by Domino Finn
She ended the call quickly. The thing with her grandfather was really wearing her out. The way I saw it, the best thing she could do was pass out in a chair next to him. Sleep it off. Relax. That was the point of vacation anyway.
Rest wasn't a bad idea for me either. But I couldn't afford it just yet. There was plenty on my mind that needed marinating.
The more I thought about it, the more I was sure the Vucari served different ends than the Russians. I should've paid more attention to the bouncer at Pop Stars. The Russians looked down on the Serbians. The Serbians resented the Russians.
The Vucari weren't mobsters. They were a crazed pack of I-didn't-know-whats. Smaller, supernaturally inclined, and likely the more dangerous of the two groups.
Which was scary seeing as how the Russians weren't a bunch of nobodies.
Pop Stars was a sleazy dive, but the men who ran it were connected to dark dealings. Despite not finding any hard evidence linking them to Connor, I still had a gut feeling they were working on something. The jinn had slipped that there was a genuine meeting in Miami, after all.
The problem? After all my bruising and sleuthing, I still had no idea what Connor was really doing in Miami.
When I pulled up to my hideaway, I found Chevalier's black work van backed up on the grass. The back doors were open. The crate of money rested inside next to a brain-dead zombie. The two bokors walked from boathouse to van, transferring duffel bags from this morning's haul. One of them favored a bloody arm, but he looked all right. I nodded as I walked past and found Chevalier inside.
"I'm surprised you're here," I said.
"Me too, Suarez." He flashed a grim smile. "But we had a deal."
I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall. "That deal involve you hightailing it and leaving me to deal with an animist ambush?"
His face darkened. "You failed to mention the jinn," he reminded me. "Perhaps there was more you left unsaid."
"I don't know anything about them."
He nodded once. "Then now you do. There are powerful people after you, Suarez." He cocked his head curiously. "It's as if you have something they desire."
I forced myself not to glance at the safe. "That's between me and them."
"And any you recruit to assist you," he said pointedly.
I frowned instead of saying anything.
"I did not know it was a trap, Suarez," he offered after a moment. "The Port of Miami was whispered in the streets. That information was left for us to find."
"I know. I'm just glad you didn't take the jinn's offer."
"It was tempting."
"About as tempting as a lethal injection."
Chevalier strolled to the open back doors of the drug van in the boathouse. I was hoping they'd dispose of the vehicle for me too but no dice. The bokors had scavenged all the cocaine except for the dusty layer that coated the interior. Two garbage bags now replaced them. Those were new.
"Twenty-five percent of the take," he said, holding open a bag with silver gauntlets. "As agreed."
"I'm surprised you're not cutting in the zombies," I muttered.
He raised an eyebrow.
"I mean thanks," I said. "You earned it. Really."
I took in the messy piles of cash. Had to be more than a million per bag. Cisco Suarez was officially a multimillionaire. The thought frightened me.
The leader of the Bone Saints took my hand and shook fiercely. "You know, Suarez. If you weren't such a dangerous man, I might actually enjoy your company." He left me in the boathouse. The muffled sounds of his van faded into the distance.
I stared at the garbage bags and snickered. I now had more money than I could ever spend. At least something good had come from this clusterfuck. Thing is, people have a habit of focusing on the failures. In that I was no exception. I had utterly failed to achieve my goals. Connor Hatch was loose. Vukasin Petrovic was a threat. The Russian deal was happening. And everywhere I turned, I picked up more trouble.
I flipped Petrovic's calling card in my fingers.
"Kree," I said unemphatically.
I should just figure out how to use it and get it over with already. By avoiding the calling card, I had just traded one ambush for another. There I'd been, believing I was subverting Petrovic's plans, and he'd been tugging on my leash the whole time.
At least Connor didn't know the location of my hideout, or I'd really be screwed.
My gator growled. The alarm wasn't long enough to give me a sense of anything. One second I felt it, and then it was gone.
I lifted my silver whistle to my lips. Damn it. Chevalier's pompous entrance had decimated my security staff. The gator was my last thrall. Without him I was dry.
