“And I’ve got some news.”
“The landlord?”
“We’re scheduled to see the apartment in two days.”
“But the money—”
Caitlin smiled, although it seemed like a nervous smile. “We do have the funds, but it was a little more complicated to get at them than I’d expected. The rules with regard to non-casual labor are actually quite strict, and you are, unfortunately, very underage.”
Kaylin wilted.
“But as I said, the funding is available.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure you’ll like it, dear.”
How bad could it be? “As long as I don’t have to kill anyone, I don’t care.”
Caitlin looked shocked the way only Caitlin could. And mildly disapproving. Kaylin slid around her to the food that she’d promised. “You most certainly will not have to kill anyone. But…the department has funds set aside, in principle, for a departmental mascot.”
“A what?”
“A mascot, dear. You’ve never heard of them?”
Kaylin, mouth full of bread, shook her head.
“Ah. Well. A mascot is supposed to bring good luck to, ah, an organization. It’s also thought to be a symbol of something the organization stands for.”
“So what part won’t I like?”
Caitlin just shook her head and smiled. “You’ll find out, dear. Chew before you swallow. You’ll be good for the department,” she added. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Teela quite so…human. Don’t repeat that where she can hear it, and do remember the Barrani have much better hearing than ours.
“Give me the tabard. I’ll make sure it’s cleaned. You’ll need it. It’s large,” she added, “but I’m certain you’ll grow into it.”
RETRIBUTION
CAMERON HALEY
For Mashenka
RETRIBUTION
Author’s Note: This takes place several months before MOB RULES
I was twelve years old the first time I killed a man. It stayed with me a long time. Literally. The guy haunted me for more than two years until Shanar Rashan, my mentor and the boss of my outfit, taught me how to exorcise a ghost.
I learned a lot from that experience. I learned I didn’t have to feel helpless, because I wasn’t. Turns out, a twelve-year-old budding sorceress is a poor choice of victim for a child predator. It was a powerful lesson for a fatherless girl coming up in the barrio.
But I also learned that killing a guy is the easy part—it’s what comes after that’s difficult. You gotta take care of the body, and you gotta ditch the ghost.
Crossroads are happening places in the supernatural underworld. Magic flows through the skin of the world, but its course is directed by the landscape, both natural and man-made. A crossroads is a place where these flows converge. That’s one reason large cities are so rich in magic—they’re full of crossroads.
A crossroads is also an excellent place to kill a man, because these same properties disorient and confuse his ghost. Of course, while the city streets are rich in magic, there are better choices when a guy needs killing. The corner of Hollywood and Vine may be a good spot to ditch a vengeful spirit, but you run the risk that the murder will show up on YouTube.
So that’s how I found myself at the intersection of two dirt roads in the Mojave Desert under the light of a gibbous moon, looking down at the disabled form of Benny Ben-Reuven. Benny was an Israeli gangster in my outfit who’d recently attempted to secure a promotion by putting a bullet in my skull. The fact that he’d tried to shoot me should have clued him in that he wasn’t ready. If he couldn’t take me out with sorcery, what made him think he was more qualified to be Shanar Rashan’s lieutenant?
Benny’s wrists and ankles were bound to stakes driven into the earth, more for effect than necessity. I’d used a binding spell on him before we left the city that pretty much guaranteed he wouldn’t be any trouble. But gangsters are creatures of habit and tradition, and we don’t call them ritual executions for nothing.
“I hate to kill someone as stupid as you, Benny,” I said.
“You don’t have to do it, Domino. You don’t have to do this. We could—”
“Benny, please,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s just a figure of speech. I don’t really mind killing you. No reason to be unpleasant about it, though.”
Benny fell silent. His eyes were wide, and he started shaking. Maybe I was telling the truth. Maybe I didn’t hate it. I guess that’s another lesson I learned when I was twelve. Murder isn’t pleasant, but it’s not horrific, either, when the victim has it coming. More often than not, it’s just pathetic.
“Thing is, I need to know if someone was behind you.” I shrugged. “I can take what I need to know, if I have to. But it’ll hurt. Easier if you just tell me.”
Benny jerked his head from side to side. “No one knew, Domino. It was just me. I didn’t come to this country to be some woman’s dog.”
I nodded and started pulling juice from the wasteland. “You got anything else you want to say, Benny?”
Benny did. He said it in a language I didn’t understand, presumably his native Hebrew. I didn’t know the words, but I recognized the cadence and I could sense the magic pouring into him from the desert, crashing over the metaphysical levy I’d created with my binding ritual. Benny was spinning a spell—a big one—and never mind that he shouldn’t have been able to draw any juice through my ritual.
There’s no percentage in allowing a guy to complete a death curse. I spun my own spell, chanting the words I’d memorized when I learned the invocation. “It is easy to go down into Hell,” I said. “Night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide.” I reached out with the black magic and ruptured the artery in Benny’s brain. The death spell is quick and painless, though it needs too much juice and precision to make it effective in a real fight. It’s the right way to execute a guy when you have to do it.
