Mob Rules (21 page)

“You are extremely persistent for a woman,” he said.

“I'm easily distracted when I don't stay focused.”

Fred gave an exaggerated sigh. His shoulders humped and then collapsed like someone put a lead chain around his neck. “What precisely have I done to attract such devoted attention?”

“You know why I'm here.”

“Yes, I suppose I do. You believe I had something to do with the murders of your men. The question is, why?”

“One of them told me.” It was an irritating game, but I had to play if I wanted to learn anything.

“Ah, that is unfortunate. We had hoped the ritual would preclude such an eventuality.”

“How's that?”

“My…client was confident that their souls would be cast into the Deep Beyond and lost forever.”

I laughed. “Your client didn't want you to know how expendable you are. It needed to keep an easy target in front of me.”

“You are right, of course. And, so, here we are.”

“Here we are. How's it going to go?”

The vampire arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Is it up to me?”

“You're not the one I want. You're just in my way.”

Fred chuckled. “Two things,” he said. “First, I see that you have brought a weapon this time, but the outcome of any confrontation between us is hardly a foregone conclusion.” I
could hear the ghosts spreading out behind me at the edge of the lot.

“It's a really big gun,” I said.

The vampire nodded and smiled. “Second, what makes you think I could give you my client, should I be inclined to do so?”

“I'm optimistic. Maybe you're protection and not just a dead guy with a target on his back. Maybe your client is hiding in the building back there.”

“Sadly my client is not here.”

“Where is it?”

“If I tell you, where does that leave us?”

The question had some thorns on it. If the vampire sent me off chasing shadows, it might give him time to find a new lair, even blow town.

“We'd all go see your client. I'd have my gun keep a close eye on you. If the spirit is where you say it is, we're done. If it's not, you're done.”

Fred nodded sadly. “I see. That wouldn't do at all, then. I'm afraid I don't know where my client is.”

The vampire was probably telling the truth, and that didn't leave us many options. Fred knew that, too.

The vampire moved.

I didn't see much of it, but I didn't have to. The Dead Man's Gun was in my hand. I thumbed back the hammer and my arm jerked to the right. Electric-blue juice arced and twisted in the cylinder. The trigger pulled back, though I'm not sure it was my finger that pulled it.

The gun fired and kicked sweetly in my hand, like a healthy baby in its mother's womb. The sound of the report was a hollow sound, like it had been fired into a long tunnel. A wisp of vapor coiled from the barrel, pale as a ghost.

Fred had leaped about twenty feet to his left and ducked behind a rusting forklift. A bullet as real as a bad dream passed through the machine with a sharp hiss and struck the vampire in the shoulder. The impact spun the vampire around and black juice sprayed the wall of the building behind him.

Honey let out a war cry that sounded like the high note of an opera. She flew toward Fred with her sword poised above her shoulder like an angry snake.

I turned to face the advancing ghosts behind me and fanned the Peacemaker's hammer with my left hand. In my world, it would have been an impressive waste of ammunition, even if I could have handled the recoil. Ned trembled gently in my hand as it panned along the line of mutilated shades. I don't know how many shots I fired, but three of them found targets. Ragged holes of azure energy burned through the ghosts. The holes widened as the juice chewed at ephemeral flesh, devouring the ghosts like a hungry fire.

The remaining five stopped and stared. They were armed only with anger and vengeance, and neither was as strong as their fear. They scrambled away, fading when they reached the rusting and twisted metal of their tomb.

I turned and saw two blurred forms dueling atop the squat concrete building. Honey spun and darted and dived, thrusting and swinging at the vampire with her tiny silver sword. Fred leaped and circled and clawed at her, but his left arm hung limply from the wounded shoulder.

I brought Ned up and pulled back the hammer. I aimed low along the hog wallow trough that served as a rear sight. The blue juice flared in the cylinder and I squeezed the trigger.

The shot hit Fred in the gut just above the waistline and knocked him off the roof. Honey darted after him and I moved up along the side of the building to the rear. The vampire was
lying in a scatter of garbage in a spreading pool of black magic. It pumped out of the hole in his stomach like oil. Fred pulled himself to one knee and flailed at Honey. She buzzed around his head and her sword was a silver blur as she traced his pale flesh with bleeding black lines.