I drew the shadows close and slipped outside, massing a glove around my fist. No more vehicles out here. Nothing approached from the road. Everything was quiet, but eerily so. In the darkness I expected splashes from the swamp and rustles in the grass. Birds. Frogs. Nature sounds. Everybody refers to awkward silence as "crickets" but, you know what? Crickets are a comforting constant. If you're out in the Everglades and don't hear crickets you've got a problem.
But I was greeted with absolute stillness.
I crept around my truck, my boots twisting in the dirt. My pet gator was on the ground, lying on his back, head crushed, insides ripped out. Something had done this so fast I didn't even feel it.
"Does everybody know the location of my secret hideout?" I complained.
The tarp over the back of my pickup had been ripped off. Something had been under there. I'd been so concerned about keeping an eye on the street behind me that I hadn't even checked my truck bed. I'd freaking driven something right to my doorstep.
Deep scratches scuffed the metal cargo bed. I ran my fingers along them and came up with granular dust. When I caught the whiff of sulfur, I knew exactly what was going down.
Chapter 25
I phased into shadow a split second before a stone hand punched through me from behind. The fist put a dent in the side of my pickup, rocking the vehicle violently. I didn't stop to collect insurance information. I slipped under the truck and landed on the other side, facing my attacker. A bony, demonic face trained on me. The head peeked just over the top of the bed, two horn stubs pointing out at angles, gray skin like mottled stone, rows of tiny sharp incisors in its mouth. The beast's dull appearance was broken only by its glowing golden eyes.
It raised two clawed hands and shoved them against the truck. The backside skidded toward me in a stationary fishtail. I hopped away to easily avoid the attack.
The thing snarled and vaulted into the pickup between us, but I snagged its leg with a tentacle of shadow. It fought against the grip of spellcraft, stretching its entire body over me. I was amazed at the creature's full form.
The beast was humanoid but fairly small, maybe two-thirds my height standing straight. Folded leathery wings and a serpentine tail extended from its back. Hands and feet ended in vicious claws. Pointed ears twitched angrily. It was about the size of a giant dog (and growled at me like one) but something told me it was intelligent.
I swung my shotgun up to blast it in the teeth but held off at the last second. My instincts were working faster than my brain, but I'd just caught up. This was a gargoyle. A true-to-life creature of stone. That explained the traces of dust I'd been finding. This was the thing that ambushed me in the museum. I'd emptied a load of birdshot into its belly at point-blank range and was rewarded with a confetti of ricochets. Better not try that again.
Armored or not, the gargoyle retreated from my weapon. Instead of struggling against the shadow, it pulled back with it, disappearing behind the truck bed.
I bent open my sawed off and let the regular shell fall to the ground. I loaded in one with spark powder. The shadow suddenly tugged away from me like hair pulled from its roots. With a leap, the gargoyle took to the air ten feet above and extended its full wingspan.
The stature of the creature didn't look so underwhelming from this vantage.
It was smaller than me, but this was an arcane creature built for flight. A cross between a bat and a man, with the limb tactility of a monkey.
Protracted fingers and toes descended on me. I gave it a proper Fourth of July welcome with the sawed off. Streaks of red light bounced overhead and rained down on me. The flames ate up my shadow so I ducked and rolled back under the truck the old-fashioned way. Stone claws ripped into the earth where I'd been standing.
I slid to the other side of the truck. My ears rang from the blast. The flames licked out and the darkness returned so I shifted to my feet, playing Keep Away with a bat out of hell.
I moved around the back of the truck and caught the beast rolling away. It crouched on all fours, ready to pounce. One of my more powerful attacks had just glanced off the thing causing little more than pained annoyance.
I loaded another round in my shotty. This was another of my homebrew specials. Bone dust grinded into a gluey paste, activated by the heat of the blast. I drew the boomstick up but the creature was faster. It knocked me aside with a vicious backhand.
