Divine Fraud Read online

  I left the bar.

  The soonest I expected Milhamber to move was an hour after sunset, which gave me about two hours to spare. First, I texted Evelyn, my roommate, sending I’ll miss tonight’s dancing lessons, sorry. L. I put the phone on silent and slid it into my pocket.

  With that solved, I had some time to kill before catching Milhamber, so I went to see Vivian.

  I got into my 1990 Ford Mustang. The car was four times crashed, but still somewhat functional. I drove to the Presbyterian Abbey in Queens. The traffic would be horrible for any other place in the world. But here in New York, the completely full street was moving was better than usual.

  Last year, the Presbyterian Abbey fell victim to a battle I participated in. A friend of mine was punished by being forced to reconstruct the abbey. Given how many people she murdered around that time, she deserved much worse of a punishment, but she was also my friend, so I’ve been helping her with the reconstruction.

  I left the car by the sidewalk and walked through the small park surrounding the abbey. Tall trees rustled in the evening wind, soothing my soul. The abbey was a frame with windows yet to be remade. But in comparison to the ruin this place was last year, things looked a thousand times better. In retrospect, it would have been easier to raze the building to the ground and erect the abbey anew.

  I moved the cement mixer into the cloister. Encircled by the archways, tall grass surrounded the remainders of the fountain that once stood in the middle. I brought the necessary supplies from the chapter house, which we were using as the depot, and got to work. First, I would rebuild the statue’s rough shape and later, I would sculpt it to beauty.

  Two hours later, sweat glued my shirt to my body. I didn’t finish restoring the statue, but this was a good start. Now, the time to solve the Yakuza thing has arrived.

  I turned off the cement mixer and swiped the sweat from my brow.

  “Done already?” a low, melodic voice said from the cloister’s side.

  Of course, Vivian was watching me work. The slacker liked to do that. To her credit, I didn’t notice her presence until she spoke. “Need to go work.”

  Soft steps shuffled on the ground and Vivian appeared from behind the archway. Dressed in the traditional nun habit, she appeared harmless. Nothing could be further from the truth. Her sapphire eyes shone from her pale face, her midnight black hair neatly arranged. “Work? Didn’t you have dancing lessons with the pet tonight?”

  “Evelyn’s not a pet.” I took a sharp breath and glared at her. “But we’ve been through this discussion a hundred times already.”

  She approached me, stopping a foot away, looking up into my eyes with a wicked smile playing on her blood-red lips. “You know I cannot resist teasing you.”

  I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to me, pressing her body against mine. She grunted with pain. The move made her habit reveal the harness binding her body. Steel construction wrapped her torso, featuring dozens two-inch nails constantly digging her body. Such was her punishment, to wear this until she rebuilt the abbey she destroyed. Due to her perfect regeneration, the nails could scrape her bones without threatening her life.

  She breathed deeply for a moment before she overcame the pain. Once she did, she placed her arms around my neck, smiling. “Was that you punishing me for the pet remark?”

  “Yes.” I leaned down, stopping an inch before her face.

  She closed her eyes and kissed me. Her hot lips pressed against mine and soon her tongue entered my mouth. My mind blanked for a second, forgetting the rest of the world existed. Yeah, I kind of loved her, and that was the main problem here. When my senses returned, Vivian’s arms clenched my neck as her kissing became hungrier.

  That was about enough. I caught her shoulders and pushed her off me. As I did, she dug her nails into my neck and scratched, leaving behind searing trails.

  She sneered. “I wasn’t finished.”

  “But I’m going to work.” I detached completely and started walking away. “You can continue on the statue. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “You will pay for this.”

  Oh, I’ve heard that a touch over a thousand times in the past year. With a broad smile, I got to my car and went back to work.

  Time to catch Milhamber.

