I twist the shield around fast to keep the kid from char-broiling himself and push the fireball up until it explodes above us.
My moment of magnanimity is rewarded by the other two letting loose their own spells, and since I’ve got my shield angled to protect the kid, it isn’t protecting me.
I get a double whammy of a freezing spell and a simple invisible hammer. Ice forms on my chest, my clothes going brittle. The pain is intense. But it’s not as bad as the hammer that follows.
I fly back a good five feet before skidding and rolling on the blacktop. My tattoos take the brunt of it, and they’re already thawing me out, but it still hurts like a motherfucker.
I get up. They’re both so stunned they just stare at me. They must have figured they could show up with a big gun and take me down with one shot. Probably didn’t expect things to get this far. If I hadn’t gunned the Cadillac when I felt the magic they might have gotten me.
But they didn’t. And now it’s my turn.
Did you know everybody is covered in a cloud of their own bacteria? It’s pretty gross when you think about it. Every time you breathe, every time you fart, burp, talk, move, take a shit, you’re putting out gut bacteria. Settles on your skin, your hair, your clothes, other people, the ground.
A lot of that bacteria doesn’t last very long. It dies fast. We’re all surrounded by a constantly dying cloud of shit germs. And if it’s dead . . .
I animate every dead thing surrounding them. Bacteria are small enough that it doesn’t take much to do. I add a little color to the mix. I want them to see what’s happening to them.
A dark wall of dead germs solidifies around them, covers their skin like ants. They both scream, clawing at their faces, their hands. I make the swarm crawl up into their nostrils and mouths. Their screams choke off as the solid mass of germs fills their throats. I constrict the ones around their necks.
Their eyes roll into the back of their heads and they fall to the ground, unconscious. I pull the swarm of reanimated germs back. It flows out of them, a disgusting black river of muck. I only have about ten seconds before they come to, and I don’t need them causing more trouble.
I run back to the remains of the Cadillac. Fortunately, I had my messenger bag in the front seat with me, not in the trunk. I go back to the unconscious pair, pulling out a pair of rune-etched zip-ties that I bind their wrists with. They’ll act as short-term blockers for their magic. I’m betting they’re weak enough not to be able to break through. I do the same to the teenager out cold on the ground.
I tap the woman’s face. Her eyes snap open, bleary, unfocused. Then she remembers where she is and what just happened. I know that look, so I step to the side and let her vomit out a thick black stream, the remains of the dead germs I had clogging her pipes.
“Feeling better?” I say. She lunges at me. I step easily out of her way and she ends up falling forward onto her face, cutting her forehead.
I pull her back up to her knees, letting her figure out where her magic went. The guy is coming to and does his own puking routine. Once he’s done he starts cursing me. Real curses, like turn-into-a-newt curses. Too bad for him they won’t work.
“Zip it,” I say and snap my fingers. His mouth closes, his lips glued together. I turn back to the woman.
“Now,” I say, “you and I are going to have a little chat.”
Chapter 6
“You gonna kill us like you killed our families?” the woman says, the look of defiance on her face losing some of its effectiveness with the dribble of black drool coming off her chin and her constantly blinking blood out of her eyes.
“Jesus, what is it with you people? I didn’t kill anybody. Why would I?”
“Bullshit,” she says. “You’re building an army of the dead. I saw it.”
“Where? In a dream? For fuck sake. If I’m building an army of the dead, why am I leaving bodies behind? Why not raid the morgue? You have any idea how many people die in this town every day?”
“I—I don’t know. I’m not some sick fuck who plays with corpses.”
“Fine. Whatever. How about this, then? Where would I put it?”
“What?”
“My army of the dead. Where would I put it? I’d need a lot of corpses for an army, right? That’d take a lot of space. So, what, I’m gonna stack the bodies like cordwood inside all the industrial freezers in Los Angeles? And nobody’s gonna notice that?”
She’s starting to question, and she’s not liking the answers she’s getting. “Fuck you,” she says with renewed conviction. She’s too far gone down this road to argue with.
“So, what do I do with you?” I say. “I’d normally stick you in my trunk and drop you off at a phone booth in the desert, but seeing as I don’t have a trunk anymore, that’s not much of an option.”
I look back at the wreckage of the Cadillac. Okay, the front half of the Cadillac. The other half is littering the street in a block-long trail behind it. Dammit. I liked that car.
“You kill me and you’re going to have so much shit rain down on you,” she says.
Right. Like it’s going to get worse than all the mages of Los Angeles hunting me down now. “Lady, I’m not gonna ki—”
Her head explodes.
It takes a second for me to realize what’s just happened. Somebody’s shot her. Either they were going for her—which bravo, nice shot—or they’ve got really shitty aim.
Her buddy next to her screams through his sealed lips and tries to crawl away. He doesn’t get very far before the shooter pops his noggin like a ripe melon at a Gallagher show.
I finally pull my head out of my ass and duck, scanning the area for the shooter. I see a shadow duck behind cars across the street, the shape of a rifle in their hand. I start to follow, but don’t get very far, because that’s when the reinforcements arrive.
