Blood Magic

By Domino Finn

When they found the first body, no one batted an eye.

That was par for the course in Skid Row. But something with these deaths was off. They were made to look like ritualistic suicides, like something supernatural. But I knew better. Besides, I don't believe in magic.

My name is Rick Danvers and I'm an undercover detective with Robbery Homicide. I've been embedded in this slum for a week now, and before the night is over, I'm gonna get to the bottom of the Skid Row Suicides.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blood & Treasure
• Release date: Feb 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507004746

Domino Finn

Domino Finn is an entertainment industry veteran, a contributor to award-winning video games, and the grizzled Urban Fantasy author of the best-selling Black Magic Outlaw series. His stories are equal parts spit, beer, and blood, and are notable for treating weighty issues with a supernatural veneer. If Domino has one rallying cry for the world, it's that fantasy is serious business. Take up arms at DominoFinn.com

Book preview

BLOOD MAGIC

by Domino Finn

domino

Copyright © 2015 by Domino Finn. All rights reserved.

Blood-Treasure

Published by Blood & Treasure, Los Angeles

First Edition

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to reality is coincidental. This book represents the hard work of the author; please reproduce responsibly.

Cover Design by Paramita Bhattacharjee

DominoFinn.com

BLOOD MAGIC

When they found the first body, no one batted an eye. That was par for the course in Skid Row.

Nicknamed the Nickel by locals because its center is Fifth Street, the slum is five square blocks of the worst Downtown Los Angeles has to offer: condemned buildings, overfull shopping carts, and upwards of six-thousand disenfranchised men and women living in sidewalk tents. You can say it's tragic. You can call it a crime. Some even think it survival of the fittest. But it's easy to slap a label on it from a safe distance. It's different on the asphalt. The grime on those streets never washes off. It doesn't matter how much bleach you pour into a bucket.

Living in Skid Row, it was hard not to consider the stories that came my way. I'd been here over a week, and my eyes were open to the plight of the locals. Some of the nicer ones were victims of circumstance. Others were sick in the head. Many were criminals and deadbeats who'd brought this on themselves one way or another. And, without a doubt, every single one of them was addicted to something: Drugs. Alcohol. Meds. Adrenalin. Whether theses vices were contributing factors to their decline or a habit picked up to cope, it no longer mattered. These marginals had been forgotten in life.

And in the beginning, they were forgotten in death as well.

To everyone else here, my name was Ricky Kicks. Just another down-on-his-luck redneck who finally couldn't scrounge up enough scratch for a month's rent. But my real name is Rick Danvers. I'm an undercover detective