Demon's Fury: Part 1 of the Final Asylum Tales (The Asylum Tales series) (8 page)

Reaching over, I plucked the box of matches out of her hand and tossed them onto the ground next to the jug of water. Pulling the jar of sea salt out of my pocket, I unscrewed the lid and handed her the jar.

“Sprinkle the salt over the tissue, but be careful not to get the salt in the circle.”

Stepping back from the circle, Serah held the balled-up paper towel out with the tips of two fingers and very carefully sprinkled a few salt crystals on it. I rolled my eyes at the sight. She was acting as if I had just handed her a dangerous acid that was going to dissolve her fingers.

“It’s sea salt. It’s not going to hurt you if it touches you,” I said blandly.

Her narrowed eyes snapped to my face. “I didn’t know that! You said you’re doing magic. I thought this was dangerous shit.”

“Magic
can
be dangerous, but I’m not going to give you something dangerous after you just held me at gunpoint. Now really put some salt on that thing, please.”

After making a face at me, Serah put the paper towel in the palm of her hand and liberally poured the salt over it. “Why am I doing this?”

“Salt is good for nullifying potions and some spells,” I explained as I knelt on the ground and unscrewed the lid of the water jug. “Kyle’s potion is in that blood and I need to hinder as much of it as possible if I’m going to get to the blood’s owner.”

“Yeah, but why am
I
doing this?”

“I thought you’d want to help,” I said with a smirk. “That and I don’t want the salt on my hands. It could mess with my control of the spell.”

“And that’d be bad.”

“Real bad,” I muttered, watching the salt slip through her fingers and rain onto the floor. I’d have to go through tomorrow and try to pick up most of the salt. I didn’t want to risk it coming back to bite me in the ass later when I was casting down here. “That should be enough. Hand me the jar and carefully shake any remaining salt out of the paper towel.”

Screwing on the lid on, I shoved the half-empty jar back into my pocket as Serah rejoined me at the circle.

“What are you going to do?”

“Build a killer,” I said with a smile that she didn’t return. Picking up the jug, I held it out so she could see it. “All living creatures have at least three basic elements. Earth.” I paused and pointed to the nice, fresh dirt within the circle. The shit was expensive. It took me two years to have it all shipped in from a remote island in the Pacific. “Water.” I held up the jug of water, which had started as snow. This snow water was from the first snowfall of 2011, which turned out to be a heavy snow year. Pouring the water into my cupped left hand, I then sprinkled it over the dirt within the circle. I repeated this three times while whispering the first words of the spell. After a moment, the drops stopped falling and were captured in the air, becoming a mist.

“Whoa,” Serah whispered, taking a tiny step backward. “And the third is the blood,” she said, holding out the paper towel toward me.

I shook my head, but smiled encouragingly at her. It was a good guess. Putting the jug back on the ground, I grabbed the box of wooden matches and withdrew one. “Nope. It’s energy. The closest I can come to reproducing that same energy without blowing the roof off this place is fire.” Striking the match, I let it burn for a second so that the flame was as large as I could get it and then dropped it into the center of the circle. Like the drops of water, the burning match stopped falling a couple feet from the ground, flickering within the thickening mist.

The magic energy within the basement thickened, and a strange breeze stirred the hairs on the back of my neck. This spell tapped into something deeper, more basic than what most warlocks and witches ever bother with. It was as close to the old magic as any of us ever got. Old magic, the stuff of the big bang and the start of life, was wild and untamed. It didn’t like to be controlled, and the inhabitants of the Ivory Towers were all about control.

I took one last glance up at the back wall and the protective spell that had nearly attacked Serah just minutes ago. It wasn’t completely dormant but appeared content to watch us. I was really gonna have to find a new security system for down here.

Plucking the wadded-up paper towel out of Serah’s open hand, I whispered the last words of the spell and dropped it into the center of the circle. The air shifted and stirred within the circle as if I had created a mini tornado. The dirt, water, and fire mixed together, spinning around so that the bloody towel was at the center. What I hadn’t told Serah was that the blood contained the tiniest bit of the killer’s soul and I had just added it to the pseudo-person I had created. Unfortunately, I’d never had a reason to use this spell and I wasn’t quite sure what the blood was going to carry into my creation.

