The Devil You Know-The Marshal of Magic book six in the urban fantasy series

The Marshal of Magic - The Devil You Know

"I need your help."

I tried not to jump and failed miserably. At least I didn't let out a squeal of terror. More like a little squeak. Loud enough to elicit a snort.

"Devil," I rolled my eyes.

"Demon," he corrected.

It's easy to carry on a conversation with a disembodied voice, but it can make one look crazy. I wasn't so worried about the crazy part. Long winded education and philosophical discussions with a ghost made many people stare and then look away.

This time, even Elvis stared at me like I was taking a swim in the deep end of the insanity pool.

Guess he couldn't hear the voice.

"Tomato, potato," I waved a hand back and forth in the air.

"From your perspective," the lecture started.

I headed it off at the pass.

"I'm mortal, my time is limited, yada, yada, yada. What do you want?"

"Are you okay?"

Beth, my friendly neighborhood bartender reached out and took my half empty bottle of craft beer off the top of the bar and watched me with worry in her eyes.

"Just thinking out loud," I told her.

It wasn’t' the first time I'd been caught talking to the air around me, but the look on her face said this time it was different.

I think it was the look on mine.

This particular devil was a minion of Hell, and even his voice carried the stench of sulfur and brimstone. I guess my nose was reacting to it, and my frown and squinted up eyes made me look particularly nasty.

All a reaction, of course.

"Do I need to cut you off?" she asked, tilting the bottle back and forth.

"You can speak to me with your mind, mortal," the devil advised.

I waved my hands like a baby reaching for a rattler.

"I'll keep it down," I winked.

She thought about it for a moment, then set the bottle back on the bartop with a clink and shook her head.

I'd been coming here for years, so Beth was used to the shenanigans, but that didn't mean I wanted to piss her off. She was the keeper of nectar, and I was a fan of craft brew, but if I started to impact business, she would kick me out faster than a nun blessing a sneeze.

"Good one," the devil whispered.

"What do you want?" I thought.

"Who are you talking to?" Elvis said from my shoulder.

I half turned my eyes to the empty barstool beside me. That half of the bar was barren, the patrons choosing to congregate away from the spiritually colder air that accompanied my ghost companion.

I could see him stare at the bottle of craft with longing. Back when he had been a person, my watcher for the city of Memphis, we shared a couple hundred bottles together. And he missed it.

"Hail," I muttered from the corner of my mouth, hiding my lips behind the bottle as I raised it for a sip.

"Damn," said Elvis.

"Damned," Hail answered the ghost.

The sip slid down my throat.

"What do you want," I thought repeated.

"I said, I need your help."

"With what?"

"To find someone."

"I don't do missing persons," I rolled my eyes. "Not my jurisdiction."

"It's my daughter, Marshal. Someone has kidnapped her."

Hell.

Someone kidnapped the devil's daughter.

CHAPTER TWO

I dropped two twenty dollar bills on the bar and set the bottle on top so they wouldn't blow away and then left without a word.

Outside, the temperature was a balmy one hundred degrees with humidity so thick it was like walking through cotton candy. August in Memphis could be miserable.

The air was thick with the dead fish and mud smell of the Mississippi River clinging like a physical presence in the corridors between the buildings downtown.

The bar was a couple of streets over from the stadium, and I could hear the crowd cheer as one team or the other did something to earn it.

I pointed my boots toward the river and headed for Riverfront Park.

The devil had a daughter. This was the devil with a small d, not the big D. His name was Hail and he was one of those immortal, all powerful beings that turned into a legend and myth at some point in history.

Or before recorded history.

Humans had been roaming around and upright for a couple hundred thousand years, telling stories about things that go bump in the dark, and Hail was one of them. Those tales and stories twisted and changed throughout the years, passed from campfire to campfire and culture to culture. He was Hades in ancient Greece, Nergal in Sumaria way before that, and a dozen other names.

He hated Nergal.

Or he hated that I knew about it.

