by Jenn Stark
“What is it you really want, Maria?” I asked. “What is it you’re not telling us?”
She bit her lip and glanced away, then swung her gaze back toward me, her eyes intent. “I think Barry did all this to show off a little. I think he’s decided to throw in with Frank Maddix and some of his buddies over in New York City. They’re close, you know? And the syndicate’s been putting out their feelers for months, trying to figure out what Barry is doing. These dough creatures—they look good, and they’re obedient. They’ll do anything they’re told. They’re completely controlled. But when they get face-to-face with the real human they’re modeled after, it’s no good for the human. People have breakdowns. Some of these poor souls aren’t all that stable to begin with, and this…doesn’t help. Especially given the kind of energy being used to order the creatures around.”
I studied her as her gaze shifted away again. Maria definitely was Connected, and she knew black magic when she sensed it. So did I. Now that I looked around more carefully, the place was oozing with it. “Okay. Good to know.”
Beneath the Moon, I laid out three more cards in rapid succession. The Devil, not surprisingly, and once again not looking anything like Aleksander Kreios, the current leader of the Arcana Council back in Vegas, but a cute kitten trying to decide between a cupcake, jewels, and candy. Then came the Five of Wands, always a crowd pleaser, indicating a fight.
The next card surprised me, though. It wasn’t one I encountered very often, and I especially didn’t like it for this reading. Hello Kitty’s Judgment was earnestly blowing her horn, but the card traditionally depicted that horn raising the dead from their graves. That didn’t make me happy at all.
“Um, are we expecting some kind of zombie apocalypse?” Sariah drawled. I shot her a hard look as Maria paled.
“Is there a cemetery around here?” I asked.
Maria nodded. “Three blocks over, Holy Angels. Why?” Her eyes widened further and she gave a choked gasp. “You don’t think he’s going to raise the dead at Holy Angels? Instead of creating dough people? That’s worse. That’s so much worse. My aunt is buried at Holy Angels. Oh, Barry, what are you doing?”
I patted her arm with as much reassurance as I could. “I think your aunt is going to be just fine. But I don’t want you in that back room tonight.”
She made a face. “I have to. Barry doesn’t trust anyone else.”
“How can we get in there?” I asked, but she shook her head.
“You don’t. He knows all the servers. We’ve been here since his dad opened the place. He knows the books, he knows the energy, he knows everyone. He drinks, but he’s not stupid. He would’ve been dead a long time ago if he was. And—I mean, I want to make sure he’s okay. He’s a good guy, he really is. He’s just in too deep with all this.”
I nodded, hearing the genuine love in her voice for the guy, despite everything she knew about him. I struggled with my own reactions. Here was a guy using the homeless to create dough golems…and who appeared right on the cusp of necromancy. Ordinarily, not a guy worth saving, but once again, when I glanced to Sariah, she stared back at me stubbornly. If she wanted to help a guy of questionable morals and his sweetheart sail off into the sunset—or at least survive the night—I guess I could roll with it.
“You were right to call for help,” I told Maria. “Barry will be okay. I promise you that.” She rewarded me with a tremulous smile, and I pushed on. “Does he know all the players who are meeting him? Does he ever meet with strangers?”
Maria sighed. “He knows them all. They’re dark people, very bad. Their energy is wrong. Not like yours.” She slid a glance toward Sariah. “More like yours.”
Sariah touched a Night Witch blade to her brow in a wry salute. “Always happy to be among my people.”
“That’s not going to help us though,” I said. “If we can’t get in there, it’s no good.”
The door chimed, and Maria’s gaze went automatically to the front of the restaurant. “You’re too late,” she said tightly. “The first of them’s here already.”
We turned and stared as the newcomer entered the room.
“Holy shit,” Sariah muttered.
The Devil had come to Jersey.
