At the Behest of the Dead (14 page)

I stumbled into the bathroom, poured a huge glass of water
, and sucked it down. I felt like I hadn’t had anything to drink in a week. Let the threat come at me. If I was going to be in battle, I wanted to do it hydrated.

There was only one good robe left in the closet. The rest were old and tattered
, but it was cool. Sometimes it looked convincing to go out dressed in something that looked like it was fifty years old.

I threw on the first one my fingers met and shrugged it over my shoulders.

I was down the stairs in two heartbeats. Then I slipped on my battered boots and regretted not taking the time to at least put on a pair of socks.

I
was already preparing a spell. A nasty one that would hurl multiple glyphs at my intruders, freezing them in place until I decided what to do.

I wrestled the iron bars and conventional locks open then slammed the back door open. I was out and in the post pre-dawn air, breathing in the fresh smell of grass and rain. Water pelted me as soon as I got a few feet from the rear awning.

The figure in tattered black dropped from the sky like a brick. At the last second he pulled his pitchfork up and swooped over the ground like an inebriated condor. The pole wavered one way then the other. At one point, it turned all the way over and the rider was forced to hug his body to the stick to keep from getting a case of really bad road rash.

T
he acrobat came to a stuttering stop no less than eighteen feet from me. He jumped off the pitchfork and then rammed the end into the ground, all in one more or less smooth motion. Points for landing, but overall I could have done a better job stoned on peyote. What were they teaching the kids these days? How to land as far away from a person as possible?

He swept his floppy black hat off as he walked towards me. I didn’t recognize this
warlock but he could have had glamour on for all I knew. They were good at that stuff now. Back in the day we had to work at a decent potion to pull off some of the disguises they got over at Barney’s House of Tinctures.

He pulled his white earplugs out of his head and the raucous double
drum beat of some heavy metal band emerged from the tinny speakers in short staccato patterns. He was shorter than me and thin as a board. He was all gangly limbed, which might explain why he didn’t drive for shit. Probably one of those ADD kids that would have lived on a skateboard if it weren’t for the calling.

“Dude
. You Phineas?” His voice crackled.

I slipped the ivory knife back into
a pocket and let my guard down.

“Yep. Who’s asking?” I ke
pt my voice neutral.

“I’m
Lorette, out of Skyway. I’m second form but I’m pretty good. I mean, I get by and the teachers say I have a whole lot of potential.”

Of course they did. The league didn’t get paid if they sent half ass magic users away. About one in twenty were worth training. The rest stayed on and worked for the league or for the corporation. They always needed researchers and guinea pigs. Now why in the hell was someone from
Skyway at my house? It was pretty clear that when I cut my ties I wouldn’t exactly be welcomed back with open arms.

“Yeah? You came all this way to tell me your life story?” I wasn’t in the mood for Skyway bullshit today. I’d just spent the last
twenty-four hours up to my neck in trouble. I was still rattled from the encounter with the werewolf. Still trying to figure out how the hell it knew me. There was no way it could have lured me there – unless someone told the detective to find me. Now that made more sense that my current theory, which revolved around coincidences so crazy they would make a cryptologist run for the hills.

“They asked for you, man, and only you. Said you were the only one.”

“Beat it, kid. Come back after I get some rest. Give me about a week.”

“Can’t. They need you now. There’s been a murder and the council’s asked for you.”

“So tell them to send an emissary tomorrow. I’m tired.” I turned away, eyes on my backdoor. I wanted to crawl back into bed and die for a few more hours.

“Can’t do it. W
e got no chancellor to send one,” he said in that annoying froggy voice. Sounded like Kermit hacked up a hairball.

“Just have Salazar draft someone. Christ, kid.” I said in parting and stomped away
over the mist covered ground.

“He’s dead.”

“What?” I spun on him.

“Salazar’s dead. That’s why we need you. They have no idea who killed him.”

Ah hell.

“How did he die?”

“Probably a demon, second ward or lower. No one heard a thing. Balkir sent for you. He’s head of the school now.”

“
Balkir?” I asked. Gods. That was about the worst news I had ever heard. Where Salazar had been an even hand interested in progressing things slowly, Balkir was a ramrod. He started the research division against protests, but the league made money so they let him go nuts. I left after one of his projects went bad. Killed a lot of budding young students. Balkir didn’t even have the balls to take the rap. Blamed it on equipment, but a lot of us knew. How in the world had he worked his way up to a position to take over?

“Poor Salazar, man,” h
e added, which told me plenty. A guy like Salazar didn’t go down easy. Whatever went after him had to have been big and mean. Something fast, and something that could slice though glyphs like butter, and that kind of muscle didn’t come cheap. Salazar was too smart to attempt to bring something that nasty into our world without a lot of help.

“We found him sp
lit open. His heart was missing,” the kid said after I stood in silence for a minute.

I tried not to show it but inside I was devastated. If anyone had ever been a father to me it had been Salazar.

“Give me a minute.” I said and wandered away to collect my thoughts.

Salazar.

Sometime later, I began to think it through. The kid walked to the greenbelt and rooted around. He was probably looking for frogs. Always a use for frogs at the school.

My mind raced as I tried to imagine the scene. In and out, sliced open. The demon would have to leave a trace. If I got there fast enough I may have enough
ecto aftertaste for a full reading. If nothing else, I could always just ask the little monster that killed him.

“I’ll get my fork,
” I said at last.

The kid looked over his shoulder and bobbed his head.

