“Tell him,” I said, “tell him to open his safe. Make him open it.”
Artie glared. “Carl, will you please shoot this son of a bitch? If you don’t have the balls, give me the gun and let me do it.”
“I think,” Carl said after a moment’s thought, “I would like to see your safe now.”
He marched us into Artie’s office, but he kept the gun trained on me, giving me a jab in the back with the barrel. Artie went behind his desk, opening a polished birch cabinet to reveal the gunmetal-black face of a small safe.
“This is stupid,” he said, looking back at Carl. “You are about to feel really, truly stupid—”
“Open it.”
I held my breath as Artie keyed in the combination. Tumblers clanked and the door swung wide to reveal…nothing. A few loose papers. A thin stack of cash. A passport. I’d gotten it wrong. There was no recording, not here.
“I’m sorry,” Artie said with a sneer, “you were expecting something different? Now waste this asshole!”
“Gentlemen,” I said, brandishing the white casino chip I’d enchanted that morning, holding it between my thumb and forefinger. They paused, uncertain.
“The fifth rule of magic, and my personal favorite: always make a dramatic exit.”
I flipped the chip in the air. It spun end over end, slowing as it reached the top of its arc, and exploded.
14.
The chip erupted with a blinding flash, smearing a green haze across my retinas as every light in the house died at once. I dove for the door. Carl’s pistol barked twice, streaking the room with white lightning. I scrambled around the corner as another pair of shots blasted into the wall and blew away chunks of stucco.
The house swam in darkness, only the blinking of a digital clock painting the shadows a baleful crimson. I ran to the living room to grab what I needed from the poker table and ducked underneath just in time, watching Carl charge past me on his way to the front door. I kept my footsteps light on the shag carpet, moving as fast as I could, ducking into the bathroom as Artie’s bedroom door flew open. He didn’t have a gun, but he’d grabbed one of the samurai swords. He waved it over his head and raced through the house.
I crouched between the toilet and the sink, engulfed in shadow. I looked to my left and my heart jumped into my throat. Caitlin perched like a bird on the rim of the bathtub. Her eyes shone in the dark, no longer green. Now they were the color of polished pennies. She put her finger to her lips.
“Shh,” she whispered. I nodded.
She held up one finger and pointed left, shaking her head. Then she pointed right and held up her open palm, as if telling me to wait. Finally she dropped her hand. I didn’t think; I just ran. She could have been leading me right into Artie and Carl’s arms, but my instincts said otherwise.
I made it to the kitchen and dug through the cabinets, hoping I could find what I needed. I was almost done with my makeshift creation when the overhead fluorescents flickered back to life. Artie and Carl barged through the swinging doors, zeroing in on me—and froze.
“I wouldn’t,” I said calmly, letting them take a good look.
I stood in an arcane circle painted on the linoleum floor with a box of sea salt I’d stolen from Artie’s cabinets. It was a sloppy rush job done in the dark, but I held my ground like it was an iron fortress. In my left hand, I held Caitlin’s contract.
In my right hand, I held a lighter.
Caitlin stood in the corner, looking between the three of us like a cat who couldn’t decide which mouse to eat first.
“Wait!” Artie shouted, at Carl as much as at me. Carl kept his gun steady, glaring daggers.
“You know how this works,” I told them, sparking the cheap plastic lighter. “Contract goes up in smoke, she goes free. I imagine she’ll have a lot to say about how you two have been treating her.”
Carl hesitated, looking between me and Artie as if not sure who to believe. I lowered the contract an inch, almost close enough to touch the open flame.
“Call him off,” I warned Artie. “If he shoots me, I drop the contract against the lighter, and bad things happen. Really excruciatingly bad things. Caitlin, tell him what you’ll do to him if I set you free.”
She smiled and said, “Everything.”
“It’s suicide!” Artie cried. “She’ll kill you too!”
“Not while I’m standing in a circle of art. She can’t cross the salt.”
“That’s not even a real circle! The glyphs are all screwed up!”
