Last Breath (19 page)

Suddenly the demon howled like Satan’s hounds had their teeth in him. There’s no way my foot had done that much pain, but inexplicably Innyhal’s grip on my hair loosened.

I twisted free and rolled, springing to my feet as soon as I was clear of the circle.

“Aria!” Athena kicked my sword over to me. She was clutching her hand, her own sword sticking through one of my kitchen cabinets. I grabbed Trusty, whirled around… and stared. There wasn’t just one demon in my house, there were two. Innyhal stood in the broken circle, his four eyes bulging as a demon of black smoke and fire squeezed inky hands around his neck. The smoke demon grinned, his sharp teeth white. And then he winked at me and threw Innyhal at my feet.

I hesitated.

“Well? Go ahead. My gift to you, little Templar.” The smoke demon cocked his head, his eyes dancing coals of orange and red. “I won’t request anything of you in return for this. Consider it… what do you humans call it? A freebie?”

The demon at my feet made a choking sound, snapping me out of my state of shock.

“
T’voghnel anmijapes
.” I swung my sword downward, plunging it into the demon’s chest.
This
time the banishment worked. Innyhal screamed, his body hardening then shattering into a million bits of shale.

Without hesitating I raised my sword again.

The smoke demon laughed, and I swung wide missing him entirely.

“Yes, yes. Back to hell with me, too. Until next time, little Templar.” The smoke swirled and the demon vanished, but not before raining little sparks all over my living room. I raced about, still clutching my sword as I stamped out the embers. Then I went to help my sister.

“Aria?” Athena panted, still clutching her hand. “What in hell was
that
thing?”

O
’GRADY’S WAS
, true to its name, an Irish pub. It was also housed in an old stone building with a winding staircase to the upper restaurant floor, tapestries on the walls, and scotch eggs. Raven was late. I was halfway through my dinner and starting to worry when she finally arrived.

It was as if time had stood still since I’d last seen my friend. Her windblown light-brown hair had burgundy tips which matched her leather jacket. There was even a red stone in the hoop through the side of her nose. Smile lines crinkled at the edges of her eyes as she saw me, but there was a weary look about her face that hadn’t been there before. Without a word she grabbed me in a hug like she never wanted to let go. I crushed her back, my eyes watering at the pain her hands on my back caused. Didn’t matter. She could have rubbed salt in the wounds and I still would have relished this hug.

“Missed you,” I told her.

“Missed you, too. I was an idiot to put Haul Du in front of a friendship. Life is too damned short to do that kind of thing. People die without warning and then there are all sorts of regrets. I don’t want there to ever be regrets.”

I had no idea what had spurred this maudlin speech from the usually cheerful and salty friend. We pulled away and sat, Raven looking in horror at the contents of my plate.

“What the hell are you eating, Kite?”

Kite. I’d taken a magical name just as everyone in Haul Du did, but once I was kicked out no one used it. Raven had called me Aria the few times we’d communicated since then. It was like I’d been stripped of my name as well as my identity with the group. Hearing her call me that once again stirred up memories and feelings of resentment that I really wished I could let go.

But in a way it felt good, as if I was once more her sister in the magical arts. I wasn’t just that Templar outsider anymore.

I waved a fork at my plate. “It’s a Scotch egg—hardboiled egg wrapped up in a bunch of ground sausage then deep fried.”

“With gravy on top.” She wrinkled her bejeweled nose and sniffed. “You Brits are so weird.”

My family had been in America since before the Revolution, long before Raven’s ancestors had stepped off the boat from Italy, but there was no use arguing. In her mind, my family had never fully left jolly old England.

I wanted to ask her how she was, whether she’d managed to get that sweetwater spell to work, if her little French bulldog had ever stopped terrorizing the neighbor’s cat. Was she still dating Reynard, who was just as foxy as his namesake, or had that gone down in flames as I’d predicted? I didn’t have the chance to ask. Before I could say a word she rested her chin on steepled hands and looked sorrowfully into my eyes.

“I can’t believe Bliss is dead. I heard the news and I decided I just didn’t care anymore what Dark Iron said, whether he kicked me out of Haul Du or not. The guy hates me anyway. I don’t know why I put up with his abusive crap for so long. He’s got his favorites, and everyone else can die as far as he cares.”

