Fire Season

by Stephen Blackmoore

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be good.” I get off at Atlantic and cross the river. Between the dead fish smell of the bare trickle of the river, the stink of the factories and trucks, and air you can chew, Vernon is not what you’d call a nice place.

  Vernon was built for business. Only about ninety people live in it, but thousands come in every day to work at one of the factories. Right now there should only be a percentage of those people around. Night workers, security guards, that sort of thing. It might as well be a cemetery.

  The mirror points to a small, gated factory with three buildings behind the fence. We drive around it a block away a couple of times, watching the mirror tug to keep the lighter in its sight, until we’re sure that this is the place.

  I park around a corner. So far I’ve kept the car as unobtrusive as possible. A dozen or so you-can’t-see-me charms are scribbled onto the car door in Sharpie, and I’ve kept our distance. If there are cameras, they shouldn’t even pick us up.

  I pull a roll of HI, MY NAME IS stickers out of my messenger bag and write I’M NOT HERE on a couple, pumping them with as much magic as they’ll hold without bursting into flame. I hand one of them to Gabriela. She slaps it onto the front of her shirt. She’s got her own charms, but it doesn’t hurt to have extras.

  “I thought you wanted this to be a stake-out,” she says.

  “I do. But do you know which building she’s in? We have to get close enough to—”

  I’m cut off by Gabriela throwing the door open and running toward the gate. Goddammit. I get out of the car and chase after her.

  The parking lot gate is padlocked. I get there before Gabriela can pop the lock open with a spell, or more likely blow it off its hinges.

  “The hell are you doing?” I don’t want to use any magic just yet. I don’t know if Sastre is a mage, but if she is, we’re close enough that she’d feel it. I don’t want to take any chances and warn her we’re coming.

  “Shit that needs to get done,” Gabriela says. She spies a dumpster nearby that we can climb to get over the gate. She starts toward it.

  “No, seriously,” I say. “What is your problem? I get it. Neither one of us wants what’s coming if we don’t do something, but running in and getting gunned down isn’t gonna do either of us a goddamn bit of good.”

  Gabriela glares at me. “No, you don’t get it. You’re not trying to save the city, you’re trying to save your own skin. And I’m not so much of an asshole that I can’t admit that I’m doing the same thing. I need this, Eric. Everything I built has gone to shit, and I need a goddamn win. Now you can either nut up and come kill this bitch with me, or you can stay out here like a pussy and let a grown-up do her fucking job.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t say anything. After a moment, she climbs the dumpster to get over the gate. Well, shit. I hop the fence behind her.

  Gabriela hands me the mirror. It points us toward one of the smaller factory buildings. I’m not sure what they make here, if they make anything. There’s no signage beyond the usual, saying to keep out. There are holders for cameras, but the cameras are gone. I start to notice other things, missing pipework, rust on the building’s metal siding.

  Businesses in Vernon come and go. It costs money to demolish an unused building. Easier to leave it alone, move somewhere else, come back when things are better. Rinse and repeat in four years when the economy goes tits up again.

  And that’s not even talking about the buildings so filled with chemicals that they’ve been condemned, but nobody has the money to clean up. There are places around here leaching toxins into the groundwater, poisoning nearby communities. I remember hearing about one factory closing because of it, but there are hundreds here.

  There are four entrances to this building that I can see, a loading dock with a door next to it, a door leading to what looks like an office, and a door in the side that looks like it might be an emergency exit. With a final look in the mirror to make sure our target’s still there, I slide it into my pocket and draw the Browning.

  As usual it feels like insects under my hand, but there’s something different now. Like it’s paying more attention. Like it knows what I read about it, and it’d really rather I not know. So help me, if it starts whispering some Son of Sam bullshit, I’m melting it down for paperweights.

  Gabriela kneels at the door and runs her hand a few inches above it, not touching. She makes a complicated hand gesture, like she’s pinching two pieces of air on either side and pulling them together to tie a knot in the center.

