The Castle Doctrine (Daniel Faust Book 6)

by Schaefer,Craig

  She walked past me.

  “It’s not about blame,” she said. “It’s about duty.”

  We found Alfred in the bedroom. He’d been roped to the bed, spread-eagle, his corpse left pale and bloodless. His arms and legs were a road map of cuts, some fresher than others, skin stained with rivulets of crusted blood.

  “He tortured him,” Caitlin said.

  I frowned. This whole scene wasn’t adding up. Killing a cambion to get Caitlin’s attention—knowing his insane “message” would get back to me through her—that made sense. But not a damn thing else did.

  “I don’t think that was the idea,” I said. My stomach churned, but I forced myself to get closer. A maggot squirmed from one of the cuts, flopping onto the flower-patterned bedspread. The curiously dry bedspread.

  “What would you call this, then?” she asked, pointing to the body.

  “I’m not sure yet. Okay, let’s do some detective work. Start with the victim. Why him?”

  “You know why. Ecko knows about the courts of hell. He certainly knows Royce and I—and the entire Order of Chainmen—are hunting for his head, and he knows you and I are connected. Easy enough way to get your attention.”

  “Sure, but why this guy? Who is he?”

  Caitlin shrugged. “He worked for Southern Tropics. Under Emma, in the accounting department. No one of note. Why?”

  “Can you get access to his personal info? His bank accounts? Travel history?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Easily. We keep close tabs on our people, even more than usual since the Redemption Choir incident.”

  “Ecko doesn’t have access to that kind of information. There’s no way he could know that some Joe Nobody in a midrange apartment is a halfblood in disguise. He was given Alfred’s name. Check him out. I’ll bet you a dinner at Le Cirque that you’ll find a Chicago connection in his background.”

  Caitlin stepped outside of the apartment to make the call, leaving me alone with the dead. I lifted one of Alfred’s heavy, clammy arms, studying the faint splotching underneath, then let it fall limp. I was no medical examiner, but I’d seen enough corpses to learn a thing or two. He hadn’t been dead all that long. Not enough lividity, the bruising from blood draining to the body’s lowest point of gravity, and the few maggots in his wounds were tiny, newborn.

  So Ecko had been holing up here since he arrived in Vegas. Keeping Alfred alive until it was time to leave. Cutting on him every now and then, but not with the gusto of a serious sadist. That kind of casual, pointless cruelty didn’t fit. Why not do what he’d done to Coop and turn him into an undead slave, another weapon in his arsenal? Bleeding the guy and murdering him felt like a waste of resources. Ecko was crazy, but he wasn’t wasteful.

  Caitlin poked her head into the bedroom, holding up her phone. “Until Prince Malphas closed the borders and started his pogrom against the local cambion, Alfred was a frequent visitor to the Midwest. He was also quite the gambling addict. Racked up considerable charges at a horse track in Arlington, not far from Chicago.”

  “And I bet you found some questionable deposits, too,” I said. “Like he was taking loans from the kind of guys who break your legs when you can’t pay up.”

  “It appears I owe you dinner,” Caitlin said, “though I doubt either of us will have an appetite anytime soon. So, Alfred was in debt to the Chicago mob. They looked into his background and discovered his demonic heritage. Then Angelo Mancuso gave his name and address to Ecko.”

  “Right, so that’s half the puzzle. But not the important half. You know what I keep thinking about? The neighbors. This is a big building, lots of folks around. Nobody heard any screaming while Ecko was bleeding this guy?” I pointed to the nearly pristine bedspread. “That’s what this is. Not torture. See where the blood trails on his skin stop? Ecko wanted his blood. He was collecting it. Bottling it, maybe. He kept Alfred alive—and pumping blood—until the very end.”

  Caitlin’s eyes narrowed like a cobra’s. “To what purpose?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question. Hold on. I’ve got a hunch.”

  I closed my eyes, pushing away the stench and the carnage around me, ignoring the faint tickling sensation of plump flies landing on my skin, buzzing around my ears. I reached out with my psychic senses, glowing violet tendrils licking at the air. I’d had a strange sensation since I walked into the apartment. The world outside the door had suddenly felt muffled, like I’d stepped into a soundproof room. Or a casket.

