Crimson Circle Read online

  Crimson Circle

  A Shadow Detective Novel

  WILLIAM MASSA

  Critical Mass Publishing

  Copyright © 2018 by WILLIAM MASSA

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  Also by WILLIAM MASSA

  1

  The Hummer I’d stolen—I mean borrowed—from the White Crescent cut through the snow-covered city, the streets wet and slick with melting ice. At each turn, plumes of grey slush splashed the sidewalks, and the wind howled down the urban canyons.

  A witch’s spell had transformed the Cursed City into a winter wonderland during the night, but with her magic gone, the snow was quickly evaporating. The first rays of sunlight had already lanced the awakening city, and the temperatures were returning to normal for this time of year. By noon, most of the slush would have vanished down the city’s storm drains.

  Malcasta, the witch in question, had escaped, but at least we had thwarted her plan of turning back the clock on mankind’s technological progress. I shuddered as the skinned features of the monstrous witch slashed through my mind. Her bloody visage joined the rogue’s gallery of evil beings I’d faced over the years. The memories of those battles haunted me every time I closed my eyes.

  Hey, I never said this monster hunting gig was easy.

  Beside me, Archer pointed to the early morning commuters bustling to work. Judging by the city dwellers’ sleepy expressions, they remained blissfully unaware of last night’s horrors.

  “None of them have any idea what happened?” she asked.

  “It’s better that way. Life has to go on.”

  I shifted my attention to the glowing crystal orb nestled in Archer’s hands. Despite our victory, our greatest challenge still lay ahead—returning Skulick’s soul to his comatose body. The witch had imprisoned my partner’s soul in the crystal. I’d successfully reclaimed it from her during our final battle in the park. Waves of faint blue light bled from the orb, lending Archer’s features a wax-like quality. It made her look like a stranger, and I fought back another shiver.

  “Relax, kid,” the demon inside of me chimed in. “We still have time to save Skulick.”

  According to my demonic partner, we had forty-eight hours to reunite Skulick’s soul with his body. I had managed to defeat the infernal coven in half that time, so we were still in the clear.

  At least in theory.

  I couldn’t be certain, but I thought the light from the orb was growing dimmer. And I still had no idea how we were going to return Skulick’s soul to his physical form. I was secretly counting on Cyon’s magic. The grimoire tucked in the pocket of my trench coat gave off a burst of heat, almost as if it knew what I was thinking about.

  I was still struggling with how much my world had changed over the last twenty-four hours. I mentally ticked down the list of recent revelations which had rocked my reality: Cyon had once been a human. Not just any old human, but a medieval Templar Knight and fellow monster hunter like myself who had ultimately fallen under the spell of a witch and turned to the darkness. Bavmara, the ice witch, had taught Cyon the ways of black magic. The demon had revealed his ability to cast spells with the help of a book of magic we’d recovered on an earlier case. Between the blessed sword we’d acquired in the devil’s bank back in Switzerland, Cyon’s demon powers, my extensive knowledge of the occult, and the ghoul’s grimoire, we might have a fighting chance against the archdemon Morgal.

  “Vengeance will be ours soon!”

  Those were Cyon’s words, but they could as well have been my own.

  Morgal had slaughtered my parents two decades ago. He had abandoned Cyon after the vampire Marek had trapped him in a binding circle to feed on him. We both had a good reason to want the duke of Hell dead.

  Although I thought we were ready to do battle with Morgal, I wasn’t sure how Cyon planned to conjure his former master. Would the magical power of the ghoul’s grimoire be up to the task? Or would we need the other two copies of the Daemonium, which were currently under lock and key at the Vatican?

  The sharp honk of a fast approaching car pulled me out of my musings. I had blasted through a red light and narrowly avoided an accident.

  “I know you’re worried about Skulick, but you better get your head on straight. It would be pretty pathetic to defeat one of the most powerful witches in the world only to end up as road killffff. We have time…”

  Cyon kept saying that, but my doubts remained. A dark sense of foreboding was settling into my bones, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake it.

  Archer reached out to me, her fingers closing around my gloved demon hand on the steering wheel. Her touch, the sense of connection, calmed me more than the demon’s words ever could. I breathed in her presence and fought back the overwhelming need to bury my head in her shoulder.

  “It will be okay,” she said, and in that moment, I believed her.

  Just goes to show you how wrong a person can be.

  2

  It was a little past eight in the morning when we finally pulled up to the loft. In the brilliant sunlight, the structure looked gutted. Malcasta and her coven had shattered every window during their attack. Fixing it would cost a pretty penny, but that was the least of my worries at the moment. Seeing the loft in this state drove it all home. Life would never go back to the way it used to be. Even if we could save Skulick, I doubted he would welcome me with open arms. As long as the demon remained inside of me, I would be…compromised. Tainted. Skulick might stop hunting me, the way Father Cabrera had, but would he trust me ever again?

