The Devil to Pay (Shayne Davies Book One)

by Jackie May

  “At the pad?”

  “The big one.”

  “You got it.”

  “Happy Hour later?” They’re both shouting now to cover the growing distance between them. Soda Guy replies, but his words are drowned out by the sound of the blue tarp pulling down off the van. It piles at the glamoured man’s feet. He wears running shoes.

  After stepping over the tarp, he slides open a door on the van’s passenger side. As he rummages through what sounds like heavy equipment, I consider making a break for the salvage yard. But the tarp is off now, and I want a look at its custom paint job. One look is all I need. If this guy will just go away…

  A loud compressor powers up outside. The big one, they had said. How big? The thing sounds like a jet engine preparing for takeoff. It’s so loud that I barely hear the van door sliding shut. I watch the running shoes turn and head away, stomping over the blue tarp.

  I crawl behind a front tire, beneath the bumper. I see blue jeans above the running shoes. Just outside the garage, his legs stop and turn to face the wall. What’s he doing? The answer should have come with a sound, but the air compressor is overwhelming my ears, so I only know what’s happening by the sight of a black line of shadow moving slowly over the garage from back to front.

  He’s closing the garage door.

  No time to think. Get out, or get trapped. I bolt across the garage, duck under the door just before it closes, and I’m hurtling across the cracked pavement when I throw my head back for a quick glance behind me. All at once, I get too much information.

  Beneath the man’s hoodie, his glamour is just as painfully eye-pleasing and exotic as his female partner. In his hands is an assault rifle—the heavy piece of equipment he just took out of the van—and I instantly understand that he wanted the air compressor turned on (the big one!) so it would mask the sound of shots fired. I catch one flash from the muzzle before bits of asphalt are spraying into my eyes, and a bolt of white hot lightning slams my hind quarters, spinning me out with a tumble of images. Clouds and cars and buildings all crash through my vision. By the time I come to a stop, sprawled in gravel, my whole body feels numb from the shock. Fine by me, no real pain—yet—but I also can’t pinpoint a location on my body. I know I’ve been shot. But where?

  Doesn’t matter now. I’ve got to think. I’m laying here, shot. The guy obviously thinks he’s killed me, because he’s stopped shooting. I’ve only got seconds to figure out my next move before he comes over here. I could play dead, and maybe he’ll—

  Time’s up. He turns his head to look down the row of garages toward the air compressor, no doubt making sure that nobody saw or heard what just happened. It’s not nearly the distraction I’d hope for, but it’s all I get, so ready or not, I tense every muscle in my body at once, flipping onto my paws. I’m shocked to find that all my limbs—even my brush—respond without complaint. I take off like a racehorse, diving behind a row of cars just as another volley of gunfire rains down with a hail of sparks.

  Sprinting full out now, it doesn’t take long for me to zero in on a painful hitch in my right hind leg, up top near the pelvis. There’s definitely no bullet in there, but I feel that white-hot sensation of air stinging raw flesh.

  There’s another problem: these damned straight rows. He can see me running all the way down the lane. Even when I cut over a line of cars to the next row, it’s too easy for him to do the same. The only thing that’s saving my ass right now is that he can’t shoot while running.

  I get to the shelf structure and dive right into the darkness. Slow going now, crawling, wriggling through openings between cars packed in like sardines. He’ll have to go all the way around.

  By the time I squeeze out the other side, I know I’ve made a mistake. My way got him off my tail for the moment, but it also put him out of my sight for too long. Now he could be anywhere—

  Or right there! He rushes out from behind a stack of cars and pumps a dozen rounds after me as I dash into the junkyard maze. Now the worst is past, I’m thinking. Now I actually want him to pursue me, because just beyond all these little mountains of cars is the fence. And at the fence—

  Is Brenner, standing atop a stack of cars with his gun aimed behind me. “Stop! Police!” He fires three shots, and I turn in time to see my pursuer throw himself on the ground, losing the assault rifle and hightailing it back the way he came. The reversal sends a giddy spike of adrenaline through my system. If I had vocal cords right now, I’d whoop it up, tell that asshole, Yeah, you better run! Not so tough without your gun, huh?

