Last Breath (14 page)

“I’m a Templar,” I explained. “We study a variety of supernatural matters as part of our education, but I’ve specialized in magical practices dealing with Goetic demons and other spirit beings. I also spent a few months as a member of one of the largest ceremonial magic groups in the northeast.”

“Templar? As in Templar Knight? Like the Crusades and all that? Where’s your sword?” He clearly had seized on the first part of my speech to the exclusion of the rest.

“I made her leave it in the trunk,” Tremelay chimed in. “You should see it. Thing is huge. She claims it’s some kind of religious tool, but one swing and someone’s gonna lose a head.”

“I’m not a Knight.”

Neither paid any attention to me.

“A real sword? No shit! I didn’t think you guys allowed that sort of thing in Baltimore.”

Tremelay shot me a narrowed look. “We don’t. At least not on public property. She can carry it in her car to reenactments and stuff, but no sword fighting on public property.”

Oh good Lord. “Can we see the crime scene now or do you guys want to play show and tell with my sword?”

Zrubek looked for a second like he was considering the show and tell option. “Two adult males age forty to fifty. They looked to be slashed apart with a weapon that had multiple curved blades.”

“Like Freddy Kruger?” I asked.

“Like bear claws?” Tremelay added.

The other detective tilted his head, for a brief moment. “The M.E. will have to weigh in on that one. Since we don’t have any reports of escaped bears from the National Zoo, I’m going to assume a human with a multi-bladed weapon.”

Huh. Still, could have been a werewolf. Last I’d heard there was one running around the Blue Ridge Mountains. They weren’t fond of urban areas, but I didn’t want to rule it out.

Detective Zrubek showed us the pictures on his cell phone. It looked like the two men had run bleeding throughout the house, flinging red droplets on the walls and ceilings as they passed. Two bodies were facedown on the floor in a sea of red, their clothing shredded in long deep slashes.

I crossed werewolf and escaped bear off my list of suspects. I also crossed off angel, at least if Araziel was keeping to his former method of killing. Angels were pretty anal when it came to patterns.

“Why did you think this case was related to the ones in Baltimore?” Tremelay asked. “The three in Baltimore had their rib cages spread upward. These two are face down, but I’m assuming they’re not missing all of their internal organs. None of the Baltimore victims had these slashes on their backs.”

“You’ll see when you get inside. These guys were into some serious satanic magic crap. Even if there was a guy with a fist full of box cutters who killed them, I figured the magic shit was enough of a tie-in to warrant a phone call. Can’t be a coincidence. I don’t recall the last time I’ve seen wizard types dead and I’ve been working homicide for the last twenty years.”

I’ll admit I was interested. “What’s that in the one guy’s hand?” I asked, pointing at the picture on the cell phone.

Zrubek swiped and held the phone out to me. I caught my breath as I looked at the picture, zooming in just to make sure.

“Dude tried to defend himself,” the detective commented. “We’re hoping the blood on the knife has a DNA hit to something in the database.”

It wouldn’t.

“A Bowie,” Tremelay chimed in. “Looks about twenty inch with a thirteen inch blade. Sharp, too.”

I stared at him, open-mouthed.

“What?” He grinned sheepishly. “I know my knives.”

Color me impressed. “It’s not just any Bowie. See that little mark down there? That’s a magical symbol. The blade can be either iron, which is a bitch to keep from rusting, bone, obsidian, or silver. They’re purpose built, and unlike ceremonial daggers, these suckers are made for defense.”

Now it was the two cops turn to stare at me. “What? I know my magical weapons.”

“From what I saw the blade was metal. I thought steel, but maybe iron. I’m no expert.”

“If it’s steel or iron, then no wonder the pair of them are dead.” I scrolled back a few pictures and enlarged the picture to show a sigil burned into the floor off to the side of the victims. “That’s a demon sigil. Innyhal to be precise.”

Innyhal wasn’t one of the lesser demons. Haul Du only summoned Goetic demons for information and divination, but Innyhal was a major demon affiliated with Mars and all that the god of war symbolized. To summon him was to summon an assassin.