I ran upstairs and grabbed my battered gear. I stopped by my private stash and hauled out a box of powerful potions. Then I added things to my pockets, stripped, and strung the vest over my chest. It hurt like a bitch when the metal ends bit into my half formed stitches. Back in my robe, I tossed accouterments over my chest. With a few extras in my pockets, I strode back downstairs, touching and activating wards as I went.

Next stop was the shed. It looked like any other wooden structure meant to hold a lawnmower, gardening tools, and whatever house repair items were left over from the last renovation.

I touched the silver lined lock and channeled a very small spark. The hook slid out and the bottom dropped open. I had this one specially made. A regular lock was enough to keep the kids out if any ever ventured onto my property. Something that was highly unlikely as everyone around me thought the place was haunted.

But I had things in here that I needed to keep out of the hands o
f people like me. Folks that knew about power, how to use it, and some that abuse it.

I’m a
warlock, so you would expect the place to have a few spider webs, but that was not the case. It was so frightening sometimes I didn’t want to go inside. Cobwebs were so thick they could probably be combed like shag carpet. Things skittered and ran. Squeaks and scratching claws sounded. Anyone in their right mind would turn around right about now and run.

I entered and went to the back. There was a spot that was dirtier than the rest of the wooden floor, which was saying something because it was almost as bad as the Seattle underground. I grasped a knotted rope that was invisible thanks to a concealing glyph. With an ear-piercing screech
, I lifted the hidden door. Stairs led to what was quite literally my man cave.

Tapestries hung f
rom the wood-slatted and reinforced walls. The north wall held a huge painting of H.P. Lovecraft. It wasn’t there as any kind or ward. It was purely a show of respect.

I grabbed a fresh bandolier and start strapping potions onto it. Never know when a good vial of newt-b
urst will come in handy. There were at least a half dozen, all full. I added an extra dose of vitriol. Then I slugged back a few ounces of Rockin’ Witch and felt the caffeine laced potion blast into my center. Fresh energy flowed along my limbs thanks to the infusion of garlic, ground tiger tooth, and some ginger from the island of Marcelleta.

I was back upstairs in a few minutes, locking the lab up tighter than a nunnery.

**

The night was cold and dark when I threw my leg over my fork and hit it with a spark. The old wood thrummed to life and wanted to lift right away. We both began the laborious effort of getting into the air.

Clouds rolled across the sky, blanking out any chance of seeing the moon, again. I would feel better if I could see it. Nothing like a giant white blob in the sky to make you feel like you have a sense of direction. My leathers rippled in the wind and air once again took every chance to find my skin. One of these days I had to find a way to stay warm in the air.

Lorette
trailed behind, following but not well. His fork kept dipping. I motioned him near and slowed my own ride.

“What’s up?” h
e yelled.

“Where’d you learn to fly?”

“What’s wrong with my flying?”

“You don’t fly straight, and that landing earlier? Me
ssy,” I yelled over the howling wind.

“Hey man, I’m pretty good for my age. I’ve only been flying for a few months.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen. Why?”

I had been a lot younger than that when I first started training under Salazar.

“You should be doing loops at that age is all.”

“Not much focus on flying these days. The money’s all in research, you know, so we spend a lot of time on theory and alchemy.”

“Never know when a forks
gonna save your life, kid.”

“Never know when a potion will either.”

Good point. Still, the school owed it to the kids to teach the fundamentals. Lorette reaffirmed my fears when he took his eyes off the horizon and dipped. He righted himself, though, and managed to fly more or less straight.

I sighed and moved ahead, taking the lead once again.

Chapter Eight

H
alf an hour later we swooped in on the Richmond Building, which lies on the outskirts of Everett and houses Skyway. I hit the roof hard and threw a splash of power into the landing. My feet stayed steady as I touched the surface and then pulled up to a sharp stop. The forks tines dragged through gravel, leaving four straight lines.

Lorette
landed behind me, but none too gently. I thought he was going to hit the side of the building. However he pulled up at the last second with the end of his tines. He rode it, then burst upward and threw his own splash.

“The skateboarders call it grinding. We call it beveling.” He chuckled and took off his helmet and goggles. His leathers were next, joining a pile at his feet. He grabbed them up in an unwieldy mass and gave me a half salute.

“Where did it go down?” I asked Lorette.

“Come on.
I’ll take you.”

I followed
, even though I had spent a may years here and knew the layout like my own home.

This place used to be a corporation
, but the league bought it when we went live back in ’93. Since then it had been used to train witches and warlocks in the arts, just as they were taught back in the old days. Except now they used computers and had theories about our power, where it came from and how we managed to infuse spells with it.

We walked down hallways I knew
, but they had been changed. Once covered in ancient tapestries and works of art from centuries past, now they were a uniform white, and the floor, once creaking wood, had been replaced with patterned carpet one might see in an office building. In my absence, someone had turned the League of Warlocks into a corporation.

I guess it could be chalked up to progress. We used to be hated, ostracized, hunted down
, and killed. Then someone figured out a way to make money from our research. Youth potions, virile balms. We nearly put Pfizer out of business when we made a better Viagra that came from a natural source. No one bothered to tell the manufacturer that the stuff had demon sperm in it. Just a hint, you understand. We weren’t completely crazy.

I had taught the basics here until I had a dispute with one of the professors
—Eldon Balkir. He was a bitter old warlock that claimed to have known Merlin. Said they used to get toasted at a pub together back in the day. I always thought he was full of shit.