Poison City (4 page)

And the ink isn’t any run-of-the-mill ink. It’s a special supply made from dried dragon blood, passed down through the centuries.

Only problem is, the tattoos – they’re kind of alive. The dragon blood craves sacrifice, and every time I summon them I find them harder to control. They hate me. Hate being trapped. They’d give anything to break free.

Plus, every second they’re awake they drain my life source, literally devouring parts of my soul. The dog helps me a bit, throwing in some of his own power so the tattoos don’t suck me dry. But even so, I’m terrified of calling them up. I never know if they’re sucking weeks off my life. Months.
Years
, even.

Still, if the alternative is actually being ripped apart by some old bastard of a god, I suppose you can’t complain.

I move forward until the dragons are within reach of Babalu-Aye. They wrap around him, yank him to his feet, pull him towards me.

His eyes widen suddenly in surprise. His lips pull back from the teeth in a shout of pain.

I wonder what’s going on. Are the dragons killing him? Draining him dry?

Then I see it. The dog has clamped his teeth on Babalu-Aye’s balls. Yeah, gods have genitalia when they’re corporeal. How else are they going to indulge in their favourite pastime – fornicating with mortals?

I focus my attention on the dragons and mutter the words of sleep. The dragons shudder, fighting me all the way. I push my focus into the words, repeat them over and over, and they finally release Babalu-Aye with a hiss of displeasure and snake back over my head, coiling back around my arms and down my back. As always, I feel like they’re somehow trying to take me with them. Like they’re trying to pull me into Nightside with them, where, I have no doubt, they’d have a lot of fun ripping me to pieces.

I stagger, a wave of nausea washing over me.

-London? Don’t flake out on me, man. Got my mouth full here.-

I straighten up, take a few steadying breaths. I spot my shotgun a few feet away and scramble over to grab it. Babalu-Aye has pulled a knife from somewhere and is about to plunge it into the dog’s ribs.

I place the sawed-off against the back of the old bastard’s neck. He freezes.

‘Dog,’ I said calmly. ‘Drop.’

The dog releases his grip. I take a shaky breath, relief flooding through my system. I break into a grin and glance down at the dog.

‘Who’s a good boy, then?’ I say. ‘Huh? You are. Yes you are!’

‘Bite me, London,’ mutters the dog.

I make sure the gun doesn’t lose contact with Babalu-Aye’s neck and use it to shove him ahead of me through the dirty corridors.

‘You know you cannot harm me,’ he says mildly. ‘The Covenant applies to your kind as well.’

‘You picked a good time to start worrying about the Covenant, old man.’

‘I am not a man. I am a God. Capital G. And if you think you are going to walk away from this, you truly are a most stupid skinbag.’

I prod him roughly with the barrel, hoping he can’t pick up on my nervousness. Hoping the dog, trotting along a few feet behind, can’t either. He’s right, of course. No matter what happens this afternoon I’m making enemies. That’s what happens when you don’t think things through.

Funny. That’s what Armitage always says about me. I’m too impulsive. If I survive this I’ll have to tell her she’s right. She’ll like that.

Babalu-Aye eventually leads me to the far end of the building. Into a long room with high windows to either side.

Dust motes flash and wink in the lowering sun. Glass partitions run the length of the room, painted with images that are supposed to be calming to children: a scene from ‘The Cow Jumped over the Moon’, with a cat that looks like it’s high on cocaine playing a fiddle while the moon leers down at it, grinning like a serial killer. Badly copied versions of Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig, chipped and faded. And creepiest of all, paintings of kids on their knees. Praying. But all of them with their backs to the viewer.

‘Where’s the kid?’

Babalu-Aye points to a door at the far end of the room. ‘Through there.’

We reach the door. It’s thick, with a round window at the top. But I can’t see through. There’s a piece of warped cardboard stamped with the word ‘sunlight soap’ stuck to the other side.

‘Open it.’

‘That is a very bad idea.’

‘Open it!’

The orisha sighs. ‘Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Babalu-Aye pushes the door. I shove him hard, sending him stumbling into the room. I follow after.

Images flash before me, like photographs whipped past my eyes.

A huge room. White tiles, cracked, dripping with black fluid. An old metal bunk bed, six feet high, all the springs pulled out. A boy of about twelve tied spread-eagled between the frame of the top bunk, facing down to the floor. A fine sand-like substance siphoning from his nose and mouth, making little piles on the ground.

And on the floor some kind of black leathery cocoon. About ten feet long. There’s movement in the cocoon, a rippling beneath the surface.

‘What . . . ?’

Babalu-Aye looks at it in disgust. ‘They can never control themselves,’ he says. ‘They are like teenagers tasting their first beer. All they want is more and more.’

‘More?’ I don’t know what I’m looking at.

‘More souls,’ says Babalu-Aye. ‘Unbaptized. Unnamed. Before they reach adulthood.’

I look around in dawning realization. The scene in front of me changes in my perception, like one of those pictures that can be either a young woman or an old crone.

The powder – manifested soul, stolen from the child.

The cocoon . . . not a cocoon at all.

As if hearing our voices for the first time, the mass on the floor undulates backwards and rises up. Black leathery wings unfold. Six sets. Two at the feet. Two on the back. Two on the neck.

They open up to reveal . . .

I stumble backwards. The creature in front of me has four faces. Not four heads, but four faces, north, south, east and west. Each of them has black eyes and a mouth wide open in a silent scream. The noses are coated with the sand. It’s smeared across the cheeks.

I can’t believe what I’m looking at. I wonder if I’m the first human to see such a thing.

An angel. But in its true form.

I’ve seen one or two angels in my work at Delphic Division. Not many. They tend to stick to Europe for some reason. But those I
have
seen were always projecting an image, something that wouldn’t freak us poor mortals out. Marble statue features. Feathery wings, etc.

