Dead Set Page 18

  Cathy clearly wanted nothing to do with the buxom college kid, but she was my daughter, and knew how to play along. “Sure.”

  Plan B, you have an apprentice, use him…

  I fired off a quick text to Adam.

  There are Birds of Paradise in the front yard, right?

  Adam’s response arrived almost immediately.

  No birds here, just plants.

  “So, Gene. What do you do?” Kelly asked, taking a seat at one of the oversized chairs on the covered portion of their pool deck. Jessica followed and sat in his lap. In that moment, he looked for all the world like a modern-day conqueror sitting on his throne with a concubine.

  My stream of texts with Adam continued, forcing me to hold two conversations at once. I wasn’t sure which was more painful—Kelly the Tanned or Adam the Forgetful.

  Birds of Paradise ARE plants.

  Oh.

  “I do a little of this and a little of that. I’m in the construction business—”

  “That’s great,” my gracious host said, slipping a bronzed hand around his wife’s waist. “It’s so good to see people still out there working with their hands. You know—good honest everyday work—even if it doesn’t pay.”

  Break the orange flowered head off.

  Um, okay. Like this?

  A bright orange and blue flowered head appeared on my screen, caught up in my apprentice’s stubby fingers.

  “Thanks, I try.”

  Kelly nodded. “Sounds like you set a good example for your daughter. Do your best even if it’s not financially rewarding—it’s good for the soul.”

  Do you even have one of those, Kelly? If your niece is wearing Ten Spins’ tramp-stamp, she’s squirreled her soul away somewhere…

  I nodded and fired off a text to Adam.

  Perfect. Now get the last of the powdered black acorn.

  Why? Where is it?

  “It’s good to lead by example, even when you might want to wring their necks.”

  “True,” my host said, running his fingers over Jessica’s knee.

  It’s in your damn bag, check under the dried-out toad skins.

  Found it. Now what?

  “Here come the beer maidens,” Kelly said, pointing to Lucina and Cathy. My daughter trailed the taller and more elegant brunette, her eyes solidly on the Spanish-tile floor.

  Sprinkle the acorn on the flower and toss it on the Escalade.

  Ah…

  The black SUV in the driveway, other side of the gate. And get ready, you’re about to give me one heck of a distraction.

  “Thanks, sweetheart.” Kelly accepted the cold glass of golden-yellow beer from his niece as I did the same from Cathy—something was eating at my daughter and I wasn’t sure what, but I needed her to snap out of it, and quick.

  Got it! Holy crap the squirrels are going crazy!

  Get in your car and pull around the block, the squirrels will do the rest.

  Bird of Paradise is a beautiful flower that, if you look at too quickly, resembles brilliant orange and purple plumage of a tropical bird. Few people know they’re an excellent spring-board for small-mammal Magick. Packing that colorful musket full of enchanted acorn dust was just what the doctor ordered: instant chaos, in a thousand furry little packages.

  Squirrels everywhere, going after the SUV.

  I clicked the screen off and turned my attention to the grey squirrels now streaming between the magnificent oaks that filled the yard beyond the pool. They raced up the trees and launched onto the roof in the hundreds. Jessica’s car alarm burst to life and filled the back porch with its high-pitched wail.

  “What is that sound?” Mrs. Shelldeck said, getting up from her husband’s lap and looking toward the front of the house. “Kelly, my Escalade!”

  Jessica raced into the house, her crispy husband right behind her.

  I fished the Walking Liberty out of my pocket and flicked it in the air. It was time to get some answers.

  Silver for your thoughts?

  38

  Old Flames

  I caught Lucina’s pale hand and slammed the Walking Liberty down into her palm. “Anima emptio!”

  Boom!

  Magick erupted from the coin and from my hand, the swirling power catching the young woman’s voice in her throat. I knew I had her, but the immediate question was just what that meant. Her soul wasn’t what I’d expected; there was something dark and seductive twisting beneath that porcelain skin.

  Demon?

  Ten Spins Infernal Lock meant that twisted soul was stuck in a permanent half-state just outside her body, and I’d just thrown down a mint silver Walking Liberty half-dollar for half that broken soul.