I squirmed thinking of Elmo’s comment at the shop. Maybe it wasn’t personal. Maybe Dark Iron hated everyone and secretly put five hundred dollar bounties on a whole list of people.

Raven shifted angrily in her seat. “Dark Iron is such a cold bastard. He didn’t care. He didn’t care when the Dupont circle guys died, and he didn’t care about Bliss either. ‘Just as well,’ he said. Can you believe it? Bliss was so sweet. Everyone liked her. Murdered, sacrificed by those assholes. And nobody seems to care.”

Wait,
Bliss
? Bethany Scarborough was practicing? Nothing I’d read about her said “mage.”

Most mages were stealthy, keeping their magical activities secret. Some were downright paranoid. I guess Bliss had been in the latter category. “She was part of the Baltimore group? Why would they have sacrificed one of their own? Did she find out something she shouldn’t have known about? Get on a powerful mage’s wrong side?”

Raven shook her head, eyes practically sparking with anger. “She was with
us
, part of Haul Du. At first I thought it was a robbery or something. That’s what they told me when I called to check on her at her job. Why her? Why would someone have sacrificed her?”

My friend’s voice was raising in volume to the point where other patrons were beginning to look at us. I tapped a finger to my lips and shook my head. “Death magic. They took her soul.”

Bethany was part of Haul Du? It actually made sense if there was a feud going on between them and Fiore Noir. Although grabbing a member of a rival group for a ritual sacrifice was truly taking this fight over the line. It was one thing to throw spells at one another, even send demons after one another, but to kill another mage, to take their soul… somehow it seemed far more nefarious than sacrificing an innocent insurance adjuster from Westminster.

And Dark Iron didn’t care? What a crappy attitude for a leader to have when a rival group kills one of your members.

For a second I wondered if Tempest and Oak had been trying to avenge Bethany’s death by sending Innyhal after Fiore Noir. Although knowing those two I couldn’t see that they would have valued the life of a “nice” woman enough to risk their lives avenging hers. Yes, there was the slight against their organization, but I wasn’t sure Bliss’s death would have been enough of a slap in the face—especially if Dark Iron hadn’t been bothered about her death. There must have been other friends whose sacrifice bothered them enough they were making a deal with a demon for assassination—a deal that cost them their lives.

“I’m
so
fucking
pissed
. You’ve got no idea how fucking pissed I am.” Raven seemed to change before me, from quirky mage with a nose ring to an avenging Valkyrie. “Why would they do that to Bliss? Why? She only practiced the whitest of magic. She wouldn’t even
attend
when we summoned Goetic demons. She’d never done anything to anger the Fiore Noir group. Ever. She was a
nice
person. She never associated with Fiore Noir. She didn’t even know them. Why would anyone do this to her?”

It was the same question I had. “Is it possible she was looking into changing groups? Baltimore is closer, and if she wasn’t into demonology then Haul Du doesn’t seem like that good of a fit for her magic.”

“No!” Raven recoiled. “Baltimore is just… they’re sloppy and careless and they do death magic. I don’t think every one of them sacrifices humans, but Bliss never would have belonged to a group that killed cats and rabbits. Plus, they lack appreciation for the details and nuances of magical work. I know death magic, outside of human sacrifice, doesn’t violate any laws in the magical community, but they’re a bunch of loose cannons, every single one of them. We’ve filed complaints before about their methods. I’ve got no idea how they stay affiliated. They’re back-alley, low-class scum.”

That speech didn’t sound at all like Raven. I recognized Reynard’s party line a mile away. Of course, most of Haul Du would have agreed with him. Their dedication to careful research and attention to detail was one of the things that had drawn me to the group.

“Well, maybe she insulted them? Kind of like you just did, although maybe to their faces?”

Raven shook her head. “Not Bliss. She was a kind person. I can’t believe
anyone
would harm her.”

I had hoped Raven knew what was behind Bethany’s murder, but it seemed she was just as stumped as I was. “I know you’re risking your membership with Haul Du just meeting with me like this, and I truly appreciate it because I need your help.” I went on to tell Raven all the details I’d left out of my phone messages.

