Spell Caster: City of Crows, #6

By Clara Coulson

Cal Kinsey's back on the beat, but nothing is the same.

After discovering a startling secret about his own history, Cal's been forced to split his time between honing new skills and healing old wounds. So when what appears to be a routine supernatural murder drags him out of the DSI office and onto the streets once again, Cal is initially overjoyed at the prospect of returning to some sense of "normal."

His hopes are dashed, however, when the seemingly simple crime suddenly morphs into a violent murder spree that leaves bloody bodies scattered across Aurora. With scant clues to the perpetrator's motives and identity, Cal and his teammates find themselves in a race against time to stop a magic practitioner hellbent on killing anyone related to a man that everyone at DSI was hoping they'd be allowed to forget.

But in the supernatural community, old wounds always reopen and old enemies always rear their heads again in the ugliest of ways. And while Cal now has more power at his disposal than ever before, the adversary pitted against him this time around may just be unstoppable. 

Spell Caster is the sixth book in the action-packed City of Crows urban fantasy series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Knite and Day Publishing
• Release date: Nov 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781540185730

Clara Coulson

Clara Coulson was born and raised in backwoods Virginia, USA. She holds a degree in English and Finance from the College of William & Mary and recently retired from the hustle and bustle of Washington, DC to return to the homeland and pick up the quiet writing life. Clara spends most of her time (when she's not writing) dreaming up new story ideas, studying Japanese, and slowly reading through the several-hundred-book backlog on her budding home library. If she's not occupied with any of those things, then you can probably find her playing with her two cats or lurking in the shadows of various social media websites. To stay up to date with Clara's books, please subscribe to the Firebolt Books newsletter: https://www.firebolt-books.com/newsletter

Book preview

Chapter One

The magic circle ignites with a violet flare that casts a harsh glow across the bare concrete walls. The intricate webbing of symbols around the circle’s perimeter begins to pulsate, bright to dim, dim to bright, as the activation words flow off my tongue, pinging each of the symbols one at a time as if I’m striking keys on a piano in a quick, precise cadence. Halfway through this process, known as sigil winding, the object in the middle of the circle is enveloped by a violet haze. As I’m closing in on the last few strings of tongue-twisting words, the object begins to noticeably change form, growing denser, juicier, more delicious looking.

Finally, I reach the last sentence, a long, complex closing sequence that bridges the gap between the starting and ending symbols. I raise the pitch of my voice to finish on a high note, urge the energy arcing from my outstretched hands to the grounding points of the circle to close the circuit of the spell. I speed through the last few syllables, mood lightening as I see victory on the horizon, and just as the final gasp of completion rolls off my tongue…

The hamburger catches fire and burns to a crisp.

Then the sprinkler in the ceiling comes on and drenches the room. Again.

Goddammit!

I stomp over to the pipe bolted to the wall and turn the lever that shuts off the sprinkler. Wiping water from my face and ignoring my heavy, damp clothes, I slink to the circle drawn on the floor in rapidly disintegrating chalk lines, searching for the place where I messed up. Because it wasn’t the words this time. After sixty-five repetitions of this spell over the last four days, even I can’t get the words wrong. No, I must’ve written one of the symbols incorrectly, or smudged something as I was drawing and damaged a vital piece of the temperature regulation element.

The symbols unfortunately fade to white smears before I can find the problem though, so I’m left scowling and crossing my arms, like indignation will make anything better. Until I run out of steam and just stand there, gazing sadly at my poor burned burger, now a soggy, charred disk that can’t even be called meat.

Oh man. I was planning to eat that for lunch.

Sighing, I backtrack toward the front of the room, where the single sprinkler doesn’t quite reach, and retrieve the towel I keep on hand from my duffle bag. This is the eighteenth time in the last three weeks, since I started practicing magic, that I’ve set the sprinkler off. When Riker had the thing installed, I’d laughed at him and told him I wasn’t going to burn the building down, that an extinguisher would do instead. He’d slapped me with his trademark death glare and told me he wanted to make extra sure I couldn’t possibly in a thousand years burn up his shiny new DSI fortress. And I was going to accept the sprinkler like a good little minion.

