Sanctuary

by Jeff Mariotte

  “Shouldn’t steal someone’s car,” he thought it said.

  “Pardon me?” Wesley asked, not sure he’d understood. “Did you say ‘steal’?”

  The demon looked at him, eyes blinking in confusion. “’Course I say ‘steal,’” it answered. “What you call it?”

  Wesley’s gaze darted around to see where his friends were. Gunn was on the ground, rolling around wrestling with one of the blue beasts while a second one pounded on his back. Cordelia stood her ground. One of the Roshons sat awkwardly on the sidewalk near her, rubbing its eyes, in obvious pain. The last demon orbited around her, looking for an approach but afraid of the weapon she bore. Noticing Wesley’s curiosity, she held it up. A perfume bottle. “Never without it,” she announced. “You guys really should carry purses.”

  “Yes, well,” Wesley said, straining to hold the demon at bay. “These fellows seem to think we stole their car.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Cordelia said. “Did you happen to ask why, if we stole their car, we would have come here in our own? Or point out that if we’d actually been riding in theirs, our butts would be covered in that gunk they left all over the seats?”

  “Didn’t think to,” Wesley replied.

  The demon stopped pressing forward for a moment. “You not steal it?”

  “We found it,” Wesley told him. “Or, to be more accurate, we heard that it had been left here and came to have a look.”

  “Why?” the demon wanted to know.

  “We believe it was used in a crime,” Wesley said.

  The demon released Wesley’s shoulders, but maintained an alert stance, poised to strike if Wesley moved or said the wrong thing. Wesley determined not to do that. He felt as if his back had been flattened and had taken on the imprint of the wall.

  “What kind of crime?”

  “A drive-by shooting. Could you perhaps get your friends off of my friend?” He pointed to where Gunn wrestled the Roshon on the concrete.

  “In a minute,” the demon said. “Anybody hurt? In the shooting?”

  “No, not in the shooting itself,” Wesley replied.

  “But then, we don’t believe anyone was meant to be. It was a distraction, to capture our attention while a friend of ours was kidnapped. We just want our friend back.”

  The Roshon barked a command, and the demons fighting with Gunn broke free, leaving him alone. Gunn rolled onto his back and lay on the sidewalk, panting heavily. “Thanks,” he breathed. “Wasn’t sure how long I could keep that up.”

  “When was your car stolen?” Wesley asked.

  “During evening,” the Roshon answered. “Or night. While we sleep in our den. We come out, car gone.”

  “So it wasn’t you lot who did the shooting.”

  The demon laughed, which was hard to differentiate from its speech except for its wicked smile and the tone. “We shoot, people die,” it said. “Roshon don’t miss.”

  “You know,” Wesley said, trying to dust off his back, “I think perhaps this has all been a big misunderstanding.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” the Roshon answered.

  The one Cordelia had perfumed in the eyes struggled to its feet, still whining, one paw draped over its muzzle. “Sorry?” Cordelia offered, putting the little spray bottle back into her purse. “But you were all grrr and everything at me.”

  The injured demon nodded morosely, and its friend helped it back to the car.

  The demon speaking to Wesley had a last thought for him. “We let you go, this time. I think you didn’t steal car. When I find out who did, somebody die.”

  “Actually, when you find out who did, I’d like to know. And to ask a few questions of my own before you…well, before you do whatever it is you have to do.” He handed the demon his card. “I’d appreciate it.”

  The Roshon took the card and shoved it into a pocket of its baggy pants. “I try,” it said. “No promise.”

  “All I can ask,” Wesley said. As he watched, the tall demons folded themselves into their car.

  “Nice folks,” Cordelia said as they got in.

  “Stinky, though.”

  “And absolutely no help to us,” Wesley said.

  Gunn glanced at the sky. “We better figure out something that will help,” he announced. “And soon. Not much time left now.”

  Wesley followed suit. Indeed, he thought. Not much time at all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There were all kinds of theories about time, Fred knew. Time is elastic, not fixed. Time is the fourth dimension. Time is an oval, and everything that’s happening now is across the way from everything that happened before. Time is a single point, with everything happening simultaneously: past, present, and future all coexisting in the moment, and only one’s perception of events imposing an apparently linear pattern on them.

