If I lost him . . . the man who was my spiritual father and monster-hunting mentor . . . Fuck, I didn’t know what I would do.
I didn’t want to think about it. That was a problem for future Deacon. Present Deacon had witches to worry about. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, willing my chest to ease up, and got my mind back on business.
I pushed that thought to the same place I shoved everything else I didn’t deal with. Down deep. One day I might need therapy.
I never did claim to be well-adjusted.
Tiff was beside me, standing only inches away. Sophia sat in front of her. The Were-dog rolled back on her rump and kicked up a leg, scratching behind a floppy ear. The lips of her muzzle pulled back and a low-pitched purr came from her throat as she found the spot.
I looked down at the Were-dog. “Sophia, I need you human. We have to talk.” She nodded her head sharply and gave a short, high-pitched yip. I looked over at Tiff. “Take Sophia and the kids inside. There should be some clothes for her to wear.” Tiff nodded, chestnut tousle of hair bouncing over the eye patch it covered.
Tiff’s hand fell on the side of my stomach, lightly brushing, just skimming the surface of my skin. It was a familiar touch. A delicious tickle thrilled through me. She tilted her head up, still keeping her hair over her eye patch. “I’ll scrounge up some food too. Sophia will need it after changing.” She stepped away, helping Sophia herd the kids into the club as Special Agent Heck moved up next to me. The three of us watched the ladies and kids go inside. The solid steel door shooshed shut behind them.
The moment the door closed Special Agent Heck took a step toward the priest. He shot out his hand. “Father Dominic Mulcahy? Silas Heck, it’s an honor to meet you.” Father Mulcahy’s mitt enveloped Heck’s slender hand. They shook, the Special Agent enthusiastically pumping his grip up and down. A grin split his face under the dark glasses. “I’ve read a lot about you.”
What?
Father Mulcahy pulled his hand back. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a pack of Kools and his well-worn Zippo. A quick flip of his wrist opened the thin cardboard box and shook out a cancerstick. He raised it to his lips as he studied Heck. The lighter chimed open and I caught a strong whiff of gasoline before his finger flicked it to life. Orange flame licked the end of the cigarette as he worked it, pulling air in, lighting the tobacco. The cherry flared hot and bright. He slapped the Zippo closed with the same practiced motion that had opened it. Drawing in deep, he squinted at Heck, watching him carefully. His eye flicked over to me, then back at Heck. Finally, he let go the mouthful of smoke he had been holding. It trickled out, dribbling down his chin and falling softly away from his face.
“You say you’re from the O.C.I.D?”
Heck nodded.
The priest’s voice was hard as concrete. “I’m not going back. I’m through with you people. If you are here for that, then go back and tell Fairbanks he can kiss my Catholic ass.”
I looked at the priest sharply. “Do you two know each other?”
Father Mulcahy waved his hand. “We’ve never met.”
Special Agent Heck shook his head, grin wiped from his face. “No, we don’t know each other.” He pulled off his glasses, slipping them into the inner pocket of his suit. Thin brows pulled together. “I’m here to get Mr. Chalk’s help on this witch situation. That is all, sir. The O.C.I.D. has a clear ‘hands off’ policy with you after the last time you—”
The priest cut him off. “Good. Tell them not to ever forget that. I am done with them. Fairbanks should never send anyone to contact me.”
“He won’t, sir. He’s dead.”
Father Mulcahy stopped. “When and how?”
“Four years ago. Heart attack. He went quickly.”
Sadness passed through Father Mulcahy’s eyes. His hand moved. Head to heart, shoulder to shoulder, the sign of the Cross. “God have mercy on his soul. I told him to stop eating so much damned fried food.”
“It was a shock to everybody, sir.”
“Especially to Fairbanks, I’m sure,” I couldn’t help chiming in. I wanted to know more about this part of Father Mulcahy’s past, but we needed to get back on task. “We have shit to deal with. It’d be best if we got moving on them.”
“What needs to be done, son?”
