Close to the Ground

by Jeff Mariotte

  Something about this plan wasn’t working.

  And there was no more time left to make a new one.

  He could hear them massing above him. He rolled over a couple of times, through the snagging grasses, to find the shelter of overhanging oak branches. Rolling was noisy, though. They’d have him pinpointed by now. The next bolt might not miss.

  Angel’s mind worked rapidly, running through the possibilities. None of them looked promising.

  When there are no good options, he thought, take the direct route.

  Mustering all the strength he could, he leaped into the branches of the oak. The tree shuddered violently, and the noise drew fire from above. Bullets and bolts blasted through the thick growth.

  Angel kept going. Reaching the top level of the branches, he bounced once on a broad one, like a diver on the springboard, and jumped for the rim.

  He caught the air, did a somersault over the heads of the shooters, and came down behind them. Landing on his feet, he kicked out toward the nearest man, catching the small of his back. The man staggered and then went over the edge, reaching out to one of his colleagues. They both disappeared into the canyon with startled screams.

  “I know how they feel,” Angel said.

  The third man, the one with the crossbow, was still standing. He pointed it at Angel.

  “Your time is up, vampire.”

  “Listen to me,” Angel said. “Your boss is gone. There’s no reason for this fight.” Even as he spoke, though, he was moving, sidestepping to the crossbow wielder’s right. The man tracked him with the weapon, but the farther Angel went, the farther from his body the man had to hold the bow. Finally, to keep his balance, he had to take a step to his right.

  Which was when Angel attacked.

  The man was off-balance for a moment. Angel dived in low and fast. A bolt whistled over his head, vanishing into the dark canyon.

  He hit the man in the legs, and they both went down in a tangle of limbs. A booted foot struck Angel’s brow, breaking the skin. Angel caught the foot and twisted, wrenching the leg as hard as he could. The bowman shrieked in pain. Angel dragged himself up the man’s body, finally getting a bead on his face. He was about to take a swing for the man’s jaw when a wooden bolt, clutched in the man’s fist, drove into his right tricep.

  Angel fell to the side, clawing at the bolt with his left hand and pulling it free.

  The bowman got to his feet and took a couple of quick steps backward, putting himself out of Angel’s immediate range. He shoved another bolt into place and aimed the weapon at Angel’s heart.

  When the hand landed on his shoulder, the bowman started and nearly screamed.

  “We’ll take over now,” Mr. Crook said.

  The bowman nodded and drifted away. Angel stood, facing the four demons from the other night. Gaunt Mr. Crook, holding his long staff. The short round one, shaped like a giant ball with stumpy legs and arms and dozens of teeth. The tall, powerful blue-skinned one with the ridges of cutting bone on the backs of his hands. And the Maelabog, skeleton rotating beneath its lovely skin.

  “You guys again,” Angel said.

  “And you,” Mr. Crook replied.

  “Got your magic rope?”

  “Will we need it?” Mr. Crook asked with that claws-on-blackboard voice. He seemed to be the designated spokesman for the group.

  “Only way you took me last time.”

  “Last time you were tired and distracted. Now you’re twice as tired, and you’re hurt — much more badly than we think you are willing to show.”

  “I’ve felt better,” Angel agreed.

  “And worse, we’re sure. But we don’t have to let you feel bad ever again. We can end your pain right now.”

  “Appreciate that, really,” Angel said. “But I’ll pass.”

  “Do not be so hasty. Consider our offer.”

  “You know, Mr. Crook, I just can’t believe that you really are looking out for me. I keep thinking you have some agenda of your own here.”

  “You must learn to trust.”

  “People keep telling me that. I’ll work on it — take a self-improvement seminar or something.”

  The longer he kept them talking — well, kept Mr. Crook talking, anyway — the better he was feeling. Angel healed quickly from any wound that didn’t dust him. Crossbow-guy had come close to that a time or two, but so far, Angel was still solid.

  He wanted to keep it that way.

