Sacrifices

by Jamie Schultz

  “And?” Anna prompted.

  “And . . .” She watched the scene unfold in a series of overlapping catastrophes. There was blood everywhere no matter how the scene unfolded. Nail went down in one, burning, half his face clawed away. Black wings rose from half a dozen Annas, and monsters descended on her, bearing her to the floor. And everywhere, kids with guns blazed away at each other and fell screaming.

  “Dammit, we need to change the plan. We’re going to be overrun. Gangs, for starters, and Belial’s minions, and I can’t even tell what else right now.” A crushing weariness bore down on her, and she stepped back out of the church. There were monsters out here now, people running shrieking through the streets. A barefoot man in sweatpants was snatched up by a huge, oily gray serpent thing and devoured screaming. Something exploded to her right, the light like a searing nova. Fire spread from one house to the next. The weariness redoubled, and the weight pushed her to the ground. She sat on the top stair, then lay back, shoulders pressed against warm concrete. The sun added its own oppressive weight to the feeling, and she threw one arm over her eyes to avoid the worst of it.

  “This is not helping,” Anna said.

  The words “Go to hell” sat on Karyn’s tongue like a stone, waiting for her to spit them out. That was unlike her, but everybody was acting unusual these days, and she felt a pressure to let it out for once, screw the consequences, just feel better for the thirty seconds after the words escaped.

  But again, no. Anna was driving her nuts, but she deserved better.

  “I can’t do this again,” Karyn said.

  “Do what?”

  A scene from the first job with Sobell popped into Karyn’s mind. Sitting around the table in the old apartment, talking about the mayhem Nail wanted to create to disrupt the ceremony and give them a chance to steal that accursed jawbone. He’d started talking about guns and grenades, and Karyn had warned him about it. “I don’t want a slaughter,” she’d said, and she’d meant it. Nail hadn’t intended to actually shoot anyone, but it had clarified the mission when she put it out there in no-nonsense terms. Only . . . what had finally happened? Not at the job, but later, at Sobell’s office? A slaughter. And then again in Belial’s lair where the ritual had gone down. Less severe that time, she thought, but still. She’d heard numbers like a dozen dead as Belial’s new recruits went berserk and the terrible thing that Anna had helped conjure went on a rampage, leaving crushed and torn bodies in its wake.

  “Everything we touch, people get killed,” Karyn said. She didn’t move her arm and so couldn’t see Anna’s expression, but there was a long pause. In Anna’s current frame of mind, Karyn was almost sure her response would be “So?” but that didn’t come.

  She heard Anna’s feet scrape the steps, then a grunt as Anna sat next to her. “I’m excited about it,” Anna said, her voice soft and hesitant. “I mean, I know I shouldn’t be, but it gets my pulse up.”

  “That’s not you,” Karyn said.

  “I know. Kind of. It feels like me, even though I know better. That’s how it works, I guess.”

  “I guess.”

  “So this is going to be more of the same, then?” Anna asked.

  “Yeah. Only it’s not just us and our enemies and the enemies of our enemies. I think, maybe, if I stared at this mess long enough, I could piece a way through it for us. Maybe. But . . . it’s the whole damn neighborhood this time. They’re going to destroy everything.”

  “What do we have to do?” Anna asked. “How do we stop it?”

  Karyn peeled her arm away from her eyes and squinted at the sun. “Get Nail, huh? We’ve got a lot to figure out.”

  As Anna departed, Karyn was already dialing Elliot.

  “Hello?” Elliot said.

  “Sobell and Belial. Do you want them?”

  “Do you make a habit of asking questions you already know the answers to?”

  Karyn bit back her annoyance. “I can get them both to you tonight, but you have to do something for me.”

  A crackle as Elliot moved the phone and something brushed the microphone. “What is it?”

  “There’s . . . Look, a whole bunch of badness is going to happen down in Doyle Gardens tonight, and on top of that I think a couple of the local gangs are spoiling for a fight. Can you clear out a couple of streets? Get people out of here before they get hurt?”