  But she was developing a new theory of her own, and it was this: When someone with absolutely zero experience picking locks is trying to learn the craft with a completely substandard tool and only one usable hand, under incredible pressure because her very life might be at stake, not to mention the life of someone she thinks is just an amazing person even if he isn’t exactly a person, then, for that person, time stands completely still even though for the rest of the world, it races at an accelerated pace. So even though every minute seems like an hour to me, the hours until sunrise are rushing past with every tick of the clock.

  She was pretty sure she understood the basics of lock-picking. But theory and practice were two very different things, and her palms were sweating from the concentration and exertion—and let’s face it, nervousness—and that made the tiny hinge pin hard to hang on to, much less work into the small keyhole in the lock. She kept trying, though, slipping it into the hole and fiddling with it, feeling for the tumblers she knew were in there. When she got one to fall into place, she heard a definite click and, if she hadn’t been chained to a radiator near the floor, she might have danced for joy. She knew that if the room hadn’t been so silent, she wouldn’t have heard the click, and after that she had to remind herself to breathe, so intent was she on staying quiet and listening for the next one.

  Finally it came. This time Fred could feel it, she was convinced, as it fell in line with the first. She wondered how many tumblers a lock like this might have, and when she should start applying pressure to turn it rather than working on finding the next one. Time seemed to slow down even more now that she was making actual progress, maybe even folding in on itself and running backward. But she did her best to ignore time, knowing that the main thing was getting herself free, and the pressure of the ticking clock would only hamper that effort if she let herself dwell on it.

  Another faint click, another tumbler in line. This is incredible, she thought. It really does work like it’s supposed to. She knew how an internal-combustion engine worked, in theory, but she was pretty sure she couldn’t build one with the items found in a half-empty room. But this lock-picking thing, it happens just the way I’ve always heard.

  She felt around for one more tumbler, but couldn’t seem to locate it. So maybe there are only three, she thought. Handcuff locks probably aren’t all that complex in the greater scheme of locks, not like a bank vault’s or anything. The point is kind of that the person who’s in the cuffs doesn’t have a key, or the use of her hands, so picking probably doesn’t come up all that often.

  Which meant she had come to the really hard part. She knew that a professional picking a lock would have some kind of tension rod that they would use to turn the lock mechanism to the side while keeping the pick in place, and therefore keeping the tumblers in the proper alignment. But she only had the one little pin to use. When she applied pressure to turn the lock, she ran every risk of having the tumblers slip out of place, and having to start over. The fear was so great that it almost paralyzed her for a moment.

  It’s a simple lock, Fred reminded herself. She didn’t know if they were police handcuffs, or if there were different kinds of handcuffs for diff
erent uses, but she guessed they were probably mass-produced, and that any key that opened one set of them would open them all. Which meant there would be nothing especially complicated or difficult about it. All she had to do was try to keep the pin through the tumblers while pressing it the slightest bit to the right. Once the lock caught and started to open, she could finish it with her thumbnail, she believed.

  She tried it.

  It worked.

  It worked! She could barely contain herself, but she knew that this was no time to lose her concentration. She used her thumbnail and the pin, together, and the lock turned. Now she reached a point at which she had to withdraw the pin, and she did, but the lock had turned far enough that the tumblers held their position. She was able to turn it the rest of the way with the pin, and the bracelet around her wrist clicked open.

  “Golly,” she said out loud. Then she clapped a hand over her own mouth. The room was empty, but she still didn’t know what was on the other side of that door—or who. “John” hadn’t been back, and she couldn’t decide if that meant he was secure in his belief that she wasn’t going anywhere, or if she’d genuinely bothered him and he was just trying to keep his distance. She held the cuff so it wouldn’t swing against the wall and let it dangle, silently, from the radiator. Then, for the first time in hours, she stood up.

