Chicagoland by Gail Martin (important books to read TXT) 📕

couldn’t help him. He looked around a little after that and then left.”

Capone had been thinking of outsourcing his murders long before he trapped a vampire and enlisted help from a wendigo and werewolf to kill his rivals. He’d seen something in Holmes that he admired and went looking for a blueprint for dark magic and occult power. As for the interest in Holmes’s charisma, charm was the stock-in-trade of every con man, so I figured Capone wondered if there’d been spells involved to help Holmes work his will on his victims and those around him.

The idea of one madman seeking inspiration from the dark, twisted mind of another sent a chill down my spine.

“I think we should go,” Eddie said, almost stuttering with nervousness. “Before, you know, the cops notice or something.”

The basement had grown colder. I didn’t doubt the ghosts knew we were here, poking around in a room no sane people wanted to visit, the place where the last indignities had been done to the bodies of the victims. But I sensed something else as well, something evil that wasn’t a ghost—and probably had never been human.

“Hey, Mister? We need to go,” Eddie urged, his voice gone higher with fear. He was smart to be afraid because something very wicked was heading our direction.

“Go,” I said. “Get away. I need to deal with this.”

I expected to hear Eddie’s running footsteps and the slam of the door. Instead, I turned to see him standing with his shoulders back, head raised. “Not leaving you in here. I’ll stay.”

Even pale with fear, Eddie stood his ground, and I respected that. “Here,” I said, handing him an iron poker from next to the oven. “Anything comes at you, swing this.” Then I put down a circle of salt around where he stood, as he watched me, puzzled. “Don’t step outside the circle,” I told him. “You’re safe inside.”

Eddie gave a curt nod. “What about you?”

I felt the hum of Krukis’s magic and knew I was protected. “I’ll be okay. Someone needs to settle this.”

A wisp of dark smoke curled from the vent of the oven, though its fires had long gone cold. The column of smoke swayed, growing more substantial, taking on the rough shape of a man. Naked, hairless, with glowing red eyes and crimson lips framing sharp white teeth, the creature glared at me and smiled.

“Leave,” I ordered. I suspected from its appearance that it was an imp and not a full demon, but still very dangerous.

“And miss dinner?” it replied in a dry rasp. The creature rushed toward me in a blur of movement like a dark storm, enveloping me. I could feel it trying to force itself inside, hoping to possess me, perhaps sensing my strength and coveting that for its own use.

“Leave him alone!” Eddie stammered, mustering his rage despite his fear. He held up the poker like a baseball bat, ready to do battle. I wondered if he’d glimpsed this creature before.

With a hideous chuckle, the imp tried again, evading my blows with the iron knife I’d pulled from my belt, intent on forcing itself on me.

I could hold the imp off, thanks to Krukis’s magic, but I didn’t come prepared to exorcise a demon, and I feared I wouldn’t be able to protect Eddie. I shouted a banishment spell in my native Hungarian, knowing that the infernal spoke all languages. It pushed the creature back, but only for a moment.

Funny thing—you can’t be possessed by an imp if you’re already the champion of an ancient god.

And apparently, ancient gods don’t like to share.

Sparks flew and a flash of lightning—indoors—struck the roiling black cloud as a tendril of power also zapped Eddie like a live wire and sent him flying back against the wall. The entity shrieked loud enough to rattle glass and vanished.

Thank you, I silently told my patron. Then I ran to help Eddie, who had shaken off the power surge and climbed to his feet.

“What was that? And how did you make that happen?” he asked, wide-eyed.

“I’m afraid that’s a long story.”

“It’s gone,” he said in a wondering voice. I figured he meant the black smoke imp.

“I don’t think it’ll be back,” I told him. “And to help make sure, I’m going to break the sigils on the walls.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t mean that thing, although it’s good to have it gone too. I mean, in here.” He laid a hand over his chest. “I think there’s been a bit of that darkness in me since the first time I ever came to this house, and it wouldn’t let me go. But now…it’s gone. For the first time in all those years, I’m free.”

Eddie still had the gray-flecked stubble and unkempt hair, disheveled clothing, and worn boots as when I met him. He still smelled of alcohol and sweat. But his eyes now held a clarity they lacked before, and he stood straighter, his own man instead of an owned creature. If he’d had that imp’s influence riding him nearly all his life, no wonder he’d sought to drown it out however he could.

He refused to leave while I made a circuit of the room, watching me cut through the sigils and douse them with salted holy water from a flask in my pocket. If the store owner above us heard anything, he chose not to investigate. That made my job easier. If the store weren’t still occupied, I’d have had no hesitation about burning that cursed building to the ground.

“I’m never coming back here,” Eddie swore as we left the basement. I believed him. The thing that kept him tethered was gone, and I suspected that Krukis had destroyed the imp rather than merely sending it away. Even so, I meant to talk to Ness about sending a priest to do a thorough cleansing—along with Last Rites for the ghosts and an exorcism too. Now that the imp was gone, maybe the spirits were free to rest as