I’d accepted it with a pout.

And now Riker is laughing at me from his fancy commissioner office.

Because clearly, I am a walking fire hazard, and—

The door to the storage room swings open, letting bright hallway light into the dimmer space. Desmond and Amy are in the hall, and they both grin when they see me scrubbing my wet hair with the towel. Amy steps into the room and gets a load of the puddle on the floor, along with the black hunk of cow meat that I really wanted to slather in hot cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and ketchup. At the horrid smell of smoke mixed with dank water, she scrunches her nose and says, What the hell were you trying to do? Make a stink bomb?

I was trying to cook a hamburger. Medium, I admit.

Amy stares at the remains of the burger for a few seconds. I think you missed medium by about three thousand degrees.

I noticed.

What happened this time, Calvin? Desmond asks. Another construction error?

I retrieve the spell book from my bag and open it to the bookmarked page to review the circle design. Must’ve been. But I don’t exactly know what yet. I guess I’ll reset and try again.

I don’t get it. Amy rubs her boot across a lingering chalk line, wiping it out of existence. You shot a lightning bolt at that vampire bitch and made it look easy. Why is this so much harder?

Because indirect magic is a precise art. I raise my right hand and flex the muscles a couple times—the scars have been gradually healing over the past few weeks, but there’s still a ways to go before the internal damage is well and truly fixed—and then snap my fingers. A small violet spark leaps from my fingertips, and a bright yellow flame grows from it like a flower from a bud. The flame is about the size of a baseball, rippling with the currents of air blowing from the vent in the ceiling. This here is direct magic. Comes right from the source. Immediately makes things happen. But it’s pretty imprecise, and extremely limited in some ways. Indirect magic is where the real ‘science of magic’ comes into play.

That means using circles and mediums, I suppose? Desmond says.

Right. You use magic circles and physical objects to focus energy in more nuanced ways so you can perform complicated, multistep processes. Like cooking food to exact temperatures in a matter of seconds. I let the flame dissipate by cutting off the flow of magic exiting through my fingers, and the hum of power that always wells up under my skin when I draw my energy from within my soul fades to a faint tingle. "As you have no doubt learned from my numerous failed experiments these past few weeks, indirect magic is, in fact, as complicated as rocket science."

Not an excuse. Amy returns to the door. You got good grades in school. You even graduated from high school early. If you can get into Stanford, you can cook a damn hamburger using your magic juice.

I mean, I agree with you. I stuff the book back into the duffle bag and sling the wet towel over my shoulder. But it’s going to take a lot more trial and error before I start getting most of this stuff right. It’s like learning how to draw realism and do theoretical calculus at the same time.

I guess we now know why regular practitioners spend so many years in their apprenticeships. Desmond steps away from the door, farther into the hall. I wish we could get a teacher for you.

You and me both. I zip the duffle bag closed and pick it up by the strap. So, I’m guessing you guys didn’t show up for a social visit, since it’s still technically my ‘desk hours.’ What is it, eleven thirty?

There about. Desmond gestures for me to follow him. And yes, we have a case. Ella would like you on it, since you’ve mostly been doing auxiliary-level work for the past few weeks. When you aren’t down here, learning magic in a closet.

Ha! Amy saunters out of the room. Ella just wants you to move up from training wheels to a kiddie bike with one speed. Nothing major. We caught a pretty standard-looking murder. One body. Various gruesome injuries. No obvious signs of a break-in. First team on the scene says it looks like a practitioner’s work, maybe a nasty curse cast from a distance. Victim’s a total normie. No obvious connections to the supernatural.

So maybe a personal dispute? I step out into the hall and follow the duo to the elevator. An actual crime that isn’t entwined in a world-shaking conspiracy?

Looks like. Desmond taps the up button on the elevator pad, then cocks an eyebrow at me. You should perhaps not look so cheery about the situation when we interview the family, Calvin.

