by Hondo Jinx
Now the pair suspected that the unknown power mage for whom they were supposed to be searching was indeed the person who had opened the warded door.
Aftershock gave a train-blast snort of bloodthirsty rage.
But they weren’t just a pair. A third psi mage accompanied them…
A primordial growl whipped past as a huge figure soared overhead and landed several feet behind them.
Don’t harm him! the woman’s voice demanded. He is your friend!
But this time, Brawley was jarred out of her control enough to call bullshit on that, thanks to Sage’s truth work and the fact that the fucker coming at them now looked like anything but a friend.
Eight feet of scaly humanoid with the elongated snout of a bull gator rushed toward them on stubby, muscular legs.
Ignoring the squawking of the woman in his mind, Brawley fired four times, nailing the big fucker center-mass with hollow-point .45s.
The lizard man jerked with the shots but lurched forward, eyes burning with an unnatural blend of human loathing and the ancient, dogged determination of a reptilian predator so determined to kill that it didn’t even register pain or consider its own mortality.
The Beastie struggled forward, its giant alligator mouth opening wide, and Brawley fired again, punching a hole through the pink roof of the yawning mouth and blowing out the top of the beast mage’s skull.
The big bastard spilled forward. Brawley rolled out of the way just in time.
Behind him, another wave of force slammed into the monument, cracking it down the middle, and raining down chunks of masonry.
Brawley dropped his mostly empty mag as the woman’s voice filled his mind with playful laughter. Okay, okay, friend. That was fun, but the game’s over. Let’s all—
Fuck off, Brawley thought, and slapped a fresh magazine into the XDS.
“Fire from the left,” Nina growled as she swept her arm in the opposite direction and stood up on the right of the smashed monument.
Brawley had no idea what she was doing but popped out from the left of the monument and raised his pistol.
There was a tremendous crash to his right, and the air before Nina vibrated like shimmering heat coming off summertime blacktop.
Nina had created a telekinetic shield. The force of the attack struck the shield and rebounded. An adjacent tombstone exploded like a party popper, raining down a confetti of vaporized marble.
Brawley fired four rapid shots, but seventy yards was a reach, and the first two rounds thumped into the van.
The third winged the fat man, who dropped down behind the van.
The fourth smashed through the driver’s side window. A crimson firework exploded in the driver’s seat, and the woman’s voice stopped jabbering in his mind. All that was left of the Bender was a slumped torso, a wild twist of hair, and the spray of blood and brains coating the van’s interior.
Always favor center mass, but God bless head shots.
Untethered from the Bender’s fuckery, Brawley found his rage. These assholes had tried to kill him, tried to kill his women. Remembering the way Nina’s shield had wobbled against the deadly force, he stopped firing, thrust out his left arm, and released every crackling iota of the red energy waiting there.
The van crunched inward, screaming as metal twisted sharply. The vehicle shot away as if it had been t-boned by a speeding train and tumbled across the sunny graveyard with so much force that it shattered a swath of tombstones for fifty or sixty feet before slamming to a stop against the thick trunk of a towering palm.
On the ground, the fat man lay twitching in an unnatural heap, broken limbs jutting up from the bloody lump of his body, which had split open and vomited a gut pile onto the rutted surface of Nightshade Lane.
The van had smashed him like a fucking cockroach.
Brawley raised the XDS to finish the job, but Sage touched his arm, and shouted across the cemetery, “Who are you, and why did you come here?”
Then she nodded and called out softly, “You want to die now. Stop fighting.”
A second later, the twitching stopped. One of the man’s arms stiffened, jutting up at an angle, the fingers dangling like shreds of cloth from a disgraced banner.
Then his ass was dead. Brawley saw it and felt it in his bones, which vibrated now with fresh dread.
“We have to hurry,” he said, and swept his spent brass, the mag he’d dropped, and the strange book from the ground. “More people are coming.”
19
With the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from his office door, Jamaal leaned back in his chair and opened his mental eye to cycle through a series of psi sensors, panning across the island like a man scanning a bank of security cameras.
