Devil Said Bang (39 page)

Patty screams, her voice distorting into an animal
wail through the tiny phone speaker. Then the crowd screams. What follows is a
sound I recognize from the arena. A blade cutting through the air. Little girl’s
laughs drift from the phone with the bloody, drowning gurgle of someone choking
on their own blood.

The ground shakes beneath my feet. I expect to see
Cherry but the shaking goes on. Windows up and down the street shatter and fall.
The sound is like another thousand knives going into a girl’s throat. I brace
myself against the Metro until the shaking stops. It takes a few seconds, and
when it stops, I know that Patty Templeton is dead.

I don’t know how many people, Hellions, and hell
beasts I’ve seen die over the years. The ones in the arena or the streets all
went down the same way. In front of me. The worst times in the arena were when
the games were going while I waited in my cell. All I could do was listen to the
fighting and dying. Listening was so much worse than seeing. It was like dying
by whispers. You were never sure if that other fighter was dead, paralyzed, or
being eaten alive by a scaly beast. Dying by phone is no way to go. Not for
anyone. Not for anyone I know.

Candy puts her head out the window.

“Are you okay?”

“Great. Peachy.”

“Who was that on the phone?”

I shake my head.

“No one. Wrong number.”

I start across the street.

Getting through Blackburn’s wards is just like last
time. Slow and steady wins the race. He’s added two more layers since I was here
but I move through them just like the others. It’s all about concentration and
channeling Lucifer’s hate through the armor so it radiates like hellfire. No
earthly magic is going to stand up to that.

No one is in the front of the house, so I head
straight into the parlor. Blackburn is sitting at his desk like he’s waiting for
me. Tuatha, his wife, is in a chair across the room. She looks worse than last
time. Like she gave up martinis for formaldehyde. Perched on the end of
Blackburn’s desk is Brigitte.

“Hello, Jimmy,” she says. “I was hoping you
wouldn’t come back here.”

She shifts her eyes from me to her right then back
to me. I take a step into the parlor and snap out the na’at to where she looked.
One of Cairo’s men drops to the floor.

I go over to Brigitte.

“What are you doing here? Tell me you’re not part
of this shitstorm.”

She puts her hand on Blackburn’s arm.

“Saragossa is a friend. That’s all.”

Blackburn just sits there. Useless and staring at
his wife. He puts his hand over Brigitte’s. It the gesture of an old man trying
to find something to hold on to while his ship is sinking.

I pull Brigitte off the desk and push her into a
chair. Drag my arm across Blackburn’s desk, knocking everything to the
floor.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Killing dreamers?
Playing with reality? Do you have any goddamn idea what you’re doing?”

“Please. My wife.”

He holds out his hand to Tuatha.

“Fuck you and your wife. You’re not just turning
the sky the wrong color. You just killed a girl whose only sins were having an
asshole for a boyfriend and wanting to keep the world from falling apart.”

Blackburn’s hand falls on a pen that was still on
the desk. He delicately straightens it and then clasps his hands together.

“I’m sorry. It started well. We would replace the
dreamers with our people and mold the world into our own image. A better place
for Sub Rosa and civilians. No one was supposed to die.”

“That’s what every amateur killer says when they’re
up to their elbows in blood. Not only did you kill all those people but you
poked a hole in the universe. Opened us up to angry Godeating motherfuckers who
want you and me and Brigitte and your precious wife flushed down the cosmic
toilet.”

He shakes his head.

“I had no choice,” he says. “You see, they took her
soul.”

“Who?”

Brigitte raises her eyes to something behind
me.

He catches me with the first bullet before I can
turn around. It shouldn’t go through the armor but it does. He must have used my
Spiritus Dei trick. My back burns and my chest aches. It feels like a rib is
cracked. When I turn to face him, Cairo empties the rest of a 9mm clip. Fourteen
quick shots. I throw myself onto the floor and roll toward him. Even hurt, I’m
fast and he’s hurt worse, so most of the shots miss. Still, he tags me three
more times. It’s bad but not enough for this punk to kill me. When I’m close to
him, I extend the na’at, knocking the gun out of his hand. Very suave, but when
I try to sit up, the bullets grind in my chest, taking my breath away. I spit
and there’s blood in it.

