The Devil You Know (14 page)

“You want me to call him for you?”

“I want you to protect him, Nick.” Her hands tightened on mine. “If Malach has arranged this, he might go after Josh.”

I shook my head. “That’s not how this system works, Vivian. Malach’s scary but he doesn’t incriminate innocent people. And he can’t kill human beings. There are rules.”

“What if he broke the rules? What if there are no rules?”

I gave her a sympathetic look. Malach was a mercenary. No argument about that. But he was still a Seraph. He still had his marching orders. “Vivian,” I tried to explain. “You and I…we’re unnatural creatures. But we still have to follow rules. My dad has to follow them. Malach certainly has to follow them.”

She glared at me. “Angels have to be behind it, Nick. There is no one else who would do this to me.”

“Are you sure? There’s Greeley and Mitchell. That’s reason enough for someone to want to hurt you. Even McCarty, if he thinks you might talk.”

“You think someone’s carrying around a vendetta? All that happened years ago.” She sat back in her seat and rubbed her tired eyes. “Jesus, this is like a bad TV cop movie. I used to laugh at episodes of
Columbo
that did things like this.”

“I won’t let any angels hurt you,” I told her. “I can put a temporary spell around the building to prevent Malach from entering.”

“And Josh?” She leaned forward, her face strained, and for once, unpretty. “He was in Afghanistan, Nick. He lost his sight there. I need you to find him and protect him. You can’t let Malach—or whoever—get him.
Please
.”

“I’ll do whatever I can.”

I was headed south, towards the Pennsylvania Turnpike, when I realized I had some unfinished business to take care of.
It was unseasonably warm and I had the windows down, the hot, leafy air filtering into the car as I passed the rocky, still-green Lehigh Mountains. Pennsylvania is as famous for its Indian Summers as it is for its fall foliage. It usually stays hot and almost airless up until the middle of November—then, bam, instant winter. More snow days than you can shake an icicle at.

By my estimation, it would take at least an hour and a half to get to the outskirts of Philly, and by then it would be well past six o’clock, the time when I usually took over the shop from Morgana.

I dug out my cell phone. Morgana had since left two more messages. I called her cell and she picked up on the second ring. “Where the hell are you?”

“I’m on my way to Philly.”

“Reason?”

“Personal.”

“Well, fuck you too.”

Morgana almost never swore. I had really pissed her off this time. I thought about handing her a story, but I knew she’d learn what was going on with Vivian before the end of the day, and she’d
know
it had something to do with my sudden disappearance. In a town like Blackwater, rumor spreads faster than a bad case of the clap. I gave her a synopsis of what had happened since I left the Loft. She wasn’t overly impressed. “She’s a daemon, Nick. She’s more than capable of murder. And don’t start with that racist shit. You know I’m right. Hell, you just told me she killed one of her boyfriends.”

“Vivian can kill people. But she didn’t kill Brittany.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. She’s being set up.”

“And you’re going to find out who’s behind it all.”

“No, I’m going to Philly to collect her brother and bring him back to Blackwater where I can keep an eye on him. Vivian has a state attorney for the charges. The prosecutor is still putting together a case, but nothing is going to move until they find a murder weapon. I put a spell on the county jail to keep Malach out for now. That’s all I can do.”

“You haven’t talked to Sheriff Ben yet?” She sounded surprised.

“Ben’s pissed off with me.”

“How about that coroner friend of yours? Can’t he help?”

“Derrek’s not going to want to see me either.”

“Is there anyone you have
not
pissed off today yet?”

“None that I can think of.”

There was a long pause as I turned off the highway and into a Wawa to refill. “I’ll take the shop tonight,” Morgana finally told me. “But you’re doing a full shift tomorrow, Scratch.”

“Deal.”

“I’m still pissed off with you.”

“I know,” I said as I parked in front of a pump and turned off the car. I thought about apologizing, but what was I going to say? Sorry, Morgana, I tried to strangle you? Oh hell…

“Morgana . . . I’m sorry I tried to strangle you,” I said.

There was a long pause as Morgana contemplated that. “I told Anton about the angel dolls. He said a member of his coven has books on reverse conjuring.”

That was essentially Morgana accepting my apology. I felt a burden lift. “What the hell is reverse conjuring?” I asked.

“It’s the same as demonic conjuring, except with angels.”

“You’re kidding me. Angel magic?” I said in disbelief as I got out of the car and filled up. Angel magic in the occult community is a little like the Chupacabra or the Loch Ness Monster. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who’s seen it done, but no one can prove it. In angel magic, a powerful witch supposedly has the power to call upon and control angels, which is patently ridiculous and impossible and bends every natural, and unnatural, law. Angels cannot be controlled except by the Throne. Angel magic is bullshit, and you can quote me on that. I said as much to Morgana.

“Anton’s friend has an old Book of Shadows from a witch who was hanged during the Salem trials. He said the book has illustrations that look a lot like the angel dolls. Problem is, it’s in some other language. Do you want us to work on translating it?”

I thought about that as I hung the pump back up. I had serious doubts that it would help in the disappearance of Cassie Berger, but I saw no reason to turn down free information. And I had to admit I was a little curious about Angel Magic myself. “Yes. Please. Let me know if anything looks interesting.”

