by Domino Finn
"That, uh, some kind of statue?" asked the officer.
"Yeah," she answered. "I'm delivering it to a client."
The flashlight disappeared. I looked up and saw the gargoyle had closed his eyes, hiding their repulsive glow. Damn, he did look just like a statue.
"Can you open it up, ma'am?"
"What? Why?"
"Open it up," repeated the officer with indifference.
"Come on," said Shyla. "I know I was speeding a little, but searching my vehicle like I'm a criminal—"
"Are you carrying any weapons, ma'am?" he interrupted.
The gargoyle growled again. Their conversation was heading downhill and we both knew it. Bernard pulled away from me as they spoke, careful not to rock the van. He scowled at the back doors.
"Ma'am, are you aware you have bullet holes in your vehicle?"
"Uh, no..."
"Then either open the back doors of the vehicle or I'm gonna need to detain you."
"Okay!" she snapped, but then lightened her voice. Mildly annoyed, but compliant. "I'll open the van, if that's what you want, but I think this is all unnecessary."
With surprising silence, the beast leaned away from me and readied to pounce on all fours.
Shit. I couldn't let this go down. That cop would never know what hit him. I shifted my back against the wall to prop the bolt cutters between it and me, but it was impossible to do it silently. The metal tool scraped against the indents in the floor and the gargoyle's head snapped to me.
"Let's go, ma'am," said the cop outside.
Bernard kept his focus on me. "What are you hiding back there?" he asked slyly.
I feigned confusion. "What do you mean?"
He growled and grabbed my shoulder, forcing me to my stomach. When my hands came into view, instead of finding the tool, he discovered a sawed off aiming at his chest.
The back doors flung open and Shyla jumped out of the way. An officer in a blue uniform held a flashlight with one hand and rested his other on his holstered service weapon.
The gargoyle leapt from the vehicle, partly to attack the cop, partly to avoid my weapon. With my arm twisted around, I pulled the trigger. The gun kicked out of my awkward grip but a cone of glue staggered the startled beast. He stumbled to the pavement outside the van as the dust liquefied and hardened in an instant, pinning him to the street.
"What the fuck!" cried the officer, pulling his gun.
I rolled back against the wall and balanced the bolt cutters in place. Then I brought my boot out and kicked it backward into the handle, snapping the link.
At the same time, Shyla's heavy boot connected with the officer's hand and sent his weapon flying. He deflected another kick and yelled into a radio clipped to his shoulder.
"Officer needs assistance! Miami Avenue and Northwest Two-Five Street."
He took a punch but managed to pull a Taser from his belt. Shyla tried to bat his arm away, but his finger found the trigger. Two hooks caught her stomach between her unzipped jacket. Thin wires delivered fifty-thousand volts in a flash. She straightened and fell to the floor, muscles tensed.
I sat up and stretched my arms, showing my chains. "Thanks, Officer. I thought she was gonna kill me."
He jumped and peered into the van, wondering how many more of us were gonna surprise him. His eyes went to the gargoyle, pinned under a layer of glue. Then he seemed to remember he had a pistol somewhere. The poor dude had twenty things running through his head at once and seemed to be in shock.
I hurried to the front seat of the van.
"Nobody move!" he ordered.
"Actually," I said. "It looks like you have everything in hand here, Officer. I'll leave you to it."
He scrambled to find his gun. Shyla was on the floor blinking. She turned to her gargoyle, surprised to see him down. With a wave of her hand, Bernard disintegrated into charcoal dust that splashed out in all directions. Then she worked up a quick conjuration with her fingers. Something flashed. I smelled burnt hemlock. Visible power flowed into her. Any confusion that she'd had from being jolted to the floor vanished. Shyla hopped lightly to her feet. She stretched her neck and extended her arms like something alien feeling out the world.
"Stay down!" yelled the cop. He pressed the stun gun trigger again. The two wires were still connected to Shyla. They delivered a second shock. The summoner laughed and tore the hooks from her skin. Something was different about her. She had an air of bloodlust about her. Like the gargoyle, but out of control. Shyla picked up the cop and slammed him on the hood of his car.
