The Devonshire Restaurant and Pub was empty except for about four people seated toward the back in separate booths, when Shigras entered. Immediately a mountain wearing a green tie and black suit stepped in front of him and not so gently ran fingers up, over, through, in and around his body and clothing before stepping aside. The cold blue eyes of the boss’s body guard Troy studied his face intently as he checked for whatever it is that they check for when they did this kind of stuff. Shigras spent most of his time in the labs and was unfamiliar with what customs went with peons visiting upper management.

He really had no idea why he had been awakened abruptly as he had in the middle of the night by a crew of Cabal “get men” who spirited him to the data center and had him do database information searching on two names that they had given him. Having been allowed the luxury of only one of his light coats being thrown over his bathrobe and pajamas, he felt the chill of the room as he stood and waited for the search to be completed. He had seen the movie Men in Black enough times to appreciate the Mister Smith and Mister Jones routine, and had also grown used to feeling them watching over his shoulder and asking short questions in need of short answers as the searches had progressed. The not so gentle hand resting where it could easily break his neck was a subtle reminder to answer any question as thoroughly as possible. The two names had been of a familiar variety in one case and an unknown variety in the other. But then again, he knew little if anything about Witches while Sorcerer’s ran the company he worked for.

Something was definitely up and he was in the freakin center of the storm for some reason. For a low level Cerebra demon like himself, it was not going so well longevity wise if he was doing an impromptu presentation to the boss with virtually bubkis to report. He just hoped the end would be quick and painless rather than the long, drawn out and quartered variety they usually did to people in situations like this in the movies.

Nothing had apparently changed since his vision had been eclipsed by the bodyguard, other than the mountain’s arm now extended in the direction of the booths in back. Trying to maintain some of his dignity as he shuffled toward the first booth, he saw another security demon frown and stand up, indicating that Shigras should stop and not sit down. Ted, he remembered hearing that Troy’s partner was named Ted.

Benicio Cortez sat eating from a large delicious looking mound of pasta. Shigras realized he had not eaten since the lunch the day before as his stomach growled and the security demon frowned. “Find anything?” Ted asked evenly. Shigras handed over the too thin and way to empty folder, knowing that his life was about to end because of it. He just wished it had not been when he was wearing slippers.

One of the men in the booth further back stood up and walked toward them. He was an older man from the looks of things with long gray-white hair that fell past his shoulders with plenty of bearded stubble on his chin. From his troubled features, he appeared to be having as swell a night as Shigras was. Misery loves company he thought, wondering if they both would be shuffled off to the long sleep together or in separate pieces.

“Shigras go sit with our friend in back and tell me what you see.” A velvet soft voice said. That the boss knew his name meant only that the trouble he was in was very serious indeed. Nodding, Shigras passed the other man, hoping any news that was delivered would soften the blow for his lack of information.

Seated in the back booth was one of the better known Cabal Sorcerers name Peter Nabonet. It had been his name that Shigras had recognized when he had seen it. Poor Peter however appeared to be in worse shape than Shigras was currently in. He was dead. His arms were resting on the table, with his hands outstretched and palms up as if he had been holding something in them when he had died. His usually long golden brown hair was completely bleached white as was every other hair on his face. As Shigras settled in across from the dead Sorcerer, he saw the hole in the other mans shirt where his heart must have once been. A hole had been cleanly cut round and completely through the dead man’s chest so that he could see the scored wood that was behind the body.

Now Shigras knew why he was called out as he had been. Nabonet was an old school Sorcerer who dallied enough around the black arts to have been very skillful in avoiding any and all attempts on his life, well then again, apparently that was until tonight. And then Shigras saw the bloodied shirt and realized that Nabonet must have been alive when his heart had been cut out. Looking up at the slack expression of shock etched on Nabonet’s face, he apparently had not enjoyed the painful procedure any more than Shigras would have expected him to.

Yet, his corpse sat there with his hands out almost as if he had been frozen in place during the whole thing. Not many people could do something like that to an old school Sorcerer like Nabonet. Other than the bloody wound, the expression on his face and the bleached out color of his body hair, nothing seemed to indicate that any violence had occurred in the booth as it apparently had. Looking down he finally studied the upturned hands and noticed redness between each finger. Nabonet must have been holding something that burned the skin between each finger as he sat and allowed his heart to be cut out.

