Sacrifices

by Jamie Schultz

“Hurry up, before they get ahead of us.”

  It didn’t take long to get in position. Nail watched her direct everyone, only asking whether or not she was armed. When she said no, he told her to stay back when the shit hit. He’d take Belial. “Like to choke the fucker out,” he’d said, and he looked like he meant it.

  The plan’s only hitch was that Karyn would have to drive the getaway car. Shorthanded indeed. Karyn thought about the last time she’d driven a car. Short stretches at most, given her hallucinations, and the most recent of those had been, what? Six years before? And her recent attack of sudden-onset dizziness and fatigue wasn’t going to help any.

  There was nothing to be done about it. Nail was the right guy for the snatch, so she’d just have to floor it and hope for the best.

  She pulled his car around to the alley, a house away from the door the rabbit would come running out, and talked herself out of leaving it running. Anything that might catch attention was out of the question. The future was malleable, nobody knew that better than she did, and it often swayed and twisted at the slightest perturbation. The last thing she wanted was to bring the horde down on herself.

  Nail ducked around the side of the protruding entryway of the church, less than ten feet from where Belial would be standing. Awfully close, Karyn thought, but the only alternative she could see was for him to come back around the side of the church. A long way to run. A long time for Belial or one of the others to turn around and throw the whole plan in the trash.

  Karyn waited in the alley, peering around the corner of the building and looking for any signs that the plan was about to go to shit. Her mind saw a dead street. Anna had gone around the far corner of the church, preparing her new weird brand of deterrent for the soon-to-be-oncoming mob. The street was peaceful. Dead.

  In her mind, all was chaos. Without the focus she’d summoned before, the street had gone back to day and dark in an inchoate mix. Useless. She could force it back, she thought, but that wasn’t without risk—specifically, the risk that she’d exhaust herself and end up lying here for the demons to eat.

  She waited. A car drove by, and she fervently hoped the driver wasn’t paying close attention, or wasn’t in the frame of mind to be a Good Samaritan. Karyn and Nail lurking here couldn’t look good, and the arrival of the police would screw this whole thing up beyond repair.

  The car continued past the end of the block and down the next, finally turning right at a stoplight beyond.

  Come on, Karyn thought.

  She heard nothing, but ahead of her Nail tensed and pressed himself back against the door. Her heart kicked up a notch, and she braced herself as another wave of dizziness tried to claim her.

  The world was still spinning lazily in her head when a tall black man burst from the door. The first thing that Karyn noticed was the white, like the rabbit from her vision. The man was wearing a white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up. The second thing she noticed was the crimson streak slopping down over his thigh.

  It might not have been his blood, because the guy was moving fast. The door banged off the building behind him, he skidded and pushed off the car parked at the curb, and he took off down the sidewalk with a burst of speed Karyn would have found hard to credit, had she not seen it herself.

  He had a good start, this rabbit. Karyn counted to five before the door blasted open again, this time tearing off its hinges and spinning to the sidewalk, where it landed with a clap. Just as in her vision, three men rushed out and bolted after the runner. One of them let out a hunting cry of sorts, a sound lodged in a terrible space between a shriek and a roar that made the hair on the back of Karyn’s neck stand on end.

  The runner didn’t look back. He didn’t speed up, either, likely because he was already moving as fast as he could.

  The other group, the bulk of the demons, rushed out moments later, shouting and screaming. “Get that motherfucker!” one of them yelled amid all the cries, which struck Karyn as one of the more surreal things even she had heard all day.

  Belial came last, walking out like a general on the battlefield, ready to survey the carnage. His appearance was shocking. Deep rents gaped in his face, and his clothes were stained with red and yellow—blood and some terrible product of infection. His left hand was withered and had turned entirely black. Nonetheless, Karyn caught a self-satisfied smirk on his ruined face as he turned away from her, and then Nail moved. One arm snaked around Belial’s neck, and the gun came up. The click of the hammer pulling back was clearly audible over the receding noise, as was Nail’s threat: “I will ventilate your skull. Try me.”