“Good enough. Take care of yourself, Scratch.”

“You too.” I slipped the cell into my jeans pocket and visited the Wawa for a giant-sized Diet Dr. Pepper and a new pack of Camels. I estimated that was enough caffeine for the remaining seventy-five miles to Philly. I also bought some more M&M’s and a package of Swedish Fish. Yes, I know. If I wasn’t half demon I would be fat, pimply and crippled by COPD and diabetes.

The overweight, middle-aged, desperate-looking counter girl took my money with shaking hands. Her washed-out blue eyes went huge in her head as she checked me out. “Oh my God, you’re gorgeous!” she exclaimed. “I have a backroom. You wanna fuck, beautiful?”

I shook my head and left. Only in PA.

Mostly, I hate Philadelphia. It reminds me of New York, just poorer and more desperate. You either have glass and granite skyscrapers or disintegrating row houses, and sometimes you have them all mixed up on the same street, along with plenty of saggy high-tension wires and turn-of-the-century streetlights, like the city can’t figure out what era it’s in. Also, I’ve tried to go native and get behind the Phillies, I really have. But they’ve only ever won two World Series and just plain suck and you know it. They’re like the east coast answer to the Cubbies. But that’s a rant for another day.

As soon as I was inside the city limits, I pulled into a slot in the parking lot of a QuikiMart and went over the Yahoo maps I keep in the glove compartment. I have a big stack of them covering New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, marking where various churches and synagogues are located. It never hurts to know where to go, should I run into a Seraph or soldier angel. It took a while, but I managed to pinpoint The Chicken Coop on South Street, where Josh Summers was playing a gig tonight at eight o’clock.

The sun had gone down, so at least I didn’t have to look at the city, just its lights as I drove toward South Street. I was finally out of Dr. Pepper, I had chain-smoked the pack down, and I had chocolately peanut debris stuck in my back molars. I still had the Swedish Fish, though, so all was well.

I found the place tucked between a greasy spoon and an antique shop. As a rule of thumb, every major retail and recreational strip in the state of Pennsylvania has an antique shop on it. And they are almost never open. If you don’t believe me, find the nearest antique shop in your area of PA and drive by it as often as you can. You’ll see it’s always closed and never moves any merchandise. I’m fairly convinced that the New York mafia owns most of the antique shops in PA and just uses them to traffic drugs. A useless tangent, but I felt it warranted mentioning.

The club mentioned no charge, but I did have to feed the meter maid in order to park on the street. Inside, the place was narrow and long and almost pitch black. It looked like every redneck bar I’d ever seen in Blackwater. It had a pinball machine, two pool tables, and a jukebox. The only thing different was that it had a slightly raised dais separated from the rest of the room by a wall of chicken wire where the visiting talent was encouraged to play. The place sported all the usual suspects—retirees, alcoholics, older female divorcees, a scattering of overweight nerds who couldn’t get girls. Not exactly the kind of clientele to warrant a riot barrier, so I had to assume the chicken wire was there as part of some ongoing theme.

The musician onstage was sitting down with a steel guitar across his lap. He was playing an amazing cover of “Hellhound on my Trail,” which I considered a very bad omen. He was a big guy, and he had a lot of muscle going on. His dirty blond hair fell to his chin and he sported a hippy goatee. He sang unhurriedly in a scorched, whiskey-saturated voice and the people in the audience, drunk or otherwise, nodded in rhythm and appreciation. After all, it was just one of those songs.

Down in the front, two guys sat at a table, doing nothing at all. They were the only ones not drinking or following the music. They were just staring at the musician. That would have been suspicious anyway you looked at it, but they were also dressed in a lot of dusty black leather like a big pair of gay biker dudes.

The thing about angels is, they’re a little bit like Cthulhu and the Outer Gods. Unless the Throne has assigned them to you, they only became aware of your presence when you become aware of theirs. You have to know them for what they are, and you really have to believe to get their attention.

Unfortunately, I believed. A lot.

Almost immediately the pair of angels turned their heads as they became aware of my presence. They were big and blond. I don’t think an angel exists that is not. They had long pale hair and icy blue eyes. Any difference between them was dictated solely by their function. Soldier angels, for instance, have huge hands to better grip weaponry. Messenger angels have longer legs in order to travel faster. These angels had big hands, so I doubted they were here with trumpets and good tidings.

They stood up together, in perfect sync. Gotta love the coordination. One angel lifted his big hand and folded down his two middle fingers, then said some archaic words in angel speech. I felt a funny, sickening lurch in my stomach as I realized they were casting a spell, literally stopping time in its tracks in order to deal with their Eternal Enemy without disturbing the humans’ perception of their world. The people in the bar immediately froze in whatever position they were in. The bartender, who’d been pulling a Budweiser draft, froze up with a long, sparkling amber arc of beer flowing into a glass. It was almost cool.

The other angel reached into some secret slot in his long leather biker coat and pulled forth an impossibly long golden sword with a lot of angel hieroglyphs along the blade. The blade of the sword was as tall as I am. Both of them looked at me and said, as one in a booming baritone, “Greetings, Little Horn. We must kill you now.”

God, I fucking hate angels.