Devil's Business

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “It’s not for you,” Shavers snapped. “I’ve had Ben calling me eight times a day, drunk off his ass, crying about the dead families. I can’t deal with this shit, Ms. Caldecott. Whatever you’ve stirred up in his head, look at the body, say what you have to say, and calm it back down.”

  “I don’t think I can do much about Mayhew,” Pete said. “In case you hadn’t noticed, he’s not exactly a stable individual.”

  “If you don’t fix this, I’m going to arrest you and throw you in county myself,” Shavers said. “And I will personally ensure that your boyfriend’s in there with you, in a cell with a roommate who has a thing for blonds. That clear enough for you?”

  Jack thought that Shavers could do with a good pop in the mouth. Knock out a few of those film-star teeth, and see how he’d act then. Coppers were, at the root, mostly the same. There were a few, like Pete, who thought they were genuinely on the side of justice, if not always the side of Good, but most were like Shavers—little men, with a little bit of power, using it to the hilt to fuck up everyone else’s day.

  Shavers led them into the morgue proper and got them visitor’s badges, the kind given to families identifying the corpses of their loved ones. The only other person with the same colored badge as Jack was a sobbing Mexican woman with gray hair wrapped in an orange scarf. A morgue worker stood by her, not close enough to get grabbed, but close enough to look uncomfortable.

  Shavers showed them the way to the cold room, then pulled out his mobile and left.

  Pete opened the refrigerator door, as small and square as the reliquary for a person’s ashes. Mrs. Herrera was naked, covered in a plastic sheet. Blue around the edges, her eyes were shut, but nobody would ever mistake her for being asleep.

  Jack got out a pair of rubber gloves. Who knew what kind of shit the morgue workers did with the unclaimed bodies? Nothing he wanted all over his skin. He took the sheet off and looked Mrs. Herrera over. She’d been in good shape when she was alive. The gaping cavity in her abdomen had been sewn up with rough stiches, and she could have been a trophy wife recovering from a tummy tuck. Her breasts were natural, flat brown nipples and not much volume, as far as tits in Los Angeles went.

  Jack checked her arms, the inside of her thighs. No track marks and no tattoos. In the parlance of the Black, that made her practically a nun. Ink and smack were the two most common things to go under the skin if you had a talent.

  He gestured to Pete. “Help me roll her.”

  Pete didn’t flinch—she had ten times the experience with stiffs that he did. “You looking for anything special?”

  “Don’t know,” Jack muttered, running his fingers lightly down Mrs. Herrera’s spine. It could have been random. Abbadon could have seen a pregnant woman at the market, at the cinema, anywhere at all. He moved among humans like a shark, and he could have happened on her by chance.

  He couldn’t believe that, though. Not really. Abbadon was smart, and people weren’t all the same. One could be possessed as easily as breathing, while the next would fight to their dying heartbeat against psychic invasion, killing themselves and wearing Abbadon down to a nub. A fugitive from Hell couldn’t afford to take a chance like that. He’d chosen the children for a reason.

  Jack found what he was looking for under the fold of Mrs. Herrera’s buttock. She had an arse toned in life by the sort of workout that came with private gyms and trainers named Sven, but the small shadow was a flaw, the sort of flaw a woman like her wouldn’t allow.

  Pete got a pen light from a tray of instruments and shone it on the mark. “What the hell is that?”

  Jack used his thumb and forefinger to spread the skin tight, touching the raised ridges with his other hand. The slightest bit of power was still there, mostly faded by death. No blood, no life.

  “A brand,” he said. Seeing the simple lines, in the shape of a twinned cross surrounded by a broken triangle, stirred a memory that he’d just as soon forget. Another pretty girl, skinnier and paler, but beautiful nonetheless. Hollow, lifeless eyes. Skinny fingers that wrapped around his wrist and left marks when he yanked himself free.

  Her name had been Fiona Hannigan, and she was dead now, but she’d been into the same shit as Mrs. Herrera.

  “I can see it’s a brand,” Pete said. “You look as if you’ve swallowed a mouthful of embalming fluid. What’s it mean?”

