The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust Book 5)

by Craig Schaefer

  “You just remember, son: I’ve got two men up in that tower, ready and willing to put a high-velocity round right through you. Don’t try anything dumb. Give us a good show and you might live another week or two.”

  He started to move away, thought about it, and leaned in once more.

  “And if by some remote chance you actually win this match? Do me a favor: make the kill good and messy this time. That’s what these people paid to see.”

  “That’s a promise,” I told him.

  Jablonski walked over to fetch my opponent from the lineup, while the warden strolled back and forth in front of the crowd.

  “If you thought last week was a one-sided matchup, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Let’s meet Faust’s opponent. He’s racked up a legendary five wins, and that’s nothing compared to his kill count before he came to—”

  “I’ve got an announcement to make,” I called out.

  Lancaster paused, almost stumbling as I threw him off his patter. He glared over his shoulder at me.

  “Hey, it’s good news,” I told him, then turned to the crowd. “The warden’s right. It’s going to be a great show tonight. Let me ask you people, do you like violence?”

  A scattering of catcalls. So many eager, smiling faces in the candlelight. I grinned and spread my arms, playing the showman.

  “I knew it. And how about blood? Do you like blood?”

  Applause now, and someone in the back hooted. Lancaster held the microphone, mute, as if he wasn’t sure if he should interrupt me or not.

  “I can’t hear you, people! Make some noise if you want a good show. How about death? Do you wanna see lots and lots of death tonight?”

  I took in the applause, the hollering, the hammering feet, basking in it.

  Then my arm shot up, pointing one finger to the ceiling.

  The guard-tower window exploded.

  A man plummeted from the tower, slamming on the concrete floor behind me with a splat like someone stomping on a tomato. He’d been torn open from throat to groin, his chest a ragged ruin of splintered, wrenched-back ribs and mangled organs. His dead eyes were still open, jaw wrenched wide in terror.

  Then came the rain. The second sniper, one piece at a time. Hands. Feet. Arms, wrenched off at the elbows. His severed head bounced like a basketball as it hit the concrete, rolling across the floor and coming to a stop next to Warden Lancaster’s Italian leather shoe.

  A horrified silence fell across the room. The guards looked at one another, uncertain, hands on their guns but not sure if they should draw. Lancaster stared down at the severed head, frozen like a deer in the headlights.

  “Well,” I said, “you’re about to get everything you asked for. What do you think, Warden? Is this good and messy enough for you? Wouldn’t want you to think I ‘pussied out’ again.”

  His gaze snapped toward me. He took a halting step back, away from the carnage. “How? How did you—”

  A third body dove from the shattered window. Not in a guard’s uniform, but a billowing white leather coat. She landed as graceful as a raptor, absorbing the impact with one knee and the outstretched fingers of a single hand, and slowly rose to her full willowy height. Her eyes blazed like molten copper, as radiant as her twist of scarlet hair.

  “If anyone in this room believes themselves to be a righteous soul,” Caitlin said, “I suggest you kneel down and pray. If nobody answers…then you belong to me.”

  37.

  Hours earlier, alone in the dark, I had set about my work.

  I needed candles, and cigarettes wouldn’t do this time. So I crafted my own. The disposable yogurt cups made a fine substitute; instead of wax, I filled each one—five in all—with baby oil. Lengths of oil-dipped twine made crude but workable wicks, and I carefully replaced the plastic cups’ foil covers before punching a tiny hole and running the twine down the middle.

  I didn’t have matches or a lighter, but I had a little steel wool from the kitchens and a nine-volt battery. I knelt down on the cold cell floor, rubbing the wool against the battery’s terminals like a Boy Scout trying to make fire with sticks. The steel wool glowed Halloween orange in the dark. With a spark, the first candlewick caught fire.

  Soon there were five dancing lights, the candles laid out on the floor of my cell in the shape of a five-pointed star. Next came the salt, poured in a thin but unbroken circle. I painted glyphs in salt, twisted signs and seals I knew by heart.