After a couple of seconds, the swirling mist started to clear and we could see the beginning of some form. The creature had two legs and two arms, which didn’t help to narrow down the species much. Color flushed its pale skin, revealing a human-like complexion, which narrowed the field a little further. The killer was proving to be slighter in frame than I had been expecting, considering it had overpowered Kyle, beaten him to a bloody pulp, and stabbed him in the chest with his tattooing gun.

“Holy shit,” Serah whispered.

Following her gaze, my own mouth dropped open. “Fuck.” Whoever this was had a really nice set of breasts. I was not expecting a woman to be Kyle’s killer. After seeing such brutality, I had been sure that it was a man who’d killed him.

The creature within the circle stirred, lifting its featureless face. Glowing red eyes focused on me and my heart jerked in my chest. The creature was conscious in some way, which shouldn’t have been possible since it was little more than a shadow of the original person. But it was aware of me. This was not good, particularly since my protection spell had noticed it as well. Was the protection spell going to think that a third person was now in the basement?
Really not fucking good.
“Serah, I want you to go calmly and quickly up the stairs now.”

“Why?”

“Please, do it now.”

Too late.

Something had finally snapped within the creature I’d summoned. Its face contorted, as though it was screaming, but no sound came out. It launched itself at me and slammed into the invisible barrier that rose up from the circle. Lurching back, it pounded its fists and clawed at the binding spell, fighting to get at me. At the same time, the defensive spell broke free, ready to shred the creature that was trying to attack me. Unfortunately, the spell was prepared to go through me and Serah to get at my would-be attacker.

Diving into Serah, I tackled the small woman into the dirt, covering her as best as I could. Pain slashed across my back near my shoulders like someone had taken a hot blade to my flesh. I swallowed back a scream, tightening my hold on the woman beneath me. A black mass circled the bound creature I had summoned. They slashed again and again at each other, but neither made contact because neither was technically there. Only Serah and I were at risk of being killed.

As soon as I could draw in a breath through the pain, I shouted the counter-spell to lock up the protective force in the symbol again. The black mass gave a high-pitched scream of frustration that scraped across my eardrums before diving back into the symbol. The creature in the circle pounded on the wall of its cage a couple more times, but with less force, before disappearing as well. The water and fire were spent. All that was left was a fine ash hanging in the air. Sadly, the killer’s features had never fully resolved, so we couldn’t make a positive I.D.

Fuck.
While the effort hadn’t been a waste, it certainly wasn’t as fruitful as I was hoping it would be, particularly considering that we had nearly been killed in the process.

With a groan, I rolled onto my side so that Serah could move free of me, while being careful not to press the open wound on my back into the dirt. Dirt was good for spells; bad for gaping, bleeding wounds. Serah didn’t move. She stared up at me with wide, stunned eyes; her face was stark white except for a smear of dirt across her cheek.

I tried to smile, but I was suddenly too tired. Muscles twitched and trembled from exhaustion. It had taken a considerable about of energy to summon the creature and hold it within the circle. A second helping of energy had been required to shove my so-called guard dog back in its kennel. I was ready to sleep right where I lay. “Sorry about that,” I mumbled, trying to pull myself together for the poor human who was having a rough night.

“Yeah . . . ummm . . . thanks.” She sounded shaken, but was holding it together a little better than when she first discovered that I was a warlock.

Clenching my teeth, I pushed to my feet, struggling to ignore the pain that was screaming across my back. “No problem. I’m sorry we didn’t get a better look at the face, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the killer is a human female.”

“Maybe. Were the eyes supposed to be red? Is she possessed?”

I stood staring at the circle where I had cast the spell. The ash was starting to settle, but there was still a smell hanging in the air, part burnt ozone and part . . . something else. “No, they shouldn’t have been, but she’s not possessed. She wouldn’t have looked human if she had been, but more like the creature possessing her. The red was a reflection of her soul, her rage. I’m guessing that the potion Kyle tattooed her with has only amplified her strength and her anger.”