I looked back from the driver's seat reluctantly. "Aw, hell."
The summoner grunted and shook the officer up and down. Whatever spell she'd used had given her more than renewed strength. The larger man couldn't wrest himself free. Shyla raised a fist to the sky.
I pulled the action on my shotgun and rested it against the back of her head. "Stop right there."
She froze. The cop stared up at us, breathing heavily.
"What is that?" I asked her. "Some kind of summoning?"
She clenched her jaw, fighting for control. I tapped the short barrel on her head. She nodded. "Internal."
Another trick I hadn't seen before. She'd basically possessed herself with something she summoned. That was one way to go, I figured.
"Let's say bye-bye," I ordered.
She scowled but, seeing no other option, did as she was told. The presence flushed from within her. The summoner gulped for breath as if she'd been underwater.
My eyes strayed to the officer. He was a young guy with a shaved head. Scared. Probably just a rookie. The poor guy was definitely having one of those days. I drew my index finger to my lips. With a wink, I said, "Shh."
I dragged Shyla by the collar to the passenger door of the van. I shoved inside after her and pushed her into the driver's seat.
"Drive," I ordered, holding my gun steady. "Before that rookie finds his gun. And don't even think about any of that summoning mumbo jumbo or my boomstick goes boom."
She grimaced and shifted into gear.
Chapter 29
"Not too fast," I told Shyla. "We don't want to attract the attention of the cops again."
She laughed coarsely. "Sure, because there's not already a BOLO matching our exact description out there."
Her sarcasm was tainted with uncertainty. Fear. It was obvious she wasn't used to having a gun to her head. Not that she couldn't fight, but it was a good bet that her pets were the ones who got dirty. That was the way with summoners. I knew because the same was often true for necromancers.
"Get off the main road," I instructed. "Turn here."
Nervous or not, she took direction well.
"You have any weapons on you?" I asked.
"No."
I reached into her open leather jacket. She pulled away. I jiggled the gun at her ear. She clenched her teeth as I slid my hand along the waist of her pants. She leaned forward as I checked the small of her back.
"What's this?" I asked, pulling a retractable metal baton from a strap on her left leg.
"It's just an ASP."
"That's a weapon, lady."
She shrugged.
I tossed it to the back of the van. I ran my hands down her leather pants, checking for hidden pockets. Her muscles tensed as I did so. Confident she was clean, I then checked her jacket pockets. Car keys.
"Any of these unlock my chains?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"Where's the key then?"
"I don't have it."
"I don't believe you."
She let out a hiss. "I swear." A stray hair fell over her face and she blew at it over and over before brushing it away with her hand.
I stared into her eyes. Still nervous. And she'd lied about the ASP. But I didn't find it on her and the van wasn't hers.
"You know," I said. "You're pretty cute for an untrustworthy demon summoner."
"I hate being called cute."
Tough crowd. I grabbe
d her phone from the console. "You following Chevalier's cell signal?"
"I dropped a tracker on his van at the Port. Just in case."
Damn. She'd covered all the angles. Shyla grumbled when I slipped the phone into my back pocket.
My wrists and neck had solid bars of steel clamped around them. Oversized fashion accessories. Who knew I was on the leading edge of cool? The hanging chain was loose so I could move about freely, but the closed links kept me from phasing into shadow. That was a big problem for me. I tried the key chain. Each of the three cuffs had a keyhole, and none of the keys fit. Shyla watched until I gave up and tossed the keys into the cup holder.
I checked the mirrors for police and frowned, wondering if we'd be able to make it back to the Everglades or Little Haiti. I wasn't optimistic about either option.
"Why'd you take me with you?" she asked suddenly.
I turned to her, wondering the same thing myself. "I guess I like to hold onto insurance as long as I can."
"Insurance for what?"