  The last running man turned around, probably to shout some inanity, and he stumbled to a halt, maybe a dozen feet away from Nail. His lips pulled back in a snarl.

  Nail started pulling Belial back. He looked over his shoulder and met Karyn’s eyes.

  “Get the car!” he shouted.

  The snarling man rushed forward, to what end Karyn never found out. Nail made a small movement, a flick of the wrist that was nearly invisible from where Karyn stood, and shot him in the neck. He went down gagging, blood spurting out through his fingers.

  Belial took Nail’s momentary distraction as an opportunity and tried to pull away, only to be yanked brutally backward by the neck.

  Karyn ran for the car. She jumped in and cranked up the engine. Nail fired another shot at a second demon that had turned around, hitting his target in the side.

  Beyond that, past the corner, a huge green blur streaked out into the road, hit the pavement with a heavy, metallic bong, and bounced.

  It’s a flying Dumpster, Karyn thought, just as it bowled over half a dozen of Belial’s followers and scattered the others.

  Then there was no more time to watch. Anna would have to take care of herself. Nail hauled Belial in through the open back door on Karyn’s side, and she stomped the gas before he even got the door closed. It banged against Belial’s shin, eliciting a bark of outrage and laughter.

  She peeled out onto the street. Now the cops will show up, she thought, because wasn’t that the way the world worked? Never there when you needed them, but when you were speeding away from a crime scene with a kidnapped demon in your backseat, it was almost a guarantee that they’d be all over the place. For a wonder, though, she seemed to be catching a break on that score this time.

  Not so from Belial’s followers. A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed them scrambling for cars. Headlights flicked on, like hate-filled eyes pinning her under their baleful gaze.

  She took the next right at a speed that would have made Anna proud, then screamed through the next left before the car had even stopped rocking on its suspension. To her eyes, the streets were crowded with cars, the sidewalks choked with pedestrians. She concentrated on the image in her mind instead and plowed through them all, heart lurching as each anticipated impact failed to materialize.

  Another right, and she came out on Santa Monica Boulevard, foot barely easing off the gas long enough to make the turn before she planted it again. No sign of the demons in the rearview mirror. This would be the time when, if she were an accomplished driver and her nerves weren’t shot, she’d whip into a parking garage and wait them out, or at least that was what TV had led her to believe. Instead, she floored the accelerator, screaming toward the next stoplight. She looked at it, registered the green, and shot into the intersection. A squeal of brakes and a screaming horn followed her, and a car jumped the curb.

  Shit! In the rearview mirror, the light was red in her mind, had always been red. She’d gotten confused about which was image and which was lying, treacherous vision and damn near got them all killed.

  She slowed, eased up to the next stoplight, and turned off Santa Monica. Too visible. Too dangerous, and she needed to slow down.

  Karyn wiped sweat from her forehead and looked into the backseat. Nail had one hand wrapped in Belial’s collar an
d the other holding his gun to the demon’s temple. Karyn was mildly surprised it hadn’t gone off, what with all the rocking and jostling.

  Belial leered at her. “Come to finish your prophecy for me?”

  She turned back to watch the street.

  Chapter 27

  “Holy fucking hell! What happened back there? Where did you guys come from? Where are we—”

  Anna yanked the wheel to the right, throwing Clarence against the door as she swerved around a car that actually took yellow lights seriously, and blew through an intersection. She let out a war whoop that came all the way up from her belly. This was the first thing like actual fun she’d had in forever.

  “Jesus!” Clarence said. “You’re outta your mind!”

  “I’m inclined to agree,” Sobell said. He slumped dejectedly against the passenger-side window, watching the world race by. Fuck him, Anna thought, and she laughed again.

  She half turned in her seat. “Come on, guys. Did you see that? I threw a Dumpster at those guys!”

  “No marks for subtlety, but I suppose efficacy is the order of the day, and I can’t fault you for that,” Sobell said.

