Seeds of Blood

  Seeds of Blood

  C. Chancy

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Christel R. Chancy

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Cover Art by Mirella Santana

  www.mirellasantana.com.br

  Stocks and Materials used: Depositphotos & Shutterstock.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  ISBN-13:

  ISBN-10:

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017913792

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston, SC

  Chapter One

  Monday, October 20th

  “Under the right circumstances, you can kill a werewolf with a pointy stick.”

  Seated off to the side of the crowded briefing room to help with visual aids, Detective J. Church felt hairs on her neck shiver in a sudden breeze; the mass intake of breath from her fellow cops. She felt like sucking all the oxygen out of the room herself. If you could do that, if werewolves weren’t as invulnerable as Hollywood and everyone on the dark side of the supernatural arrogantly sniffed....

  Then it didn’t matter if beige paint was peeling off the doorframe, some of the blue uniforms were dirt and other-stained, or the bitter scent of over-boiled coffee hung in the air. This was the prettiest room Church had ever seen.

  Myrrh’s going to change our world. Church smirked, just a little. Again.

  The ancient hell-raider stood straight and tiny at the front of the room, white hair wisping out from under her shadow-shift’s hood around a sober young face, chalk dusting her hands almost as white. Most of Intrepid’s cops had looked askance at the wheeled green blackboard in front of the room, one of the younger patrol officers muttering about how could you learn anything from someone so out of touch they couldn’t even use a laptop?

  That pretty much died out as Myrrh put a few clattering strokes up. Didn’t matter if she could barely reach the top of the board. The fact that the hell-raider could freehand sketch a wolf skull right in front of them, front and side views - well, Church didn’t have to pretend to be amazed.

  The old-fashioned Chalk and Talk. Church put one more careful stroke into her notes. So is she doing that so we wake up and focus on Old Doesn’t Mean Useless, or because this is the kind of thing Aidan can wrap his head around?

  The half-demon fire mage was one desk away, taking his own notes soberly as grizzled Detective Heath two rows from the front. Fiery red hair cast back the overhead lights as he frowned in concentration; amber eyes flicking from notebook to chalkboard and back as if he were comparing Myrrh’s sketch to memories of bullet-shattered bone.

  Church grimaced, determined not to throw up no matter how her stomach lurched. Technically some people would say she shouldn’t be here. But it beat sitting in her apartment staring at water-warded walls on paid administrative leave while Detectives Mitchell and Roger helped the State Bureau of Investigation investigate the werewolf carnage she and the two Hunters had left around one very dead murder victim two nights ago. Besides, Captain Sherman wanted somebody keeping an eye on their two time-displaced magical crazies, and so far Aidan and Myrrh hadn’t really tried to give her the slip.

  Don’t think about the investigation, Church told herself firmly. Raphael testified that there was cannibalism going on, and the pack attacked us. Self-defense is legit. Poor kid.

  Poor werewolf kid. The fact that right now they were looking at Myrrh tap where on the skull to hit for the quickest kill made the detective both relieved and very, very nervous.

  Don’t think about what gunpowder and brains smell like. Nothing burnt, nothing bloody, nothing dying, Church told herself grimly. Just bitter coffee too many hours old, dry chalk in the back of your throat, a bit of overripe banana bread somewhere in the crowd....

  Myrrh Shafat tapped the chalkboard again, a bit above and inside from the top of the spinal cord. “Lycanthropy is a mystical curse, but it must act through the physical medium of the body. The part of the brain that controls regeneration is here. Destroy that, with whatever method you can, and the werewolf will be dying, or dead.” She turned, gray eyes sweeping her startled audience. “You will note that my focus is often on lethal techniques. There are several reasons for that. First and foremost, as officers of the law well know, it is far more difficult to restrain a prisoner, unharmed, than to kill him. And that is when you are dealing with ordinary mortal strength. A supernatural creature, like any violent criminal on mind-altering drugs such as PCP, may not stop short of lethal force.”