The next thing I’m looking at is the ceiling. Then
Cairo’s grinning face. It’s covered in blood and road rash. There’s a nice chunk
of radius bone sticking out of his right arm. One of his knees is ripped open
but he’s still walking on it. That’s not healing magic. That’s Dixie Wishbone.
He’s higher than the Goodyear blimp. He pushes a finger into each of the bullet
holes in the armor when he talks. It feels exactly what you think having a
junkie’s bony fingers in your chest feels like.

“Funnyman. You look awfully funny down there,
funnyman.”

Cairo pats me down. Feels the Qomrama Om Ya in my
coat pocket. He’s so pleased with himself that when he reaches for it, he
doesn’t see me shake the glove off my hand. I don’t have a lot of strength but I
have enough to pull him down on top of me and hold him while I stab my
oh-so-pointy Kissi arm up between his ribs and into his heart. I feel him twitch
and die and enjoy every second of it.

A light flares in the hall. Aelita manifests her
Gladius and comes at me.

I get my legs under Cairo and kick his body up at
her. She slashes down with the Gladius, cutting him in two. Blood and bile spray
in all directions, ruining Blackburn’s pretty rugs and wallpaper.

The move bought me just enough time to pull the
Qomrama and throw it at her. Which turns out to be exactly what Aelita wanted.
She kills the Gladius and lets the Qomrama sail past. When it starts back, she
catches it in an iron box studded with Angra runes.

She throws the catch and says, “Thank you for
bringing it to me. You’re the most helpful Abomination of them all.”

She manifests her Gladius again and heads for me.
Five shots hit her in the chest. She drops the box and falls to her knees.

I look back and see Brigitte holding the gun of the
guy I killed when I came in.

She kneels down next to me and helps me up.

“Thanks,” I say. “Get the box.”

When she reaches for it, Aelita twists and kicks
her in the face. Grabs the box and runs out of the room. I pull myself to my
feet and help Brigitte up.

“What the hell are you really doing here?” I
ask.

Brigitte goes back to Blackburn and I drop into the
chair she’d been sitting in. My chest is on fire but I can breathe. At least a
couple of the bullets are still inside me but the armor is holding me
together.

“I’ve been seeing Saragossa,” says Brigitte.
“Tuatha has been, as he said, unwell for some time. He was so depressed. And my
career was not going as well as I might have led you to believe. He introduced
me to people.”

“What was that about his wife’s soul?”

“Nasrudin Hodja, the soul merchant, took it,” says
Blackburn. “But I know it was on Aelita’s orders. I made her head of security.
It kept her close by.”

“Where is it?”

He shrugs.

“Where do you hide a soul?”

“So you assholes have been killing off dreamers to
control reality and you use the Imp to do it. Was that Aelita too?”

Blackburn nods.

“And who controls the Imp?”

“Osterberg.”

“And who controls him?”

“Aelita.”

“Are you sure?”

“Fairly,” says Blackburn.

Brigitte says, “Teddy’s family had power and lost
it. He isn’t Sub Rosa but he thinks like one. The world is all status with him.
He had a vicious little ghost in his collection and he let her loose for Aelita
so he could remain in the synod.”

“That’s not true. The ghost isn’t his. I’m sure of
it.”

“I know he controls the girl. That’s all that
matters,” says Blackburn.

“It makes a sick kind of sense. Someone gave him
power over the ghost but didn’t give him the ghost itself. That way when I asked
if she was his, he could say no and I wouldn’t detect a lie.”

“That sounds like Aelita’s way of thinking.”

Blackburn pats his pockets in a way I recognize. I
toss him the Maledictions. He looks at the pack. Doesn’t like that he doesn’t
recognize the brand. But beggars take what they can get. He takes one and tosses
the pack back.

“People tell me that the Imp killed people who
weren’t dreamers. Did you or Aelita order that?”

He shakes his head and lights the cigarette. Coughs
and starts to put it out. Brigitte takes it from him and puffs gently like she’s
teaching him how it’s done.

“I never ordered her to kill.”

“Jimmy, I was Blackburn’s friend but I didn’t know
about any of this until today. Please believe me.”

I have to think for a minute.

Blackburn goes to where his wife is sitting, takes
her hand, and holds it in both of his.

“I do.”