  But I’ve got something better: speed. Twice the top speed of even the fastest human. He’s almost made it back to the shelves when I leap at his shoulders and my jaws clamp down on his flapping hoodie. I’m not heavy enough to pull him down, so he only staggers sideways and flails, flinging me away. I spin, dig my heels into the dirt, and rebound at him. But he jumps for the shelf above and hauls himself up. When Brenner arrives, the guy has pulled himself up to the third shelf. Clever, going up and over the structure, but not fast enough. He can’t climb the last level before Brenner will blast him in the ass, so he’s forced to go inside and hide behind a pickup truck.

  We got him.

  Brenner, gasping for breath, gun held tightly in both hands, stands looking up at the truck. “Nowhere else to go, now come out! Get down here!”

  There’s a loud metallic snap, and suddenly the pickup truck shoots out and over the edge of the shelf, plummeting to the ground in a deadly nosedive. Brenner and I both leap away as, with the sound of a head-on collision, the truck lands on its roof, flattening the cab. In the next instant, an enormous beast smashes down onto the wreck with a fierce bellow and a blast of hot air from its goat nostrils.

  The baphomet is bigger than four Brenners, and surprisingly quick. He slaps the gun away before Brenner can get a shot off, lifts him by the neck, and tosses Brenner into the side of the overturned truck.

  The demon lowers its head to point two razor horns at Brenner. Like a raging bull, it charges.

  Every hair on my body stands on end. Even though I have no idea what I could possibly do to such a massive killing machine, I had thought to leap onto its back or try to bite its neck—something! But it bowls me away like nothing and propels into the side of the truck. With a horrendous screech of metal, the horns bury into the truck’s door on either side of Brenner’s head, missing by inches but trapping him.

  Brenner has time for one gasp before the demon goat rams at the ground with powerful hooves, pushing its horns through metal until his flat head crushes into Brenner’s chest, knocking the wind out of him. The beast pushes and pushes. Brenner clutches, scratches, kicks with his feet, can’t breathe, ribs cracking. I bite and claw and rake at the baphomet’s back, his legs, his arms. He swats me away and surges at Brenner, forcing blood from his mouth.

  I’m about to leap at the beast again when several shadows pass over me. Three large coyotes drop from the sky, falling onto the baphomet with savage growls and fangs bared. Two tag him on the flanks, while a beautiful golden coat flashes up the demon’s back. Nolan sinks enormous teeth into the back of its neck. Another flash—dark gray and red, that mean son of a bitch who I’ve never been happier to see. Ben shoots beneath the baphomet, twists up, and with a fierce, guttural bark, locks his jaw around the baphomet’s jugular.

  I know what will happen next. We all do. We’ve got the bastard by numbers, we’ll win, but not without a final, desperate struggle. With Brenner in the middle of it.

  I race over to his gun in the dirt. I could use it, but I’d have to shift, and the gunshot wound on my leg…there’s no way to know where it will end up on my human form, how it will translate. What if I shift and it cuts across an artery in my thigh? We’re taught, practically since birth, never to shift when wounded, not until you can be sure your other form will safely assimilate the damage.

  With black blood gushing from its neck, the baphomet roars and pulls back, wrenching its horns from the tru
ck and standing to its full height, even with four coyotes and Brenner clinging on like leeches. Despite such an extraordinary feat, Brenner seems even more surprised by the sound of my voice, screaming for him to get away. He pushes off from the baphomet just before I shoot it right between the eyes. The goat legs buckle. It falls to its knees, eyes rolling back, and then—timber, asshole—drops dead on its face.

  Two of the coyotes—Ben’s poker buddies—scatter to scout the yard for more threats. Nolan’s coyote bares his teeth and growls at Brenner.

  “Nolan!” I scold.

  He gives me a short, dismissive bark, which turns into a surprised double take. He shifts into his burly man body with the schoolboy haircut. “You’re hurt.” He stretches a hand out toward my right hip, where a bloody gash wraps around to the top of my ass cheek.