  “‘Clear out a couple of streets’? As in, evacuate eight or ten blocks? I don’t know who you think I am, but I can’t just send in the National Guard. Even if I could, there would be riots. Think about it.”

  “Shit.” Karyn looked for some other alternative. Teenage kids, dead in the street. The Locos unprotected, the priest busy. It would be an opportunity for their enemies to finish them, and from the look of things, that was exactly what would happen. “Cops, then,” Karyn said. “Can’t you, I don’t know, call the mayor? Engage your super FBI powers?”

  “Remember what I said about riots?”

  “Figure it out, okay?” Karyn was almost screaming. The consequences of actions she’d taken long ago, consequences of actions she hadn’t even taken yet, were mounting, spinning off further consequences she couldn’t foresee. “Enough people have died, for Christ’s sake!”

  “I. Can’t. I’m sorry. I am genuinely, wholeheartedly sorry, but I don’t have a lot of power, and I can’t think of anything offhand that won’t make everything worse.”

  “Well . . . just think about it, huh? See what you can come up with?”

  “I’ll try,” Elliot said. From the dubious tone of her voice, Karyn doubted any real help would be coming from that quarter.

  “If you want to try to get your prisoners straightened out, we might be able to make that happen, too.”

  “Yeah? What about Belial and Sobell?”

  “It’s all the same thing,” Karyn said. “Round up your prisoners and get them down here tonight. The priest—your alternative tradition. He thinks he can do something to purge all the nasties, but it’s going to be ugly.”

  “What? How?”

  “Don’t ask me, because I can’t explain any of this crap. I’m taking half of it on faith because I have literally no other options at this point.”

  “I don’t know if I can get on board with that . . .”

  “You do what you gotta do. If you can’t clear the neighborhood, you’re useless to me. I’m trying to do you a favor.” Elliot said nothing, so Karyn continued. “Don’t come early, or you’ll screw the whole thing up. I’ll text you. Or hell, I’ll have Amaimon dial you up directly.”

  “Tonight,” Elliot said. She sounded satisfied.

  * * *

  “I don’t feel good about this,” Karyn said as Anna parked the car behind the buildings at the address they’d given Genevieve.

  Anna’s gaze was steady, serious. “Don’t feel good, or . . . ?”

  “Don’t feel good. This is . . . half-cocked and poorly planned.”

  “It isn’t planned at all,” Anna said, her face breaking into a grin. “And half-cocked, shit. Reminds me of the old days.”

  “Yeah. The bad old days. There were reasons we got our act together. Mostly to avoid getting our butts kicked. Or killed.”

  Anna was already getting out of the car. “It’s like you only remember the bad stuff. Come on.”

  Karyn opened the door and got out. She supposed she should have been relieved at Anna’s cheerful, devil-may-care attitude. It beat the pants off the bloodthirsty light that burned in her eyes most of the time these days, but Karyn had a hard time finding much comfort in it. Too flippant. Too “Whee, let’s roll the dice and see what happens!” Karyn hadn’t lived this long by gambling, at least not without a stacked deck. That was the sole benefit of her peculiar form of seeing the future, for God’s sake.

  Nail got out of the backseat. From the next car over came Abas and the kid, R
igoberto. Rigoberto stood off to the side, watching everything nervously. The priest appeared resolute, though the corners of his mouth twisted down as though he’d eaten something unpleasant.

  Genevieve and Sobell got out of the back of a battered white Buick and headed toward them. Karyn scanned her visions, looking for any clue as to how this might go, but according to her eyes, the empty parking lot was full, bright hot metal glinting under the punishing afternoon sun. Nothing helpful there.

  Genevieve walked right up and threw her arms around Anna, startling both Anna and Sobell, who stood frowning, as if he wanted to get on with things. Anna’s arms froze at her side before she finally returned the embrace.

  “I missed you,” Genevieve whispered. Karyn felt awkward overhearing it, like she ought to be somewhere else—but, really, they had stuff to do. If anybody ought to feel awkward—nah. She cut the thought off. After everything, if a little happiness could be found here, they should take it. For a moment, anyway.