She says, “I think I know why other people were
killed.”

“Go on.”

“If I’d known about Teddy, I swear I would have
told you myself. I thought he was dead.”

“Why?”

“Because I stabbed him almost three months ago. I
didn’t know he was alive until Saragossa told me he’d been at the synod.”

“Why did you stab him?”

Brigitte looks away. I’ve never seen her
uncomfortable like this before.

“He wanted to eat me,” she says, shrugging. “Teddy
is a ghoul. He eats the dead but he’d never eaten a revenant. Though I wasn’t a
real zombie, I was as close as was left in the world and he wanted me. I thought
I killed him.”

“Amanda said Teddy had been mugged. It’s what he
must have told people. Does anyone else know about this?”

“I don’t think so.”

I flash on the ragged kids in the Tenebrae. So
scared they form gangs and avoid other ghosts. I see their knife slashes and
crescent-moon wounds.
Bite marks.

I get up and feel my ribs. The armor saved me but
something wet inside is sloshing against something else and it’s hard to
breathe. That’s okay. Teddy doesn’t look like a sprinter. If he runs, I’ll take
his little golf cart and chase him around the graveyards until his heart
explodes.

“I’ll come with you,” says Brigitte. “I’ve felt
dead inside and I thought it was the bite. It wasn’t. It was losing the hunt.
When you killed off all the undead, my life lost meaning. Now, fighting again, I
feel alive. Let me come with you and we’ll kill Teddy together.”

Sure. Candy wouldn’t mind the woman who kissed me
in the bar tagging along. Maybe they can have some girl talk about shoes on the
way to Malibu.

“If you want back in the game, that’s fine by me.
But Teddy I can handle. I need you to get these idiots somewhere safe. If Aelita
comes back, I don’t want her taking the royal assholes hostage.”

She nods.

“Just makes sure Teddy dies this time.”

“That I can promise. I’m cutting him into little
pieces and burying him with the Imp. Let’s see how they enjoy each other in the
Tenebrae.”

I look back at Blackburn.

“I’m sorry about your wife’s soul. I don’t know
what to do about it, but if I come up with anything, I’ll let you know.”

He nods and puts his arm around her shoulders.

Pain is pain and even the rich and powerful get
shafted sometimes. I want to hate Blackburn but I can’t. He’s too pathetic and
his wife is too fucked up for that. But a part of me still wants to take his
head. He let all those people die. He let Patty die. The Sandman Slim part of me
that killed dozens of high families wants to cut a piece of revenge out of his
hide. But this isn’t Hell and I’m not Sandman Slim full-time any more than I’m
full-time Lucifer. I’ll stick to the Teddys of the world. The sure-thing
monsters. That’s a judgment call I can make. A monster knows another monster and
a real monster knows which ones need to die.

C
andy
gets out of the car when she sees me. I’m breathing better but walking slow.

“What happened in there?”

“I forgot to tip the maid and she short-sheeted the
bed.”

“You realize you’re covered in blood?”

I look down at my shirt and armor. I’m a mess. If I
wasn’t me, I’d probably be alarmed.

“Don’t worry. It’s mostly Cairo’s.”

“You’re holding your side.”

“I got nipped a couple of times but I’m fine. Just
sore.”

She opens the Metro’s door.

“Get in the damn car. We’re going to the
clinic.”

I shake my head.

“I’m going to Teddy Osterberg’s. I’m not letting
that corpse fucker kill one more person. If you’re going to be part of what I
do, you have to understand this is how things are sometimes. I’m used to
bleeding and being hurt and they don’t have a damn thing to do with finishing
the job.”

She stalks away, spins, and walks back again.

“You’re such a fucking guy. I bet you never stop
and ask for directions.”

“If I stopped and asked for directions, I wouldn’t
end up in Hell so much and where’s the fun in that?”

Candy gets in the car, which is a good thing
because the ground trembles and opens where she was standing. I go to the edge
of the hole.

“Not now, Cherry.”

“The girl is on a rampage. You have to save
us.”

“Up here too. She’s not going to stop until I get
Teddy, so crawl back into your box and hide.”

“If you don’t kill her, I’ll never leave you alone.
I’ll pull the floor out from under you and drop you so low you’ll be a cripple
. . .”