Touched by Fire: Magic Wars (Demons of New Chicago Book 1) Read online

  With it being dark out, most people didn’t look close enough to notice how hard I gripped his middle, or that there was a goose egg forming on the side of his head where I’d hit him twice.

  The wind whipped through the alleyway the second I made it outside. My blond hair tangled, strands slipping from the braid to cut across my eyes, and they got stuck on my mouth.

  “Ugh,” I groaned, swiping it back in place once more as I dragged Trenton down the alley with me, thankful for the extra hours I’d been working out. Dark clouds blotted out most of the sky, but an almost full moon peaked through every now and then as the wind blew them south.

  Most of the buildings appeared uninhabited, but they would any time after dark, regardless of whether people were in them or not. Not a lot of cars ran in the city nowadays, apart from taxis. They were still heinously expensive, though, and other methods had popped up for getting around, both more and less effective—all relying on magic. I preferred my own two feet because I was the only thing I could trust in this whole goddamned city.

  We passed through the worst of town with nothing more than some interested looks from beggars and lowlifes. One flash of my gun and they would turn the other way.

  Magic may be flashy and get you far in this world, but a gun still did the trick—less impressive as it may be.

  My fingers were stiff, and my cheeks flushed when I finally came to stand beneath the flashing yellow sign that read: The Underworld.

  It was a casino, a hotel, a place to buy and sell almost anything—but most importantly, it was where I worked. I walked around the side. The alley was seedy. The pipes leaked. The concrete cracked or was crushed in places. A chain-link fence blocked off the other side, but lucky for me, I only needed the heavy metal door on my right.

  I wrenched it open, pushing Trenton through it first, and then following after.

  The door slammed shut at my back as lights flickered on in the hallway. At the very end of it, a door that led out into the main casino opened and closed, music played, and lights pulsed with every movement as servers and armed guards walked in and out. I ignored that one for the moment and instead dragged my ass to the door on the right and pounded my fist twice.

  Metal creaked. The door opened. Smoke poured out, and the scent of a cigar made my nose wrinkle. I waved a hand in front of my face.

  “How’s it shaking, Pip?” Ronny said, the cigar hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “This the one?”

  “Yup,” I answered, giving the unconscious warlock a shove through the door. Ronny was mostly human, and like most low-level supes, he’d always just thought he was blessed with more strength and speed than most people. Then magic became known to the world, and scientists found a way to test if people had any. It was one hell of a shock to find out about half the population was some sort of supe, whether full blood or watered down. In Ronny’s case, his grandma tangled with a werewolf, and while he hadn’t shifted, he had distinct advancements that weren’t human qualities. Like the ability to grab Trenton by the back of the neck and pick him up with one hand.

  “Uh—what’s going—”

  Ronny punched him in the middle, and the wind left his lungs. Trenton groaned loudly, and I rolled my eyes.

  “I got it from here,” the glorified brute said with a grin.

  “Knock yourself out,” I muttered, turning from the door as it slammed shut behind me. I walked to the end of the hall and took the door into the casino.

  Blue and yellow lights from slot machines went off. I strolled right past them and through the card tables without a second glance. On the far back wall, the bar was up and running. A fairy dressed like she’d just walked out of a porno staged for the 1920s sang a jazzy tune that made my ears want to bleed. Her iridescent wings fluttered, and speckles of gold dust dropped onto the patrons. A subtle abuse of magic if there was one. Her singing sucked ass, but the effects of faerie dust, even in limited quantities, were such a potent aphrodisiac they basically handed her their wallets as she sauntered on by.

  I took a seat at the two-person table furthest away from the horrid fairy.

  The guy across from me looked up and lifted both eyebrows. His brown eyes widened.

  “You already caught him?” he asked, closing the file in front of him. I nodded once, and he picked up his phone. One press of the button and a picture of Trenton filled the screen. He was being dangled upside down by his feet and beaten to a pulp.

