I shrugged. “I try not to shoot anybody if I can help it. If I’m put in a position where I have to, though, their gender or their age doesn’t have a whole lot to do with it.”
“And let me guess, you never steal from your boss?”
“Depends.”
“Depends?” she said.
“On how much of an asshole he is.”
“That happen a lot?”
“Working for assholes?” I said. “You have no idea.”
She laughed. The pan slowly warmed over the stove’s burner, bacon starting to sizzle.
“I know why Caitlin likes you. I know something else, too.”
“Yeah?” I said. “What’s that?”
“That you’re lying to my parents.”
Twenty-Nine
I gave Melanie an appraising look. Smart kid, no two ways about it. Good eyes, good ears, good heart too. Could be trouble.
“How do you figure?” I asked her.
She turned her back to me, focused on the bacon.
“I heard them talking after they went to bed. They said you and Caitlin broke up.”
“What of it?”
“You wouldn’t do what Prince Sitri told you, so he made you guys split up. Except suddenly, out of nowhere, you find something else the prince wants. And that’s going to make everything okay, but instead of rushing over to give it to him, you’re, what, weighing your options? If you’re telling the truth, you could fix all of this and you and Caitlin could already be back together.”
I leaned against the kitchen island.
“Gotta be careful,” I said, “dealing with guys like Sitri. They have a way of twisting your expectations.”
“How’d you find the soul you were looking for? And that rakshasi in Denver?”
“Like I told your folks. I had a source.”
Melanie turned, cocking a hand on her hip. No pupils nestled in her fish-belly white eyes, and a spray of blue veins adorned her face. It resembled the pattern on a butterfly’s wings, beautiful and grotesque.
“Hellooo,” she said. “I’m not stupid, Faust. There’s only one person out west who has ‘a source’ that good in the Court of Night-Blooming Flowers. Prince Sitri. And you bought the soul in exchange for ‘an unnamed favor,’ to be paid out to a Flowers noblewoman? A favor that could be anything from a suicide mission to putting a knife against Caitlin’s throat? You would never do that.”
“Maybe it seemed necessary at the time.”
“And maybe your whole story’s a pile of crap.” Melanie turned back to the bacon. When she glanced the other way, reaching for a roll of paper towels, her face was back to normal.
“What do you think happened?” I asked her.
Melanie laid out a handful of folded paper towels on a bright orange ceramic plate. She didn’t bother with tongs. She plucked a bacon strip from the sizzling grease with her bare fingers, setting it on the towels to dry.
“I think,” she said, then suddenly winced and sucked on her grease-spattered fingertips. “Shit! Goddamn that hurts! Mom doesn’t even flinch when she does that trick!”
“You hurt?”
“No,” she sighed. “I just thought that’d be really badass, and now I look like a total dork.”
“Your mom has a little more experience,” I said and handed her a pair of rubber-coated tongs from a jar of utensils. “Try these. And no, you don’t look like a dork.”
“Know what I think? I think you’re on a top secret mission for Prince Sitri. A spy, on his infernal majesty’s secret service.”
I forced a laugh. “I’m a sorcerer and a thief, not James Bond.”
“I think you knew where to go, because the prince told you exactly who to talk to and what to expect. I think he gave you something to barter with, too. Thing is, you aren’t bringing the soul to him because that’s not what he wants. It’s just part of a bigger plan.”
“Now why would I lie about a thing like that?”
“I don’t know,” Melanie said, shaking her head. “It’s got to be something so secret that even my mom and Caitlin can’t know about it. I’m right, aren’t I?”
With the exception of a tiny detail or two, she’d pretty much nailed it. I was definitely going to have to keep an eye on this kid.
“You’re pretty close,” I admitted. I knew denying it would only encourage her to dig deeper. “I made a deal with Sitri. We’re both getting something we want, assuming my plan works. Thing is, Melanie, I need you to stay quiet about this.”
“Sure!” She picked up the dish and held it out to me. “Just one condition.”
I grabbed a piece of bacon. “What?”