I didn’t know what the heck happened. A lot can go wrong when summoning demons, as I’d recently learned. Either way, I still didn’t see where these cases were related besides the activities surrounding the deceased.

“So you’re saying a demon killed these two guys?” The impressed expression was gone from Zrubek’s face and Tremelay looked embarrassed. Guess I was back to being a weirdo again. So much for expert occult witness.

“Yeah. The good news is these things just don’t pop over here uninvited. Someone summoned him, and that someone is your murderer.”

Bad news was there was a demon running around, and if the summoner didn’t banish it, then it would be my job to send it back to hell. I rubbed my side where the burn scar was acting up. Templars banished demons. It was part of our job description, although we didn’t have cause to do it much in the last few centuries. Most modern mages were too smart to mess with the higher level spirits, and the ones who did were careful to keep their practice hidden and to send the demon back as quickly as possible. A slip up would get you a slap on the wrist from the Templars. I wasn’t sure what we would do to a repeat offender.

Great. An angel I needed to track down, and now a demon. It made me wonder about Araziel’s summoning. What if the magician had been trying for Azrael? Although bringing one of the princes of hell into this plane was certifiably insane, so was bringing an angel. Of course, so was bringing Innyhal.

Was this the same mage? If so, he or she had a lot to answer for. Although judging from the crime scene in the photos, the mage responsible for Innyhal’s appearance might have already paid for summoning the otherworldly being. That might mean case closed for Tremelay and Zrubek, but not for me. Dead mages meant I had a demon
and
an angel potentially running around the area without any sort of direction or control. I was in for a fun week.

“All righty then. Benton Leigh and David Alban, killed by a demon with super-sharp claws. Can we prosecute this Innyhal? Do Miranda rights mean anything to a demon? Can he afford a lawyer or will one need to be appointed to him?” Zrubek flipped through a notepad that looked eerily like the one Tremelay carried. Did they order those things in bulk? Standard police issue?

Wait. I narrowed my eyes in thought. Benton Leigh? David Alban? “Hey, I know those guys.”

Now I had the attention of both detectives.

“Remember I said I used to be in a magical group? Well, we don’t use our real names and people are understandably cagy about their identities, but things occasionally slip out.”

Slip out. As in magical tracers, and other ways of identifying people. Once I tracked them, it was easy to do some internet research on their homes, places of business, and even license plate numbers. Did I mention I’d held an unhealthy grudge after getting kicked out of Haul Du? I didn’t hex or curse them or anything, but I figured if they were going to out me, I was going to at least know the legal names and current addresses of everyone in the group that I could manage to dig up.

“David Alban went by Tempest. Benton Leigh was known as Oak. They weren’t Masters, but they certainly knew enough to safely summon a greater demon. If they were the ones that brought this demon over, then this massacre shouldn’t have happened.”

Zrubek pocketed his phone. “Well, it did. Shall we go in? Gloves and booties folks. We’ve processed the scene, but I still want to keep it clean just in case.”

We slipped the elastic-edged booties on at the doorstep along with the latex gloves. Once inside I wandered, trying to recreate the events of the night without disturbing anything. The living room was a wreck. A rapier had been yanked from a wall hanger and had been stuck clear through the drywall, the scabbard crumpled on the floor. End tables were knocked over, figurines smashed. I winced. Everything in the room had been of magical use. They may have looked like decorations, but even the nesting dolls had spells imbedded in them. Tempest took his magic seriously.

Bloodstains and patterns in the dining room showed where the two had died even to my neophyte eyes. I followed the trail of broken furniture and headed carefully down the steps to the basement.

In a normal house it would have been carpeted with a sectional sofa and a big screen television along with a wet bar in the corner. This was a mage’s house—clearly an unwed mage with no children. The floor was cement with the double circle acid-etched into the surface. Just the basics. Sigils, as well as different geometric shapes depending on what the mage was working on could be added as needed. A workbench stood off to the side with typical supplies neatly stacked. Candles, various herbs and stones, jars with bones, feathers, and fur alternated with carefully organized books on the shelves that lines the walls. I was struck with a pang of jealousy. My little apartment could never support such an amazing magical space as this.