  Chapter 2

  WITH EVERYTHING SET INTO MOTION, what was left for me to do was to wait in the Yakuza safe. Space was not an issue. The vault was the size of a grocery store with clear-cut sections. The insides were mostly empty as the Yakuza has moved in recently, but a large pile of gold already lay in one compartment, right next to a massive stack of banknotes—both dollars and yens—and also approximately a half a ton of cocaine. The financial sector was big on the white shite and Yakuza was preparing to bolster the supply side.

  I brought a patio chair and was having just about enough of waiting. Among others, my back wanted to file a resignation. I’ve also brought myself a stack of hard sci-fi books to read but had long since finished them. Now, I kept myself occupied with magic as the last resort. Okay, I could also do the three hundredth read-through of the Bible. Priests insisted the holy text was the only proper way to contain the fallen angel residing in my soul.

  But I didn’t believe them, especially since the fallen angel that turned my soul into his new home was Lucifer. Yet I lacked an alternative approach. Still, I chose magic.

  The exercise I went for was simple. I gathered aether in my palm, condensed the energy into a globe and made the power spin. Once I did, I absorbed everything back into my body and repeated the process. This practice covered both of my main combat abilities, the aether absorption and my only offensive spell which I had yet to name.

  I paused for a second. Yakuza may have had cameras in here. I fuelled my eyes with aether, tweaked my magical sight a bit, and lines of light appeared in the walls. I traced the web of electric cables and saw no wires or cables leading inside the vault, which would indicate a camera. Good. I returned to my magic practice.

  The USB stick I gave Jocelyn should have been enough to get them all the way to the vault door. By the information I put there, their best time to strike was the next day’s afternoon. Yet I didn’t want to risk anything and thus spent the night here in the vault. Now, it was the next day, Thursday, noon and my company finally arrived.

  Konrad Wagner entered, his clean-shaven face stern and his round glasses reflecting the light of my lamp. He wore a gray coat and had his hair trimmed short. Sasaki’s people closed the safe behind him and I motioned to the patio chair next to mine. “Welcome,” I said with a tired smile.

  He stared at me for a bit, and then ran his gaze over the vault. “You forgot to mention this job was for a criminal organization.”

  “What did you expect?” I didn’t laugh at him even though I wanted to. Konrad was something like my personal doctor. He was from Germany and came in the first wave of Lucielle’s people. Despite being the Devil’s employee, he was an upright man with an excellent character. Especially in comparison to the people I normally dealt with. I still had no idea how we ever became friends.

  With a sigh, he put down his backpack, sat onto the chair and withdrew a medical journal to read. He didn’t look like he wanted to chat. I may have been bored to tears, but I respected his choice. And so we sat in silence.

  Three hours later, dull knocking echoed from the vault’s door. Konrad tensed and I stopped the aether exercise. Time to spring the trap. Konrad reached for my bag lying by the side and put on an oxygen mask. I did the same and checked the Colt Anacondas holstered on my thighs.

  Clanging sounded from the door, suggesting they were opening the lock. Konrad paled and took half a step back. He never fought anyone and was incapable of using magic in any form.

  I glanced at him. “Try not to soil yourself.”

  “Would it hurt you to not be a jerk for once in your life?”

  “Yes.” I readied the aether-blocking shackles hanging by my waist. The trap I have prepared for Milhamb
er was simple. I gave him all the passwords and entrance codes. That should have gotten him to the vault’s door without any resistance. He put the magical protections himself, so he had his backdoor there. What he didn’t know was that I made Sasaki prepare a new defensive mechanism. Into the ventilation, he put barrels with highly concentrated carbon monoxide.

  The triggering mechanism was controlled by Bluetooth, which I had connected to my phone during preparations. Now, I just tapped an icon on my screen and carbon monoxide started pouring into the safe’s antechamber, where Milhamber and his team were busy opening the door.

  The tricky part of carbon monoxide was that one could neither smell nor feel its presence. With lower concentrations, it took a while to even get nauseous. But with a high-enough concentration, a few breaths were sufficient to lose consciousness and then one would die in a couple of minutes. That was why I brought Konrad and seven oxygen masks.

  I didn’t want to kill anyone.

