Unclean Spirits bsd-1

by M. L. N. Hanover

  Zero hour was eight o’clock, and it was a little after noon now. My stomach was starting to get knotted. The distant throb of a headache was climbing up the back of my skull. Kim played solitaire on the kitchen table with the cards from Midian’s poker game. Chogyi Jake was meditating, gathering his remaining strength for the night’s pursuit. I paced, drummed my fingers on the door frames, went to the front door every few minutes to make sure the motorcycles were still there and that the Invisible College wasn’t. I felt stretched tight as a drum.

  Aaron and Candace arrived at noon in Candace’s car. While Kim and Candace prepared the backseat for the ceremonial Calling Malkuth, I showed Aaron the ammunition. Two bullets I’d recovered from our last failure. I hated handling them, but Aaron didn’t seem more than amused by the engraved figures. He knew exactly how to clean my rifle and showed me in detail. The living room smelled of mineral oil and rain by the time we were done and he took both weapons out to the stolen Hummer. We all went over the plan again. The clock seemed to go slower just to spite me.

  There were still holes. There was still chance and contingency and a hundred ways it could go wrong. What if Chogyi Jake and Midian’s flight didn’t draw Coin out of his meeting? What if he was in a different car from the ones my lawyer’s report had identified? What if there were more people with him than Aaron, Candace, Kim, and I could manage?

  What if some poor bastard who didn’t know anything about all this got in the way and got hurt or killed or taken over by riders? It would be my fault. I distracted myself as best I could, but every minute that passed was a weight on my shoulders. I told myself that everything would be all right. That this time it would be different. I almost believed it.

  I told myself that Aaron knew the traffic patterns of Denver, where and when something could be done with as little attention as possible. And Kim and Chogyi Jake both thought that damping out Coin’s powers could give us the edge we needed. I hoped that the confidence they felt came from the strength of the plan itself, and not because they had faith in me.

  At about four o’clock the rain started coming down harder, with flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder. I stood in the open doorway, watching it and willing the clouds to separate. It was such a stupid, petty thing to have overlooked. Chogyi Jake’s and Midian’s escapes could be thrown off by something as stupid and simple as summer rain.

  “Don’t sweat,” Midian said. “It’ll be gone in time.”

  “Your special vampire senses tell you that?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That and I’ve been watching the local news. Doppler radar, all that. Streets are going to be wet tonight. The driving’ll be tricky, especially with the new tires. But it’s not the biggest problem you’re looking at.”

  “I know,” I said.

  We were silent for a few seconds, looking out into the gray. I could smell Midian’s weird, cold nonscent. He shifted, crossing his ruined arms.

  “You did a hell of a job, kid,” Midian said. “I mean I wouldn’t make a habit of this, but for improv, you’re doing great. And…hell. I know I came down on you pretty hard after the whole thing went south last week. I didn’t mean to kick your ass.”

  “We were all stretched a little thin,” I said. “No harm, no foul.”

  “Good.”

  “You think Eric would have done it this way?” I asked.

  “Hell if I know. He wasn’t the kind of guy you could predict. Always something going on in his head. Why? You worried about it?”

  “I’m worried about pretty much everything,” I said. “It’s just that you knew him. I think everyone here knew him better than I did. He was just this force for good that swooped into my life when things got bad and then swept back out again. And then I find out about the money. And then you and riders and magic. And…and it just seems like every time I turn around, there’s more.”

  “No one knew Eric,” Midian said. “You saw part of him. I saw part of him. The three musketeers saw part of him. No one was in on the whole show. It wasn’t who he was.”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “You miss him?”

  “I miss the part I knew,” I said. “I just regret that I didn’t meet the other parts.”

  “Deep,” Midian said. “You should write a poem.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  “Glad you noticed. A lot of the time my sense of humor goes unappreciated,” Midian said. “So look, I’ve got the fridge pretty much filled. There’s dinners in the freezer. If you need to hole up for a few days after this comes down, you’ll have something decent to eat. I wrote out instructions on how to reheat it all and what goes together on the tinfoil. Just look for things written in the same color pen. That way you know it’ll all fit. I leave you poor fuckers to yourselves, you’ll have all the starches in one meal together.”

