by Ryan Talbot
I looked behind me, lowering my pistol slowly. An arrow jutted out of the soft earth, its iridescent fletching catching and refracting the light strangely. It didn’t radiate sorcery, malignant or otherwise. Assuming it was safe to touch, I pulled it slowly from the ground. I whistled softly under my breath. The business end of the arrow had two sharp bone points an inch and a half apart connected by a silver crossbar. The arrow had been handcrafted. Tiny etchings covered every inch of the arrow from fletching to head. The arrowhead reeked of something poisonous, I stayed well away from it.
This was new. I mean, I’d been attacked before. The Angelics weren’t particularly kind to me. Granted, I wasn’t exactly sending them care packages either. But this, this was different. Usually, the Angelics preferred to fight face to face. It was an honor thing. This was altogether dishonorable. I frowned. Poison? Ambush without cause? What the fuck was going on?
There was an aetheric tug, and Corrigan stood beside me, the shadows gathering around him like a cloak.
“You okay?” He asked.
“Yeah,” I pointed east with the arrow. “Some little fucker in a skull mask just tried to smoke me medieval style.”
“That’s a hell of a long shot with a bow, Jason.” He squinted toward the roof of the museum.
“That’s probably why he missed,” I said.
“Let me see that,” he reached for the arrow.
“I can’t make sense of it,” I said as I passed it over. “It’s cuneiform, but it doesn’t reference anything I know.”
“You’re young,” he snorted. “Give it a few centuries.”
“Well, if you figure it out, call me,” I replied as I flipped him off. “I gotta run, I have to meet Rachel.”
“Sounds pleasant,” he frowned and held up the arrow. “Maybe you should take this with you.”
“For what?”
“In case she opens her mouth.”
“Not exactly an ace diplomatic strategy,” I said, pulling out my phone. “But I’ll keep it in mind.”
“See that you do,” he said absentmindedly, his eyes were locked on the arrow. He faded back into shadow, and was gone. “See that you do,” his voice drifted on the wind.
I met the limo just outside the park. The driver was blessedly silent this time. I lit a cigarette and cracked open a bottle of Jameson. They’d stopped stocking the mini-bars with scotch about a year after I got this job. Apparently, I had a habit. It was unseemly for an emissary to show up wasted.
I didn’t really see an issue. My investiture burned alcohol like a gas fire. It was impossible for me to get drunk without serious effort. And I mean drinking-a-frat house-into-hospitalization effort. I think it was the only way Erzebet knew to get under my skin. Not that that mattered now.
I didn’t bother with a glass. These cars existed for me and me alone. I took a deep pull from the bottle and stared out the window as midtown drifted by. So many people. So many fucking people. All of them clueless as to what was really going on. Once, I’d been just like them. I’d been a hero. I snorted and the driver jumped.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
I’d been like him. I had causes. I had beliefs. Once, I had a heartbeat and it whispered her name. I bit my fist hard. I shook my head and lifted the bottle to my lips. I didn’t stop until it was empty. I reached for another bottle as the car drifted to a stop.
“We’re here, my lord Emissary,” the driver said quietly.
“More’s the pity,” I muttered, my hand pulling back from the bottle of Bushmills. I burped and threw the door open.
“By the Five Points, my lord,” the driver whispered. “May he keep you in his hands.”
I leaned back into the car. “Got him in mine,” I said, pointing at the Mark on my left palm. “But thanks.” I kicked the door shut and turned toward the bookstore.
The storefront of The Secret was about as mundane as it gets. The store itself was below ground, built into the basement of a large apartment building. A wrought iron railing led down a flight of concrete stairs to a glass-fronted oak door fixed in a brick wall. A worn “Closed” sign hung in the window. There were no hours posted, nor any indication that it was, in fact, a store at all. Should an enterprising thief find his way into the store, he would find books. Thousands of them. But not just any books. These books were special; profane and blessed, perverse and beatific, The Secret cared not for the nature of the book except in one tiny little way. Each and every book in the store was banned. These texts, treatises, poems, and stratagems, in their entirety, all of them forbidden. The nature of the proprietor, and to a greater extent, the nature of his father, demanded that all have ready access. And they did.
In my short time as the Devil’s Emissary, I had come here more than once to uncover a secret or two. And, though it angered my Master, I’d burned incense at Ganesh’s altar. Everything has a price Veilside, and I paid them. Without once looking over my shoulder, or even peering into the inky interior of the store, I pushed the door open.
A tiny bell tinkled overhead and I grimaced.
“You know what they say…” Dhaar materialized like an explosion of smoke in reverse. He made a bell ringing motion with his hands. “An angel gets his wings.”
“It isn’t true,” I growled. “Why does everyone think that shit’s so damned funny?”
“Because you anger so easily, Jason Beckett.” Dhaar smiled. His perfect white teeth gleamed from within the dark chestnut tones of his face. Waves of thick, curly black hair framed his face, which in turn cradled his smile like a precious jewel. He wore a black silk shirt over worn jeans, which couldn’t quite hide his fascination with vintage Chuck Taylor’s. “And pissing you off is brilliant.”
