Infernal Justice (Angels at the Edge Book 2)

by Michael Arches

  How romantic, Cleo told me.

  I was more interested in finding out what my guy knew about Caligula or Avenger than their love lives. Unfortunately, they knew zilch. In fact, they did their best to stay away from the sorcerer. As for Avenger’s killing spree, they were Irish Catholics and opposed the death penalty under all circumstances.

  It wasn’t a promising start. They sat at a table and ordered a couple of Guinness stouts.

  When one of the hags came by, I switched to her mind and Cleo did the same. We began working our way through the room.

  For six hours, I learned nothing new, despite the fact that a demon sat at every seat in the place. Cleo or I’d checked them all, except for an ogre drinking alone and making threats against everyone who came close. He didn’t seem to be worth the trouble.

  This was too much like human detective work. Days, or even months, of spinning wheels, waiting for the right person to come along. Caligula obviously didn’t want his underlings socializing at Claim Jumper.

  Worse, we ran an ever-increasing risk of running into the minotaur who owned the bar. He was way too powerful for us to handle, and hiding in the kitchen wasn’t much of an option. He was as likely to check on his employees there as those in the main room.

  When the flow of newcomers had slowed dramatically, I sent Cleo a mental message. We need to get out of here while we still can.

  Agreed, she said. The two sorceresses in the far corner just paid their bill. I’m inside the hag. She’ll take their credit card back in a moment. I’ll switch into one of them and wait for you outside. Don’t dawdle.

  I was stuck in a goblin’s mind until his waitress came close enough, but she was obviously avoiding him. He’d tried to pull her onto his lap earlier.

  The ogre I’d avoided earlier staggered by the goblin on his way to pay his bill at the bar. I took a chance on the ogre. He threw down a twenty on the bar, leaving only a fifty-cent tip. Then he stumbled toward the door.

  But before he made it ten steps, nature called. He spun and walked toward the bathroom. There, he did his business and didn’t care whether he hit the urinal or not.

  While waiting for him to finish, I checked his memories. To my surprise, he was a part owner with Caligula of an illegal casino they ran for dark immortals in town. I racked his brain seeking the location for the illegal casino. All I could tell was it was somewhere in the Haight-Ashbury district on Waller Street. The business was hidden in a townhouse with gray stucco outside.

  That would have to be enough because the ogre turned to leave and wobbled as he walked out of the bathroom.

  Finally, we’re going.

  But I’d let that thought form too soon. When he got to the middle of the room, the bar’s main door opened and a bodybuilder entered. As soon as he closed the door behind him, though, he changed into a seven-feet-tall minotaur. His body was incredibly muscular, and his head took the shape of a bull’s.

  The ogre shuddered. He didn’t have particular trouble with the minotaur, but the bar’s owner was known for being unpredictable. The drunk ogre didn’t want to risk his anger.

  The ogre circled the room as the minotaur headed for the bar. We’d almost made it to the door when the minotaur turned and roared. “Scum!”

  I thought he was referring to me, but the ogre assumed he was talking to him. The bar’s owner ran for the door, surprisingly fast for his size. The ogre barely reached the outside, but he couldn’t pull the door closed behind him.

  Time to fly! I left the ogre’s mind and immediately converted into a falcon.

  A second later, the minotaur followed and jumped for me. He managed to pull out a couple of my tail feathers. That hurt, and slowed my takeoff. But my wings were strong enough to pull out the feathers. Flapping like crazy, I flew higher. The ogre scrambled down O’Farrell Street and vanished.

  In an instant, the minotaur changed into a large raven and followed me as I tried to gain altitude. I dodged his claws, but without all my tail feathers, I couldn’t maneuver as well as he could.

  My best bet was pure speed. That was what falcons were known for. I put every ounce of my strength into flapping my wings.

  Slowly, I began to pull ahead of the crow, but a gust of wind slammed me against a third-floor window in one of the buildings lining the street.