My family home in Middleburg could. It was one more thing I’d left behind when I’d refused to take my Oath of Knighthood and walked away from that life. I jammed my hands in the pockets of my jeans just to keep away from the temptation to steal the amazing array of supplies Tempest had in this room.

I took one look at the circle and knew we were dealing with a summoning gone wrong, and not a hit. There had been an intended victim of assassination, but it hadn’t been Tempest or Oak. They’d summoned Innyhal, and no one brought that demon over for peaceful purposes. Something had gone wrong here, and in addition to tracking down a loose demon, I wanted to find out exactly what
had
gone wrong. Any opportunity to learn from another’s mistakes, especially if that mistake had cost two mages their lives.

But for now I needed to focus on the immediate threat of a loose demon. The circle had been set up for summoning, and from what I could see Tempest had taken every precaution. The runes looked neatly drawn. He’d foregone the usual containment triangle in favor of a stronger pentagram one. Sigils for Innyhal were at each point to hold the demon in place. I walked widdershins around the summoning area, careful not to smudge anything, but could see no weaknesses where the demon would have been able to break free.

But he
had
broken free. And Oak, in a last attempt to send him back, had hastily drawn the sigil upstairs right where he’d taken his last breath. Just a few moments more and he would have had the banishing sign ready for his bloody hand to activate. He’d never gotten the chance.

“Anything?” Tremelay asked. The two detectives were at the bottom of the staircase, watching me with curiosity.

“They’re the ones who brought the demon over, but I can’t see any screw-ups here. Maybe the incantation was faulty.”

I completed the circle, making the sign of the cross just in case my lap of the magical area had triggered anything, then walked over to the workbench. The grimoire lay open, a crow’s feather marking the page. When summoning a Goetic demon, there was never any need to let them out of the circle. The magician brought them here, made offerings and threats, then returned them to hell once the demon coughed up the information. Even though I’d never intentionally summoned one, I did know that protocols were different for higher demons. Rarely were they brought here for information. No, mages summoned higher demons because they wanted them to
do
something—and doing something required letting them out of the protective area of the circle.

That’s what scared the stuffing out of me. Demons were scary enough without letting them out of the circle. The request, the parameters of their release, had to be very specifically worded, otherwise somebody died. Otherwise lots of somebodies died. If this demon hadn’t escaped the summoning area due to a mistake there, then he found a loophole in the rules and restrictions of his release and took advantage of it.

And once the summoner was dead, all bets were off. Demon. Here. No rules. It was scarier in some ways than the idea of an angel off their heavenly leash. Angels lived by rules and order in their own weird, otherworldly way. Demons were chaos incarnate. They did whatever the heck they wanted. And they wouldn’t go back unless forced to.

I read the beautifully written script, outlining the ritual with a gloved finger. The summoning was textbook. I cringed when I read what the demon’s task was.

“Guys? I think I have our link here. Leigh and Alban were summoning a demon for a hit. They wanted Innyhal to kill a group of people up in Baltimore.”

“Who? Does it list the names? We’ll need to warn them.” Tremelay walked over toward me, giving the summoning circle a wary glance as he passed it.

Of course he’d want to warn them, as well as bring them in for questioning. If their names were in this book, they were most likely knowledgeable of, if not involved in, the Baltimore murders.

“Their full names are here.” Demons needed exact names to perform their tasks. Because there were so many people in the world nowadays, they often required current address and date of birth. It sounded silly, but if you didn’t want every Kimberly Ann Cannon in the state of Maryland to be killed, you needed to be specific.

But there was no need to warn these people. Once the summoner was killed, the deal was off and a demon was free to slaughter whomever they wanted. Oddly, they tended to stay clear of their original targets, kind of a final fuck-you toward their summoner. Of the twenty-five names on this list, twenty-four would be safe. Technically so would one other, since he was already dead.

“Ronald Stephen Stull,” Tremelay read. “Yep. There’s our connection.”

Tempest hadn’t known that Ronald was dead when he summoned this demon. How very ironic. Of course, the question now was why had Tempest and Oak wanted Ronald dead, and why had an angel beaten them to it?