Nergal sounds a lot like nerd girl, and who am I to pass up a good nickname like that.

"Nerd girl has a daughter," I told Elvis.

"Not according to history," he answered from over my shoulder.

I didn't bother to glance back, but I knew his tether kept him within six feet of me. The tether was what anchored disembodied spirits to this world.

Usually it's a place.

Sometimes it's a thing.

But in one instance, one unique time and place, it was a person.

That person was the Marshal of Magic.

Lucky me.

Before you break out the champagne and poppers, think about what it would be like to have a constant companion running color commentary on every aspect of your life.

Even those private moments.

Ever beg a ghost to stay outside of the bathroom door? Modesty must have followed his mortal coil.

"Then how do we know it's really his kid?" I mused. "He's not above lying."

"Or below it either," Elvis answered.

I made it to the Riverfront under the intense August sun. Memphis had a great idea a few years ago. Turn the land next to the mighty Mississippi River as it runs through downtown into a fitness park.

There was a jogging path that stretched for two miles next to the water, fitness stations and enough open fields that enterprising personal trainers hosted fat blaster workouts right next to the sunset yoga crowd getting their inner peace on.

There was a dog park, and a boat launch and a statue memorializing a black man who saved dozens of lives in a steamboat crash one hundred years ago.

A great idea for higher and better use of space in spring, winter and fall.

But summer had other ideas.

It was too hot for almost anything from June through August, when the humidity hovered close to one hundred percent and the temperatures climbed to match it. Movement of any sort was difficult, especially during the time of day when the sun was highest in the sky.

All smart people moved for cover, or hid in air conditioned wonder.

"Damn," I muttered and wished I had worn shorts.

The denim jeans on my legs were wet with sweat.

But you can't summon a demon in shorts.

Why a demon would wear shorts I don't know.

Normally the demon is sans all forms of clothing, since that is a uniquely human concept. I wore jeans because I didn't want Hail to feel disrespected or start in on puny mortal legs.

He might not care, but if he did, it would make the summon harder.

Stupid demon feelings and their effect on magic.

I paced out a circle, scraping it into the sand volleyball court with the heel of my boot. I bent down and touched it with my finger to shoot a spark of will into the line, cutting it off from the rest of the world and creating a conduit to wherever Hail might be.

Then, I concentrated a force of will and uttered the magical incantation.

"What the Hail?"

A puff of sulphurous flame flashed in the circle brighter than a will o' the wisp and floated up in a perfect column to paint the clear blue sky with a contained gray haze.

Hail stood in the middle of the summoning and offered a slow clap.

"Asshole," I muttered and smudged the circle with the tip of my boot.

"No, really," said Hail. "That was impressive."

"Nobody does a slow clap when they're impressed," I told him.

"Really?" he raised one eyebrow in a delicate arch. "I saw it in a movie and everyone joined the fellow who started it."

He glanced around at the empty park.

"I suppose there is no audience here to appreciate your work."

He was kidding of course.

He was just damn good at it.

"I could have brought you in by the ballfield. Lots of people would have seen you there."

He glanced toward downtown.

"By the Church?"

There were almost two dozen churches in three square miles of downtown, but I knew which one he was referring to.

St. Peter's.

The Catholic Church was one of the oldest in the city, and also happened to be built on sacred Native American ground. Back when it was built, no one doing the construction cared about a bunch of Indians, or what they considered holy when they laid the foundation and cornerstone.

Idiots accidentally tapped a ley line and built a nexus.

Which turned St. Peter's into something special. A hotline for supernatural activity in the area.

I get my intelligence from the Judge.

They get theirs from someone higher.

But all the same, they were locked in on what happened around Memphis. And liked to fight it.

People thought the Illuminati of fiction were bad ass holy fighters. The warrior priests of St. Peters made them look like Boy Scouts.

"They'll be here," Hail said, nervous eyes flicking around as he searched.

"Relax," I told him. "I timed it."

The eyebrow went up again. Seriously, this guy could give lessons to Spock.

"Is that why I waited so long."