  “Thank you,” I said. And then, softly, “Ah, fuck.”

  “Yeah,” Midian agreed. “This is pretty much good-bye.”

  “We don’t know that,” I said. “This whole thing with Coin may work. You get away, I break Coin. Maybe we’ll meet up again sometime. Down the road.”

  “I don’t think that’d be such a good idea.”

  I shifted to look at him. The desiccated flesh of his face and neck, dark as old meat. The white shirt and high-waisted pants. He hitched up his shoulders in a pained shrug.

  “Don’t fool yourself, kid. This has been great. We’ve been friends. But next time you see me, we aren’t going to be on the same side. I’m one of the bad guys, remember? People like you and Ex and tofu boy? You hunt down things like me. Like Coin.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I could feel tears coming into my eyes. The rain pattered hard against the pavement, thousands of tiny gray explosions like something from Fantasia. “You’re right.”

  “Don’t take it hard,” he said. “It was good being friends. So it didn’t last. So what? It’s not like it ever really does, you know?”

  “I know,” I said.

  A thin, wasted hand rested on my shoulder for a second, squeezed gently, and moved away.

  Twenty-four

  A little before six thirty, the rain stopped. By seven, the clouds were breaking apart, a sky of fresh-scrubbed late summer blue showing for the first time all day. Aaron handed me a ski mask and I folded it into my pack. Chogyi Jake and Midian were in their riding outfits. I nodded to them both as I slipped my backpack over my shoulder. I couldn’t deal with any more emotional good-byes.

  “Are we ready?” I asked.

  “Guns are in the car,” Aaron said. “We’ve all got masks, right?”

  “I’m ready,” Kim said. She looked perfectly calm. I had the feeling I could have known her for years without learning how to read her expressions.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

  Candace and Kim took off in her car first. Aaron and I followed about five minutes later. The traffic was thicker than I’d pictured it, but Aaron seemed pleased. We parked on the street near the Marriott on California Street, then went to the Starbucks for overpriced lattes and down to the bar. I turned on the laptop, connected to the network, and started up the chat program under a screen name I’d built just for this. True to form, Extojayne was on and waiting for Jayneheller to show. It was seven forty. He wouldn’t have to wait long. We were three longish blocks from the convention center. MapQuest said it was about a third of a mile. It felt like a thousand miles away until I imagined Coin there. Then it seemed way too close.

  Ten minutes later, Candace called.

  “He’s there,” Candace said. “We’re by his car. I saw him going in.”

  “Did he notice you?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said. “Hang tight. We’ll be right there.”

  I dropped the call and dialed the house. Chogyi answered before I heard it ring.

  “Jayné?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Spark it up. I’m pulling the trigger now.”

  “I understand
.”

  “Chogyi?”

  “Yes?”

  “Live through this, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said, and hung up. I put the cell phone in my backpack and signed on as Jayneheller.

  JAYNEHELLER: Ex! Are you there?

  EXTOJAYNE: Yes. I’m here. What’s up?

  JAYNEHELLER: Change of plan. Coin’s at the convention center right now. We’re going with plan B. The U-Haul with the fertilizer bomb is on its way. We can take out his house now while it’s unprotected. You should meet us at the airport ASAP. We’re scrambling now.

  EXTOJAYNE: Wait. I don’t think this is a good idea. Can we talk about it?

  JAYNEHELLER: No time, babe. Fortune favors the bold.

  I closed the laptop, took a deep breath, and nodded.

  “Hornet’s nest now officially kicked,” I said. “Let’s see what happens.”

  Aaron actually grinned and slammed down the rest of his coffee. I put my cell phone in my backpack and left my cooling latte untouched on the table. We walked fast out to the Hummer. The stolen Hummer. With the rifles. I had to pull myself up into the passenger’s seat. Aaron started the engine. I put on the seat belt like I was strapping in to drop from a plane.