I smiled, and opened my arms. He stepped into my embrace and clapped me on the back.
“You know nobody likes you,” I grinned as I released him.
“Don’t care,” he grinned back. “As long as they pay.” He pointed at the altar in the only corner of the wide room without any bookshelves.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a wad of hundred dollar bills. I tossed it irreverently into a brass collection basket alongside the altar. Stepping closer, I lit a stick of incense and placed it in the burner on the altar.
“Let the way be made clear,” I whispered.
“The way is ever clear,” Dhaar said quietly. “But it is cluttered by thought, by fear, by indecision.”
“And booze,” I stepped away from the altar and burped as I turned back to Dhaar.
“You smelly, arrogant bastard,” he laughed, fanning a hand in front of his face. “Can’t you be serious for a minute?”
“No,” I shook my head. “When I’m serious, people die.”
“So dramatic,” he snorted and pointed toward the back of the store. “She’s back there.”
“She’s pretty pissed, isn’t she?”
“No more than usual,” he shrugged. “But then again, I’m a demon-blooded, mongrel heathen.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You are.”
The door creaked as I opened it. The room didn’t fit. It was far bigger than it had any right to be, and it just felt off. It existed partially on the Veilside which accounted for the off-putting vibe. And everything in it was so...beige. It was supposed to calm the people attempting to mediate disputes, but it was so damned bland. A massive boardroom table dominated the room, brown high backed leather chairs surrounded the table.
Rachel looked so small, hunched as she was, her face in her hands. I turned my back as I closed the door, giving her a second to compose herself before I coughed and turned around. I shouldn’t have bothered. She glared at me as she violently wiped at her eyes.
“Where is she?” She demanded. Her eyes were the raw red of the bereaved, and her ginger hair was disheveled.
“My people are bringing her,” I said.
“Why?” The honesty in her voice, the pure emotion of it cut me.
“I don’t know,” I said. I pulled out the chair acro
ss from her.
“She was a good woman,” Rachel’s voice grew harsh.
“I don’t doubt that,” I said. “She was well respected.”
“Then how could you let this happen?”
“Did you bomb my embassy?” I sat heavily in the chair.
“No!” She slammed her fist on the heavy oak table.
“Easy,” I held back the growl in my voice. “I’m just asking.”
“You didn’t answer me, Beckett!”
“That’s because I don’t know the answer,” I snapped. “I didn’t fucking kill Magda!”
Rachel’s face came alive, and her flame red hair seemed to writhe around her head, a brilliant blue flare lit her eyes. My mouth worked, trying to form the word “no” as I threw my Mark out in front of me.
“Liar!” She spoke with a voice deep, ancient, powerful. Her eyes bored into me.
The table buckled with the force of her voice, collapsing it in sections, like an overpass in an earthquake. The shockwave hit my outstretched palm and hurled me, still in the heavy chair, across the room and into the wall. My skin ignited with ice-white flames, as my Mark reacted to the Word of YHWH. Satan’s fury poured through me and shielded me from most of the blast.
“Rachel,” I pulled myself out of the wreckage of the chair. “Enough!” My right hand twitched toward my Beretta and it took everything I had to pull it back. “This is what they want!”
“What?” She deflated as the strength of the Divine left her.
“Someone is fucking with us,” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Can’t you see that?”
“Why should I believe you?” She snarled.
“When,” I shook my hands out, trying to calm myself. “Have I ever, have I fucking ever, attacked any Angelic without provocation?”
“You threw me off the Brooklyn Bridge!” She snapped, pulling herself to her feet.
“You stabbed me in the neck with a broken pool cue,” I yelled back. “You want a fucking hug for that?”
“You shoved me in front of a subway train!”
“You were between me and a traitor!”
“I was granting him sanctuary!”
“Well, you fucking failed, didn’t you?” I held up my hands and ran them over my face. “Wait, just wait,” I said, my voice muffled.
“I hate you,” she said quietly.
“Right back at you,” I whispered.
“I can’t talk to you,” she said. “You’re a murderer.”
“I…” I trailed off. She was right.
“You’re a liar.”
I nodded.
“I can’t parley with you,” she said.
“I don’t think you have a choice,” I sighed.
“No,” she agreed.
I ran my hand over my face and tucked my hair behind my ears. I coughed to clear my throat and put both hands on the back of one of the chairs.
“Someone is trying to force us to do something neither of us wants,” I said.
“Sit in the same room?”
“No,” I snorted. “Fight.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Things weren’t good, but they weren’t…like this.”
“There’re too many people that benefit from us going to war, Rachel.”
“The world benefits if we destroy your kind,” she said firmly.
“Whatever,” this, I was used to. Rachel was a believer. She had faith like the poor have tears. “But think of the cost; do you want this?”
“No,” she said.
“Then let’s figure it out.”
“How can I trust you?”
“Common sense,” I said. “You can’t.”
The door to the room exploded inward with a massive blast of blue fire.
“Liar!” Rachel shrieked. Her eyes lit with rage.