  “I’ve bypassed the wards and any alarms that might still be active on this door.” Glad she caught that. I suck at wards, and unless they’re big enough to trip over I hardly ever see them. My own attempts at wards and traps are shoddy, amateur-hour work at best.

  Magic has a way of making you think you’re invulnerable. That nothing can touch you. I have several years’ worth of scar tissue and badly mended bones that say the opposite. I’ve tended not to just jump through doors if I don’t need to. As mages go, I’m more cautious than most, and that’s saying something, considering the stupid shit I’ve done.

  Gabriela doesn’t seem to have that restraint. I’m not sure if she has a plan beyond “break in and start shooting,” but whatever it is we’re doing, it’s not mine anymore. It’s Gabriela’s. I wanted information. She wants validation. Who knows what the hell that’s about? She might not even know.

  She has responsibilities, people depending on her, territories to defend. She needs to show strength. Her standing’s already hurting, and taking down somebody like Sastre would send a message that the Bruja’s still somebody you don’t fuck with. But it feels like there’s more to it than that.

  Gabriela angles herself off to one side of the door, the Benelli ready to fire if anything so much as sneezes. I position myself to the other side and pull it open on her mark.

  The creaking of the hinges might as well be a scream in the nighttime quiet, but we don’t stop moving. We go in low, watching and listening. The door slowly closes behind us with a rusty creak. What little light was coming in from the streetlights outside disappears.

  This part of the factory is a confusing chain of conveyor belts, cobwebbed machinery, smelters gone cold. I can’t see very far into the gloom. There are a few Echoes around, but no Haunts, and the nearest Wanderers are the dead hobos down in the riverbed, people who’d set up camp and drowned when the L.A. River turned from a trickle to a torrent.

  Now that we’re inside, we need a better idea of the layout of the place and where Sastre might be holed up with her bundles of sticks.

  I pull the compact from my pocket and click it open. I hold it close, covering the glass with a cupped hand. When it works it gives off a dim glow that in here would be like setting off a flare gun. I concentrate on the lighter.

  Nothing happens.

  Like people everywhere have done throughout the ages when faced with critical failures of important equipment, I employ a tried and true method. I shake it. Gabriela looks back at me, and even in the dimness I can see the question on her face.

  I answer with what I hope are expressive shrugs and gestures at the mirror. I shake it some more, mime smacking the side of it. She finally gets it when I show the mirror to her and all she sees is her own reflection in the gloom. We both come to the conclusion at the same time that this is a very bad situation and now would be a good time to be somewhere else.

  Which, of course, is when Sastre opens up on us.

  It’s easy to say that we should have expected it, but that ignores that fact that we did expect it, hence the guns. I just didn’t think we wouldn’t see it coming.

  Gunfire splits the air, muzzle flashes leaving blind spots in my eyes. Bullets erupt out of the darkness and ricochet off the conveyor belts.

  We duck and split into two different directions to flank Sastre. Then I have
a thought. We haven’t actually seen her. If I were setting a trap, what would I do? I’d rig up something that would fire into the darkness so whoever was after me thought I was where the gunfire was.

  Another fusillade from the same location. It’s got to be rigged. She wouldn’t be stupid enough to stay in one spot.

  Gabriela’s figured it out, too. A blast from her shotgun draws fire from another location, and from the flashes I know where they both are. Instead of shooting and giving away my position I concentrate and find a handful of Echoes of people that have died over the years in accidents. No Wanderers, no Haunts. Good. I’ll have more time before they come for me.

  I slip over to the other side, my ears filling with that jet engine sound as I pass over, the air going cold and dead around me. From here I can see where both of the women have taken positions to fire, but they’re both moving closer to each other. On the living side it’s a nightmare show of ducking under cover, taking potshots, jumping out of the line of fire, inching ever closer.

  But over here it’s like watching ballet. The factory is new enough that it’s not on this side. There are no blocking walls, annoying machinery, or conveyor belts to run into. It’s just one giant stage. They duck, slide, pirouette. Shimmering lights of life and death.