Oh, sorry. My shoulders shake as I try to hold in a laugh. Am I smiling?

Yeah, Amy says as the elevator doors roll open, about a murder. Like a weirdo.

Sue me. I shoulder past her to enter the elevator first and proceed to stand directly in the center so Amy and Desmond have to squeeze in around me. It’s better than psycho vampires.

True. Desmond presses the button for the third floor, and I catch him suppressing a grimace. Likely a result of his resurfacing memory of the DSI versus vampire showdown at the museum last month. He nearly got his head bashed in during that fight, and only made it through without brain damage because Lucian was nice enough to share his blood. Very, very true.

The elevator whisks us up to the top level of the building and spits us out right in front of Riker’s office. We make a hard left and head to Ella’s office instead, which still feels odd to me. All of us slip up and call Riker Captain from time to time, but since he’s the only captain I had before he was promoted to commissioner against his will, the shakeup to the team roster has left me a bit more out of step than anyone else. Which is only exasperated by the fact I was on leave for three months, incidentally gained access to a vast well of magic energy mere weeks before I was supposed to return to work, and am now required, by Riker’s orders, to spend half my time at the office learning magic so I don’t accidentally blow everyone up in the middle of a fight.

Ella’s office door is open, so we all slink in to find our dear captain finishing up with a phone call to the team currently securing our scene. Yes, they just walked in, she says. We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Hold down the fort until then.

She ends the call and clips her smartphone back onto her belt, then quickly logs out of her computer and snatches her coat from the back of her expensive leather chair. Hey, guys. Sorry, I should’ve called down and told you to go directly to the garage. I got caught in a rather repetitive conversation with a nervous new team captain. But we don’t have any time to waste. The press are already dogging the guys at the crime scene perimeter. Woman who died was a kindergarten teacher. She’s a ‘sympathy story’ subject, so they’re being really aggressive.

She hurries out of the room, and us three lackeys spin around and retreat the way we came. As we crowd into the elevator behind Ella, she picks up with, So, Cal, did you have a shower, or did you set off the sprinkler again?

I run a hand through my damp hair. The latter, unfortunately.

I’m sure you’ll get it soon enough. Just don’t use whatever spell went wrong in the field, okay?

Ella, that spell takes fifteen minutes to set up. I don’t think a werewolf or vampire or angry creature from the Eververse is going to wait that long before it tries to kill me. I’ll stick with the lightning and the fire and the other things I can conjure up fast enough to actually stop my head from getting lobbed off.

Fair enough. She glances at my hands. Don’t forget to put your rings on.

Ah, my fake beggar rings. Since I can’t openly use magic without exposing myself to the ICM—who will pitch a fit that a major practitioner is working for DSI, something they explicitly disallow as part of their running agreements with us—I have to wear a set of rings cooked up by R&D that look like beggar rings but are actually magic suppressors. They hide my aura and restrict my power expenditure so I don’t expel waste energy and leave a residual trail. I can still perform direct spells while wearing them, but only of substantially limited strength. Nothing even close to the equivalent of the lightning blast I used to roast Lizzie Banks.

I’m also explicitly disallowed from performing any spell in the field that doesn’t resemble something you can do with beggar rings. Which sucks. Big time. Sure, I’m pretty good at element-type spells, but I’d still love to use other categories of direct magic. There’s a whole wealth of spells out there I’ve barely begun to experiment with, and some of them I’m not half bad at. I actually picked something up with a telekinesis spell the other day and didn’t crush it to a pulp like I did the first forty-seven times. I’m learning!

But additional practice will have to wait until I’m back in the privacy of my closet.

The elevator lets us out on the basement level, and we march right past my designated study room again on our way to the underground hall that leads to the detached garage. Two guards at the checkpoint post wave at us as we badge through the turnstiles on our way to the exit doors, but the guy on the right gives me the stink eye. He’s one of the guys I beat up when I escaped from the DSI infirmary so I could save Foley Banks from being murdered. He’s also one of the two guys Erica spelled to sleep that time I broke in to stop Delos’ curse plague.