  Oh man, do I know that already. Church shuddered, remembering a swarm of slavering wolflike bodies, a drowning pool of evil water. Not to mention the twisted bearlike thing she and her partner Tom Franklin had almost been sacrificed to.

  Looks like ex-partner, now. Her next swipe of a pen almost tore through the paper. Church still didn’t know how long Tom had been making deals with Steven Savonarola, but she planned to find out. Soon.

  Steven should be dead.

  Yeah, well, Christophe Savonarola had been dead, body and all. For almost twenty-five years. She’d read his damn coroner’s report.

  Only that hadn’t stopped Christophe’s soul from pulling the great hellish escape with Myrrh, and now the newly-renamed Aidan Lindisfarne was taking notes on killing werewolves and trying not to set things on fire when he got stressed. Which was a lot, given he kept expecting the walls to start bleeding. Just, you know, because that was a thing in Hell, along with chains, humiliation, and a bunch of stuff he clammed up tighter than Fort Knox rather than talk about.

  A warm breeze tickled her cheek. Church tasted the passing vapor, and sighed in relief. False alarm. Just coffee steam, not smoke.

  “Second,” Myrrh’s hands gestured across the board, “part of your authority as officers of the law comes from the fact that you are lawfully allowed to use lethal force not only to protect yourselves or others, but also to stop a crime in progress. Supernatural creatures have tried to place themselves above mortal law by restricting access to their more common banes, such as silver bullets, while at the same time exaggerating their strengths. They would have you believe Hollywood’s portrayal of their abilities is true; that only a chosen few can fight them, and that no one should.” Gray eyes raked her uniformed audience. “This is a lie. It is an evil lie. Any human can kill a monster.” A small, wry smile. “The trick is to survive to kill it. And with luck, to survive untainted by their curses yourself.”

  “Vampires can bench press trucks!” someone called from the back.

  Myrrh raised an unimpressed brow. “Why, so can I; and so can any mere mortal, if the truck has been properly lightened and enspelled first. The number of vampires whose demon has existed on the mortal plane long enough to develop that level of physical strength is, and has always been, very small. The average vampire is stronger than a human, yes. But if they are less than two decades old, that strength is closer to three times a mortal human’s. Which means it is not unlike dealing with an evil chimpanzee.”

  Church tried to cough rather than laugh. The image of a long-fanged, red-eyed, bloodsucking chimp....

  Was still pretty damn scary, honestly. But a survivable scary.

  That’s what she’s trying to teach us. Whoof.

  “Third.” Myrrh took a long breath, patient as waves eating the shore. “I am, as many would call it, a Hunter. Specifically, I am a hell-raider.” She met each startled gaze, one by one. “I am not a cop. I am not law enforcement. I am called when there is danger - immediate, life-threatening danger - to those mortals less fortunate, and less lethal, than myself. When there is an innocent chained to a blood-smeared altar, or a child with fangs at her throat - I do not stop. I do not hesitate. I do not negotiate.” That wry smile ghosted across her face once more. “If you have seen the entirety of the Nightsong video, you have seen Nuria Cruz’ reaction to learning one such as I yet lives. I assure you, that was not rehearsed.”

  And that was another ow, as far as Church was concerned. Coral had posted that vid online, sneaky, snarky gorgon that she was; gaining record numbers of views before someone had complained to the site’s censors to shut it down. Hate speech and fomenting violence against minorities were two of the complaints Church knew of. Never mind that Myrrh had been attacked first, and she and Aidan had only defended themselves.

  Very effectively defended themselves. Against vampires. Church smiled sourly. Which is why those fanged bastards want it down.

  Good luck with that. Xanthippe Coral had made plenty of accounts on different websites just to play whack-a-mole with would-be PC censor types, and other people had copied the original to post it themselves. Myrrh’s blazing sword was all over the internet; a fiery ancient genie out of a bottle.

  Or twenty-one years of bottled-up rage all cutting loose, Church thought grimly. There’s a lot of angry people out there.

