Echoes of the Past (Demon Squad) (11 page)

Sickened by the images screaming across my mind’s eyes, I jumped up and stumbled through the labyrinth of collectibles and out past the counter. I barely noticed Poe as I did, and then I was outside the store. Sweating and weak, I staggered down the street. At a nearby alley, I turned and went down it, emptying my stomach behind a rusted trash dumpster, out of sight.

I stayed there a while, until I started feeling stupid for reacting so foolishly. This was the second time I’d spewed my guts, and there wasn’t anything in me but a couple sips of beer. I dropped against the dumpster and took a moment to catch my breath.

The stories Azrael and Baalth told didn’t match exactly, but there was enough similarity between them as to make it impossible to tell who was lying. Normally I’d trust Baalth to be more honest, but like Lucifer, Baalth had kept the story a secret. He’d never told me any of it until I stumbled across a piece of evidence he couldn’t deny. Where did that leave me? Was Baalth lying, or was Azrael? Or both? That could easily be the case, which only left me fucked and even more out in the cold when it came to the truth.

No idea who to believe, I’d only confused myself by trying to find the answers to who I was and where I belonged. I missed the old days when Lucifer and God were still here. It was their job to keep the world straight. I sure as shit didn’t want it.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I probably didn’t want to know the truth. Life is easier when you’re in the dark. Ignorance equals bliss, or so they say. If that was true, then I wanted a big, heaping slab o’ ignorance to go, please. Top that off with a case of Jack Daniels and I’d be all right.

I got up and left the alley, leaving my spew behind. I didn’t want anything else to do with the past, right then. All I wanted was to spend some time in the present with
Karra
. We could make our own history and forget the garbage we’d crawled through to get here.

I’d eaten enough shit in my life. It was time to try another flavor.

Chapter Eleven

So used to using the DRAC portals for transportation, I was blocks away before I remembered I’d left the Impala at the strip mall. It wouldn’t be a good idea to leave it there, my spare gun and some of the DA slayers stashed under the seat. While Baalth might be a deterrent to supernatural tomfoolery, he wasn’t the neighborhood watch. If someone broke into my car, he wouldn’t even notice, let alone give a damn. At least not until one of his folks got shot with a magical bullet. Then he’d be all over my ass.

Feeling a little better, my stomach settling, I started back to the mall. Caught up in my head, I hadn’t been paying attention. Now that the sickness had passed, I suddenly noticed I had company.

Behind me, bold as day, strolling down the sidewalk, was one of the DSI goons. While I couldn’t be sure who he was, since they all dressed alike, I kind of figured him to be the one who’d waved at me while I was talking to Poe. While there weren’t any features to pick out, the arrogance of his stride struck me as similar. Without bothering to hide or pretend he wasn’t following me, he walked about a half block behind me. He was even whistling.

I glanced up and spied shadows atop the lower lying buildings. They were following me, too. There was no telling what they wanted, besides pushing Shaw’s agenda, but it probably didn’t matter. Here I was, packing an unregistered pistol and carrying what could be considered as, with a very liberal definition, weapons of mass destruction. They’d let me slide on the gun earlier because it wasn’t what they were after, but it was certainly enough of a crime to give them just cause to take me back to the interrogation room and hold me for a while. Given what happened at the bar, Shaw and her crew were most likely looking to pin the blame on me. Telling them that an alien did it probably wouldn’t help my cause. I thought it best to lose the tails first, and then give Poe a call to collect the stuff in my car.

I walked casually for another block, gauging where the agents were, and then darted down an alley. Without looking back, I ran through it and out the other side, changing directions to move away from the strip mall. The DSI set up there to monitor Baalth, it didn’t make any sense to head toward the mass of them, even if running the other way was the obvious choice for anyone following me. I only had to make it about ten blocks before I came across one of DRAC’s hidden portals. While its default transport arrangements would be to one of the DRAC headquarters, the settings could be overridden to take me elsewhere. They probably hadn’t locked me out…yet.