  Not an ounce of remorse touched me as I looked from the picture to Anders’ face.

  He let out a low whistle. “You’re a cold-hearted woman, Pip.” Then he grinned and winked. “Just the way I like ya.”

  If Anders wasn’t forty with thinning hair and watery blue eyes, I might have found it creepy. As it was, he was human—just like me—and one of the closest things I had to a friend—or he would be, if not for my trust issues.

  I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and dropped it on the table. The metal piece hit with a clang that was drowned out by the rest of the casino. “I expect to see the full amount on that screen before I walk out the door,” I said, tapping the tiny plastic display, whose row of numbers were awfully close to zero. Wallets in the modern day were all electronic because the potential for magical abuse was too great. It all came in and out of the same bank, and any magic user or hacker dumb enough to attempt to break into it found themselves cursed six ways to Sunday.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Anders sighed, pulling out his own wallet. He typed in the amount and the end of his turned red. I picked up mine and we touched the ends together, pressing the thumb sensor at the same time. Both ends flashed green, signaling the transfer went through. I pulled it back and glanced at the number before shoving it back in my pocket.

  While my paycheck was no small sum, living in New Chicago wasn’t cheap. Not if you wanted electricity, running water that wouldn’t give you lead poisoning, and food that didn’t come from a factory that stopped producing fifteen years ago when the Magic Wars really dialed up. Even shitty processed food was astronomically priced these days. And fresh stuff? Forget it. If you weren’t rich—which humans never were—it was impossible to come by.

  “Do you have any other jobs?” I asked.

  Anders sighed. “Not witches or warlocks.”

  My lips pressed together. While I preferred to hunt those that might be of use, I couldn’t always afford to be picky. Literally. “What’s the most expensive one you have?”

  He reopened the file he’d been looking at and scanned it over.

  “Human. Pair of them. They decided to pull a little Bonnie and Clyde act stealing from one of the boss’s warehouses. Two grand if they’re brought in hot. Fifteen hundred cold.”

  I cursed under my breath. “Two grand?” I repeated. “These days that’s barely enough to keep my lights on for a week, Anders.”

  “I don’t make the jobs or decide their worth, Pip. I’m just the middleman. You know that,” he said, pulling a cigarette from his jacket pocket. He snapped his fingers once, and the tip of his thumb caught fire for a brief second, just long enough to light the end.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “How much did that parlor trick cost you?”

  Anders inhaled deeply before exhaling in one smooth stream of smoke. He grinned. “Three days off my life.”

  I stared at him, shaking my head. “Doesn’t that shit kill you fast enough as it is?”

  Anders snorted. “Coming from the bounty hunter with the highest kill rate on the job. What is it that you do so differently that you leave a trail of bodies a mile long in your wake?” He pulled over the crystalline tray from the side of the table and flicked the end of the cigarette. Ash dropped into it, disappearing instantly because freakin’ magic. “Isn’t the job dangerous enough? One might think you’re looking to get hurt,” he mused.

  I groaned. “Piss off. I get the hint.”

  He winked in good nature, not at all bothered by my words.

  “We live in a world where ma
gic exists. Some of us like it for the ease. Some like the novelty. Others like the power . . .” He trailed off. “But not you.” He tilted his head, as if thinking about that. “Why is that?”

  I leaned back, my gaze sweeping over the casino floor and falling on the jazzy fairy once more. “All magic has a price,” I found myself saying softly. “Some of us don’t want to pay it.”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment as he took another huff of smoke.

  “Fair enough,” he said on his exhale. “The reason you don’t want to pay it have anything to do with the witches and warlocks you interrogate before Ronny gets ahold of them?”

  I kept my face neutral, not giving a thing away as I replied, “The reason you spend your Friday nights here have anything to do with the picture in your left back pocket? You haven’t changed it in the three years I’ve been working with you. You don’t talk about him.”

