But this is a whole other level. They’re essentially telling everyone that whoever brings in my head gets the family name, the contacts, access to their resources. If they’re willing to let some schmuck off the street into their family just because he walks in with my head in a bowling bag, they really want me dead. If people weren’t lining up to kill me before, they sure as hell are now.
Considering what everyone thinks I’ve done, it might not be a stretch that some people are going to think I’ve managed to kill Werther. Anybody with their head out of their ass should know I’m not in his league. He’s so far above me in ability that all I can see is his shining ass wiggling down from the top of the ladder for people to climb up and kiss it.
“Fantastic. So Werther’s family has put a hit out on me. Until that file gets out and everyone sees it, I’m walking around with a target on my back.” Provided they even care. I may not have killed those other mages, but I did send Werther over to the other side.
“That would be the size of it.”
“I’ll head over. Provided nobody tries to kill me, I should be there in an hour or so.”
“So, we’ll say two, maybe three hours, then?”
“Funny. And fuck you.” I hang up the phone.
Goddammit, Letitia. When I asked her to get the file I was thinking more like, oh, I dunno, steal it? What the hell is it about Chu that rubs me the wrong way? It’s not the money, the politics, the showing off, or even the ridiculously bad idea of trying to put together a Wizard’s Council. He’s running for mayor, everybody likes him, he’s got a history of helping out the community. He feels too good to be true.
And that’s it. He’s too good to be true. Jesus, what is wrong with me? Am I looking at anybody who’s not a raging asshole looking to line their pockets with power as a threat? Sure, he’s a politician, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy.
What’s done is done. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. If he hadn’t called me I’d have had to find out about the hit on me the hard way, and I’m really tired of surprises.
I walk past old Chevys, Fords, beat-up Toyotas, towards Vivian’s Fiat. The more I look at it the uglier it gets. A shiny beige turd of a car, all curves and rounded edges. I can’t wait to ditch the goddamn thing. I thumb the key fob to unlock the doors when I’m about halfway to the car.
The explosion lifts the Fiat like a rocket, blowing out all the windows in the cars and strip mall shops. The shockwave picks me up and throws me ten feet. I come down hard on the cement, but keep enough of my wits about me to roll. A couple of my tattoos trigger, absorbing the blast, cushioning my landing, diverting the shrapnel.
I pull myself to hands and knees. Bits of Vivian’s Fiat are raining down around what remains of it, flames crawling through its interior from the undercarriage.
“Oh, come on.” I’m not upset about the car per se. I mean, it’s a Fiat. But between this and the Cadillac I’m starting to wonder if it’s not me people are after but whatever I’m driving.
I pull my wits together and look around to see if anyone’s taking advantage of the situation. No one steps out of the laundromat with a gun to pop me while I’m down. Did they think a weak-ass car bomb was going to do it? The blast largely went up, not out, and it was mostly flash and sizzle. Anything decent would have left a crater and half the storefronts would be rubble. Fucking amateurs.
The ringing in my ears begins to clear and now I can hear muffled screams as people realize what’s happened and start to panic. I don’t see any bodies, and I didn’t feel anyone die, so that’s good. It looks like I was the only one near the cars when the bomb went off.
Sirens getting closer. I stand up and the world tilts the wrong way. I’m not running anywhere, and I’m sure as hell not stealing a car. None of these things are remotely drivable. I sit down, try to clear my head. I need to think of something before the cops get here.
I pull a HI, MY NAME IS sticker out of my messenger bag, write I AM YOUR SUPERVISOR on it, pump it with some magic, and slap it on my chest. The last time I did this when I was mildly concussed I tried writing SOMEBODY IMPORTANT and it came out SOMEBODY IMPOTENT. That didn’t go so well.
A black and white screeches into the parking lot, stopping just short of the curb. One officer, stepping out of the car and calling the scene in on his radio. He sees me and I wave him over, letting the Sharpie magic do its thing.
“Holy shit, sir,” he says, running over to me.
“Help me up and get me the fuck outta here.”