  The big blue that Wes had been chatting with, the one Cordelia took to be their leader, got in behind the wheel of the Z-28 and cranked the ignition. But when the engine roared to life, instead of driving away, the Roshon backed it up to where she, Wesley, and Gunn stood on the sidewalk. The front passenger side window jerked unevenly down, as if the creature operating it didn’t have enough room to move its arm in smooth circles.

  “Car smells,” the Roshon in that seat told them.

  “Well, I hate to say this, but duh,” Cordelia answered. “You guys know about Scope? Or toothpaste, for that matter?”

  “No,” the demon countered. “Smells bad.”

  “We pretty much noticed that right off,” Gunn said.

  “No,” the demon said again. It shook its furry head like they just weren’t getting him.

  Maybe we’re not. After all, none of us speak Lassie. “Bad like what?” Cordy asked.

  The demon behind the wheel killed the motor, opened its door, and climbed out of the car. “Car stink like cinnamon,” it said.

  “That can do wonders,” Cordelia agreed. “Just a light sprinkle. You can even use it if you have ants in the kitchen—”

  “No, Cordelia,” Wesley said, touching her arm. “I believe it’s telling us something else.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” she said, instantly regretting the word choice. “What’s with the cinnamon? Some kind of sticky-bun reference?”

  “Kedigris,” the Roshon said flatly.

  “Indeed,” Wesley concurred, nodding. “Kedigris demons emit an odor very much like cinnamon. We might not have noticed it because—well, frankly,” he addressed the Roshons now, “because the smell of you, umm, fellows, was a bit overpowering to our senses.” He turned back to Cordelia and Gunn. “But they would smell it right away, of course.”

  “Cinnamon,” Gunn said, sounding kind of amazed by the whole idea. “I would’ve killed for some cinnamon smell when I had my head in that trunk.”

  “So you think it was Kedigris demons who stole your car,” Wesley continued.

  The Roshon nodded once. “Kedigris. Smells like, anyway.”

  “It’s not possible that someone actually did have some cinnamon in the car? A cup of coffee—or, as Cordelia said, a cinnamon roll?”

  “Kedigris,” the demon repeated.

  Cordelia could practically hear the little wheels in Wes’s head spinning around. He got this expression, when he was thinking—which he does, a lot—kind of dreamy-eyed and distant, with a little half-smile as if he enjoyed the very process.

  “You and the Kedigris are enemies, aren’t you?” he asked the Roshon, who still stood by the car, resting its big Cookie Monster arms on its roof. Or does that reference date me? she wondered. Maybe they’re Sully arms. He’s blue and furry. At least I didn’t go for the obvious big Smurf comparison. “Rivals, at least.”

  “Enemies,” the Roshon confirmed. “Kedigris bad.”

  “Very, I’m sure,” Wes said. “And now it appears that they’ve tried to frame you for a crime that they committed.”

  “Really bad,” the Roshon snarled. “Bad bad bad.”

  “They’re bad.” Cordelia hoped that maybe this conversational dead end could be avoided. “We’re with you on that.”

  “Maybe they need to be taught a lesson,” Gunn offered, catching on.

  “Good lesson,” the Roshon agreed.

  “The best kind of lesson,” Gunn said. He made a fist and smacked it against his other palm. “We could help.”

  “You and Roshon work together?” the demon asked. “Find Kedigris?”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Wes told it. “We need to find our friend. You need to punish whoever took your car and tried to make it look as if you shot at a bunch of innocent civilians. Did I mention the shooting was outside Caritas? The sanctuary?”

  “Caritas?” the demon in the passenger seat echoed. “I like singing.”

  “I’m sure you have a lovely voice,” Cordelia said. Got to make sure I keep away from “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” when these guys are there, she thought. Not that there’s much danger of me picking that one, in the unlikely event I ever accidentally end up onstage again.

  “Elton John,” the demon informed her. “‘Rocket Man.’ Sometimes ‘Crocodile Rock’ or ‘Burn Down the Mission.’”

  “I’m just glad you didn’t say ‘Love Lies Bleeding,’” Cordelia said. “That’s a little too close to home right now.”

  “Too hard.”