  I opened my eyes. Glanced to my left. Clothes lay scattered across the thin beige carpet, a wardrobe’s worth of men’s and women’s outfits piled in wrinkled heaps. Then I took two quick strides to the bedroom closet, grabbed hold of the wooden knobs, and shoved back the accordion doors.

  In the back of the empty closet, a sigil painted in blood covered the plaster wall. It resembled the Egyptian Eye of Horus, with a ragged X blotting it out. The lines of the X were scrawled in a savage, angry hand, yet somehow still precise. A ring of hieroglyphs surrounded the symbol, each one defaced or partially destroyed in a different way.

  “The forgotten god,” I murmured, “by his name you shall know him not.”

  “What’s that?” Caitlin tilted her head at me.

  I gestured at the sigil. “I’ve seen these glyphs before. Back when we first met, I borrowed an old relic from Bentley and Corman’s collection. It’s an amulet called the Black Eye. The story goes, it’s a holdover from an old Egyptian cult, dedicated to a god who wanted to be forgotten forever. When you wear the Eye, it cuts you off. Severs you from the flow of magic. As far as the universe is concerned, you just…don’t exist. I used it to keep Nicky’s seer from spying on me while I was working to set you free.”

  “So this is the trinket, writ large,” she mused as she studied the sigil. “Large enough to cloak the area around him, or at least this room and anyone in it, giving him a safe place to make his lair for a few days.”

  “Ecko’s over three thousand years old. Hell, he might have invented this spell. This explains it. I tried a tracking ritual, but it didn’t work. I thought it was my fault it failed. No wonder I couldn’t draw a bead on him; he’s practically been invisible since the second he rolled into town.”

  Caitlin stepped into the closet. She drew a finger across the sigil’s face, rust-red flakes peeling away from the ivory plaster. She stared at her fingertip with disdain, flicking the flakes away.

  “Cambion blood,” she said, “is a bit more potent than a human’s.”

  I nodded. “More gas for the engine, if blood magic is your thing. He might not even be able to work this trick with human blood. Oh. Oh shit, Cait—”

  “I know.” She strode out into the living room, pulling up her speed-dial list as she stood in the wreckage. “He’ll need a new base of operations now, and when Alfred’s blood runs out, another cambion to drain. I’ll have to relocate every local halfblood on my registry and move them into safe houses for the duration. That, and call in the cleaners to take care of this mess.”

  My hunt wasn’t over yet. Rebecca said Ecko had gotten a call, another name on the Outfit’s hit list. I followed Caitlin into the living room and prowled through the wreckage.

  “Doc Savoy’s place just got hit,” I told her, “but they used a Molotov. Not Ecko’s style. He must be after somebody else.”

  “Another member of Jennifer’s council, no doubt. You’ve warned her?” Caitlin turned away from me, lifting the phone to her ear. “It’s me. Execute a Code Indigo for Las Vegas and outlying, a ten-mile radius. I want all cambion relocated to the Los Angeles safe house. Also, mobilize a cleaning team to my location…”

  I fell into my thoughts, picking through the broken furniture and searching for a clue. The Outfit’s hit list was getting smaller by the hour. Shangguan Jin was dead; Little Shawn and his gang had defected. The hit on Emma had failed, but by now she’d be a hundred miles underground, out of their reach. Going after Doc Savoy was the orange in a basket
of apples; he wasn’t a member of the New Commission. He was absolutely neutral when it came to the Vegas underworld—and absolutely vital.

  Maybe that’s the idea, I thought, stepping into the kitchen nook. Cut us off at the knees, take out the people we depend on. If Gary is right, and they’re actively recruiting crooked cops, that’d make a lot of sense. Undermine enough of our resources and the Outfit could make it impossible for us to operate in Vegas.

  The fight hadn’t spread to the kitchen. It was relatively unscathed, if messy, with junk mail piling up next to a greasy box from some no-name pizza joint.

  So who fits the same category as Savoy? Neutral pros, specialists, who’ll work with anyone who pays?

  There was me, of course, but that was a given. Anybody who needed a safe cracked knew to call Coop, but Coop died in Chicago. Then there was—

  I pulled out my phone and hit the autodial for the Love Connection. As soon as I heard a click, the words spilled from my lips on a torrent of held breath.