“I think we should wait for the paramedics, sir.”
“Did I fucking tell you to think?” I say, hoping the magic backs me up. The thing about Sharpie magic is that, like most spells, it’s more based on intent than appearance. I could have just written COP on it, and as long as the intent was “cop in charge whose orders you have to follow,” it would have worked the same. At the same time, the words shape the message. If someone has problems with authority, writing SUPERVISOR won’t work as well.
“Yes, sir,” he says, helping me up. He’s a younger guy with puppy energy. Looks like he’s straight out of the Academy. His nameplate says HEARNE.
“What’s your first name, kid?”
“Kevin,” he says as he helps me into the passenger seat of his car. “Which hospital am I taking you to, sir?” His eyes are a little glazed over. I might have overdone it a little on the Sharpie magic.
“No hospital, Kevin. I need you to get me to, uh . . . a safehouse. In the Valley.” I give him the address to Chu’s place in Encino. When we get there I can have Letitia take over. As a cop and somebody working the Cleanup Crew she’ll know how to handle him.
“On it.” He guns the engine as soon as my seatbelt’s locked and hits the lights. As he speeds away I can see other black and whites heading into the parking lot with a bomb squad truck close behind.
Kevin reaches for the radio to call in where he is and where he’s going, but I stop him before he can hit a button. “They can’t know,” I say. “I’m undercover investigating corruption in the ranks. Some of the people in dispatch might be part of the conspiracy.”
“Really?” he says, shock and fear on his face. He pulls his hand back and focuses on driving. I turn down the volume. The last thing I need is to have Kevin tell dispatch where we are with fuck knows who else listening.
With the lights and sirens going we’re making good time. Now this is the way to deal with L.A. traffic. We’re on the 101 coming up on Highland when I see them in the side mirror. Two motorcycles zipping through traffic toward us. Not an unusual sight in L.A., but the accompanying feeling of magic speeding toward us like a bullet gives them away. I wonder if they’re the ones who set the bomb, maybe assuming I’d be unconscious in the back of an ambulance by now. I’m not sure how they found me, though. Probably staked out Gabriela’s warehouse. Or one of her people talked. Doesn’t really matter.
If they did set the bomb, it’s not actually a bad plan. Would explain why the blast was so small. They don’t want me to be a smear on the pavement. They need my head if they want to collect, and I doubt the Werthers are gonna pay up for some sludge in a baggie.
“Get off at Highland,” I say. The air’s a lot more smoky than I’d expected. Something close by is on fire. Griffith Park, maybe, or the Hollywood Hills. It’s gotten to the point where it’s impossible to keep track of all the brushfires.
“What?” Kevin says, blinking around him like he’s coming out of a dream. “I—Hang on. Who the hell are you?” I was afraid of this. Sharpie magic is better at redirection than mind control, and it can wear off pretty quickly. But there are ways around that.
I push more power into the spell, throttling it back when his eyes start to go glassy. Frying his brain doing ninety on the 101 would be bad. For me, at least. He’ll already be dead.
“Get off at Highland,” I say again. What the hell is around
here? Then I have it. “Head to the Bowl.” It’s late enough in the summer that the Hollywood Bowl should be crawling with people. And cars. That I can steal. I’ll have Kevin run interference and go after the bikers while I grab myself something off the valet and get the hell out of there.
“C-Can’t,” he says. A thin tear of blood rolls down his cheek from his left eye. His hands are shaking. Shit. I pull back on the magic. I don’t want to kill the guy. “Brush f-fire in the hills. They’ve got it closed off.”
Of course they do. They’re not going to let in 15,000 people paying a hundred bucks a pop just to have to evacuate them again.
Okay, change of plan. No cars, but also no people. Losing these guys would be good. Taking them out of the game completely would be better. At this point it doesn’t really matter if they think I’m a serial killer. As long as the Werthers have their bounty out on me fuckers like these will just come at me again. The least I can do is thin the herd.
