Hard Spell (29 page)

  Then I noticed that the Hellhound was acting strangely. She'd been sitting obediently next to Sam's leg, but now she was up, whining softly as her nose quested around the room.

  "Daisy's got something, Loot," Sam said. "Don't know what it is, though."

  "Look alive, people!" Dooley snapped. "There may be a bear at home, after all."

  The rest of the SWAT team assumed alert postures, weapons ready. A couple of them started walking slowly around the big room, looking closely at the walls, the floors, the ceiling.

  "Priest hole, do you think?" Garrett asked.

  I knew the term. Used to refer to small hidden closets built in English houses during Henry VIII's time, after Catholic clergy were expelled from the country. Some stayed behind, and had to be hidden by Catholic families when Henry's goons came searching.

  I wondered if Garrett the Jesuit saw the irony.

  "I need him, or them, alive, if at all possible," I said, my own eyes roaming the room.

  "It's always their choice," Dooley said softly. "Now shut the fuck up."

  "You want us to check the other rooms again, boss?" Kyotake asked. He held the big samurai sword at guard, both hands on the custom grip.

  "Let the dog show us where to go," Dooley said, and nodded toward Daisy's handler. "Sam."

  The blond guy, still wearing his shades indoors, released his grip on the Hellhound's chain, which hit the carpet with a muffled
clank
.

  Continuing to sniff the air, Daisy began moving around the room, dragging the chain behind her. Her nose led her toward the big window overlooking the street. She approached it slowly, then became still, growling softly – a sound that made my asshole pucker, even though I wasn't the focus of her attention.

  Heidi Renfer was standing maybe ten feet from the window, with her back to it. I was looking in her direction when I saw the air
ripple
behind her, something that I wish I could say I'd seen onwalkin the movies.

  Then a man was standing there, where nobody had stood an instant before. At the same moment he appeared, I heard a male voice I didn't recognize snarl, "
Aw, shit!
"

  The bastard was fast, I'll give him that. As he materialized, his left arm snaked around Heidi's slim waist and pulled her right up against him, while his right hand brought a black-bladed knife up to the side of her long neck, the point an inch away from her flesh.

  The young guy's face was flushed and sweaty and tight with tension, but I was pretty sure I recognized it from mug shots, as well as an evening I once spent in a certain warehouse.

  It looked like Jamieson Longworth was home, after all.

For a few seconds, we all stood in a tableau, like wax figures at Madame Tussaud's – maybe an exhibit titled "Hostage Situation."

  Then the Hellhound lowered her haunches, preparing to spring.

  "Daisy!" Sam's voice was a whipcrack. "Sit!" Then: "Stay!"

  The dog obeyed, but you could see she was reluctant, not understanding why she wasn't being allowed to tear the intruder's throat out.

  I knew exactly how she felt.

  "Everybody stay right where you are!" Longworth shouted – unnecessarily, since that's exactly what we were all doing.

  I saw Heidi wince when he yelled that, since his mouth was just a few inches from her ear. In response, Longworth squeezed her even tighter. "Keep still, bitch!" Longworth gasped a couple of breaths, then said to her, "Keep hanging on to your gun, honey. But if I see that barrel move an inch, in any direction, you're fuckin' dead! Understand?"

  "Yeah," Heidi said hoarsely. "I understand."

  "Something all of you should know!" Longworth said, still gasping for breath. He must've had enough adrenaline rushing through him to fuel an Olympic track team. In an older man, I might have hoped for a heart attack. "This is a Death Dagger," he went on. "One scratch, anywhere on her, and she's dead meat."

  I believed him. Putting a spell like that on a weapon was pretty basic black magic. He might've done it himself, or had Sligo do it for him – if Sligo had been here, and I was betting he had.

  It also explained why Longworth didn't have the blade pressed against her flesh, the way they usually do in situations like this. He didn't want to kill her – by accident. The Prayer Team's efforts might have neutralized the effects of the dagger's magic – but I don't think there was a man in the room willing to gamble Heidi's life on it.

  Sligo must have taught Longworth how to work the Tarnhelm Effect – an invisibility spell, and not easy to do. That one's not black magic, but it's still pretty good work for a novice. He had fooled us all – except for Daisy.