  On the one hand, Church couldn’t blame them one bit. She’d seen up close and personal what the darker side of the supernatural could do. On the other... Xanthippe Coral was an awesome movie buddy, and Raphael had fought down werewolf instincts and common sense to help save her life. Not to mention Myrrh and Aidan were as supernatural as any vampire... or demon.

  Hate and death help build a Demongate. And we’
ve got one set and ready to go off right in downtown.

  They’d done a quick and shaky patch job on whatever kept all Hell from breaking loose. But Myrrh hadn’t marked out all the foundation spots on this side of reality yet, and there was only so much one person praying could do to crack the ritual deaths of who knew how many people. Father Gray O’Malley and Father Ricci were organizing prayer groups, and Detective Eagleman had apparently seen enough when Steven’s demons possessed the captain to ask Old Man Conseen to scatter corn pollen and who-knew-what over various crime sites. It ought to make Church feel like they had things under control, and yet....

  Less than two weeks to Halloween. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

  “But back to werewolves, and more specifically their banes.” Myrrh picked up chalk again. “If you do wish to take a werewolf alive, then first and foremost, you must know how to avoid infection. Many methods have been tried over the millennia; I will tell you one I know works, most of the time.”

  Church stared at the quick sketch of a shot glass, with a brief list of drink proportions. “...You’re kidding.”

  “Two-thirds Jägermeister, one-third Goldschläger - it is effectively a Starry Night with blessed salt dusting,” Myrrh shrugged. “Some like to add a twist of lime, but it is not necessary.”

  Not going to facepalm, Church thought, stunned. Just not.

  “It works on the same principle as a gin and tonic for malaria,” Myrrh addressed dropped jaws across the room. “Jägermeister has well over fifty herbal components that promote healing and health in the hunt; Goldschläger has gold, which serves as a sacrifice and medium to carry the celestial power drawn by the blessed salt. Taken once a week - every phase of the moon - it drops your risk of infection from a bite from fifty-fifty to closer to one in ten.”

  “Wait,” one of the younger patrolmen waved a hand. “You can get bitten and not turn?”

  “It does happen, yes,” Myrrh nodded. “I suppose you’ve been lied to about that, as well.” She turned back to the board, sketching an odd cone. “The second part of a Hunter’s precautions against infection is far less pleasant.”

  Uh-oh.

  “This is St. Hubert’s Key.” Myrrh tapped the board. “Blessed is better, but... essentially, you heat the iron of it red-hot, and cauterize the bite.”

  Church swallowed, all too able to imagine the scent of seared flesh.

  “Applied within two hours, it also cuts the risk of infection near in half. Together, the Hunter’s tonic and St. Hubert’s Key slash the odds from one in two, to near one in a hundred,” Myrrh said plainly. “The Key also reduces the risk of rabies, so it was often used when man or hound were bitten by what seemed a wolf, whether magic was suspected or not. Over the centuries it has saved many lives.”

  Heath straightened in his chair, pen tapping paper. “If these things work... how come Father O’Malley never said anything?”

  Pain crinkled the corners of gray eyes. “That, you will have to ask him. I can only tell you what I know from my dealings with the Church. Which considers me a heretic.”

  Church tensed. O’Malley’d kept a lot of cops in one piece. This wasn’t going to be good.

  “As a priest, Father O’Malley must answer to his ecclesiastical superiors,” Myrrh said, very precisely. “I will spare you a lecture on liberation theology; you should look it up for yourselves. But it has been a grave problem for the Church’s interactions with Hunters, these past several decades. Yes, werewolves are ill with sin; as is every mortal life in the world. And in part, because of that illness, the human soul should not be held accountable for all of the demon wolf’s actions. But werewolves are also carriers of a demonic contagion, and our Christian duty to minister to the sick does not demand that we set aside all measures to protect ourselves.” She paused. “There are apparently those in the Church who believe otherwise. I will note only that they tend to live within the Diocese of Rome itself, or similarly well-guarded environs, and so rarely risk meeting fangs in an alley.”

  O’Malley has to answer to Rome. Church gripped her pen tight, shaken. And the higher-ups-

  Obviously had their heads where they couldn’t see the light of day. Why was she even surprised?