  “I invoke and conjure you by sigil and name,” I whispered. “I conjure by the ministers of the Tartarean seat, by fallen powers and principalities, by broken thrones and dominions. I speak with the authority of the kings in the outer dark. My words will be heard; my words will be heeded.”

  The circle and seals glowed in my second sight, rippling with a cold blue fire. I extended a finger over the salt, gripping the razor blade in my other hand. One quick shallow slice, one jolt of burning pain, and my fingertip turned scarlet. Blood dripped down, slow and steady, splashing onto the concrete.

  “The elements are overthrown,” I hissed, rocking forward and back on my knees as my blood fed the hungry magic. “The air is fire; the sea is dust. At the end of all things, I call to you. In the last of all places, I call to you. I conjure you by your name: Caitlleanabruadi!”

  The air erupted in a silent shock wave that hit me like a fist, knocking me flat. It was a sonic boom with no sound, a blinding flash of hot black light that killed the flickering candles. I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

  In the center of the bloody circle, a figure rose. Slowly melting up from the floor, it twisted and writhed in the shadows. I made out arms ending in clutching iron claws. The horns of a ram. A guttural voice boomed from the dark.

  “Who has disturbed my slumber?”

  I had just enough time to panic, to realize I’d botched the ritual somehow, before the figure launched itself at me.

  I blinked, lying sprawled on my back. Caitlin perched on top of me, human, grinning. She rubbed the tip of her nose against mine.

  “Gotcha,” she said.

  Then she kissed me, long and slow, the pounding drumbeat of my heart melting from anxiety to raw heat.

  “I’m looking for a damsel in distress,” she said. “Seen any around?”

  I wriggled my fingers. “Right here.”

  She took my hand, her warm fingers twining around mine, and pulled me up.

  “I have to say,” she observed, “I’ve been summoned under strange circumstances…but I’ve never been tactically summoned.”

  “I wish you could do that to me. Would have made breaking out of here so much easier.”

  My hands slid around the slick waist of her white leather coat. One of hers closed on my shoulder, the other stroking the back of my neck as she pulled me close.

  “True,” she murmured in my ear, “but this way is much more fun. So what are we up against? Bentley just gave me the abridged version. And Naavarasi’s been leaving voicemails for me, crowing about how you owe her a favor. That doesn’t please me.”

  “The feeling’s mutual. Long story short, the warden and his staff are lining their pockets by running gladiator games for the amusement of the idle rich, and I’m on tonight’s fight ticket.”

  “Hrm. Think I would have known about something like this happening in my father’s territory. None of my kind are involved?”

  I shook my head. “Nope, and I haven’t picked up on a glimmer of magical power. No demons, no mages, just garden-variety criminals with big ambitions. And big guns, including a sniper’s nest or two. They won’t go down without a fight.”

  “If they did, I’d be bored. But how did this happen in the first place? Bentley and Corman barely made sense. You were arrested the night I left, but everyone thought you were in prison for months?”

  “That’s where it gets complicated,” I said. “The Chicago Outfit got me arrested in the first place; it’s a frame job, to get me out of the way while they make their bid for Vegas.”

  “I heard.”
She frowned. “Nicky’s a fugitive, and nobody’s seen the twins either…not that anybody is looking for them. We’ve all been searching for Jennifer, but nobody has any idea where she’s gone.”

  “I know, I think she’s in big trouble. There’s a guy in here, a Calles banger named Raymundo—I think he knows where she is, but he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “No worries,” she said. “He will tell me.”

  I held her, keeping her close, savoring every second of her warmth and the scent of her musky perfume. Her eyes glowed faintly in the dark, swirling with motes of copper light.

  “Anyway,” I said, “the Outfit’s not our biggest problem.”

  I walked her through it, from the curse that left everyone with memories of a trial that never happened, to my hallucination in Buddy’s cell of a ravaged Las Vegas.

  “So this Fleiss woman…” Caitlin’s voice trailed off as she thought it over.