“This,” I explained, “is an Astrum Argentum grounding pattern. It works just fine, I can promise you that. Sure, I’ll be trapped inside, but I’m hoping she’ll get bored and go away eventually. If nothing else, I’ll have time to plan my next move. You won’t.”
A serpentine tongue slithered across Caitlin’s lips, leaving a glistening trail in its wake.
“What do you want?” Artie stammered. “Money? Girls? Drugs? You’ve got to want something!”
“The truth. About Stacy Pankow.”
“I don’t know anything about—” he started to say, then clutched the hilt of his sword to his chest as I dangled the papers a little closer to the flame. “All right! All right, it was my brother’s idea—”
“Don’t tell him anything,” Carl growled.
Artie shook his head. “I wanted to be on the inside, and to do that you’ve got to make a kill, all right? It has to be a special kill, and you have to use the special spell after, so we were filming a scene and I just held her head under the water. I held her and wouldn’t let her up and she kicked and thrashed around but I just wouldn’t let her up.”
Tears streamed down Artie’s cheeks, his confession spilling out in a babbling cadence. I could only follow every third word or so, but it sounded like bad craziness. “You were filming,” I said. “Focus, Artie. Where is the recording? I want it.”
“I’ve had it with this bullshit!” Carl shouted, raising his gun. Artie spun, bringing the sword down hard and fast. Carl’s right hand, fingers still clutching his pistol, fell to the kitchen floor.
Carl gripped the stump of his wrist, staring at his spurting blood with wide, incredulous eyes. “You—” he stammered, slumping to the floor.
“I—I told you,” Artie said. “I told you not to.”
Carl’s face went stony gray, shock taking over as his blood spattered across the floor. His mouth opened and closed like a fish on a hook, but no sound came out.
“I told him,” Artie said.
“Focus. The recording. Where is it?”
“No way! I tell you that, you’ve got no reason to give me the contract back!”
“All right,” I said, nodding, “we do it the proper way, then. We invoke an Unbreakable Oath. You’re an expert magician, you know how those work, right?”
“O—of course I do!”
“I pledge,” I intoned gravely, “by the Unbreakable Oath of the Great Brotherhood, in the knowledge that I will burn in eternal hellfire should I break my word, that I shall trade you this contract, unharmed in any way, in exchange for the recording of Stacy Pankow’s murder. I further vow that no harm will come to you from me or mine, and that there will be peace between us for the rest of our days. Do you accept this pledge?”
“I…I do,” he said, his head bobbing like a metronome.
“And so the Oath is sealed, by our magic and our word, forever and unbreakable. Now then, as you know, since I made the pledge, it’s tradition for you to fulfill your part of the bargain first. Where’s the video?”
“Under my mattress, in my bedroom! But it’s yours now! It’s yours, okay? Take it, I don’t need it! Just…give me the contract? Please?”
“Before I do,” I said, “there’s one thing you need to know. Something you absolutely must understand.”
“What? Say it!”
“I lied,” I said and held the contract to the flame. It went up like flash paper, blazing with a crumpling implosion of sound and the stench of brimston
e. The last remnants of blackened ash tumbled from my fingertips like cherry blossoms on a gentle wind.
Caitlin smiled as she sauntered across the kitchen floor, taking her time. She paused to stand over Carl. He blinked, staring blankly from glassy eyes, bleeding out and barely conscious.
“You, I’ll see in hell,” she murmured, taking hold of his head with one hand and wrenching it with a sickening crack. She dropped his corpse to the floor and looked at Artie. “He was in shock. Torturing him wouldn’t have been any fun at all. I’ll fix that when I get home.”
Artie pressed himself against the refrigerator, cornered, blubbering.
“But as for you…oh, you. Artie, Artie, Artie. Your ambition was admirable. I don’t fault you for it.” Caitlin’s Scottish brogue grew harder as she took hold of his trembling arms, pulling him into an embrace. “But you humiliated me. Did you think the bill for that would never come due? Did you think you could leave the restaurant without paying the check?”