"That cop was just doing his job," I said, changing the subject. "He didn't deserve to die just because you were dumb enough to kidnap me in a stolen drug van riddled with bullet holes and broken windows."
"I wouldn't have hurt him."
I snorted. "Yeah, I forgot. The thief with a conscience."
"Don't laugh. I bet you have some kind of moral code too."
"Well, it didn't look very moral to me while you were denting the hood of the police car with his head."
She turned to the street, lips pouting. "It's... That one's hard to control."
I frowned. She'd summoned a dark power to herself without being sure of her ability to contain it. Why did that sound familiar? I lowered the shotgun to my lap.
"So you don't like summoning it," I said. "But you didn't hesitate to avoid jail."
"It wasn't like that."
"Hey, I'm not judging you. I'm not a good person. I've killed people." I sat back in the seat. "Even innocents."
She watched me again, waiting for me to bare my soul, probably. I showed her I was the silent type. We stopped at a small intersection and heard a siren in the distance. It was Fire Rescue. We sat at the stop sign until it passed us, and then continued.
"Wanna tell me about it?" she offered.
Me and Biker Chick. Fast friends.
"Enough with the chitchat, Shyla." I squeezed the gun to her waist. "Who else are you working with?"
A stoic expression overtook her face. "You saw my pet. I don't work with anyone else."
"Cut the shit."
"I told you, I'm an independent contractor. That's why I backed off at the Port and stowed away in your truck alone." She sighed. "Bringing in the Horn would've been a huge payday for me. Now I'm gonna head back to LA empty-handed."
My face soured. "Cry me a river, lady. You think you can steal for a living without getting a few fingers chopped off?"
She widened her eyes in horror.
"It's an expression."
That only partially relieved her. I pulled the hammer of the shotgun dramatically.
"Where's Connor Hatch?"
"I don't know that."
"He hired you, didn't he?"
She pressed her lips together. "I'm supposed to call him when I get the Horn."
I patted my back pocket. "On this thing?"
"No," she said quickly. "That's mine. He supplied me with a separate phone. It's at my base of operations."
"Where's that?"
She frowned and I jammed the gun into her side.
"Where?"
"Close, actually."
"And what exactly constitutes a base?"
"It's just a warehouse with some supplies," she answered. "I stashed my ride there before heading to the Port."
I nodded, liking the sound of this. "That wouldn't happen to be where the key to my shackles is, would it?"
She worked her jaw then nodded.
I checked her phone again. A GPS blip displayed Chevalier's location. I wanted the Horn back more than anything. The quickest path between two points is a line, but that's not always the smartest.
"Okay," I announced, pulling the sawed off back and enjoying the ride. "Here's the plan. We need to get off the street. We're ditching this van in your warehouse. We're gonna take your car, get my Horn back, and then we're gonna call up Connor Hatch. Tell him you found it. You do everything I say and I let you walk away. You can even keep whatever cash he brings you."
She furrowed her brow and wet her lips. "That sounds dangerous."
"You're the one who wanted a payday."
Shyla was right. Her base of operations was close. We had to turn around and head to the outskirts of Downtown. A police car raced by us in the other direction flashing lights and siren, but he wasn't after us. When we pulled up to the warehouse, we both breathed a sigh of relief.
She stopped in front of a sliding garage door. "We need to open it manually. You wanna do the honors?"
"And leave you alone in the van?"
She shrugged. "I could get out."
Actually, I didn't like the sound of that either. I wiped my lips and glanced up and down the block, working out the logistics. "How about this?" I shut the van off and pulled the keys. "You sit tight. I'll open the door and come back. We'll drive in together."
Shyla frowned, but it was the only deal on the table. I reached over her and rolled the window down. Then I exited my side and circled the vehicle from the front, stopping beside her.
"Don't forget this," she said, dropping her keys in my hand. "It's the gold one."
I nodded and stepped away. "Remember, no incantations or I'll be forced to fight back."
She stuck her jaw out and faced forward, hands on ten and two.
