Fractured Souls by Ava Marie Salinger
30
“Who the devil is Ivmir?”Brianna said, exasperated.
“I don’t know.” Morgan paused. “And judging from Cassius’s expression, neither does he.”
Brianna turned to Reuben and Jasper. “Does it mean anything to you?”
“Never heard it,” Jasper snapped.
“No,” Reuben said, his wary gaze dancing between Morgan and Cassius.
Cassius’s heart thudded violently as he stared at Morgan. Though he didn’t know who Ivmir was, there was no denying the vestige of familiarity the name evoked. He could feel it in the very marrow of his soul.
Ivmir was the name Cassius had known Morgan by in their other lives.
Cassius frowned, nails biting into his palms. It was as if his lost memories were teasing him, offering tantalizing peeks and morsels of his existence before the Fall and snatching them away just as quickly.
“I also have the video from the night Jerry Carneiro died,” Maggie said in a guarded tone, the tech looking ever so pale after the recent revelations.
“Play it,” Morgan said.
Occultawas as busy as it had been tonight, the queue lining up to enter the place extending down the road for a good hour. There were no signs of the cloaked warlock inside the bar the entire time the place stayed open.
The recordings from the four cameras covering the back doors and the rear alleyway blacked out at exactly 00:05 for a period of twelve minutes, two hours before closing time.
Morgan frowned at Maggie. “Did the equipment glitch?”
“No,” the forensic tech replied.
“That’s a dark concealment spell,” Brianna said in a hard voice.
“And a good one,” Strickland muttered.
“Carneiro’s time of death was estimated to be around 00:00-01:00,” Julia said.
“Do we have a recording from the liquor store for that night too?” Cassius asked.
Maggie nodded and loaded the file. “We’re lucky. The owner was going to erase it tomorrow.”
She fast forwarded the recording to 23:55.
At 00:05, a black SUV pulled up the street and parked near the end of the alley. A couple of guys in suits with the distinctive bulge of guns under their armpits stepped out of the front seats.
The figure that climbed out of the rear was clearly a demon.
Jasper frowned. “That’s a Lucifugous.”
Cassius stared. Unlike most of his kind, this Lucifugous was wearing a suit.
Only a small number of the demons had managed to integrate into human society after the Hundred Year War ended. Although abhorred by mankind for their grotesque appearance, the Lucifugous had rapidly earned themselves a reputation for being brutal fighters. After spending decades as hired fists, they’d slowly carved out an empire for themselves in the shadowy underworld of most major cities in the world.
The Lucifugous removed a sports bag from the backseat and stepped into the mouth of the alley behind Occulta. He stopped, as if waiting for someone.
A cloaked figure appeared a moment later from the direction of the bar.
Cassius clenched his jaw. “That’s him.”
The demon and the warlock spoke for a couple of minutes, the warlock’s hood revealing the lower half of his face. The warlock extracted a pouch from under his cloak and passed it to the demon in exchange for the sports bag. The Lucifugous chuckled as he examined the contents of the pouch. He extracted a small, gleaming round shape from it.
It was a gold coin.
The demon bit down on it and nodded, expression satisfied.
The warlock looked in the sports bag, smiled, and shook the Lucifugous’s hand.
Something drew their attention. The warlock looked over his shoulder. The Lucifugous frowned and said something to the warlock before returning to the SUV. The warlock whirled around and headed back into the alley, his mouth a grim line and a sphere of black magic bursting to life in his hand. He disappeared from view.
“Rewind the recording ten seconds,” Strickland said in a shaky voice.
Morgan frowned at the director’s dazed expression while Maggie wound back the video. “What is it?”
Strickland paid him no heed, his gaze focused unblinkingly on the screen.
“There!” the director barked. “Freeze that shot.”
Maggie tapped pause. Cassius’s eyes widened.
Strickland rose from his seat and went over to the display. “Zoom in.”
The director traced the frozen, pixelated image of the warlock with his fingers. The man’s profile had been exposed for the briefest instant when he’d turned to go back into the alley, presumably to kill the wizard who’d just stumbled upon his dealings with the Lucifugous.
“Eric,” Strickland murmured shakily.
Alarm danced across Brianna’s face. “Wait. Do you mean—?!”
“Eric Crawford.” Reuben narrowed his eyes as he studied the warlock’s profile. He glanced at Strickland. “Your former apprentice.”
Cassius traded startled glances with Morgan and the rest of their team, his pulse racing.
“You know this guy?” Julia asked warily.
“Eric Crawford was a Level Two sorcerer who used to work for Hexa,” Brianna said in a clipped voice.
Strickland stared blindly at the warlock’s profile, his face ashen.
“I met him when I was in Europe, some twenty years ago,” he said. “He was only fifteen at the time and already a Level Four magic user. I took him under my wing and trained him.” He met their stares, his own dismayed. “He moved to the States with me and settled in Seattle, where he started working for Hexa.”
“Crawford disappeared six years ago, under mysterious circumstances.” Brianna frowned at Strickland. “I remember the case well. You moved heaven and earth to find him, but not a single trace of his whereabouts was ever found. It was as if he’d vanished into thin air.”
“Isn’t it a little too convenient that your former apprentice is now a black-magic warlock stealing human souls?” Jasper asked Strickland suspiciously.
“Strickland wasn’t Crawford’s only mentor,” Brianna snapped. “The head of Hexa also took him under her wing, so mind your words, Jasper.”
“We need to put out an APB on this guy to all law enforcement agencies across the country,” Morgan said grimly.
“If he is as powerful as you say he is, then I doubt that would help.” Reuben tapped a finger on the table, his expression thoughtful. “The Lucifugous might be a better place to start.”
“I agree,” Cassius said with a nod, his mind going back to the Lucifugous demon he’d come across in the sewers. “Whatever was in that sports bag was worth a lot of money. I’m willing to bet it has something to do with the rituals.”
“I’ll run the license plate on that SUV,” Maggie said.
“Thanks, Maggie,” Morgan murmured as the tech shut down her computer.
Strickland observed everyone’s tired expressions, his own still haggard from the shock of finding out his former apprentice was the warlock who’d attacked Cassius. “Let’s call it a night.”