  The crow cawed right behind me, and his claws latched onto my left wing. His talons bit deep. Together, we began to tumble.

  Out of the dark sky, though, a golden eagle, Cleo, screamed and latched onto the raven’s body. He shrieked in pain.

  She twisted with both of us, all spinning as we fell.

  The minotaur finally let go of me, and I could fly again. The wing he’d clamped down on hurt like hell, but I flapped it anyway. No choice if I wanted to survive the night.

  Cleo let go of the raven and tried to gain altitude as he continued to drop to the street. Gabe, let’s get away before he can recover.

  She caught up with me easily, and I did my best to stay right behind her. We flew back toward the headquarters. Thank God, the raven didn’t attack again, but I halfway expected him to appear out of the dark at any instant.

  The trip to the bar had seemed short, but the way back took seemingly forever. I almost lost the use of my left wing before we arrived on the rooftop at the legion’s headquarters. As it was, I dropped the last twenty feet like a stone.

  When I finally gathered my wits and changed into human form, I said, “Thanks for showing up in the nick of time. You saved my sorry butt again.”

  “That was too close,” she said. “The chief will not be happy.”

  Sweet Jesus, I was about to get my butt chewed a second time in as many days. My stomach churned at the thought.

  Chapter 10

  INSIDE, I MET the office’s healer, an old Chinese man with stooped shoulders.

  “Deng Ming, call me.” His English wasn’t the best, but his hands were supposed to be magical. He took me to one of the comfort rooms.

  Ming quickly took care of the claw marks in my arm that had stuck with me when I’d changed forms. I thanked him several times and shook his right hand with both of mine.

  I was telling Cleo what I’d learned about the casino when Honah interrupted us with a thought, Stay there until I return.

  “Can you tell how pissed he is?” I asked my partner.

  She sat in one of the lounge chairs nearby, and I followed her example.

  “He no doubt wants to talk about how you got hurt. I sent him a message on the way back telling him I’d left you behind. That was a very serious mistake on my part.”

  I hadn’t complained at the time, and I wasn’t about to after the fact. “We’re partners. We share the blame just like we share success.”

  Honah was always busy, so I hoped it would be hours before he arrived. While we waited, I filled her in on the casino.

  But not for long. The boss appeared in a chair across from the two of us. Without a word, he downloaded our memories.

  I was suddenly very nervous. I’d already screwed up once recently, then I’d done it again. I could understand how that would annoy the hell out of him.

  “I direct these comments to both of you,” he said, “because I expect you to watch out for each other. Cleopatra should not have left the room without her partner, and her partner should have reminded her of that before any harm could occur.”

  With my dad, it usually had worked out best to shoulder the blame upfront, rather than to make excuses. I used the same approach with the chief. “When you’re right, you’re right. I won’t let it happen again.”

  “Exactly, sir,” Cleo said. “I sincerely regret the error.”

  Honah simply shook his head for a long moment. Then he said, “Make sure you both reflect carefully on what I’ve said. This could’ve ended disastrously.” Then he sent me back to my bedroom at the ranch.

  -o-o-o-

  DAWN WAS BARELY breaking, but I heard someth
ing clattering in the kitchen below. When I walked down, I found Ellen wearing her night shirt and slippers. Her hair was tangled, and her face looked pale.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot. “Okay is a relative term. I’m okay for a woman who’s about to have a baby, but if I wasn’t pregnant, I’d think I was about to die. I got about two hours of sleep last night. This kid wants out, and she’s tired of waiting. I’m just plain tired.”

  I had no idea what to do for her. So, I gave her a hug. “It’ll be over before you know it, then you’ll long for the quiet, peaceful life we now enjoy.”

  She gave me a mirthless laugh. “I’ve given up on trying to sleep anymore, but I’m too tired to work.”

  “No problem. I’ll make breakfast and take care of the chores.”

  By eleven a.m., the temperature had hit the nineties again, and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d seen rain. Thankfully, I’d almost finished the day’s chores, and I left the stiflingly hot barn.