  The ‘him’ in question was the face of a little boy, no older than seven or eight. While grainy, he had the same eyes and weak chin as the man sitting before me. The picture never changed. Never updated. I could be wrong, but I had a feeling I wasn’t.

  Anders’ face lost all of its amusement for a moment as surprise overcame him. He hid it quickly, but I still saw. “You don’t miss much, do you?”

  “When you got a kill rate as high as mine, you can’t afford to,” I replied with a tight smile. Anders let out a laugh, taking a swig from his glass of water.

  “No, you damn well can’t.” He took another drag of his cigarette and I moved to stand.

  “It’s a pleasure doing business with you—” I started, getting ready to head out.

  “Wait,” he said, letting out a sigh. “I don’t have a bounty per se, but there is something that might be of interest to you.”

  I settled back in my seat and lifted an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

  “We got word recently of a coven planning to attempt a demon summoning,” Anders said, lowering his voice to a hush. A chill ran through me. “I don’t think I have to tell you how exponentially stupid that is.”

  “Do they have enough power to succeed?” I asked, running the tip of my finger along the edge of one of the folders.

  “To summon it? Yes. To control it? Absolutely not.” He looked away and shook his head.

  Demon summonings were rare. It took a strong coven to call it, and a near-invincible one to control it. Or so the theory went. No summoning had ever been successful. Every single one documented had ended with the members of the coven slaughtered, and that was the best-case scenario.

  Worst-case, they accidentally set it loose on our world.

  “What exactly is this job?” I asked Anders.

  He leaned back, clearly uncomfortable with what he was going to say. Little did he know, I already had a strong suspicion and was willing to do it.

  “The boss has decided it’s in everyone’s best interest that the summoning isn’t completed. He’d like a message sent to the public about attempting this in his city.”

  I smiled without happiness. “He wants an execution.”

  Anders nodded. “This isn’t like your usual jobs. The coven is strong, and from what our sources say, they’re expecting it—”

  “How much?”

  He blinked, taken aback. “What?”

  “How much are you paying?”

  I’d known him a long time. Longer than most, given I wasn’t big on making friends when everyone was just looking to climb over you to help themselves. He didn’t ask a lot of questions. What he did piece together, he used discretion about. He didn’t scare easily. The slight flicker of fear I saw in his eyes in that moment—that was new.

  “Five hundred thousand,” he said eventually. The look of regret was fleeting, but it was there. I could see why he hesitated.

  He could have asked me to kill the demon itself. I was just desperate enough I might have taken it. But an entire coven?

  “Consider it done.”

  3

  I stood outside the cathedral as the sun went down, painting the sky in red and violet. The wind howled like a ghoul on the hunt. I lifted the collar of my trench coat and stuffed my hands in my pockets. The cheap material did little for my numb fingers, but it was better than nothing. The damned really did have a sick sense of humor, summoning a demon in this kind of place. I shook my head and started down the street, taking the long way around.

  In an hour or two, the cathedral would close, and when it did, anyone that was here to pray to whatever god they worshipped would be turned out on the streets. The front doors would lock, and the keys would be handed off to the Antares Coven.

  I turned the corner at the end of the street, going down the next block, and coming behind to the back of the cathedral. They would check the pews, probably every room, maybe even the bathrooms, before starting.

  Odds were, they wouldn’t check the closet holding the extra vestments.

  That’s exactly where I would be.

  I turned down the narrow alley right behind it and followed the pavement to the back. Up three concrete steps was the door I needed. There was only one problem.

  It was locked.

  Twenty years ago, they might not have locked the door at all. But the world was a different place now, one where it was stupid to walk around unarmed, or in this case, leave anywhere you gave a shit about unlocked. It wouldn’t stop supernaturals, but the desperate humans—and there were plenty of them—would have an extra hurdle if they wanted to break in.

  Fortunately for me, they were holding it in a church, not a bank. I came prepared.