  "Okay, we hear you," Dooley said – pretty calmly, under the circumstances. "We'll all get this worked out somehow. Just stay cool."

  Cool? Longworth was being about as cool as the Fifth Circle of Hell. But Dooley was handling it right.

  I turned my head, very slowly, to take in the rest of the room. The other members of the SWAT team were utterly still, but each was coiled, like the dog had been, ready to spring.

  I'd wondered if any of them had a shot at Longworth from the side, and whether he'd have the nerve to take it. But the only one with anything like the right angle was Garrett, holding his useless flamethrower. Like the others, he had a pistol on his belt – but there was no way in hell he'd be able to drop the flamethrower, draw, and get off an aimed shot without giving aimed shorth plenty of time to stab Heidi.

  "Something for you to keep in mind," Dooley went on in that same, almost-calm voice, "is that if you
do
kill her, you're standing there naked, without protection. And I guarantee you won't live long enough to disappear again."

  Longworth's voice went up a couple of notches. "Are you fucking
threatening
me, you cocksucker?"

  Dooley shook his head slowly. "Nope, not at all. Just pointing out a good reason for you to keep that knifepoint from getting too close to her neck. Be a shame to have people die today, just because of an accident."

  "Don't fucking worry about me – worry about this bitch right here."

  Then Longworth's gaze shifted to me, and something changed in his face. It only lasted a second or two, but it might almost have been the beginning of a smile. He added, "And you can worry about your bitch, too, you Polack assfuck. You and that depraved motherfucker next to you threw my brother to a fucking demon! Did you think you can do that and just walk away, laughing? Did you?"

  I remembered my laughter in the warehouse after Karl had saved my ass from the demon. I didn't think trying to explain to Longworth that it had been an hysterical reaction would be likely to improve the situation, so I kept quiet.

  But I was confused by his reference to my "bitch." My poor wife was in the ground, and I didn't have a girlfriend – the closest thing to that in my life was Lacey Brennan, and she wasn't all that close, anyway.

  
Did Longworth realize that? Or was Lacey in trouble?

  I was trying to phrase a question that wouldn't set him off, when he spoke again. "You'll see what it's like, motherfucker, lose somebody you really love. Then maybe I'll be the one to laugh."

  Someone I really...
Christine? Did this crazy bastard mean Christine?

  Longworth was talking to Dooley again. "Okay, here's how this is gonna work. Me and sexy here are walking out, real close together. You boys are gonna stay right here. I see anybody follow me out, she's dead. We're gonna get my car, then she's gonna drive us wherever I wanna go. I see one cop car or helicopter or police dragon along the way, and she's dead. We get where we're going, I'll turn her loose, unharmed. My word of honor. Got that?"

  
Sure, we'll be happy to take the word of a wannabe black wizard and cult murderer. And right after that, we're gonna see if Charlie Manson is free to babysit the kids Saturday night.

  Dooley nodded a couple of times. It was then I noticed that he still held his tactical radio down by his side, and a couple of his fingers were moving, ever so slowly, toward the "Transmit" button.

  
Who had he talked to last, on that radio?

  "I'll even help you out with that," Dooley said. "If you want, I can make sure that all the traffic signals go your way, no matter where you're headed. No reds or yellows to slow you down. You'll see nothing but–"

  
Spencer. He'd been talking to Spencer.

  Dooley had paused, just for a second, and I saw his finger depress the "Transmit" button before he continued, "Green light, green light, green light. All the way home."

  Maybe my concern for Christine was distracting me, but it took me a heartbeat too long to realize what Dooley had just done.

  Longworth was saying "I don't need your fucking–" as I opened my mouth to tell Dooley to call it off, that we needed Longworth alive–

  There was a loud
click
as a small hole appeared in the window behind Longworth, who gruntnce, then stopped talking because he was already dead and falling to the floor, the dagger tumbling harmlessly to the carpet as the sound of the rifle shot that had killed him echoed back and forth across the street like lost hope.