  “It means she was part of a sect,” Jack said. “Not a sect, really—like a club. It’s a calling card for sex magic. She was one of the cattle. One of the conduits they used for ritual.” He threw the sheet back on Mrs. Herrera. He didn’t need to look at the brand any longer.

  A baby conceived during a ritual, already tainted by black magic, would be the perfect flesh for something like Abbadon. Jack honestly wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.

  Pete was chewing on her lip, a gesture that she reverted to when she was nervous or going over some particularly nasty truth. “You said one of them went wrong,” she said. “One of the things riding with Abbadon.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Fucking disgusting. Looks like a twat with teeth. Think it was the Herrera baby, poor soul. Abbadon took the Case child for his own flesh, and fuck knows where he found bodies for the other two. They’re not working out much better, I can tell you that.”

  “And I can tell you they’re not finished,” Pete said. “You can’t go against the Princes a man down.”

  She was right. Pete was usually right. That was the maddening thing about her. Jack shoved a hand through his hair. It was still stiff with blood. He needed to wash, needed a drink. Needed to get out of this city, where there was nothing but a black hole of pain and misery to fall into, until you smacked the bottom and came apart like a doll.

  “There can’t be too many cabals of fuck-mages, even in a city like this,” he said.

  “We can’t let that thing get its hands on another kid,” Pete said. “Nor slice up another family like they’re a fucking fruit cocktail.” She stripped off her gloves and threw them in the biohazard bin.

  “Don’t worry,” Jack told her. “I know somebody who’ll know exactly where we can find ourselves a pregnant sorcerer.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Sanford practically bounded down the drive when Jack rang at his gate, Gator and Parker in tow. “Jack! You have some good news for me?”

  “Not even a droplet of piss for you,” Jack told him. Parker grunted, and Sanford blinked.

  “Then, pardon me, but what the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Got a proposition for you,” Jack said. This had to go just right. If he slagged Sanford off, that great cunt Parker looked like he’d be all too happy to leave him stone dead in a canyon somewhere, food for the coyotes that Jack could hear yipping even now in the hills behind Sanford’s house.

  “For me.” Sanford cracked his knuckles. “This should be good, considering how I believe I told you exactly what I needed from you, and the consequences if that didn’t happen.”

  “Yeah, well,” Jack said. “You really know so much about me, you’ll know that following orders from gits in slick suits isn’t exactly my forte.”

  Sanford rubbed a thumb across his forehead. “Shall we take this somewhere more conducive to negotiation?” he said. “You look like a man who could use a drink. Possibly a flea bath.”

  This time, there were no pleasantries by the pool. Sanford took Jack to a study, full of film tear sheets from pictures Jack had never heard of, a set of fake fencing swords and the rubber head of a swamp monster hanging on the walls. “Basil was quite a collector,” Sanford said. “Somewhat notorious for stealing from his sets, actually. Have you seen any of his films?”

  “Can’t say I’m a movie buff,” Jack said.

  “Right, you were in that band,” Sanford said. “Probably thought you were too cool for cheesy old B pictures. Anyway, I recommend My Soul Condemned. Nasty little noir picture, better than most of the crap Basil was featured in.”

  He poured scotch from a decanter
into a crystal tumbler and Jack drank, but it was cheap stuff that lit a fire all the way down. The fuck you scotch, reserved for guests you really wanted to shove into the pool and hold there until they stopped twitching.

  “Now,” Sanford said, lighting a cigar from an inlaid box on his massive desk. “Why don’t you tell me what’s got you in such a lather?”

  Jack told Sanford about Abbadon. Watched his face for any sign of a twitch of guilt, but Sanford was better at the game than that. He smoked, he drank, he smiled and made conciliatory faces in all the right spots.

  “Well, that’s certainly an exciting story,” he told Jack when Jack finished. “But I don’t see what it has to do with me.”

  “You want Abbadon on your side,” Jack said. “So you can poke and prod Belial for the rest of his miserable existence. You can’t hope to hold him on your own, but with some of Abbadon’s magic, you’ll have the pet demon you’ve always wanted.” He steepled his fingers. “You tell me where the local sorcerers meet to fuck each other’s brains out, I guarantee I can deliver you Abbadon.”