I thumbed back the hammer again and nodded for Honey to back off. The vampire looked up at me, his dark eyes glittering with hate. He sneered and spat. The black juice spattered and smoked on the yellow-brown dirt.

“You weren't muscle and you weren't just a target, were you, Fred? You were hired to find the spirit a host. You knew Adan from the club. You picked him out and gave him up to that…thing.”

The vampire laughed, and a fine spray of black juice followed the sound.

“Tell me where it is,” I said. I gave him the words without any feeling in them.

The vampire laughed. “You're a fool, Riley. You know how to stop him and you don't have the stomach for it. He doesn't need any protection because he knows you're too weak. He owns you, you pathetic little cunt.”

It was an impressive speech. When he'd finished delivering it, Fred sprang at me. The taloned claw at the end of his one good arm reached for my throat. I pistol-whipped him in the face with the Peacemaker's twelve-inch barrel because that's what it seemed to have in mind. Fred's jaw shattered under the steel and he collapsed at my feet.

I leaned down and pressed the muzzle into his forehead. I thought about all the people the Vampire Fred had murdered in all the centuries of his unnatural life. I thought about Adan.

“Tell your master I'm coming if you see it out there,” I said.

This time, Ned didn't have to help me squeeze the trigger.

We searched the building and the rest of the salvage yard for the spirit, even though I knew we wouldn't find anything. Fred had served his purpose. He was more use as a distraction than he would have been as protection.

“Are you okay, Honey?” I asked as we wandered the yard, looking for nothing. She was quiet and seemed a little agitated.

“I'm fine. The vampire didn't even touch me. He was finished when you hit him with that first shot.”

“Well, that's good. I'm glad you weren't hurt.”

“Yeah, I'm great.” Honey landed on the air cleaner of an old car engine and sat down. “What are we looking for, Domino? There's no stupid spirit here.”

“I know. I just need to be sure.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I don't have many options. I just have to stay close to Adan. Eventually the spirit will try to possess him again. When it does, I have to be ready.”

Honey threw up her hands in exasperation. “You should
go to your boss, Domino. The vampire was right. You're too close to that…man. You don't think straight.”

“Let's not start this again, Honey. I can't go to my boss until I deal with the spirit.”

“Oh, fine. Do what you want, Domino. You're going to anyway.”

“What the hell's the matter with you, Honey?”

Honey laughed and I didn't like the sound of it. She put her head in her hands and looked like she wanted to pull her hair out. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Red pixie dust danced in the yellow light.

“I'm sorry,” she said finally. “It's my family. They gave me trouble when I went to see them, when you were talking to the Burning Man.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“They're just worried about me.” She shook her head and sighed. “They say I shouldn't be crossing over to Arcadia by myself. But really, they just don't like the idea of me making deals with sorcerers. They say it's too dangerous.”

“They don't even know me. Did you tell them we're friends?”

She nodded. “They just don't trust sorcerers, Domino. Our kind has never really gotten along.”

“Why not?”

“Sorcerers have a habit of imprisoning us, binding us—like you did with Mr. Clean. Or using us in other ways.”

“You know I don't mean you any harm.”

“I told them it's not like that with us, that you're my friend. But they're worried that I could get trapped in Arcadia with no way to cross by myself. Really, they're just worried it gives you too much power over me.”

I nodded. “I guess I can see their point of view.”

Honey smiled and shook her head. “You're sweet, Domino. I mean it.”

“What can we do about it?”

“You could make me a gate,” she said. “It's just like a spell talisman. You work the magic to bring me across, and then you bind it to a physical object. It wouldn't hold up forever, but it would allow me to cross back and forth on my own for a while. Long enough for my family to get used to the idea. I told them I'd ask you, but I understand if you don't want to.”

“I'll do it, Honey. I trust you.”

“Thanks, Domino. You're a good friend.” She hovered near me and then darted in and kissed me on the forehead. She flew away before I could react. Blue and violet pixie dust trailed behind her.

We went back to the condo and I hung the gunbelt in the closet by the front door. I crossed over and went into the kitchen and poured myself a tall glass of tequila. I went out on the balcony and stood with Honey's garden pressing in on me from all sides. I drank the tequila and chased it with a cigarette.

Then I went back to the kitchen and called Honey. When the threads of magic snapped into place, I tied them to the sports bottle that held the wilting carnations I'd bought for Mrs. Dawson. The world stretched thin and Honey came through.