  “You know Mordractus is gone, right?” he asked. “He was taken to the Otherworld by the demon that he summoned.”

  “We felt something,” Mr. Crook rasped. “It disturbed Maelabog quite a bit. A hollowness, she said, an emptiness in her soul. She was quite fond of the human.”

  “She looks all broken up,” Angel said.

  “You mock,” Mr. Crook said. “You are a demon yourself. You have declared war on your own kind. How self-loathing must you be?”

  “I don’t think of myself as a demon,” Angel said. “I was human. I made a mistake. I became a vampire. That’s my biology now. But biology isn’t destiny. My roots are in the human world, and that’s the world I embrace.”

  “A facile rationalization,” Mr. Crook argued. “Mordractus had you watched. We have seen his tapes, his notes. You do not seem comfortable in either world to us.”

  “I can’t believe I’m standing here debating philosophy with you,” Angel said. “Can’t we just fight or something?”

  “Exactly the kind of simplistic response we would expect from you.”

  “That’s the kind of argument you get from someone who has no argument.”

  Mr. Crook sighed, a noise like an old iron gate swinging in a strong wind. “Very well,” he said. He gestured toward Angel with his staff.

  The blue demon and the round demon attacked as one, from opposite sides.

  Angel kicked at the beach ball, careful to avoid its gnashing teeth. The big blue one came in close, arms swinging, and one of those spurs of bone caught Angel’s right cheek, slicing it open. Angel batted the hand away and shot a left jab into the blue demon’s gut. The thing doubled over.

  Angel moved away from it, caught the beach ball’s short, useless arm. Teeth snapped and slavered at him. Angel tugged on the arm, pulling the demon off balance. Angel kept the pressure on, kept pulling, and the demon literally began to roll. Angel jumped high into the air, over the rolling demon, and landed behind it. With a mighty push he rolled the demon into its blue partner.

  There was a moment when it looked as if the blue-skinned demon would maintain its balance. But the force of the rolling round demon was too much, and they both went down, over the canyon’s rim. After a moment they landed with a huge crash of branches.

  Angel hoped they squashed the human soldiers down there.

  But he returned his attention to Mr. Crook and the Maelabog. They were still here, still threats. And he couldn’t take all night with them — there were more humans out there, undoubtedly more crossbows and stakes. They had known, after all, that their prey was a vampire.

  Mr. Crook, though, wasn’t even looking at Angel. He was standing next to the Maelabog, whose skin rippled alarmingly, with his head bent toward her. He appeared to be listening to something that Angel couldn’t hear. He could only make out the faint sounds of her bones shifting beneath her skin, and he hoped that the memory of that wouldn’t persist in his dreams after this long night was through.

  If indeed he survived the night to dream again.

  Finally Mr. Crook raised his head. “She says you’re right,” Mr. Crook said. “Mordractus is gone. He has been taken to the Otherworld.”

  “She’s in touch with him?” Angel asked. “Good long-distance provider.”

  “You mock. She is in touch, as you put it, with the Otherworld. Not with Mordractus himself. He is in no position to be communicative.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Our battle is ended,” Mr. Crook announced. “We have no further dispute with you.”
>
  “The fact that I just threw two of you off the side of a mountain doesn’t bother you?”

  “We were here to do a job for Mordractus,” Mr. Crook said. “Mordractus is no longer in need of our services.”

  “Demons for hire, is that it? Now that there’s no more paychecks coming, you don’t have any interest in the outcome.”

  “That would be the way that you would understand it.”

  “What about Mordractus’s human troops?”

  “We cannot speak for them,” Mr. Crook said. “But we will communicate their employer’s fate to them.”

  “I hope they feel the same way about it that you do.”

  “They were paid employees.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Angel said. “Mordractus was nuts, but at least he believed in something. The rest of you are just in it for the money.” He rubbed his arm where the bolt had pierced it. “That’s more insulting than Mordractus trying to cook my brains.”

  “We will not argue this point with you,” Mr. Crook said. “We differ in our beliefs.”

