Redemption Song (Daniel Faust)

by Craig Schaefer

  “I’m not the only sorcerer in Vegas, Agent Black. We don’t agree on much, but we’re pretty damn unified on the subject of Lauren Carmichael’s continued survival. Besides, get real. What are you going to arrest her for? The legal system isn’t for people like us. The crimes we commit aren’t on the books, and it’s pretty damn hard to prove a curse or a hex with forensic science.”

  “That’s your problem, right there,” Harmony jabbed her finger at my chest. “You think what you can do makes you above everyone else. You think the rules of society don’t apply to you, just because it’s easier for you to break them and get away with it. You’re wrong. The rules apply to everybody.”

  I waved her off. “I don’t think I’m better than anybody else. I just make the most of what I have. Don’t you? I’m going to go out on a limb here, agent, and guess you don’t put on a psychic blindfold when you’re on the job. You use your magic, find your culprit, then work backward to gather ‘real’ evidence to get a conviction.”

  She stared at me.

  “That’s how I would do it,” I said with a shrug.

  “That’s different. I’m upholding the law.”

  “By using techniques other cops don’t have. But it’s not cheating when you do it, right?”

  “I’m protecting people. You hurt people for a living.”

  I unzipped the duffel bag. I wanted to get this over with, for more reasons than one.

  “That reckless-driving and gun-possession rap against Jennifer and me,” I said. “I want it dropped. You know those charges are bullshit. Meadow Brand set us up.”

  “I know she did. Doesn’t change the fact that you committed the crime, does it? Besides, I’m a federal agent, Faust. I can’t just wave a magic wand and make local charges disappear.”

  “No, but you can talk to Metro and put some pressure on the DA. I’m doing you a solid here. All I’m asking for is some consideration in return.”

  Harmony held out her open hand.

  “Considering how long you should be going to prison for, I’d say you’re already getting some. If this isn’t some kind of trick, and this really does stall Lauren’s plans long enough for me to deal with her, I’ll be refocusing the task force’s investigation. I’m not saying you’re off the hook, I’m just saying I’ll be too busy to think about you for a while. Maybe a long while, if you keep your nose clean.”

  “Hey,” the drunk said, wandering up. “Hey, ‘scuse me, hey.”

  Inside the bag, my fingertips slid past the soul bottle and around the grip of my pistol. Instinct.

  Harmony flashed her badge. “Official business, sir. Please move along.”

  He was invading her personal space, but I doubted he even realized it. The way his eyes glazed, I figured he was trying to figure out which of the two Harmonys he should answer back to.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he slurred. “But maybe you can just tell me, is this the Karnak?”

  I shook my head. “Buddy, you are a long way from your hotel room.”

  “The Metropolitan,” Harmony said, rolling her eyes. She pointed up the ramp. “Go upstairs, take a right, look for the taxi stand. Don’t let me catch you driving—”

  Her arm was stretched out a little too far, her balance a little off, and suddenly the drunk guy wasn’t drunk anymore. He lunged for her wrist, caught it, and twisted it behind her back. His other hand conjured a cruel little knife that gleamed in the shadows of the parking garage, the business end pressed to the smooth, pale skin of her throat.

  Tires squealed somewhere above us. A pair of Harley Irons tore down the ramp, their riders’ faces hidden behind helmets as black as their motorcycles. Behind the bikers came an SUV with tinted windows and custom chrome. The Harleys moved in slow cruising circles, like sharks sniffing out blood in the water, while the SUV stopped right next to us.

  “Sullivan,” I hissed as he stepped out of the backseat, cradling his walking stick and flanked by a pair of his boys. From the looks on their faces, they’d heard about how I’d killed one of their buddies back at the mission house, and they were aching to return the favor.

  My finger rested on the Judge’s trigger, concealed by the duffel, but that knife at Harmony’s throat could slice faster than I could shoot.

  “A friend,” Sullivan said pleasantly, “told me you were having a mysterious little rendezvous down here. I hope you don’t mind my dropping in uninvited, but I believe, Mr. Faust, that you have something I want.”