  Archer offered me a reassuring smile as she handed me the orb. I nodded at her, hoping my expression looked more confident than I felt. We climbed out of the Hummer and headed toward the loft’s rear entrance. I usually entered through the underground garage, and it felt weird using the back door instead. As I inserted the key into the lock, I focused my thoughts on the demon.

  So tell me, Cyon, how do we do this? Do we crack this orb over his head and recite some prayer?

  “It’s a little more complicated than that, Raven. Just leave that part up to me.”

  I was hoping Cyon would know what to do next, but leaving things in his hands—metaphorically speaking—also heightened my anxiety. I guess I’m not big on delegating.

  It’s not that I was worried he might double-cross me. I trusted the demon…to an extent. Knowing that Cyon had once upon a time been human an
d one of the good guys was reassuring. But then again, he had allowed himself to be seduced by Malcasta’s mother. Yeah, that’s right. The demon who had been hitching a ride inside me for the last few months turned out to be the father of the skinned witch who almost destroyed this city. And as the saying goes, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

  I turned the key and opened the loft’s backdoor entrance. According to Archer, Father Cabrera had left a team of his exorcist commandos behind to guard our base and protect Skulick. I hoped Cabrera had informed his men that I wasn’t their enemy anymore.

  I flicked on the light, revealing a large training facility. A variety of monster hunting weapons lined one wall. Racks of weights and workout equipment gathered dust on the other side of the spacious chamber. Punching bags hung limply in the dark space. How many times had I staggered out of this place with a bloody nose after a sparring session with Skulick? Over the years, I had donated buckets of sweat and blood here, but it had been a long time since I had set foot inside. In fact, I could barely remember the last time I’d trained in the facility.

  On an average day, I went straight from the underground garage to the second floor that served as our living space and command center, bypassing the workout chambers. Even before I was forced to go on the run, work had kept me busy in the field. Who needs a workout when you have homicidal ghosts and witches to battle?

  As soon as I entered the space, I knew something was wrong. It wasn’t just neglected; something bad had happened here recently. The cloying stench of cordite hung in the air. My throat tightened as I traded a quick, alarmed look with Archer.

  Instinctively, I reached for my blessed pistol, reassured by Hellseeker’s weight in my hand. Archer’s fingers closed on the Witch Whip looped around her belt. Moving silently, we crept up the emergency staircase instead of the lift.

  My stomach churned as I climbed the flight of stairs, expecting some monstrous evil to peel from the shadows at a moment’s notice. I reached the top and entered the main floor of the loft. Relief turned to horror as my worst suspicions stood confirmed. Corpses lay sprawled across the floor, blood pooling around the broken bodies of the exorcists that Father Cabrera had left behind to guard Skulick. Milky sunlight shafted through the shattered windows, exposing every detail of the massacre.

  “What happened here?” Archer said in a voice drained of all emotion.

  I shook my head, unable to find the words. While we were battling Malcasta in the park, another enemy had struck.

  Man, I just couldn’t catch a break.

  Cautiously, I advanced deeper into the loft, gun up, eyes alert as I swept the area for survivors—or lingering bad guys.

  Judging by the bullet-riddled bodies littering the floor this enemy hadn’t used magic, fangs or teeth to take out Cabrera’s team. These were warrior-priests, trained by the Vatican to face the worst that Hell threw at them, but they weren’t invulnerable. Volleys of hot lead had cut a deadly swath through the loft. The walls pockmarked with bullet holes. Miraculously, my partner’s bank of computers remained intact, the screens flickering with incoming new reports—a touch of normalcy among the madness. I accidentally stepped in a pool of sticky blood, my shoes leaving scarlet footprints on the hardwood floor.

  “Do you see him?” Archer asked.

  Her shiny eyes reflected my worry for Skulick. The last few weeks had brought her much closer to my partner. It made sense that they’d get along. They both used to be cops and had experienced the horror of becoming vampires. I think that on some level, Skulick recognized himself in Archer. He had become as much of a mentor to her in the last few months as he had to me. He’d shown Archer how to take her guilt and anger and use it to her advantage by turning it into a finely honed weapon against the dark side.

  I scanned the loft again for any sign of Skulick or his wheelchair.

  “He’s gone,” I said heavily.

  “Who would do this?”

  “We have an enemy list a mile long.”

  That wasn’t the whole truth. I already had a pretty good idea who was behind this lethal attack. After all, these killings had been carried out by mortal hands using human weapons. That ruled out most of the usual threats. Among our human enemies, the Crimson Circle cult took up the top spot. Their most recent activity suggested they were gearing up for a rematch.