  “Agree to disagree,” Angel said. “Good enough for me.”

  He turned away from the demons and headed toward the front of the house. The driveway, he hoped, was there, and maybe there would be a car he could take. Showing the demons his back made him nervous, but he took them at their word. They were hired help, nothing more, in the final calculation.

  He had just reached the drive when a car came bouncing up the path toward him. Caught in its headlights, he froze, not sure if there was another fight coming.

  He hoped not. He was beat. But he’d take what came.

  The car slowed, pulled up to him, and the front passenger door opened. Angel braced for anything.

  “That’s a good look for you,” Cordelia said, climbing from the vehicle. “Sticks, leaves, twigs. Nature boy. Very now. And the cuts all over your face just add the right kind of drama, I think. You’ve really put it together well.”

  Doyle stepped out from behind the wheel.

  “Looks like you were right, Cordy,” he said. “He’s obviously in need of our help. Looks like he’s surrounded.”

  “A couple of comedians,” Angel said. “Just what I need.” He opened the back door, folded himself into the seat. “One of you want to drive this thing?” he asked. “I just want to get some sleep.”

  Cordelia got back into the passenger seat. She flipped down the visor, pulled off the mirror mounted there, and handed it to Angel. “Take a look at — oh, wait,” she said. “Never mind. You’ll have to take my word for it. You look ridiculous.”

  Leave it to Cordy to put everything into perspective. It was all about how he looked. Angel started to laugh.

  By the time the car was turned around and heading down the hill, they were all roaring.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Doyle pulled off the bumpy drive and onto a paved road, leaving Mordractus’s rented home behind.

  Angel sprawled in the backseat and closed his eyes.

  “So you wanna tell us what that was all about?” Doyle asked. “We were worried about you, I don’t mind sayin’.”

  “I appreciate it, Doyle,” Angel replied.

  “I quit my job to help find you,” Cordelia said.

  “I appreciate that, too, Cordy.”

  “You’d better. Because it seems like the last time you gave me a paycheck for working at Angel Investigations was never.”

  “I’ll pay you something out of what I get from Jack Willits.”

  “Are you still working for him?”

  Angel thought for a moment. “I guess that depends on whether or not Karinna is still alive.”

  “I haven’t heard anything different in the news,” Cordelia said.

  “You don’t listen to the news,” Doyle pointed out.

  “Well, it would have been in the trades. And people would have been talking about it on the lot.”

  Doyle pointed at her. “Score one for you.”

  “Head for Bel Air,” Angel said. “My car’s at the Willits house, and I want to check in on Karinna. And turn on the news, why don’t you? Let’s just see if there is anything going on.”

  “Such as what?” Cordelia said. “You look like the guy who won the fight. Barely, I’ll grant you. But at least you’re standing up. Or you were when we found you.”

  “I think I won,” Angel said. “Mordractus is gone.”

  “More who?”

  “That’s right, you don’t know any of this. Mordractus was an aging Irish magician who wanted to make soup out of my brain in order to summon the ancient one-eyed God of Death.”

  “Look, Angel, if you don’t want to tell us, just say so,” Cordelia complained. “You don’t have to make up ridiculous stories.”

  “Sorry,” Angel said. “Guess I’ll just keep it to myself.”

  Doyle fiddled with the car radio, finally bringing in a news station. “. . . market closed up today another ninety points,” a male newscaster’s voice said. “More business news in a moment, but let’s go back to that breaking situation downtown.”

  “Gee, I wonder how my stocks would be doing if I had any stocks,” Cordelia said.

  “Quiet,” Angel hissed.

  “Excuse me.”

  “. . . robbers holding police detective Kate Lockley hostage for almost two hours at this point. They have issued demands, which the police department has refused to make public. An official spokesperson said only that the demands are being negotiated and every effort is being made to ensure the safety of Detective Lockley.”

  “Kate?” Angel said, struggling to sit up.

  “That’s what he said,” Doyle agreed.