She sat for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m actually not surprised Tempest and Oak tried to kill Fiore Noir. They threatened to in a meeting last week. Most everyone figured it just was a threat, but I saw how angry they were and feared they might actually do it. Dark Iron didn’t sanction their plan, but he didn’t exactly forbid them either. I got the feeling that if they’d succeeded, all would have been swept under the rug.” She frowned. “This isn’t the group I joined. Haul Du shouldn’t turn the other way while people are killed or condone the summoning of demons for murder. There are channels to lodge a complaint when there’s suspicion of wrong doing, ways of addressing those suspicions without summoning up an assassination demon.”

“Innyhal told me, under a binding of truth, that he’d been summoned to kill the people on that list—Fiore Noir. The cops and I found the list along with the summoning ritual. No one summons a Mars demon unless they intend to murder. Tempest and Oak have already paid for that. Now it’s up to us to make sure that those who killed Bliss as well as others with their death magic rituals, pay for their crimes. I swear by my sword, Raven, that I’m going to bring these people to justice. Baltimore is
my
town.”

Raven nodded. “And I’m with you one hundred percent of the way. This weird feud between Haul Du and Fiore Noir? I’ll let you know every last detail. I don’t know the names of who is in Fiore Noir, but there are ways of finding that out—servitor spells, or certain demons who might be able to give me that information.”

Which made me think about something Innyhal had said. Hadn’t he said that the demons were angry with Fiore Noir for taking souls? That humans were taking what the demons felt belonged to them? There was something there at the edge of my brain, tickling for me to let it in. I just had to figure out the connection.

Raven took a deep breath, one fingernail tracing the woodgrain of the surface. “There were rumors that the accident at Dupont Circle last week
wasn’t
an accident. It’s what started this whole feud between Haul Du and Fiore Noir and what set off Tempest and Oak.”

“What? What accident?” I’d been rather busy last week dealing with vampires and a necromancer, and had no idea what Raven was talking about.

“Last Thursday there was a gas leak at a gallery in Dupont Circle and before it could be capped off or the area evacuated the building exploded. It was all over the news, didn’t you see it? Twelve people were killed. Three of them were Haul Du mages who were there for a pre-opening dedication.”

No, I hadn’t heard. Some mages did charms and protective magic for a fee, but normally that was a one-person sort of thing. This dedication must have been complex if it had required three mages to do the ritual. And obviously it hadn’t been completed, or the explosion wouldn’t have occurred. There was no use paying big money for protective magic if it didn’t guard against such accidents.

“Why would anyone think a gas leak and an explosion was intentional? Had the mages received threats?” I made a mental note to ask Tremelay to call Zrubek and get more details on the explosion.

“The fire marshall ruled it accidental, and no, there were no threats, but Reynard had heard that it was a hit, that someone had paid Fiore Noir to take them out. When he asked, Dark Iron said Reynard was to ignore it. That he’d take care of it himself. I don’t know if Reynard talked to Tempest and Oak or not, but the next day the whole group was up in arms over the rumor.”

I leaned closer. “How did Reynard find out? Could it have just been someone trying to stir up trouble between the groups? I can’t see Dark Iron ignoring a blatant attack on Haul Du mages.”

Raven shook her head. “Remember I said Dark Iron had favorites? Well, these guys weren’t part of his inner circle. They had all gone down to Argentina a few months back and ever since they returned things have been icy between the four of them. Maybe Dark Iron didn’t care enough about the dead mages to stir up trouble with Fiore Noir, or maybe he was trying to handle it himself diplomatically. We didn’t really have any solid proof that it was a Fiore Noir attack. It’s not like we could go in wands-ablaze on a bunch of rumors.”

I thought for a second. “The guy at the supply shop in Ellicott City? The one who laughs like Elmo? He said Fiore Noir wanted me out of Baltimore, but that someone in Haul Du wanted me dead and was willing to pay five hundred dollars for the deed. Do you think…?”

I could hardly complete the sentence. It was one thing for Dark Iron to turn the other way while someone took out a mage who had lost his favor. I’m sure he’d dance at my funeral. But could he possibly be involved in murder? He was an asshole. He just didn’t care if certain people died. That didn’t mean he had anything to do with their demise.