Judgement Read online

  My demonic familiar was in the middle of a zombie horde, tearing them apart one at a time.

  “We need to destroy the sigils,” he said as soon as he saw me.

  “Yeah, we got a bigger problem,” I began.

  Five Geists came bursting in, shrieking their heads off.

  “That,” I said.

  “Ah hell.” He grabbed two zombies and literally threw them at the Geists. The corpses passed harmlessly through the ghost monsters, but bought me enough time to charge up Djinn and let out a long horizontal blast, blowing back all five of them.

  And now that I was in a room full of zombies, I had them to worry about.

  I thrust my sword back, plunging it inside one’s torso and poured magic into the blade. It exploded into a massive blade of azure energy, disintegrating six zombies as energy accumulated. I swung the giant sword around like a baseball bat, shredding zombies along its path, and released all that pent-up energy towards the Geists. The giant energy blade flew off towards them and exploded, tearing off a good chunk of the wall with it.

  The Geists evaporated and I felt the Necromantic spell take effect again — more zombies came to life and two dozen Geists manifested themselves into reality.

  “Time for something stupid,” I said.

  “Just what I like to hear,” Amaymon said. “You got anything in mind?”

  “Yeah,” I snarled, looking at the approaching Geists. “Bring the house down. That should get rid of the spell, right?”

  “Heck, yeah,” he replied with glee. “Just tell me when.”

  “You’ll know when.” I instinctively reached out to grab Arnold’s hand but my fingers passed through his ghostly body.

  “Come on,” I said.

  I blasted the Geists just enough to stun them, so he and I could slip past. As we went by the door, I said,

  “Stay by my side and run out of the house when I tell you to.”

  “Run out?”

  “Yeah. Out. Even if you have to go through the damn monsters. Just get away from me as fast as you can.”

  He looked at me and then at the approaching horde of Geists and a few trailing zombies.

  “What are you going to do?”

  I held Djinn in front of me and exhaled. “End this.”

  Magic coalesced around me as I piled more and more energy inside Djinn. The blade glowed an intense azure but remained unchanged. I was amassing power, charging up for the mother of all Super Saiyan attacks.

  “Now!” I roared.

  Three things happened at the same time.

  The first was Amaymon finally cutting loose. The ground shook and tore apart. The walls exploded and every shred of mortar inside the Bentley house was sent blasting off. I felt the Necromantic spell break apart and its tainted magic dissipate.

  The second was Arnold. The little ghost boy sprinted towards the door, dodging past a swiping Geist.

  And finally, I got to release all that pent-up magic. It blasted off around me, expanding from my body — a tangible, azure-colored, burning aura of pure magical energy. I screamed in both effort and ecstasy. My power tore through every single Geist and zombie around me, reducing them to ash with a mere touch.

  When I felt Amaymon destroying the house, I reshaped the aura of magic into a more conical shape and aimed it upwards. Debris rained all around me as the roof was literally brought down but my magic disintegrated anything and everything that came in contact with it.

  The whole thing lasted for exactly five seconds — five seconds of screaming effort as I unleashed more magic than I’d ever consciously had at any point in my life.

  Finally, I could do no more and the stream of magic receded into nothing. The aura of blue energy disappeared, leaving behind only a steaming short sword and a panting wizard standing in the middle of a black scorch mark and a pile of debris that, only minutes ago, had been a famous murder house.

  Chapter 4

  The wailing of police sirens filled the evening air.

  I immediately sheathed my weapons and turned to Amaymon. I had to think quick — the first cruiser was already coming up the road.

  “Shit, no time to run now,” I muttered. “Gonna have to talk my way out of this one.”

  Amaymon snickered. “Yeah, ‘cause that usually works out for you.”

  I ignored him. “Go cat and take the kid with you back to the office,” I said. “Hurry before anyone gets a good look at the situation here.”

  Without a word he immediately transformed into a black shorthair.

  “Come on, kid,” he directed towards Arnold. Then he turned his feline head towards me. “Good luck.”

  They disappeared just as the first police cruiser came to a halt directly in front of me and Detective Roland March emerged. He had dark circles around his eyes and looked like he had aged five years since I last saw him.

  “Of course,” he said, shaking his head. “Of course I find you here, Erik.”

  I raised my hands. “Hey there, Detective.”

  Roland looked around. “What the hell are you doing here, Erik?” he snapped.

  “Following a lead,” I replied. I lowered my hands. “Why are you guys here?”

  “Got a call that a house fell down,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing, I swear,” I lied.

  “Then why are you out of breath?” he asked. “And covered in dust?”

  I self-consciously wiped dust from my leather trench coat and said nothing.

  “I won’t ask you again, Erik,” Roland said, in a tone that I’d never heard him direct towards me before. “What are you doing here?”

  “I told you, I was following a lead,” I replied.

  “What lead?”

  “Can’t tell you that. Client confidentiality and all that,” I said. Much easier to explain than tell him that the ghost of a boy who was murdered here led me straight to his own murder scene.

  “Sir, we got a body here,” came the voice of one of the uniformed officers who were searching the premises — or what was left of them.

