James Baldwin - Blood Hound

“No. Aamon,” I said. The smell was curdling the air in my lungs. It was not natural. The heavy, leaden sensation of rotten magic is difficult to describe. It is as if the air itself was cut up, as if this patch of reality was molding, full of holes. It sucked the light out of the immediate area. The associated color of the scent was an intense, vibrant violet, the sickly color of a fresh bruise.

“What?”

“The sigil is the seal of Aamon.” I was geared for a hit, not an investigation, but most of my tools were still useful. I took a penlight and set it between my teeth, trying not to breathe through my nose as I crouched beside the body. I searched under his dead weight for the telltale outline of a wallet, mildly surprised when I actually found one. The money was missing, but there were half a dozen cards with different names. I flipped the penlight over to use the UV end, scanning them for government seals. Even the best fakes always get the seals wrong. “Here we are. Frank Nacari?”

I waited for a response. When none was forthcoming, I looked back to see that Nic had joined Lev, and they were standing shoulder to shoulder in grim silence. They were both pale. As the pregnant pause stretched on, Nic tapped a new cigarette from his case, lit up, and drew a quarter inch off the end.

“Well. We’re fucked,” he said on the exhale. He blew a plume of smoke down into the metallic sea wind. “Not as fucked as Nacari here, but still pretty fucked.”

“Nacari is John Manelli’s Consigliere .” [9] The advisor to a Don of an Italian mafia. Lev sighed, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose. “My god. I didn’t even recognize him.”

Now that I thought about it, the name was vaguely familiar. My stomach flinched. That he was dead hardly bothered me, but the stench was painful, and my head was beginning to throb. “Well… that’s no good.”

Nic’s lip had curled from the smell. He was fighting not to bring his hand to his face. “You know anybody who could do this? Any spooks who could pull something like this off?”

I did not because, unfortunately, that class of mage did not include me. My sorcerous ability hit a hard wall in my teens and never advanced any further. I was moderately good at a very few things, and there was no way I could know which mage had done it. All I knew was that I didn’t like the way the air around this body felt. It was toxic, unnatural. Frank didn’t smell like rotten meat. He smelled oily, like kerosene or turpentine. “I’m sure there are, but I don’t know them. If they needed a human sacrifice like this, they are either a powerful mage trying to do a very bad thing with a common ritual or a weak mage who needs the intense energy generated by a death to properly summon at all. All I know is that his death was probably used to fuel the summoning of Aamon, who is a moderately powerful demon from the Goetia. But that doesn’t make much sense to me, either.”

“What the fuck is an Aamon?” Nic crossed his arms over his chest.

“Marquis of Hell, the ruler of the creation and resolution of feuds. He is summoned for questions pertaining to finding people or causing and resolving arguments. What confuses me is that the rite to summon Aamon doesn’t require a human sacrifice, and Aamon, by and large, is not a violent demon.”

“There’s violent demons and nonviolent demons?” Nic squinted, the lines around his eyes deepening, and moved around to stand by Nacari’s feet. Lev did not say a word, but he was listening intently.

“Yes. The demons of the Goetia are teachers and tricksters, and they reflect parts of human nature. They’re not… corrupt like this.” Nic’s ignorance was irritating me. The Goetia was easy to find, and even Blanks—non-magical people—could pick up a book and read it. We needed to change the subject before I said something inappropriate. “Was there security footage? Anyone working late who might have seen what happened?”

Lev finally spoke up. “Someone took out the camera. The nightshift shipwrights were all at Number Two. This dock was cleared for the night.”

My frown deepened, and I touched a gloved finger to the head of the huge nail that had been driven through Nacari’s hand. Pushed it. It didn’t budge. “These are dog spikes. Railroad spikes. They either brought a borer and pre-bored the holes, or they found a spike driver. It would have made a lot of noise. In any case, whoever did this must have a connection with the construction industry, probably rail.”

Nic said nothing for several seconds, lighting his next cigarette from the tip of the old one. “You know Georgie, right? The new Laguetta Don?”

“Of course.” The Manelli and Laguetta family conflict—with the accompanying body count—had been the start of our troubles with the Manellis in the first place. “Not personally.”

“Laguetta has a hand in the Concrete Club. Man of his is in charge of Pinnacle. Skyscraper developer.”

“No, no, I can’t believe he’d contract this and leave the body here. They’ve been with us for years.” Lev shook his head, but he sounded uncertain.

The Laguettas were the second largest of the four big Italian Families, the Manellis being the largest. Affording a ritual like this one was out of reach for most people on the street. At the highest levels of power, spooks on the payroll battled a cold war in gridlock, ensuring their own Don or Avtoritet or King was untouchable while others tried to pick away at their defenses—but this was something else.

I crouched down and leaned in. In the center of the seal of Aamon was a deep, festering puncture. The flesh around it was fragile and pallid, laced with branching trees of black veins. Carefully, I lifted the edge of Nacari’s fly. What little flesh remained was torn, blackened at the edges. He was completely emasculated, and the amputation looked to be older than the stab wound that killed him. Awful, but strangely captivating.

Nic grunted and shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah. If this is Laguetta’s dirty laundry, it don’t make no sense. No reason for any of his crews to take a dump on our turf.”

While they debated, I turned my attention to the dead man’s face, leaning in with my hand clasped over my nose. His one remaining eyelid was distended and dark, the nearly transparent skin bulging over something underneath. I took a knife from my pocket and popped it open with a small click. Balanced on the balls of my feet, I stretched out and flicked the tip of the blade up under the stitches.

Frank Nacari’s eye had been replaced with a large lead caster. The dawn light reflected dully off its surface, and with a soft sound under my breath, I reached forward to push it out. The caster was roughened on the underside and rasped against my gloves when I rubbed the blood away. It was only slightly smaller than an eyeball, roughly polished, and etched with a symbol:

On the ground and facing away from Nicolai, I could conceal the moment of shock and vague recognition. It was an Occult sigil, and I should have known it. I knew I had seen it before. I stared at it, fighting with half-memories of planetary tables and pages from very old books on ceremonial summoning. At a loss to remember which books held what, I held out the caster to Lev. He took it, puzzled, and his nose wrinkled.

“The hell is that?” Nic said.

“I have no idea. But it is deeply idiosyncratic.” I shrugged.

Nicolai stared at it. “Idio-what?”

“Unique. Singular,” Lev replied.

“And honestly confusing,” I added.

“Huh.” Nic glanced past me, looking over at the entry gate. “Looks like… whatddya call ’em? The swinging tick-tock things. Not clocks.”