  “She orchestrated it for her boss: this ‘Enemy,’ the man with the Cheshire smile, whoever he is. Whatever he is. As far as I can tell, this scam wasn’t about me at all. They just needed a patsy who they could swap into the ‘Thief’s’ place, so someone else would die in here instead of him. I was on their radar because I’d just pulled that heist in Chicago for them. Once they heard I’d been arrested, well, you couldn’t ask for a better stooge. They needed somebody behind bars, and there I was.”

  “They rewrote people’s memories on a massive scale, Daniel. Like some sort of…mental contagion. I don’t know anyone who can do that.” Her voice, already soft, dropped to a whisper. “I don’t even think my father can do that.”

  “And it sounds like they’re just getting warmed up. At least I got Buddy out of here. If he can deliver his message to the right person, they’ve got a shot at stopping whatever the Enemy’s got planned.” I shook my head. “His twin sister told me I shouldn’t get in the way. Seems I’m not ‘the chosen one,’ so I don’t have a chance of standing up to this guy.”

  Caitlin’s fingertips trailed along the nape of my neck. She studied me, eyes glittering.

  “Oh? And what do you say?”

  “Sweetheart, in the last two weeks I’ve been abducted, cut off from everyone I love, and left to rot in a prison cell. I’ve been beaten, tortured, starved, and I’ve got bruises in places I didn’t think you could get bruises, all so the Enemy could hand somebody a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  I leaned in. Our lips brushed. As I pulled away, her rising smile mirrored my own.

  “Fuck being the chosen one,” I said. “I say we track this asshole down and wreck his world.”

  “The Enemy,” Caitlin mused. “He chose his name well. If he intends to wreak destruction upon my prince’s territory—my territory—then he’s made himself an enemy of humanity and hell alike. We should teach him the consequences of hubris.”

  “Good idea. Let’s rescue Jennifer, push the Outfit out of Vegas, and then we can go hunting.”

  Caitlin glanced back toward the cell door.

  “First, though,” she said, “we do have the slight matter of your escape to attend to. Which reminds me: Bentley sent along a present for you.”

  She held up a deck of cards. Cherry-red Bicycle dragon backs, my usual brand, glistening with enchantment and the residue of exotic oils. I opened my palm. The cards leaped through the air in a stream, riffling into my hand, eager to play.

  I slipped the deck up my sleeve.

  “Perfect,” I said. “Bentley and Corman should be on their way with a getaway van. I don’t see any way of slipping out of here quietly, so assume we’ll be setting off a few alarms on our way out. That means we’ll have to deal with roadblocks on I-80. Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan for that. Think you can take care of our sniper problem?”

  She cracked her knuckles and smiled.

  “Just one thing,” I said, “Warden Lancaster. Don’t kill him. I assume he’ll run for it when the blood starts to spill, and that’s good. Let him think he got away.”

  “Don’t kill him?” she echoed. “Why on earth not?”

  In the dark, I stared grimly over Caitlin’s shoulder. Toward the door.

  “Because I’ve got a plan for him, too. And he’s not getting off that easy.”

  38.

  My eagerness, when the guards came to get me, was a smoke screen. I didn’t want them looking too deep into my cell, noticing the woman crouched in the farthest, darkest corner. Waiting, patient as a cobra.

  When they brought me down to the arena floor, lining me up with the other prisoners, I had a pretty good view up toward my cell. I got to see Vasquez trundling over with a toolbox, opening the door—and the hand that clamped over his wrist, hauling him into the darkness before he could scream for help.

  Not long after, I glimpsed the spidery shadow that skittered across the ceiling of the hive high above our heads. Clinging to the concrete, making her way toward the guard tower.

  Soon the bodies rained down, terrifying the crowd into a petrified, confused silence. And then Caitlin joined the party.

  I’d been running the numbers. Seven guards spaced out along the gallery floor, plus Lancaster with his long-barreled .45. Maybe fifty people in the audience, and more than a few bodyguard types with conspicuous bulges under their tailored jackets. Lousy odds, and I knew I should be worried.

  But as time stood still, like the arc of a roller coaster as it crests that first hill and gets ready to plunge, a strange, giddy elation washed over me.

  “Lover,” Caitlin said.

  I looked to her. She threw back one side of her coat, like a gunslinger at high noon. Her fingers traced the brass handle of the coiled black bullwhip on her belt.

