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  “Most of the ones recovered are unconscious,” he said. “And the ones who can speak are under the effect of something.”

  “They juiced up before attacking,” I told him. “Never seen anything like it.”

  I cocked my head, hoping he would get my subliminal message: this is magical shit and you are in over your head.

  Roland caught on but he needed a reason to release me, given that I was the only one who had walked away unscathed from all this.

  He shrugged and left me waiting.

  Great. The guy had nothing.

  Time for a more direct confrontation.

  “Detective,” I told Diaz. “Am I under arrest?”

  “What? Of course you are.”

  “On what charges?”

  “Huh?”

  I stood up.

  “Sit down!” she snapped, hand racing to her sidearm.

  I held my hands open in surrender but did not sit again.

  “Detective, you have not charged me with anything, nor have you read me my rights,” I said, before gently turning to Roland. “I’m no lawyer but don’t you guys need a reason to arrest someone?”

  “We can detain you for twenty-four hours,” Diaz said.

  “Not without probable cause,” I countered. “And I have done nothing other than my duty as a consultant for your police department. I followed your case. And nearly got blown up for my trouble, mind you. So I ask you again, what is the reason for my arrest?”

  Diaz remained silent, her teeth clenched. Roland looked like he was about to cry. This little outburst of mine wasn’t going to do him any favors.

  “Okay then.” I channeled the slightest bit of magic into the cuffs. Metal snapped and warped, and I tossed the mangled handcuffs back to Diaz. “Those are yours. Have a good day.”

  Without so much as a glance, I walked away, swiping my gear back on the way to my car.

  “You’re off the case, Ashendale,” Diaz shouted. “If I see you anywhere near this again, I’ll arrest you.”

  I turned back, grinned, and gave her a small wave.

  Believe it or not, my confrontation with Detective ‘Stick-Up-Her-Ass’ Diaz was the easy part of my day. The fight with Ice and his goons was a close second.

  No, the hardest part was going back to confront my assistant. Because now that I had had time to cool my head and think, I had remembered where I had seen those vials before.

  It was the same liquid too, with the same effects—albeit weaker. I had seen it all.

  The same stimulant Abi had been taking during her vigilante stint.

  I found her behind the computer.

  “Erik!” She jumped up from her seat. “Are you all right?”

  “What? Of course I am.”

  She frowned. “But Amaymon said you were caught in an explosion. And then you were arrested.”

  “Yeah, I might have exaggerated that a little,” Amaymon said from the couch in his human form. He flipped a channel on the TV. “For comedic purposes.”

  “You’re an ass,” she snapped.

  “That he is.” I slapped his head as passed by. “Abi, we need to talk.”

  She sighed. “Look, if this is about last night-”

  “No, not that,” I said. “This is worse.”

  “Worse?”

  I shifted from one foot to the other. “The guys we found were all juiced up on something. I saw them inject it.” I looked up. “It was almost identical to the stuff you were taking, you know… back then.”

  She kept her expression blank for a full second.

  “I see,” she said. “And you think it’s the same drug?”

  “The thought did cross my mind.”

  She nodded. “The last time I took that stuff was when you saw Mephisto bring it in,” she said. “I have no idea where he got it from.”

  “You said you had it checked out.”

  “I lied,” she said. “And yes, before you go off, I know how stupid that was. Can we move on to the part where I’m not doing the stupid thing anymore?”

  I nodded. No point in resurrecting an old argument.

  “Fine,” I said. “Though I think whatever I saw them take was stronger.”

  “You’ll have to ask Mephisto,” she said.

  I sighed. “Yeah. Guess I’ll have to do that, won’t I?”

  Amaymon chuckled.

  I flipped him off. “Get off your ass. You’re coming with me.”

  “D’aw, why do I have to go?” he whined.

  “Because if I have to suffer, so will you.”

  “Anyone ever tell you how big a dick you are?”

  I shrugged. “Anything with the words big and dick in the same sentence I’ll take as a compliment. Abi, you coming?”

  She shook her head. “I got another lead I’m checking out.”

  “Really? What lead?”

  She pursed her lips. “Knightmare sightings. Cool name by the way, Amaymon.”

  I nodded. “Fine. Stay safe.”

  “You too.”

  As we walked out, Amaymon elbowed me. “She complimented me.”

  “I know.”

  He grimaced. “You know what that means, right?”

  I nodded and said nothing. I had no idea what Abi had found out but I knew one thing: she was lying through her teeth.

  Chapter 10

  How can I describe the house I grew up in? Think House of Horrors meets fairytale cottage and you’d be pretty close.

  At least from the outside.

  Inside? That’s the kind of shit not even Lovecraft could have thought of.

  I drove us as far as I dared, somewhere at the edge of Trinity Forest. The rest of the way Amaymon used some of his Earth magic to speed up our hike, while I insisted we walk for the last hour.

  The last thing we needed was to have Gil’s military ninja wizards on our asses, thinking we were a threat.

  The mansion’s foreboding aura was welcomed, if it meant I didn’t have to walk anymore. The sun-bleached white stone seemed like something out of a Medieval portrait, while the wall surrounding the property perfectly merged modern security with ancient fortifications.