Damn. I should apologize to that guy sometime.

In the garage, we all pile into our assigned SUV, and I stick my duffle bag in the empty seat between Desmond and me. It still seems odd to have an empty seat, but Ella hasn’t finished reviewing the candidates for our new fifth, in part because she was assigned to lead the DSI leg of the museum cleanup, and in part (I believe) because she hasn’t completely accepted the fact that Riker is forever stuck in the big chair upstairs. I don’t blame her. He might be a gruff asshole sometimes, but Riker is the captain. It feels wrong without him here.

Ella pulls the SUV out of the garage, past the heavily warded perimeter fence, and out onto the busy street. The lunch-rush traffic slows our pace considerably, so I take the opportunity to change out of my wet clothes and into the dry winter uniform in my bag. This requires me to become a contortionist for several minutes, during which Desmond eyes me with mild concern and Amy stares at me with an eyebrow arched, like she thinks I’m a moron.

I do manage to get dressed without dislocating any joints though, so at least I don’t make a total fool of myself.

Ella glances at me through the rearview mirror. Sorry I didn’t give you time to change, Cal.

No problem. I leave my damp clothes folded on the floor and go to zip up my duffle bag, only to spy my tablet lying underneath my spell book. I nibble on my lip for a minute, not wanting to sound like a nag, but eventually relent and say, Hey, Ella, any news on that whole fried server situation in Omsk?

Cooper was only supposed to be out of contact for a week or so after the Omsk facility where he’s on a temp assignment suffered a network meltdown. But somehow, one week has turned into three, and I haven’t heard a peep from him via any alternate forms of communication. All the info on the issue has been flowing through Ella’s project contact, who works in Moscow. I’m getting antsy, because I still haven’t had the chance to tell Cooper about the whole Lizzie Banks fiasco—that and I really miss him.

Long-distance relationships suck ass.

Sorry, Ella replies. Latest update says they’re looking to restore the system by Saturday evening, but they had to replace more equipment than they originally thought, so it might take until Monday.

I beat my head lightly against the window. Of all the things to rip Cooper away from me, it just had to be something stupidly mundane like server problems, didn’t it?

Desmond rests a hand on my shoulder. Don’t look so glum. Even in the worst-case scenario, you can have a sweet, loving reunion with him at the airport when he comes home.

Thanks for the reassurance, but he comes home in nine weeks. I zip the duffle bag with more aggression than necessary to hide the tablet from my sight, then start strapping on my assortment of weapons. I would prefer not to wait that long to hear from him again. I’m worried about him. He’s only got ‘colleagues’ over there, no real friends.

He’s hardier than he looks, Ella says. You know that.

Yes, I do know, but I’m his boyfriend. I pour the suppression rings out of their small felt bag and slip them onto my fingers. It’s my job to worry when he drops off the face of the earth.

Amy makes a gagging noise. Cut the sappy crap, Kinsey. We’ve got a murder to worry about today.

Your emotional support is appreciated.

He’s right, Major. Desmond reaches around the front passenger seat and pokes the side of her head. You should show more empathy toward a teammate’s plight.

I’ll put you through some plight if you jab your finger into my—

Children! Ella turns the wheel sharply, throwing us all to the right, and takes us into a narrow back parking lot for a line of townhouses. We’re here. So if you can put away the finger paint and crayons now, I’d appreciate it.

Yes, Mother, Amy grumbles.

The last townhouse on the row is the center of attention. Cop cars with flashing lights have formed a half-circle around the narrow deck that borders the back doors, and yellow police tape has cordoned off the short set of steps leading up to the deck. Six uniformed cops stand sentry before the deck, warding off a number of reporters and cameramen trying to accost everyone who enters or exits the townhouse. I recognize one of the reporters as a woman I rudely rebuffed last year when I first stumbled into the Etruscan case. She’s at the front of the pack, continually shoving her mic in people’s faces. Hasn’t learned her lesson at all.

