Page 1 of That Mafioso Magic
CHAPTER ONE
“Are you sure this is the place?” Xavier asked me as he peered with a frown at the dilapidated building I’d parked a few houses down from. It looked like no one lived in it, but it wasn’t condemned. Just a major eyesore. Boarded up windows, missing roof shingles, overgrown grass, and old, dirty siding. The kind of home that brought down the property value of the neighborhood. The kind of house that looked haunted and kids probably dared each other to go inside.
“I did the locator spell. This has to be the place or we’re fucked,” I said, my Georgian accent adding a certain southern twang to my words.
“Let’s hope she’s in there, then.” He tied his shoulder-length black hair back into a ponytail. He had his game face on; brown eyes intense and focused. His look of determination made his strong jawline even more prominent.
“The locator spell isn’t a sure thing when I don’t have the person’s blood or at least some form of DNA to work the magic. I used her mother’s blood, so this is the best I can do,” I said, then pulled out my state permitted handgun. Having concealed carry laws helped in the P.I. business. Less paperwork I had to worry about if I ever had to use it in the field. I was also wearing my protective bulletproof vest, and so was Xavier. The world was a dangerous place, proven by my current situation. Just in case we ran into trouble, I wanted us at least a little bit prepared.
Lacey Marshall was the third kid to go missing within the span of twenty-six days. Like with the other abductions, she was twelve years old, blonde, blue eyed, female, and no doubt a virgin. That was if the world wasn’t a complete fucking cesspool. The difference in Lacey’s case, as opposed to the other two, was that her parents had come to me. I was a damned good private eye. I trusted my instincts, but more importantly, I was also a mage. Magic was in my blood and there weren’t many like me in this world, those born with the ability to absorb magical elements from the atmosphere.
Now, I wasn’t the world’s strongest mage, far from it. But I knew enough mystic tricks to help me get the job done. Such as the locator spell I’d used tonight. Most mages had clans. I wasn’t sure how many clans were actually in existence. I only knew of three, and not one ever wanted to take me in. So, I suppose you could call me a rogue mage. Clans shared the same line of magic, some more powerful than others. And I had heard certain clans could merge their lines if the magic was compatible. Though, I hadn’t come across one. In any case, I was on my own and that was fine with me.
But mages weren’t the only things in this world, though. Vampires, shifters, ghouls better known as griezels, ghosts, demonic spirits, and your run-of-the-mill crazy ass humans hellbent on raising hell. The fact that the supernatural inhabited this dimension was what had me extra concerned about these missing kids. Demonic spirits were known to use the bodies of children to take possession of in order to create as much mayhem as they could. They enjoyed defiling innocence in the name of the dark gods they worshipped.
Dark gods. Well, that was another story altogether. Just about every supernal being that walked this plane was here because of a deal made with a dark god and magic. I steered clear of the dark arts, nothing good ever came from it. Not to mention, magic like that always had a high price to pay. Anyway, another species that had me concerned were ghosts. They also possessed humans, and it didn’t matter their age or virtue. However, they were easier to get rid of. Although you had to be careful, not every ghost was here to do harm. Some only wanted to help and might take the body of someone recently deceased. So, no harm done in that sense. Also, some could move on once their work on this plane was done.
Vampires… well, they came with various hungers. Some fed on fear, some on pleasure, and some on pain. A child could give them the ultimate meal regardless of their feeding preferences. Shifters, they loved to dine on flesh, mostly animals. They were the breed of supernal being that was closely linked to nature, after all. But there were always some with more sinister hungers, and children were just a delicacy to them. Griezels enjoyed feeding on the organs of animals and humans. Then you had human serial killers, and who knew what the fuck motivated them to harm children. Bottomline was, I had an assortment of bad guys I might have to deal with and I needed to be prepared for whatever I found inside that raggedy ass house.
I walked to the back of my car, popping up the trunk with a little effort because my car was damn near as broken down as that fucking house. With over two hundred thousand miles on it, it was barely holding on. Thank god, Xavier was as handy with car maintenance as he was with a shotgun and knife. We both suited up with extra ammunition, bullets with liquid silver that worked on shifters and griezels. It didn’t kill them, but it did weaken them enough to get lucky if you cut off their heads. Of course, that took a great feat of strength, so running was our best option. Taking out their hearts also worked, but like cutting off their heads, one had to be super strong or lucky to pull that off. Fire was more practical and also worked if it was powerful enough on shifters and vampires, but not griezels. Iron ammo worked on ghosts well enough to disperse them for a few minutes. God, I hated dealing with ghosts. Truth was, they were easier to exorcise when they were inside a human body, simply because they were confined in one place. One positive thing, the human could survive a ghost possession as long as it didn’t go past a normal life span because the two souls shared the same body.