This ten-foot monstrosity is what they really look like.

It stares at me, but I see no awareness behind its eyes. I’ve seen the same look on crack-heads down at the beachfront.

This angel is getting high on the souls of children.

‘He’s becoming quite the addict,’ says Babalu-Aye conversationally. ‘I think I will have to move him to another city now. I can only acquire so many children before softskins start to complain.’

His words penetrate my shock.

I blink.

Then I shoot Babalu-Aye in the face.

His head bursts in a fine red mist. The explosion thunders through the room. Brain and blood spatter the dirty tiles. The orisha drops to his knees then falls forward to the floor.

I crack open the sawn-off, eject the empty shells, load two more. The dog is shouting at me, but I can’t hear him. My ears are ringing. I’m not sure if it’s from the gunshot or just shock. I jerk the gun, flicking it closed again. Pull back the two hammers.

Unload both rounds into the angel’s face.

It shrieks, black blood spewing from its mouths. It flies back against the bed, knocking it over onto its side so the kid is now suspended sideways in the air. I hurry forward, try to untie him. I can’t see any awareness in his eyes. I don’t know if I’m too late. Can’t get the rope undone.

The angel is thrashing around on the tiles, kicking and squealing. It’s like Satan’s own fingernails screeching across the blackboard of my soul.

I stop trying to untie the rope and jerk the shells out of the gun, load two more. Point the gun with my right hand and fish around at my belt for my knife – a present from Becca before she left me.

I find it. Cut the ropes of the kid’s feet. He swings down into a standing position.

‘Kid!’ I slap his face. ‘Kid. You hear me?’

The sand is still leaking from his nose and mouth, but the stream seems to have slowed. He blinks as I cut his hands free. The angel has stopped thrashing, is staring dully at me now, trying to speak around a ruined mouth. I’m sure I can see its flesh knitting together again, healing. I step forward and put the gun right against its head. It tries to bat it away but I pull the trigger. Brains or whatever the hell angels have spatter out the other side and it flops down again.

The dog’s voice gradually filters back into my awareness.

‘You are
so
fucked, London! What the hell are you playing at? You won’t get away with this. Every orisha and super is going to be after your blood! This is what happens when you don’t listen to me you stupid c—’

I turn and look at him. Something in my face stops his stream of abuse. He backs away. I turn back to the kid. He’s looking around now, his awareness returning. I try to block his view of the angel behind me.

‘Can you walk? Kid, can you walk?’

He blinks at me and moves his mouth. He spits. Sand drops to the floor. I wince, resisting the urge to tell him not to lose any more.

‘Get out of here. Go downstairs. Out the front doors. You hear me?’

He nods, then stumbles out the room. I wait till I see him start to run past the glass-walled partitions before turning back to the angel, wondering how to finish it off.

It’s standing right behind me.

The angel backhands me. I fly through the air and smash into the tiles, collapse to the floor. I lose my gun again. Need to glue that damn thing to my hand. It skids about ten feet away, out of reach.

The angel’s face is reforming before my eyes, white-grey flesh knitting together. Its wings – the largest pair on its back – flare out, stiffening, smashing into the ceiling, punching holes in the tiles. The wings flex and move with each heavy breath the angel takes, pulling tiles from the walls.

There is a moment of emptiness. The breath of creation waiting to see what happens next. Ceramic fragments fall to the floor with tiny
plink
plink
sounds.

Then the angel smiles around its ruined mouths.

It uses its wings as leverage, stiffening them and launching itself straight at me.

I don’t have time to think. I shove off with my feet, sliding through Babalu-Aye’s blood. I make it out of reach just as the angel lands where my head was, crushing the floor tiles with its weight.

It gets stuck in the hole for a second, long enough for me to scramble for my gun. I unload the last barrel into its face, aiming for the eyes this time. It screams in pain and I turn and run. The dog is already ahead of me, halfway towards the door at the far end of the glass-partitioned room.

So much for my backup.

I pop the shells and load my last two. Not good. The shells aren’t really having an effect on the angel. This is going to require something more radical.

I look over my shoulder just as the wall of the room explodes outwards, the angel simply shoving through the bricks. Dust billows towards me, followed by one extremely pissed off and extremely high angel.

I reach around and grab my satchel, pull it open and stash my gun. It’s not going to help me.

Running. Holding my bag in one hand. Through the glass-partitioned room, along the corridor beyond. Down the stairs, slipping onto my back, pushing myself up as I hear the footsteps pounding behind me. Down to the first floor. The yellow corridor. Close now. Have to get out. The angel won’t come out into the light. No matter how high the stupid thing is, an angel revealing itself to the public is a huge no-no. I hope. I don’t know. But it’s my only chance.

The corridor is long. I sprint as fast as I can, but even before I reach the end I know I’m not going to make it. The footsteps are closer. I can hear them, feel the vibrations in the wooden floorboards.

I glance over my shoulder just in time to see the angel launch itself at me, reaching out with huge hands. I spin around, bring my knife up. It pierces the angel’s hand as it crashes into me. We fly back into the wall. Rotten plaster caves in, showers us in white dust. I can feel the dog’s wards straining at the impact.

We’re embedded in the wall. I hear the snapping of teeth. The fucker is trying to bite me. I yank my knife out its hand and stab it in the neck. Black blood gouts over my hand, steaming hot. I snatch my hand back but the angel doesn’t seem to have noticed the wound. I push back on the angel’s chin, forcing its neck taut. I bring the knife up to cut its throat but the angel jerks back, pulling us both out the wall.

I punch the knife repeatedly into its stomach. Over and over until it lets me go. I drop to the floor, scrabble between its legs, stand up, and do the only other thing I think might hurt it.