by Jenn Stark
Maria sighed. “It got worse, slowly but surely. She was gone for a few days at a time, one time a week. When she got back, she got even quieter. Then she got sick a lot. Then one day, she threw up, and it wasn’t only food.”
“She was a mule,” Warrick said.
“She made me promise not to tell, and of course, I didn’t. But someone did. I started following her to her drops, trying to…I don’t know. Protect her. Keep her safe. As if I could do anything as a ten-year-old kid.”
“She was killed?”
“She…” Maria swallowed. She’d gone over it so many times in her mind. Cara had been convinced that the men she’d called Los Diablos knew she thought they were evil, that she could see them differently, but Maria had always discounted that. She was convinced that Cara had been killed for a far more practical reason.
Now she sighed. “She’d been playing a dangerous game with the pills she’d been carrying. There was always some loss that was expected, but her loss percentages were too high. Someone in La Noche knew it, warned her. She didn’t care. They never laid a hand on her—she swore they didn’t, but she kept pushing it. She figured if she could pool enough of the pills…sell them to the right person…she’d get out.”
Maria shook her head, surprised she could still put one foot in front of the other as she saw that night again, harsh and horrible before her eyes. “I’d been watching her, I always watched her, but then…” She pursed her lips. “I saw something in the shadows around her. Something that scared me. And by the time I looked again, Maria was surrounded by Takio’s men. They—they had knives. Knives that flashed in, pulled out. So fast…too fast. They gutted her before I could get to her, and I—I didn’t see what they pulled out. But she was still so beautiful, lying there, covered in blood, her hand red and shiny, and then there was this—this little gold cross she always wore.”
Maria could no longer see the sidewalk in front of her, only Cara. Beautiful, broken Cara and her shiny, bloodstained cross. “She wanted me to ask God to come and save her that night. Said she couldn’t do it herself, that she was no longer worthy. She even gave me the words, a kind of prayer. But what would God do? She was breathing her last, the police were coming, I could hear the sirens, and I didn’t want to share her with anyone, not in that moment. I especially didn’t want to share her with a God who could let such a thing happen to her.”
She blinked, and Cara was gone. The night was gone. There was only concrete and dirt and the Citadel growing ever closer. She lifted her hand to set Cara’s necklace swinging. “Some things don’t change all that much in fifteen years. Some do.”
Warrick nodded. “You think anyone there remembers you from that night?”
“Oh, maybe.” She shrugged. “But even if they did, they wouldn’t care. A whole lot of girls that grew up in the neighborhood got pulled into the gangs one way or another. Some even created their own small families as sort of a support organization, all of it following the money trail of La Noche. When you have nothing to begin with, you begin to take chances that maybe you wouldn’t take in another scenario.”
“A lot of girls die, though, in places like this,” Warrick said, surprising her. “You changed your life over Cara’s death. Why?”
“Honestly?” Maria lifted her hand to her chain again. “Because Cara had something I didn’t. Not the money, not the popularity, not the beauty—though she had all that for sure. But she had faith, you know? Faith in God. I never once had that—still don’t. It wasn’t like I had it and lost it like some people. It was never even an option for me. Whereas she seemed like she inherited it.” She shook her head, grimacing. “I couldn’t save her when I should have. So instead, I decided to save others. Or help protect them, anyway.”
Warrick opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it with an audible snap. They walked along for another two minutes, only slowing their steps when the Citadel hove into view. Slowing but not stopping. There was a man standing at the “Holly Hills: A Luxury Community” sign. He didn’t look like the apartment’s rental manager.
“Gun,” Warrick said drily.
“I picked up on that.” The man held not a pistol, but a rifle that would look equally at home on a big-game hunting safari or in an eastern European war theater. He didn’t move until Warrick and Maria were right up on him.
“Welcome, friends,” he said, his face expressionless. “Your meeting is with Mr. Soldaro. He’s looking forward to meeting you.” His gaze flicked to Warrick. “Both of you.”
The inflection in the man’s voice was off, and Maria tensed. The doorman was too smug, too excited. She’d seen that kind of feral excitement in Pablo right before a score—or before Cedo had decided to put someone in his place. What was going on here?
Stick to the plan. They needed to find any indication of drug manufacturing or trafficking. Maybe, if they were really lucky, they could pocket a pill or two while they were at it. Then Takio would be routed out of this hellhole, and Maria would have the satisfaction of seeing him taken down. It’d be enough. It was all she was going to get, so it would have to be enough.
“Then let’s go,” she said.
Both of you.
To Warrick, the phrase carried an unmistakable emphasis. Unmistakable and bad. He watched the windows of the blank-faced building in front of him. At first, he could see nothing in the empty glass, but as they drew closer, it started. A flutter of a curtain, the peeling back of a blind. The first of the apartment complexes, the one fronting the parking lot, was occupied. With what, he wasn’t sure. If it were him, however, that’s where he’d put his guard base. You didn’t want anyone signaling the cops from an upper-story window; you wanted to present a solid front.
Not that cops ventured this close to the Citadel anyway.