  Thirty-One

  We’d been set up. It wasn’t just bad luck, or a case of one of us getting followed to the meet-up. If Sullivan knew about the soul, that meant somebody on my side of the table tipped him off. Probably the same person who tipped him off that Father Alvarez and I were waiting for Nicky’s limousine. It would have to be someone I’d spoken to since leaving Denver.

  That was a damn short list of suspects.

  I kept my hand in the bag and my finger on the trigger, thinking fast. Priority one was getting out of here alive. Between the knife man, Sullivan and his two escorts, and the two on the Harleys, it was two against six. One against six if Harmony got her throat slit.

  I pretended to think, stalling for time. “Something you want, something you…oh, right! It just arrived. A big pile of ‘fuck you’ with your name on it.”

  I gave him the finger. Sullivan frowned.

  “What?” I said. “Not your size? I’m sorry, all fuck yous are final.”

  The knife man kept Harmony’s wrist in an iron grip, her head tilted back and the blade ready to bite. She swallowed, then grimaced.

  “Can’t imagine,” she said, “why so many people want to kill you, Faust. You’re so good at making friends.”

  Sullivan looked to Harmony and bowed his head. “I must apologize to you, Agent Black. It was not my intention to cause you harm or distress.”

  “Like with Father Alvarez?” I said.

  “Father Alvarez is safe and sound. He’s been helping me by continuing the translation of his most remarkable manuscript. I’ve learned a great deal, and I daresay so has he. He’s an endless font of questions.”

  “The manuscript is a pile of crap, Sullivan. It’s a fairy tale. You’re wasting your time.”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Especially not now. You have something Lauren needs. Lauren has something I need. A simple transaction and everyone is happy.”

  “Sullivan,” Harmony said. “That’s your name, right? Do you understand the consequences of what you’re doing here? You’re kidnapping a federal agent—”

  His eyes went wide with surprise. It actually looked genuine, like the thought hadn’t even occurred to him.

  “Kidnapping? Oh, heavens no! You misunderstand me, agent. To keep my enthusiastic young friend from slicing your lovely throat from ear to ear, Mr. Faust is going to hand over the soul of Gilles de Rais. Once he’s done so, you’re both free to go. I have no reason to hurt you once I have what I want. I’m not sure what tall tales he’s spun for you, but I’m simply a man of peace, trying to atone for a misspent youth.”

  Six shells sat nestled in the Judge’s cylinders, ready for war. Not enough to win a gunfight. I’d have to drop every one of Sullivan’s cultists with a single shot, not to mention pull off some Wild West trick shooting to kill the one holding Harmony without hurting her in the process. I just wasn’t that good.

  Besides, there was Sullivan himself to deal with. I wasn’t sure if unloading all six shots right into his smug face would even slow the bastard down.

  Harmony looked me in the eye. Then she flicked her glance downward. Her free hand rested against her hip, and as she bent her shoulder, lifting the sleeve of her blazer an inch, I saw what she wanted me to see. A plastic teardrop dangled against her wrist, held in place by a strap of tape. She’d taken precautions, meeting with me. Wired herself for sound in case of an emergency. Clever.

  She moved as if squirming against the knife man’s grip, but I saw what she was really doing: rubbing her arm against
her side, pressing the switch to turn on her concealed radio.

  “This is hardly fair,” I said, loud enough that the teardrop mike would pick up my words. “I mean, here you are with, what, five guys? And you’ve all got guns?”

  Now her backup knew what they were up against. Normally I’d be offended—after all, she promised she’d come alone, and I’d kept my word on that particular bargain—but I’d save my complaints for after we got out of this mess.

  Sullivan raised his chin, looking down his nose at me. “Fair? Not a word that belongs on your lips, Mr. Faust. Now please. The contract if you would. Take it out with one hand, very slowly, and throw it to me.”

  I let go of the gun. There’d be time for that later. I curled my fingers around the rolled-up scroll. My heart sank as I tossed it to him.

  Everything I’d done, I’d just handed away. My deal with Sitri, with Naavarasi too. All the risks I’d taken, for nothing. I’d clawed a little bit of ground for myself, and now Sullivan had snatched it away from me. Again. He unfurled the scroll on the hood of the SUV and gave it a brisk read. He nodded and held out an open hand. One of the Choirboys handed him a fountain pen.

