by Jaye Wells
I shot a glance at Morales. Harry’s henchmen knew who we were, so either they were fucking with us or the asshole in charge of the intercom that day wasn’t one of the normal guys. I didn’t recognize the voice, but that didn’t mean much since covens tended to have high goon turnover.
“Tell Harry we’re here for a friendly chat but we’d be happy to have an unfriendly one downtown instead.”
“He’s not accepting visitors.”
I leaned over Morales, who pushed the button for me. “Put Harry on.”
“He’s indisposed.” Before the guy could take his finger off the button a loud scream came through the speaker.
Morales raised a brow. “Sounds like someone got here before us.”
“Let’s go.” I threw open my door and ran to the gate. Morales met me there. I expected to have to climb it to gain entrance, but the mechanism that locked it was broken, as if someone had pried it open with a crowbar. I removed my gun from my holster. “Look alive.”
We entered the dump with our guns drawn and our eyes scanning the piles of trash for ambush. The air here was heavy and hot despite the near-freezing temperature. The stench of rotting food and decomposing rodents was like a punch in the nose. We moved past that part of the junkyard as fast as possible. I knew from previous visits that the trailer Harry used as a makeshift office was just on the other side of a mountain of auto body parts. Up ahead the towering hill of old carburetors and engines rose like a rusty modern art sculpture. The good news was it hid our approach. The bad news was we had no idea what waited for us on the other side.
We paused in front of the pile and formed a plan. “You go right, I’ll go left,” Morales said. “I’ll approach from the front and you work your way to the back of the trailer. Hopefully we’ll meet in the middle without either of us gaining a bullet hole.”
“Should we call in some backup?” I asked.
Right then another loud scream reached us. Morales shook his head. “No time.”
I nodded in agreement and took off toward the right. On the edge of the steel mountain I peeked around toward the trailer. In the dirt near the steps leading to the front door, a rottweiler lay too still in a pool of blood.
I frowned. Last time we’d been to the junkyard, there had been two dogs. Part of me hoped the missing pooch had escaped its friend’s fate, but the other part was worried about stumbling into a frightened animal.
The good news was there weren’t any bad guys with weapons outside the trailer. However, raised voices were coming from inside. Unfortunately, the trailer only had one small window and it was on the door, so peeking in to get a head count was out of the question.
Just then Morales came around the other side of the pile and began making his way toward the door. He waved his gun at me to indicate it was safe to make my move. I ran to the side of the building. In the shade, the air was cold as a slap. I made my way to the corner and peeked around the back. Another door and set of stairs provided a rear exit. I began to edge toward the steps. As I moved, I kept my ears cocked for sounds of what was happening inside.
A man yelled, and it carried through the thin walls. A deeper but no less menacing voice joined it. Then a high-pitched whimper cut through the air and made my neck tighten. The wall at my back vibrated from movement inside. I raised my gun and pointed it at the door in case Morales’s arrival through the front door prompted an exodus out the back.
I was five feet from the back steps. A loud bang exploded through the trailer as Morales crashed through the front door. “MEA, put your guns down!”
The trailer rocked and the sounds of struggles vibrated through its walls. The back door burst open. A male in a black hoodie rushed out.
“Freeze!” I yelled, projecting my voice.
He looked up in shock. The lower half of his face was covered in a bandanna. His foot slipped and he skidded down the steps.
I jumped forward. “I said, freeze.”
The man complied, his shoulders up near his ears but his head facing down.
“Hands on your head!”
He placed his palms behind his neck. The move pulled the cuffs of the hoodie back. Along his arms, several alchemical symbols had been tattooed in stark black ink.
I tensed to pull away the items concealing his identity, but a low growl sounded from my right.
The hairs on the back of my neck went stiff as needles. From the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow move. A split second later, a massive jaw slammed down around my ankle. “Oh shit!”
The dog shook its head, knocking me off balance. I slammed to the hard-packed dirt. My salt flare flew from my hand to land under the trailer.