  “Downtown,” Angel said. “Fast. Forget about Bel Air.”

  “Angel, I’m sure the place is swarmin’ with law,” Doyle said. “Swat teams, hostage negotiators, you name it. No way you’re gonna be able to do anything down there.”

  “Just drive, Doyle.”

  “Drivin’ here, boss,” Doyle said. They all lapsed into silence and listened to the news reports.

  Kate Lockley was Angel’s friend in the Los Angeles Police Department — which wasn’t necessarily saying a lot, as cops and private investigators didn’t really buddy up to each other as often in real life as they did on TV. But she’d always played straight with him. She had no idea, of course, that he was really a vampire, and he was hoping to keep it that way. People had a tendency to react in a negative fashion to that particular news bulletin.

  But he liked her and he respected her abilities, and he wanted to keep her liking him. So the vampire thing would stay buried in the back of the closet, as far as he was concerned.

  And now she was a hostage to killers. He didn’t know how it could have happened, but he knew it was trouble. The bank robbers knew she was a cop — the radio had been broadcasting that fact, along with her name and police record. That could only mean trouble, and he had to help.

  Once off the surface streets, Doyle took the Hollywood Freeway south to the 110. This late at night the freeway was remarkably smooth sailing, and Doyle made good time.

  Until just south of the Santa Monica freeway.

  There, a reality about Los Angeles freeway driving reared its ugly head. The reality is, there’s no such thing as a time of day or night when there’s no traffic. Traffic in the Southland could jam up at any time, for any reason, or none.

  Doyle saw brake lights ahead and slowed the car. A moment later the brake lights came to a halt. He slowed further.

  “Come on,” Angel said impatiently.

  “One of those things,” Doyle said. “Mystery traffic.”

  “Is there another way? Surface streets?”

  “There would have been if we got off at the last exit,” Doyle said. “But we didn’t, and it’s a ways until the next one.”

  “What’s wrong with this city?” Angel asked. “Where are all these people going in the middle of the night?”

  “You think you’re the o
nly night owl in town?” Cordelia asked. “L.A. isn’t even alive until after the sun goes down.”

  “I thought that was New York.”

  “New York is the city that never sleeps,” Cordelia explained. “L.A. is the city that dozes on the beach and power-naps by the pool. Daytime sleeping. This place was made for your kind, Angel.”

  A massive truck rumbled on their right, and in front of them an ancient T-bird belched noxious fumes into the air. To their left, a pickup’s stereo system screeched deafeningly as the driver, a dread-locked white kid who couldn’t have been more than seventeen, bopped and bounced and drummed on the steering wheel.

  Angel looked around in frustration.

  “Sorry, man,” Doyle said. “Nothin’ I can do. We’re stuck.”

  “You’re stuck,” Angel said. He opened the car door. “I’m not.”

  “Angel!” Cordelia called. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll see you back at the office,” Angel said.

  “You think you’re gonna get there faster on foot?” Doyle called. Then he looked at the interminable line of cars parked on the roadway ahead of him. “Yeah, I guess you will at that.”

  There were five of them. Six, counting the driver.

  But then, I pretty much have to count the driver, Kate thought. He is, after all, inside the bank with an automatic weapon in his hands.

  So six. All males, all Caucasian, between twenty-five and thirty-five years old, she figured. They wore work clothes — jeans, sweatshirts, work boots, all in dark colors. They all looked reasonably fit and healthy — all that digging, she guessed. Builds upper-body strength.

  They had taken her into an office deep in the bowels of the bank building. Two of them stayed back there with her — the Goatee, and a young guy with piercing blue eyes and wavy blond hair. Surfer hair, she thought. He had a strong jaw and a wide friendly mouth. In other circumstances she’d have found him handsome.

  But somehow she just couldn’t overlook the Beretta he kept clutched in his fist. His knuckles were white against its steely blue grip, and there was a quiver to his hands. He probably had not anticipated being trapped inside a bank with half of the LAPD surrounding it on the outside.