by SM Reine
Then I clicked the video. I fully expected it to be surveillance of my apartment, or maybe The Pit.
But the gray picture that appeared on the screen was of Suzy’s house.
I felt a wave of shock at the sight of her familiar couches and coffee table. Cat was lying on one of her chairs, kneading a blanket in his paws. The windows were open—Suzy hadn’t been burgled yet. Clicking the fast-forward button, I watched Cat sleep at four times normal speed, his furry flank rising and falling rapidly. He got up, licked his ass, went back to sleep on a couch. Night fell outside. Cat chased a fly and then disappeared.
Motion flashed outside Suzy’s window, but the video was going too quickly for me to be able to tell what it was. I resumed normal speed. Reversed. Hit play.
A human figure crossed through the shadows outside.
I watched the next five minutes with my breath stuck in my throat. The intruder didn’t come through that window. She came in somewhere off screen and walked through the living room with her back to the camera. Fished around under the coffee table, searched Suzy’s filing cabinet.
Then the intruder turned as if she could feel the camera looking at her.
I paused the video.
Her face was square and framed with heavy brown hair. Her lips were full. I would know—I’d kissed those lips.
Isobel had broken into Suzy’s house.
As the video continued, I watched Isobel break into Suzy’s gun safe. She grabbed the Glock. It didn’t look like she was comfortable with firearms; she seemed to accidentally eject the magazine and struggled to reinsert it.
But then she turned suddenly, as if responding to a noise that the footage didn’t pick up. A man walked into the frame. He had a slender figure, long black hair, studded leather jacket—an incubus?
Isobel’s mouth moved silently. She aimed the gun.
He flashed across the screen, moving toward her with superhuman speed.
She fired. The muzzle flashed. Black blood spurted from the back of her assailant’s jacket.
And that was all of the footage.
I replayed it to make sure, searched for other files on the disc, but that was it. There had to be more after that—it just wasn’t on the CD.
I ejected the disc and checked the date again.
It was the day before Erin’s murder. Two days before I’d hunted down Isobel.
But there she was, breaking into Suzy’s house, caught on footage from a security camera that I was pretty sure didn’t belong to Suzy. The OPA had put surveillance in her house. I looked over my shoulder, thinking I’d see a guy in a black suit standing over me, and didn’t find anything. I was going to have to search my whole fucking apartment for cameras and microphones before I took another shower.
I didn’t put the disc back in. The image of Isobel struggling with a demon was still frozen on the screen even though I’d removed the CD.
The disc had belonged to my case, but been deliberately damaged by Eduardo and Joey. Why? What was it about Isobel’s fight with the incubus that they didn’t want anyone to know? Or was it the information that exonerated Suzy that they were trying to hide?
Because this definitely exonerated her—and implicated someone else entirely. Someone I never would have suspected.
Suzy had said that the Glock had been stolen from her house, and here Isobel was, doing the stealing. That Glock had appeared in my living room the night that Erin died.
I slammed the laptop shut and left the apartment.
The evening was growing long by the time I reached Helltown. I parked the Charger in the Walmart lot again before heading under the invisible arch.
This time, I thought to duck rather than getting a femur to the face.
The streets of Helltown were just as busy as the last time I’d been there—maybe even busier. It was getting late. The weaker demons were trying to get inside before night fell, and the stronger demons were preparing for another night of fun. A night that I didn’t plan on sticking around to see.
I’d gone in through the entrance closest to the Temple of the Hand of Death, and I sprinted straight there without looking back. I had to move through shadows to reach it. Every time I left direct sunlight, I felt a chill rake down my spine. Felt like eyes on my back. Creatures watching me. Waiting for a chance to feed. Maybe even Silver Needles closing in to try to kill me again.
I didn’t plan on giving them a chance.
The front door of the Temple of the Hand of Death hung off its hinges. And Isobel’s RV was parked next to the empty gas pumps.
Drawing my Desert Eagle, I threw open the door to her RV and checked inside. There was nothing there but the beaded curtains. No sign of a struggle—but no sign of Isobel’s whereabouts either.
I kept the gun aimed at the ground as I moved into the temple. There were no electric lights inside, so the shadows were deep. An oil lamp left smoky smears on the wall and didn’t penetrate the darkness all the way back to the altar. But it was enough light for me to see that the teenage priestess was sprawled on the floor in a mess of velvet skirts and blood. What had Isobel called her? Ann?
She stirred as I dropped to her side. She wasn’t dead. Thank God.
I holstered the gun. “Are you okay?”
“What do you think?” She pushed her skirts aside to reveal the hilt of a dagger jutting from her fleshy leg. She had been stabbed. My stomach lurched at the sight of it.
She needed medical support. An ambulance. The kind of help that couldn’t come into Helltown.
“Are you alone here?” I asked.
“I am now,” Ann said. She sat straight up, scanning the ground surrounding her. When her gaze fell on the stone scepter that had fallen a few feet away, she immediately seized it. Hugged it to her chest. “They took Isobel.” Still clutching the scepter tightly, the girl yanked the knife out of her thigh.