  He didn’t make a habit of hooking men like Sanford together with creatures like Abbadon, but Sanford didn’t know that. He thought threatening Pete and the kid would keep Jack in line, and Jack was content to let him go right on thinking it. Besides, he needed Sanford, at least for a little bit longer. Then it might be amusing to watch Abbadon chew the prick up and shit him out.

  “Interesting,” Sanford said. “And what’s the upshot for you?”

  “You leave Pete alone,” Jack said. “Call off your pet sociopaths and let her go about her life.”

  Sanford rolled his eyes. “What a predictable twist,” he said. “I’d never sell a picture with a line like that.”

  Jack held Sanford’s eyes. “Good thing this is real life, then.” He leaned forward and set the empty tumbler on the edge of Sanford’s desk. Sanford didn’t flinch, but he wasn’t acting like Jack had brought him the wrong sort of coffee any longer, either. The temptation to get what he wanted was going to rule him. Jack leaned back in his chair. “So? You know any place like what I’m talking about?”

  Sanford exhaled a cloud of smoke. “You fuck me in the ass over this, Jack…” He leaned forward and stubbed out his cigar, one vicious movement that rattled the ashtray. “I’m not going to need to hurt Pete and your kid. You’ll wish you were dead either way.”

  “Story of my fuckin’ life,” Jack said. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  CHAPTER 21

  Sanford and Jack rode in an old Lincoln limousine, a great rolling coffin of iron and chrome. Parker drove and Gator stayed behind, a development that clearly infuriated him, veins bulging out of his bull neck. “I don’t trust that Limey fuck, sir,” he told Sanford.

  “That’s all right,” Sanford said, giving Jack a mild smile. “Neither do I.”

  Parker stayed quiet, guiding them down from the heights of Sunset Boulevard and back into the maze of downtown.

  “It’s a real shame what’s happening down here,” Sanford said. “Used to be a high-class neighborhood back before the crash. Now it’s full of spics and crackheads, and all of these old buildings are crumbling.” He gestured at an Art Deco cinema, marquee lit up to advertise a live performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. “The Million Dollar Theater. Back in old Basil’s day, all the premieres were there. Swank spot.” He pointed to a brick building across the street, a nondescript four-story box surrounded by tourists with cameras. “They filmed Blade Runner in there, the Bradbury Building. Crazy ironwork. I’d’ve loved to get a shooting permit for a feature I did a few years ago, but it’s all rented by the LAPD now and they’re real assholes unless you have a buddy on the force.”

  The limo pulled to the curb, putting an end to Sanford’s rambling before Jack had to choke him with his own shoelaces. The man loved the sound of his chatter like few Jack had ever met before. That was fine—the more Sanford talked, the less he had to.

  Parker opened the door, but let it swing back at soon as Sanford was out. It clipped Jack in the knee, and he cursed. Parker’s lips twitched with the thinnest ghost of a smile before Sanford went to a metal door sandwiched between a convenience mart and a shop selling quincenera dresses and hit the buzzer.

  “Let me do the talking in here,” Sanford said. “I have a relationship with these people. You’re an outsider, and they don’t like that. Me bringing you at all is putting my whole reputation at risk.”

  “I’ll do me best not to use the wrong fork or spit on the carpet,” Jack said. Worrying about offending sex magicians was like being concerned with hurting a hobo’s feelings—you could spare the worry, but why bother? Sex magic spoke to a particular kind of ego, worse than the usual sort of cunt who turned to black magic. None of the sorcerers Jack had run across were much better than pimps with a little bit of talent and just enough charm to lure damaged boys and girls into their games for power. He supposed there might be some who used fucking as a genuine focus, a form of power-raising that was consensual and at least in the gray area between outright black magic and the white stuff that everyday sorts associated with witchcraft, but he hadn’t met them. The more depraved the sex, the more pain the subject was in, the less they wanted it, the bigger the entity you could attract. And the sorts of things attracted to blood, sex, and suffering weren’t cuddly and inclined to sit down and have a cup of tea.