2
The Devil of the Arcana Council was usually tall and broad shouldered, his bronzed skin kissed by the sun and his tawny hair flowing over his shoulders, but tonight, he stepped into the restaurant with a glamour that reeked of Mafia enforcer. His body was thick, heavy, and stuffed into a suit that emphasized every bulging muscle, and his face was hard and iron-jawed. A thatch of dark hair swept back from his temples, graying slightly above the ears, but I doubted anyone would suggest he was past his prime. At least not to his face.
“Maria,” somebody bellowed from the kitchen. She stood, bumping the table, the wood surface so thick that the cards didn’t shift.
“Something’s going to happen tonight,” she hissed. “Something bad.” Then she hurried off, grabbing her apron from the stool and lashing it on again with the ease of long practice.
After a quick survey of the room, Aleksander Kreios strolled over to us with an easy smile, though his gaze remained on Maria. “How do I look?” he asked as he slid into the booth beside me.
“Like the cat who just incinerated the canary,” Sariah answered, her gaze going from him to Maria. “What are you doing here?”
“Why wouldn’t I come?” Kreios asked mildly. “When I paid a visit to Mrs. French at Justice Hall, she told me where you were. I did a little research myself, and I must say, I’m hurt. Barry’s a devil worshipper. Forget my newly minted role as head of the Arcana Council, how could you not have asked me to come along?”
“Maybe because it’s none of your business?” Sariah put in, with just enough edge to her voice that I lifted a brow.
Sariah and the Devil were rarely together, but for the first time it occurred to me that they might not be natural allies. For all that Kreios was known as the Lord of Hell, he’d never spent much time in those subterranean passages. I didn’t think he and Sariah had ever encountered each other before she’d exited Hell to come to Vegas…which had arguably been a lateral move. And they generally didn’t spend too much time in each other’s company, though I’d never noticed that before now.
Nevertheless, Kreios turned to her and eyed her with barely a flicker of curiosity—something else that was unusual. One of the Devil’s most profound traits was his insatiable need to know everything in another person’s mind, yet he didn’t push Sariah to spill…anything.
“On the contrary,” he drawled. “It’s exactly my business, or at least my business for tonight, and this glamour will get me prime seating for the show. More to the point, what I can do for myself, I can also do for you.”
I blinked, and Sariah let out a low, appreciative chuckle as she tapped her newly long, lacquered fingernails on the scarred wooden table.
“How do I look?” she asked me, and I turned to see Maria sitting there again, speaking with Sariah’s laconic voice. A second later, the image cleared, and Sariah settled back once more in the booth, looking satisfied. “Okay, you can stay,” she told Kreios. “But you’re here just for the party tricks, while I need to figure out…”
She blinked, then looked away as she cut herself off, her face reddening slightly. I narrowed my eyes again at Kreios. Sariah wasn’t one to show her cards, while the Devil was a big fan of helping everyone flash their hand early and often. Had he used his skills of persuasion on her after all? And if so, how had she managed to stop herself from sharing her thoughts midsentence?
“Why are you really here?” I asked Kreios.
He shrugged. “It’s safe to say that the Magician is growing warier of the events coming to pass. His need to locate the outstanding members of the Arcana Council, the Moon and the Star, weighs heavily upon him. Every new request for your services, every shift in magic is connected, he believes, to a greater picture that we cannot yet discern. He can’t fully
discern it either, which is more the problem.”
Sariah scoffed. “I mean, seriously. The guy has one job.”
The Devil looked at her with wry amusement. “Whereas you have many jobs, don’t you?” he asked quietly, the question so laden with hidden meaning, I blinked. What was with these two?
Sariah narrowed her eyes at him. “Look, Grandpa, if you’ve got a problem with me, you can come right out and say it. Whether you split into sixty-seven different versions of yourself or man up and present as one, I’m more than happy to take you on.”
“Whoa,” I said, lifting my hands slightly. “Did I miss someone pulling somebody else’s hair or something?”
The door opened at the front of the restaurant, and a cool breeze flowed in along with a new set of diners. The Devil lifted his head to peer over the edge of the booth.
“Super smooth,” Sariah observed.