Of course, that means I have to keep Kevin alive long enough to get me there, which is proving to be a bit of a challenge. “It’s okay,” I say, keeping my voice as calm as possible. “I’m your supervisor. I called it in. We have special clearance.” The effect is instantaneous. Kevin stops shaking. He blinks away the blood in his eye, wipes his cheek with the back of his hand.
“You got it, s-sir,” he says. He’s not fighting me, anymore, but I think I broke something. I was really hoping he’d be able to walk away from this one. “W-what’s the plan?”
“We’re gonna go kill some bad guys,” I say.
Chapter 21
The black and white careens around the sharp turn of the freeway exit, blowing through a red light and swerving up Highland. Traffic’s light for this time of day, but the only things up here are freeway onramps and the Bowl. With all the smoke coming over the tops of the hills like fog, I can see why nobody else is up here.
Kevin’s not doing so hot. His hands aren’t shaking and his eyes have stopped bleeding, but a thin stream of pink fluid is running out of both nostrils and his right ear. Sorry, pal, nothing personal. You were just the right guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kevin turns the car to the Bowl entrance, a long street heading up to VIP parking, the bikers closing on us. When I give the signal, Kevin hits the brakes and swerves hard. One of the bikers slams into the side of the car, sending the rider over the top. The other low-sides as he tries to turn, rolling off into a messy crouch as the bike skids across the lot.
Kevin’s out and drawing his gun before I can even get the seatbelt undone. His reflexes are surprisingly good for somebody who’s rapidly turning into a vegetable. He puts two rounds center mass into the biker who low-sided. The guy must have protections other than just his motorcycle gear, because the bullets aren’t doing anything.
I get out to handle the other biker, but I don’t have to. His head hangs at an impossible angle on a neck that bulges wrong in too many places. He went so fast I barely felt him die.
I turn back to Kevin, who’s fired two more shots with the same effect. Before he can get off any more, the biker lets loose a spell. I try to get my shield to give Kevin some cover from whatever’s coming—I can tell it’s big—but I’m too slow and the spell hits him like a freight train.
Kevin literally turns inside out. The entire front of his body from his face to his crotch splits down the middle and wraps backward, legs and arms doing the same inverted peeling action, turning everything into a bloody mass of organs and cracked bones. His eyeballs pop and his teeth shoot out like popcorn as his skull folds in on itself. He’s dead before he hits the ground.
I could feel the spell burning through a lot of magic and the biker drops to one knee. He starts to pull in more magic to top off his tank.
I expect him to throw a spell at me, so I bring up my shield to bounce it back, and instead he draws a samurai sword from his back.
A sword. Really. Who brings a sword to a magic fight? The least he could do is kill me before he tries chopping my head off. He yanks his helmet off, tossing it to the side. Sweat and blood from a cut over his eyebrow is running into his eye. But I don’t think that’s why he took the helmet off.
“You’re fucking kidding me. Dan? It is Dan, isn’t it?” The kid who ambushed me outside his mom’s burned-out house in West Adams is standing in front of me with a fucking samurai sword. “I brought you back to life, you little shit.”
“But you killed me first,” he yells.
“You shot at me.”
“You killed my mom.”
“I did not, I— The fuck am I doing?” I raise the Browning and pull the trigger. Whatever he’s enchanted his motorcycle gear with might stop a round from a regular gun, but I can feel the Browning wanting to take a bite out of him. Kid’s a fast learner, though. He’s got a shield up and the bullet ricochets off into the trees.
“I killed you before, you little bastard, and I’ll do it again if I have to. And this time no take-backs.” I start to pull together a spell. I know I outclass him, but that shield’s going to block most things I can throw at him. So I don’t throw anything.
“Blow it out your ass, old man.” He starts to run at me with the sword high over his head, screaming like a Florida meth addict.
“Old? Fuck you, I’ll show you old.” I let the spell loose just as he gets to Kevin’s dripping corpse. The former Officer Hearne reaches out and grabs his foot as he runs by. Shield won’t do shit if you’ve got it aimed in the wrong direction. And he’s not looking at his feet. Dan goes down hard, the sword skidding across the ground toward me. I stop it with my foot, the cheap blade snapping in two.