Ella parks the SUV and orders us out. As we march down the sidewalk, our black coats billow outward on the currents of a brisk wind cutting across Aurora, and the dramatic image catches the attention of the media hawks. Several of them, including the woman, break away from the police perimeter and bum-rush us, but an authoritative frown from Ella makes them stop short. It’s a pretty good impression of Riker’s frown, I must say. Maybe she’s been practicing in the mirror.

Passing the flock of wary reporters, we flash our DSI badges to the cops in front of the deck. The uniforms let us pass with only mild irritation. While the supernatural remains under wraps in the public eye, the Aurora PD as a whole has witnessed DSI getting involved in, and helping to mitigate, a number of large-scale issues over the past year and change. I doubt most of them have guessed that all the supernatural stuff is real, but between us working ground zero after the Wellington Center collapse and helping the National Guard quarantine the city during the curse outbreak, many cops have either gained a newfound respect, or fear, or both, of DSI.

Consequently, we waste a lot less time butting heads these days. I just wish the improvement had occurred under better circumstances.

Keep on wishing, Kinsey, I tell myself as I thud across the well-worn deck.

The sliding-glass door that lets out onto the deck has been left open, so the team files into the living room of the townhouse. The ground floor has an open layout; you can see the kitchen, dining area, foyer, and staircase leading to the second level from practically any position. We all take a moment to analyze the scene before us.

Magic sense flipped on, I pan from right to left, cataloguing everything of value: Pots and pans scattered on the kitchen floor, a few tiles scuffed or cracked. A couple shattered plates and glasses on the countertop, shards glittering underneath bright recessed lighting. Bloody streaks on the hardwood floor leading to the foyer, and more on the banister of the stairs.

Conclusion: the woman was attacked in her kitchen and ran upstairs in a panic.

Ella glances at the sliding-glass door behind us, and then at the front door across from us. No signs of forced entry.

I scan the doors and windows, hunting for wisps of residual magic. There are none. No wards, and the locks on the doors are standard fare. The perp could’ve jimmied them open with a basic lock pick kit.

So the victim was ill prepared to defend her home against committed intruders. Desmond rubs his chin. I think we’re in for a gruesome scene upstairs.

Amy shrugs. Can’t be any worse than the other shit we’ve seen lately.

There’s a moment of silence, and then we all murmur in agreement.

A novice auxiliary agent meets us at the bottom of the stairs. He’s green around the mouth, and his hands are shaking badly, but he doesn’t hesitate to lead us up to the second-floor bedroom where the victim’s body was found. He does stop short of the open doorway, however, so he doesn’t have to witness the gore again. I feel for the guy. My first few run-ins with battered bodies didn’t go over so well with my stomach either. I give him an encouraging smile as I pass by, following my teammates into the room.

The scene’s not as bad as I expected, but it’s still not pretty. The four other DSI agents from the auxiliary team that responded to the initial callout are huddled against one wall. The captain repeatedly rubs his neck, a nervous tic, as he stares at the body lying in the opposite corner.

That body belongs to a woman in her late twenties, with short, reddish-brown hair and what were vibrant hazel eyes. The hair is spattered with blood now, and the eyes are vacant and glazed. Whatever fear she felt as she fled up the stairs was drained from her as her killer stabbed her three times—once in the abdomen, once in the chest, and once in the neck—causing catastrophic blood loss. She would’ve fell unconscious quickly, judging by the size of the red puddle soaked into the carpet. No extended suffering. A small mercy.

Have you finished the basic victim profile? Ella asks the auxiliary captain.

The man jumps at being addressed, and quickly tugs his phone off his belt clip. He pulls up a list of notes he typed up and reads off the key details. Sarah-Jane Coble. Twenty-nine. Employed as a kindergarten teacher at Gardner Elementary on Twenty-Seventh Street. Was enrolled in a part-time PhD program for English Literature at Waverly College. Parents deceased. No siblings. No known significant other. No known problems with exes. No known enemies of any kind, in her private or professional lives, according to the neighbors we interviewed during the initial canvass, with whom she was very friendly.