“You forget that anyone looking at me sees only what I want them to. Just as they will see you the way I’ll be presenting you shortly,” he murmured. Before Sariah could respond to that, Kreios turned back to us, his eyes gleaming with a faint red glow. “For all the professed devil worshipping that goes on in this world, there are few who truly take the time to get it right. The gentlemen who just entered are among those few.”
I glanced over and saw six men, all of them dark suited, walk through the restaurant while no one so much as glanced their way. The newcomers disappeared into the back room, while Kreios regarded Sariah more steadily.
“Did you ever encounter husks in Hell?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “Hell took all types, but yeah, we had husks. They were dormant until they were called, then they returned once their work was done. That’s what we’re dealing with here? He’s not making his golems with dough anymore, but with husks?”
“I can’t speak to what he did in the past, but now…it would seem things have changed.” Kreios turned to me. “Husks are created out of human blood, ground animal bones, poisonous plants, and various other ingredients known to a rarified few. They are summoned much like demons, and their use is to effect a very specific kind of possession.”
I lifted my brows. “I’ve dealt with the Possessed before, but I’ve never encountered a husk—or a golem, for that matter. What’s the difference?”
“A golem looks like a human, and can act like a human for a time, with the human’s tacit permission given via their blood. A husk pulls a human to them and wears it like a skin. There’s no conflict, no compulsion, because the human is already dead.”
I slid my gaze to Sariah, and she shrugged again.
“Ah… Dead, dead?” I asked. “Not just seriously in need of therapy?”
“Correct,” Kreios said. “It’s a nasty piece of business. And an interesting new staffing choice for Demonico’s proprietor.”
Sariah leaned forward. “That’s a good point. You use golems mixed in with the population of the homeless and the disenfranchised, nobody notices, right? They just think somebody else is off their meds, or drunk, or just having a really bad day. Then the golem leaves, no harm, no foul. The host might trade a few pints of blood for a couple of pizzas, but nobody else would pay that much attention. But making dead people into husks? Bodies are gonna add up, and be found in places they shouldn’t be. Why would you do that?”
“Because you can.” Kreios’s expression had turned a touch darker. “Husk magic is a particularly dirty form of necromancy. Someone wants to send a message that he can play with the big boys, and the big boys have decided to come around.”
“Last call,” Maria said, walking up to our table. Her eyes were wide and glassy, but her smile was as genuine as ever. She was working hard at keeping it together. “Can I get you anything?”
The Devil regarded her steadily. “Maria Romano, what magic do you deal in?”
She blinked at him, opened her mouth—then closed it again.
Kreios smiled like a shark. “What is it you want to tell me?”
“My family are healers,” Maria blurted, her words rushed, almost panicked. “We deal in white magic only. It’s how I’ve been able to work here so long. Barry and Joe before him—they’re good people. They’ve always been good people. But this is different. Barry’s going down some dark paths, and word’s getting out. I’ve tried to keep the place safe, but what he’s doing, it’s gotten bigger than I can contain.”
Kreios nodded. “That’s probably why it’s taken him so long to draw the attention of the others. You can’t heal this, Maria. You need to go home.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. He’ll never let anyone else…” Her words faltered as she glanced around the table, stopping when she got to Sariah. To me, Sariah looked the same as she ever did, but to Maria…
“Oh…” she whispered.
“Go home, Maria. Sariah will follow you out and then reenter as you.” Kreios fixed her with a stern gaze. “The magic you summon, use for your family this night. Hide them. Hide yourself. If husks walk the street this evening, they will come for you.”
“No,” Maria said, shaking her head quickly. “No, they won’t. Barry wouldn’t do that. He—he wouldn’t. But I’ll go.” She stepped back, and Sariah slid out of the booth, raising a brow to Kreios as Maria turned on her heel and hurried away, the poor woman visibly restraining herself from running through the restaurant.
“You really do have such a way with people.” Sariah smirked, then she headed out after Maria.
“You want to tell me what’s going on between you two?” I asked as Kreios turned back to me, picking up one of the bottles of beer and sniffing it, then curling his lip. I took it from him and took a long swig before settling back in my booth.