  “Paolo, listen, it’s Dan. Lock up and get out of there, right now. The Outfit might be sending hitters your way. Head to the East Coast for a few days. I’ll call you as soon as it’s safe to come home.”

  No response. Not even the sound of breathing.

  “Paolo?”

  A soft, amused chuckle rippled over the line.

  “Hello, Mr. Faust,” Damien Ecko said.

  29.

  Another dry chuckle filled the silence.

  “It’s been a while,” Ecko said. “I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”

  “Let him go, Damien. The only reason you’re helping the Outfit is because you want a throwdown with me. Let him go, and I’ll give you what you want.”

  “Oh, are we on a first-name basis now?” he said, his voice sharp. “Very well, Daniel, I want my life back, my shop back, the bounty lifted from my head, and my reputation restored. Can you do that for me? Can you wave a magic wand and repair all that you destroyed?”

  “I don’t know. Can you bring my buddy Coop back to life?”

  “I had nothing to do with that. Your ill-chosen and traitorous partner shot him. I merely came upon his dying body and put it to good use. You seem determined to paint yourself as some sort of righteous avenger. May I remind you that you invaded my home, destroyed my pet, broke into my safe, and stole my belongings? Then, just to add insult to injury, you framed me as a thief. I am the victim here, Daniel.”

  “Just tell me what you want. Leave Paolo out of this. You don’t have to play the Outfit’s errand boy anymore. If you want a fight, I’m ready to oblige.”

  Ecko’s laughter was a harsh, braying sound, like the throaty rasp of a hyena.

  “What I want…I’ve given that a great deal of thought. Originally, I wanted you to make a full confession. An admission before the courts of hell that you framed me for the theft of the Judas coin. Removing the death sentence from my shoulders, and placing it where it rightfully belongs.”

  “Lighten my heart,” I said.

  “Indeed. But then I got to thinking. They won’t let me go, will they? They’ll come up with some reason to keep the hunt going, no matter what.”

  “You attacked a pair of hounds,” I told him. “Doesn’t matter if it was self-defense. You go down for that. That’s hell’s law. I can’t help you.”

  “So. There we are. I have survived upon this Earth for thousands of years, peerless in magic and skill, but now…now I see the last sands in my hourglass finally running down. I might survive for another year, another decade, another century if I’m lucky, but eventually they’ll corner me. Hell doesn’t forget. Nor does it forgive. So in the time I have left, I’ve resolved to turn my hand to pleasant work.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. “Like what?”

  The response was a sharp, shrill scream of pain. Not Ecko’s. As the cry devolved into muffled whimpers, Ecko put the phone back to his lips.

  “Hurting you,” he said.

  “Damn it, let him go!” I gripped the phone with white knuckles, my hand shaking. “This is between you and me. You wanted me, you’ve fucking got me. Just name the time and the place.”

  “No,” he mused, “I don’t think so. Murdering you would be a trivial act, barely requiring exertion on my part. It will be far more satisfying to destroy you before I end your life. This man is important to you? That’s all the motivation I need to do this.”

  Paolo’s scream felt like a bullet in my heart. He shrieked until his breath ran out.

  “You brought this upon yourself,” Ecko said. “And upon this man, and upon every other life I tear to ribbons before I finally deign to kill you. You started this fight.”

  And in that moment, I realized two things. First, he was right. I’d taken the job, the heist at Ecko’s jewelry store, because I needed some quick cash. No noble cause, no better reason than that. I’d started this feud, and all the death, all the chaos that spiraled out from it was on my head alone. Then I’d committed a far worse sin: I underestimated him. I’d done my usual song and dance, the trickster pulling off the impossible and vanishing into the night, never thinking about the consequences farther down the road. And just like the Mourner of the Red Rocks had warned me, my free ride was over.

  The second thing I realized was I didn’t care. I didn’t care who had started this fight, I didn’t care who the original victim was, and I didn’t have time for guilt when there was work to be done. Life wasn’t about right and wrong. Life was about me and mine. Forget the forces of hell—the second Ecko used my friends against me, first with Coop and now Paolo, he’d written his own death sentence.

  “Sure, I started it,” I told him. “And now I’ll finish it. Get ready. I’m coming for you.”