She got any actual friends? Amy says. Maybe they know something her neighbors don’t.

We’re running them down now, he replies. From her phone contacts. Would you like us to begin interviewing them once we get address confirmations?

Ella nods. That’ll be your assignment until further notice. I want to know all the little details about this woman’s life. She gestures to the door. You can take a break now and pick up with work once those addresses come in.

Relief sweeps across the captain’s face. Thank you, ma’am. We’ll do that. He shoos his teammates out into the hall, all of them visibly relieved to be leaving the scene of a bloody crime.

Amy waits until they’re out of earshot before she says, New recruits are getting kind of weak in the knees, aren’t they?

We can’t afford to be too picky. We need more boots on the ground. Ella moves closer to Coble’s body and kneels just past the edge of the blood puddle. Also, bear in mind we didn’t change the academy requirements, so if they’re dressed in black and they’ve got a badge, they’re qualified to work for DSI. It’s just a matter of disposition. Not every agent on every team is suitable for homicide work. Which is fine. We need manpower for plenty of other things.

If you say so. Amy peeks over Ella’s shoulder at the body. What’ve we got here?

Ella opens the camera app on her phone and starts snapping shots. Besides the obvious, I’m not sure. What do you guys make of the wounds?

I draw closer to the body and hunch over to get a better look. Up close, it’s easy to tell the puncture marks weren’t made by a knife. They’re rounded, about two inches in diameter. Perp used some kind of stake or rod, maybe?

Are we sure this murder is supernatural in origin? Desmond scratches his head. I don’t see anything here that couldn’t have been done by a normal human. Anything strike you as magical, Calvin?

I didn’t sense anything obvious downstairs, but whatever or whoever attacked her might not have used any magic until they cornered her in this room. I step back from the body and focus on my magic sense again. Heels digging into the carpet, I perform a slow pivot and break down the room into discrete chunks, analyzing each one for even the faintest hint of magic energy.

Nothing on the carpet. Nothing on the walls. Nothing on the furniture. Nothing in the air. The room appears totally inert, and I’m about to shove my magic sense onto the backburner again when I catch sight of something glowing in the corner of my eye. I turn to find it’s an object in a small trashcan next to the armoire opposite the bed. That almost looks like…a cork?

I cross the room and crouch in front of the trashcan to get a better look. The object is, in fact, a cork. The kind you’d find sealing a variety of bottles. The bottom of the cork is emanating a faint dark-blue aura, even though the rest of the cork is untouched by magic.

Baffled, I tug an evidence bag from a pouch on my belt and carefully pluck the cork out of the trashcan with my gloved fingers. As it slides into the bag, I wonder what kind of bottle the cork belonged to. Something that contained a potion? A medium for some kind of spell?

I don’t know enough magic theory yet to make an educated guess.

Find something, Cal? Ella says.

I hold up the bag with the cork inside. Residual energy on a cork. No idea what it means, except that it confirms there was a magic presence here recently.

Ella takes the bag and holds the cork up to eye level. Well, she wasn’t killed by a magic potion. But I’m sure there are countless potions practitioners can use on themselves, not to mention numerous other expressions of magic that can fit into a bottle.

Don’t know if there’s any way to differentiate based on a magic signature though.

Is the residual energy at least strong enough for you to match to an active aura?

Well, it’s only a wisp, but the color is pretty distinct. I should be able to ID the source, if we catch them in the act of casting.

Good. She tucks the evidence bag into her coat pocket. We’ll book it in when we get back to the office then. Since it appears to be the only evidence we have that something supernatural was even in the home.

Amy scoffs. This is going to be one of those cases with a lot of legwork, isn’t it?

No need to sound upset, Major. Desmond nudges her arm. In my opinion, a regular old mystery will be a welcome break from the practically nonstop combat we’ve been engaging in for the past year.

Amy scrunches her nose. I happen to like punching things. Relieves my stress.

"Then go