  Then she smiled, and whispered, “Dance with me.”

  A guard went for his weapon while the deck of cards dropped from my sleeve. Two cards whipped through the air as his pistol boomed. One flew between him and Caitlin, catching a bullet in its heart, and the other sliced open his throat from ear to ear.

  Caitlin’s bullwhip lashed down upon the concrete, rippling with hellfire, and the crowd—screaming now, realizing this wasn’t part of the show—knocked over tables and fell over each other scrambling to get away. I hit the ground, rolling, a stray bullet whining over my head, and snatched up the dead guard’s piece. Jablonski was right next to him, swinging his gun around to drop a bead on me. I jumped up from a crouch, grabbed his gun’s muzzle, put my barrel up against his wrist, and pulled the trigger.

  Jablonski shrieked as his wrist blew apart, shattered bones jutting through a ragged, gushing hole. I kept hold of the muzzle as I turned, using him as a human shield, and emptied my clip into the closest guard. Then I dropped the gun, yanked his away, and used that one instead, cracking off two quick shots at a bodyguard who felt like playing hero. I missed, but he hunkered down behind a flipped-over table, pinned down for a second.

  One of the spectators I recognized—the golf pro—went sliding past me. He was on the ground, Caitlin’s whip coiled around his throat and his body engulfed in devouring flames as she reeled him in like a prize fish.

  Rule number one in a gunfight: stop moving and you’re dead. I ran straight for the tables, snapping off wild shots on the go, and jumped. My shoe hit the edge of the capsized cocktail table, sending me up and over, and I put three rounds into the bodyguard’s panicked face. I landed hard on the other side, bullets chipping into the wood behind me and chewing away the improvised cover one chunk at a time.

  I pulled the trigger again, hammer slapping down on an empty chamber, and threw the empty gun aside. The bodyguard’s piece, still clutched in his cold hand, was a sleek nine-millimeter in blue chrome. I snatched it up and sprang out of hiding before the guards could flank me. Too slow: ten feet away, one of Jablonski’s buddies had me dead to rights, sighting me down his barrel like a pro target shooter. Then Caitlin’s free hand flung up and a silver dagger, long and thin and gleaming like a needle, whistled through the air and buried itself four inches in his ear. />
  Another guard burst from the guard tower door, smart enough to go for the big guns. He clutched a pump-action shotgun, aiming it for Caitlin’s back. I sent a handful of cards flying. The shotgun roared and the cards dropped, taking the hit for her. She spun, crouching, and her whip cracked as it coiled around his ankle and yanked him off his feet just before his flesh ignited.

  Over the screams, over the crackling of flames and gunfire, Caitlin’s delighted laughter rang out. Her wild grin mirrored mine as we went back-to-back, picking off the last of Lancaster’s men. The audience had fled, a screaming mob headed for the security gates, desperate to escape.

  At last, silence.

  Corpses littered the killing floor, sprawled across overturned tables and chairs, some riddled with bullets and some charred black. Caitlin casually flicked her wrist, calling her whip back and quenching the flames, then coiled it around her bent elbow. I leaned against her, and she nuzzled my shoulder as we both caught our breaths.

  “We should do this more often,” she murmured.

  Strained whimpers caught my ear. I turned. Jablonski knelt in a pool of his own blood, clutching the ruin of his wrist.

  “Oh, we’re not finished just yet,” I told her.

  I walked over and nudged Jablonski with my shoe.

  “Hey. Asshole. Get up.”

  He looked up at me, tears streaming from his squinting eyes. “Just kill me already. Just do it.”

  “Changed my mind. I’m not gonna kill you,” I said. “Not if you do everything I say. I need you. I have to get back into Hive C. What’s the best way to do that?”

  “Th-the whole place is gonna be locked down by now. Automatic fail-safe if the alarms go off.”

  I pressed the barrel of my gun to his forehead.

  “And that fail-safe can be deactivated by…”

  “Central—central security. They’ve got overrides for the entire prison.”

  “Do they have eyes on this place? Security cameras?”