5
For the space of a heartbeat, the room remained sane. Fragments of wood and plaster seemed to tumble gracefully through the air as the shockwave rippled across the Veil, distorting and disturbing the aether. After that, it was all screams and gunfire.
I dove to the side, snatching my Beretta from beneath my coat. I came up firing as the black clad bastards stormed the room. Rachel took a knee and drew her silver Baby Eagle, her finger pumped the trigger furiously as she targeted the invaders. They all wore the same black skull bandannas covering their faces as the bastard that’d shot at me earlier.
“What the fuck?” I yelled as I dropped two of them. I counted nine more as I shifted my sights. I turned away as something whistled past my face, and whipped around to face Rachel.
“You did this!” She yelled as she spun toward me and pulled the trigger again.
I screamed a Word of force and shoved my Mark toward her. The remnants of the table exploded away from me, catching her bullet and slamming against the far wall. I turned back toward our unknown attackers.
“Who the fuck are you people?” I leveled my pistol at the crowd of them, and stepped cautiously backward, creating space between us.
They began a low chanting; I couldn’t make out the words. The effect, however, was immediate. My vision blurred and my legs went all to jelly. As my sight began to narrow, rage gripped me. I wasn’t going out like this. No fucking way I was going to let some chumps in cheap Halloween costumes kill me. Even if they didn’t succeed, the humiliation would do their work for them. I shouted a Word of silence.
My vision cleared, and I had full command of my body again. Without hesitation, I fired a hammered pair into the face of the closest chump and shifted to the two behind him. I pointed my pistol at one, and my eyes at the other. My Word broke, and I screamed a new one as I pulled the trigger. The Word of conflagration hit the goon on the right as my bullet smacked his partner in the forehead. The right goon exploded in a shower of flaming gore as his buddy flopped to the ground like a rag doll. The flames spread quickly. The remaining seven threw themselves to the ground as they tried to roll out the flames. I fired six shots.
Dropping my magazine and loading my pistol with a fresh one, I tucked the old one in my jacket pocket. The last of the goons thrashed out the flames on his shirt and sat up slowly.
“I have questions,” I said. “And you’re going to answer them, or you’ll beg for death.”
“I do not fear you, Shaitan,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “I welcome what you will become.”
“What?”
“I am honored to have been a part of the ritual, to have served you.”
“You have one second to start making sense,” I said. I pointed my pistol at his kneecap.
“I have neither pain nor sorrow left in me,” he said.
I squeezed the trigger. He didn’t flinch. His knee buckled and bloody cartilage hurled out of the wound.
“Who are you?”
“I am no one.”
“Who do you work for?” I asked.
“The greater good,” he said. “I work for all mankind.” He collapsed and lay unmoving.
I reached down, my weapon trained on his head and touched his throat. No pulse. I pulled my Ghūllish blood forward and felt my eyes burn as my Sight returned. His body was empty. Not just dead, but soulless. It’s hard to explain the difference between what he was, and what a normal dead body looked like. It was as if I were staring at a vacant building, one that hadn’t been occupied in memory. A normal dead person is like looking at a house the owner abandoned seconds before, the plates still set on the table, and pictures still in their frames. I shuddered. I’d seen all manner of wrongness before, this was different. What could do this? What could obliterate a soul? More importantly, how could these creatures survive without one?
I stood and dusted myself off. The pile of rubble that I’d tossed on Rachel remained undisturbed. I sighed and spoke a Word of force, idly waving my hand to direct the detritus to the far corner of the room. The aether eddied around the void where Rachel had been. That crazy bitch had opened an Angelic door. I whistled and shook my head. That was both b
allsy and stupid.
Opening an Angelic door while Veilside was like opening an emergency exit on a pressurized plane. The Veil could’ve ripped and unleashed enough energy to kill us all. She knew better. Had she deliberately tried to kill us? I ran a hand over my face. This was only getting murkier. I kicked a chunk of table toward the door. Dhaar should have been watching, he’d guaranteed our safety, my safety.
I slid through the door and back into the shop proper. The air tasted of copper and electricity and the shop was eerily silent. I didn’t bother to call out, Dhaar wouldn’t have let those thugs through his protectorate. A single glance toward the store front confirmed my suspicions. Dhaar’s headless body lay in front of the altar, crumpled and riddled with hack marks. They’d been at him with his own blades. Both of his swords were planted in his back like some sort of sick kickstand. I knelt beside him, looking for any sign of who these bastards were. A lock of blond hair hung limply from Dhaar’s clenched fist. A chunk of bloody scalp rested against the floor. He’d hurt one of them, at least.
“Fuck,” I whispered, my eyes crossing the altar. “I came in good faith,” I said aloud. “This one ain’t on me.”
I stepped around him and picked up the phone behind the counter, my fingers dialing before I rested the handset against my ear.
“Internal Revenue Service,” the operator spoke in a clipped voice.
“Need a crew down to the Secret,” I said. “At least eight bodies, and a ton of books.”
“Public affairs?” He asked.
“Yeah, and let our fire and police contacts know this needs to look like we were never here.”
