by J. R. Mabry
Kat nodded. “Right. It’s not me. It’s not you. It’s up there.”
“Are we okay?” Mikael put a hand on her shoulder.
“We’re okay,” she said, lifting up on tiptoe to kiss him. He still had to lean down a significant distance.
“Okay, watch this.” She ripped the velcro from the shoulders of her cassock and handed the long black robe to Mikael. He took his own off and put them both on the corner of the bar where no one was sitting. Then he crossed to where he could just barely see Turpelo and Purderabo. Kat smiled sneakily and snagged an order pad from the bar. Fishing a pen from her pocket, she walked up to the magickians’ table, jutted out her hip, and pretended she was chewing gum. Mikael couldn’t hear what she said, but he was in awe of her transformation. He watched as she scratched at the pad with her pen, ripped the first sheet off the pad, and laid it on the table. Smiling big, she took her leave of them and swaggered back toward Mikael.
“That is one shit-eating grin,” Mikael said.
“Not a hint of recognition,” she said.
“I can’t believe it.”
“Believe, my boy. And you owe me one ‘out of the ordinary’ sexual favor.”
“Huh…well, I’m game for anything!”
“We’ll see about that!”
“Shall we go?”
Kat hung back. “Well, we want to follow them.”
“Right.”
“Plus, I want to see what happens.”
“What do you mean?”
“That piece of paper I put on their table?”
“Yeah…?”
“It said, ‘Lunch is on the house today. Thanks for being such great customers!’”
“Oh, shit.”
“Ever see anyone get caught for dine-and-ditch?”
52
Casey opened the door to the mayor’s office a crack. “Goggles, you in?”
Through the crack in the door, Susan saw a tall, bald man with round horn-rimmed glasses look up from his desk where he and several other people were studying a map.
“Funny, Casey,” he said. “Balloon animals all around—after we’re out of danger.”
“Hey, I got someone you need to meet.”
“We’re a little busy here—”
“Which is exactly why you need to meet these folks. They have information that is gonna help us out. They know why…you know, all this is happening.”
The bald man looked surprised. “Well, then, okay, that could be good.”
Casey threw the door open and waved Susan, Terry, and Chicken through. “This is Susan—her husband is in the hospital. Lost his eye in the melee this morning out by the Webster Tube. This is…” she paused, biting her lip.
“This is Father Terry Milne of the Order of St. Raphael, otherwise known as the Berkley Blackfriars,” Susan said. “And this is Chicken. She’s…I guess she’s our unofficial ward right now.”
“I like chicken,” Chicken said.
“Who doesn’t like chicken?” the mayor said.
“And this is Mayor Betts. We just call him Tom—or Goggles—his secretary Milo Richards and city planner Amanda Hernandez.”
A young African-American man in a skinny tie nodded his greeting, as did the middle-aged Hispanic woman at the other end of the desk.
Mayor Betts snapped his fingers. “The Berkeley Blackfriars—weren’t you the guys at the Republican convention?”
Milo narrowed his eyes at them. “I just saw an exposé about you on CNN.”
Susan put up her hands. “Look, I live with these guys,” she said. Betts’ and Milo’s eyebrows shot up. “CNN, that was a fuckin’ hit job.”
Betts smiled at the expletive, and Susan sensed that he liked her style. Milo looked unconvinced.
“Please, Miss…”
“Susan. Melanchthon.”
“Susan it is, ’cause I’m not even going to try to pronounce your last name,” Betts said. “We’d be grateful for any information that’s gonna help us keep our people safe.”
Terry cleared his throat. “First, please let me say how grateful we are that you’ve taken us in. I thought we were goners out there.”
“We’re not trying to hoard our resources or anything. We really do want to help.” Mayor Betts gave him a grim smile.
“I really get that,” Terry nodded. “In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul said, ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’ Well, St. Paul didn’t really write that, it was someone writing in his name, probably some—”
Susan, standing behind him, punched him in the kidneys. “This isn’t a homily. Get to the point.”
Terry turned and scowled at her. He rubbed at his lower back. “Our enemies aren’t people. They’re demons.”
“Demons?” Mayor Betts looked skeptical.
“Mayor, we have real work to do here,” Hernandez said, not disguising the irritation in her voice.
“Just…hear me out.” Terry took a deep breath. “Look, fighting demons—and other spiritual nastiness—is what we do for a living. We’re not making it up. It’s real. We discovered sigils all over Oakland. Sigils that designate a certain jurisdiction, a neighborhood, to be the domain of a certain kind of demon.”
“What the hell is a sigil?”
“Well, it’s a symbol. Like a diagram, but simpler. Like letters, but more complex than that. Anyway, a sigil connects the sigil holder to a demonic entity. If it’s properly activated, it can act as a portal, a gateway.”
Chicken walked up to the desk, which was exactly eye-level to her. She saw a felt marker, and her eyes widened. She grabbed it and trotted over to the wall, pulling the cap off it and tossing it on the floor.
“What, like between here and hell?” Betts asked.
“Exactly. Or wherever the demon happens to be. It’s not like they’re confined to hell.”
“Of course not,” said Betts. “That would be silly.”