“Thanks, Domino,” she said, but she didn't seem too happy about it. She disappeared into her cave behind the waterfall on the kitchen table.

I poured some more tequila and thought about getting drunk. Then my cell phone beeped, letting me know I had a voice mail message. I got it out and listened.

“I have to go out, Honey,” I said in the general direction of the kitchen table. She didn't answer.

 

Rick Macy lived in Pasadena near the campus of Caltech. He was in grad school, particle physics, but he worked for the outfit on the side. I'd never met him, but I knew of him. He had more juice than Jamal or Jimmy Lee. He was a theorist, a designer. In the real world, he might have been something like a systems engineer. He was valuable.

I parked on the street outside his little two-bedroom rambler. Vernon Case was sitting on the front steps looking like he'd rather be somewhere else. Case was a veteran. He'd hooked up with the outfit in the early sixties and made a career of it. He had enough juice to stick but not enough to go all the way up. He looked old and tired.

“Hey, Case,” I said, “what's the story?”

He looked up at me and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “More of the same, I guess. You might as well see for yourself. I was just told to lock the place down until you could get here.”

“Okay,” I said and walked up to the door. “Thanks for your help. You find the body?”

Case shook his head. “No, his girlfriend. They pulled her out already. She went a little nuts about it. University student, no connection to our thing except Ricky. We're just lucky she called us before she called the cops. Hell, we're lucky she didn't go bat-shit seeing that thing in there.”

I nodded and went in, and Case came in behind me. Rick Macy was in his bedroom, his arms duct-taped to the head-board. He'd been skinned, but at least they hadn't nailed him down first. I went through the motions, just like I'd done at
Jamal's apartment. The only thing I found was a black stain left by the soul jar, this time on Rick's bed.

“You on this thing, Domino?” Case asked when I was finished. “Everyone knows what's happening in South Central. Hell, most of us have been down there to see for ourselves. The word is, Papa Danwe is moving on us and we're doing jack-shit about it. Everyone says we're at war, which no one minds too much, but it seems like only one side is fighting.”

“We're fighting. Rashan just doesn't want to fight blind.”

Case nodded. “That's good. I knew Ricky pretty well. I helped bring him in, you know. Hell, I guess I recruited him. The guy was a fucking genius, Domino. I was supposed to train him.” He laughed and shook his head. “I had to turn him over to Rashan because he was way ahead of me, even at the start.”

That got my attention. “Rick was trained by Rashan?”

“Sure he was. Ricky didn't have your kind of juice, but he was brilliant. He got it, you know? He understood how all this shit works.” He shrugged. “Me, I do what I do but most of the time I don't really understand it. I don't have to—I just do it.”

I nodded, thinking. “You've been around the outfit a long time, Case. You know everyone. How well did you know Jamal and Jimmy Lee?”

“I knew them well enough, I guess. I watched them come up, tried to help out where I could. They were good boys.”

“Who trained them, Case?”

He pursed his lips and rubbed his chin. “Jamal got some basics from Rafael Chavez. Jimmy Lee was brought in by Frank Seville…you know him?”

I nodded and waited for the rest of it.

“But both guys were specialists, you know. Most guys in the
outfit don't do one thing any better than another. Hell, most of us don't do anything all that well. We've got lots of guys who can lay down tags, but most of them aren't really
taggers
like Jamal was. You know what I mean? Him and Jimmy Lee didn't have a lot of juice, maybe, but they had one thing they did well. That made them different.”

“They needed more training than most,” I said. “Advanced training in their specialty. Who gave it to them?”

“Well, Rashan did. He always does that kind of thing himself.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

I told Case to keep the place locked down until nightfall and then to get rid of the body. Then I got on my cell and called Rashan. He was on his way home from the strip club. He agreed to meet me at his house.

I ran to my car and spun the traffic spell, and I kept the speedometer above ninety most of the way out to the hills. I pulled up in the circle driveway in front of the house just as Rashan was getting out of his Mercedes.

I'd never been invited to Rashan's house before. It was pretty typical for the filthy rich in that part of town. Hillside. Boxy modern architecture. Lots of glass. Wide balcony. Stilts.

“Stilts, boss?” I asked, looking up at the house. “That doesn't seem like a good idea.”