  The vault’s door opened without making a sound, but an unconscious body fell in. Of course, Sasaki put more and higher concentrated carbon monoxide than I told him to. What did I expect from Yakuza?

  I grabbed the door and pulled them open. The antechamber was a windowless, square room with twenty feet across and no windows. On the ground lay four bodies while Milhamber stood above them, a bubble shimmering around him.

  Impressive. He managed to push the poisonous gas away from the area around him and sealed himself there. The mage had graying, short hair and wore a crisp, dark-blue suit, a white shirt and held a long staff with runes glowing along its length. His second arm was stretched out, supporting the shimmering barrier around him. The second he noticed me, I drew my colt and aimed at him.

  I had no intention of shooting him, but he didn’t know that. Thus, he was forced to strengthen his barrier to stop a potential bullet and would thus spend his strength faster. The downside was I had to keep aiming at him.

  With a gesture of my hand, I motioned Konrad to come. He understood and took the shackles from my belt. He approached the first unconscious person, shackled the hands, and put an oxygen mask onto the person. That would help against the carbon monoxide poisoning, but by the time the mage would awake, he wouldn’t be able to use magic due to the anti-magical shackles.

  My gaze remained glued on Milhamber. His aether was spread out evenly through his bubble, so he could attack at any point. I wasn’t afraid he’d hurt me, not for real, but Konrad was basically defenseless. As Konrad worked on the unconscious mages, I maneuvered so I would always stand between him and Milhamber, keeping my aether in a defensive pattern formed around my body.

  I tried to analyze the pattern of Milhamber’s shield, but the spell was based off his staff. If I wanted to imitate the spell, I would first need to have the staff.

  When Konrad stepped above Jocelyn’s body, Milhamber’s aether brightened. I clenched all muscles in my body. He whispered a spell I couldn’t hear, motioned at me with his staff, and the barrier exploded outward like a wall of force.

  I gritted my teeth, planted my feet into the ground and put my left shoulder in the way. The spell hit me like a speeding truck. My shoulder felt like it exploded, and all my muscles screamed with strain. But I withstood the impact. To my surprise, Milhamber still stood straight. I didn’t expect him to be able to attack while keeping the barrier around him.

  Time to earn my pay. I stretched out my left hand, formed a globe of spinning aether and almost instantly released the spell. This didn’t require a lot of power. The energy exploded from my palm into a whirling blast. For his barrier to withstand the impact of my spell, Milhamber had to concentrate the defenses into the point of contact. That weakened the shield’s remaining area.

  I shot with my other hand. One. His ankle exploded into blood and the mage fell to the ground, screaming.

  His voice died off within a second as he breathed in the carbon monoxide. With a glance, I saw Konrad behind me, pale but unharmed. Good. I allowed myself a smile and went to shackle Milhamber. We bound them all and gave them oxygen masks. I turned off the oxygen monoxide inflow by another tap onto my phone’s screen and texted Sasaki.

  This went well.

  Sasaki arrived half an hour later, when he was certain the ventilation dispersed the carbon monoxide into a breathable concentration. He came flanked by twenty men wearing suits and holding assault rifles. Milhamber and his group were all already conscious. With hands shackled behind their backs and oxygen masks on, they weren’t chatty. In the meantime, my left arm went numb and the shoulder throbbed.

  I exchanged acknowledging nods with Sasaki. We had nothing to tell each other. The job was finished, his boss would pay me, I would pay Konrad, and that was it. Sasaki’s men took the mages. Now, the Yakuza would re-enable the vault defenses, change all entrance codes and search for a different mage to do their magical defenses.

  I walked out, crossing all three safety rooms in front of the safe. With the defenses disabled, they were ordinary steel rooms. Konrad followed me without speaking. I left through a heavy, steel door, walked up a flight of stairs, turned left and soon arrived into the buildings main lobby.

  When we walked out of the buildings sliding door, Konrad removed his oxygen mask and stopped me by grabbing my coat. “I will see to the shoulder.”

  I took off my mask, wiped my face with my sleeve, and let him.