  He signed his name with a flourish. I watched my own signature, above it, flare to life with a crackle of flame. A moment later, only his name remained.

  A flicker of movement caught my eye, far behind Sullivan. Lars and Gary, on opposite sides of the gallery, creeping their way up and using the parked cars for cover. It wasn’t exactly a full-on cavalry charge, but it would have to do.

  “And now the soul bottle, please,” Sullivan said.

  I looked at Harmony, flicking my gaze left and right. She seemed to get the message. We’d have to take care of the cambion with the knife before her boys could move in. Otherwise, he’d kill her the second they opened fire.

  I focused, reaching out with a slender tendril of magic. It wriggled through the air like a silver eel, invisible and silent, and brushed up against the enchanted bangle on Harmony’s wrist. It flared, warningly.

  She felt it too. It was the best I could do, the closest I could come to hinting that she needed to prepare herself. I reached back into the duffel bag and took hold of the bottle. Not the soul bottle, though. The bottle of Bud I’d taken from Melanie.

  I looked to Sullivan and said, “You know, if anybody opens this thing, de Rais’s soul will get loose.”

  “Yes,” he said, irritably. “I do know how these devices work. Please don’t patronize me.”

  I shook my head, looking at the cambion. “Oh, I just mean, I hope you warned your buddies here. The second it opens, de Rais’s soul is going to fly out and look for a skull to crawl into. You ever see somebody get possessed by a free-floating spirit? Scary stuff. Their eyes bulge out, they foam at the mouth, and all their muscles go rigid. That’s just the outside. Inside, their minds get chewed to pieces. Their personality, memories, shredded and gone forever—”

  “Enough,” Sullivan snapped. “You are woefully misinformed, Mr. Faust. I expected better of you. Now the bottle, please.”

  From the looks on his follower’s faces, I’d done a decent enough job of creeping them out. Two of them looked nervously at the duffel, as if they’d just found out I’d brought a piñata stuffed with anthrax to the party.

  Sullivan was right. The only speck of truth in that entire thing was that de Rais’s soul needed a host body. I was pretty sure cambion couldn’t even get possessed. Before they had a chance to think things through, I sprang the trap.

  “Catch!”

  I tossed the beer bottle through the air, but not at Sullivan. I threw it to the cambion with the knife. He panicked, let go of Harmony’s wrist, and tried to catch the bottle. That was the opening she needed to spin on her heel and slam the flat of her hand up into his nose, snapping cartilage and dropping him like a rock. The bottle flew past, shattering against a car hood and spattering beer and foam across the windshield.

  I broke left. Harmony dove to the right. On the other side of the gallery Lars and Gary opened fire. The thunder of their guns echoed across the garage like cannon blasts. I had a cannon of my own, but before I could pull it one of Sullivan’s goons scrambled over a car hood and threw himself on my back. He was in full cambion mode, a spitting and clawing terror scrabbling at my face with dirty yellow fingernails, going for my eyes.

  I fell backward against a car. The window glass broke against the cambion’s back. Then I rammed my elbow into his rib cage again and again. He fell off, tumbling to the concrete. I pulled my pistol, but before I could finish him off one of the bikers whipped down the aisle and fired wildly with a little pocket gun that made coughing putt-putt-putt sounds. I hit the ground as shattered glass rained down around me.

  As soon as the rider went by, I pushed myself up and over another car hood, rolling as flat as I could and dropping to a crouch on the other side.

  Right in front of Sullivan.

  Seething with rage, he stood tall in the middle of the gunfight, giving the flying lead less regard than a swarm of gnats. He held out his hand.

  “Give it to me,” he hissed as his fingernails lengthened into claws.

  “If you insist,” I said. Then I shot him in the face.

  The Judge kicked like a mule in my hand. In the echo gallery of the parking garage it sounded like a thunderclap at point-blank range. My ears rang and my teeth rattled and Sullivan staggered backward, shrieking, clutching at his face. Black ichor rolled out in thick oily rivulets between his fingers.

