Broken Souls (14 page)

“Closest one is in the last stall of the men’s room in the lobby at Union Station,” I say. “On the wall.”

She grins. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“You have no idea. You need runes to unlock the door. And if you don’t know what those are, I’m not showing you.”

“Hey, I gave you one of my magic hand grenades. Pulled your ass out of a burning building. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Let’s find Sergei and then we’ll talk about it.” At least this way she has an incentive not to have her people put bullets into me.

“Fair enough.”

“Now I doubt Sergei’s sitting around waiting for us to come for him. I still don’t get what the hell he’s trying to do.”

“It’s a power grab,” she says. “And with you involved, probably a big one.”

“Yeah, I get that, but there’s more going on here. You said it yourself, Sergei’s not that smart. Did he get smarter by absorbing Kettleman? Is this really Kettleman’s plan?”

“The knife doesn’t work that way. You get memories and mannerisms, and the look, sure, but it doesn’t change you. Not like that, at least.”

“Are you sure?” A thought pops into my head. “You’ve used it, haven’t you?”

Embarrassment crawls across her face. “Yes. No, I’m not happy about it. I did it because I had to.” She clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, but I need to know what this thing can really do.

I show her the ring on my finger. Right now it’s red gold with little
calaveras
etched into the surface. “Not exactly in a position to judge, here.”

“Guess you’re not. La Eme came at me when I was just starting the hotel. They were screwing with my people, threatening me. Whoever they threw at me I sent packing. So they send this enforcer up from Mexico, Julio Bautista. Almost killed me. I got the drop on him and I figured if I could use the knife on him I could use what he knew to keep them out of my hair.”

“Did it work?”

“Yeah. He knew a lot. I fucked with their people, disrupted drug supply lines, got a bunch of them in jail, all that shit. We finally reached a truce of sorts and now we leave each other alone.”

“You might be one of the scariest people I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah, well, that worked when people didn’t know I was the Bruja. I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

“Don’t worry. You’re still pretty fucking scary. So you can change into this guy? The way Sergei changes into Kettleman? That’s gotta be—”

“Weird? Yes.” She shudders. “Knowing what it’s like to have a penis really is something I could have lived my whole life without.”

“Right. Okay. I’m not sure what to do with that information. So you’ve got some Mexican Mafia assassin floating around in your head.”

“Yes? No? Sort of? I know what he knows. Knew. Whatever. Can we talk about something else?”

“No. Though we can skip the bits about the guy’s johnson. You know what Sergei can do more than I do. I hurt him when he was wearing Kettleman and when he changed back he was fine. What happens if we kill him when he’s using the other skin? Does he know what Kettleman knows when he’s not using Kettleman’s form? Can he cast when he’s back to being Sergei?” I have so many questions they all start tumbling out at once.

“It’s like wearing a suit,” she says. “It doesn’t change you, it just sits on top of you. Makes what you say come out the way that person says it. Mannerisms, facial tics, that kind of thing. Julio only speaks Spanish, for example. I can understand English when I’m him, but I can’t speak it. So Sergei knows what Kettleman knows when he’s being Kettleman. Other times, it’s like trying to remember something you read in a book. And he can’t cast. At least I can’t cast when I’m wearing Julio.”

“What about getting hurt?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve only been hurt once when I was wearing Julio and that was the last time. Hurt like a sonofabitch, but when I switched back to me I was fine. I haven’t tried going back. That was about four years ago.”

“When Sergei showed up at the hotel as Kettleman he looked fine,” I say. “So maybe the skin heals when you’re not wearing it?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you. Julio took a double-barreled twelve-gauge to the abdomen. I’m not about to try him on again to find out.” Can’t blame her for that. Something about how this whole thing works is gnawing at me.

“This knife belongs to some corn god?” I say.

“God of agriculture, Xipe Totec, and that’s just one possibility. There are a lot of others. Tezcatlipoca, maybe. He’s a trickster, the whole taking on a skin to disguise yourself thing fits. Or Huitzilopochtli. Sun god who demanded human sacrifices. Could be any of a dozen different ones. Could be none of them. Could have been made by some guy a couple thousand years ago and a story got attached to it. Why?”

