a hanging rope rubbed it raw over a couple of years of use. Those witches back then refused to hide their talents and paid the ultimate price. We have come a long way since then but this was a very rare piece. Not just any hunk of wood will do. It has to meet certain requirements.

Then I grabbed my leather biker jacket, goggles, and motorcycle rider spiked helmet.

Why the helmet? Because I’m a warlock and it looks badass.

The sky was far from clear. I didn’t see a single star in the sky. The grey was so deep it had layers. Rain, clouds
, and lack of light were going to make for a very cold and dismal flight into town.

I stumbled over a new molehill and nearly went down. It would be a sad state of affairs if I fell and impaled myself on my own tines. A chuckle greeted me from the woods that hung over the back of my house. They provided a deep canopy of green privacy – except for some of my visitors.

“That you Frank?” I called

A hawk’s thrilling call answered

“Where you going, crazy man?” he called. A shape fell out of the tallest tree, wingspan stretched so wide I thought it was a glider at first.

Frank ‘Two-Feathers’ Black took form before the bird could land. Instead of the talons he had sported a few seconds ago
, he landed on two very human feet. The rest of his body became a hazy black blur as he took shape. Before me stood a naked man with long hair that swept his back, some of it falling in front in a perfect cut that looked like he just stepped out of a western.

“Hey Frank.” I greeted and leaned over to draw a quick hex on the little molehill I’d nearly tripped over. Nothing against the mole, he was just doing his job, which seemed to be making my life suck every time I t
ried to mow this mess of a backyard. I just put a little dissuasion on his latest home so he would go burrow around the green belt.

“Cursing the earth. What will you white men do next?”

“Gee Frank, I don’t know, maybe sell you some fire water.”

He laughed as if that was the funniest thing he had ever heard and came to stand beside me. Frank was slim and had grey hair at his temples. His skin was a honeyed brown that looked like he had an all year tan. I bet he never burned. Leave me in the sun for five minutes and I would sell my soul for a tube of aloe. I doubt anyone would take a tanned
warlock serious anyway. What next? A supermodel witch with piercing blue eyes and a pair of fake Victoria’s Secret Angel wings? I thought of Glenda and sent the memory back where it belonged.

He was a Makah, an old tribe that settled along the banks of the Columbia River over 3,800 years ago. They were excellent mariners that ranged up and down the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Once a large and proud tribe, there numbers had been reduced to under a thousand by centuries of ‘progress.’

Frank had told me many tales of his youth over the years, including how he came to be a changer. It was an interesting story that combined him soul searching, smoking large amounts of hallucinogens, and finding his inner spirit animal. It was all bullshit. Changers just were. They didn’t learn it. Like witchcraft, you were either born with the ability or you weren’t.

There were quite a few natural changers in the world
, but most of them kept their secret safe for obvious reasons. Why go out of your way to tell people you are a freak of nature, able to assume an animal form whenever you choose?

When we came out, so did the changers
, but I can assure you that there are stranger things in the world than our races.

“Looks like you are going out to raise hell. What
has you so worked up?”

“Murders in Seattle.
I’m gonna go poke around.”

“Ouch. When you poke around bad things happen. They have to call in entire fire departments. Stock markets crumble. Winged monkeys take flight.”

“Hey, that was a fire imp, and I had nothing to do with the warehouse burning to the ground. It was pure bad luck.” Coupled with a brimstone spell gone awry. I ran across the imp after a couple of drinks and jumbled a word or two. So instead of gathering mist from the air and chasing him off, I accidentally set him on fire, which is sort of like preparing a needle for a heroin addict. He ran around in larger and larger circles, apparently enjoying the way the wind made the flames flare up.

“I heard about the murders. Some tourists
got tore up bad,” Frank said.

Frank wasn’t as old as me but there was sadness behind his gaze. His features were a contrast of wrinkles and sun kissed leathery skin. When not dashing around at night
, he was often doing work for charities or Native American rights, although he did grumble about the casinos and how he should have invested in one years ago. Frank was a good man and a good friend.

The biggest problem with Frank was that he felt free to walk around naked when he was freshly morphed.
“Changer’s don’t carry clothes,” he had told me on more than one occasion.

“This is the Pacific Northwest. Serial killers are a dime a dozen.”

“But you don’t think that’s it, do you?”

“I think something did a number on the victims.
Something that’s not human and not demonic. No glyphs I could see. If a demon were unleashed in Seattle, the league would be up to their neck in lawsuits.”

“Could be a changer. Could be worse. That’s why I plan to accompany you.”

“Ah Frank, you’re all heart. I’m just going to look around, not get into trouble. Don’t you have some female hawks to chase around or baby deer to terrorize?”

“Someone has to keep an eye on you since Glenda dumped your pale butt.”

“It wasn’t even a real relationship. Jeez, Frank,” I said, but it stung.

Christ, he
has to go and bring up Glenda. He may as well punch me in the gut and piss on me while I was down. I stared at him for a moment until he looked away, then he smiled in that impish way of his and slapped me on the back.

“Just think
, chief, maybe we can hook up with some girls in Belltown later on.”

“Right, Frank.
I’m sure they will go for a tired warlock dressed from head to toe in black and a naked Indian.”

“Hey brother. I look good naked.” He strutted a few feet away. In the blink of an eye he
jumped and formed in the air. His hawk shape beat at the night sky and he was away like a shot.

My take off wasn’t as clean.

I zipped up my black leather jacket, slid goggles over my eyes, and then strapped on the helmet. All that gear weighed me down but it was better than screaming around in wind that would feel fifteen degrees cooler than the actual temperature.

I threw my legs over the band of
maple like it was a fence. The wood was still warm, the curious after-effect of using it the night before. It was just like a regular pitchfork, until I felt through the layers and found the edge of the cusp. I wrestled with the barrier for a half second before channeling a touch--just a tiny amount into the wood that responded with something like glee.