Benny died instantly, but that didn’t shut him up. His corpse completed the curse. I heard my name, Dominica, and my mother’s name, Gisele Maria Lopez Riley. Then blood frothed from Benny’s mouth and his corpse fell silent.
Like I said, in the underworld, killing a guy is just the beginning.
My car died on the way back to the city. There was nothing suspicious about this in itself. I drive a 1965 Lincoln Continental convertible, and whatever points I get for style, there’s a downside to owning a car that’s older than I am.
I was cruising along Highway 62 surrounded by nothing but desert and moon-washed darkness when the Lincoln coughed a few times and gave it up. I wrestled the car to the shoulder and switched on the emergency lights. I spun my nightvision spell and popped the hood. I went around to the front of the car and stared at the engine. It popped and clicked as it cooled. No obvious wires or hoses had come loose, which was just as well since I wouldn’t have known how to reconnect them anyway.
Some people just assume magic and technology don’t mix. In fact, magic mixes with anything if you know how to do it. Unfortunately, I suck at fixing things in general, mechanical things in particular, and I didn’t have any spells that would get the Lincoln running again.
I pulled out my cell to call Rafael Chavez. He was one of the more competent gangsters in my outfit and I’d known him since I was a kid. He’d send someone to pick me up. I activated the cell and looked at the screen.
No signal.
My magic isn’t much use with a dead engine, but I’m enough of a sorcerer to make a call. I pulled in some juice and cast my voice out toward the distant city.
“Chavez.”
“Domino?” The voice was sleepy. “What is it? Did you—”
“I’m fine, Chavez. I finished that job we talked about.” The Organized Crime Task Force isn’t likely to eavesdrop on a magical conversation, but that’s no reason to get sloppy. “My car died. I need you to send someone.”
“No problem, chola. Where are you?”
“Hell if I know…the middle of the f
ucking desert, not far from Twentynine Palms, maybe. Follow the link.” With a little effort, Chavez could use my calling spell to locate me.
“Okay, sit tight. I’ll get someone there yesterday.”
I broke the connection and returned to the car. My nightvision spell amplified the moonlight, but it was still dark. And quiet.
“Too quiet,” I said, and snickered.
The problem with using magic in the wasteland is that the wasteland isn’t empty, and the magic lights you up like a beacon. Something old and hungry moved out there in the night. I felt it, like a hot wind stirring more than anything solid.
I crossed myself. I was Catholic in the same way I was American—by birth. As a sorcerer, I had my own rituals, and the Church never held them in high regard. But unlike most Catholics in the modern world, I still believed in the spooky parts of the faith. So even though I had my own spells and protections if something went down, I crossed myself. I didn’t know what was out there, but it was a pretty good bet that God had a beef with it. The Signum Crucis was just my way of giving Him a heads up on the off chance He wanted to lay down some smite.
It’d never actually worked, probably because God had a beef with me, too. This time was no different. To the naked eye, nothing much happened. By my witch sight, though, I saw a black fog roll in from the desert. It roiled onto the highway and coalesced into the form of a man who appeared in midstride and walked toward my car. I watched the figure approach until he stopped at the edge of the circle I’d put down with sand and as much juice as I could squeeze from the desert night.
The man looked down at the circle and laughed. He breathed in deep through his nose, like he was taking in some fresh air. He was young, early twenties, with dark wavy hair that fell to his shoulders and a trim build. He wore a leather motorcycle jacket, battered jeans and cowboy boots. He was attractive in a completely inhuman way that’s not really my type.
“You’ve been a busy bee,” he said as he began walking around the edge of the circle.
“Idle hands are the Devil’s tools.”
The man laughed again. “He makes good use of ambitious ones, too.”
“Who are you?”
“Call me Sam,” he said. He was behind me now, following the edge of the circle behind my car.
“What do you want, Sam?”
“Make a guess.”
“Fix my car?”
“Guess again.”
“Suck the marrow from my bones?”
“Warmer.”
“Well, you’re not going to breach that circle, so you might as well go away.”
“I’ve got some time. Maybe we can get to know each other, Domino.”
This was the part where I was supposed to ask how he knew my name, except I’d have been more surprised if he didn’t know my name.
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Humor me. You killed a man tonight.”
“You looking to be number two?”
Sam laughed. He was in front of the car again, and the hazards bathed him intermittently in orange light. “I’m not a man.”
“Insecurity isn’t sexy.”
“How did that feel?”
“Solid. You gave me a perfect opening, but the timing—”
“Not the line, I mean the murder you did. How did that feel?”
“It didn’t.” I regretted it as soon as the words came out of my mouth. I’d have been better off with the snark and nothing but the snark.
“Nothing at all? Oh, that’s cold. Such a monster.”
I shrugged. “He tried to kill me. He made a play and came up short. Nothing to feel bad about.”
Sam nodded. “I know just what you mean.”
“So why do you want to kill me?”
“I don’t want to, necessarily. There’s a contract. I’m the guy they sent. You know how it is.”
I suppose I should have been expecting it, but I was surprised. I’d been certain Sam was some sleepy old spirit my calling spell had woken up. I didn’t think Benny had the chops for a real summoning. “The curse? You came on account of Benny?”