I walked over to the Comet, to the trunk. Father Mulcahy and Special Agent Heck followed me. The lock switched open with a loud click as I pushed the button on the key fob. Ahriman blinked as the light came on inside when I lifted the lid.
Father Mulcahy looked down at the wizard. He pulled on the cancerstick. “What’s your plan with this one?”
“We take him inside and find out what the witches are trying to do.”
“He’s not going to want to talk.”
“They never do.”
24
Tiff held the door open. She had traded the shotgun for her Judge. It hung huge in her dainty hand. Her back pressed against the door as we carried the warlock in, Heck at his feet, me with both hands hooked under his arms. Ahriman was heavier than he looked. I had to duck walk, booted feet splaying wide to avoid stepping on the trailing tail of his cassock. His hair was wiry against my bare stomach— rough, scratchy, and annoying as piss.
The club was lit up, all the house lights turned up to maximum wattage. The bright light made everything stark, harsh shadows being cast by wooden chairs and round tabletops. Big trash cans sat here and there in the middle of the floor, full of a busy night’s discarded empties and disposables. The carpet was slick, worn smooth from hundreds of feet walking through gallons of spilled drinks. I should probably have someone come out and steam-clean the damn place.
Father Mulcahy had shut down early after getting our call. When you kick out the customers of a strip club, they tend to leave a lot of trash behind. From the looks of it, the good Father had been cleaning up, probably with the help of the girls, but they weren’t done. Half the club was free of debris and litter, the other half looked like a tornado had hit a trailer park.
Special Agent Heck and I walked the warlock around one of the trash cans, the yeasty smell of beer hanging over it like a fog. The stage in the center of the room was about three and a half feet high and six feet across. A ledge ran around the edge of it, broken only by three steps from the floor to the stage itself, where customers could sit with their drinks and their dollars. At each end a forearm thick brass pole gleamed from stage to ceiling.
Hoisting the wizard up, we dropped him on the wooden stage. His head made a hollow melon thunk against the boards.
Oops.
I turned to Father Mulcahy, digging in my pocket for the heavy thing I had there. I handed him a rag I used to check the oil in the Comet; it was wrapped around the goat’s head medallion. My fingers tingled just from handling the damned thing.
“That’s the symbol of his power, but be careful with him. Don’t cut him free ’til you have him chained to one of these poles. And keep him gagged until we’re ready to question him.”
The priest flipped open a corner of the rag. The goat head leered up off the pentagram. He cursed and flipped the oily rag back over it.
Tiff spoke up. “Do you recognize it?”
He nodded, crossing himself. “I do. It’s a bad, devilish symbol. A symbol for the Devil himself.” He looked up. His teeth were clenched. “It’s a dangerous thing to have around.”
“Keep it away from him. We’ll dispose of it after we get information from him.”
“Do you want me to start questioning him without you?”
I studied my friend, my mentor. I didn’t know all of his past. I knew some of it, but not all. I knew he hadn’t always been a priest. He had been one of the Garda, Ireland’s hardboiled version of a cop, when he was young. The Garda are hard men doing a hard job, using thug tactics against outlaws. Somewhere he had served some military time. Whatever his life was before had left him a very dangerous man. But despite that, or probably because of that, Father M
ulcahy was a true Catholic priest. A real servant of God.
I had no illusions. Getting information from Ahriman was going to be ugly. Really ugly. Soul-staining ugly. If I asked, Father Mulcahy would do it for me. I knew he would. He would take that burden from me.
Fuck that.
I would never ask it of him. Whatever he had done before I met him, whatever had brought him to the arms of the Church, it was bad enough that I wouldn’t ask any more of him if I could do it myself. He had his own sin to atone for. I wouldn’t lay another on him if I could. I signed up for the job, even the shitty parts.
“No, just get him ready. I’ll be back to do the questioning myself.”
He nodded, drawing in on the cancerstick in his mouth. The cherry flared hot orange and the white cylinder was eaten down to the filter as I watched. “Silas here can help me.”