  “It’s fine.” I slap his hand away. “Don’t touch it!” Now that the shock is wearing off, I feel the pain, like a branding iron searing into my skin.

  “It’s dead, right?” Brenner asks. He looks as if he wants to help Ben wriggle out from under the baphomet’s head, but he’s afraid the coyote might snap at him, which is exactly what would happen.

  “It’s dead,” I assure him.

  Still watching me closely, Nolan says, “Nice shot,” which is a self-serving compliment, even if he doesn’t mean it that way. Nolan taught me everything I know about shooting.

  Just to have something to say in return, but also because I mean it, even if it is tough to admit, I say, “Not me. You guys. If it weren’t for you…” I look him in the eyes with something I haven’t allowed him in what seems like years: sincerity. “Thanks.”

  He quickly looks away, at Ben. “Not my idea.”

  Having finally pulled himself out from under the baphomet, Ben shifts into a muscled frame that was obviously built on the streets rather than the gym. There’s no definition in his cut—no show—just raw, thick power. His mouth—his whole jaw—is slick with blood and gore. He spits out a pulpy chunk of meat and says to me, “Let’s hear it, then, little girl. Tell me to stop following you.”

  “Okay, so maybe we’re even now.”

  “What the hell are you into here? A baphomet!”

  “And he’s only half of the fun.” I check the sky again.

  “So he’s a shifter?” Brenner asks. “Or a demon?”

  I explain. “Not a shifter. He’s a hybrid. Demon, yeah, but created by Arael Moaz with a fey mother, so it inherited a glamour.”

  “So…but Hillerman was right, then. Arael Moaz—”

  “No.” But I’m thinking, Yes. “She might have been right about some things, but we’ll figure that out later. Right now what we need is people over here to lock this place down. The white Ford Transit is here. They painted it.”

  Brenner’s about to ask the obvious question—What did they paint on it?—when the air compressor shuts off. The sudden silence is unnerving. I feel exposed. There are two things I need: clothes and a phone. “I need to call Nick Gorgeous.”

  When I head toward the back alley where my Crap-pile is parked, I see that Nolan and Ben were a little less conspicuous than us with their entry. Ben’s pearl black Mustang sits on top of a flattened portion of the chain-link fence.

  A screech of tires turns our heads across the salvage yard, back toward the garages. Between intermittent stacks of cars, we watch the white Ford Transit race to the far end of the property. It waits, engine revving impatiently, for an automated gate to roll back. Even from this far away, the red demon sigil of the East Side can’t be missed. It takes up the entire side of the van, like a giant red bullseye.

  “This is it,” I say. “It’s happening now.”

  Nolan says to me, “Go. We’ll take care of this,” meaning the dead baphomet.

  And I don’t hesitate. I run to my car, ignoring the pain from my hip, and throw open the door. I jerk my pants on (sucking in a breath, ow, ow, ow), throw my shirt over my head, start the car, put it in gear, and Brenner leaps into the passenger seat just as I stomp the gas.

  We reach the next intersection in time to see the demon van turn south onto Woodward Ave. Seconds later, as I make the same turn, Brenner’s call goes through to police dispatch. I don’t understand any of the numbers he rattles off, but “Shots fired, shots fired!” is clear enough. He relays the address of Roman’s auto plaza, then reports that we’re currently in pursuit of suspects “turned rabbit” in a white Ford Transit on…he looks frantically for a street sign.

  “South on Woodward Ave.,” I say. “Headed straight for downtown. Brenner—” He’s busy answering more questions. “Brenner!” He looks at me. “The bomb.”

  He takes a breath and shouts over the voice on the phone, explaining about the possibility of a mass casualty device, so send us everything you got, and do it now.

  So far, the van doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry. I see it up ahead, not speeding, not cutting in and out of traffic. I keep a good distance, five or six cars between us. Following is easy. The van’s tall, and with that blaring red sigil on the side, you could spot it from the moon.

  “Not exactly subtle,” I say.

  “Worse that way—” Brenner cuts off to answer more questions on the phone.