  “Got one here too,” said another. “A whole bunch actually.”

  Roland stared at me and took a step back.

  “Look, I know how this looks,” I began, “but I swear I had nothing to do with that. I came here, found a bunch of dead people, and…”

  “And what?” he insisted.

  I shook my head. “And they came to life.”

  “Oh, come on!” he snapped. “You expect me to believe in zombies?”

  “You know my line of work,” I snapped back.

  I shouldn’t have snapped back: nothing good happens when you snap at cops.

  “We’ve worked together all these years,” I went on. “You got no reason to suspect me.”

  “Really?” He reached behind him and withdrew a pair of handcuffs. “You’re the only one here. I know for a fact that the house was still in one piece a few minutes ago. Then there’s the issue of the first crime scene this afternoon. Your name was tagged on the wall — it was a message for you. Who’s to say it wasn’t from you?”

  “You’re deluded, Roland,” I said. “Why would I put the spotlight on me?”

  He shrugged. “Free advertisement? It’s much easier to provide a solution if you create the problem in the first place.”

  I cocked my head. “Talk about twisted logic.”

  Roland sighed and lifted the cuffs. “Sorry to do this, but you know how this looks. Don’t resist. If you’re innocent we’ll work it out.” He approached tentatively and I considered making a break for it.

  But I have a rule, no magic against humans.

  “What’s this really for?” I asked as he tightened the cuffs around my wrists. “What’s changed since this morning?”

  He sighed from behind me. “You know those dead animals we found? Well, they’re all gone. Disappeared right out of our evidence bags,” he whispered. “I know you’re not the bad guy, but the only way I can get you to look at t
hem is inside an interrogation room.”

  I smiled. “I did notice a lack of Miranda Rights,” I remarked.

  He scoffed. “Yeah, like you would ever remain silent.”

  Police interrogation rooms — or as the cops’ PR departments insist on calling them, interview rooms — are designed for one thing and one thing only: intimidation. You’re left in a spartan room with a mirror wall that you know you’re being watched through. They are designed to take away your control of the situation; people fear the unknown and that is exactly what these rooms are designed to exploit.

  Now, me, I’ve been in some scary situations. Real scary. I don’t like the unknown but I don’t fear it — I can’t, not if I want to survive in my world.

  I’ve been facing down the unknown since I was twelve years old.

  And if there is one thing cops hate more than overpriced doughnuts, it’s someone they cannot break.

  When Roland brought me to the station — an act that was met with applause, mind you — he dumped me in one of the interrogation rooms in the back and transferred one of my handcuffs to a hook welded on the table, binding my right hand. My weapons and trench coat were confiscated, and someone had the bright idea to turn up the air conditioning, leaving me frosting inside the empty room.

  I knew they were watching me the whole time, and it would have been so much easier for me if I pretended to shiver and dropped the tough guy act.

  But I never did like taking the easy way.

  Detective McDouchebag — because I made it a point not to remember the asshole’s name — finally walked in with a coffee cup in one hand and a doughnut in the other. He gave me a look as if daring me to make a joke but I was smarter than that.

  Instead, I went ahead with the more mature silent treatment.

  “So, Mr. Wizard,” the cop began, as he sat down in front of me. “Guess you ain’t that tough now, are you?” He smirked and nodded at the handcuffs. “Go ahead then. Get out of those if you can.”

  I sighed at him, threw him my best condescending look, and remained silent.

  McDouchebag opened a file and flipped it so that it faced me. I gazed down at the crime scene images, where dead animals were suspended from a wall and the words YOU’RE NEXT, WIZARD scrawled on top.

  “Nice handiwork,” the cop said. “Guess this is better than taking out an ad in the book, huh?”

  I kept quiet and suddenly the cop slammed his hands on the desk, causing me to flinch.

  “Listen up, dipshit,” he snarled. “I got a station full of cops who really dislike you. The only reason March is even allowed to contact you is ‘cause the chief likes you, and the fact that cases get closed when you and March work together. Now, I got no reason to suspect a fellow cop, but you — I know a phony when I see one.” His eyes narrowed. “So start talking, Mr. Wizard, or I’ll make you disappear. For a very long time.”

  I snickered. “You’re a detective, right?”

  “So you can talk,” he said. “Yeah, I’m a detective.”

  “And how long have you held that rank?”

  “The fuck does that have to do with anything?” he spat.

  “Just humor me,” I said.

  “Eight years,” he said.

  I cocked my head. “Huh. So you’ve been in charge of closing cases for eight years. Now, I’ve only been working with Roland for about five years, which means this department had to endure at least three years of you being the lead case-closer around here.”

  I smiled and looked directly towards the two-way mirror, where I knew Roland and some other cops were listening in.

  “My condolences to the justice system,” I said loudly.

  Detective McDouchebag slammed his hands again. “You think you’re real funny, don’t you?”

  “It’s both a blessing and a curse,” I interjected.

  “And I bet you thought it was real funny to hide away all the dead animals, right?” The cop furrowed his brow. “Hiding away the evidence before we could find anything on you?”