  “You’re getting sour in your old age.”

  “I’m getting old in my old age.”

  “Nobody likes a whiner.”

  Anna grinned and turned her attention back to the road. This was fun, but she really needed to focus at the moment. A pair of blue-white headlights weaved around a vehicle behind her, not gaining but keeping pace, and she thought there was another vehicle behind that. The demons had been scattered, a few injured, but the only thing saving her now was the head start they’d gotten in the confusion.

  Clarence clapped her shoulder. “I owe you one. Like, you have no idea. Whatever you need. Whatever you want, whenever you want it. Those motherfuckers were gonna eat me, and I don’t mean they were just saying that to sound tough, I mean—”

  “I get it,” Anna said. Traffic had thinned out here, giving her pursuers a straight stretch to try to catch up. Anna’s four-cylinder rust bucket would be hopelessly outmatched if she stayed on this street. She swore. I have a backpack with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it in the trunk. Why the hell didn’t I buy a better car?

  She slowed, letting the lead car get closer. There was a sudden crack and her side mirror vanished.

  “They’re shooting,” Clarence said, considerably calmer than he had been.

  Maybe this was familiar territory for him, Anna thought. “No shit. Shut up.”

  The lead car closed the gap. They were about to get a whole lot more accurate with the shooting, Anna guessed, or maybe flat-out ram her.

  She spun the wheel and yanked the emergency brake. The tires yowled like a pissed-off tomcat as the car whipped around ninety degrees. Clarence ended up in Sobell’s lap, but both cars in pursuit shot past.

  Anna punched it. The car’s interior was thick with the pungent stench of burned rubber. She took a long, deep breath and laughed.

  A glance through the rear window told her that pursuit wouldn’t be long in coming—they were already turning around. She headed west on Santa Monica, the opposite direction of their destination. That would buy Karyn some time.

  Unless we end up dead. The car was fucked-up from the turn, rattling and thumping, the steering wheel jumping in her hand as she sped up. Flat spots on the tires from the skid, or maybe a bent tie rod. Out of alignment. Some damn thing like that. It would still go, at least, but maneuverability had just gotten a whole hell of a lot worse.

  “Do something,” she said to Sobell.

  “Such as?”

  “Stop them! Slow them down! Jesus, do I have to think for you?”

  Sobell gave her a desperately tired look. “Do you have a firearm?”

  “I stopped carrying one,” Anna said. She wondered how much that mattered now. If you could magically hurl a Dumpster at somebody, did you really need a firearm?

  “Then there’s really nothing I can do.”

  Blue-white headlights swung onto the road behind her, gaining fast. She mashed the gas pedal harder, as though pushing it through the floor would help. “You got”—she checked the rearview mirror again—“one minute. Tops.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “Magic something up, asshole! Isn’t that what you do?”

  “Not anymore. It’s not safe.”

  “In forty-five seconds, they’re going to catch up to us, run us off the road, kill us, and eat us. You tell me how safe you’ll be then. Either slow them the fuck down, or climb over here and drive.” The steering wheel jerked in her hands and the car rocked, as if the vehicle itself were telling them just how bad an idea that was.

  “Dear God. I am utterly fucked.” Sobell looked wearily around the car. “Give me your shirt,” he said, holding out his hand to Clarence.

  “Why?”

  “Do it right fucking now.”

  “Awful goddamn pushy around here.” Still, he shrugged out of the shirt and handed it over.

  Anna dug a marker out of the glove compartment, where she’d gotten in the habit of keeping one for Genevieve. She handed it to Sobell. He spread the shirt out on his lap and popped the cap off the marker, letting it fall on the floor.

  Sobell worked quickly, slashing black lines across the cloth with a deft, sure hand, wavering slightly from the bumpy, rattling car. Anna wasn’t sure he was going to be fast enough. The headlights were closer now, and gaining, and there was no chance she’d get to pull her braking trick again. They’d be ready for it, for one thing, but more important, she thought there was a good chance the car wouldn’t put up with that shit a second time. Blow a tire, and this would all be over in the most unpleasant way possible very soon.