  Magick demands sacrifice, but it also totally digs on irony.

  Black wings and long claws shifted in that half-soul—Lucina wasn’t human, at least not entirely.

  Succubus!

  “Dad! What are you doing?” Cathy screamed, seeing some serious Deep Magick for the first time in her life.

  Lucina’s alabaster skin rippled, and a faint second version of her gothic-bombshell body floated just outside the frame of her curvy real one. This Lucina brought a whole different definition to angry and was not pleased to have been caught by a stodgy, old, dad-bod Magician. “What are you doing?”

  “Half-dollar, half-soul. No one teaches the classics these days.”

  “You idiot,” Lucina hissed, her broken soul shifting furiously between that of a beautiful young woman and a black and twisted Demon. “The Infernal Lock keeps my halves in balance.”

  Shit, now that I had not considered.

  Lucina’s translucent fingers swiped at my face, but passed right through it.

  “Dad, you’re hurting her!” my daughter shouted, her voice breaking.

  Just a few more seconds…

  Lucina’s soul was two parts, a hybrid of Demon and human lineage. Trapped by the Walking Liberty, that dark half was gaining power over the human half by the second. Black and gossamer wings unfolded from the back of her twisting spirit.

  Make it quick, Gene.

  “I’m not hurting her, and I won’t, provided she tells me what I want to know,” I said, squeezing the coin and Lucina’s palm harder. “You sent New Dead after my wife and I want to know why.”

  Lucina’s demonic spirit growled and pulled at my fingers with translucent claws.

  “Stop!” both ladies cried.

  “I will, but only if you tell me the truth,” I said, rooting Lucina to the spot as if I’d driven a tent-stake through her hand. “Why did you send New Dead after my wife!”

  The soft voice of 69 Mallory Lane returned—this time it came from my daughter and cut me to the core. “Yes, now that’s the Gene Law I wanted to see. I knew you had it in you.”

  Lucina’s half-soul flickered like a match in the wind; her Demon half was getting stronger. “New Dead? I don’t understand. Please let me go,” Lucina cried.

  “You’re lying,” I said, the coin’s sharp edges digging into my skin. “Who taught you Ten Spins’ Infernal Lock? You don’t just wake up with that knowledge. Someone is screwing with my family and I want to know who!”

  “Go, Gene,” the Cathy-shaped house said, her voice soft and supple. “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I knew you had it in you, I just knew it.”

  “Get out of my daughter,” I growled.

  Cathy smiled, her eyes practically sparkling. “Happy to. I’ll see you around, Magician.”

  “I told you,” Lucina cried, her black wings expanding. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t play with me. I’m old, and I’m cranky, and I tired of dealing with wannabe monsters trying to screw with my family.”

  I cranked down on the coin with all my might. Lady Liberty’s gnarled edge drew blood against my skin, but it was a small price to pay to see the Demon hybrid squirm.

  “Dad! You are killing her!” Cathy shouted, her voice no longer that of Mallory Lane.


  “I didn’t touch your family!” the half-soul screamed.

  “But you know something. Stop stalling and tell me.”

  Lucina squirmed and pulled, twisting her human and Demon halves in a hundred directions while her body remained perfectly still—like a fly trying to escape the spider’s web, the woman’s half-soul could not escape the pull of Walking Liberty silver.

  You could finish this right now, just squeeze a little harder…

  The coin shuddered in my palm. The Magick wanted to go further, it wanted to tear the hybrid soul apart and revel in it, but did I? My face reflected in the young woman’s panicked eyes, and I didn’t like what I saw.

  “I can always buy the rest,” I said, easing back, and patting my other hand on my pocket. It technically wasn’t true, but if Lucina didn’t know about Walking Liberty, there was a good chance she wouldn’t know that I was lying either.

  “I don’t know anything about New Dead, or Asaroth the Defiler. I’m here to keep an eye on my aunt and uncle while Mom is in town on business,” Lucina’s twisted soul shouted.

  “What sort of business?”