  I make a beeline toward Sastre, holstering the Browning and drawing my straight razor. One quick slice through the throat and it’s all over. They’ve gotten close enough, or run out of enough ammunition that they’ve moved on to hand-to-hand. Gabriela’s going to have that monster machete of hers, but I don’t know what Sastre’s got.

  I make my move, running through them both to get behind Sastre. I’ll have to time it right, so that she’s not ducking a slice from Gabriela that I’ll take in the face. I get close behind her, ready to move back to the living side when everything lights up in the bright orange glow of a raging inferno.

  A blast of power throws me back as the flames blind me. I skid across the floor, passing through barely visible industrial equipment that doesn’t exist on this side. My straight razor skitters in the opposite direction. After a moment my eyes clear and I freeze.

  “Hello, Eric,” Quetzalcoatl says, an enormous winged serpent of flames hovering above his assassin. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Chapter 13

  Q’s come a long way from the literal trash fire I met in Zacatecas. He had built his form out of random garbage strewn across a hotel parking lot, accreting his body out of discarded items. A throwaway god made of bike parts, soda cans, bits of string, all held together with burning hatred.

  But now he is conflagration, devouring star, angry god of fire and blood. Before, it was just his eyes that glowed, but now it’s his whole body, fifteen feet tall, wings of fire beating lazily to keep him aloft.

  “If I knew you’d be here I’d have brought you something,” I say. “Like a fire extinguisher.”

  “You betrayed me, little necromancer. I could have had Mictlan and you cheated me out of it.”

  “If by cheating you mean not murdering countless souls in an afterlife, okay. I’ll take that hit.”

  On the living side I can see Gabriela and Sastre going at it. Strike, parry, spin, pirouette. If it weren’t so deadly and I wasn’t faced with incineration myself, it’d be beautiful to watch.

  Gabriela’s holding her own, but I can see she’s slowing down, while Sastre isn’t. I need to get back and help her. Except I don’t know if Q will be able to follow me over.

  I don’t have much power over here. I can’t tap the pool on the dead side and can only use whatever I’ve already got. It’s a lot, but I don’t know if he has the same limitation. On the living side I saw him torch twenty guys with a thought. Is he as strong here? I really don’t want to find out.

  I get to my feet and slowly circle him, a little closer, a little further away. He watches, occasionally shifting his wings to keep me in his line of sight. I want to make him think I’m scared, which isn’t the case. I’m fucking terrified. But as long as he’s paying attention to me and not to where I’m going I might be able to get out of this.

  “I could have destroyed you,” he says, “and I did not.” His voice the sound of brushfires and dry kindling. “You owe your life to me.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “That’s like proving this new deodorant I’m wearing fends off elephants because there are no elephants around. I could have destroyed you and didn’t. I guess that means you owe your life to me.” I stop when my foot connects with my dropped straight razor.

  I start to pull together the bits and pieces of a spell in my head. It’s such a stupid idea that it’s just got to work. When I grab the straight razor I’ll be ready to go.

  “Your life is forfeit, worm,” he says.

  “Blah blah blah. You realize that’s all you do, right? Just yammer on and on and on and not actually get anything done? I mean, look at yourself. You’re not made of trash this time, but you’re still a wreck.” And this close, I can see that he is. The fire wings are tattered. His glowing serpent form is missing scales.

  In the distance I can feel Wanderers edging closer. I’ve been here long enough to have caught their attention. The first ones should start showing up any second now. If I don’t time this right it could end very badly.

  “You dare—”

  “Oh, blow it out your ass. I’m the one who got into Mictlan. I’m the one that kicked the shit out of your weird talking cat-thing when you sent it after me. I’m the one who took everything you wanted to do and shit all over it. So yeah, I fucking well do dare.”

  His body swells, expanding and growing hotter. His energy is a lighthouse in a storm surge, but it’s not something I can use. Not yet.