Down the street, I turned into another alley and did my best to stay in the shadows. It was easier with the dark clouds lurking in the sky, but it was still daylight. The smaller buildings forming the alley didn’t do much to block the morning sun, which peeked muted over their roofs.

I heard the slap of feet behind me as I turned out of the alley. It was just my luck I had the only government official with good cardio on my ass. I kept going, covering a few more blocks with the goon gaining on me. Not looking to jog all the way to the portal, I slowed to check the rooftops. At least they looked empty. With no way for the human DSI agents to leap across the roofs quickly enough to keep up, it was a good bet I’d left them behind and only had Speedy on my ass.

Still a number of blocks from freedom, I slipped into another alley, but this time I stopped right at the entrance. The DSI already thought of me as a bad guy, so it wouldn’t hurt my reputation to play up the role. Intent on chasing me down, and likely figuring I’d just keep running, the agent turned the corner full out, barely slowing to keep from falling. His eyes bulged in the opening of his mask as I grabbed ahold of him. I ripped his rifle away, tossing it aside, and pushed him into the wall across the way. He huffed, the impact knocking the breath out of him. I used my knee to pin his hand closest to the pistol at his hip.

“I don’t give a damn what the DSI’s agenda is, buddy, but I suggest you all reconsider your attempts at intimidation. I’ve stood toe-to-toe with some of the biggest and
baddest
this universe has to offer, so if you think a bunch of pajama ninjas are gonna make me wet my pants, you’ve got another thing coming.

And he did…it just didn’t come from me.

As the agent caught his breath and started to bluster, a tiny blue ball of fire crashed into the top of his head. He was immediately engulfed. His uniform and flesh went up in an eruption of heat while he shrieked. The flames licked at my hands and face. I stumbled back on instinct, letting the agent go as I scrambled to think of how to put the fire out. I willed my magic to the surface, picturing a waterfall as my power glistened at my fingertips.

“Holy shit!”

I spun at the shouted curse and saw two more DSI agents turn the corner. They stopped cold when they saw their fellow agent cooked alive, my hands glowing with energy. I turned back to unleash my magic, but right then the flames roared, his body charring before my eyes. There was a whispered sigh as his flesh gave way and he fell apart, a crumbling statue of ash. The air was suddenly ripe with the overwhelming stench of burnt meat and hair. I choked on a mouthful of it and coughed, stumbling away from the toasted corpse as I gasped for breath.

The two guys who’d watched their friend go up in a cloud of black soot didn’t bother to call out a warning. They opened fire. The chatter of automatic gunfire filled the alley and sent me scrambling. Not fast enough, I caught a bullet in my triceps and one in the meat of my shoulder. Two points of searing pain exploded and then collided into one as they overwhelmed my senses. The impact of the gunshots nearly knocked me off my feet as I ran for the end of the alley. Bullets crashed into the wall beside me, flinging shards of concrete and brick everywhere. Several flickers of pain stung me across my side and back, but I couldn’t tell whether I’d been shot again or just pelted by debris. It all felt the same after the first wound.

Around the corner a split-second later, I hit the gas and hauled ass. I needed a way out, the DRAC portal no longer an option. Given the obvious assumption that would be made, that
I
killed the agent, I didn’t dare risk bringing this mess to DRAC’s doorstep. I was also too far from Baalth to go back. By now, every single DSI operative in the area knew they’d lost an agent, and every single one of them would be gunning for me first, asking my corpse stupid questions later.

More fucked than I’ve been in a very long time, I ran for all I was worth. The two agents who’d seen me in the alley would have wasted precious seconds checking on their friend and phoning the cavalry. That was the only advantage I could hope for. It wouldn’t be long before they had air support and flooded the streets of Old Town with cops and suits looking to put a couple extra holes in my ass. I needed to get out of Dodge, and fast.

I turned down a side street and spied a battered Lincoln Town Car parked outside a dilapidated bail bonds office. I thought a car would suit me better than my feet, so I ran alongside it and peered through the window. No keys. Shit. I glanced around real quick, looking into the bail bonds office but didn’t see anybody. Too rushed to try to rationalize a better escape plan, I put my fist through the glass and popped the door open.