  Sobell stumbled, placing a shaking hand on a nearby car to steady himself. He looked terrible. His eyes had sunken, and the flesh had seemingly burned away, leaving skin hanging off his face in loose wrinkles that hadn’t been there even a couple of weeks ago. His close-cropped beard, also a new development, was more gray than brown and it looked thin, brittle, as if running a hand over it might break all the hairs off.

  “Ladies,” he said. “Good to see you again.”

  “Are you here to offer me up to your demon masters again?” Karyn asked.

  Sobell made a pained face. “That was all a tragic misunderstanding. I assure you, that last fiasco was not my idea. I was, shall we say, overtaken by events. As were we all, I imagine.” He coughed wetly, then cleared his throat. To Karyn’s surprise and disgust, he swallowed thickly, rather than breach parking lot decorum and spit whatever hideous oyster he’d hacked up onto the asphalt. “In any event, I am here in need of your assistance once more.”

  “You’re lucky we’re all after the same thing,” Karyn said.

  “I believe I am, yes.” He held his hands out, weaving unsteadily. “I am entirely at your mercy.”

  The five of them stood silently as Karyn and Sobell stared each other down. There was a good argument, Karyn knew, for ditching Sobell right here in this parking lot, or maybe shoving him off the nearest bridge—he’d offered up his throat, and she thought at some level that she’d be a fool not to cut it. After all the misery he’d caused, he deserved no less.

  But we need him.

  She stood there, trying like hell but unable to reach any other conclusion.

  Genevieve shifted, gaze flicking from Sobell to Karyn and back, looking like she wanted to crawl under a rock and wait it out there.

  “Anna is positively itching to pull somebody’s head off,” Karyn said. “If you give me the smallest reason, I’m inclined to let her start with yours.”

  Sobell nodded gravely. “In my current condition, I’d be hard-pressed to stop her. We are, once again, in this together.”

  That deserved some kind of snarky retort, but Karyn couldn’t muster the energy.

  “Perhaps we should get down to business,” Sobell said. “When you’re quite ready.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Anna said.

  “Hey,” Genevieve said, giving Anna a nervous look. “Hey. He’s on our side. It’s—it’s okay.”

  Anna didn’t seem to hear. She took a step toward Sobell, her shoulders thrown back, her head tipped up to look him in the eye.

  “Anna!” Karyn shouted.

  Anna spun. Rage had pulled her face into a mask of hate, and for one terrible second, Karyn thought Anna didn’t recognize her at all. Then the rage dissolved into confusion.

  “What?” Anna said.

  “You gotta focus, babe,” Genevieve said. “Please.”

  Anna turned back to Sobell as though nothing had happened. “Where is Belial?” she asked him.

  “I’m not sure. I suspect it’s out doing things both nefarious and adverse to our interests.” His gait uneven, he approached the priest and extended a trembling hand. “Enoch Sobell,” he said.

  The priest, taken aback, shook Sobell’s hand and quickly took his own hand away. “Alonzo Abas.”

  “I am told you intend to invite one of the upstairs neighbors down for a visit.”

  “I intend to plead with an angel for intercession,” Abas said. Sobell, Karyn noted, didn’t take his eyes from the man’s face, not for an instant, studying every tic and movement as though for a revelation.

  “And this angel will what? Bar the gates of your own personal Eden in the Gardens?”

  “If God wills it.”

  “And what will it do to me, Father?”

  “Abas. Just Abas,” the priest said. “If you repent and abase yourself before it, it will purge the corruption from you.”

  Sobell’s scrutiny didn’t waver. He chewed on the words for a moment, unblinking, as though waiting for the priest to amend his statement. Then: “How do you know it will not simply smite me dead?”

  Abas offered up a smile that seemed entirely too calm. “I don’t.”

  “Well,” Sobell said, his expression sagging, “that’s fair, I suppose. To destroy, or to be destroyed,” he added quietly. He put his hands in his pockets, stood up straight, and visibly tried to muster some of his old swagger. “My understanding is that you’ll be needing a demon for this. Where would you like me to have it delivered?”