I moved to the lock without taking my eyes off her. The key slipped in easily. The lock fell open. I dropped it on the asphalt and drew the garage door high.
As I did, the door of the van slammed.
I spun around with my shotgun ready. Shyla stood outside with her hands in the air.
"I said to stay in the van!"
"I'm sorry," she said, gulping down a whimper. "I didn't want it to go down this way, but you left me no choice."
I arched an eyebrow. The van was empty. None of her pets were swooping down on top of me. As far as I could tell, she hadn't used any spellcraft at all.
Suddenly, my right arm shot above my head, fingers unclasped. The shotgun fell lax, still looped around my finger. I managed to spin around halfway before my body encountered stiff resistance, like the air was sludge.
The two animists from the Port were inside. The teenage girl gripped her statuette fetish in both arms, locking me up tight.
Chapter 30
"Cisco Suarez!" cried the excited voice of the illusionist. He hadn't been as fast as the witch, but by now he had a pistol drawn on me. He'd changed to a new suit. Just as debonair as the first, less covered in vile pestilence. Same red tie, though. Same exacting look. "Get him in here, Darcy. Before someone sees us."
The witch tugged on my arm with her invisible power. I fought against it. The last thing I wanted was to get locked inside a warehouse with a bunch of animists. Darcy struggled to drag me in. She was young and was no doubt still mastering her skills.
It didn't matter because a stiff boot shoved to my back did the job. Shyla recovered both sets of keys, idled the van inside, and rolled the door down.
Getting captured was really getting tiresome.
"You've met Darcy," said the illusionist, only in his late twenties himself. "My name's Shen Santos. And you're here courtesy of the Society."
My face slackened as it dawned on me. The Society was a group of animists who looked out for each other's business interests. A legal cartel, I called them. I'd run into one of their experienced enforcers before and had found myself on the short end of that fight. These two kids weren't at that level yet, but they'd been well trained.
I turned my head to Shyla. "So much
for working alone."
She crossed her arms defiantly and turned to Shen. "My job's done. Pay me so I can get out of this muggy city."
The illusionist waved the gun to a cubby behind him. "The red bag."
Shyla hefted it to the hood of a convertible BMW. So the little wizard alliance had hired her to find the Horn. Even though Connor was a participating member of that cartel, these guys had tried to scoop me up outside of his influence. That meant there was no cell phone here that could contact the jinn. Shyla unzipped the bag, quickly checked through the contents, and tossed it into the trunk.
Well, at least she'd been telling the truth about being an independent contractor. She wasn't part of the Society. She didn't work for Connor Hatch, either. I was liking her more by the minute.
The Connor Hatch thing had been an assumption on my part. One she hadn't dispelled. Smart of her. And since she wasn't in service to the jinn, she had no obligation to return his money. Double win. Shyla strolled to the van and hefted the two garbage bags out, one at a time. They joined her payment in the trunk.
"I guess honorable thieves don't have qualms about taking money," I said with a sigh.
She smiled tersely. "If it was really yours, I'd leave you with it. But you stole it too, didn't you?" The summoner remotely unlocked her car with a double beep.
"Not so fast," said Shen. "You still need to deliver the Horn."
She swallowed slowly. "I'm delivering him, not the artifact."
Shen's face tightened. He lowered the gun to his side and turned to her, but she knew he was wondering whether he should point it her way.
With the illusionist's attention (and the gun) off me, I turned to the girl. Darcy. She had short red hair and ripped skinny jeans and held her statuette in both hands with conviction. From this close I could see it was an honorific for Hecate, the Greek goddess of witches.
"Isn't Hecate a bit too trendy these days?" I teased.
She narrowed her eyes but her grip wavered. It had to be taxing to keep a hold on me like that. It was only my right arm that she pinned up in the air, but I was kinda attached to it so I didn't have a lot of room to maneuver. Coupled with the steel links around me, I was fairly boned. But my shotgun still hung limp around my trigger finger.