He struggled against her, helpless, weeping. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
I closed my eyes. Part of me wanted to make a run for it, a mad dash to the door just to escape being any part of this, but Caitlin was too quick, too strong. I knew I’d never make it. I stayed in my little circle of salt, hoping it would be over fast.
“Do you know,” she told him, “that with every slap, every insult, every indignity, I was taking solace in thinking about what I was going to do to you for all of eternity? No tears now, Artie, this is just a taste of what’s to come. Just my little way of saying ‘goodbye for now, see you again soon.’”
I held my breath.
“Little magus,” she said, and I realized she was talking to me. I opened my eyes. She held Artie in her arms, coiled in a parody of a seductive embrace.
“You should watch this,” she said, flashing a smile lined with shark teeth.
Then she bit into his cheek. Slowly.
I don’t know how long it lasted. Two hours? Three? I had my eyes shut for most of it, standing on wavering legs, listening to Artie scream in pitches no human throat should be able to reach as Caitlin painted the walls with his blood. In the end it was just choked gurgling and chewing noises.
At some point I realized I didn’t hear anything but the distant hum of air conditioning. I opened my eyes. Caitlin stood there, watching me, her pale skin and emerald gown drenched in gore. She wore a thoughtful smile. I glanced toward the corner of the kitchen and immediately wished I hadn’t, struggling to keep my stomach under control.
“Now then,” she said, “what are we going to do with you?” She strolled around the edge of the circle of salt, eyeing it, looking for a break in the pattern.”It was a good bluff.”
“The Unbreakable Oath?” I said. “Yeah, no such thing. Still, you can toss anything to a drowning man. Tell him it’s a life preserver and he’ll probably take it.”
“Not that bluff. This one.”
She slid one foot effortlessly across the line of salt and stepped inside the circle with me.
15.
I tried not to tremble as I looked into Caitlin’s copper eyes, her teeth a heartbeat from my throat. The scent of her perfume mingled with the stench of gore, becoming some new and unearthly scent that whispered of charnel houses and night-blooming flowers.
“I was trying,” I said, swallowing hard, “trying to make a real circle, but it was dark, and I didn’t have much time—”
“Shh,” she said, putting her finger to my lips. I tasted Artie Kaufman’s blood.
So there it was. I should have listened to Bentley and Corman. I should have done a lot of things that I didn’t. In the span of a second, a thousand regrets flashed before my eyes.
At least I had something to be proud of. Artie and Carl would never hurt anyone again, and Jud could rest easy knowing he’d gotten some justice for his little girl. Not much of a balance against my life of crime, but I’d done a little good in the end. Caitlin rested her hand against my chest, feeling my heart pound, drinking in my fear. I raised my chin and looked her in the eyes. If nothing else, I could go out with a little dignity.
“I’m not going to beg,” I said softly.
“Beg?” A smile glinted in her eyes. “Oh, I’m sure I could make you beg. Another time, perhaps.”
She curled her other hand in my hair, letting me feel the scrape of her fingernails, razor-sharp and hungry. My eyes closed as she leaned close. Her lips brushed against my cheek, a gentle kiss that left an electric tingle in its wake.
When I opened my eyes, she was gone.
I stood alone in the carnage. Just me, two corpses, and a houseful of evidence. Sunrise would bring visitors. Witnesses. Emotions were an indulgence I couldn’t afford right now. I took all the horror and shock and bottled it in the back of my mind, safely out of the way while my professional instincts took over.
First stop, Kaufman’s bedroom. I was nowhere near his size, but my clothes and shoes were sticky with his blood and they had to go. I found some clunky sneakers and a T-shirt and gym pants that fit like a tent, but at least they’d get me home. I slid my hand under his mattress, closing my fingers around a tiny wedge of plastic. The black Sony memory card must have come straight from Kaufman’s camera. The stick went into a shopping bag along with the Black Eye, the cash take from the poker game, and the money left in the office safe. Not a bad little payday. I walked through the house with a hand towel from the bathroom, wiping down every doorknob and surface I might have touched.