  “That’s enough,” came a voice from the door. Roland stood there with a couple of empty evidence bags in his hands. “Orders from the brass. I’ll take it from here.”

  McDouchebag gave me one last dirty look and stood up. As he went to leave, he grabbed Roland by the arm. “Don’t let him fool you, March. He’s got something up his sleeve.”

  “Don’t worry, I got this,” Roland replied. McDouchebag did not look very convinced but left anyway.

  “Did you really have to piss him off like that?” Roland asked as he sat down and brushed the images into the folder.

  I shrugged. “I didn’t have to. But I really wanted to.”

  “Real mature, Erik.”

  I nodded at the evidence bags. “Those the bags you were telling me about?”

  “Yep,” he said. “One minute they’re packed with dead animals, the next they are empty.”

  “Did you open them?”

  “No,” he replied. “To be honest I was afraid of messing something up, and I went after you.” He leaned in. “Funny thing is, even those corpses we retrieved from the Bentley house did that same thing.”

  I cocked my head. “What, did they evaporate too?” I asked, half-joking.

  Magic can do many things but the rules of physics still had to be observed. Matter remained constant; sure, you could change its shape, but the laws of conservation still applied no matter what discipline of magic you practiced.

  Roland nodded. “All that was left was a pile of goop. No one wanted to touch it though.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I know it sounds silly, but it gave us the willies. We bagged what little remained.”

  “It disappeared too?”

  He nodded.

  A million thoughts went through my head. I reached out and grabbed one of the evidence bags. It was sealed, holding inside what looked like mist. I tore it open and observed as the mist shot out of the hole I made with a hiss, before solidifying into something in between vapor and sludge.

  “What is that?” Roland asked.

  I grimaced. “Ectoplasm.”

  As I saw the ghost sludge hit the table, I thought of the zombies and Geists back at the Bentley house.

  “Don’t touch it,” I snapped as I saw Roland about to poke it with his pen.

  He looked up, clearly struggling to make sense of all of this as much as I was. “What’s going on, Erik? What the hell is happening to my city?”

  I looked at the ectoplasm again, which was now evaporating, and was about to answer Roland with a theory I’d just thought of — the only one that made any shred of sense — when I felt a spike of magic.

  It was subtle and quick, like the snapping of fingers, but I picked up on it. There was something, here, at the police station, and it was rapidly getting closer and closer…

  The commotion grew outside the interrogation room and Roland stood up.

  “What the hell is going-”

  He never got to finish that sentence. Magic spiked again and this time it was accompanied by the sound of gunshot, loud and omnipresent. A small hole appeared in the two-way mirror and Roland was thrown off his feet, as a bullet tore through his shoulder.

  Chapter 5

  “Roland!”

  I grabbed the handcuffs tying me to the table and poured magic into them. Since my powers were too powerful for regular things to handle, they tended to either melt stuff or make things go boom.

  The handcuffs began smoking before shattering like glass.

  I vaulted over the table and grabbed the detective.

  “Son of a bitch,” he swore. His hand was clutching his shoulder and blood trickled around his fingers from the hole in his shoulder. The bullet had gone cleanly through and I saw something silver and metallic embedded in the wall behind Roland.

  “Can you move?” I asked, grabbing his arm. Not waiting for his answer, I turned him around, examined his wound, and decided that he could indeed walk.


  “I’m getting us outta here,” I said. “Cover your eyes.”

  “Erik, what are you-”

  I grabbed the chair I had been sitting on and smashed it into the two-way mirror. The glass exploded together with the chair. Glass and debris rained towards the ground and I used what was left of the chair to sweep at shards that poked out from around the ledge.

  I took a look at the other side. “Aw, shit.”

  Three cops, including Detective McDouchebag, lay dead on the ground with clear bullet holes in their heads and torsos.

  “What?” Roland asked as he leaned over the interrogation table. He looked paler than usual and if he did not lie down soon and get that hole in his shoulder looked at, he’d end up like his pals.

  “Dead cops,” I said, grabbing his arm and helping him towards the window.

  He looked at his dead buddies and shook his head.

  “Damn,” he managed. “They were good people.”

  I didn’t argue. Whatever problem I may have had with authority and the police, no one deserved to go like that.

  I helped Roland over the window ledge.

  “Why are we doing this instead of using the door?” he asked as he landed painfully on the other side.

  I vaulted next to him and searched the dead cops for weapons. “Whoever came through here won’t come back,” I explained. “This room is done with, so you’ll be safe.”

  I extracted a backup pistol from McDouchebag’s ankle holster and offered it to Roland.

  “That should be light enough to shoot with your left,” I said.

  He took the gun and watched me as I picked up two Beretta pistols and checked the slides.

  “You’re going out there alone?” he asked.

  I nodded. “How many times does the station get shot at?” I asked.

  He laughed. “No one’s that stupid.”

  “Exactly,” I replied. “No one is. But this isn’t someone — it’s something. And it’s no coincidence you got attacked when you booked me. So sit tight. I’ll deal with this.”

  “Erik, wait,” he called out just as I was about to exit the room.

  I turned around.