From the same envelope, Sorren withdrew a charred button that looked like it came from a man’s coat. “Take it,” he said.
Drawing a deep breath to steady myself, I let Sorren drop the button into my outstretched hand. The vision took hold immediately.
I was in the mechanical room of an old building, and from the signs in English and French, my bet was somewhere in Canada. Large boilers, dark with age, filled the space amid brick pillars and twisting pipes.
The whole place stank of dark magic, and the air crackled with power. I spotted Sorren in the dim light.
He was dressed in a dark sweater and jeans, blending into the darkness.
“The building is warded. You can’t get out,” Sorren shouted into the shadows.
“You’re assuming I need to leave the way I came in.” Corban Moran stepped out from behind one of the brick pillars. In his right hand was a box made of human bones, decorated with yellowed teeth. In his left hand was a wizard’s staff of twisted and gnarled willow.
Sorren lunged for him, but Moran was faster. He leveled his staff at Sorren and an invisible force sent the vampire sprawling. In the same instant, Moran spoke a word of power and fire erupted from the box in his right hand, splintering the bone box and shooting up toward the old wooden beams in the ceiling.
Sorren climbed to his feet, and Moran’s staff blasted one of the boilers, sending scalding water flying and shaking the foundations of the building. Sorren rushed at him, and two more boilers exploded. The
beams in the ceiling were beginning to catch fire and the blasts had jarred the brick columns enough that some had begun to collapse.
Moran was chanting a guttural litany, and as Sorren ran at him once more, the flames surrounded Moran without burning him. As I watched, a figure appeared in the flames, and while it was not exactly like the monster I had glimpsed in the vision with the pocket watch, I had no doubt that this creature was some kind of demon.
Sorren threw an object that looked like a crystal orb into the heart of the fire. There was a blinding flare of light and a burst of energy from within the flames, sending out a halo of fire and splintered glass.
Inside the column of fire, Moran began to writhe.
With a deafening, thunderous roar, Moran disappeared and the ceiling came crashing down.
“Moran can summon demons,” I said, coming back to myself.
Sorren nodded. “He’s a nephilmancer. He can call on outcast spirits, like demons. But it takes a great deal of power, and demons always want something in exchange.”
“You were in that boiler room when the roof collapsed,” I said, meeting Sorren’s gaze.
He nodded. “Yes. It’s difficult to kill a vampire, but not impossible. That came closer than I would have liked.” He paused. “Recovery was… unpleasant.”
“And for Moran?”
“The glass ball I threw into the demon fire was spelled,” Sorren replied. “It should have drained Moran of his life and magic, leaving him a withered, dead husk.”
“But it didn’t?”
“Apparently not. Although from what you’ve reported, the incident took its toll.” He shook his head.
“If Moran’s here, then there’s something he wants very badly. But what is it, and why does he want it?” “What happened to the woman in the picture?” I asked.
Sorren looked away. “She was a powerful witch. For a while, she was Moran’s partner in crime. Then he killed her. Sacrificed her, to gain the power of the demon he called.”
Teag looked up. “That’s all very interesting, but I think I’ve got something.”
We looked over to see him grinning in triumph. “You never know what you’re going to find on the Darke Web,” he said. “It’s a wretched hive of scum and villainy.”
I wrinkled my nose at the Star Wars quote. “Get on with it.”
“There’s always the usuaclass="underline" traders in black magic services, banned dark magic potions, poisoners for hire,” he said. “Most of the sites have all the usual onion routing plus ensorcelled encryption.” He cracked his knuckles. “Makes it fun to hack.”
“And?” I prodded.
“Someone’s been looking for a cryptomancer,” Teag said. “They want to hire someone who’s magically gifted with codes and secret writing.”
“Is that like being a Weaver?”
Teag shrugged. “Related, but not the same. I can weave data bits together to find information, Cryptomancers excel at hiding information, or breaking into hidden data. We probably all fall under arithmancy, which is magical math.”
“What makes you think the posting is related to our problem?” Sorren asked.
Teag smirked. “I hacked the encryption on some of the Darke Web exit nodes, just enough to set a flag if any of the traffic can be linked to Charleston.”
“I thought the Darke Web masked the origin of users,” I said.
“It does. I can’t get user information, but I can tease out a little location info if the person posting isn’t careful – or savvy. The cryptomancer posting definitely came from the Charleston area, and it’s fresh – just two weeks old.” “Can you tell if whoever did the posting found someone?” Sorren asked.
Teag shrugged. “I would guess so. The posting is closed to new submissions and the contact information has been scrubbed.”
I really didn’t know what to say to that, so I changed the subject. “Did you find anything out about the murders?”
“I can ask Anthony to find out what his friends in the police department discovered for the official scoop,” Teag said. “He’s got pretty good connections.” He grinned. “And I can hack into the police database.” We waited while he tapped a few instructions into his computer.
“I think our boys in blue have been covering up,” Teag said quietly. “This doesn’t look good.” He bit his lip. “There’ve been at least five murders in the past year that are unsolved. All homeless men, all found ripped to shreds.” He grimaced.
“They started off looking for a wild animal, and finally decided they have a serial killer,” he said, shaking his head. “But from the autopsy reports, I’d say it’s magic-related. Skin flayed and stripped, bones shattered from the inside out, fingers and toes missing.” He let out a long breath. “There’s a very sick bastard running around out there.”
“That could be Moran,” Sorren said.
“The police withheld news of two deaths from the public,” Teag said, scanning down his illicit search results, “probably trying to avoid a panic.” He paused.
“Now that’s interesting.” He looked up at me. “An entire salvage team went missing six months ago off the South Carolina coast.”
I inched my chair back to see what he was reading. A picture of five smiling young men on a boat took up much of the screen. “‘The five-member crew of the Privateer were reported missing and presumed lost at sea when they failed to return from a salvage mission’,” he read. “‘The wreck was said to be somewhere between Charleston and Bermuda, and the team was keeping details a secret, but they had told friends they were searching for a pirate ship that sank with a treasure from Barbados.’”
“Barbados,” I said. “Rebecca said that the man who built Gardenia Landing was lost at sea under very mysterious circumstances, right after he had returned from Barbados, bringing with him some salvaged pirate treasure.”
“Barbados is home to quite a lot of dark magic,” Sorren said quietly. “It might interest someone who can call to demons.”