  “That’s the trouble,” Karyn said. “I think Belial has gone on a recruiting drive.”

  “I’m quite sure of it.”

  “If we simply invite him to show up at the church, there’s going to be a massacre.”

  “It does excel at massacres, by all available evidence.”

  “Abas has preparation to do. We can’t risk Belial showing up with his men before he’s finished, and honestly it would be better if his men never showed up at all. How do we get him somewhere, alone?”

  “I believe that I can get it to show up somewhere on fairly short notice. Whether it arrives alone . . .”

  Karyn tuned out the image in her mind and focused on the scene in front of her, trying to get a read on Sobell, to get any indication that he was playing them false. In her vision, he wasn’t even present. It was night, the parking lot was empty, and there was a huge crack running down the center of it. No help at all. “I don’t suppose you can just ask it to come alone?”

  “Alternatively, I could ask it to show up expecting an altercation. I suspect the response will be the same either way. It’s impulsive and reckless, not stupid.”

  “We don’t have time to screw around,” Anna said. “Get him to show up somewhere, and we’ll figure it out. We’ll either grab him then or tail him until we see a chance. Either that or we invite him to the church and he shows up with a dozen bloodthirsty, magicked-up maniacs and fucks everything up.”

  “Just get him alone and grab him?” Karyn said. “Just like that?”

  Anna gave her a chilling grin. “You can see the future, remember? How hard can it be?”

  “I don’t think giving Belial warning is the appropriate way to handle this,” Sobell said. “I may have another means of tracking it.”

  “I tried,” Genevieve said. “There was a gross hairball in its den, or whatever. I can’t track Belial, though. It’s blocked somehow.”

  “Do you suppose Clarence is as well?” Sobell asked with a smug grin. “Because, as disgusting as it is, I happen to have a bottle full of his saliva. It isn’t as good as blood or hair, but with a few pointers, I suspect, you can work with it just fine.”

  * * *

  They left in a two-car convoy. Nail drove Genevieve’s car with Sobell in the back while Genevieve worked whatever revolting magic was necessary to extract a location from the bottle of spit. Karyn and Anna followed. Abas had dep
arted with Rigoberto, back to finish the preparations. The group was armed with Nail’s gun, a few scraps of paper Genevieve had prepped with throwaway defensive magic, and a plastic 7-Eleven bag with the ball of hair in it, which Sobell insisted might come in handy despite its uselessness for tracking. After half an hour of weaving through side streets, they parked down the street from of a white building proclaiming itself the Gardena Methodist Church.

  Rather than get out of the car, Karyn called Genevieve’s cell.

  “That’s the place,” Genevieve said. “As best I can tell. Nail says the third car there is Clarence’s.”

  “Fuck me running,” Anna said from the driver’s seat. “Four cars? How many of these clowns has he rounded up?”

  Anna reached for the door handle, and Karyn put a hand on her arm. “Hold on. Just give me a second.”

  “I’m just gonna have a look around,” Anna said.

  “I know. Just—just wait,” Karyn said.

  Anna glared at her, but she stopped.

  Karyn stared at the scene in front of her, willing it to resolve not into the present, but into minutes and hours from now. At first, everything was a mess, bright daylight superimposed on late afternoon, noonday sun on churchgoers’ heads and long evening shadows stretching out behind people walking down the sidewalk, but as she watched and concentrated, the daylight scenes dropped away. The result was still a visual cacophony. There were police cars and sirens, yellow tape, a small crowd. Cars on the street rolled through it all, each time causing Karyn to flinch as she expected a crash that never came. The light went on in the church, then off, then on, then off again, minutes or hours flashing by and compressing alternating periods into an uneven strobe.

  She’d nearly given up on getting anything useful from the soup of imagery in front of her when a rabbit bolted out the (now open) front door. Three wolves followed, then a whole pack. A huge, shaggy gray wolf—a zombie wolf, with burning eyes and maggots dripping from its tongue—stepped from the crowd and watched the others run down their prey with what Karyn swore was amusement.

  “Hang on,” Karyn said.