  I pumped a little more Magick into the coin and Lucina’s half-soul. If I’d been paying more attention, I would have wondered where my own daughter was at this moment; instead, I was far too focused on the squirming catch about to snap my line.

  “Agh!” Lucina shouted, her Demon soul’s black wings snapping. “I told you, I don’t know. I only know I have to stay here a few more nights and pretend to make nice with the relatives, then she’ll have what she’s looking for.”

  The Cadillac’s car alarm was still going strong, which meant the squirrels were doing their thing, but that wouldn’t last. I would have loved to see my little ‘var-my’ going to town on that woman’s high-priced land yacht, but I only had seconds before the Demon half would slip free of my grasp. I needed an answer, and I needed it now.

  “Who is your mother? And what is she looking for?” I shouted, pulling the half-soul toward my face.

  A new voice spoke up behind me, soft as crushed velvet and as sharp as a razor’s edge. It was a calm and sultry sound I hadn’t heard in more than twenty years, and hadn’t ever expected to hear again.

  No, she’s dead. I saw her die.

  “Let go of my daughter, Gene. Or you’ll find Cathy in far fewer pieces than you can stomach.”

  Morgan Crowley.

  Didn’t I tell you? Magick loves irony.

  39

  Ma' Sigil

  I didn’t turn around, I was too afraid of what I might find.

  It can’t be her…

  But that voice was impossible to forget. It came with the smell of clove and incense, with innocence lost and never found again, and with a whole crap-ton of baggage. My fingers practically twitched at the thought of lace, leather, and crushed velvet. Only one woman had ever made my heart beat with equal parts excitement and sheer terror, and her voice was unmistakable.

  Morgan Crowley.

  The first woman to introduce me to Deep Magick, and to teach me the secrets to unlocking the cosmic power swirling inside me. I’d made mistakes, so many mistakes, chasing the bright eyes and crooked smile of that terrible woman. Flashes of memory filled my mind: the fiery doors of an ancient library, Morgan’s screams, and the rush of Magick. I shook them away.

  It can’t be her. Morgan Crowley died.

  “I don’t know who you are, but Morgan Crowley is dead,” I said, yanking back the Lucina half-soul trying to escape my fingers and the Walking Liberty. “Let go of my daughter now, unless you want me to do the same thing to you.”

  “Have you really come that far, Eugene Law? The man I remember lacked that killer instinct—at least right up until the end.”

  The end.

  More memories washed over me, too many to count, and all of them digging up a pain I’d done my best to keep long buried. “You can’t be her. Morgan Crowley died.”

  “Look at me, Eugene Law. Do I look dead to you?”

  I couldn’t turn around. Lucina’s Demon-half flapped its translucent wings, the monster’s power growing by the second. The Succubus side of that broken soul was winning, and soon it would overpower the coin and me.

  “Oh, you can’t, can you?” Morgan’s voice said, the same velvety tone that had twisted me in knots all those years ago. “Gotta stay focused on the problem at hand, eh Gene?”

  “No one survives that place.”

  Morgan chuckled, her voice filling with venom. “No one but me.”

  Lucina freed a finger and her green eyes lit up. There was no way I could hold the Half-Succubus much longer.

  “It’s not possible. Ed promised me it wasn’t possible.”

  “Your old roommate? Please tell me you don’t hang around that moron anymore. What could he know about the other side of those doors?”

  Lucina pulled another clawed finger free. The Succubus half of her soul was winning. I’d be in for a lot more problems when that half broke free. Those bright green eyes were already drawing me into a raw and powerful sexual energy just beyond the flickering half-soul.

  Damn it.

  “Dad!” Cathy’s cry shattered my concentration and sent two more Lucina fingers slipping off the coin.

  Cathy! Stop, Gene. Focus, don’t lose the coin.

  “Let go of my daughter,” I cried, sweat stinging my eyes. I couldn’t hold the half-soul much longer.

  “You know something, Gene, when I clawed my way out of the hole, I didn’t come back to the world I’d left. A lot had changed since that day.”