Rashan smiled. “The stilts are very strong, Dominica.”

“How strong?” They looked pretty spindly to me.

“It would be easier to move the hill than to move the stilts.”

“This is L.A., boss. Mudslides, earthquakes. It wouldn't be that surprising if the hill decided to move someday.”

Rashan shrugged. “It's L.A.”

“Yeah, what are you gonna do?”

The boss smiled. “I'm not afraid of earthquakes. We had some big ones back home. Biblical ones. We took pride in them. We thought even the gods had taken notice of our great works and mighty deeds.”

“Alas, Babylon,” I said.

“Close enough, Dominica,” Rashan said quietly. “Close enough.”

We climbed the stairs to the front door and went inside. Rashan led me to his study and closed the door behind us. I sat in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk and he poured us both a Scotch.

“You've been to Rick Macy's house?” he asked, settling in behind the desk.

“Yeah,” I said, “I was there. Same story.”

“And do you have a theory?”

“I've been chasing a theory, but I think I got it wrong.”

“Why don't you tell me.”

I nodded and took a deep breath. “I was able to bring Jamal back from the Beyond. He told me who the killer was.”

“You neglected to report this development. You must have had a reason for that.”

“Yeah. The killer was your son, Adan.”

“But Adan is not a sorcerer. He could not have done these murders.” He didn't seem terribly surprised by my revelation. I'm not sure why I thought he would be.

“Right. I could see he wasn't a sorcerer, but Jamal pointed to him. Based on what Jamal said about the ritual and something that happened when I was with him, it looked like Adan was being possessed.”

“Is that why you've been staying so close to my son?”

I looked down at my glass and took another drink. “Yes
and no. At first, I just needed to stay close to him, like you say. But…it got complicated. It
is
complicated.”

“And if you believe he is the victim of possession, what have you done about it?”

I told him about my plan to find the spirit in the Between and destroy it. I told him about the vampire. I gave it all to him.

“But now you are questioning your theory?” Rashan asked.

I nodded. “Mr. Clean speculated that a spirit might be using the rituals to prepare a host, Adan, to move in permanently. He admitted it was just speculation, but I took it and ran with it.”

“And now?”

“There's a connection between the victims that doesn't fit with that angle. You trained them all. You don't train many guys, and I don't think it's a coincidence. I don't like that connection, and I don't see what difference it would make to a spirit.”

Rashan leaned back in his chair and looked at me for a long time. “Do you have a new theory?” he asked finally.

“Maybe,” I said. “It's the Papa Danwe angle. I don't have any proof—I don't think I'll ever have any proof with this thing. But it fits. You've got three sorcerers who all received training from you. One is a tagger, one is a warder and one is a designer.”

Rashan nodded. “Go on.”

“We know that there's no point in squeezing these guys—unless you need their unique arcane talent. Well, what do they all have in common? They all learned their craft from you.”

“And so what would squeezing them accomplish, in this case?”

“It'd be like getting inside your head, wouldn't it? I thought about this all the way over here. Jamal was a tagger. He created arcane symbols that tapped and rerouted juice. Jimmy Lee was a warder, a specialist in defensive magic. And Rick Macy was a theorist, a systems guy.

“When Jimmy Lee first turned up dead, I thought it was someone going after our defenses. At the time, it didn't make any sense because he wasn't doing anything important. But he was working
your
magic, boss. It didn't matter that he wasn't doing anything important—it wasn't what he was doing, it was how he was doing it. If I could get inside your head and figure out how you did that kind of magic, I'll bet I could reverse-engineer your personal defenses. I'll bet I'd know enough about your wards and protections to take them down.”

Rashan arched his eyebrows. “You would, yes. Anyone else would still be missing a piece of the puzzle.”

I frowned and shook my head. “I don't get that.”

“You would have all the knowledge you needed—the craft, just as you say. But as you've learned, Dominica, magic isn't a science. It isn't engineering, even though sorcerers such as Mr. Macy try to approach it that way. Sorcery is an art. There is a practical aspect, technique, certainly, which the killer could have gotten from the three victims. But there are a thousand different ways a sorcerer can approach any given magical task. That's why magic is fundamentally a creative endeavor.”

“So the missing piece is creativity?”

Rashan nodded. “The missing piece is
style.
”