The flunky doorman—regrettably human, as it turned out, but well on his way to darker destinations—led them into the front doors of the building, which was apparently Building A, buzzing through using a keypad that looked surprisingly modern. Warrick could tell Maria noticed that detail too. Inside, the place smelled like urine and decay, but was cleaner to the eye than he expected. Someone apparently came in and picked up after the worst of the demons. And there were definitely demons here. The guard station had once been a receptionist desk for the area, as if the original designers of this complex had envisioned office space being rented out in the base of the main building. Now two demons stared up at them as they approached, barely managing to keep hold of their glamour. The doorman didn’t stop as their trio walked by, but Warrick reached out with the slightest flick of a touch, gathering the demons’ names. If there was a confrontation—and he was almost sure that was what Holkeri was setting up—the more foot soldiers he could take out with a simple command, the better.
Nobody spoke, but as they moved through the building, Warrick tried to hear the sounds of living above them. The front apartment was teeming with demons, now all of them watching and waiting. There was a legion in this building alone. Probably most of Holkeri’s force.
Warrick’s eyes had started to burn from the feral stench that only another demon could truly sense, when they broke free of the building and into the courtyard, a barren, treeless space that had once been something of a park. Now it was a stark tan patch of dirt, bisected with walkways that were unnecessary now that there wasn’t any grass. No trees, no bushes. Instead, the courtyard served as a makeshift parking lot for white-paneled, windowless vans—easily two dozen of them. They had no markings on the side except for a small scattering of official-looking numbers and letters on the one driver’s side door that he could see, and though they were older, they were clean. Nondescript. No one would notice them or remember them after they went by.
“We’ve got an audience,” Maria muttered, and Warrick’s gaze lifted to the buildings to either side of them. Sure enough, these windows weren’t empty. Faces filled them, both at the height of adults and, more chillingly, children, all of them staring out at the newcome
rs.
“Two hundred families live at Holly Hills.” The doorman suddenly spoke up in front of him, and Warrick glanced toward him, touching his mind with the gentleness of a whisper. The man’s name was Nico Martin, twenty-five years old, Takio’s highest-ranking human…which wasn’t saying much. “Each of these families owes their livelihood to La Noche and their lives to Mr. Takio. They’ll do anything for him.”
The human was nearly vibrating with excitement. Warrick suspected he was talking out of turn, but that didn’t make what he was saying any less true. Unlike Maria, the doorman wasn’t warded against him, which was how Warrick could discern his name.
But Takio would know that a demon could read Nico’s mind, of course. And if he at all suspected that a member of the Syx had tracked him down, let alone Warrick…
Both of you.
His cover might not have been blown, but clearly, Takio suspected something. He was putting up walls for Warrick to knock down.
“How long have you been here?” Maria asked as if she didn’t expect to get an answer, which proved to be the right approach. Nico looked back with a contemptuous sneer, clearly not intending to reply. But Warrick got the impression that they didn’t get too many visitors at the Citadel. And a lack of visitors meant a lack of the opportunity to show off.
He was right. The doorman grunted as they crossed the midpoint of the courtyard, all the while keeping his rifle up across his chest in ready position. “I’m one of Takio’s most trusted lieutenants,” he said, his stride lengthening as he spoke, pride evident in every muscle. “My mother lived in apartment 330C when Takio moved in and routed out the slumlord that was systematically raping and killing his way through all the residents too poor to go anywhere else. Takio saved my mother. Saved me. Gave us work. Food. Money to spend. Promised the same if we wanted to bring friends, other families in, to fill up the empty rooms. We did. That was fifteen years ago.”
Maria stiffened beside him, and Warrick didn’t need to read her mind to guess why—fifteen years ago, Takio had moved into the neighborhood. Fifteen years ago, Maria’s cousin Cara had died.
“Now Takio is the most powerful general in all of LA, and La Noche is feared throughout the city. He rewards loyalty and service with safety and power. He runs the other gangs. He runs the government, the police. No one does anything without Takio’s permission.”
Warrick nodded, searching his memory for Jack’s intel on the place.
Except, despite what Maria believed, Jack had very specific experience beyond the first building. First off, once he’d been parted from Maria, he’d had his head hooded every time he’d left the building—Building A—and it remained hooded until after they’d entered the second building, whatever that building might be. He’d been turned several times, losing all sense of which building he may be in. Eventually, he was able to recognize Buildings B and C, but he knew D only as some sort of lab storage area—tables, shelves, plastic, pills. Lots of pills. He’d never seen anything in production, however. He’d only been there to pick up product and transfer money.
“They put me in there last time,” she said, gesturing to the building to the left. “No explanation. Just stuck me there and left.”
Nico nodded. “Building B. That’s the quarters for the unmarried women. They stay there to keep safe from the guards. Takio is very strict about that.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t see any women. It was nothing more an empty lobby, with guards at the door.”
“You wouldn’t have seen them,” the doorman said. “You see them, that means you’re not coming back out.” He grinned then, and it was an uncomfortable look on him. “Not until Takio says you are. And he’s a tough man to convince.”
This was a human, Warrick struggled to remind himself. A child of God. As such, he was off-limits to Warrick.