Three cars pull up, one of them driving over the chain-link onto the blacktop. Fuck me. I run for the Cadillac—I’ll drink a toast to you later, buddy—and take some half-assed cover behind its smoking ruin.
This time I do pull in power from the pool. So do the people in the cars. I feel eight, no, nine, all drawing a lot of power, fast. Something tells me they’re not the newbies I just ran into. Wonderful.
I hear car doors open, people step out. There’s no gunfire or spellwork, yet. I’m not sure why and I expect I probably won’t like it when I find out.
“Mister Carter,” yells a voice. Older, educated. “My name is Attila Werther. I don’t know if you know who I am, but I knew your parents. I was very sad to hear what happened to them.” Werther, Werther, who the hell is— Oh. Werther. Yeah, I remember him. He’s one of those mages.
As a general rule, we don’t organize well. Get half a dozen equally powerful mages into a room and it’s a pretty good bet they’ll kill each other inside of an hour.
But then there are these guys who have not only power, but money and resources, on their side. I can get cash whenever I want by hexing an ATM, any mage can, but guys like Werther never have to. They’re not just rich, they’re wealthy. They can afford to buy an army of normals, supernaturals, mages, whatever and get unwavering loyalty. It also helps that he’s something like a hundred and fifty years old.
“Yeah, I remember you. We had you over at the house a couple times. I recall you shitting on their idea of going after Jean Boudreau. You know he killed them, right?”
Werther heaves a sigh. “An unfortunate business, that. I merely felt that waiting would ultimately lead to his criminal enterprise imploding in on itself. It was a prudent course of action.”
“Prudent. Oh, hey, look. I learned a new word for chickenshit today.”
“Be that as it may, I have been asked by some of the more prominent families in the city to speak to you about the recent fires. There’s quite a bit of evidence suggesting you did it.”
“Yeah, I keep hearing that. Bullshit then, bullshit now.”
“I see. And these two here? I suppose you didn’t kill them?”
“Believe it or not, no, I didn’t. I figure once you look ’em over you’ll realize that they were taken out at distance, probably with a high-power rifle.”
“Perhaps,” he says. “Perhaps. But you see, they’re not my concern. You are. You’ve made a lot of noise in the last couple of years here. The seers and scryers have been watching you, as much as that panoply of protection tattoos will allow, at least. They see something coming. Something big. And you are at the center of it.”
“Have I upturned the apple cart one too many times?” I say. I know where this is going. Knew as soon as their cars pulled up.
“Oh, far more than one. Out of respect for your family, I can make this easier and faster if you just come out and don’t resist.”
“And if not?”
“Then my men here will have to kill you more painfully. And slowly. I have seven, and you, well, you have just yourself.”
Seven? With Werther that makes eight. But I felt nine people drawing magic from the pool. Where’s that ninth person? Is Werther fucking with me?
“I can always fight them with witty insults and double entendres.”
“I’m sure they will be very biting,” he says. “Now, will it be the clean way, or the messy way?”
I can hear shuffling feet. Underneath the Cadillac I can see the legs of Werther’s personal kill squad. They fan out quietly, trying to flank me. I do a quick count. Yeah, with Werther, that’s only eight.
They already know where I am. Time to show I know where they are, too. I draw the Browning, take a bead on one of the sets of legs, and fire. It hits, exploding the guy’s tibia. He goes down screaming. Once he’s eye level to me I put another one in his head. He stops screaming pretty quick. The Browning feels like it’s laughing.
The rest of Werther’s men are on the move, scattering and looking for cover. I can still see Werther’s legs. He hasn’t moved. Yeah, I’m not falling for that one. He’s standing there because he doesn’t believe I can touch him. He’s probably right. The bullets might stop dead, turn to steam, or just change course and come after me.
“Was that the clean way or the messy way?” I yell. It occurs to me that the cops should be here by now. Of course, they won’t be, because Werther has either put some spells down to keep them away, or paid them off.
I can get out by jumping over to the land of the dead and popping out somewhere else. At this point I can do it in my sleep. I look around for ghosts, try to get an idea of what I’ll have to deal with when I cross over.
But there aren’t any. Much like freeway noise, there is no place in L.A. that is free of ghosts. Whether they’re Echoes, Haunts, or Wanderers, there’s always something. The only way to drive ghosts off is to throw something at them that scares them. Or eats them.
If Werther has driven off the ghosts and I pop over to the other side, I’ll run into whatever fucked up thing he left for me.
“It’s the unfortunate way,” he says. I feel the magic as he throws a spell. The remains of the Cadillac fly into the air like they’re being flipped by a hurricane.
His men step out from their own cover and open up, ugly machine guns barking bullets. My shield spell goes up, but I won’t be able to keep it there very long. With all the bullets it’s soaking up it’s all I can do to keep it running.
As his men are firing, Werther is slowly walking toward me. Now that I can see him, I remember him better. Looks to be in his mid-fifties, white hair slicked back, blue bespoke suit. I can feel the magic radiating off of him. This is one of those times I kinda wish I still had a god’s power to pull from. Once he gets to me it’s game over.
If I run, I’m dead. If I stay here, I’m dead. If I jump over to the other side, I’m dead. I think that about covers it?