  If I’d guessed right, there were about a hundred things happening right now. Extojayne, whoever he was, was raising the alarm about an imaginary truck bomb cruising toward Coin’s house and the enemy—meaning us—meeting at the airport. Whatever resources the Invisible College had watching for Chogyi Jake and Midian were also getting action for the first time, the two of them heading fast in opposite directions. And, with any luck, someone was calling Coin.

  We pulled out into traffic. I plucked my cell phone out of my pack and called Candace. Kim answered.

  “They’re out,” Kim said. Her voice was a tight whisper. “They’re getting into the car now. I think it worked. It’s just the two of them. Coin and the other one. The driver. The driver’s huge.”

  Candace’s voice came over Kim’s, talking loud.

  “They’re pulling out. We’re going after them.”

  “Tell Kim that’s great,” I said. “Just let me know where you guys are, and we’ll fall in behind you in a couple minutes. Just don’t follow too close. I’m going to put you on speaker here. Let me know if the background noise gets too bad.”

  “Okay,” Kim said.

  Aaron gunned the engine, cursing under his breath. The downtown traffic was thick. We passed the Sixteenth Street mall, turned right on Fifteenth and then left again on Champa. I tapped my foot anxiously. We’d been right not to try taking him out down here. Too many people. Too much traffic. Someplace else would be better. I hoped that the right place existed. Kim reported in breathlessly. Coin was on Fourteenth, going the opposite direction. I cursed.

  “It’s okay,” Aaron said. “He’s heading to Colfax. We’ll get there ahead of him. We’re going to be fine.”

  We passed over the two separate streets of Speer and the creek running between them, water high from the day’s rain, and curved to the left. At the intersection of Colfax, two cars kept us from turning right. Aaron murmured something under his breath and reached toward the dashboard. Looking annoyed, he pulled his hand back.

  “Miss having a siren?” I said.

  “Hell yes,” he said, and Coin drove through the intersection ahead of us. I didn’t recognize his car so much as feel its presence in my gut. My eyes tracked it as it flowed away to my right. Candace’s car flashed through the light just as it shifted yellow, speeding after Coin. Aaron leaned forward as if he could push the cars before us out of the way by force of will. We got onto Colfax, Aaron gunning the engine as we turned.

  The voice that came from my cell phone was Candace’s.

  “We’re past Eighth,” she said. “I think he’s getting on I-25.”

  “He’ll be going south,” Aaron said. “We’ll do this on the loop. Get in behind him and get ready to put on your hazards when we come past you.”

  “Kim?” I said. “Are you ready?”

  “She’s ready,” Candace said. “I’m getting in behind him. We’re about to hit the on-ramp. Where are you two?”

  We were coming to the intersection at Seventh Avenue. The last one before the highway. The light was red. We weren’t going to make it.

  “Hang on,” Aaron said, then leaned on the horn and the gas pedal at the same time. The Hummer leapt forward like someone had goosed it as we cut across the intersection. Brakes screamed and I closed my eyes, waiting for an impact that never came. The engine roared, acceleration pressing me back into my seat. My heart was pounding like it wanted to get out. Aaron wove the great black box through traffic like he was playing a video game, cutting off a semi as we slid onto the on-ramp doing sixty.

  “We’re going to flip the car,” I said.

  “We aren’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “This is perfect. Candy! You with me? I’m coming up right on your ass. Pull to your right.”

  “Slow down,” Candace said.

  “Not happening,” Aaron said. “As soon as I get by, get in the middle of the road with your blinkers going. Don’t let anyone past.”

  “Okay,” Candace said.

  “Put your mask on,” he told me.

  We buzzed past Candace’s car like it was standing still just as we passed under the great concrete bridge of a surface street. Coin’s car was six car lengths ahead of us, passing under the highway itself. We barreled toward it. My hands were on my knees, gripping so hard the knuckles ached. I couldn’t unclench my fingers.