The guy in the hoodie blinked in shock for a moment. Then he took off like a bullet through the junkyard.
“Freeze!”
The only response was a growl from the dog. It shook its massive head again, like my ankle was a particularly juicy treat. Pain bolted up my leg. “Morales!”
“Busy here!” came the muted response inside the trailer. A loud thump echoed inside the metal box, making the walls shake.
I worked my fingers into the beast’s slobbery mouth. My fingertips slicked against sharp canines and fleshy gums. Luckily my jeans and leather boots prevented the massive teeth from sinking into my flesh. But with each second, the jaws ratcheted down farther, like a vise. If I didn’t move quickly, the pressure might snap ligaments or, worse, bone. Shooting the damned dog was out of the question, but I wasn’t about to just let it maim me.
Ribbons of drool dripped from my fingers. I wiped my left hand on my jeans, ignoring the moisture seeping through the denim. Then I did what I would have done to any human who refused to release me—I punched the beast in the eye.
The dog whimpered and released its grip long enough for me to scoot quickly out of the way. Unfortunately, the punch had only surprised it. Each step felt like my ankle was wrapped in lightning, but with speed born of adrenaline, I pulled myself up the steps and burst through the back. I slammed it closed a split second before the dog’s blocky head bashed into the metal door like a wrecking ball.
I slumped against the panel. “Shit.” My ankle throbbed and my heart felt like it wanted out of my chest.
The silence behind me had gravity to it. I turned slowly.
The first thing I spotted to my right was a heap on the floor. Harry Bane’s body was too still and covered in blood. His walking stick lay broken across his body. At the top of the splintered staff, the crystal skull was slicked with red.
The second person I saw was Morales. He stood motionless and tall with his hands up. “Told ya I was busy,” he said apologetically.
The third person in the room was about six feet, maybe two twenty. His skin was deep black. Not the brown of an African American man, but a deep onyx color that could only be achieved via magic. Some sort of scarification marred the side of his face—perhaps the result of an accident or a branding iron or the keloid scars of a tattoo that hadn’t healed right. His front teeth had a gap the size of the Lincoln Tunnel, and his eyes were silvery with cold intent.
The weapon he pointed at Morales wasn’t a Mundane pistol, like a Glock or a Sig. Instead it was a modified pellet gun—a Merlin Px4. That meant the barrel held potion pellets instead of bullets. I wished that made me feel better, but it didn’t. There was no telling what kind of dirty magic that asshole was aiming at my partner.
I reached for my salt flare, but at the same moment I touched the empty holster, I also realized the flare was still under the trailer. Without blinking, I grabbed my Glock from my other holster and pointed it at the assailant. “Drop your weapon!”
He didn’t flinch. It was clear he was the ringleader of the two assailants. The one who’d scampered away was obviously a lackey. Unlike the guy who’d run, the man I was looking at wouldn’t have hesitated to put a bullet through my skull while the dog attacked.
“Drop the gun, vadia, or your partner will need a saline enema.” His voice held the spice of
an accent I couldn’t place, but sounded Latin American.
The saline enema he mentioned was a reference to the fact that powerful potions required a massive cleansing with salt water to wash away the dirty magic.
Bam! The rottweiler pounded the door. In between each hit, it growled.
I glanced at Morales. His shoulders were up by his ears, but his expression had gone poker-blank. His right hand twitched. To the uninitiated eye the move could have looked like a nervous tic—after all, he had a gun pointed at his head.
“Now.” The man pointing the gun at my partner was no jittery street thug caught in a bad situation. His hands didn’t shake. His voice didn’t rise. And when he looked at me to underline his command, I had no doubt that he would shoot Morales if I didn’t comply.
“All right,” I said slowly. I made a show of holding the Glock by its stock and slowly lowering it to the ground.
“Kick it over here.” I did, kicking it with just enough force to take it to the middle of the room—halfway between us. Kicking it all the way over gave him two guns, but that way left me a chance to dive for it when the firefight broke out.