The worst were demonic spirits. They were conjured up from the belly of hell and when they took over a body, that human’s soul would be overtaken by the demon’s soul. The demon then would have full possession and abilities that made them extremely hard to kill. Best way to deal with a demonic spirit was to make sure they stayed in hell.
Vampires, well, they were the bee’s knees of hard to kill. Sunlight didn’t burn them, and wooden and silver stakes would only piss one off if you were lucky enough to stab them with it. Holy water, garlic, crosses… leave that shit in the movies, too. Decapitation and fire were sure things. Removing their hearts was temporary because just getting rid of their heart wasn’t enough if their brain was still attached. If you managed to burn one, you had better scatter their ashes afterward, because if you didn’t, a few drops of vampire blood could resurrect them. So, considering what we might be up against, Xavier and I both had silver nitrate bullets and bombs in our arsenal. Xavier reached for the flame thrower before closing the trunk.
“Let’s do this,” he said with as much determination as he showed all of our cases. He was pretty fearless, which he attributed to his Latin blood. I was sure being trained in the US Marines helped, or maybe it was both. Who was I to say?
“Just watch your back in there, buddy.”
He winked at me. “Don’t I always? And you do the same,amigo.”
I nodded and we ran quietly and as inconspicuously as possible toward the house. There were other homes on the block, but it was two o’clock in the morning. I was hoping most people were asleep by this time. We both went around to the back, just in case we needed to force our way in. A little cover was better than none. There were no lights on inside the house, but there wouldn’t be if the bad guys didn’t want people getting too nosey. I stopped by a window that wasn’t completely covered by plywood and motioned for Xavier to standby while I investigated.
I peeked inside, trying to let my vision adjust to the darkness. I didn’t hear anything and the place smelled of mold, dust, and death. Whether it was rats or something else, the stink was there. I placed my gun in my holster and grabbed the plywood with both hands to give it a good yank. I didn’t make that much noise, but if I was dealing with a vampire or shifter, they’d be able to hear even a little bit of noise, so it was game on from that point forward. I tossed the wood board aside, unholstered my gun, and slipped inside with Xavier following closely behind me.
Unlike vampires and shifters, I didn’t have super heightened night vision, so out came the flashlight. I panned the light around the room, only to see that we were in the basement surrounded by old, broken down furniture, empty boxes, and your basic trash. Xavier had his flashlight out too, holding it over his pistol like he’d been trained during his time in the service. I moved further into the basement toward the front of the house since we had started out in the back. After searching for ten minutes, I didn’t find anything. I was just about to tell Xavier we needed to check out the rest of the house when my foot stepped on a floorboard that dipped and creaked a little.
I tested it again, and Xavier turned to inspect the area as well. I knelt down, pulling back the moldy rug to see the outline of a door. I looked for a latch or something to open the door with and found a little hole big enough to slide a finger inside. I pulled slowly until the door lifted with a soft creak. There was a ladder already extended, so I went down first, with Xavier watching my back and his own before he followed me. Unlike the majority of humanity, he knew what went bump and boo in the night and day. We’d met each other five years earlier when I had saved him from a vampire attack. With a bit of magic, I’d managed to scare the vampire off, and Xavier and I spent the rest of the night playing catch up. Truth of the matter was, he was the reason I had decided to get my P.I. license and probably why I was still alive.
The lower level of the basement was dank, the ground muddy, and our shoes squished with each step. It made for an unsteady, slippery terrain if we ended up having to fight. Therefore, I was even more cautious now than I was before I’d descended into this rank abyss. The walls were cement and covered with slime. It was no place for a child to be, that was for sure. It seemed to go deeper underground the more we traveled, and I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard something click under my foot.
“Oh shit,” I whispered.
“Did you just step on something?” Xavier asked.
I licked my bottom lip. “Yeah, can you check it out?” My heart was thumping like a piston inside my chest and I could hear my pulse in my ears.
“I’m already on it.” I could feel Xavier moving the mud away from my foot to see what it was I’d stepped on. “Fuck. It’s a mine.”
I had really been hoping it wouldn’t be a fucking mine. I certainly didn’t see my night ending with me being blown to smithereens. I had to think of something, a spell to get myself out of that pickle.
“Don’t move,” Xavier said.
“Yeah, because that was my first thought.”
“Don’t get smart with me, either,” he chastised, his Spanish accent thickening slightly, which happened when he got a bit passionate.
“Go ahead of me. I’ll figure something out. We need to save Lacey,” I said.