“I want to help.”
Good thing I hadn’t started chewing. I shook my head.
“No way. I’m not putting you in any danger. Your dad would kill me. Your mom would literally kill me.”
“I’m not a kid, Faust.”
“By the definition of the word, you kinda are.”
“I’m not a little kid. I turn eighteen in five months. That’s an adult. Legally. Look it up.”
I thought it over. One thing I didn’t need right now was another complication.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I might have something for you to do. Might. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open, and we’ll talk later.”
“What about right now?”
“Drink another bottle of water. You’ll thank me later.”
• • •
I didn’t realize, until I’d gotten out to the car, that I was still holding the bottle of Bud I’d confiscated from Melanie. I shrugged and tossed it into the duffel bag. I wasn’t much of a beer fan, but there was no sense in throwing away perfectly drinkable booze.
The Metropolitan is hip. Its designers took great pains to make sure you knew, from every angle of its brushed-chrome curves and Andy Warhol stylings, that it’s hipper than you’ll ever be. It’s the kind of place where blond heiresses in garish plastic sunglasses mingle poolside with guys in European leisure suits. Not normally the kind of place I’d pick for a meet-up, but maybe that was a good idea. Right now, being unpredictable was my best defense.
I nosed the Barracuda up to the parking garage ramp and waited while the automated box clacked and spat out a paper ticket. The barricade arm swung up, inviting me deeper inside. I didn’t like it. My last meeting in a parking garage ended abruptly, with a single shot from a sniper rifle. This time I was driving down, not up, but that didn’t set me any more at ease. Fewer avenues of escape if things went sour.
Chrome letters, five feet high and backlit by florescent pipes in cool electric blue, spelled out METROPOLITAN along a curving tiled wall. The Barracuda’s motor purred as I rumbled down a steep ramp to the second level. If her word was good, Agent Black would be waiting for me two floors down. I found a parking space and killed the engine.
Driving down to meet Harmony would give me a faster escape if I needed one. On the other hand, I’d be handing her my make, model, and plate number. We might be helping each other out right now, but ultimately she’d made it damn clear she intended to see me in an orange jumpsuit. The less information she had on me, the better. I figured I’d have the meet-up, walk up to the hotel for a late breakfast, then come back down and retrieve the car once she was long gone.
I left my ride behind and walked down the ramp. A rusted-out Volvo with California plates rattled past me. My shoulders tensed. These galleries were too big, too packed with quiet and darkened cars. Too many shadows and too many ways to come up on somebody from behind, or open fire from the dark. I kept a tight hand on the shoulder strap of my duffel bag.
The hotel hired famous street artists to decorate the walls on each level. The fourth floor sported an underground-comics-inspired riot of black-and-white images splashed by garish red, line art mingling with old Life magazine photographs blown up into blurry smears. I walked halfway across the level before Harmony showed up. She stepped out from behind an NV Energy utility van.
; I felt her before I saw her. She’d come loaded for bear. Her neck and wrists glowed like liquid gold in my second sight, dripping with high-caliber warding charms. She had something under her blazer, too, on the opposite side of her shoulder holster. Something that pricked at my mind when I tried to get a read on it, waving a razor in front of my eyes. I didn’t know if she was looking for a mage-fight, but she was ready for one.
“Is all that for me?” I said.
She held up her hand, stopping me about five feet away from her.
“That’s close enough,” she said. “We have a file on you, Faust. We know what you’re capable of.”
What she didn’t know, apparently, was that all my good magical tools burned up along with the rest of my apartment. My best weapon, right now, was the very mundane but very large handgun in my duffel bag. I didn’t feel inclined to share that information.
“Who’s ‘we’? Gary’s a schmuck, and your DEA guy—what’s his name, Lars? He’s about as magical as a dead car battery. You can’t tell me that either one of them has any idea what’s really going on.”
I had to gamble that Harmony didn’t know Gary’s real nature or that he was a quadruple agent working for her, Lauren, Sullivan, and now me too. If she’d figured that out, he was useless to me.