“Let’s assume Sergei’s too stupid to do this on his own,” I say. “And let’s assume he’s coming after me as some sort of Santa Muerte power grab.”

“Oh, I don’t like where your brain is going with this,” she says.

“Me either,” I say. “What if our shot-caller’s another god?”

“That is so not something I want to think about,” Gabriela says.

“I’m not crazy about it, either, but how did Sergei know about the knife? How does anybody know about the knife? It’s been hidden in your family for generations. He didn’t just stumble on it.”

“People can find these things, you know,” she says. “There are stories about it. Do enough detective work and you can find anything.”

“You honestly believe that?”

“It’s better than thinking I’m stuck in the middle of a divine pissing match. Look, it’s not that I don’t believe it can’t be another god—”

“It’s that you don’t want to believe.”

“No, I don’t,” she says. “Know why? Because I can do fuck-all about it. Say you’re right. What do we do? Kill Sergei? You think that’ll end it?”

“You think it’ll end it if it’s another mage behind it?”

“No, but a mage is just another person and I can kill another person. Look, I don’t know if you’re right or not, and I really fucking hope you’re not, but I don’t think it matters right now. Look at it this way, if we take down Sergei, it might flush out whoever is behind it into the open. And if we’re wrong and it’s Sergei working on his own, then problem solved.”

Can’t fault that logic. “So we table that. Still need to find him.”

“I can help with that.” Emilio comes up the stairs with the orb in one hand and a laptop in the other. “So we drove around a while with a GPS and I plugged data into this mapping software and—” He looks at our blank faces, rolls his eyes. “He’s in Koreatown.”

“Oh, that’s not good.” It could just be a coincidence, but my gut tells me it’s not.

“Why?” Gabriela says.

“That dead friend who showed up at the hotel to warn me about the attack was Alex Kim. He used to own a bar in Koreatown. Had an Ebony Cage under the floorboards that he was siphoning magic from and bottling.”

“I know the place. I used to buy from him every once in a while. Stuff’s handy to have around. Always wondered how he did it. You think Sergei’s after the cage?”

“Don’t know. But the fact he’s in K-Town’s awful coincidental. If he is and he gets hold of it, that could be a problem. With that much power at his fingertips and Kettleman’s knowledge, there’s no telling what he can do with it.” And if he is after the cage then it puts a new spin on the woman who came after me on the train. Maybe she wasn’t tracking me. Maybe she was checking the bar out and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Gabriela turns to Emilio. “You know where in K-Town?” she says.

“Somewhere around Wilshire and Normandie or thereabouts. Give or take a few blocks.”

“That’s the bar, all right. I’d bet on it.” I pull out my phone, punch Tabitha’s number. The bar doesn’t close for another hour. She might be there working.

“We can’t throw everybody at him,” Gabriela says. “Not in public. But we can come close. Emilio, I want twenty guys, five cars. Make sure everybody’s got a radio and an AK. We’ll have a few go inside and the rest will wait outside in case he gets out.”

“We are not going in there with guns blazing,” I say. Tabitha’s phone goes to voicemail. I think about leaving a message, but if Sergei really is there and he’s gotten to her, she might already be part of his skin suit collection. The thought makes my stomach turn and I shove it back into the corner of my mind that it crawled out of. I hang up without saying anything.

“If we miss him—”

“Bar’s still open,” I say. “There are still people there. You think he’s going to look like himself? Or like Kettleman? When he knows people are looking for him now? Who are you going to shoot? Everybody? No. Besides, there might be people I know there and I’d really rather they not get hit.”

“If he’s there they might already be dead. The knife doesn’t take long to work. It’s not like skinning an animal. Just a few cuts and it’s all over. Five minutes, tops. We have a better chance of ending this if we do shoot everybody.”

“Now who’s the asshole?” I say. “Compromise. Same plan, but just you and me go in. You’ll have people on radios outside. We find him, you tell them what he looks like. When we flush him out they take him. When this goes down you know the cops are going to show pretty goddamn fast. This gives your crew a better chance to get away. You’re out of the closet now, Bruja. They get picked up, you have a lot more to lose.”