  Gil wasn’t the type who appreciated unannounced visits but I still refused to call ahead. That meant a security team stopped us outside the black iron gates, and once they recognized me, we were escorted inside to the foyer.

  “Brother,” came Gil’s voice. “You should have called.”

  I grinned at her. “What, and ruin the surprise?”

  Gil descended the staircase, a small five-foot-nothing pixie of a woman with platinum-blonde hair, striking green eyes, and an outfit that cost more than everything I owned put together. Believe it or not, Gil was my twin.

  I know, I don’t see it, either.

  I spread out my arms for a hug and she scrunched her face. My sister was not a hugger—less so when the other guy was dripping in sweat.

  She glanced at Amaymon, who was in human form and absent-mindedly picking at one of his unnaturally long (and sharp) nails.

  “I assume you’re here to talk about the recent scourge that’s been plaguing your part of town,” she said.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Maybe I just missed you.”

  “I hope not. I shudder to think death made you even more sentimental than you already were.”

  Before you think Gil is a bitch (which, trust me, she can be sometimes), she was the one who had pulled me out of Limbo. Granted, she had stuck my soul inside a doll, but it was the thought that mattered.

  We had come a long way, my sister and I, from opposite ends of the fight to becoming allies. We just had trouble expressing affection in a constructive manner.

  That, I suppose, runs in the family.

  She began walking away, prompting us to follow her.

  “So,” she began. “This creature. My sources tell me it has a penchant for mass murder.”

  “And dismemberment,” Amaymon said, sniffing the air. “Where’s my dear brother?”

&nbs
p; Amaymon had three brothers, Mephisto being one of them. Much like Gil and I, they were complete opposites. Amaymon was an Earth elemental, Mephisto, Air. Amaymon was a destructive, chaotic force of nature, an animal playing nice, waiting for his time to snap. Mephisto was a schemer, a liar, and a manipulator that would have made Machiavelli’s teachings look like a game of chess being played by a four-year-old.

  Gil gave him a look. “He’s… preoccupied.”

  “Ah.” He sniffed some more. “Is that blood I smell?”

  I frowned at my sister. “Gil,” I said with a sigh, “are you torturing someone again?”

  She shrugged. “You do things your way, I do them mine.”

  Okay, scratch that. My sister was a bitch. There, it’s out now.

  I grabbed her arm. “I thought we were past this.”

  “No,” she said, taking her hand back. “You talked, I listened, and you left, thinking I was going to implement your suggestions. I didn’t. My methods have worked for centuries.” She narrowed her eyes. “And last I checked, I was the Ashendale heir.”

  That was supposed to be my title, but when I had escaped the mansion—after killing our father in self-defense—I had renounced everything that had to do with this place and all the horrible history it carried around with it. I had even renounced our Specialization. Ashendales are Warlocks, but I renounced that and never became a Specialist.

  In our world, magic was divided in three ranks. Adepts or practitioners were the weaker ones, the one-trick ponies, or the pure beginners. These were the ones who discovered a source of power from a book or blog.

  Wizards (or Witches) were the next stage, a hundred times more powerful than Adepts. We tended to be jack-of-all-trades types.

  Then you got the Specialists, who focused on one category of magic and maximized their power in it by a thousandfold. The downside was that they renounced all other types of magic.

  Warlocks were Specialists, but before I could ascend I chose to remain a Wizard. That way I could still remain a man of the people, and the distance from my family meant I would sleep better at night.

  So, yeah, guess you could say my sister and I had some issues.

  I shook my head.

  “Fine, whatever,” I said. “I’m tired of arguing with women who won’t listen.”

  Gil raised her eyebrows. “Well, that is the most sensible thing you’ve said in a long while.” She flicked a strand of hair from her face. “What do you know about the scourge?”

  “Knightmare,” Amaymon said. “That’s what we’re calling it.” He grinned. “I came up with the name.”

  “And you must be so proud,” Gil said sarcastically. “Very well. This… Knightmare creature must have a pattern.”

  “It has struck twice so far,” I said. “Last time it was in a bar I had been at just hours before. Ran into some douchebags, and had a bartender escort someone back home while I got into it with said douchebags.”

  “And?”

  “And the Knightmare spared the woman,” I said. “Because of me.”

  “It said that?”

  “Yes.”

  Gil narrowed her eyes. “I see.”

  “You do?” I asked. “Because I sure as shit don’t.”

  Gil pursed her lips. “I managed to acquire a sample of the creature’s armor.”

  “How?” I asked. “I had to sneak mine away.”

  She beamed. “I have my sources, brother.”

  I scoffed.

  “Anyhow,” she continued. “I have a team examining it. The energy signature is familiar but so far a mystery.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning it’s human,” she said. Then she glanced at Amaymon. “Have you explained to my brother what black ichor is?”

  The demon nodded. “I explained. What he retained, that’s a whole other ball game.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Basically this asshole was human, right?”

  Gil frowned. “Why ‘was’? Why past tense?”

  I shrugged. “You think anyone with that kinda power is going back to regular life?”

  “Maybe they don’t know,” she suggested. “Maybe it’s some kind of trigger-activated curse.”