Luckily, the gargoyle had been more concerned with the shotgun than goring me. I tumbled and lost my grip. The gun juggled in and out of my fingers, airborne and just out of reach. It landed in the dirt. The gargoyle and I both leaped for it.
I was closer but it was faster. My fingers reached the wooden grip of my antique shotgun. At nearly the same instant, a clawed foot smashed into the barrel. The beast pounded a furrow in the ground. The shotgun, however, was gone. I'd chosen to release it into the shadow rather than lose it.
The gargoyle roared. I sprang up to one knee right beside it, waiting.
The beast swiped downward. I held up my forearm and blocked his overhead blow. While the rune flared blue, I tapped Opiyel through the spiked dog collar on my wrist. Gotcha. I shoved his arm away and decked him right in the chest with a fistful of shadow.
The gargoyle tumbled backward a good ten yards, clawed the dirt, and skidded to a stop. For just a moment, it wheezed and stared at me in disbelief, then it showed tiny rows of teeth and charged.
I waved my hand and thickened the shadow on the ground, gumming up the terrain. The beast nearly tripped but deftly caught itself on all fours, snarling in the darkness. My spellcraft wouldn't keep it stuck but it wasn't meant to. Slowing it down removed its speed advantage.
The gargoyle screeched and extended its full wingspan, readying to take flight. My shadows couldn't slow him in the air. Ground speed was a worrying factor; flight was a whole other category. I was close enough to the boathouse. As it jumped into the sky, I retreated inside.
The beast roared. Metal clanged above me. Bangs and knocks navigated over the corrugated metal roof of my hideaway. My eyes tracked where I thought it might be. I backed up, realizing that it could crash through the roof at any second. In fact, the thin sheet of metal shouldn't even be enough to support the gargoyle's weight. Unless...
A blow slammed against the back of my neck and jarred my entire body forward. Something clicked as I attempted to take to the shadow. Pain pinched against my throat. Suffocated me. I found myself stuck in the material world, choking, something cold gripping my neck.
I fell to my knees and struggled to shake the hold. A boot against my back shoved me forward. I caught the floor with my hands. Then someone behind me clasped a handcuff around one of my wrists.
I was collared, with a boot forcing my body down but a leash pulling my arm and neck backward. The steel prevented me from escaping into the shadows. Immaterial things like spirits don't mesh with iron. I was now trapped.
The person jerked my arm behind my back. Reached a shackle for my other wrist. Everything in my body told me not to move my hand, to keep pressing it against the concrete floor so I wouldn't choke to death. But that reflex was pinning me down, making my wrist an easy target.
I took a breath and yanked my hand to my waist, reaching for my knife. My weight fell forward and I immediately regretted the decision. A crushing force pushed against my larynx. My air supply was cut off. My gasps came out as desperate little coughs of air.
But I'd only needed that second.
With my arm still free, I plunged the knife behind me, hoping to hit something vital. A woman released a sharp groan. Suddenly I was weightless. At least, that's what it felt like the second before my face hit the cement.
I didn't care, though. I could breathe again. I twisted around. A woman in biker leathers grasped her side. Her pants were skin tight, but her jacket was a hefty thing. As my knife clattered to the floor, I realized the thick leather had deflected the blow. She spread her oversized boots to either side of her body, catching herself in a wide split stance, coiled to attack. She watched me as I did her.
I recognized her. She was the same short woman with the sharp, punky haircut I'd seen in the museum leaving Dr. Trinidad's office. She was cute, too. But I wasn't about to let that spoil a good fight.
My free hand went to my belt pouch. It was odd that she wasn't making a move for a weapon. She just waited.
"About time," she said tersely. Her eyes flicked behind me, and I knew I was screwed.
Four heavy limbs pounded into my back and dropped me to the floor quicker than I could think. This time when my head hit the cement, something jarred loose in my brain. The world spun. I ground my teeth together, staving off unconsciousness.
My captor stomped toward me with heavy boots, yanked my free hand behind my back, and snapped the shackle closed. I was her prisoner.
