Ilona Andrews: Magic Bleeds

“Why did you fight?”

They stared at me.

“I was mad,” Vik offered. “Real mad.”

“Angry,” Toby said.

“Why?”

“Hell if I know.” Vik shrugged.

Interesting. “How long did the fight last?”

“Forever,” Toby said.

“About ten minutes,” Maggie answered.

That’s a long time for a fight. Most bar fights were over in a couple of minutes. “Did it get worse with time?”

She nodded.

“Did anybody see Joshua die?”

“It was all a blur,” Toby said. “I remember hitting somebody’s head against the wall and . . . I don’t even know why I did it. It’s like I couldn’t stop.”

“I saw it.” Maggie hugged herself. “The fight broke out.

Joshua was in the middle of it. He was a big man and he knew what he was doing. I was screaming for them to stop fighting. I was afraid they’d bust up the place. Nobody listened to me. Joshua was mowing people down with his fists and then that man grabbed him and they hit the wall. The man dragged Joshua to the pole, grabbed a crowbar, and stabbed. Joshua was wriggling on the crowbar like a fish. That bastard put his hand on Joshua’s face. A red light flashed and then he walked away. I saw Joshua’s eyes. He was gone.”

This just got better and better.

Maggie hugged herself. Cash put his hand on her shoulder. Neither said anything but I watched the haunted expression ease from Maggie’s face, as if she drew strength from him.

One day I’d find someone to lean on as well. It just wouldn’t be Curran. And I really had to stop thinking about him, because it hurt.

“Did you see any part of the man during the fight? Anything at all?”

Maggie shook her head. “Just the cloak.”

Biohazard’s techs would’ve taken statements before they let the brawlers go. I’d bet a chocolate bar nobody had gotten a look at the John Doe in the cloak.

A ten-minute fight, fifty eyewitnesses, and no description. That had to be some kind of record.

“Okay.” I sighed. “What about the critter in the cellar? What do we know about it?”

“Big,” Vik said. “Hairy. Big teeth.” He held his hands apart, demonstrating teeth with his fingers. “He was like the spawn of hell.”

“How did this spawn get into the cellar?”

The smaller bouncer shrugged. “I was trying to make my way to the bar, where the shotgun was, and then some asswipe hits me with a pool cue and I take a tumble down this stair and hit my head a bit. Once the room stops spinning, I try to get up and I see this huge thing coming down. Wicked fangs, eyes glowing. I’m thinking I was done for. It jumps right over me and into the cellar. I slam the door shut and that’s that.”

“Did anybody see this beast come in with the man who killed Joshua?”

Nobody said anything. I took it as a no.

“Did it try to get out?”

Both bouncers shook their head.

I rose to my feet and pulled Slayer from my back sheath. The opaque saber caught the blue light of feylanterns. A light mother-of-pearl shimmer ran along the blade. Everybody took a step back.

“Lock the door behind me,” I told them.

“What if you don’t come out?” Maggie asked.

“I’ll come out.” I unlatched the heavy wooden door, opened it, and ducked inside.

Darkness mugged me. I waited, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom.

The cellar lay quiet, steeped in shadows and the thick odor of hops and liquor. Dark curves of large beer kegs defined a narrow path. I moved forward, ready to dodge at any second. My back and knees hurt. The last thing I wanted was something big with teeth the size of Vik’s fingers jumping at me from above.

Nothing but moonlight, crawling through the narrow slit of a high window to my right.

A black shadow stirred against the far wall.

“Hi there.” I shifted my stance.

A low throaty whine answered me. A very plaintive whine, followed by heavy wet panting.

I took another step and paused. No flash of teeth. No glowing eyes.

My nose caught a whiff of fur. Interesting.

I put a bit of excitement in my voice. “Here, boy!”

The dark shadow whined.

“Who’s a good boy? Are you scared? I’m scared.”

A faint sound of a tail sweeping the floor echoed the panting.

I slapped my leg with my palm. “Come here, boy! Let’s be scared together. Come on!”

The shadow rose and trotted over to me. A wet tongue licked my hand. Apparently he was a friendly kind of demonic beast.

I reached into my belt and clicked a lighter. A shaggy canine muzzle greeted me, complete with big black nose and infinitely sad dog eyes. I reached over and slowly patted the dark fur. The dog panted and flopped on the side, exposing his stomach. Wicked fangs and glowing eyes, right. I sighed, flicked the lighter off, and went to rap my knuckles on the door. “It’s me, don’t shoot.”

“Okay,” Cash called out.

A metallic sound announced the deadbolt being slid open. I cracked the door slowly to find myself staring at the business end of the machete. “I’ve got the spawn of hell cornered,” I said. “Can you get me some rope?”

In ten seconds I had a length of chain in my hand thick enough to hold a bear in check. I felt the dog’s neck—no collar. Big surprise. I looped the chain and slid it around his head, and opened the door. The beast docilely followed me into the light.

It stood about thirty inches at the shoulder. Its fur was a mess of dark brown and tan, in a classic Doberman pattern, except his coat wasn’t sleek and shiny but rather a shaggy dense mass of rank curls. Some sort of mongrel, part Doberman, part sheepdog or something long-haired.

Vik turned the color of a ripe apple.

Cash stared at it. “It’s a damn mutt.”

I shrugged. “Probably got scared during the fight and just ran blindly through the bar. He seems friendly enough.”

The dog pressed against my legs, rubbing a small army of fetid bacteria into my jeans.

“We should kill it,” Vik said. “Who knows, it might turn into something nasty.”

I gave him my best version of a deranged stare. “The dog’s evidence. Don’t touch the dog.”

Vik decided he liked his teeth in his mouth and not on the floor and beat a strategic retreat. “Right.”

I’d kill a dog in self-defense. I’d done it and I felt bad about it afterward, but at the time there was no way around it. Killing a mutt who just licked my hand was beyond me. Besides, the dog was evidence. Ten to one, he was a local mongrel who had a panicked reaction to whatever magic John Doe in the cloak had been throwing around. Of course, he could also sprout tentacles in the night and try to murder me. Only time would tell. Until I’d watched him for a few days, the spawn of hell and I were joined at the hip. Which wasn’t necessarily a good thing, considering he tried his best to singe away the lining of my nose with his stink.

I took the dog to the medtechs to get cleared of the plague—he passed with flying colors. They drew some blood for further analysis and advised me that he had fleas and smelled bad, just in case I’d failed to notice. Then I took paper and pen from Marigold’s saddlebag and sat down at one of the tables to write out my report.

In the parking lot the inside of my ward circle blazed with orange flames. Three guys in heat-retardant suits waved their arms, chanting the fire into a white-hot rage. I couldn’t even see the pole or Joshua’s body inside the inferno.

The magic crashed. It simply vanished from the world in a single blink. The inferno in the parking lot began to die down. The guys in flame-retardant suits switched to flamethrowers and went on burning.

Patrice came up. “Nice dog.”

“He’s evidence,” I told her.