  A year earlier, Skulick and I had interrupted the doomsday cult’s apocalyptic ritual and saved the world. Sort of. Instead of punching a gateway between our reality and the dimension of darkness, thereby triggering Armageddon, the Crimson Circle merely breached the two worlds.

  This weakening of the barrier between the two planes accounted for the high number of supernatural attacks in the city. Paranormal mayhem went down all over the globe, but there was a reason we had nicknamed this place the Cursed City. The metropolis had become spook central, an easy target for the forces of darkness and a hotbed for occult activity.

  Somehow the super cult must’ve learned that the loft’s defenses were down, and they had seized upon the opportunity with lethal efficiency. What had they been after? Malcasta and her coven had shown no interest in the dangerous magical objects securely locked away in the steel-reinforced vault upstairs. But while the witch had only cared about completing her terrible spell, the Crimson Circle had shown a voracious appetite for occult relics. They ran a lucrative business where they auctioned off dangerous black magic items to well-heeled buyers, as I knew only too well. I had long wondered what the real point of these auctions might be. Was the cult starved for cash, or was it all part of a more ominous strategy? My gut leaned toward the second explanation.

  Under normal circumstances, Skulick and I would have immediately gone after the cult. Unfortunately, becoming possessed by a demon and turning into public enemy number one had thrown a monkey wrench into the well-oiled machine of our demon hunting operation. The rift in our partnership had allowed this problem to fester. And now the Crimson Circle had struck again.

  “Go upstairs and see if the vault is secure,” I said in a clipped voice. “I’ll keep looking for Skulick.” I tried to present a tough front, but my lips trembled. The cult hadn’t spared any of Cabrera’s men. From the looks of it, the seasoned exorcists hadn’t even been able to put up a fight. What chance did my comatose partner stand against such a bloodthirsty enemy?

  As Archer climbed the stairs, I turned my attention to the rooms located on the far side of the loft. Both of our bedrooms were behind closed doors. I weaved between downed men, each step requiring a mental push. Cyon had grown silent within me. The demon always seemed to make himself scarce whenever my emotions ran high. And right now, not knowing what had happened to the man who practically raised me, my dread was off the charts.

  Goddamn it, we had fought so hard to save him. This wasn’t fair.

  Life ain’t fair, I heard Skulick retort in my mind.

  He was full of little nuggets like that. It made him a royal pain in the ass at times. But Skulick cared about me. He cared about this city and the people who called it their home. Everything he said and did was to prepare me for the battles ahead. His words paled in comparison to the monstrous evils we fought on a daily basis.

  I hung back at the first door. Then, giving myself another internal push, I kicked it open. It banged against the wall, revealing a room drenched in deep shadows. I cautiously flicked on the light, gun ready to blast any enemy that might be waiting for me in the darkness.

  To my relief, Skulick’s bedroom turned out to be empty.

  I exhaled and shifted my attention to the other door. There was no reason for Skulick to be in my room. The man could be a hard-nosed drill sergeant who pushed me to my limits, both physically and emotionally, but he had always respected my privacy.

  I took another deep breath and barreled through the second door. As soon as light slashed my room, my heart sank. The back of a wheelchair loomed before me.

  Dread intensifying with each step, pistol ready, I edged into t
he shadow-soaked room and slowly circled the chair. My eyes widened, and my breath hitched as my gaze landed on the figure slumped in the wheelchair.

  It wasn’t Skulick.

  The man in the wheelchair had to be in his late twenties, head hunched forward, chest caked with red. He wore a dark hoodie and jeans, so that ruled out the possibility I was looking at another dead exorcist. If this guy was a member of the Crimson Circle, why had they abandoned him? Was it the punishment for getting himself shot during the assault?

  These thoughts were still tumbling through my mind when the man in the wheelchair stirred. I almost jumped back, caught off guard by the sudden movement. The man’s eyes flickered open and daggered into me. A malicious grin cracked the pale features, his gaze flashing with malevolence. Judging by the wounds on the cult member’s chest, he was clinging to life by a thin thread, but approaching death failed to extinguish the man’s fanaticism.

  As he gazed at me, I saw that one of his eyes was a fiery red. Like most elite members of the cult, he had tattooed the sclera of his right eye. Sick freak.

  In that moment, I understood why the cult had left him here for Cabrera or me to find. He was both messenger and message. A beat later, he confirmed as much.

  “We have your partner,” he said with a smug smile, blood seeping from between his teeth. It took all my self-control not to punch him in the face.

  His grin froze, and the light in his eyes went dim.

  No, I thought.

  I lurched toward the figure. My hand trembled as I tilted up his lifeless head.