  “I do think, if you were to ask him to bless salt and iron, he would be glad to provide,” Myrrh said quietly. “He is a good man. But he is bound by his oaths. As are we all, or who would trust us in defense of the law, and the innocent?”

  Church breathed out, relieved. The tension in the room had gone down. Because O’Malley was one of the good guys.

  But he’s been holding out on us. Like he did with me and Savonarola. Going to have to remember that.

  “Once you have taken what measures you can against infection....” Myrrh eyed the board. “Forget Hollywood. Any weapon can hurt a werewolf. One that is well-fed and under the full moon will simply regenerate from most ordinary weapons... until you hit them with enough damage to overwhelm the curse.” A wry smile. “A few ounces of C-4 will, generally, suffice.”

  Church tried not to bury her face in her hands. Ooooh boy.

  “Silver is the most effective metal against many creatures, because it easily conducts celestial energy.” Myrrh pointed to the four-by-two grid she’d sketched on the board. Celestial, terrestrial, infernal and fay labeled the columns across, blocked by and enhanced by labeling two rows under each. “As lycanthropy is usually a curse born of demonic origin, that energy is diametrically opposed to the werewolf’s cursed attributes.” Her finger shifted down and left, where iron blocked fay and infernal. “I know this seems counterintuitive. Iron is a stable stellar creation, eternally opposed to the infernal, which makes meteoric iron the best weapon known against demonkind. Based merely on that, one might think werewolves should be as vulnerable to steel as silver. Unfortunately, while lycanthropy is a demonic curse, it is mediated through a human body. The iron in mortal blood is sufficient to block any external effects of steel. If you do encounter a shape-shifting wolf that is harmed by iron instead of silver, you have a problem. It is most likely either a fay creature, a spellcaster, or a true demonic. All of which require different countermeasures if you plan to take them alive. Yes?”

  The young cop she’d called on looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. “...Demons aren’t real.”

  “If the Demongate opens you will have very visible proof otherwise,” Myrrh shrugged. “Otherwise, I refer you to Father O’Malley, the Bible, the Torah, the Mahabharata, and quite a few other religious and secular texts. I have provided a list.”

  A hearty snort from the right edge of the room. “You didn’t say the Koran.”

  Church stifled a sigh. That’d be Officer Glover, who had a chip on his shoulder at the best of times-

  “I did not.” Shadows fell across gray eyes. “Any faith who names its deity the Father of Lies will by definition have great difficulty in dealing with demonic influence. Islamic folklore has some helpful information on dealing with djinn and ifrits. The texts, however, are... less than benign.”

  Church’s shoulders stiffened at the sudden ice in Myrrh’s tone, the aghast silence from her fellow officers making her wish she could sink through the floor. And this would be why Father’s glad there’s no mosque in Intrepid.

  What Myrrh would do if there were, Church wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. She’d only had an hour or so yesterday to poke the internet about whatever grudge Myrrh had from Alexandria, but the quick look was more than enough to make her queasy.

  Myrrh was a Christian in Egypt; an Egypt that was Christian for four hundred years. Then Mohammed’s followers came through like Attila the Hun. Murder, looting, raping, slavery....

  Church didn’t know how much of that Myrrh had seen firsthand. She was kind of afraid to ask. Given that Myrrh could actually die and come back-

  Yeah. Definitely afraid to ask.

  “But as we are on the subject of banes, I am glad you brought that up,” Myrrh smiled.

  ...That is not a nice smile.

  “There are four banes most commonly used in lands under Mohammedan control,” the hell-raider went on. “Decapitation, defenestration, stoning to death, and fire. Most particularly fire. Naphtha and its various relations are well-spread through those deserts, and with fireproof weavings from Afghanistan available through trade, fire has been part of Muslim tactics since that faith began.” Gray eyes looked into memory. “One of the most common ways to clear a nest of heretics - werewolves, vampires, Magians, or Christians - was to call upon the naffatun. Those warriors were provided with gear woven of hajar al-fatila, what we call asbestos; then doused in naphtha, and set afire to fight.”