  I didn’t have time to celebrate. The biker was coming back for another pass, and I threw myself clear of another streak of wild gunfire. A bullet whined past me, close enough for me to feel the breeze. My lucky day, I thought.

  It hit the duffel bag.

  Time lurched to a standstill. I knew what had happened even before I felt the bullet tear through the mesh, before I heard the breaking glass. Before I saw the plume of purple smoke streak through the bullet hole and out into the garage like a swarm of neon hornets.

  It flew past the cambion, past the howling demon, and made a beeline for Harmony. She had one of Sullivan’s boys pinned down and was making every shot count, but she didn’t see the cloud of death streaking her way.

  “Harmony!” I shouted. “Wards!”

  She turned just in time, flinging up her forearm and hissing something under her breath. Her silver bangle flared with violent light and the soul cloud crackled, bouncing away, coiling and twisting. It changed course. I braced myself, expecting it to come after me next, but it found an easier target on the far side of the gunfight.

  Lars never saw what hit him. The bulky Norwegian turned and caught the cloud full in the face. It enveloped him, streaming in through his mouth, his nose, his tear ducts. He went rigid, like a seizure victim, then collapsed to the ground.

  When he stood back up, he wasn’t Lars anymore.

  Thirty-Two

  “Lars!” Harmony screamed, looking like she was about to break cover. Lars stood there, his jaw slack. He stared at the gun in his hand like someone had given him a chrome-plated duck and expected him to know why.

  Gary, meanwhile, was a shadow in the back of the gallery, and I wasn’t surprised. After all, he couldn’t shoot the people he was secretly working for. From the pattern of his shots, I guessed he was laying down covering fire, going out of his way not to hit anybody. That meant the odds had shifted. Now it was Harmony and me against the world, and it looked like Harmony was about to do something reckless.

  I beat her to it. I kept my head down and charged across the open aisle, hoping to catch her before she ran to meet the thing wearing Lars’s skin. One of the bikers whipped his Harley around and came right at me, headlight glaring. The light made a good target. I aimed high and snapped off a shot, never stopping my run. The biker went flying and his ride dropped, skidding on its side and crashing into a parked van.

  “C’mon!” I said. “We have to go. Now!”

  “I’ve got a man down!”
Harmony shouted. “I’m not leaving without him!”

  I grabbed her shoulder, pulling her to face me, and spoke in an urgent hiss.

  “If we stay, we die. Lars can still be saved, but not here and not now. If we die here, nobody will ever be able to help him. Do you understand?”

  She gave a sharp nod. Focused under fire. She crouch-jogged to the edge of cover and pushed up the fallen Harley. Me, I was watching the nightmare coming to life just ten feet away.

  Sullivan was getting up.

  He stood slowly, gracefully, lowering his hands to his sides. His face reknit itself as I watched. Splintered bone slithered and popped back into place, cheekbones rose, and one blown-out eye swelled and sprouted in an empty socket like some poisonous mushroom.

  Harmony saw it too. She swung into the Harley’s saddle and patted the seat behind her. “Get on!”

  Sullivan pointed at me. His voice was a bellow that could shatter tombstones.

  “Faust!”

  I jumped onto the bike. We took off before my feet lifted from the concrete. Harmony gripped the handlebars, staring grimly ahead as the engine gave a throaty roar and rumbled between our legs. Sullivan gave chase, dropping into a lurching gait and then to all fours, his muscles rippling and twisting in ways no human’s could. What chased us now was something bestial, a creature built for violence and the love of the hunt.

  I shoved the Judge back into my bullet-riddled duffel bag and clung to Harmony’s waist with both hands. The bike lurched up the ramp, hit the curve, and pivoted so hard we nearly dumped it, but we righted our weight and Harmony hit the gas. The slowdown bought Sullivan an extra few seconds. Looking back, I saw him crouch and push his massive shoulders back, and then he launched himself into the air.

  “Gun it!” I shouted. The Harley roared, almost tipping forward onto its front wheel, and Sullivan came crashing down. Claws like iron spears drove into the pavement, falling just inches short, and pierced the crackling stone. He yowled and yanked, struggling to pull himself free, as we rocketed toward the next ramp.