  Caitlin was still on the phone, working out the logistics of making Alfred’s body disappear, as I swept from the kitchen. She caught the look in my eyes, and nothing needed to be said. She raised two fingers in a silent benediction, a battle blessing, and sent me on my way.

  * * *

  The Spark’s engine whined as I pushed it to the redline, threading the needle up the highway. I cursed under my breath, one eye on the rearview and watching for cops, as I tried to call Jennifer again. She finally picked up, half a ring before it would have gone to voicemail.

  “Hey, sugar,” she said, sounding breathless, “got your message. Sorry I’ve been incognito, hell of a busy day. Outfit boys rolled on that strip club where the Bishops hang out. They pulled a drive-by on the parking lot. Coulda been a lot worse, but Eddie Stone’s got a couple of bandannas to hang on the memorial wall. I’ve been working overtime trying to convince ’em not to bail on us.”

  “Damien Ecko’s got Paolo.”

  “Right now? Shit. Where at?”

  “His store, unless he’s already moved him. I’m ten minutes away.”

  “I’m fifteen. All right, I’ll load for bear and meet you. Don’t do anything reckless till I get there.”

  Fat chance of that. I thought about Paolo, but all I could see was Coop, after Ecko had gotten done with him. A broken, half-alive creature with milky eyes and sewn lips.

  I screeched to a dead stop outside the Love Connection, lurching against the seatbelt as my front wheels bumped the curb. I left the car running, jumped out, and hit the front door with my shoulder, bursting into the store. My eyes squinted in the gloom, the overhead lights shattered and the thin, dirty carpet littered with shards of broken bulbs. They crunched under my feet as I prowled the aisles, slow now, my heart thudding in my ears as I made my way toward the back room. I stood before the door, squared my shoulders, and flung it open.

  Ecko was gone. Paolo wasn’t. He sprawled on the bare concrete floor next to the smashed remains of his computer gear, his clothes and his flesh torn from a dozen cuts. Fresh blood leaked out around him like an oil spill, filling the dry air with its coppery stench.

  His jaw opened, twitching, as his eyes struggled to focus on me. I raced over to him and dropped to one knee at
his side as I yanked out my phone and dialed 911.

  “I didn’t…didn’t tell him shit,” Paolo croaked.

  “Don’t try to talk, just stay still,” I said. “Hello? Yeah, my friend is hurt. We need an ambulance, fast—”

  “He told me…told me he had a soft spot for artists, so he’d let me live.”

  Paolo held up his trembling hands, gloved in sheaths of congealing blood. On his right, where his fingers used to be, were nothing but ragged stumps gnawed down to the bone. On his other hand, Ecko had only left him his index finger and his thumb. The fingers twitched, hooking like a lobster’s claw.

  “He’d let me live,” Paolo wheezed, and I realized the retching sounds rasping from his throat were an attempt at laughter. He slumped against me, his head against my shoulder, and his eyes drifted shut. Still alive, but fading fast.

  Jennifer and her crew were first on the scene. The store filled up with Cinco Calles in brown bandannas, hard-eyed bangers toting machine pistols. They made the hardware disappear when the ambulance arrived, parting like waves to let the paramedics rush out with Paolo on a stretcher. I stood out on the sidewalk and watched the ambulance go. It veered around the corner, out of sight, but I could still hear the siren wailing in the distance. I didn’t go back inside. Needed some fresh air. I sat down on the curb.

  Jennifer came out alone. I could feel her standing behind me, silent. Then she dropped down on the curb beside me and rested her elbows on the ripped knees of her faded blue jeans. I fumbled for words.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I wasn’t there when you needed me.”

  “You’re here now,” she said.

  “Yeah. I’m here now.”

  Jennifer glanced at my splinted fingers. The edges of the gauze binding my wrists and forearms poked out from under the wrinkled sleeves of my shirt. “Got into a scrap, huh?”

  “Could have been worse. You should have seen Nicky.”

  “I called the hospital,” she said. “Don’t ask me why. Morbid curiosity, maybe. Took some bluffin’, but I eventually got a loose-lipped orderly to tell me the ‘John Doe’ who came in for surgery pulled through. I guess Nicky’s still around. Hope he doesn’t want his city back. Finders keepers, it’s mine now.”