“Whoa there,” I said, standing back with my hands lifted, unsure if I should try to help her. “Be careful. The femoral artery—”
“It didn’t hit anything major. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.” She sounded calm, but she was sweating. She glared at me with furious blue eyes. “This is sacred ground. Isobel should have been safe here.”
“What happened? Was it an incubus?”
Ann frowned. “No, it was a guy dressed like you.” I was dressed for work—so, black suit, white shirt, black tie. OPA standard. Probably Eduardo.
“Do you know where he took her, Ann?”
“He said something about a pit when he dragged her out of here,” Ann said. “That’s all I know.”
“Wait. A pit, or The Pit?”
“Dunno.” She wiped her blood off the dagger with her forefinger, then rubbed it on the shaft of the scepter. I couldn’t help but recoil. The blood was…vanishing. Like the scepter was drinking it up. Any urge I’d had to protect this girl was suddenly gone. Isobel was right. Ann didn’t need to be saved by anyone—definitely not my responsibility.
“Do you need me to take you to a hospital?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“We’ll be fine,” Ann said.
We? Hadn’t she said that she was alone? I backed away from her, eyeing the darkening streets outside the shattered windows. I needed to get out before the Needles realized I was there—and before the worse demons came out to play.
I left Ann alone in the darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Olive Pit should have been open at six o’clock in the evening, but its neon sign was turned off and the windows were dark. I sat across the street in the Charger for a good long minute, arguing silently with myself over how I should approach it: Go in alone, or call for backup?
Procedure said that I should call for help. We were expected to work with a certain level of autonomy—probably more than the real FBI were—but when it came to situations potentially involving firearms, we were supposed to get Union support. If a witch cast a spell at me, I could cancel it out with my own magic, but magic
didn’t do much against bullets. And Eduardo would definitely be armed.
But I didn’t know whom to call anymore. Suzy had been arrested for a murder she couldn’t have committed by the company we worked for. Eduardo and Joey were definitely bad guys. And Fritz—who knew about Fritz? He had contributed to Suzy’s arrest, too.
I sent a text message to one of the only phone numbers I had memorized then got out of the car.
The windows were unlit, but the curtains were open, so I peered inside. There was a light on in the kitchen, but everything else was turned off.
Silhouettes moved in front of the illuminated doorway. I counted them.
Five distinct men. I could tell them apart by their heights and clothing. And those were just the ones I could see.
I sat against the side of the building as I considered my odds, hiding out of sight from the men inside. Handling a single witch was easy. That was what I did best. Stalking them, figuring out their patterns, slipping a sleeping potion into their coffee. No confrontation necessary.
But five guys—I didn’t know where to begin.
“You really think this is time for a drink?”
I whirled. Domingo stood in the mouth of the alley. He wore another comfortable sweatsuit and carried a brown paper bag.
“You got here fast,” I said.
“I saw on the news that Agent Takeuchi is going to trial for the waitress’s murder, so I figured you were declared innocent. I was already on my way to bring you dinner at your apartment. Up for celebratory junk food?” He tipped the bag and the smell of cheeseburgers wafted through the air.
I hadn’t been hungry until that moment. I snagged his sleeve, pulled him down to the ground with me, tore into the bag. “We’ve got a problem,” I said around a mouthful of burger. “There are at least five men inside this building and they’re holding Isobel captive.”
Domingo tensed. “So you texted me?”
“I can’t handle it alone.”
“Call in backup! You’re with the FBI!”
I swallowed down one of the burgers. “Actually, I’m not. I work for a secret government department called the Office of Preternatural Affairs. We handle witches gone bad and demons and stuff. I don’t know if I can trust anyone with the OPA now. All I know is I can trust you.”
He made the time out symbol with his hands. “You shitting me?”
“What? Abuelita’s a witch, we’re witches. Are demons that weird?”
“No, I knew about demons. I mean this Office of Whatever the Fuck.”
“You knew about demons?”
“Do you think you’re the only one Ofelia talks to? Yes, I know about demons. But I thought that secret government stuff was some tinfoil hat bullshit.”
“Oh yeah, newsflash. Secret government agencies exist. I work for one.” I shrugged. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but I figure this is better than getting killed. So—ideas?”
Domingo sat back against the wall, staring up at the sliver of sky we could see between the two buildings. Clouds were moving in again. Smelled like rain. He was probably thinking about what I’d told him, but I knew it wouldn’t take him long to wrap his brain around it. My brother was tough as fuck.
“Isobel,” he said after a minute. “The woman you were telling me about.”
“Yeah. The woman.”
“She worth saving?”
Was she? She’d stolen Suzy’s Glock and gotten my friend detained. But she’d also been taken by Eduardo or Joey. If she’d framed Suzy, then she needed to come to justice—and not the vigilante kind.
The thought of turning Isobel over to the OPA didn’t sit well, either.
Cross that bridge once I come to it.
“She’s worth it,” I said.
Domingo grabbed the last burger out of the bag and scarfed it down. Once he was done, he wiped his hands off on his sweats and stood up. “’Kay. I’ve got an idea.”