“I file two reports on every case,” she said. “One to my superiors in Seattle, and one to a office in Virginia with no windows and no number on the door. And that’s more than you need to know.”
I hoped she was lying. The idea of a sorceress going into law enforcement, a lone wolf, was a lot less scary than the idea of Uncle Sam figuring out which end of a pentagram points up. I prefer my government the same way I prefer my cops: clueless, helpless, and out of my way.
“Sounds ominous,” I said. “Do you get a cool code name, too?”
“No, but I have handcuffs—”
“Kinky.”
“—and a gun.”
I shook my head. “There you go, ruining the mental image. Nonetheless, I’ve got a present for you. I know we don’t see eye to eye on much, but we agree that Lauren Carmichael’s a problem, right?”
“That’s like calling a stalled engine on a 747 a problem. She’s a menace. What do you know about the Enclave?”
She calls it the Engine, Gary had told me. A ripple of nervous tension shuddered down my spine.
“It’s some sort of occult undertaking on a massive scale,” I said. “Maybe unprecedented. I’m pretty sure it’s not designed to spread rainbows and rescue kittens, either. What do you know about it?”
She shook her head, looking like she’d bitten into something rancid.
“Not much more than you do. Carmichael’s not thinking long-term, though. I was doing an investigation into her corporate ledgers. At the rate they’re burning through cash, the parent company in Seattle will be bankrupt within a year. Every dime they make is being pumped into Carmichael-Sterling Nevada, to support the Enclave’s construction.”
“Problem there,” I said, “is Lauren’s a strategist. A damn good one. If she’s not thinking about the long term…”
Harmony finished my thought.
“Then there isn’t going to be a long term.”
Thirty
“You said you had something for me,” Harmony said. A Corvette, its bright blue paint flecked with desert dust, cruised past us on a hunt for an open parking spot. We both stepped to the side and waited quietly until it rounded the next bend and its taillights winked out of sight.
“First, information. Does the name Redemption Choir ring a bell?”
She nodded. “A cult of cambion who want to be human. I think they originated out of St. Louis or Detroit. They’ve been migrating westward, but we’re not sure why.”
Good. Whatever sources of occult intelligence Agent Black and her mysterious pals had to draw upon, they didn’t extend to the depths of hell.
“Their boss calls himself Sullivan. Nasty piece of work. He’s an incarnate, so watch yourself.”
Harmony’s brow furrowed. “What’s an incarnate?”
Music to my ears. She had skill, I could tell that much from the raw power ebbing off her protective trinkets, but she wasn’t nearly as clued-in as I feared. I thought about a quick change of subject, but the angel on my shoulder told me I’d better throw her a bone. If she went up against Sullivan thinking he was just another halfbreed, he’d rip her to pieces. I wanted Agent Black off my back. That didn’t mean I wanted her dead.
“It’s a trick only major demons can pull off. They build a body for themselves out of their own raw soul-stuff, held together with willpower and spite.”
“That’s impossible,” she said. “Demons can only enter our world by possessing a human or an animal.”
“Suffice to say I’ve got a little more experience than you on this subject. Anyway, it’s a tradeoff. Kill a hijacker’s host body, you just send the demon back to hell to lick its wounds for a while. Kill an incarnate—and I mean, utterly destroy its body, down to ashes—and you kill them for good. You won’t get the chance, though, because incarnates are fast, and they’re strong.”
“How fast and how strong?” Harmony said. She was in full recon mode now, and I knew every word I said to her would end up in a memo on some faceless bureaucrat’s desk.
“Ever see The Terminator? Arnie’s got nothing on a pissed-off incarnate.”
“Numbers?”
“Numbers?” I repeated, not sure what she wanted.
“How many, Faust? How many are out there, disguised as American citizens?”
I shrugged. “None. As far as I know, Sullivan’s the only one in the States right now. Until recently I thought incarnates were just an urban legend, but I’ve seen him in action. The stories are true.”