To Warrick, but not to Maria. And from the set of her jaw, she was more than ready to take the guy out.
“Good to know,” Maria said softly, her gaze fixed on the upper floors of Building B. Sure enough, the few figures he saw in the windows were all women. They ducked away as soon as they noticed him looking at them. Prisoners, almost definitely. Probably being trained in whatever services the gang most needed. He thought of Maria’s cousin Cara. Before her murder, she hadn’t yet moved into the Citadel, but she’d been being groomed for it. Promised the world in return for her faithful service…and even at fifteen years old, she’d smelled a rat…and maybe seen it too, if what Maria was saying was true. She just couldn’t get away from it in time.
Children of God, Warrick reminded himself again.
They finally crossed the last of the courtyard, where the fourth building waited for them. Beneath the extended porch, more guards shifted in the shadows. This building, the one Jack was sure held the lab, as he’d called it, was the most important. Behind it lay a parking lot and access road, and then what looked like bombed-out office buildings, the same as existed on the other sides of the Citadel. A moat of destruction serving as an additional layer of security.
The doors of Building D opened with a metallic hiss, and Warrick’s brows went up. Decidedly high-tech for a 1970s apartment complex. Beside him, Maria tensed. She’d noticed it too.
As they walked into this last building, though, Warrick could see that Takio’s particular flair for décor remained. The place was an empty concrete box, devoid of furniture, anything on the walls, or even people.
They went through a second set of doors, the sound of them sliding open reverberating off the walls. There was definitely something different about Building D, Warrick decided.
“Mr. Soldaro asks that you go to the basement,” the doorman said. “I’m afraid the elevators are out. You’ll take the stairs.”
“You, not we?” Maria rounded on him. “Where will you be?”
“Mr. Soldaro was impressed with your abilities to defend yourselves the other night. He requires you to impress him further before he is willing to see you.”
Nico stepped back through the doors, which hissed shut. “I’ll be here to escort you to Mr. Soldaro, on your feet or in a bag,” he said through an intercom. He grinned, then, his eyes gleaming with an unholy light. “I hope you enjoy your stay.”
A trap, Warrick realized. Of course.
Warrick heard the howling before Maria did, but then again, Maria’s ears weren’t as finely tuned as a demon’s were.
“We go down,” he said, pushing her ahead of him. And they took off in a run for the basement access as a horde burst out of the far doors.
Chapter Eleven
“Down, down!” Warrick shouted, and Maria didn’t need any convincing. She’d caught only the barest glimpse of the men pounding into the lobby, their eyes wide, their hands outstretched, like zombies hyped up on crack. But the one thing she noticed in a hurry—none of them had guns. Takio had unleashed a horror of doped-up crackheads and set them on kill—but their only weapons were knives.
And as she and Warrick rounded stairwell after stairwell, the first scream of the men above her reverberating down the concrete column, she began to rethink that idea too. Had they been carrying anything in truth, or had she imagined that?
“Move it!” Warrick shot ahead of her and snaked his arm out, half lifting Maria off her feet as he pounded down three more flights in the time it took her to gasp out a protest. Then they were through the basement doors and into a well-lit space filled with shelves, tables, and packing materials. There were stairs and a service elevator at the far end, the latter fronted by stainless steel doors.
Other than the plastic and trash, it was empty. What’s more, it looked like it’d been empty for a long time.
“Shut down,” Warrick said, with far less bitterness than Maria felt. “Takio is cleaning house.”
“Then what’s the point of these guys?” She gestured angrily at the howling. “What purpose could it possibly serve?”
“He’s…cleaning house,” Warrick said again, more thoughtfully. His eyes sud
denly widened as understanding seemed to strike him. Well, good for him. One of them should know what was going on.
Maria glanced again toward the service elevator, but something caught her eye in the shadows. Moving…something was moving along the right side of the basement, crouching behind the tables.
“Listen to me.” Warrick turned suddenly, rounding on her. “What I’m about to do, what you’re about to see—it’s not going to make sense. It can’t make sense. It’s not supposed to.”
She scowled at him, taking an experimental sniff of the air. “You mean I’m going to be hallucinating?”
His eyes flared. “Sure. We’ll go with that for now. Bottom line, though, do what I say and stay the hell out of sight.”
“I know how to fight, Warrick,” Maria retorted, her hand stealing to her necklace. “Even without a gun.”
“You don’t know how to fight this.” As if to punctuate his words, an enraged bellow sounded from the stairway—and everything happened at once.
Maria’s hand clenched around her gold cross, jerking it, and she felt the chain suddenly grow slack in her hand. She’d snapped the delicate strand of gold. At the same time, the basement door slammed open with enough force that it banged off the wall, then stayed that way, its hinges broken. Maria fell back several steps, nearly regaining her feet, then slipped in something on the concrete and fell hard on her ass.
Warrick turned away from her and roared something incomprehensible as the mob rushed to greet him.
“Maria?”
The voice was so soft, so vulnerable, that Maria figured she must have misheard it. She struggled to stand again, slipped, then, with a curse, planted her hands on the floor and stared down into the murk.