  A shot sounded, then a second. If they even hit the car, Anna couldn’t tell, but it wouldn’t be long.

  “Hurry up,” Clarence said.

  Sobell began an incantation. Anna’s mind wanted to reach out to it, fold it in, and tease it apart for all its secrets, but she forced her attention back to the road, the mirror, the rattling steering wheel. Her wrists ached from her death grip on the wheel.

  A patch of asphalt ahead of the car spontaneously caught fire. Anna barreled through it without slowing, and it was gone before she could worry about it.

  “Now would be good,” she said.

  “Get us to the turn,” Sobell said.

  “The—?” Ahead, the street curved, a very slight angling to the right. Fifteen seconds to get there? Twenty? Did they have that long?

  Sobell rolled down the window. The rush of air pummeled Anna and blew a scrap of paper into the air.

  Flame flared to life on the hood of the car.

  Anna clutched the wheel with one hand, gestured with the other, and said a few words. The flames vanished.

  Five seconds.

  “Go!” Sobell said one final word and threw the shirt out the window. There was a mad fluttering sound, like a flock of birds taking off. The white wing of the shirt sailed through the air and plastered itself over the windshield of the car behind just as Anna guided the car into the curve.

  She thought the driver would miss the curve, but he did one better—he pulled the wheel too far, overcompensating. The car skidded and spun out, and the one following it—too closely, as it happened—slammed into the front, sending it spinning in the other direction.

  They receded in the rearview mirror and were gone by the time Anna reached the next stoplight.

  Sobell’s face was pale, and rivulets of sweat ran down his forehead, temples, and cheeks. He gave her a shaky grin and sat back in his seat.

  Chapter 28

  Karyn pulled the car up so suddenly she jumped the curb in front of the church. Nail was already dragging Belial out of the car by one scrawny arm, the look on his face pure revulsion as he touched the man’s pu
trefying flesh. On the way, he’d bound Belial’s hands crudely with his own belt. Karyn couldn’t imagine that would hold up against a determined escape effort, but it would slow him down.

  He hoisted Belial to his feet as Karyn came around the car.

  “Move, dammit!” Nail shoved Belial forward.

  “Oops,” Belial said, and he toppled to the ground. Karyn saw him grinning as he fell. His face hit the sidewalk with a horrid crack, and when Nail pulled him back to his feet, Karyn saw that his cheekbone had smashed, the bone pushing back to the side, his eye filling with blood. He laughed again.

  Nail glared at Belial. “Move, asshole!”

  Belial sagged in his grasp. “They’ll find me. They’re coming for me even now.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Nail said. He locked his arm around Belial’s upper arm and began dragging him. The demon chuckled again.

  Up the stairs. There were people watching from across the street. Gant Street kids. Others. This wouldn’t stay secret. “C’mon, Anna. Hurry up.” The lights were on in the church, shining through the windows, bathing Nail and Belial in shifting blue, red, and green radiance.

  “You got this?” Karyn asked Nail.

  “Shit yeah. Wrestle demons for fun. All be over in a few minutes, right?”

  Karyn turned back to the street as the two men went inside. A dozen or so confused, frightened people were being shepherded down the street by a couple of young men who urged them on with more cursing than was probably necessary. Under the washed-out yellow streetlight, it was impossible to tell what colors they were wearing, but it didn’t matter—Genevieve was easily recognizable at the rear. She waved distractedly and then said something to the kid ahead of her. They moved a little faster away, to Karyn’s relief. She wanted to concentrate, see if she could project them forward and figure out if they’d be successful, but she needed to be alert. Dropping into an exhausted fugue wouldn’t do anybody any favors right now.

  She texted Elliot. Get down here now.

  A couple of kids she recognized walked up the steps toward her. “’Sup?” one of them asked. He was the one Anna had tracked down. Rigoberto. “We got your back.”