I nodded and Special Agent Heck climbed up on the stage. Both men knelt beside the bound warlock. They were a study in contrast. Special Agent Heck was close to six feet tall and on the lean side of average. His black suit bunched as he moved, pulling up his arms and legs. The cuffs of his shirt were stark white, and so were the socks covering his ankles above a pair of polished wingtips.
Father Mulcahy was almost a foot shorter than me, his head only reaching Heck’s shoulder. The priest was wide across the back, bull-thick with arms and legs like a dock worker. He probably outweighed the younger man by sixty pounds. Heck’s movements were quick, hands darting to help. Father Mulcahy moved with the slower, more deliberate pace of an older man.
The difference struck me in the chest with a hollow twang.
I turned away.
Tiff was there. She held a glass of sweet tea and a plate with three microwaveable pocket sandwiches on it. She gave a small toss of her head toward the bar, spun on her heel, and began to walk over.
The smell of the food drizzled out behind her. Warm and salty bread smells. It smelled like microwave food—cheap, greasy, loaded with preservatives and chemicals; in other words, delicious. My stomach clenched, a sharp growl calling out behind my belly button.
I had that gnawing emptiness that came with depleted reserves. My blood sugar was low. I had lost blood earlier, and the burn across my back was throbbing with spikes of hot pain. A crust of lymphatic fluid ran down my spine where the blisters had burst like egg yolks. The white gauze bandage had been torn from my shoulder when I yanked my shirt off earlier. The wound was still stitched closed, but just barely. It was inflamed, swollen flesh pulling at the haphazard stitches.
Tiff had napkins laid out by the time I slid up on the bar stool beside her. Next to them were two fat bottles: ibuprofen and caffeine pills. We would need both to push through the night. Tiff had a sandwich in her hand, wrapped in a napkin. She pushed the plate toward me. “Here, eat.”
I picked up one of the oblong pocket sandwiches. Heat from it warmed my fingertips. “How’d you know I needed food?”
She laughed around the bite in her mouththen swallowed. “Well, I needed food, and I know your metabolism by now. You’re always hungry after you’ve been Action Deacon.”
“True.” I took a bite. Salty ham and chemical, liquid cheese exploded into my mouth. I barely chewed before swallowing. Immediately, my stomach settled and the slight, fuzzy headache that sat behind my eyes faded away. Something caught my attention as I took a second bite. I leaned up, looking past Tiff.
A gorilla raised a glass full of Jack Daniels to me in greeting.
Actually, it was a Were-gorilla. Dark brown eyes looked at me blearily, his black fur greasy and shot through with silver. I nodded in return and he tossed back a mouthful. The dark amber liquid splashed into his wide-open maw. He set down the glass, wiped a hairy forearm the size of a football player’s thigh across monkey lips, picked up the halffull bottle of Jack Daniels sitting at his elbow, and topped off another shot.
I leaned over the bar so I could look at him directly. “How’re you doing tonight, George?”
He squinted at the bottle in his monkey paw, held it up to the light, and studied it for a long moment. The amber liquid was about even with the words Tennessee Whiskey on the black label. The bottle dropped with a thunk of heavy glass against polished wood. His voice was deep, a chestrumbling growl from vocal chords that were only close to human. “Looks like I’m about halfway there. How are you doin’ tonight?” The words slurred together, leaning on each other for support.
“Worse than some, better than most.”
He took this in. Nodded. “I won’t take up any more of your time, then.” The glass lifted.
“Carry on.”
George was a fixture here at Polecats. He had been since the shitstorm that had landed Sophia in our whacked-out little family. He had lost someone, a girl he loved named Lucy. She’d been a shape-shifter fighting on our side. Well, she didn’t shift shape as much as she changed places with a mystic totem rhinoceros named Masego. It was part of an old family curse she’d carried because of some poaching asshole uncle somewhere in her family’s past. Masego had been killed by a Were-Tyrannosaurus rex, and Lucy had died as well.
George had pretty much been drunk since then.
I didn’t say anything. Normally he was here in human form being a sad but harmless drunk. Which was good. Being a Were-gorilla, he was insanely strong. Tossing cars strong. If he was a mean drunk, then it would have been really, really bad. The end of King Kong bad.