Sam shrugged. “Not at liberty, et cetera, et cetera.”
I hadn’t been able to understand the words of Benny’s death curse, but there’d been enough juice to power a summoning. If that’s what it was, there were certain rules I might be able to turn to my advantage.
“Maybe we can make a deal.”
Sam arched an eyebrow. “What kind of deal?”
I hate making deals with spirits, mainly because it’s damned hard to make a good one. Still, I didn’t really want Sam hanging around when my ride showed. I might be protected from him, but whoever Chavez sent to pick me up wouldn’t be.
“I could buy out your contract.”
Sam shook his head, smiling sadly. “The contract is binding.” His face brightened and he laughed. “Besides, it’s what I do.”
“Well, like I said, you’re not getting through that circle, so I guess we can just sit here until the sun comes up.”
“Yeah, about that…” Sam extended his arm across the plane of my circle and waved his hand at me. Then he stuck his foot across the line and shook it. “Hokeypokey,” he said.
Despite the shock, my training and a survival instinct bred on the streets took over and I reached for the juice. I started to spin a combat spell, but suddenly there was no air in my lungs. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, and the juice bled away into the night.
I was suffocating.
Sam vanished and reappeared beside me in the car. I reached for the forty-five holstered under my left arm, but he shook his head and I was pinned back in the driver’s seat by an unseen force.
He took the pack of Camels from my dash, tapped one out and rolled the end between his thumb and forefinger until it lit. He took a long drag and blew it out in a thin stream. “Good news or bad news first?” he asked.
I still couldn’t speak, so I made choking sounds instead.
Sam nodded at me.
“Bad news,” I gasped.
“No power of this world can save you from me. Not your magic and not your gun. Your life has been given over to me and I will take it.”
“Good news?”
“You’ve got three days,” he said, leaning back in the seat and gazing up into the moonlit sky. “I’ll take you when the moon is full.”
“That’s the good news?”
Sam laughed. “Yeah, and I’ll be honest, it’s not even that good. They’re going to be the last three days of your life, but they won’t be your best.”
“So why wait? Why not get it over with?”
“Don’t be impatient. As bad as the coming days will be, you’re going to like what comes after even less.”
“That’s bullshit. You think you got the juice, take your best shot.”
“It’s in the contract. Three days of torment, then you die. It’s a Jewish death curse.” Sam shrugged apologetically. “The Jews are good at curses.”
“That’s anti-Semitic.”
“No, it’s a compliment. The Israelites are my peeps. We go way back. But an astonishing variety of people have been trying to kill them for millennia, and they’ve had a lot of practice with death curses.”
“So, what…plagues, frogs, the life of my firstborn?”
“You have a child?”
“Not that I know of.”
He nodded, grinning. “Anyway, that stuff is culturally specific. But I’ll come up with something.”
“Good. I fucking hate frogs.”
“Thanks for the smoke, Domino. See you soon.”
“Not if I see you first,” I muttered, but I was alone in the car.
A wrecker out of Palm Springs showed up about half an hour later. I paid the guy a small fortune to tow the Lincoln all the way back into L.A. I wasn’t sure how long it would be in the shop, but I was sure I didn’t want to leave my car to the tender mercies of some high-desert redneck.
The wrecker left the Lincoln w
ith my favorite mechanic and dropped me at my condo. I was hungry and there was nothing but beer and frozen burritos in my fridge. I welcomed the beer, but I couldn’t face a burrito that late at night. I ordered chicken fried rice and a couple egg rolls from the all-night Chinese joint around the corner.
When the delivery guy arrived, I discovered I didn’t have my wallet. I had some cash in a drawer in the kitchen, so I was able to pay for the food. But I’d lost my wallet.
Gangsters often prided themselves on living off the grid and outside the normal rules of society. I was no different, I guess, but it only goes so far. Yeah, technically, I could put the hoodoo on anyone who asked for ID, but it’s usually a lot easier to make with the driver’s license or dry-cleaning receipt, as the case may be. So never mind that I’m a gangster and a sorcerer—losing my wallet was as big a pain in the ass for me as it would have been for any civilian.
Mentally retracing my steps, I remembered I’d had my wallet in the tow truck when I paid the driver. I couldn’t remember having it after that, so there was a good chance I left it in the truck. I remembered the driver had given me a business card in case I ever broke down in the middle of the desert again. I was pretty sure I’d put the card in my wallet.
The tow service had been…Mike’s Towing. Or Mack’s Garage. Maybe Moe’s Wrecker Service. Something like that. The chances were pretty good that Mike, Mack, or Moe would discover my wallet and give me a call. Failing that, Chavez had called the guy and he’d probably remember the name.
I ate my late-night dinner and caught a couple hours of fitful sleep. I woke to loud, insistent pounding on my door. I opened it to find a couple of detectives calling on me. There was a black woman with intelligent eyes and an interesting face in her mid-forties, and an older guy, the one with gray hair and bushy mustache who’s riding out his last days on the job before retirement.
“I didn’t do it,” I said, and made to close the door. The old guy blocked it with his forearm and glared at me.
“Dominica Riley?” the woman asked.
Harvest Moon Page 24