  “Then you know Caritas,” Wesley said. Just like him, trying to get the conversation back on track, Cordy thought. Which is good, really. On track is important when Fred and Angel are both in danger. “So you understand what it means that a group of demons fired upon the audience when they stepped outside for a moment.”

  “Kedigris really bad bad,” the Roshon said again.

  “Yes, I’m inclined to agree,” Wesley said. “If they’re responsible for this, and it looks as if you might be right, they are bad. And we’ve got to find them. Do you have any idea where to look?”

  The Roshon nodded its hyenalike head again. “Sure,” it said. “At Kedigris den.”

  “You know where this den is?” Cordelia asked.

  “Know where one is,” the Roshon replied. “Right by Caritas. Don’t know if it’s right one.”

  “Probably is, if it’s right there,” Gunn put in. “May not matter, though. We find one, we bust some heads till they tell us what we need to know.”

  “Exactly,” Cordy agreed. “You get us to these cinnamon-stinking Kedigris and we’ll…uhh…do what he said.” She shot a glance at Gunn. “Sorry, I just don’t think ‘busting heads’ sounds all that convincing when I say it.”

  “Girl, you’re the only one actually took out one of these guys,” Gunn countered, waving a hand at the Roshons.

  “People,” Wes said in his let’s-get-back-to-business voice. “We have a deadline.”

  “You in big hurry?” the lead Roshon asked them. “We go. Den near Caritas.” The demon climbed back in behind the wheel and started up the car again. Wes, Gunn, and Cordelia exchanged glances and then dashed to Cordy’s Jeep.

  “First one who says ‘follow that car’ is walking,” Cordelia warned.

  Gunn and Wes both got in, lips clamped tight. Cordelia cranked the ignition and pulled out into the street. As soon as she was in place, the Z-28 darted away from the curb, and she had to floor the accelerator to keep up.

  “Are we sure this is a good idea?” Gunn asked from the backseat. “You said these Roshons and the Kedigris don’t like each other, right?”

  “Mortal enemies,” Wesle
y confirmed. “Always have been.”

  “And none of us smelled any cinnamon in the car. Just that Roshon-musk or whatever.”

  “That’s true,” Cordelia observed. “He has a point there, Wes. I’m not sure what the point is, but it’s definitely a point.”

  “My point—”

  “No, let me,” Cordy cut him off. “The point is, we don’t know if they’re even telling the truth about the cinnamon, or the Kedigris. We think someone framed the Roshons by stealing their car and using it for the drive-by. But what if they’re just framing the Kedigris and getting us to help do their dirty work by turning us loose to”—she glanced over her shoulder at Gunn—“to bust heads?”

  “That’s a possibility, I suppose,” Wesley admitted. “But it seems like a slim one. Frankly, I’m not sure these Roshon demons have the intellectual capacity to come up with such a complex plan.”

  “Smart enough to get the drop on us,” Gunn pointed out. “And maybe smart enough to put us right in the middle of a demon war we don’t want anything to do with and don’t have time for.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Wesley said. “But he said the den is near Caritas. So far, this is the best lead we’ve had. And if there’s a chance of finding Fred and stopping Angel, we have to take it.”

  “You really think Angel would do that?” Gunn asked. They’d all talked about it already, and Cordelia was certain that Gunn and Wes had covered it before she’d even joined them. She didn’t really want to hear all the pros and cons again.

  “He’d do it,” she declared flatly. Just in case anyone didn’t get her message and tried to continue the discussion, she repeated herself. “He’d do it.”

  They both bought a clue and dropped the topic. A moment later, Wes took a cell phone from his pocket and punched a couple of buttons. “I’m calling Angel,” he explained. “To let him know what we’ve learned.”

  “Makes sense,” Gunn said from the back.

  Cordelia concentrated on trying to follow the Roshons, whose NASCAR-style driving made her own look stately and subdued by comparison. L.A.’s dark night streets whipped by, and she found herself seriously hoping that all those black and white cars with TO SERVE AND TO PROTECT stenciled on the sides were safely parked at doughnut shops somewhere far from here.