  He’s right, it’s worse this way. If the demons are announcing themselves before the hit, then they’ve obviously got some kind of message in mind, hoping to draw as much attention to themselves as possible. They want it to be absolutely clear who is responsible for what’s about to happen.

  And they’re heading downtown.

  Woodward Ave. splits straight down the middle of downtown Detroit. Within minutes, we’ll be right in the heart of everything. Hotels, casinos, sports stadiums, government buildings, the…

  The Agency.

  I call Nick Gorgeous. “Call Oliver, have everybody clear out of the office.”

  “You find me something?”

  “It’s the demons, and I don’t know why, and I don’t know what they want, but we’re following their white van straight into downtown.”

  “So Hillerman was right?”

  “Why does everybody say it like that?” But what I’m thinking is, Yes, she was right about everything. “We don’t know anything for sure, except that East Side wants the whole world to know it’s them. Brenner’s already called it in. Every cop in the city’s about to—”

  I hear honking ahead. The van swerves erratically, cutting off several cars and speeding through a red light. I drop the phone and shift gears, leaping up to top speed with a scream from the engine. Brenner is trying to update his people—“…running for it now, we’ve been made…”—as we zip by cars and thread the needle between buses crossing at the intersection.

  I agree with Brenner. The van must have spotted us following and is now trying to lose us. So, to make it very clear how stupid they are to think they could outrun my Crap-pile, I close the distance before we’ve even reached the next light. I have to jump on the brakes to avoid ramming the van’s bumper. Suddenly, its back doors are thrown wide open to reveal the gorgeous glamour of the black-haired woman, aiming an assault rifle…

  I have only an instant to react—so many things to do at once: brake, turn, shift, duck, scream—and the storm of bullets barely misses, chasing us off Woodward Ave onto a narrow cross street. Brenner is shouting into his phone, shots fired, shots fired, we’ve lost ’em!

  “We haven’t lost them!” I correct, honking cars out of the way as I fishtail onto a street running parallel to Woodward.

  Brenner’s got both hands on the dash. “Can we not do that again, please!”

  “Where’s backup? Where is everybody?”

  “On their way. Trust me, this will be all hands—watch it!”

  I weave through a crowded intersection while taking quick glances down the cross street to Woodward Ave. I see the white van flash by. “Still got ’em.”

  “There!” Brenner points ahead to the next intersection, where a police cruiser with flashing lights and bla
ring siren is picking its way through frozen traffic. “Follow him. Central’s put your car on the list. They know it’s us.”

  With the police siren screaming at everybody to get out of the way, it’s easy to cut back to Woodward and catch up to the van, which is now trailed by two other police cruisers.

  “Tell them to stay back,” I advise.

  “They know to stay back. It’s protocol.”

  “Gee, thanks for telling me that before we almost got our faces shot off!”

  “This isn’t the movies,” he continues. “Nobody’s going to ram them or try to leap onto their roof. We’re just going to follow at a distance.”

  “And what, wait for them to drive right up to a building and detonate?”

  “Of course we don’t want that. We want to block off certain streets in a perimeter that’s been evacuated, and trap the van in a safe zone, but how much time and coordination would that take? You’ve seen these things on the news. Sometimes we follow them around for hours.”

  I open my mouth to exclaim—Hours!—but I pause. I’m looking at something that strikes me as irregular. Half a dozen police cars just raced past us to join the tag-along party. Their pulsing light bars and blaring sirens surround us with pandemonium. Which makes one of the police cars stand out from the rest. Its lights are not on.

  I get that agitated sensation of an important detail on the tip of my tongue. “Look at that one. His lights aren’t on.”

  “I think we’ve got enough lights.”

  “Brenner.”

  The way I say it, the tone…he knows he better listen up. “What?”

  “It’s a white Ford.”

  “Okay…but almost all police cars are white Fords…” His voice trails off with a sinking understanding.

  “Look at them. White Ford Interceptors. All of them. And Roman’s shop…”

  “They could paint it to look like Detroit police.”

  “Do you have the list of inventory taken from Dario’s place? All the stolen items?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll bet you anything there’s no record of a light bar stolen off a police cruiser.”