Heather Fleming

It was nine o’clock the next morning when Matthias got the call. A member of the cleaning staff had found another body. As per her orders, she reported it to security who, as per their orders, reported it directly to casino owner Michael Bryce. Bryce saw to it that Matthias was notified before the police, so that he’d have time to look over the crime scene before Tobias and his idiot OCU friends messed it up.

Leon and Natalia were still asleep when he left. He hoped that they would remain so until he returned, so he wouldn’t have to track them down. Waking them up and ordering them to stay in the room would have been counterproductive.

A security guard was waiting for him outside room 627. He cast a look around them to make sure that the hallway was otherwise deserted, then let Matthias in and closed the door behind him.

Like in the other crime scenes, a pentagram was painted on the floor in human blood. Matthias took out his compass and stepped toward it, to see if any of the points were aligned with one of the cardinal directions. So far there had been no conclusive pattern, but he believed in being thorough.

Before he reached the pentagram, however, his gaze fell across the body of the murder victim and he stopped. His eyes widened and his compass fell through fingers that were suddenly stiff and unfeeling. For a moment that seemed like forever, Matthias was frozen in place, unable to move as his mind protested the sight of Lucien Keene lying on the carpet with his throat cut open. Disbelief passed quickly though, and the desperate need to fix the situation, to right the wrong in front of him crashed over Mathias like a tidal wave.

“No!” he choked and lunged forward.

He drew up short at the victim’s side, suddenly hesitant to touch him. He didn’t want to hurt Lucien, or make anything worse.

“Lucien,” he said, squelching down his fear and as he pressed two fingers against Lucien’s wrist. His skin was cool, the same temperature as the air conditioned room. “Wake up,” he said hoarsely. “Damn it!”

He couldn’t find a pulse. The rational part of his mind told him that there wasn’t a pulse to be found, but Matthias refused to accept that. He’s a gargoyle, he reminded himself. He’s lived through worse than a slit throat. As long as he hasn’t lost any limbs there’s no reason he can’t pull through!

“Lucien Keene, wake up right now!” he snapped in the voice that Lucien rarely failed to obey. “That’s an order!”

Nothing. No eyes opening to glare at Matthias through his pain, no grimace, not even the movement of his chest rising and falling as he drew breath.

The back of Matthias’ throat burned as he tried to pull Lucien up, but the boy slumped against him like so much dead weight.

“Matthias? What the hell are you doing?”

Tobias’ presence and question caught him off guard, but Matthias didn’t turn. He was too numb to care.

“Matthias?” Tobias asked again, walking around to get a better look at him. “What . . . oh.”

Matthias would have liked to have slugged Tobias in the face for that. – for his reaction to finding out Lucien was dead. His acceptance of it was preposterous. But to punch the bastard he would have to get up, and to get up he would have to let go of Lucien.

“That’s not him.”

Matthias raised his gaze to Tobias. What do you mean, “That’s not him,” you idiot? he thought at the other man.

Tobias knelt on the other side of the body and lifted one of the dead man’s hands. “It’s not Lucien, Matthias. Look.” Then he turned the hand over so that it was palm up. “No emo scars on his wrists. No evidence of your lousy kitchen table surgery on his arms. And his eyes aren’t even green. They’re blue.” Tobias dropped the hand he was holding and gently pulled the man’s eyelids apart, revealing the filmy blue orb beneath. The color was a far cry from the jewel bright green of Lucien’s eyes, and not even death could have sapped them of their color that quickly. “See? He’s not Lucien.”

Suddenly Matthias could breathe again. Could think again. “He looks just like him,” he muttered hoarsely, then lowered the dead man back to the ground.

“Not just like him,” Tobias said.

“Don’t be a smart ass. You know what I mean.”

The corner of Tobias’ mouth quirked to one side and he looked quite smug.

“Shut up,” Matthias told him.

“I didn’t say anything,” Tobias protested.

“And you better not,” Matthias warned.

“Of course. It would undermine your authority with your hellspawn progeny if they were to learn you were crying over what you thought was Lucien’s dead body.” Tobias stood and brushed imaginary dust off the knees of his pants.

Matthias stood as well, but his gaze kept on flitting back to the corpse’s face. It was disturbing how closely the dead man resembled Lucien.