“Are you sure she’s human?” Serah took a step closer to the circle and then appeared to think twice about it as she rocked back on her heels. “There are a number of races that look very similar to humans but technically aren’t. Sirens and succubi. Maybe even an elf.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged and then winced as pain cut across my wounded back. “But there’s something about the woman. Just feels human. I’m sorry I can’t explain it.”

“You sure it doesn’t have to do with her boobs?”

I glared at Serah and she glared right back. Sure, I’d noticed the creature’s boobs, but then I’d been shocked that they were there in the first place. That’s what I got for being sexist when it came to acts of violence.

“Anyways . . . I think we’ve got a start, though not as big of one as I’d hoped.”

“I’m not sure what we can do next.” Serah shoved one hand through her mussed short hair. “It’s not like we got a good look at her face to get an ID. I also don’t think you want me going to the police, describing how I know that it’s a woman we’re after.”

A stiff grin twitched on my lips. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

“Then what do we do?”

“I need you to do two things. One: try to get another sample of her blood. I want to see if I can come up with a tracking spell.”

Serah nodded. “I think I can come up with an excuse to get my hands on another sample. Two?”

“Use your contacts with the police to keep you in the loop on this.”

“With the crime being a murder, they have jurisdiction. Not TAPSS.”

“I know, but you’ve still got plenty of friends on the force, right? You can pull some information out.”

Her eyes narrowed and she slowly shook her head at me. “That’s why you told me. You need me to give you the information that the cops have.”

I started to shrug but stopped myself rather than strain the seeping wound. “I can do it myself, but my magic use might catch the attention of the Towers and we need the Towers involved.”

“Yeah,” she breathed. She turned away from me, her eyes skimming over the basement with a new understanding. This wasn’t the realm of a tattoo artist. It also wasn’t the realm of the Ivory Towers, but of one rogue warlock. She was somewhere no human had ever tread and lived. When she turned back, I could see all the questions colliding in her brain, fighting to jump off the tip of her tongue first.

Lifting my hand to stop whatever she was going to say next, I smiled weakly at her. “Can we hold off the questions for another time? It’s really fucking late and my back is killing me.”

“Can I have just two questions?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I didn’t want to answer any more questions, but I figured she had earned them considering how poorly the night had gone.

“Why are you doing this? I mean, I know you said that you’re doing it because of Trixie, but is that really the only reason?”

I scrubbed my hand over my face, sure that I was now rubbing in dirt but I just didn’t give a damn. For Trixie, I would do anything, but Serah was right. The elf wasn’t the only reason I was standing in the basement just a couple hours before dawn bleeding. “Something she said, that I was the only one who could do this, stuck with me. You’ve got a killer who has been created based on a powerful potion. You’re going to need someone versed in a little magic to track this person down and I don’t see anyone else from the Towers volunteering.”

She made a little noise of acceptance in the back of her throat and nodded. “When this is over and the killer is caught, are you going to kill me?”

“No, Serah, I’m not going to kill you,” I groaned, more than a little agitated that this topic kept coming up.

“I’m serious!” she snapped, looking as if she really wanted to stomp her foot in frustration. “You’re trusting me with a big secret. You don’t know me.”

Anger bubbled from the petite woman, but the protection spell didn’t stir, so I took it as a sign that she wasn’t violently upset with me. “No, I don’t know you, but I trust you not to tell anyone while we’re working together because you don’t want to see me lynched.”

“And when it’s over?”

“I’ll wipe your memory.”

Her face bunched up a bit at that pronouncement as if she were weighing the alternative, which was definitely death in her mind. “Will it hurt?”

I chuckled as I walked back over to the table in the far corner and picked up her gun. I’d clean up this mess tomorrow. I was too damn tired now. “No, it won’t hurt.”

At my urging, she preceded me up the stairs. I turned off the light and returned the protection spell to its normal active status before ascending the stairs to the tattoo parlor.