In the driver’s seat with glass shards grinding into my ass cheeks, only half noticing the damn door had been unlocked, I summoned a tiny flicker of energy at my palm and pressed it against the ignition switch. I did my best to block out the world and focus, willing my energy to fill the keyhole without blowing it out the other side of the steering column. There weren’t any shouts in the street, or obvious calls for the police, so I settled a little and pictured the energy expanding, gently conforming to the shape of the switch triggers. When I felt I was there, I willed the power solid and cranked the ignition over. The car started right up.

Unable to hold back a laugh, the rebel in me already contemplating a new life as a car thief, I released my magic and tore off down the road. Well, sputtered off would be closer to the truth. The beater coughed and wheezed harder than
Redd
Foxx faking a heart attack. A thick spew of black exhaust huffed from the tailpipe as I drove down the street. I was conspicuous as hell in the old jalopy, but I was still moving along faster than I had on foot. I’d also be harder to recognize shielded by the car and smoke screen I was laying out. The “Peter Gunn” droned on in my head.

Things were looking up. From where I was at the bottom, it was the only way I
could
look.

Chapter Twelve

I made it a little ways into downtown before the clunker went on to visit Azrael. It trembled and shook and farted out a couple of mean backfires, like a good burrito morning, before the lights on the dash flickered. Then it died. I managed to get it to the curb. I was back to walking, but I needed something to alter my appearance or it was gonna be a short trip.

A quick search of the backseat turned up a couple pair of work shirts and a ratty hoodie that looked like it was meant to be worn by an elephant. I slipped the jacket on to cover the blood from my injuries, which were already healing, and cringed at the smell. It was like a mix of skunk and baby poo, sharpened with the vinegar love of a cat, which clearly thought the hoodie needed that something extra to top it off.

 
My nose being assailed, I hopped out casually like I’d meant to park there, wherever I was, and wandered off. There was a moment after I’d walked about a block when I thought I should go back and wipe away evidence, but there really wasn’t any point. I was already looking at being charged with killing a federal agent, so what was a tiny case of hoodie and vehicle theft gonna matter? They could only kill me once.

 
My eyes swiveled in their sockets, as inconspicuous as I could make that appear, and scanned the streets and the sky for any DSI agents that might swoop down on top of me. I didn’t see much of anything, having likely slipped the fed’s cordon before it could be set up. The roads were busier than they had been in Old Town, less of the supernatural hijinks wafting over the line into the heart of the city. That made it a little easier to blend in, despite my inherited super-funk.

Vendors stood outside their shops and shouted at passersby, a duel of competing voices trying to draw customers to their stores and away from their neighbor’s. No one paid attention to me once they got a whiff of the jacket. A funk like this didn’t often come with money, so they let me be. In fact, folks cleared the way so I could pass. How considerate. I should piss on my clothes more often.

Once I was past the market district, the constant screech of sales pitches settled and drifted into the background. Though the area I was walking through wasn’t exactly on the highbrow scale, it was a far cry from the low-rent shanties I’d just passed. The shops here carried themselves with a little more class, and a lot more pretension. They weren’t rundown; they were aged. The walls had been covered in bright-colored mosaics to keep the gang-bangers from tagging them up. The art looked like a baby puked up a box of crayons, but what do I know? I’m no art critic, I’m just critical.

There was a local pharmacy, on the end of the block, dealing in chintzy herbal products and a couple of coffee houses next door with patios that butted up against the street. There’s nothing like a good dose of car exhaust to complement an overpriced latte.

Squeezed between a tattoo parlor, lighted up like Las Vegas, and an unassuming day spa, was a tiny little bookstore that catered to the literate few who were too cheap to go to the big box stores or too cultured to shop online. The shelves inside the windows were lined with classics. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Huckleberry Finn, and Moby Dick stood out as I walked past. I stopped to take a look. Not a huge reader of fiction—which didn’t come without a cellophane wrapper—the gilded, old fashioned style books weren’t really of much interest to me, but they reminded me of Abe.