  I pulled out my lock picking kit. Fifteen seconds was all it took to pop.

  I stowed the tools back in my jacket and tied the band around my waist once more, holding it closed.

  My cold fingers grabbed the colder metal handle. Dried and peeling paint flaked against my fingers as I pulled it open. A warm burst of air hit me, and I quickly stepped inside, closing the door softly behind me. I made a quick beeline down the hall, toward the stairs. Music chased me, the sound of haunting hymns like a hound on my heels, reminding me of another time as I quickly found the closet I needed and pulled the door open.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  The floor plan for this place hadn’t been easy to find, but so far it had been accurate. What it conveniently left off was the dimensions. The closet couldn’t have been more than two feet deep and two feet wide. If anyone opened the door, I’d be discovered early and that wouldn’t do.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, looking down the hall one way, then the other.

  Chancing my luck of finding someone, I took the stairs, opting to go up instead of back where I came from.

  Maybe . . . a thought came to me, sudden and unbidden.

  I followed the stairs up and quickly crossed the ten-foot platform before a second set of stairs. Off to one side, mass was going on, but I stuck to the shadows so they couldn’t see me. This second level went around the chapel, branching off into different hallways. I looked down each, periodically peering back over the railing to the congregation below.

  When I saw the bright red letters of an exit sign, one corner of my lips tugged up.

  I took that hallway, ignoring the doors on either side until I reached the end. It was all metal, painted a soft gray some time ago, but faded and wearing thin in places. I tried the handle, and it gave way.

  I slipped out into a stairway that went up and down. Taking my chances that luck would still be with me, I went two more floors where it finally ended. Quickly picking the lock, I popped my head in to see where this had landed me.

  Wind caught the ends of my braid, flinging it around. I stepped out onto the roof, not bothering with the spires on either side, and instead moving toward the center where a giant, stained glass ceiling looked straight down to where this summoning would be happening.

  “Perfect,” I said, quickly getting back in the stairwell to wait out the next few hours.

  I leaned back
against the brick wall, sliding down to the ground. My head tilted back as the cold seeped in, but without the wind, it was doable. I counted the bricks on the ceiling, moving to the ones on the walls when the stairwell opened again.

  “Anyone in here?” a voice that teetered on the line of masculine called. He sounded young, not like a child, but like a boy that was only just becoming a man.

  I stayed quiet, opting not to respond and see what he did. A few seconds later the door slammed shut, and all was silent again.

  It was almost time. If the Antares Coven were running their checks now, it wouldn’t be long. I waited another stretch of counting bricks before rolling to my side. My joints popped as I climbed to my feet and stretched my arms and legs. After hours of sitting in the dark stairwell, my muscles protested the movement almost as much as the stillness. I cracked my neck and opened the door leading out onto the roof.

  Night had fallen in the windy city.

  A gust hit me full in the face, making my chest tight.

  Fucking wind. Fucking cold. I hated them both.

  Gritting my teeth, I closed the door as softly as I could, and navigated the dark roof to where the stained glass was now the secondary source of light to the full moon overhead.

  “Supernaturals and their moons,” I muttered, shaking my head. Any sound I made was lost in the shrieking of the turbulent night skies. I reached back and tucked my braid beneath the collar of my coat to stop it from whipping around everywhere.

  The light coming from the glass ceiling brightened, and I moved right to the edge, then peered over it.

  It was hard to make out every distinctive detail. There were four bright globs that I assumed to be fire. One stationed north, south, east, and west—equal distance from each other.

  This is where, if I were planning to kill the coven, I should have done so.

  I had a better plan, though. One that ended with them dead, me with my money, and perhaps, if I was lucky, my answers too.

  I kneeled down, squinting through a single red-stained pane. It was easier to make out the members of the coven then. All thirteen of them wore dark robes, making them indistinct from one another. There was something else . . . something I hadn’t seen or planned for.