  With careful moves, he removed my coat and examined the aching joint with his hands. His touch sent sharp pain into my spine, but I didn’t wince.

  “Tell me, Mr. Johnson, aren’t you mages supposed to have protective shields?” he asked, his voice sharp.

  “I’m a warmage. I don’t work like that.” Which was a shame because I could have used a shielding spell. Or at least a pain-blocking one. Sure, I could strengthen my body and clothes to withstand most attacks, but that had limits.

  “Of course, why use a protection barrier when you can use yourself.”

  I sighed. He was right and I knew. But my talents were rather specific.

  With a swift jerk, Konrad threw my dislocated shoulder back into the socket. I shouted out with pain.

  “There, your daily dose of self-punishment is done,” Konrad said, irony seeping out of his voice. “I would, however, recommend a large dose of scorpion venom for dinner not to lose your practice.”

  This annoying bastard. It has been a year since my last incident with scorpions, but he still felt the need to keep reminding me. Okay, probably because I got a new venomous snakebite about every two months. Everything venomous had a thing for me and I haven’t found a way to deter them.

  “Now, I should tell you to not put stress the arm for the next week and come for regular checkups,” Konrad added, “but we both know that would be pointless. In any case, with the money this job has earned me, I will purchase an x-ray machine and it’ll arrive next week. The next time you feel the need to stand in front of a killing spell, stop at my practice afterward.”

  “Thanks,” I uttered and meant it. Konrad was the reason I still functioned.

  “What will happen to the poor souls we had captured for the Yakuza?”

  I shrugged. “They will be interrogated to ascertain nobody else knows and then they will be given to the authorities to deliver them to Tul Sar Naar. That is where they will spend the rest of their lives.” Yeah, the legal system of Secret Societies was rather black and white. Either it ignored you, or you were sent to a lifetime sentence in the world’s worst prison. Ironic, since the easiest way to get there was to reveal the existence of magic to the general public. The supernatural world maintained its secrecy through any means necessary. Literally every faction was ready to kill to keep up the Veil separating the mundane from the magical.

  A sour grimace played over Konrad’s face. He opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him.

  “Your presence here changed nothing on the outcome,” I said, my voice low and steady. “Irrespective of your decisions, I would’ve captured t
hem for the Yakuza. Though without your help, they would have likely been injured much more severely than they are now.” Konrad didn’t deserve to feel guilty for this, and so I said this to take the blame from him. I wasn’t even lying.

  And he knew. “Thanks,” he whispered and stepped away from me. I watched him leave with a smile.

  The sun had yet to set, so I still had time to shop for some building materials. Yesterday, I almost ran out of sand. From the nearest hobby mart, I bought a quarter ton of cement sand and drove to the destroyed Presbyterian Abbey in Queens.

  The blood of the sunset bathed the Abbey’s frame in crimson. I left my hat, jacket, and guns in the car, opened the trunk, grabbed a bag of cement sand and started walking toward the Abbey. My shoulder kept shooting pain through me, but there wasn’t much I could do. The ring of grass surrounding the abbey smelled of nature and the trees provided for a pleasant shade. Visiting this place always brought me peace.

  “Mr. Johnson?” a man asked, interrupting my thoughts. I turned and saw him step from behind a tree. What was with people waiting to ambush me? He had clearly been waiting for me here, wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and no tie. His hair was arranged to perfection, face covered by stubby beard, and his blue eyes kept watching me with a steady gaze.

  I put down the cement. “How can I help you?” My aether-imbued vision confirmed he was fully reinforced with aether, using a defensive pattern similar to mine.

  “If you would please come with me,” he said and moved his suit to show me a polished badge. “I need to ask you a few questions about certain incidents of last year’s nightmare plague.”

  I knew where he was coming from: FBSI, Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigations, the magical branch of the FBI. Couldn’t they send someone more senior? Like really, he told me what he wanted straight like a boy scout. Then again, their organization lost over a hundred agents last year, so they had to be short on senior staff.