  Lucina’s half-soul pulled harder at the stinging coin. It took all I had to keep her from slipping free. “I… don’t… care…”

  “So what do I discover? I find I have a half-sister. I find that you can look up anyone now. It doesn’t take Magick, it’s all online. Imagine my surprise when I discover just what happened to Eugene Law and his wife Porter.” Morgan’s voice seethed with anger.

  Cathy’s cries vanished and my gut sank with them. Still I tried to muster what little bravado I had left. “This is just between us, Morgan. Let my daughter go.”

  “I plan to, but would you like her with or without her face?”

  “If you hurt her—”

  “You’ll do what? Send a pack of squirrels to irritate me to death? Come on, Gene. You used to have power, real power, but look at you now. Walking Liberty coins? Squirrel packs? It’s a shame, but that’s what happens when you choose the wrong path. You could have had me, together we would have been unstoppable. I mean, look at you. Khakis? Really?”

  “Cathy!”

  That wasn’t Morgan’s voice, that was Tristan—a very concerned and altogether distressed boyfriend of the month.

  “What are you doing to her? Stop!”

  Morgan’s voice cut like daggers. “You want to think very carefully about your next move, nephew.”

  “Let her go or I’ll shatter it!” Tristan shouted.

  Deep Magick flooded the room and knocked the air clean out of my lungs. When I had been crouching in the hallway at the Old Tampa Hotel, I’d had a taste of it, but that was just the tiniest drop, and even then it’d been enough to clamp my butt cheeks tight.

  This was a thousand times worse.

  Lucina stopped struggling, and her eyes told me why: the Half-Succubus was terrified. This wasn’t the House—this was corrupted evil. The House was like a shark, an apex predator, but still a cog of the supernatural order. This was different, this was wild and unpredictable, this was Old Dead. It didn’t follow rules, it broke them, and people, and even half-demons.

  “Don’t be stupid, Tristan. You know whose skull that is,” Morgan said, her voice no longer brimming with confidence.

  “I don’t care. If you don’t let her go right now I swear I’ll smash this into a thousand pieces.”

  Way to go, Triscuit!

  “And kill us all? I hardly think you’ll do that. The Wild Magick alone would be enough to bring this whole place
down around your ears, and what about your girlfriend?”

  “Tristan,” Cathy cried, her voice ragged. “Help me!”

  Ten Spins’ sigils, Morgan was always a fan. She had the patience for those tiny little lines and excruciating details. Morgan must have designed Lucina’s Infernal Lock, and probably the Brighton 8’s summoning circle too. She must be the one calling in Asaroth. She must have done the same thing to the skull, and that’s what she’s drawing her power from. Morgan Crowley had finally found her battery.

  The Lucina-demon flickered in my grasp; the much younger and more energized half-soul had almost gained the upper hand. At any second, it wouldn’t matter what I did—that soul-sucking she-devil would be free, and all I’d have would be nothing but a blackened Walking Liberty to show for it.

  Think, Gene!

  “Give me the skull, Tristan, before you do something monumentally stupid,” Morgan hissed.

  I couldn’t hold Lucina any longer, and I knew the instant I did let go I was going to need to get away fast. One touch and the Half-Succubus would have me in her clutches.

  All right, Magick man. On the count of three we toss the coin and give the young woman back her soul, then turn around and let Morgan have it with all you’ve got. This is what you get for going off half-cocked. One… Two…

  “Nobody move! I’ve got an Imp and I’m not afraid to use it!” shouted my favorite non-family-member apprentice of all time.

  Way to go, Adam, you big man-bun of awesomeness. I never doubted you.

  40

  The Good, the Bad, and the Impish

  Imps can really screw with Magick—aside from being pink, rubbery, and annoying, they know how to turn a spell up one side and down the other. Trying to Magick up some thicker hair with an Imp around? Get ready to have it come out your ears. Working on that spell to freeze time? Be prepared to be pelted by frozen dimes.

  Simply put, Magickal contamination was one of their most well-known and least understood traits—mainly because the Magicians that elected to study them often ended up blown to tiny bits by their own Magick.