Domingo had everything he needed in the trunk of his car—his “mobile command center,” he joked. He tossed me a big black can of salt and a skein of yarn and told me to help him circle the building. He’d take the north and east sides; I’d take the west and south.
“Don’t let anyone see you,” I warned him.
Domingo flashed a dazzling smile. “Me?”
This was the guy that had once stolen a dozen MacBook Pro laptops from an Apple Store while it was open—and escaped without getting caught. Casting a circle of power around a bar filled with demons unseen was nothing compared to his battle with the Geniuses.
I still moved to cast my half of the circle as fast as I could. I kept low, crouched under the windows, and unspooled the yarn as fast as possible. Then I joined up with Domingo in the back alley. He clapped his hands to close the circle, and the shock of magic was strong enough to make me sneeze twice.
“Shut up,” he said, clapping a hand over my mouth. I sneezed on him. “Sick, dude.”
I scrubbed my face clean. “What now?”
“Sleeping spell,” Domingo said. “The Cèsar Hawke Special. I got all the herbs you recommended—including passionflower—so all we have to do is amplify and project it.” He tossed a gemstone to me. An emerald the size of my thumbnail. “I’ll get the chants going over here. Put this on the western point of the circle. Once the spell activates, take the emerald and head inside with it—everyone’ll be unconscious.”
I rolled the gem over in my fingers. “Everyone?”
“Everyone but the guy holding the emerald.”
That’d make getting Isobel out tricky. But hey, it also meant skipping a fight and getting my ass kicked. I’d take it.
“What are you doing driving around with the supplies for sleeping spells?” I asked.
“I’d been planning to take it around to test it on friends. Well, covenmates. Help me tweak it a little, you know?” He planted his hands on his hips, giving the circle’s circumference a hard look. “This should probably work.”
“Probably? I’m feeling real confident in your skills right now.”
He grinned. “Go save the woman, Cèsar.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The magic was already building by the time I reached the front of the building. I was fighting so hard against the urge to sneeze that my eyes were streaming, blurring the street around me. But even though my vision was shot, I could see that one of The Pit’s windows was suddenly open.
All of the windows had been closed when I’d checked the building out earlier.
I dropped into a crouch, hiding below the windowsill. I could hear footsteps on the other side of the wall. Whoever had opened the window was still nearby.
On all fours, I crawled to the edge of the circle and set the emerald on the western point. It sparked with blue light.
Domingo’s magic surged, sudden and powerful. The sneeze caught me off-guard. My face pretty much exploded—and the sound echoed.
Shit.
The front door unlocked behind me.
I was standing by the time it swung open, but I didn’t draw my gun in time. Eduardo Costa stared at me from the other side. He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, so I could see that he had a shoulder rig with a holster under each arm.
“Cèsar,” he hissed.
I socked him in the jaw.
Eduardo didn’t even flinch.
He tackled me to the ground and we hit the pavement hard. He was heavy on top of me, knee digging into my chest, compressing my lungs. But my difficulties breathing were the least of my problems. If he moved two inches to the right, he would break Domingo’s circle of power. Scuffing that line of salt would kill the spell instantly.
Had to get him back inside the building.
Blows rained down on me fast and hard. Couldn’t even tell where Eduardo was hitting. Everything from the shoulders up hurt like fireworks detonating in my bones. I blocked my face, absorbing the contact with my forearms.
He paused to draw a gun.
&
nbsp; It only took a second—but it was long enough. I sat up. Slammed my head into his face. Missed his nose, but sent him reeling.
The emerald flared just a few inches away from my head as Domingo’s magic snapped into place. The burst of energy meant that anyone inside the building should have gone unconscious.
Too bad Eduardo was outside.
I grabbed the emerald and held it in my fist as I swung. I knocked Eduardo’s arm aside at the same instant that he fired. The bullet went wide, smacked into the stucco exterior of The Pit. The sound was loud enough that my aching skull began to ring like a bell.
He turned to aim again. I dived, shoving him through the doorway.
We both crossed the threshold.
The instant his foot touched the ground, his eyes went blank. He rag-dolled on the ground. Caught a table on the way down. It collapsed under his weight, cracking and crashing underneath him.
I caught my breath, prepared to pass out with him.
But I was awake. The emerald was warm in my hand.
“Domingo, you genius bastard,” I whispered.
I held still for a moment, listening for the sound of others on the approach. Anyone who was awake should have heard the gunfire and come running, but my brother’s spell seemed to have worked. Everything was silent inside The Pit.
Kneeling beside Eduardo’s body, I patted him down for weapons. All I found were the two guns under his arms. They were smaller than mine—each one a Beretta 9mm, both probably Union-issued. That was a pretty standard model of gun for police and military. I still had my Desert Eagle, but I took one of pistols anyway. Having twelve extra bullets couldn’t hurt.
I checked the safety, then tucked Eduardo’s gun in the back of my belt and went looking for Isobel.
There were more bodies near the kitchen. I had expected to find Joey nearby, but was shocked to see that these men weren’t OPA employees at all—they were slender men with black hair and leather jackets. I thumbed back an eyelid on one of them. His irises were demon-black.