Five feet away from me, Werther stands there, smiling. Gloating motherfucker. Well, it was a fun ride while it lasted. I wonder where I’ll end up when I die.
A speeding F-150, with ridiculously oversized tires for a ridiculously oversized truck, jumps the curb and plows into Werther. There’s a tremendous crunch, like a bag full of china being beaten with a shovel. Werther goes flying.
The passenger door flies open and the driver, a black woman who looks vaguely familiar, yells, “Get in here.”
My momma told me not to get into cars with strange people, but I don’t know anybody stranger than myself, so I jump in. I’ll worry about who I’ve gotten a ride from once people aren’t shooting at me.
She slams the gas before I even get the door closed. If she’s hitting the street, she’ll need to turn around, and a truck like this isn’t exactly known for agility. Then I realize she is going for the street. The next block over. Through a Catholic school.
“Um—”
“Jesus, you look like shit,” she says. “I mean, I’ve heard stories, but man, you look like twenty miles of rough road.”
“A shower, a shave, a 55-gallon drum of Bactine, and I’ll be just peachy. You do know that there are buildings in the way, right?”
“And stairs right there.” She’s right. Between two buildings there’s a wide stairway that leads to a grassy area and then out to a parking lot.
She hits the stairs and gets air. The truck hits halfway down. Just ahead of us and off to the side is Werther, slowly picking himself up. He flew quite a bit when she hit him. Probably broke every bone in his body.
“Didn’t I run him over?”
“You did. Thank you, by the way, now—”
“But he’s standing like nothing happened.”
“Magic. Is there nothing it can’t do?”
We pass Werther, who’s still trying to get his body back in order. All of his limbs are at funny angles as they reknit and rebuild themselves. His neck is cocked to the side in a way no neck ever should be.
He glares at me. I give him a big smile and wave.
“Okay, who was that?”
“I got a better question,” I say. “Who are you?”
“You don’t recognize me?”
“In my defense, people were shooting at me.” Now that I get a really close look at her, I do recognize her. “Holy shit. Letitia?”
“That’s Detective Letitia Watson to you, sunshine.” She unclips a badge in a leather flip case from her belt and shows it to me. No shit.
Letitia Watson and I met in the equivalent of mage high school. Until we’re old enough to not spontaneously set shit on fire, most mages are homeschooled. Then, to hopefully not have us all turn into a bunch of sociopathic little shits, which usually happens anyway, we go to school and learn to interact with other human beings.
Letitia and I weren’t friends. We didn’t know each other so much as knew of each other. Mage school is less Harry Potter and more boot camp. The important thing isn’t to help you grow your magic, it’s to help you not blow yourself up.
“Detective? You took a job as part of the Cleanup Crew?”
“Sort of,” she says. “Not quite. And it’s voluntary. Somebody needs to fix the messes people like you make. It’s in all our best interests.” I’m about to say that she sounds like a brochure when we hit the bottom of the stairs and bounce into a football field, the truck’s tires blowing out chunks of sod behind.
Mages give a fat fuck about the normals’ business until we have to. If too many normals really believed in magic, they might want what we’ve got, and we’re not into sharing. We don’t want too much out in the open.
But that’s unavoidable. So some of us go into jobs to help keep this shit under wraps. Police, politics, journalism. They spend a lot of time covering the tracks of fuck-ups.
If that doesn’t get the fuck-up to pull their head out of their ass, you’ll see one of the rare times mages work togeth
er, and that’s to curb stomp that motherfucker into paste.
Huh. I just realized. Today, I’m that motherfucker.
“Who the hell did I run over?”
“Attila Werther,” I say. Her eyes go wide.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think he saw me?”
“No, but I’m sure he can find you. I mean, it’s Werther. And he’s looking for me. And I’m with you, so . . .”
She slams her hand on the steering wheel. We tear through a chain-link fence and into the school’s parking lot. The parking lot that’s completely filled with cars.
“Goddammit,” she says. “This whole thing was not supposed to go this way. You have your seatbelt on, right?”
“You’re asking me now, after we did a Dukes of Hazzard down the stairs?” I pull the seatbelt across my chest and click it in, wincing. The crash in the Caddy’s left some serious bruises where the seatbelt caught me. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get a matching set on the other side now. The Bruise Bandolier. All the cool outlaws will be wearing them this year.
“I figured now’s a good time,” she says, “since we’re probably gonna crash.”
Chapter 7
We don’t crash. Not as such.
We carom off bumpers, slam into car after car. Headlights shatter, alarms go off. But the truck’s built to take abuse and Letitia is giving it plenty. We slam a swath through the sea of cars and hit the driveway leading out to James M Wood Boulevard.
I’ve never understood naming streets after people. Wood was some big-time L.A. union leader in the seventies nobody remembers. You’re dead now, congratulations. Have a street.
Letitia slows down before getting on the road and merging with the rest of the cars. Like she’s trying to blend in. Good luck with that.
“Where the hell did you get this monster truck, anyway?”
“Stole it off the street.” She doesn’t look happy with the admission.
“Tsk. And you a police officer.”
Fire Season Page 5