Chapter 26
Voices and movement swirled through my head like fog, apparent but unreadable. A good concussion will do that. But I hadn't been knocked out. I might have been captured, but no one could say Cisco Suarez had a glass jaw.
My awareness came back in stages: The drool in my mouth. No, that was blood. Wait, did I detect a sprinkle of Everglades dirt as well?
I spit on the concrete floor of the boathouse, which was easy because it was only an inch away from my face. I was pinned to the floor. My wrists were shackled together behind my back with a length of chain running to the collar around my neck. Oh, and there was either a gargoyle sitting on my back or I literally had the weight of the world on my shoulders. I turned my head at the soft whiff whiff of leather. Skinny legs in clunky biker boots paced around me in a circle.
"Cisco Suarez," she said with dry satisfaction. "You're a hard man to find."
"I'm even harder to kill so don't get any ideas."
"Are you trying to impress me?" The woman lowered to her haunches in front of me, leather straining against her hips. Up close, she was a bit older than she first looked. Still pretty, but experienced. She practically straddled my head with her legs.
"Are you trying to turn me on?" I countered.
She ignored the jab and whispered in my ear. "I'll admit your tradecraft is interesting, at least."
Tough crowd. I thought about clamping my teeth down on her inner thigh and seeing if she'd be impressed with that. Hey, I knew it was a dirty move, but she'd brought a gargoyle to the fight. How fair was that?
I twisted around and managed to catch the stone creature in my peripheral vision. "Ditto," I forced out between clamped teeth. "You must be a summoner of some sort, right? Can't say I've seen a real gargoyle before. You mind calling him off? This is less comfortable than it looks."
The biker chick stood. "Knowledgeable. Calm under fire. You are trying to impress me." She began pacing around me again, each boot stomp echoing in my hideaway, each an agonizing refusal of my request.
"You're a proficient necromancer too. And somewhat toughened by a voodoo curse, if the stories are true. Nordic protection tats."
"Hey, what do you say we quit the small talk and just bang already?"
Instead of getting a rise out of her, the gargoyle's toothy grin appeared beside my face. He spoke with an elegant voice of sophistication that had no business coming from his Nosferatu face. "Speaking of banging, shall I introduce your head to the floor agai
n?"
I widened my eyes, not sure if the teeth startled me more than the fact that it could talk.
"You're British?"
"Not exactly," he answered, "though I did spend ages there."
I stared at the beast but addressed his master. "Cool trick. You taught him to talk. Why don't you call him off, like a good dog? Or better yet, tell him to play dead."
His tail rapped my head sharply. What was meant as a minor reproach nearly cracked my skull. I groaned and reminded myself: rock equals hard.
"Bernard," snapped the summoner. "Don't kill him. We're here for the Horn."
A hiss seethed from my lips. Of course they were. "Connor Hatch hired you," I spat.
Damn, between the Vucari and the summoner, everybody wanted a piece of Cisco Suarez today. I'd been so worried about the jinn that I hadn't adequately defended myself against his minions. I recalled what Connor said at the Port. The last thing he wanted was a fair fight. Call him a coward, sure, but don't call him stupid. He'd been a busy little bee behind the scenes.
"What's the going rate these days for selling your soul to a drug lord?" I asked.
"Everybody I steal from has it coming," she said with an indignant sneer. "I choose the work that I can live with. Lucky for you, I've got two rules. I don't kill anyone, and I don't screw over drug lords. Seems to me you've been doing plenty of both, so I wouldn't go throwing stones."
I chewed my lip. Was she really not going to kill me? I shifted my head to a position that put less strain on my neck. "If Connor could send you, why not just send an assassin instead?"
She shrugged. "Who's to say he didn't? I'm not a party to his affairs. I'm just an independent contractor. He's just a client."
Call me crazy, but I thought she might actually be telling the truth. The Vucari were the assassins. Brutes who shoved people around with the elegance of a garbage truck. The other animists at the dock were another team. They tried to kill me too. But Biker Chick wasn't like that. She was a cat burglar. A thief with finesse. And a three-hundred-pound gargoyle named Bernard.