Chicken started drawing on the wall.
“Are you…making fun of us?” Terry asked.
“Of course not, I—”
He stopped because Susan tapped Terry on the shoulder and pointed at the wall where Chicken was at work.
“Hey!” Mayor Betts yelled. “You can’t—”
“Mayor Betts,” Susan shouted him down. Chicken stepped back to admire her work. “That—” Susan pointed at the drawing, “—is a sigil.”
“It’s the sigil that was on the truck that was at the mouth of the tube,” Terry said. “It belongs to a demon named Alianthor. A wrath demon, third level. A duke, no less. Famous for flaying people alive. Nicknamed ‘Skin’ in infernal circles, although only demons of greater rank call him that.”
Chicken was drawing again, quickly sketching out the scene with the man tied to the flatbed truck. The figures were naive, but recognizable. And she was getting details that Susan had forgotten. Susan found herself speechless. Who knew the little girl had such talent?
Terry, however, found his tongue. “That right there, what Chicken is drawing, is what this demon makes people do. Everyone in his orbit of influence—about two or three city blocks, near as I can figure—acts on this demon’s primary activity. In this case, filleting and flaying.”
“What?” Betts seemed to be having trouble taking it in.
“Demons are arranged into hosts, with numerous lesser demons under their lords or commanders. That demon is a duke, with literally hundreds of other demons under his command. When whoever did this called him up, his underlings came too. And they’re…just doing what they do. It’s a big party for them. And it’s like that all over Oakland. And Emeryville. And probably Berkeley by now.”
“Definitely Berkeley,” Betts admitted.
“Why not here?” Richards asked, his skepticism seeming to lighten a little.
“Because the asshole magickians who did this didn’t post any sigils in Alameda,” Terry said.
“What about that one?” Betts asked, his face involuntarily registering alarm.
“Don’t worry, it’s not activated. We’d have to ritually invoke the demon and feed it some blood.”
“Whose blood?” Hernandez asked. All three of them had a look of horror on their faces.
Well, at least we’re getting through, Susan thought.
“In the case of most of the Bay Area, a young woman was sacrificed as a demonic offering in Tilden Park last Friday night.”
“That’s terrible,” Betts breathed.
“It’s powerful. And it activated all the sigils that the magickians hung all over the East Bay. Just thank your lucky stars no one thought to do that in Alameda.”
Betts nodded. “Are you saying that these…magickians…control these demons?”
“They aren’t controlling them, which is why they’re having a field day. They’re just…inviting them. But yeah, they’re magickians—goetic magickians at that. Controlling demons is normally what they do.”
Betts shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m actually listening to you. This is crazy.”
“I know how it sounds,” Susan said. “But it happens to be true.”
“We removed several of the sigils from different neighborhoods and burned them,” Terry said. “And the influence dissipated quickly.”
“So, what do you suggest we do?” Betts said.
“I’ve been giving this some thought,” Terry said. “I think we need a dual strategy—both defensive and offensive. First, we need to keep everyone in Alameda safe.”
“I thought there wasn’t any danger because there aren’t any sigils here,” Hernandez said.
“True, but in Oakland we discovered that some clever folks transferred the sigils to a truck and took the whole party on the road. All you need is one sigil-bearing truck to get through the tube or across one of the bridges, and suddenly you’ve got mass killings erupting on Park Street.”
Betts rubbed his hand along his naked scalp, his eyes moving quickly back and forth behind his horn-rims.
“Or a boat,” Susan said.
“Plus, remember the radius,” Terry said. “If you have a sigil on a truck near the water, you could have people crossing on skiffs, on rafts—hell, on inner tubes—and slaughtering anyone they come into contact with. And anyone who’s near the shore might pick up on the influence, too.”
“So we need everyone to stay…what? A block away from the shore?”
“That should limit the local infection where the channel is narrow. But we also need to arm people along the shore, too, in case any people who are…under the influence, let’s say…get through.”
“Or, God forbid, carries a sigil over,” Susan said.
Betts blinked at her. Richards’ mouth hung open, and Hernandez looked like she was swaying in the breeze.
Betts stammered. “Y-you said a dual strategy. You just talked about defense. What about offense?”
“I suggest we train teams to cross over, seek out the sigils and destroy them.”
“Who is going to train these people?”
“I will. And Dylan, when he gets out of the hospital. He’s more knowledgeable about demon magick than I am.”
“He’ll be out tomorrow,” Susan said.
“He will?”
“Count on it. He’s not going to want to miss this.”
Terry nodded.
“But you’re talking about a suicide mission,” Betts said.
“We’ll take only volunteers. And we’ll make sure they’re protected. As best we can,” Terry said, not sounding terribly convincing.
Betts looked at his staff. They said nothing.
“This is…I’ve never heard anything like this. Are you sure you’re not shitting me? This is crazy,” Betts said, pointing at the sigil on his wall.
“This is magick,” Terry said.