“Mr. Cortez will see you know.” Ted said, looking from the dead man to Shigras. Getting to his feet, Shigras shuffled back toward the other booth. Avoiding any more chance of bringing more harm to himself, he simply stood and looked at the wall, waiting to hear what they were going to use his body for. Two pages of computer printout were lying side by side on the table, giving glaring testimony to his failures in the research department. What they had wanted with the Witch was beyond his understanding.

“Please, sit. Ted will get you some…?” Shigras realized he was being asked what he wanted to drink as he sat down in the booth. “Water?” Shigras replied, not exactly sure how this was going and if he was on the good or bad side of things yet.

The deep brown eyes of his CEO looked across the booth at him. “I’ve heard very good things about you from our information technology department. As of tonight you have been promoted to Senior Specialist for Research and Development.” Shigras was stunned. Instead of facing a dank wet tomb which he would have invariably had to dig himself beforehand, he was instead being given a promotion of sorts. “Thank you Mister Cortez, you have no idea what this means to me. I’m sure I will be able to contribute to Mister Prell’s department and not let you down.” He managed to stumble through his response as his mind was doing twists and turns trying to figure out what was really going on.

“Mister Prell is no longer with us and you will be taking over his responsibilities as well.” Shigras watched his boss sip some wine. Ted delivered a tall glass of iced water that Shigras used to hide his surprise. Apparently Prell was the one feeding the worms this nigh instead of him. That was interesting. He had never liked Prell but had found him to be good at whatever it was he had done when he wasn’t giving him more work to do, but that was the difference between second and third generation Cerebra’s such as they had been. Prell was just older and better connected until some time tonight.

His CEO held up a chain which had a pentacle connected to the end of it. The pentacle itself appeared to have someone’s blood, and he now suspected that it would have been Nabonet’s if he were to guess, smeared over it. Carefully he set it down on the table so that the back faced Shigras. Etched on the rough surface was a name. Some Witch by the name of Anna-Marie had owned the necklace, or had been given it as a gift. Then he put two and two together with the list he had been given; Anna-Marie Balcourte had been the other person he had been asked to research within the company records. She apparently was the owner of the necklace which now rested with blood all over it.

“You were given two names to look up information about in our records, and I now see that it has proven to be a rather futile effort under the circumstances.” Shigras knew better than to say anything that remotely could be taken the wrong way when his CEO was speaking. “Before Mister Prell left us, he told me that someone had managed to infiltrate our supposedly secure systems and found some sort of connection between the two names you looked at earlier. Your job from this point forward will be to find out how they did that, and fix it so that it cannot happen again. Then you will find out who did it and get me their names. I will see that they do not attempt to revisit our systems anytime soon.”

Shigras did not need to read between any lines to know that his life would depend upon his abilities to do as his CEO requested. His only consolation was the knowledge that whoever had done this would feel the personal wrath of the CEO as only very few had ever seen and been able to tell about afterwards.

“Apparently our database information about Witches that we employ was not deemed as important as it should have been. Perhaps you can address that as soon as you get to the office.” Shigras nodded, knowing full well about the stories of the Cortez son and his girlfriend who just happened to be a Witch. Perhaps that was why Prell had been relieved as he had. It had been a monumental blunder that he would make certain was not repeated on his watch.

Realizing he had been dismissed, Shigras pulled himself to his feet and began to walk away. “Oh, Shigras, should you need anything to help in your efforts, please tell Ted and he will get whatever, or whomever you need when you need them.”

Walking toward the door leading to the street, Shigras was not sure if he had moved into the frying pan or into the fire. Apparently his new associate Ted would make sure that he was going to be doing as good a job as he could figuring out who had done whatever it was they had done to the dead Sorcerer back in the restaurant.

At least that made him feel a little better, knowing whatever punishments were dealt out to that person would pale in comparison to anything they would have done to him.

Seated alone in his booth, Benicio Cortez looked over at the body of his old friend. Someone had sent him a message. He picked up the bloody pentacle and studied the name on the back of it. The Necromancer had told him something that had not terribly surprised him. Peter Nabonet’s soul was not answering any calls made to it, which would have allowed them to know who had killed him. In order for that to have occurred meant that something had taken his soul and was keeping it from crossing over to the land of the dead.

For the first time ever, he felt apprehension about what that something would turn out to be, and if he could deal with it or how it would deal with him.

That would be the interesting question when it came up to be answered. Sipping his wine, he pulled out his cell phone and began dialing his son’s number.

Perhaps it was time he enlisted the two people who could help him find out what it was they would be dealing with.

Preview