My heartbeat pulsed in my ears like a hammer rapping against a hollow steel drum. It echoed through my body with sickening inevitability—a rhythm of foreboding. In the corner, the pile of bloody rags moaned. The hellhound was still banging on the door. My eye twitched from the assault to my nerves.
“The BPD is already on its way,” I said. “We called for backup the minute we exited our car.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s a sin to lie, Detective Prospero?”
I smothered the dread that rose from him using my name so casually. “I’m afraid you have me at a loss, Mister—?”
A low, evil laugh came from his blackened lips. “Tell Special Agent Morales that he needs to stop thinking about playing the hero.”
I flicked my gaze toward Morales. A muscle jumped in his jaw.
Bang! The dog hit the door again, but instead of the repeated impacts getting farther apart as the dog tired, they were speeding up.
I feinted right. Mr. Black’s gun swiveled so fast I didn’t even see it move. Time slowed. My hand grasped the doorknob, twisting as I fell to the moldy carpet. A rush of cold air. Then a hulking and very pissed-off rottweiler barreled through the door.
Morales leaped behind the desk to take cover. I rolled toward my gun.
Mr. Black cursed. He got off a shot as the dog plowed into him. The rottie yelped, but the sound was swallowed by a fierce snarl.
I came up into a crouch and took stock. The dog blocked my view of Mr. Black’s face. The pair rolled across the floor in a tangle of growls and grunts, fists and sharp teeth. There was blood. Lots of it.
The dog whimpered and slid off the man. The entire right side of the dog’s body was paralyzed. Its left twitched and a confused growl emerged from the left side of its drooling mouth. Whatever was in that potion was draining the fight from the dog. The man’s left arm was bloodied, and he switched the potion gun to his right hand.
I pointed the gun at him. “Freeze, asshole!”
He paused in his effort to sit up and watched me with his two ghostly pale eyes. A shudder shivered through my body, as if someone had walked across my grave.
But before I could issue another command, the man’s mouth moved, like he had a marble rolling over his tongue. I frowned. “Stop what you’re doing.” I took a menacing step forward.
His jaw clamped down. Reddish-orange smoke leaked from between his black lips. My heart tap-danced inside my chest. But before I could figure out what he’d just done, his body disappeared.
Poof.
Gone.
The dog whimpered from its spot on the floor. I stepped closer to check on it, and realized its body was totally paralyzed. On its forehead a poison-green slick of gel indicated the spot where the potion ball made its impact. The fur there had already burned away, leaving charred skin.
Across the room, Morales was kneeling over Harry’s bloody body. “He’s still breathing.”
“Thank Christ,” I breathed. “I’ll call it in.” I pulled out my phone and punched the numbers.
“Sir, we’ve got trouble. Walked in on two men trying to kill Harry Bane.”
“Is he alive?” Her tone was preternaturally calm.
“I think so.” I glanced down at Bane. He wasn’t making sounds anymore, but every few seconds the fingers on his left hand twitched. “Perps got away, though. We need Mez.”
A muttered curse. “We’ll be there ASAP.”
Blood and drool slid down the walls like wet paint. I glanced toward the dog, whose sides heaved with the effort of pulling air into its lungs. “Oh, and call animal control. We got a dog here who’s had a pretty shitty day.”
I hung up the phone. “Cavalry is on the way, Macho. You okay?”
He leaned back on his ass. “Peachy.” I patted him on the shoulder and knelt down next to him to get a better look at Harry, who didn’t look peachy at all. Only patches of his pale white skin showed through the abrasions and rapidly spreading bruises. His long white hair was streaked dark red with drying blood. Both eyes were swollen shut. The black ankh tattooed on his forehead was supposed to be a symbol of life, but the blood smeared across it hinted Harry Bane wasn’t far from death.
“Harry?”
No response.
I shook his shoulder. “Hieronymus?”
Nothing.