The Order still hadn’t visited. That was a surprise—and a concern. Generally, when Central announced an AM meeting, they arrived at the ass crack of dawn. But here they were, moonwalking past midmorning with no word from Central and Jamaal with zero sense of anyone approaching.
He’d stayed busy that morning checking his sensors and doing what little he could while locked in his office, waiting for Danica “The Dragon” McCleod.
Making matters worse, he’d barely slept, thanks to the triple goat-fuck smackdown of last night’s events on Route 1. First the shootout in Marathon. Then Remi’s clash with someone. The power mage, he feared. And after that, the shit had hit the fan on a truly epic scale.
Between the second and third event, Jamaal had a sense of Remi driving south with the intention of returning to Key West but no sense that she had captured the power mage. By that point, Jamaal had left Shawna sleeping in bed and was pacing back and forth downstairs, followed around by the clicking of Rosie’s nails on the tiles of the kitchen floor.
Back and forth Jamaal limped, his hamstring tight as a smoked ham from all the stress. Back and forth, back and forth, trying to sort out just what, exactly, had gone down in the Middle Keys.
Shots fired. He knew that much. Remi was hurt but alive… and something else… happy?
That was the sense he’d had, logic be damned. Remi was happy and heading home.
Then the third event had struck so hard he’d nearly fallen over. For several seconds, he leaned against the kitchen counter, reeling from the hammer blow of information while the little Corgi whined with concern.
Then he’d crouched down, wincing at the line of fire burning across the back of his leg, and smoothed a shaking hand over the sweet dog’s head. “It’s okay, Rosie girl,” he’d lied. “It’s okay.”
Remi had run straight into a trap. A major trap. Something to do with Dutchman’s people, he thought but couldn’t be sure, and he assumed that Dutchman’s truth mage was with them, making the whole operation fly under the radar.
A couple of minutes later, a sense of major devastation walloped Jamaal. Dutchman’s people had been wiped. Bostic, several high-dollar triggermen, and surprise, surprise, the Carnal hitman, Dos. All dead.
Which normally would’ve warranted a celebratory beer, that many assholes evaporating in a flash.
But Remi had gone dark.
She wasn’t dead. At least he didn’t think she was. But he couldn’t find her psi signature anywhere.
If Dutchman’s other assassin, Uno, had been there, Jamaal would’ve assumed that Remi had been swept into another dimension. Her vacancy was that complete. But Uno wasn’t there, and neither was Remi, apparently.
All that remained was the flaming wreckage of her overturned SUV… and one other individual, the last man standing, if you will.
Only it wasn’t a man.
It was a woman. Or maybe a girl. A female standing with one foot on either side of adulthood it seemed to him. Yet he also sensed that this person had done most of the killing.
A Beastie, he thought, picturing claws and teeth. But that was all he could register.
Then he’d called Krupski, left a note for Shawna, and limped out to meet his partner, who pulled up fifteen minutes later and greeted Jamaal with a wide-
awake “Wowzers!” despite the hour. They drove north, where it had taken Jamaal half the remaining night to finagle what little damage control he could manage.
By the time he had returned to Key West, the sun was already coming up. He told Krupski to go home and get some sleep, but the rookie refused, saying he’d stay by Jamaal’s side. So Jamaal had limped back into his house, fed Rosie, and updated the note to Shawna while he let the furry little burrito out to do her business.
While the corgi sniffed and waddled, Jamaal leaned there, dazed with exhaustion, listening to roosters starting up their morning routine across town.
No sense heading back to bed. Not at this hour. Because he could not risk pissing off Central, especially the Dragon.
Eight and a half months. Eight and a half fucking months. If Jamaal could just hang in for eight and a half months, he could hang up his hat and spend his days brushing the dog and dancing with Shawna and maybe doing a crossword puzzle or two to stave off Alzheimer’s.
But first, he had to get through this. And his gut told him that getting through was very much up in the air.
So he’d gone to the office, brewed a pot of coffee, and gotten to work, trying not to worry about what Central’s hold up meant.