  There was no sound that announced Kim’s cantrip. She didn’t say anything or call out physically, and yet there was no question when it happened. It was like the world clicking into focus when I hadn’t realized it was out before. The car in front of us, the asphalt speeding by, the Hummer with its mingled scents of new car and old marijuana. Literally in the blink of an eye, all of it went from the rich, complicated, uncertain world I knew to a gorgeously complex mechanism. All emotion was gone, all sense of morality, of uncertainty, of fear or hope or dread. I could almost see the microscopic gears that made up the universe, the laws of physics triumphant. This was what the world looked like utterly without magic or emotion or soul.

  Aaron drove up on Coin’s left, sliding the Hummer’s nose even with Coin’s back tires, as if we were going to pass him on the inside of the curve. Then, violently, he cut the wheel right. The impact jarred us, and then Coin’s car was fishtailing out in front of us, the driver’s side of the car at a right angle to our oncoming grill. Gray smoke came off their tires like clouds. Aaron stamped the brake as Coin’s car slammed into the concrete barrier. We were stopped in the middle of the long, slow curve that would lead to the highway. Aaron undid his seat belt and pulled on his ski mask. Of course he did. It was just physics. I undid my own, snatched my rifle up from the backseat, and slid out of the car.

  I walked out to kill the thing in Randolph Coin’s body, and my mind was perfectly calm. I didn’t remember picking up my backpack, but there it was on my shoulders. I’d need to go back for the laptop. I didn’t want to leave that behind. Candace’s car was coming around the curve and beginning to slow. There were other cars behind her. I lifted the rifle to my shoulder.

  The driver’s door burst open. The big man rushed out. There was blood on his face. Blood and ink. His pale skin was covered in markings and tattoos. He raised his hand to us, palm out, and I saw the markings on his arm writhe like living things under his skin. He shouted and something moved past me, something unreal and angry and rich with malice. I felt something like teeth touching my mind.

  In my peripheral vision, I saw Aaron raise his rifle with fluid grace. The report was a single barked command. The big man staggered back. There was blood on the car behind him. The thing with teeth—invisible, abstract, magical—shuddered against me and fell away. Blood darkened the big man’s shirt. His illustrated face went slack, and he slipped to his knees and then to his side,
lying on the dirty street in a pose that could never be mistaken for sleep.

  Aaron dropped his rifle and motioned me forward. One of the bullets was gone. Used. One of the Invisible College’s riders was dead or cast out of the world. The only bullet left was in my rifle, and I walked toward the back of Coin’s car. Candace and Kim stopped by the Hummer. Kim was out of the car. I ignored them.

  He was there, sitting at the far side of the seat. His glamour was gone, his face inhuman with glyphs and sigils. His eyes were wide and stunned. He looked old. I lifted the rifle again and he threw open the door and fell out on the car’s far side. I sidestepped to my right, moving around the car’s back. Its nose was crumpled against the concrete barrier. There was no place Coin could go.

  “Move it!” Aaron shouted, pointing me forward. “Get him! We’ve got to get out.”

  I nodded and stepped forward, around the car. The traffic on the highway above us filled the air with the buzz of tires against pavement, the thump as they crossed the expansion joints. The smell of burned rubber was thick in the air, and there was something else. Blood. Death. Something.

  Coin was on his knees, one hand to his chest just over his heart, the other pressed to his forehead. His lips, red striped with the black of his markings, were moving fast. His eyes were closed. I thought at first he was praying.

  His eyes opened. There was writing on the sclera, tiny words worked on the whites of his eyes. He spoke a single word, but it resonated like we were standing in a tunnel, just the two of us.

  “Heller?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Hurry!” Aaron shouted. I heard horns blaring and the crunch of tires on gravel. Candace’s car rolling toward me. I leveled the rifle at Coin’s chest. I couldn’t miss at this range. Even I couldn’t miss. Coin shrieked, his mouth hinging open wider than I’d imagined possible. There was writing on his tongue. His teeth were like scrimshaw. I squeezed the trigger.

  I didn’t have the rifle snug enough to my shoulder. The kick was like a blow. I stumbled back as Coin’s body folded forward. I stepped closer, the rifle still at the ready even though there wasn’t a round left in it. A curl of smoke rose from the barrel.