I can tell she wants to argue with me, but that last bit stops her. Even if her homeless vampires knew, even if some of the magic set knew, her biggest defense was still hiding behind the Bruja. Kept her safe from the normals, at least. If things got hairy the Bruja could conveniently die. But now that she’s come clean she’s got no buffer. It’s her people who are going to keep her alive more than anything else.

“Emilio,” she says. “Cut that down to two cars and eight people. Have them follow us to the bar.”

___

I didn’t think it was possible, but the bar is even more garish at night than it is during the day. Neon lights and flashing bulbs. It looks more like a strip club than any kind of regular bar. I miss the all black on black it used to be. Had a seedy dive feel to it. But this, Jesus, it’s an assault on the eyeballs.

“The place certainly is . . .” Gabriela pauses as she searches for a word, comes up short, and settles on, “something.”

“Ain’t it just?”

“Is it as bad on the inside?”

“I have no idea. It was a lot more goth the last time I was inside. How’s the orb doing?” I say. The cars with Gabriela’s men behind us split off and take up positions around the bar.

“Lit up like a fucking Christmas tree,” she says, showing it to me. One side of it glows a deep amber, shifting as we pass the bar. He’s in there, all right.

We park a block away. Bar doesn’t close for another half hour but most of the crowd’s let out already. I check the Browning, make sure a round’s chambered. Gabriela pulls out the machete.

“So we’re not going for the subtle approach then?” I say.

“The minute we walk in there he’s going to know,” she says. “Probably has other people inside, too. I’d really prefer it if you’d just let me blow the place up.”

“That’s an even worse idea,” I say. An Ebony Cage is made out of living demons, their bones twisted and wrenched into impossible shapes. Who knows how long these ones have been trapped in it? “You ever seen an Ebony Cage break? That thing so much as cracks we’re going to have worse things to worry about than a crazy Russian with a knife.”

“That bad?”

“You want a bunch of pissed off demons running rampant through K-Town? I sure as hell don’t want to have to clean up that mess.”

“Let’s get this over with then.”

It’s only been a few months since I’ve been inside but it feels like a lifetime ago. The charms and wards Alex installed in the front door to help ease bar patrons into spending more money and not starting fights are still carved into the doorjamb. I can feel their telltale buzz against my skin as I step through. The bouncer I saw last time I was here is gone, but there’s an empty stool by the door for him.

The inside of the bar isn’t any better than the outside. I’m assaulted by a blast of K-Pop coming through wall speakers, dance videos playing on monitors scattered throughout the room. The clientele used to be older, more sedate. Tabitha and Vivian have really gone out of their way to pull in a younger crowd. Though the evening is winding down, some of them are still dancing in the middle of the room while a couple of bored bartenders handle last call. Most of the customers are Asian, and none of them look like they’re part of Sergei’s crew. Too young, too drunk, too pretty.

The layout of the bar is mostly as it used to be, multiple bars and stages all pointing toward the center of the room. But the chairs and tables are arranged differently. Before they’d been bolted down to keep them in place, to enforce a kind of Feng Shui to funnel the emotional energy of the bar patrons toward the Ebony Cage for the demons to feed on. Later, Alex could siphon off the magic they pissed out and sell it by the bottle. Now they’re just regular chairs and tables, no sign that they’re designed for anything other than sitting in.

“The cage isn’t here,” I say.

“What? You sure?” Gabriela says.

“Layout’s changed. Alex had it specially designed. So either they’ve moved the cage or did a remodel without realizing it was important. And I know for a fact that they knew about it. At least Vivian did.”

“Focus,” she says. “We’re here for Sergei. Cage isn’t our problem.” She looks down at the orb, moves it a little. “That way,” she says, pointing to a hallway next to the main bar.

“There’s an office and a storage room back there,” I say. “And a back door.” Knowing Sergei is here and not knowing where has me jumpy, but there’s something else about this that’s bugging me and I can’t place it.

“Okay,” she says. “Emilio, you get that?”