Remi was still lost in the dark, as was the Mack girl, according to her father, who kept reaching out every hour to check if anyone had heard anything about his daughter. Xander Mack was in a panic after hearing about the shootout on the news.
Later, Xander had been relieved when Nina’s thoughts opened to him for a few confusing seconds. Then she had cut off completely. Shielded by a telepath, Xander assumed. And Jamaal, sensing that Xander might be right, added investigating area Benders to his long-ass to-do list.
Jamaal had completed a scan of Key West psi mages to see if anyone was missing, figuring the power mage might have tapped multiple strands before blowing town.
Key West was full of tourists and transients, and that went triple for psi mage drifters, who were drawn to the area in disproportionate numbers. So the power mage, whether it was the Mack girl or her male companion, very well might have opened a second strand with some psi mage tourist who’d come to town with the simple intention of getting wrecked on margaritas and listening to Jimmy Buffet cover bands, nothing more.
But Jamaal’s scan revealed that in addition to the Mack girl, one permanent psi resident had left Key West yesterday. One and only one. That was a lead worth following, especially since the young woman in question had not only departed but gone dark.
He didn’t really know the girl, but her mentor was an old friend of his, and visiting Hazel was now the number three priority on his list, right after checking on Dutchman and the mother of all priorities, surviving his meeting with Central, whenever their tardy asses finally showed up.
He checked one last time, sensed no one from Central approaching, and cycled again through the sensors, which gave him a window onto the activities of Mr. Dutchman, who had had a big night indeed.
The psi cartel had attacked Dutchman shortly after Junior’s death, looking to exploit the capo’s grief and current weakness. Jamaal had been too busy cleaning up Remi’s mess to follow the Dutchman saga very closely, but he did know that Dutchman had survived the night and that the capo was, in what struck Jamaal as an upside down parallel to his own life, expecting a visit from psi mafia central.
Lo and behold, this time, when Jamaal clicked through the psi sensors, he found Mr. Dutchman standing in his fishing boat, talking to none other than Don Saul Antonio Valdez, the long-reigning godfather of the psionic mafia.
Thanks to the psi sensor, Jamaal could see and hear everything and could smell the salty breeze and the odors of fish and blood leeched by sunlight the stained floor of the much-used boat.
Flanked by a quartet of stone-faced psi mages with eyes as hard and opaque as river stones, Don Valdez said very little.
Dutchman was alone, save for the company of an additional cold-blooded killer. Uno stood in his baggy bowling shirt, wayfarer shades, and little fedora at the rear of the boat, leaning against a heap of cargo covered over with a blue tarp, peeling his nails with a pocketknife, and looking bored as Dutchman recounted his version of recent events.
Junior died fighting the new power mage, he explained. Then Dutchman had sent a redemption party.
“And?” Don Valdez said, his voice betraying nothing.
“Dead,” Dutchman said.
Don Valdez shook his head and eyed Dutchman appraisingly. “How?”
Dutchman spread his arms. “A bounty hunter was involved.”
“Dupree?” Don Valdez asked, and Jamaal could see that Dutchman hadn’t expected the mob boss to know her name.
“Yes,” Dutchman said. “Remington ‘Remi’ Dupree, daughter of—”
“I know who she is,” Don Valdez said. “One Carnal took out your entire force? Took out Dos?”
Dutchman shook his head. “She had help. Afterward, she and another person flagged down a man and jacked his pickup.”
Don Valdez nodded, looking interested.
“A Beastie,” Dutchman said. “A cat girl. I’m virtually certain she’s the daughter of—”
“The Cat Wizard,” Don Valdez said. It wasn’t a question.
So that’s who Remi is with, Jamaal thought, and his gut agreed.
“Your son showed poor judgment,” Don Valdez said. “And you showed poor judgment putting faith in him.”
“He was my son,” Dutchman said, his voice remaining as steady as the mob boss’s gaze.
“Yes,” Don Valdez said. “He was. But there is too much was in your organization, Dutchman. Too many dead. And each corpse calls further into question your judgment and leadership.”