  “Must be one hell of a curse.”

  “Indeed,” she said. “What was the first attack?”

  “Drug dealer,” I said. “I went after his place of business, for lack of a better phrase. He’s Black Ring.”

  “Obviously.”

  Gil held her hand up and stared at a door. I had no idea where we were. Despite growing up in this place, it was a maze. It also didn’t help that my sister renovated the place every damn quarter.

  Once she opened the door, I instantly recognized the room. Our former nursery, the one place I remembered that had not been tainted by magic or monsters.

  A room which last year my sister had turned into a torture chamber.

  We stopped behind a two-way mirror, the kind they had in police stations to interrogate suspects. On the other side of the mirror was a single chair, with a naked man chained down to it.

  A second man walked around him. He wore his usual swallow-tailed butler outfit, with white gloves that were unstained despite the blood in the room, and his long hair in a neat ponytail tied back by a ribbon of midnight blue.

  Mephisto’s yellow feline eyes, identical to Amaymon’s, gazed up, looking directly at us, despite the mirror.

  “Shall I proceed?” he asked.

  Gil pressed a button on the intercom. “Has he said anything yet?”

  Mephisto grabbed the man’s hair and jerked up. “Tell her.”

  “Please,” the man moaned.

  In the light I saw both his eyes had been gouged out.

  “Jesus, Gil,” I said. “What the fuck is this?”

  “A necessity,” she coolly replied. “This man is a lieutenant of the Black Ring Society. Not some thug, but an actual full-fledged member, with vital information.”

  I shook my head. “Shit’s still not right,” I said.

  “We’re at war, brother.” She spoke into the intercom. “I know you can hear me. Speak, and all of this will end.”

  “His tattoo, Gil,” I said. “He’ll implode like the last guy you brought in here, remember?”

  She grinned. “Oh, that. Yes, we sorted that out. Found a way to remove them. This man is free from Greede’s influence now.”

  “Please…” the man moaned again.

  Mephisto slammed his palm across his face. Teeth flew out.

  “Speak,” he said. “Tell her about the drugs.”

  The man panted. “I don’t know much,” he said. “I told you everything I know already.”

  “Say it again,” Mephisto said.

  “Greede gave us a bunch of notes on how to make a new drug that can power up magic,” the man said. “If you already had it, you got stronger. If not, you got a taste of it.”

  “I saw it happen,” I told Gil. “About half of the ones who juiced up were killed by it.”

  She nodded. “Carry on.”

  “Please, I don’t know anything else,” the man said. “I never touched the stuff, I swear. I was only in charge of making sure the distribution went okay, that no one was skimming off the top. Shit is addictive as fuck.”

  “Where did the shipments come from?” Mephisto demanded.

  “I told you,” he said. “A ship in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea what it’s called, please you gotta believe me.”

  Mephisto grinned, exposing his shark-like teeth. “And if I don’t?”

  The man sobbed. “Please. Please just kill me.”

  Mephisto looked up at Gil.

  She pressed the button again. “We have enough.”

  Without so much as a beat, Mephisto raked his claws against the man’s throat and left him bleeding and choking to death.

  “The drug was not unfamiliar to us,” Mephisto said, looking at each of us.

  After we watched the guy getting killed, Gil had led us back outsid
e where Mephisto briefed us. I was only half-listening—all I wanted was to get out of this horror show.

  But first, I had to get answers.

  “The drug you supplied Abi with,” I said.

  Mephisto nodded. “Indeed. The base formula is identical; however, the end result is vastly different.”

  “Where did you get the base formula from?” Gil asked him.

  Mephisto looked away but he answered. “From your father’s old journals.”

  Gil’s expression went from frigid to volcanic. “What?”

  “I was left with little choice, Master Gil,” Mephisto said. “Given both your preoccupation and Master Erik’s condition…”

  “My brother was dead and I was trying to revive him,” she snapped. “And you unearthed my father’s old journals for the same kind of poison that drove him to madness in the first place.”

  “Oh, someone’s in trouble,” Amaymon commented.

  We all glared at him.

  He shrugged.

  “So you found Crowley’s old formula,” I said.

  Mephisto shook his head.

  “Alastair Crowley was many things, but a genius he was not. The formula he gave your father was a cocktail of various other drugs. Indeed, there were a few original ones—one of which I stole and repurposed. It has limited potency, with fewer side-effects. Your father discarded it, and both of them failed to see the true potential of such chemistry.”

  “Which is?” Gil asked.

  “It can be altered to fit almost anything,” Mephisto said. “It is little more than a magical stimulant. Taken by itself, you get a small boost, like Abigale required. But alter it, perhaps with a few esoteric methods known only to those like Greede, and the results could be catastrophic.”

  “Yeah.” I caught my sister giving me a look and realized I was grinning.

  “What’s funny, brother?” she demanded. “People are getting killed and we are closer to exposure than ever before. And without the Grigori to contain the situation…”

  “Yeah, yeah, but you’re missing the bigger picture,” I said. “Think about it. Greede has had access to this thing for years, maybe decades. And yet, he’s never used it. He’s always played the same game we did, hiding in plain sight. But now…”