"Marshal?" Elvis sighed next to my ear and made me flinch.

"Don't do that," I snapped.

"Duck."

I could have looked around for a flock. Memphis is famous for the Peabody Ducks and the river front park has quite a collection of feathered friends who stick close to the residents for the free food.

But I didn't think the ghost meant fowl.

I dropped to the ground and listened to a lazy bee zip past my ear.

It was followed by two more, that impacted the ground where I landed and rolled away.

I popped a shield between us and the wall of cliff's holding downtown so I could buy time to assess.

Bullets pinged off the shield and plowed into the field.

"Your timing, as always, is impeccable," said Hail.

I stood up off the ground and didn't bother dusting off the fine layer of grit and grass that covered my jeans. The extra sweat was making it stick like a ghillie suit.

A second round of bullets impacted against the invisible wall of magic willpower, this time from two directions.

I could see two figures on the cliffs, on either side of an abandoned building that once housed a riverfront restaurant. The dilapidated remains of a wooden deck still clung to the exterior, the faded paint of an advertisement on the brick wall edging toward becoming a local landmark.

"There and there," I pointed them out to Hail.

"And there," he pointed back. "And there."

Know it all.

There were two more shooters coming in from opposite directions, angling to set up a crossfire behind the shield.

I backed up, and Hail followed, moving in close as we edged closer to the river.

"Those aren't priests," he pointed out.

"Anyone else expecting you?" I kept the shield steady, but couldn't expand it to cover three sides.

Whoever they were, the ammo had armor piercing tips, which meant I needed to concentrate on the shield so they wouldn't go through.

They were prepared for a magic man.

And they knew the devil was coming.

"I don't have to ask permission to travel," he quipped.

I thought it was good he could quip. Especially since we were about to die.

"They're herding us into the water," I told him.

"These are expensive shoes."

"The water is going to negate my magic."

There are a few rules when it comes to magic and water is one of them. Running water negates the effect of magic. It can't cancel it out, since water doesn't impact will power. But it can dampen it, disperse it.

Both Elvis and the Judge tried to explain it to me on a molecular level, using four dollar words to describe how the shape of an air molecule and a water molecule differ, which has an effect on all magic.

My snoring told them the lesson was well taken.

Hail glanced at the water and sniffed in the most disdainful way possible.

"I really don't want to get wet."

The attackers switched from single shot to three round bursts and continued to pour it into the shield. Sweat drizzled off my brow, and not just from the heat. My arm was starting to shake from the effort.

I've got a lot of willpower and a lot of experience as a Battle Mage. They don't pick Marshal's from just any geek off the street.

But even I have limits, and even though I was sure the shield wouldn't slip, one stutter or shake could alter the trajectory of a bullet and ricochet it toward us.

"Drop the shield when I say three," Hail told me.

He lifted his arm and shook loose the cuff of his pinpoint cotton shirt.

"One," he said.

One of the shooters made the angle of the shield and rounded the edge. He popped three rounds in the ground in front of me, recentered his aim and grinned.

The shield shifted on reflex, and bullets from the other shooters chewed toward us.

"Three!" I screamed and unleashed a force wave of will toward the guy aiming at me.
He dropped to the ground before it reached him. The other fell like a puppet with its strings cut and the two shadowy figures from either side of the building disappeared too.

My force wave lifted up a miniature tsunami of wind and carried the dust and grass cuttings all the way to the cliff.

"I said when I say three," Hail adjusted his cuffs.

I turned and glared.

"Are they dead?"

"I stopped their hearts."

"Damn it," I muttered.

"Five dead bodies are going to be hard to explain," Elvis said.

"You want to tell me what the hell is going on?" I snapped.

"It's like I told you," he started to say.

"Five?!" I turned to Elvis.

The fifth shooter sent a bullet through Hail's heart and he plopped over backwards into the river.

Can't wait for book 6? Get started on the series with GUNS AND MAGIC on Amazon today and keep reading through 2, 3, 4 & 5.