The dead-eyed axe men on either side of the don tensed, ready for action.
Behind Dutchman, Uno continued to peel his nails with a pocketknife. The Cosmic hitman still looked bored. Of course, he was on loan to Dutchman from Don Valdez, so his throat wasn’t stretched upon the chopping block no matter what happened here.
“Don Valdez,” Dutchman said with a nod of respect. “Please pardon my interruption and allow me to set your mind at ease. You are concerned that I am incapable of defending your assets against the psi cartel. I assure you, Don Valdez, with all due respect, that nothing could be further from the truth.”
Dutchman nodded to Uno, who abandoned the trimming of his nails and flicked the small blade, severing the ropes securing the blue tarp covering the pile of cargo against which he had been leaning.
Wind caught the tarp, and the freed edge whipped into the air, flapping crisply as if applauding Dutchman’s reveal.
Stacked like cordwood atop the decking were a dozen corpses, their faces uniform in pallor and locked in wide-eyed expressions of unnamable terror. All of them, young and old, now had hair of pure white and eyes of shining black, the pupils and irises indistinguishable within monochromatic orbs that shone like obsidian.
Without turning, Dutchman said, “Say hello to Don Valdez.”
The dead groaned.
Despite watching from miles away, Jamaal shuddered with revulsion.
The corpses rose to their feet with an unnerving calm and surprising smoothness of motion and formed two ranks of six behind Dutchman.
“I have replenished my numbers,” Dutchman explained with just the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Don Valdez, I give you all that remains of the psi cartel’s Florida forces.”
The Don nodded. “Very well,” he said, and turned to go. Before stepping from Dutchman’s boat to his own, however, Don Valdez turned once more. “Your actions have bought you time, Mr. Dutchman. But your mistakes have nonetheless drawn unwanted attention to our organization. If you wish to wipe the slate clean, bring me the power mage. His head will do the trick. But if you wish not only to survive but also to expand your territory and become one of my underbosses, this is your opportunity to impress me. Bring me the power mage… alive.”
&n
bsp; Jamaal eavesdropped a short time longer, studying Dutchman’s gaze as the capo watched Don Valdez’s boat fade away. Then Jamaal uncoupled from the psi sensor, retracted back into himself, and opened his eyes.
Across from him sat a tall, lean man in a lemon-yellow suit and a gray tie that matched his silver hair and steely eyes. He peered down his long nose at Jamaal. Across his lap, he held the cane of striped rattan he had been using since sustaining injuries during the last mission he and Jamaal had worked together twenty-three years ago.
The Culling.
Jamaal shot to his feet and grimaced as his entire left leg seized. Sciatica pissed fire from his ass to the sole of his foot. “Arch Mage Janusian,” Jamaal said, “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Didn’t sense him, either, Jamaal thought, badly flustered. I’m too old for this shit.
Janusian smiled disarmingly and gestured toward Jamaal’s chair. “Sit, please. Your back still hurts from that fall on the icy sidewalk, eh, old friend?”
Jamaal sat, an awkward affair since his leg remained as stiff as a poker. Despite this awkwardness and extreme pain, however, he barely registered his leg, so great was his shock to see Pater Janusian seated before him. He had been nervous about receiving the Dragon, that herald of hellfire, but Janusian’s appearance, while less menacing, was certainly more disconcerting. Why would the top man in the Order be here? “A bit, sir. We all have our war wounds.”
“Indeed, we do,” Janusian said, drumming his fingers atop the brindled cane. “How is Shawna?”
“Doing well, sir,” Jamaal said, and forced a smile. “She’s excited for my retirement. Has a mile-long honey-do list waiting on me.”
Janusian chuckled, a sound as cold and dry as a winter wind. “I remember when we were cubs, you and I, roaring at the world. Now look at us, a pair of old men bailing water.”
“You’ve aged well, sir,” Jamaal said, and that much was true. Janusian was two or three years older than Jamaal, but despite his cane and silver hair, the man looked as fit as ever.