• • • •

There were sirens in the distance and drawing closer – lots of them. Spencer had joined us, the big rifle case in one hand, after Dooley had given him the all clear. He was instantly exchanging high fives with the rest of the team, except for Heidi Renfer, who stepped so far out of character as to kiss him on the mouth, hard.

  I knew she and Spencer would be kidded by the team about that kiss, along with Spencer's rescue of the "damsel in distress," for years to come. But they'd both get over it. And I was glad that Karl's cousin hadn't died today.

  The first thing Dooley had done after the shot was to quickly check Heidi's back for a gunshot wound, although the fact that she was still standing under her own power was a good sign. Her Kevlar body armor had stopped the round from penetrating the skin, although she was going to have a painful bruise between her shoulder blades later.

  "I figured her armor would stop the round," Dooley said to me, as we stood a little ways off, watching the SWAT team, along with Karl, congratulating Spencer. "Especially after being slowed by the window and Longworth's body. The odds were good."

  "And what if the odds didn't pay off today," I said, "and the bullet kept on going? What then?"

  "She still might've survived, if it missed a vital organ. Besides," he said, and his hard eyes bored into mine, "what odds would you give her if we just let Longworth take her out of here? Huh?"

  I looked away from his stare. "Between slim and none," I said. I felt a deep sigh come out of me before I said, "I'm not questioning your order, Lieutenant. It was the right call, and I'd have made the same one myself, in your position. It's just that I'd have preferred him alive to question, that's all. But I agree the situation didn't make that possible."

  "Yeah, okay, then. All right." Dooley's lean face softened a little. "Question him, you mean, about that shit he was talking – about you losing a loved one? You worried about somebody, Stan? Because I can get twenty-four-seven protection assigned as soon–"

  I held up a hand. "No, that's all right. It wouldn't work in this case, although I appreciate the offer – I do."

  Dooley looked at me for a bit. "Who are we talking about, anyway, Stan? I know about, uh, your wife, God rest her. You seeing somebody these days? Is that who you think Longworth was talking about?"

  "No, no girlfriend," I told him. "The only realistic candidate... is my daughter Christine."

  The silence was even longer this time. I listened to the sirens reach a peak, then stop outside the building. "I remember Christine," Dooley said. "And I also thought I remembered that she, uh, had died a while back."

  "You're right," I said. "She did."

Given the Longworth family's social prominence (and big fat bank account), the chief had sent a captain down to supervise the cleanup. I bet Internal Affairs was going to spit blood over that.

  Captain D'Agostino brought a team of eight detectives with him. He said it would be a while before they got to me, so I spent the time wandering around the condo, being careful not to touch anything or disturb the forensics techs.

  Like the rest of the place, Jamieson Longworth's bedroom didn't look especially lived in. It contained a king-sized bed (where I gus he fucked all those nice girls his mom had mentioned), some new-looking furniture, and a big, elaborate computer, but not much of his personality was imprinted on the room. Considering what I knew about his personality, the room should've considered itself lucky.

  I wandered over to the huge computer desk that looked like it was made out of teak. It had drawers, cubbyholes, paper trays, and even a cup holder.
Wouldn't want to spill any cappuccino on the keyboard, would we?

  The machine itself was a Dell PC that I assumed was top-of-the-line. It looked like it had everything but warp drive, and I decided not to bet against that feature either. I would have loved to go through its files to see if I could shed any light on Longworth's threats, but Captain D'Agostino would probably boil me in oil for messing around with his crime scene.

  I'd have to see about getting access to the computer through channels later, assuming it was even impounded as evidence and the Longworth family didn't demand its return immediately. The Longworths, I was learning, tended to get what they wanted. But even they couldn't fetch sonny-boy back from Hell, where I hoped he and some especially sadistic demon were having a nice chat right about now.

  Some scraps of paper and index cards were strewn around the keyboard and mouse pad, and I bent over them to see if Jamieson Longworth had obligingly left all his secrets written down for me, just like on TV. I took out my pen and used its blunt end to move some of the stuff around a little for a better look, but all I learned was that Longworth wanted to remember to "Call Mom," had a dentist appointment next week he was unlikely to keep, and was running low on pineapple juice and cottage cheese.