“I do magic,” Betts said. “But—”
“You do stage magic,” Terry corrected him. “This is real magick. This is the manipulation of the seen world through unseen means. This is the raising of demons to do the will of whatever assholes were stupid enough to open a portal into hell. This is the real shit and it’s coming down on you like a rain of flaming turds.” Betts’ and his staff reared back from the force of Terry’s words. But the short friar wasn’t finished. He advanced on them, punctuating his point by thrusting his forefinger with every other word. “And you can either stick your heads in the sand and lose every man, woman and child on this island or you can swallow your fucking rationalistic cynicism,” he placed both hands on the desk and leaned over it toward them, “and get to work.”
53
“Perry!” Cain leaped up, but Richard tackled him, pinning his arms and making sure that the detective did not cross the boundary of the Circle of Protection. Richard felt the detective’s breath heaving and his bones shaking, and he knew the man was just shy of hysteria.
He pressed his full weight onto Cain’s chest and spoke to him in calm, reassuring tones. “There’s nothing you can do now. Lie still or the demon will go after you, too. Just be calm. Just relax.” There was nothing that would convince Cain to relax at that moment, though, and Richard knew it. He kept Cain pinned until the man finally stopped struggling.
“Enough!” Marco shouted. “You are released!” He snatched the sigil from the Circle of Containment and lit it on fire.
Richard didn’t notice the ectoplasmic wisps dissipating, but when Marco called the all clear and he rolled off of Cain, the room seemed quiet and normal. Cain leaped up and ran to where Perry’s body lay crumpled on the concrete. He held his arms out from his sides, like a gunslinger waiting for his opponent to draw. But Richard could see that he wasn’t preparing to draw a weapon—he just didn’t know if he should touch his fallen partner. Cain sank to one knee and felt at Perry’s neck. Without hesitation, he straightened her body out, swung his legs aside her, and began pushing on her chest with both hands. Richard rushed to help, pinching her nose and breathing into her mouth whenever Cain paused.
They continued for several minutes, then persisted for several more. But when Richard checked, there was still no pulse. He looked up at Cain and shook his head. Cain fell on her and began sobbing, his back jerking from his dry, heaving breaths. Richard tenderly laid a hand on his back.
“That could have gone better,” Marco said.
“You did everything right,” Richard answered.
“We could have locked the door.”
“It doesn’t have a lock,” Richard pointed out.
“We could have posted a guard.”
“We could have assembled a protective circle of tie-dyed ponies, too. Look, we didn’t know what we didn’t know. We didn’t expect her to step in on us. It’s tragic, but it was an accident. It wasn’t your fault.”
Marco looked down at Perry’s body. “Maybe.”
“You can’t beat yourself up.”
“Why not?”
“Because we have too much to do. If you let yourself get incapacitated by grief or guilt, then they win.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“The Lodge…or whatever dark powers are pulling their strings…Larch.” Richard pressed his arm. “You cannot let them win. Pull yourself together. If we survive this, you’ll have plenty of leisure for self-recrimination and binge drinking.”
“Are you talking about me or you now? You know I don’t drink.”
“Just—” Richard shook Cain’s shoulder. “Detective. You need to mourn later. We need to save Berkeley now.”
Cain lifted his head and caught Richard’s eye. His gaze was wild, his cheeks puffy and red. “Now!” Richard shouted.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have this…innate authority thing going on?” Marco asked.
Richard ignored him as he helped Cain to his feet. Cain removed his jacket and laid it over Perry, covering her face. Richard steered him through the door and toward the stairs. “First thing first. Are your
landlines working?” Richard asked.
“They were,” Cain answered.
“Can you get me an outside line?”
“Why?” Cain asked.
“You heard what the demon said,” Richard said. “This is all a distraction, everything that’s happening in the East Bay. The real danger is global…universal, even. I need to get someone working on that nuclear bomb of a problem—then we can tend to the brush fires here.”
“This is a brush fire?”
“By comparison, yes.”
“Oh, Lord,” Cain said. At the top of the stairs he stopped and clutched at the wall to steady himself.
“It’s going to be okay,” Richard said. “You just have to get moving and stay moving. I speak from experience.”
“It’s not okay for Perry,” Cain said.
“Or for a lot of people whose lives are getting wrecked out there every moment we delay,” Richard said, speaking a little too loud and too close to Cain for human comfort. He was trying to motivate him, but he wondered if he were pushing too hard given what had just happened. What Cain needed, of course, was a week on retreat with a therapist, working through the trauma he had just experienced. But he wasn’t going to get that.
Cain led Richard and Marco into the squad room, and, weaving a little, made his way to his desk.
“Cain!” Herrer shouted.
Cain ignored her and sank into his chair as if it were a life raft.
“Phone,” Richard said, right behind him.
Cain lifted the receiver and handed it to Richard. He dialed 9, then swung the cradle toward Richard to dial.
Herrer stormed toward the desk. “Where the fuck is Perry?” she demanded.
“Perry is in the basement,” Cain said, not looking at her. “She’s dead.”
“What?” Herrer stepped back as if she’d been punched in the chest. “What happened? Did that mob break through? Or did she…did she have a heart attack? ’Cause I know she’s on that medication.”
“That’s for blood pressure,” Cain said. “But…no. She was killed by…”
“By who?”
Richard plugged his ears, but it was still hard to hear. “Shush!” he shouted. He punched the button for the speaker phone.