The best lies are always grounded in truth. If she accepted everything else I’d told her at face value, she’d probably accept that too. They already had Caitlin’s photograph. I wanted her off Harmony’s radar entirely.
“So I realize you’re hot to arrest somebody,” I said. “But Sullivan’s not going to let you take him in. Try it and you, and everyone with you, are gonna get very dead very fast.”
“There has to be a way to neutralize him.”
“I’m working on that. In the meantime, how would you like to toss a wrench into Lauren’s plans?”
She cocked a hand on her hip. A silver bangle drifted down her wrist at an angle, glimmering with magic.
“I’m listening,” she said.
I patted my duffel bag. “Would you believe I have a human soul in here?”
“From what I know about you? Yes.”
“Gilles de Rais. French knight, child murderer, and all-around world-class shitheel. Lauren was looking for a way to snatch him out of hell. She needs him to finish the Enclave, don’t ask me why. I got him first.”
“How?” she said.
“What was it you said earlier? Something to the effect of ‘and that’s more than you need to know’? Bottom line: she needs it, I have it.”
“And where do I come in?”
Over by the bend in the ramp, about thirty feet down the line, we had company. A rough-looking guy in his twenties staggered from car to car, peering in windows, trying handles. I would have taken him for an incompetent thief, but from the wobble in his walk and the glaze in his eyes I figured he was coming off an all-night bender. Probably couldn’t remember what his car even looked like, let alone where he’d parked it. All the same, I kept my eye on him.
“I found the soul’s previous owner. If I did, so can Lauren. Sooner or later she’s going to figure out I took it and come gunning for me. I need to make certain this thing stays well out of harm’s way.”
“You’re giving it to me,” she said, catching on.
“Last place she’ll think of looking. Even if she traces the soul to your doorstep, even Lauren Carmichael will think twice before going toe to toe with a federal agent. She doesn’t need that kind of heat right now. Besides, I get th
e feeling you can hold your own in a fight. You don’t have to do anything with the soul. Just stash it someplace safe and forget about it. Now the Enclave’s stalled indefinitely, problem solved. Easy.”
Harmony gave me a hard look, like if she stared long enough she could bore right into my black heart.
“What’s your angle?”
“Pardon?”
“You’re a black magician, knee-deep in brimstone. I can also connect you—circumstantially, or we’d be having this conversation in your cozy new prison cell—to a string of heists and hijackings, not to mention at least three murders. Lauren has people just like you on her payroll. She could make you rich. She definitely pays better than Nicky Agnelli. Why are you standing in her way?”
“I already told you, I don’t work for Nicky anymore. As for Lauren, she killed a good buddy of mine. Well, Meadow Brand killed him, but she did it on Lauren’s orders. Right in front of me.”
“How did he die?” Harmony asked.
“Badly. Very badly. And he didn’t do a damn thing to deserve it. Then Lauren…”
The memory surged back. Lying paralyzed on Spengler’s blood-soaked carpet as Lauren pressed her palms against my chest, shredding my psychic walls, forcing her sick, toxic energy into my body one seething inch at a time. I remembered the way she’d gasped with pleasure, the satisfied look on her face as she pulled away, leaving a hungry snake squirming in my guts.
“Faust?”
I blinked, snapping out of it. I shook my head.
“She killed a friend of mine,” I said. “He was family. Not by blood, by bond. Where I come from, if somebody hurts a member of your family, you put them in the ground. No mercy, no forgiveness, no second chances. Lauren signed her own death warrant.”
“She’s going to prison. I’m sorry for your loss, I really am, but we have laws for a reason. They keep us sane. They keep society functioning. You’re not killing her; I’m arresting her. We need to be clear on that, right here, right now.”
My gaze flitted to the drunk, wobbling his way closer as he fruitlessly searched for his car. He was ten feet away, and I could smell the booze on his breath from here. No shape to drive. If he actually found his car, I idly decided, I’d yank his keys away and toss them in the hotel pool. Maybe steal his wallet, too. Tourist stupidity tax.
Redemption Song (Daniel Faust) Page 18