  When I returned to the house, I found Ellen sleeping on her side in a recliner. She looked very uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to wake her up to tell her. Instead, I headed upstairs to our office. There, I used a video editing program to slow down the replay of Avenger’s killings. Not that I had recognized any problem, but given our lack of leads, I needed to make sure I’d pored over every item of evidence. Nothing jumped out at me. I had to fight hard to avoid screaming to release my frustration. My chance to prove my worth as an investigator was slipping away.

  -o-o-o-

  THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON, I kept checking on Ellen. Her nap had helped, but not enough. The woman was seriously sleep-deprived. I’d heard it only got worse after the birth, thanks to the baby needing attention at all hours, but all I could do for the moment was to let her rest as much as possible.

  After dinner, I half-carried her upstairs because she was so drowsy. Once I got her relatively comfortable, I let Honah know I was available.

  He immediately whisked me to the San Francisco headquarters. Kiko was waiting there, standing across the room, instead of Cleo. At least temporarily, the boss had broken up my favorite partnership.

  Kiko approached me. “Honah has directed us to find the casino you learned about. He expects you to recognize it.”

  I expected that myself, but the ogre’s memory I’d seen hadn’t been particularly vivid. I hoped there weren’t many gray stucco buildings on Waller Street and the Haight-Ashbury district.

  Without another word, Kiko walked to the door leading out onto the rooftop patio. There, she turned into an osprey. I became a falcon and followed her west to Haight-Ashbury.

  She landed on a quiet corner of Castro Street and Waller Street. When we both turned into our human forms, she said, “This is the eastern edge of the neighborhood.”

  We walked west on Waller but I didn’t recognize any of the buildings. Then, after a couple blocks, we came upon Vista Park. The grass there looked parched. I couldn’t understand how these people lived for six months without any rain.

  Waller Street resumed on the west side of the park, and we followed it. After a few blocks, I realized this area wasn’t anything like what I’d expected. According to my mom’s old stories about her parents’ hippie days in the sixties, this was supposed to have been the center of their counterculture movement.

  As I stood there, though, it looked like just another fancy, incredibly expensive, San Francisco neighborhood.

  Kiko and I kept walking west, and up ahead a few blocks, I could see that the street ended at another park. According to the map on my phone, that would be Golden Gate Park.

  Before we got there, though, I spotted the building I was looking for. From the outside, it seemed to contain a dozen or more apartments. Wide steps led up to a covered porch.

  Two men were lounging on a porch swing there, smoking. “Bingo,” I whispered.

  She looked at me as though I was a lunatic and kept walking.

  When we came to a tall van parked next to the sidewalk, she stopped where we couldn’t see the building. “Are you sure that is the right place?” she whispered.

  I nodded. Things were going just as planned for a change. My new detective gig might work out after all.

  In the same quiet tone, she said, “The two beings out front are guards. I believe they are werewolves.”

  I couldn’t tell from this distance. “How do we get past them?”

  “We wait for a demon to come along. In this neighborhood, most of them are likely to enter the casino.”

  I didn’t have any better idea for getting inside. We switched into our pure spirits and waited. This was the kind of neighborhood people could walk in at night, and many did. A dozen sentient beings passed us before a dark immortal came along. We both transferred into its head.

  He turned out to be a male werewolf. As he crossed the street in front of the van, he tried to appear nonchalant. Not that he wanted to fool the guards, but the casino’s customers had been instructed to stay inconspicuous outside of the building. Our host pretended to be one of the building’s tenants.

  When he reached the porch, he waved at one of the guards and took a white key card out of his pocket. He slipped it in the slot at the door. The latch clicked open, and the werewolf stepped inside.

  On the porch, everything had seemed quiet and peaceful. That sense of serenity continued as we strolled along a dimly lit corridor. On the end wall, a brightly lit screen contained a question in large letters. Do you swear not to use magic in the casino?