I didn’t want to go back into the kitchen, but I had no other option. Holding my breath and reeling at the stench, trying not to look at the corner of the room, I rummaged through the cabinet under the sink for a plastic bucket and an assortment of cleaners. A pour of this and a dollop of that resulted in a witch’s brew straight out of The Anarchist Cookbook.
I splashed the concoction across baseboards and dribbled it in a trail along carpets, spreading the nostril-searing slop in every room I’d visited except for the kitchen. I wanted those bodies found and identified. I used the last of the bucket’s contents to soak my old clothes, piled close to the door, and watched the blue flames rise at a touch of my lighter. The arson would be obvious, but that was the point. It’s a lot easier to leave a crime scene in hopeless confusion than it is to make it pristine.
Flames licked the windows, mirroring the glow from the rising sun, as I hopped into the Mustang and rolled out of the driveway. Once I got two blocks away, I paused at a stop sign and used my burner phone to call 911 and report the fire, hanging up when they asked my name. My next call was to Jud.
“Is this—” he started to say, and I cut him off fast.
“Don’t talk. Just listen. The job’s done. Watch the news tonight. Now lose this number and never contact me again.”
I opened the back of the phone, pulled out its SIM card, and dropped it on the asphalt. I jumped out of the car and ground it to broken fragments under my heel. The rest of the phone wound up in a Dumpster half a mile away. I dropped off the Mustang at the rental place, signing off on it as Peter Greyson, and took a cab to a convenience store a few blocks from my apartment. All direct connections between me and the two dead men, and most of the indirect ones, were sliced away clean.
Under normal circumstances, I’d have congratulated myself on a job well done. Jud Pankow had hired me for payback, and he’d gotten it in spades. Carl and Artie’s deaths were no great loss to the world, and nobody got hurt in the crossfire. Still, I didn’t feel like celebrating. I’d lied to Jud. The job wasn’t done, not by a long shot.
Stacy’s half-formed wraith still wailed under the city streets. I’d have liked to think that taking down her killer would set her free to move on, but she wasn’t that kind of ghost. Artie had done something beyond mere murder: in the kitchen he’d babbled about a “special kill” and a “special spell.”
It was my brother’s idea, he’d whined. The same brother, I assumed, as the one who read him the riot act over the phone
about letting Carl have as much time with Caitlin as he wanted. His brother needed seeing-to.
Then there was Nicky Agnelli. He had a hand in this grim mess, and I still didn’t know why. If my paranoia held true and he’d been keeping magical tabs on me, he’d know what I had done by now. Taking off the Black Eye in the middle of Artie’s house, exposing me to Nicky’s pet seer, made sure of that. Nothing I could do about it now. I’d just have to hope I was wrong, that Jud was the one he was watching, or that I’d lucked out and nobody was looking my way. If not, things were about to get a lot more complicated.
And then there was Caitlin. Maybe she’d gone back to hell. Maybe she hadn’t. I wasn’t sure what to think about Caitlin, only that I couldn’t stop seeing her every time I closed my eyes.
I went home, put Kaufman’s clothes in a trash bag, and fell back on my bedspread. I’d long since burned through the last of my adrenaline, moving on nothing but momentum and survival instinct. I didn’t have the strength left to do anything but sleep.
#
Orange light washed against my curtains as the hammering of a woodpecker dragged me from a fitful sleep. No, not a woodpecker, it was my main cell phone vibrating against my end table. I pushed myself up, groaning, and reached for it. Four missed calls. Wonderful.
“I’m here,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
“Daniel.” Bentley’s voice was a mixture of reproach and fear. “What did you do?”
News had spread fast. Naked, I ambled over to the desk and turned on my laptop, stifling a yawn.
“I, ah…things got complicated.”
“Did you kill those men?”
The Las Vegas Sun’s website showed a picture of Artie’s house, the front window smashed out and his doorframe licked by fire. The headline screamed, “Double Murder, Arson in Henderson.”
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