Tobias gave an exaggerated sigh and knelt beside the body again. He placed a handkerchief over the dead man’s face then looked up to catch Matthias’ eyes. “I saw this man at the roulette tables yesterday,” he told him as he rose and made his way toward the bloody pentagram. “I actually thought he was Lucien too, at first. He lost a lot of money, which is why we weren’t tailing him. There were dozens of people who lost big at those tables and only two who came out noticeably on top.”

Matthias watched in disbelief as Tobias stepped over the pentagram’s border and onto the design, careful to keep his feet on the cleaner areas of the carpet, between the blood-drawn lines. “Tobias, what are you doing?” he demanded. “You know better –”

“We forgot that the Wheel of Fortune could just as easily represent someone whose luck was down too,” Tobias said, lifting a tarot card out of the center of the design. It was The Wheel of Fortune, of course. The artist had depicted it as a torture wheel being rolled up a hill by a man in Greek attire – Sisyphus, no doubt. The victim being tortured on the wheel was upside down, while on top of the apparatus was a precariously balanced cherub. It was drawn in the same grotesque style as all other cards found at the scenes.

“Whoever that artist is, he needs therapy,” Matthias muttered.

Tobias made a sound somewhere between a choke and a laugh.

Matthias glared at him. “Get off that pentagram already,” he growled. “You know better than to screw around near blood magic.”

Tobias hesitated a moment, as though making a decision, then shook his head. “That’s just it, Matthias,” he told the older man. “This isn’t blood magic. It’s only the work of a delusional serial killer on a psychotic break.”

“What?”

“There’s no magic in these lines,” Tobias said. “I can see magic now, remember? Or rather, I am capable of seeing magic, but I can’t see any here. Same for all the other murder sites.”

“Are you sure that’s not just because you’re an amateur?” Matthias asked. “I saw you squinting at the other pentagram like Lucien used to do when he was ten.”

Tobias gave him a dirty look. “I considered that it might be my lack of experience, which was why I did more research. These symbols are all made up. They’re unique to this artist’s work.”

“And when were you planning on telling me this?” Matthias wanted to know.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Tobias confessed. “Your whole family annoys the hell out of me, and I was trying to avoid you as much as I could. But, after seeing that,” he nodded toward the corpse, “I figured you could use a break.”

“You’re sure that you’ve got this right?” Matthias asked, ignoring Tobias’ inference. “This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve screwed up.”

“Lucien’s been training me.”

“How’s he doing?” he asked, trying to sound offhanded.

“He’s still alive.”

“That’s something, at least,” Matthias muttered.

“Irons and Kelley – the OCU agents – are almost here,” Tobias warned him. “They’re going to want to process the crime scene.”

“Right.” Matthias started for the door.

“Where are you going?” Tobias wanted to know.

“Somewhere where your OCD friends aren’t,” Matthias said irritably. Now that he knew their blood mage was nothing more than a run of the mill psychopath, he needed to reevaluate the case.

#

When Tobias finally got out of the crime scene he tried giving Abdiel a call. He hadn’t been able to get a hold of him yesterday, and he wanted an update on the witch hunt in Maine.

Once again, he got his friend’s voicemail.

“This is Abdiel. Leave me a message or leave me alone.”

“Hey, it’s me,” Tobias said. “I was wondering how things are going on your job. Let me know when you get a chance.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “And be careful. Try not to get yourself killed.”

The sight of Abdiel’s lookalike, dead the floor had been a disturbing one. Tobias would have been tempted to call Matthias out over his slip in composure if he himself hadn’t thought that it was Abdiel lying dead in Matthias arms at first glance. And he had known that Abdiel was in Maine, and that his doppelganger was hanging around the Morpho.

“This case sucks,” Tobias muttered to himself. He should have guessed it was going to turn out that way the moment he heard the words, “Las Vegas.” Every time he went somewhere that was supposed to be fun, it ended up turning into a nightmare. Like the time he went to Mexico on spring break and almost got sacrificed to a demon. Now, he got to chase around a pseudo-satanic psychopath, and hope that the drone work would be annoying enough to keep images of his friend as a corpse out of his mind, while Lucien hunted down an entire coven on his own. Life was not fair.

Ironically, the next Major Arcana card on the list was Justice. Their murderer was planning to kill Justice. Despite the sick gravity of their situation, Tobias couldn’t help but find that amusing. The only thing more amusing was that the person who seemed like the most likely candidate to be Justice was a stripper.