Silver bullet bad.
But George was quiet in his sorrow. He tossed back a bottle of Jack a night, cried a little, and then passed out in a corner. I didn’t blame him. I drank an ocean of Southern Comfort when I lost my family. That kind of pain sits in you like shards of broken glass that your heart nests in. Every beat grinds that glass in a little farther, a little deeper. It cuts all the time, and the only thing you want is to somehow dull the pain.
So you pick up the booze to get a little numb, and it works. A few shots dull the pain. Just a little. Just enough. You drink some more, pushing the pain even farther away. Then all of a sudden, you’ve made it through the night. The problem is that once the ache of the hangover fades, everything comes rushing back, stronger and meaner than before. A rattlesnake with a hate on.
So you drink again, trying to stay ahead of the pain, and you begin the vicious cycle that leads you to wake up one day and realize you lost three months of your life at the bottom of a glass.
I didn’t know where he lived now. He was here every night. Hell, he probably just lived at Polecats now. Each night after closing, he would shift, Father Mulcahy would talk with him, he would finish his bottle, and he would pass out. One of the girls would cover him in a blanket before they all left each night. He would sleep through and get up to start all over the next day.
Sometimes we got him to eat something. Sometimes we got him to take a shower. So far, we hadn’t been able to get both of those things to happen on the same day.
There but for the grace of God go I.
The grace of God and killing monsters.
I turned my attention back to Tiff. She was taking a sip of sweet tea, handing me the glass when she finished. It was a new thing we were doing, sharing drinks. One day she just picked up my glass and took a drink, and we had been doing it ever since. Even out, we would order one drink to share. It felt . . . right. Just a small thing, a connection. It didn’t mean anything, but for some reason putting my lips to the same place hers had touched was like a stolen secret—sweet and thrilling to keep.
She was looking at me intently. Since the incident that took her left eye, she unconsciously tilted her head when she was concentrating on something. Because her sight was only through the one eye, she would focus it, centering it on whatever it was she was looking at. Right now, that something was me.
“What’s on your mind, little girl?”
“Just wondering how it’s going to be when you go upstairs to talk to Kat.”
“Maybe she didn’t find anything out and it will be a sho
rt conversation.”
Her lips flattened and her head tilted even more. She gave me a look that said, “Are you stupid?”
I held up my hands, leaning away. “You’re right. It’s Kat, of course she found something.”
Kat was a research master. Give her a computer with Internet access and she could ferret out any information on anything. Want to know what Bigfoot’s shoe size is? She could tell you. Lost your mom’s PIN number? She could find that too. She was an Internet ninja. Not a hacker. No, nothing so crude, unless it was an information system. I didn’t understand how she did what she did, but I have never seen anyone better.
I took another drink of sweet tea and handed her the glass. “Truth is, I don’t know how it will go.”
She slid off her stool with a small hop. “Just remember that she’s still your friend.” Her hand touched my arm, slender fingers cold and wet from the glass. “I know she screwed up, and you know she screwed up. For that matter, she knows she screwed up. She’s going to be feeling bad over it. But let’s get through this and deal with it on the other side.”
I didn’t say anything.
Her hip bumped into my thigh, warm and firm. She leaned into it, making me look at her. “You’ve got every right to be pissed; just keep it together until we get clear of this witch thing. Then you two can sit down and figure out where you stand.” She peered at me with her crystal blue eye. “Promise me.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
She nodded, chestnut hair bouncing up and down. I watched her, suddenly aware of just how close she was standing to me. My hand went out to draw her close. Her hands flashed up, blocking. She danced back a step. “Oh, no, you don’t.” She took another step away. Where she had been touching my thigh started to cool. “I’m dirty and I need a shower.”
I slid forward, reaching out again. “You look and smell fine to me, little girl.”
Her finger waved in the air. “Nice try, baby, but no can do. I’m going upstairs to wash off and change.” She pointed at the plate by my elbow. “Finish your food. Talk to Kat. After that, you can come find me.”
Blood and Magick Page 10