  He couldn’t worry about that now. He wasn’t on a mission of mercy. He was here to find a pregnant sorcerer, warn her that something was coming to slice her like a Sunday roast, and get the fuck out. Let Sanford and Belial and Abbadon duke it out. He was finished with being batted back and forth like a toy mouse. LA couldn’t be in his rear view soon enough.

  The buzzer rang, echoing through the rusted speaker, and Parker held the door for Sanford. He began to let it go on Jack again, and Jack stared into his blank dark eyes. “Do it and I’m putting your head through.”

  “You threatened to kick our teeth in, too,” Parker murmured. “Promises, promises.”

  Jack followed Sanford up a narrow staircase, threadbare Persian carpets muffling his boots. The walls were stamped tin, painted over with blood red that pooled and dripped at the floor. A single bare bulb flickered above Jack’s head, giving Sanford an entirely undeserved halo as he crested the landing in front of Jack.

  Sanford knocked at another door and looked at Parker when a deadbolt clacked. “We’ll be out in a few minutes. Just hang out.”

  Parker grunted, and glared at Jack with hostility naked as a spitting electrical wire. Jack patted him on the shoulder. “Cheer up, mate. You’ll have time to work on your tan.”

  The door swung open, and a small woman looked Jack up and down. “You didn’t call ahead for a visitor,” she told Sanford.

  “Come on, Anna,” he said. “You know I’m a good boy.”

  One of her painted eyebrows went up. “Hmph,” she said, but stepped aside. She was pudgy, in the way that short women seemed to grow outward, not up, and wore a black silk dressing gown and heels. She didn’t have the hollowed-out stare of most sex sorcerers’ fuckmates. A madam, Jack decided, somebody who wasn’t to the taste of whatever entity this sorcerer was feeding in exchange for power.

  “We don’t have any more recordings for you,” she told Sanford. “Next ritual is at the new moon. You’re welcome to attend, as always.”

  “Hold up,” Jack said to Sanford. “You use their rituals for spank material?” He shook his head. “Got to hand you that one, mate. You’re sicker than I thought.”

  “Please,” Sanford said. “Shut the fuck up. Did I not make myself clear?”

  Jack ignored him and looked at Anna. “Where’s your loo?”

  “Down the hallway, second door,” she said. Jack started walking without another word.

  Sanford was somebody who liked the wheedling almost as much as the result. They could be here until Christmas while he danced around with Anna and her fellow perverts, trying to couch
his question in the most honeyed terms. Tell a sorcerer an ancient entity from the blackest part of the Pit was after one of their flock, and they’d probably welcome it with open arms. Sanford had to avoid that at all costs if he wanted his prize of a living, breathing pet demon than he didn’t have to share with anyone.

  Jack had no such compunctions. He’d kick down every door in this shitty warren of flats if he had to. He opened the loo door loudly, running water and flushing the toilet, and then slipped out and down the hallway.

  He thought it might have been offices at one point, in the past when men wore hats and women all had blood-red lips and low, husky cigarette purrs. The wavy glass door showed shadows, and moans and sobs came from behind a few. Jack tried those first.

  A boy who couldn’t have been much older than Sliver glared up at him. His bare torso was covered with thin welts, and a black halo of makeup had collected under his eyes. “Get the fuck out,” he said, swiping the runnels on his cheeks.

  “Sorry,” Jack said.

  “Don’t be sorry, get out!” the kid snapped. “I’m off duty, all right? Find somebody else to fuck with.”

  “Can I help you?”

  Jack turned to tell whoever it was to fuck off, but instead found himself face to face with a pleasant-looking blond girl whose stomach under her Killers T-shirt was swollen round as a sport ball.

  “Yeah,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I think you can.”

  “Excuse me,” the boy said loudly. “Can you two have your girl talk somewhere other than my room?”

  “Calm down, Travis,” the girl said. “Nobody wants to be in your room.” She ushered Jack out and shut the door. “Sorry about him. He’s new.”

  “He always that cheerful?” Jack asked her.

  “Usually he’s pretty good about new people,” the girl said. “But he had a rough night. The indoctrination can be tough.” She gave Jack a serene smile. “The first time I let the power inside me, I puked my guts out. But Anna helped me, and now look.” She ran her hands over her stomach.