Kreios regarded me with an intrigued gleam in his cool green eyes. “Sariah is more complicated than the Council has given her credit for. Her elevation to the Night Witch position has set off a series of events in the underworld that we did not anticipate, and that the Magician in particular did not anticipate.”
I frowned. Not too much got past the Magician of the Arcana Council. “What are you talking about? Is she in trouble?”
The Devil huffed a soft laugh. “Not exactly. All I know is that trouble is now poised to find Sariah, wherever she roams.” He gestured around the room. “Trouble, it would appear, already has.”
3
“That’s what the Night Witch is supposed to do, though,” I protested. “Handle the trouble Justice doesn’t get to or can’t address.” Even as I gave this brief outline of Sariah’s job, I recognized the pitfalls. How well did I know my other half? How well would I ever know her?
The front door slammed again, and Sariah-as-Maria reentered the restaurant, her chin tilted up a little higher, her shoulders a bit more squared as she went about her waitressing duties. I shot a glance at Kreios, and he nodded.
“Call her by her alias. It will help keep her focused,” he said. “The other patrons are leaving, you notice?”
I took another drink of beer and watched the gradual exodus of diners from the pizzeria. Within a few minutes, only a few knots of people remained, and they looked like they weren’t going anywhere.
Sariah sauntered up to us. “Are you here for the party?” she asked brightly, and I glanced to Kreios. He nodded, and she beamed. “They’re ready for you. Straight through to the back. Can I refresh your drinks?”
I held up my beer, and she gave me a winning smile, then turned away.
“Who am I in this pageant anyway?” I asked as Kreios and I stood. He continued his glamour of a rough-looking New York businessman, which was how I assumed most people here saw him. He wasn’t completely out of place in the pizzeria, as his expensive suit covered the body of a thug and his still-attractive face had a hard, bitten-off look to it, with a heavy brow and a thrusting jaw.
“My bodyguard,” he said. He moved ahead then, allowing me to hide a grin. I couldn’t see the glamour he had adorned me with, didn’t know if I was male or female, but it didn’
t matter. Given the hastily averted stares when I swung my gaze around the room, I looked the part well enough.
The party room of Demonico’s pizza was exactly what you’d expect from a strip mall pizza joint, with wood-paneled walls, a long center table, and plastic upholstered seats arranged all around, enough for twenty people. There were only six guests in the room, however. A thick-necked man in a poorly fitting suit sat at the head of the table—undoubtedly Barry the pizzeria owner—while a few seats down, three men sat and three others stood behind them. The syndicate members and their bodyguards.
One of the men looked up and seemed to recognize Kreios, his green eyes gleaming with interest in his bluff, red-cheeked face. “George,” he said. “Didn’t know if you would make it.”
”You should never doubt me,” Kreios drawled, with such enthusiasm that I wondered what he’d done with the original George.
“I appreciate you all giving me the interview,” Barry put in, striking what I thought was an appropriate balance between respectful and belligerent.
The man nearest to him on his right—stocky, well oiled, and lugubrious, his gray-tinged cheeks hanging in sorrowful folds from the corners of his deep-sunk eyes to his heavy jowls—leaned back, straining his suit and the goodwill of the chair he occupied.
“We’ve been watching what you’re doing, Bartholomew. You’ve got a good operation. You know we can take you further, but what can you do for us?”
Barry leaned forward. “More than you think, Ralph,” he said, pounding his stubby finger on the table.
At that moment, the door swung open and Sariah-as-Maria walked in, carrying a tray of beers. I watched her warily. I had attempted a job at Frisch’s Big Boy restaurant when I’d been sixteen years old, and was quickly forced to acknowledge that I couldn’t carry a tray to save my life. Not surprisingly, Sariah wasn’t doing a very good job of it either. We weren’t that much different from our teenage selves after all. She held the tray not with the casual assurance that Maria typically would, but white knuckled with focus as she approached the table.