  The first Wanderers melt through the walls. They have my scent, but they’re caught in his glow. All that power, all that blood spilled in hundreds of years of sacrifice.

  I duck and scoop up the straight razor. Quetzalcoatl responds by expanding further, putting himself between me and his assassin’s glow on the living side to protect her, and totally misunderstanding what I’m trying to do. He should really be more worried about himself.

  Before the Wanderers realize that they can’t eat him, I run the razor quickly across a scarred patch of my forearm free of any tattoos. I’ve spilled a lot of blood from that spot, to the point where I almost don’t feel it anymore. Almost.

  Blood wells thick and fast from the wound and before any of it can spill to the ground I fling my arm out wide, spattering my blood into Quetzalcoatl’s flames, where it sizzles like butter on a hot pan, and set off my spell, pumping some of my own life energy into him.

  Everything changes in a heartbeat. The bright orange of his flames goes a dim, dusky blood-red. I fall to my knees, hoping I haven’t lost too much of myself. I don’t know what doing that will translate to. Shorter lifespan, maybe? I’ve done it once before and it didn’t kill me, but it sure as hell wasn’t fun.

  The Wanderers know they can feed on the life in my blood, and they know that they’d really rather feed on the life of Quetzalcoatl. And now I’ve mixed the two. As far as the ghosts are concerned, they might as well be the same thing.

  They fall upon him with the speed of lightning, tearing holes through his burning form, totally ignoring me. He counters by burning as many ghosts as possible. He’ll win, eventually. I don’t plan on being here when he does.

  I run at Sastre, straight razor in my hand. Her back is to me. I can take her down and get the lighter, which is right there on a table next to her. I slip back to the other side at the last second, the sound of the living world—the clanging of metal on metal, cursing, yelling—loud in my ears. Dark grays and blues give way to vibrant blacks and flashes of orange sparks.

  And take a back kick to my forehead. The force of it drops me to the ground, but my momentum carries me forward, sliding past her and across the floor, a few feet away from
Gabriela. I try to roll under one of the conveyor belts, or stand up, or do fucking anything that isn’t lie here on the floor with a concussion. I won’t be down for long, my tattoos will see to that, but you get your bell rung, you’re not doing much of anything right away.

  Gabriela isn’t quite as surprised as I am, and she recovers quickly. While Sastre’s attention is split, Gabriela slashes out with the machete. It should take her head off, but at the last moment it bounces off a shield. Sastre looks as surprised as Gabriela, but not for long.

  Sastre sinks her knife, a wicked looking Bowie, deep into Gabriela’s chest. A look of surprise and shock flits across Gabriela’s face. The machete falls from her fingers. She drops like a puppet with cut strings.

  Sastre bears down, knife ready to do the same to me, but I’m clear enough and fast enough to get the Browning out as she reaches me. Her eyes go wide as she realizes the Browning’s barrel is in her mouth, clinking against her teeth. She freezes, the blade barely an inch from my chest. She backs away slowly and I follow her, neither my gun nor her knife wavering.

  She lowers the knife, and I pull the Browning back, but don’t lower it. “Where is Quetzalcoatl?”

  “I fed him to a bunch of ghosts. He’s not coming to your rescue.”

  “And I have mortally wounded your friend,” she says. “What are you going to do?”

  “I was thinking I’d shoot you, seeing as I’ve got a gun and all you have is that pig sticker. Speaking of which, why not drop it?”

  She laughs. It was worth a shot. “You first. Do you think I’ll trust you enough that you won’t shoot me? Killing me won’t be easy. If you succeed, you’ll pay for it. Go ahead, pull the trigger. I won’t die. Not right away. I have charms and protections. And I can promise I’ll last longer than your friend.”

  There’s an unspoken “or” hanging in the air. I can see where this is going and I don’t like it one bit. Sastre is hurt, but up close I can see that her clothes are marked with holes tiny and huge, tears from buckshot and slashes. She’s taken a lot of hits, but very little has gotten through.