“You couldn’t splurge on a decent sword?” I say. “This thing couldn’t cut cold butter.” Dan answers me by screaming. At this point Kevin has rolled onto him and crawled his inside-out corpse up Dan’s legs, pinning him to the ground.
If he were thinking clearly, Dan could throw him off with a spell, but he’s panicking and trying to crawl away, not registering that that’s not going to work. He’s got a couple hundred pounds of inside-out, dead cop inching slug-like up his body. This is why people die in zombie movies.
I step over to them and crouch down. Dan’s eyes are wide with panic. He beats uselessly against the corpse with his fists, sending up little sprays of blood and gore.
“I gave you a second chance,” I say. I wipe a drop of blood spray off my cheek. “I know you don’t believe me when I say I didn’t kill your mother. Something tells me you’re never going to believe it. I’ve got a whole boatload of pissed off mages after my head right now. I don’t have time for this shit. I can’t have this happen again.”
“It won’t,” he says, tears pouring out his eyes. “I promise. Please. Just get it off me.” Kevin hauls himself up to Dan’s chest, pushing the air out of his lungs, keeps moving up his body.
His screams turn to a wheeze and then a whimper and then nothing but a gurgle as the corpse crawls up to his face. Dan’s not dead yet, but he will be soon, drowned in the cop’s blood and smothered from his weight.
He’s a pain in the ass. And apparently a serial killer. And he tried to kill me. Twice now. I should just let him choke to death.
Then I notice the ghosts, and now I have questions.
I have Kevin roll himself off and let go of my control. The body lands next to Dan with a wet plop. Dan takes a deep breath and starts coughing up chunks of Kevin meat, his face smeared with blood and brain matter and fuck knows what else.
“Since the last time we met I’ve heard some things about you, Dan.” He freezes, eyes going wide. “Oh, yeah, I know your name. I also know what you’ve been doing with your little poison tricks.” I press the Browning against his head. “You might not want to try any of them at the moment, by the way. I got an itchy trigger finger.”
“The fuck is it to you?” he says. “There are mages in this town who do wor
se. Shit, there are normals that do worse.”
“Lot of ’em, yeah. I’ve known a few. But we’re talking about you. The folks you’ve killed. You do it here in L.A.? Or you go out of town?”
“Motherfucker, I do it right here under everybody’s goddamn nose.”
This is not news to me. I’ve been so focused on our own little drama that I hadn’t noticed the fifteen, maybe twenty Wanderers, that have shown up, with more pouring in. Men, women, old, young. They stand around us in a circle staring at Dan, some with rage on their faces, others with confusion, like they just walked into a room and can’t remember why. I have a pretty good idea why they’re here, though.
“I kinda thought so. Killed a lot of people, have you?” He laughs. He doesn’t care about the gun against his head, the gore he’s still coughing up. He’s proud of his work.
I’m not sure who I’m more pissed off at, Dan for being a fucking serial killer, or all the mages in this town powerful enough to take him out who didn’t. But hey, he didn’t come after one of us, so why should we care, right?
“I’ve killed dozens. I know how to get away with it. Who gives a fuck about a bunch of normals? They’re not mages. They’re not us. They’re fucking toys. I can do whatever the hell I want with them. Long as I don’t cross the line, nobody fucks with me.”
Yeah. The Line. Always had a problem with that.
It’s a balance of power thing. The last thing anybody wants is a mage war on the streets of L.A. It’d make hunting me down look like a stroll in the park. So we don’t fuck with each other. Everybody leaves each other to do their own thing, and fuck the people who get in the way. You leave them alone, they leave you alone. Don’t cross The Line.
Fuck The Line.
I slash the straight razor across his face, slicing through his cheek. Blood wells out the wound. He screams and tries to crawl away from me, but I shove the Browning harder into his temple and he freezes, shrieks turning to whimpers.
Fire Season Page 15