  Below the question, boxes for yes and no appeared. Our host pushed the yes button. A door opened in front of him revealing another hallway that led to a second door. The only thing on the door was a sign which read in illuminated letters, All magic is prohibited within these premises. The area is patrolled by hellhounds to ensure compliance. No further warning will be offered.

  Enter at your own risk.

  These people were obviously deadly serious about forbidding magic. I could understand why, otherwise the house would lose its edge.

  A seven-foot-tall troll, complete with a club on his shoulder, pointed at the sign. In a gravelly voice, he asked, “Do you wish to proceed?”

  “Yes,” our host said.

  The troll held out his free hand. The werewolf gave him a photo ID and the white key card. With a small flashlight, the troll lit it up and examined the werewolf’s face.

  Then he pushed both of them into a slot near the doorframe and returned them.

  A few seconds later, the door silently swung inward, and a jarring mixture of sounds poured out. Clanging bells combined with people laughing and whooping.

  “Welcome to Vegas West,” the troll said. “We hope you enjoy your stay.”

  Flashing colored lights poured out of the room ahead and lit up the dim hallway.

  Our host rubbed his hands together in anticipation. He was obviously a regular, and his pulse sped up as he stepped into a brightly lit room filled with demons and games.

  I’d never been to a casino before moving to Colorado. A few months ago, my friend Kevin had dragged me to Black Hawk, one of the old mining towns near Denver where gambling was legalized. The casinos there looked exactly like this one—except for the hellhounds.

  I spotted three right away. They stood five feet tall at the shoulder and probably each weighed two hundred pounds. Their teeth were sparkling white, and they looked like they were perpetually grinning. Their eyes glowed red. Two were solid black, but the third showed a few patches of brown.

  They reminded me of pit bulls, except for their size and the glowing eyes.

  Our host tried to hide his nervousness, but only a lunatic would relax around those beasts. The werecougar strode over to a cash-cage, and he peeled off five Benjamins from a wad in his pocket. The cashier gave him twenty chips worth twenty-five bucks apiece.

  I was more interested in the staff than
the customers, so I merged into the cashier’s mind. Kiko moved with me.

  Our new host was a middle-aged sorceress, with salt-and-pepper hair and a fake smile. She wore a navy-blue uniform that looked more like a one-piece bathing suit. The plunging neckline and clingy fabric left little to the imagination.

  The woman had worked in the casino for three years, and she knew most of the staff well. Her immediate boss was the head cashier, a werewolf, but he didn’t worry her nearly as much as the casino manager, a vampire. He prowled the catwalks hidden above the playing room and gazed down through panes of smoky glass. And he had a team of three leprechauns constantly monitoring the fifty video cameras strategically placed throughout the gaming floor. Worst of all, they got paid bonuses for spotting cheaters, and nobody loved money more than leprechauns.

  When the cashier had first gotten her job, she’d planned to sneak a few chips into her pockets every now and then, but then the manager caught one of the other staffers doing the same thing. He’d dragged the thief to a round table in the center of the room, sank his fangs into the idiot’s neck, and drained him dry while he flopped on the table. The customers and employees watched in horror then went back to gambling.

  She’d gotten the point.

  Kiko told me, We need to remain as far from the manager as possible. He can probably sense our presence.

  I wasn’t going to argue. The ceiling was at least twenty feet high, and I hoped that was far enough to hide our auras from him.

  Instead of worrying about that, I looked in the cashier’s mind to see how often Caligula visited. He owned the casino and did come around regularly, but his schedule was unpredictable.

  When I’d learned as much as I could from her, I switched into another customer’s mind. Kiko did the same. Honah must’ve told her to stay as close to me as possible. That was fine, much better than fine actually. She might save me from my own mess-ups.

  The customer, a centaur, headed for the crap table. A game was in progress, so he put a hundred bucks on the Come Line. With the next throw of the dice, snake eyes, he lost it all.