“I got it,” Emilio says over the radio. “We got a car in the back and we’re pulling another into the lot. Anybody comes through what do you want us to do?”

“Don’t suppose I can just shoot them?” she asks me.

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Keep them from leaving,” she says. “If they look like they’ll be a problem then shoot them.”

“Got it,” Emilio says.

“Notice there’s no bouncer?” I say as we head toward the back. “That strike you as a little odd?” I half expect one to step out of a corner and stop us on our way to the back, but it doesn’t happen. Even the two harried bartenders are so focused they don’t notice us going back there. At the office door Gabriela shows me the orb. Bright as a flashlight and the glow is very clearly pointing at the door. I can’t hear anything inside over the music coming from the bar.

Neither one of us wants to set off a spell just yet and alert him, but I’ve got a shield in mind ready to fire off. I draw the Browning and put my hand on the doorknob. Gabriela lifts the machete high over her head.

“Do me a favor and don’t take my head off with that thing,” I say.

“No promises,” she says. I throw the door open, stepping aside so Gabriela can run in past me. Tabitha’s sitting behind her desk, a man standing next to her. I’ve seen him before. He was the bar’s bouncer when Alex ran the place.

“Eric?” Tabitha says. “What are you doing here?”

The glow in the orb is a white hot point, clearly singling out the bouncer as Sergei. And if that wasn’t enough, the minute Gabriela gets past me he changes. I expect the Russian’s face and prison tattoos, but instead he throws off the bouncer’s form and changes into Kettleman as easily as a dog shaking off water.

Tabitha jumps out of her chair in surprise when her bouncer turns into a sixty-year-old man, his clothes hanging on him like a scarecrow.

Gabriela swings the machete down at him, but he pivots at the last second and the blade swings through empty air. He brings a fist up and I think he’s going to try to punch her, but as it gets near her a red glow springs up around it and ropes of light wrap themselves around her. Her arms are pinned, the machete useless at her side. He follows up with a knee into her abdomen and she doubles over. The orb falls from her fingers and shatters on the floor like a snow globe.

A lance of fire snaps out of his fingers at me. I duck to the side and the door behind me explodes into splinters. He changes tactics and grabs Tabitha. The glow around his hand intensifies.

“Can you shoot me before I kill her?” he says.

“I’m willing to give it a try,” I say, but I know I’m not. There’s no way I’m going to make that shot before he can kill her, and if I miss there’s no way I won’t hit her.

“What the hell is going on, Eric?”

“It’s all good,” I say. “I’ll get you out of this.”

“Really? Let’s find out,” he says. He steps from behind the chair towards me and the door, dragging Tabitha in front of himself like a human shield.

“Let her go and I won’t kill you,” I say.

“You fucking better,” Gabriela yells from the floor. “Otherwise I sure as hell will.”

“Seems the young lady disagrees with you,” Sergei says. “How about you, dear?” he says to Tabitha. “Do you think he should take his shot?” It occurs to me that I’ve never heard Sergei speak as himself. I wonder what he sounds like when he’s not wearing somebody else’s skin suit.

“Eric, what is this?” Tabitha says. “Who the hell is this person?”

“It’ll be fine,” I say. “We’re working this out.” I back away to make room for him to pass. I still have my gun on him, but I don’t trust myself not to hit Tabitha. He backs through the door, Tabitha still between us.

“I’m very sorry about this, dear,” he says. “But I can’t have Mister Carter following me. I’m sure you understand.” He shoves her away from him. She stumbles, starts to run toward me and he lets loose a lance of fire from his fingers that hits her in the back, blowing a basketball-sized hole out through the front of her chest.

I freeze. Everything slows to a crawl. Tabitha standing in front of me, her chest a blown-out cavity, drops to the floor, gasping for air that won’t come, blood and flesh, bits of bone spraying out in front of her, covering my shirt, spattering my face. I can see shredded bone, pulped meat, destroyed organs. I can smell the stink of burnt flesh. My vision narrows until all I can see is her lying on the floor in front of me, face down with a hole in her you could drive a truck through.