I clasped my left hand into a fist with my middle knuckle jutting out above the others. Three hard rubs of the knuckle up and down his sternum didn’t produce a reaction, either. Sucking in a breath, I raised two fingers to his jugular. A weak beat tapped against my fingers. I blew out the breath and fell onto my butt next to my partner.
“He’s alive,” I said quietly. “Barely.”
“Good. Because I’m gonna kick his ass when he wakes up.”
I nodded in agreement. Harry’s death would have been no great loss for the Cauldron. However, given the fact we had no fucking clue what was going on, he was the only one who could shed light on the shit show we’d stumbled in on. I glanced over at Morales. His eyes were open and he stared at Harry’s still body.
I nodded. “Did you see what happened?”
Morales dipped his chin. “You mean the abracadabra Mr. Black pulled? Yeah. I kind of hoped I’d hallucinated it, though.”
I forced a smile and shook my head. “Just before he disappeared he bit down on something in his mouth. Best guess is he had some sort of potion capsule in there that allowed him to pull the disappearing act.”
“You ever seen something like that?”
I paused as my ears picked up the whine of sirens in the distance. “Nope.” Through the noise, the Grand Wizard of the Sanguinarians lay still as a corpse covered in the blood that was so sacred to his coven. I nudged his foot with mine. “You’ve got some ’splainin’ to do when you wake up, Harry.”
An hour later the ambulance carrying Harry Bane pulled away from the junkyard with sirens blaring. A cop followed in a cruiser. A uniformed officer would be stationed outside Harry’s door until further notice. Two reasons: One, they’d be there if Mr. Black decided to return to finish the job. Two, if Harry woke up before we could get there, they’d make sure he stayed put.
Morales and I were rock-paper-scissoring to see who had to go explain to our boss why we hadn’t called for backup.
“Damn it,” Morales said. “Best two out of three.”
“Morales? Prospero? Get your asses in here.”
“Ha!” Mez laughed. “Looks like you’re both in trouble.” I shot him the bird before following my grumpy partner toward the trailer. As we approached, we stepped out of the way of the animal control guys, who were carrying the poor rottweiler away from the trailer. A long trail of saliva from the doped doggy’s mouth dragged on the ground behind them. As they passed, I patted the old boy on the head. “Make sure he gets a steak or something tonight.”
The
guy in the front snorted. “Right, lady.”
I paused. “Wait, what’s going to happen to him?”
“We dosed him with saline, but he’s pretty far gone.” The dog’s breathing had a wheeze to it that hinted it wouldn’t be long until the lungs shut down permanently.
I frowned. “Isn’t there anything else you can do?”
The lead guy adjusted the dog’s hefty weight with a put-upon sigh. “We’re just doin’ our job.” I shot him a glare until he squirmed. “We’ll make him as comfortable as we can.”
I sighed and shook my head as they carried the too-still dog away. “Poor mutt.”
Morales watched me for a moment before responding. “That mutt attacked you. If it weren’t for your boots you’d be on the way to the hospital for rabies shots.”
“He was just protecting himself.”
“You’re a trip, Prospero,” he called after me. “I’ve heard that same excuse from dozens of criminals.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of criminals are animals, too.” With that, I limped my way toward the trailer. Morales followed me, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.
Inside, we had to tiptoe over puddles of blood to reach Gardner. “What’s up?”
She crossed her arms, scanned the room with narrowed eyes, and then speared Morales and me with a no-bullshit look. “Tell me.”
“Right,” I said, “we showed up to talk to Harry like you asked us to do. When we got here, it was clear he was in immediate danger.”
“No call for backup?” she asked.
I shot a pointed look at my partner. After all, he’d been the one to make the call to skip it.
“There was no time,” Morales said. “Once we heard Harry scream we understood the threat was too immediate to hold off. Besides, I was under the impression we were trying to keep our involvement on the down-low.”
Gardner crossed her arms and sighed. “Tell me about the assailants.”
“One got out the back door and took off,” I said.
“And how did that happen?”
“The dog, sir,” I said, pointing at my ankle. “It attacked as I tried to apprehend the perp.”
