Ill Met by Moonlight
I went into business for myself six years after beginning my apprenticeship. I had set up everything correctly, consulting with the best hit men, assassins and murderers in hell. One of them even once operated a business similar to mine, in Positano. What he lacked in style he more than made up for with knowledge and experience. Only a little prompting opened their mouths and soon they offered me several millennia worth of advice on death and destruction. My messaging service, a spirit of Mercury and a lesser demon on loan from its master, made all the arrangements exactly as I specified.
And then the first call came. The first contract. Whatever. I almost didn’t believe the messenger spirit when it told me the potential client’s name. I almost turned down the work. It had never been about the money. Curiosity, or maybe bemusement, got the better of me. More importantly, business is business. I didn’t need to like the client to kill their target and take their money.
“Have him meet me at Dionysius at seven,” I told the scheduling demon. Dionysius was the most exclusive restaurant in Milwaukee, and I liked to impress. I chose a new suit, black on black and all silk, for the occasion. I’d been experimenting with placing spellsigns, the living language of sorcery, into fabric. Different signs were stitched in strategic locations on the suit coat. I had no idea if they’d actually work. Time for a field test. I was kind of stupid in those days.
I arrived at Dionysius before the client. My Master, possibly the most powerful sorcerer alive, taught me the importance of punctuality. He only needed to set me on fire once. The comfortable chair beneath my ass allowed me to recline at my private table. I fit in perfectly with the restaurant’s clientele. Just another rich bastard at dinner.
Time ticked by while I waited for the client. A crescent moon hung in the window above Lake Michigan. At least I had something to look at. Still, the question remained: why would this man turn to me for anything? Even just to have someone killed. Sure, I saved his life once, but only by accident. Back in the day I’d have happily seen him die. Alas, the opportunity never arose. After a ten minute wait a man about my age with blonde hair and a slight limp arrived at the table, escorted by the maître d’. The blonde’s suit screamed of wealth.
“Ilario,” I said with a nod. I didn’t stand to greet him.
“Marco,” he began, the sound of Tuscany accented the word. Ilario stopped at my look and corrected himself. I hated that old nickname. “Marcus, that is. I see you’re still living large on your Father’s money.” With an effort he dropped himself onto the single chair across the table.
“I see you’re still limping,” I returned. A smirk marked his reply.
The last time I saw Ilario he stood as still as a statue, blood dripping from his left foot. That was also six years ago. Responsibility for both the blood and the lack of bodily motion rested on me. That earned him the boot by the wannabe sorcerers we were both learning from at the time. With only two exceptions, him and me, every other member of Society of the Black Cube had been wiped out. I called the man responsible for that Master now.
“I still haven’t decided if I hate you for that or love you,” he said. “Maybe I should split the difference and hold you in fond contempt?”
“I’d prefer you didn’t hold me at all. I’ve never been attracted to failure. But we’re not here to talk about old times, Ilario. What do you want?”
He grunted in Italian, something more than irritation on his face. I waited for it to pass. I began drumming my fingers on the table and stopped; some habits are hard to kill. That one irritated the Master. Not a good thing.
“Fine. Look, I want someone –”
“Yes,” I cut him off, “I know that. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you wanted a love spell. Specifics, please.”
This could be a problem. I needed to do some research before seeing a client next time. The illusion of omniscience might smooth out some of these rough patches. Ilario retrieved a black and white photograph from an inside coat pocket and slid across the table. I picked it up, looked at the image and put it back down.
“You’re joking.”
“I lost my sense of humor when I gained the limp,” he said. He moved his left leg from beneath the table and knocked on it. Flesh didn’t sound like that. He hiked up the pant leg enough to reveal an expensive-looking prosthetic leg. Was I supposed to feel bad? He would have killed me back then, if he could have gotten away with it. I don’t do guilt.
I allowed my eyes to flick from the leg and back to him. Only a little boredom showed on my face.
“Carlina’s dead,” I said. “I saw it.” A twitch of my fingers sent the picture back across the table. Our mutual mistress had died with the rest of that idiot cult.
“That’s not Carlina. It’s Bernadetta, her daughter.” The likeness to her mother was remarkable, the poor woman. “She’s trying to revive the Black Cube. I don’t want that. You shouldn’t, either. You don’t think all of their records were destroyed, do you? She’ll kill us both, Marcus.”
“Of course she will. Any new Prince should do exactly that. This is my concerned look,” I said, face blank.
“Fine, you be brave. I want her . . . ,” he looked around and lowered his voice, “removed.”
“Have someone put a bullet in her,” I said. I didn’t bother lowering my voice. The spellsign on the bottom of the table ensured our privacy. The Master taught me more than the Black Cube had ever been capable. That knowledge enabled me to go into business for myself. I figured the more I worked the more I’d learn. For a sorcerer, a real sorcerer, knowledge is power. What the Black Cube hadn’t known killed them.
“I tried that already,” Ilario said. “It didn’t take. I don’t know how, but she knows things the Black Cube didn’t. She has real power. Word is you’re some big shot sorcerer now, a power unto yourself. I figured you could do what a bullet couldn’t.”
Ilario’s left hand fluttered in a familiar gesture, his lips moving in a hasty chant. A spellsign on my left suit cuff brightened to a dull but not quite purplish red. I raised an eyebrow at the would-be magician. His magic was pathetic.
”Had to try,” he said. “I needed to see if the rumors were true. That you were more powerful than anything we’d learned from the Society. More powerful than her.”
“And?”
“You’ll do.”
“Alright. But you need to understand something, Ilario. I’m not going to show up on her door step and set her on fire. I enjoy living too much to put myself in that sort of danger. I don’t do the wet work myself.”
“You’re a contractor? You’re useless if you just hire some half-troll thug do the work for you.”
“As usual, you underestimate me. Try to remember what happened the last time you did that.” I stretched out and tapped his prosthetic with a patent leather wingtip. “Tell me how you want her killed, Ilario. That’s all I need to know. Tell me that and I’ll find the right demon to do it.”
“A demon?” The look on his face was priceless. I should have brought a camera. “There’s no way you control a demon.”
“Not a demon,” I agreed. “Demons. Seventeen greater demons to be precise. Several dozen lesser ones and a handful of familiars, too. The Black Cube were a bunch of amateurs. Lesser practitioners to the last. Well, almost the last.” I leaned forward to put my elbows on the table, steepling my fingers. “So, tell me Ilario, how do you want her to die?”
