Silver Bullet

by SM Reine

  As far as temporary outposts went, it didn’t get more secure than this.

  But the best part, if I was going to be honest with myself, was that it was swanky as fuck.

  Think wood floors made from rare, endangered trees. Think glass block showers. Think platinum fixtures. Think windows that change tint throughout the day so we’d have the most comfortable light level at all times.

  And then think about how much nicer our penthouse was than that.

  Far cry from the one-bedroom closet I occupied in Los Angeles.

  Isobel donned a pair of blue latex gloves before lifting the corner of the trash bag I’d used to wrap up the demon’s remains. Her eyebrows climbed high on her forehead. “Did Connie try to screw you to death, too?”

  “Ha-fucking-ha,” I said. I knew Isobel was joking, but I didn’t find it very funny.

  I wasn’t a violent guy. I couldn’t even make myself pretend to threaten people who deserved it, much less rip a woman’s throat open with some kind of dull blade. But after killing a succubus that had been trying to claim my head for a bounty, I was getting a reputation.

  It sucked.

  Fritz breezed through the kitchen with his BlackBerry glued to his ear. When he saw the new décor, he paused mid-step and lowered the phone. He sniffed distastefully at the sight of Connie’s body. “Do you have to do that in here?” That was the problem he had with the situation: the fact that we’d just dropped a fresh cadaver in the kitchen, not that there was a cadaver in the first place.

  “I could use your bedroom,” Isobel offered brightly.

  He sighed and returned his attention to the cell phone.

  Our fledgling team had only been sharing the condo in downtown Reno for two days, but that was two days too many. Three OPA agents and one consultant crammed into a single penthouse—even one as nice as this one—was just asking for trouble. We were all getting on each other’s nerves.

  Some of us more than others.

  Suzy entered and announced her presence by setting her new Beretta on the counter. She’d bought it at a gun shop in Sparks to replace the Glock that had been seized as evidence by the OPA. And she threw a pointed look at Isobel when she set it down.

  Isobel looked right back at her, sharing silent woman-glares.

  The two of them had been arguing over bathroom space for twenty-four hours straight now. They weren’t outright yelling, or even being all that rude. But they were civil in the chilliest way possible. Standing in the same room as the women was kind of like unexpectedly finding myself in the Arctic Circle.

  I was about ready to quit my job and go home to my trashy bachelor pad just to escape it.

  “Gloves?” Suzy asked, searching our cluttered counter.

  Isobel offered the box to her. “Here you go, Agent Takeuchi,” she said in a polite, controlled voice.

  “Thank you, Miss Stonecrow,” Suzy said in a similarly too-nice tone, taking a pair of gloves of her own.

  They both looked at me. The full force of the woman-glares made my dick try to invert. Was I supposed to be involved in the autopsy too? I’d watched Connie kill herself. I’d gotten a front row seat to the show. I was done with that demon for the rest of my life. “Thanks, but I’ll pass,” I said, stripping off my tie. It was smoldering from a smear of Connie’s blood, so I tossed it in the trash. “Maybe I’ll get started on the report.”

  Suzy rolled her eyes. “Just put on the damn gloves, Hawke.”

  I put on the damn gloves.

  It took teamwork to peel away the trash bag without splattering blood on anything else. We stuffed it into a stainless steel bin with biohazard symbols on the lid.

  “It’s caustic,” Suzy said thoughtfully, inspecting a piece of plastic that had been in contact with Connie’s blood. It was bubbled and shriveled, like it had been held too close to a lighter’s flame.

  I shrugged. “She is—was—a demon. Caustic blood is normal for a demon.” I managed to say it with enough authority that Isobel nodded along with me, but I wasn’t actually sure that was true. I caught Suzy’s eye. “That is normal, right?”

  “I have no clue. We need someone with a background in preternatural medicine for this.” She used a pair of steel tweezers to pull apart the flaps of Connie’s ragged throat. “I’m not sure how much information we can get out of the body otherwise. I can’t even begin to guess at the cause of death.”

  “I’m thinking…fatal ventilation in the esophageal region,” I said, totally straight-faced.

  Isobel snorted.

  That sound was the straw that snapped Suzy’s tenuous equanimity.

  She ripped her gloves off. Flung them in the trash. “I’ll get the report started.” She went into the bedroom and slammed the door.

  Isobel wasn’t smiling anymore.

  I stared at Suzy’s door, wishing I could see through to the other side and all the way into my partner’s brain. I’d been having a rough week, but it was nothing compared to hers. She had spent a day incarcerated in a Union detention center, which was about a day too long for anyone’s sanity.

  The Union was the militaristic division of the Office of Preternatural Affairs. I wasn’t sure what she’d seen in their prison, but it had to be bad. She’d gone into the place spunky and crass and fun. She’d come out with a hair-trigger temper that had been fired twice over Isobel leaving puddles of water around the bathroom sink.

  But who could blame her? After being released, Suzy hadn’t even been able to go home to feed her furry roommate, who was eloquently named Cat. We’d gone straight from picking her up at the detention center to our temporary outpost in Reno.

  She needed a break. We all did.

  I turned my glum gaze onto Connie. Unfortunately, none of us were getting a vacation.

  “I thought it was funny,” Isobel said softly.

  “Normally, she would have thought that was funny, too.” I kept my voice down so that Suzy wouldn’t be able to hear us through her door. “Cut her some slack.”

  Isobel lifted her gloved hands in a defensive gesture. “I didn’t say anything about her.”

  “I know. But she’s just—she’s not herself. Don’t judge her for this.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Good.”

  I distracted myself by grabbing a steel probe and using it to pry open Connie’s fingers. I hadn’t had time to examine the blade that she had used to kill herself, but I was very interested in checking out the murder weapon now.

  Getting that close to her stiff, rubbery flesh made me cringe, but I guess I couldn’t complain. This was my job now. This was what the day-to-day was going to be like. Chatting up demons, watching them kill themselves, and then prying evidence out of their cold, dead hands.

  I’d signed up for that. This was my choice.

  But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss my paperwork shuffling.

  “What do you have planned for tonight?” Isobel asked, leaning her elbows on the kitchen island.

  I glanced up from Connie’s hand. “Huh?”

  “You know. Once you’re off work.”

  “I don’t think I get to be ‘off work’ while we’re here,” I said. “That’s the problem with a salaried job. All my time belongs to the OPA.”

  “You can’t work twenty-four hours a day. At some point, this cadaver’s going to end up down a garbage chute. I think you’re due a little free time between body disposal and the next crisis.”

  I wiggled the probe between Connie’s forefinger and thumb. “Guess I don’t have any plans. What about you? You’re not an OPA employee, are you?”

  “No, I’m just here as a favor to Fritz. I can walk whenever I want.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled up at me. “I was hoping you could teach me how to do magic. I obviously have some kind of magical talent, but no idea what to do with it outside the usual…you know. Ghost thing.”

  “I’m not really the guy to ask,” I said. “Potions and stuff, yeah. But I’m no
good at ritual.”

  Isobel’s eyes went big and imploring. “So teach me to make potions.”

  I did need to mix up a few new brews. Since I hadn’t been home in a while, I hadn’t had time to restock on strength and energy potions—everything an OPA agent needed to keep up with preternatural perps. I might as well allow Isobel to watch. “Yeah, sure. I’ll teach you everything I know. Which is about three different potions, but…”

  Her grin brightened her entire face. “Great.”

  I finally pried the blade out of Connie’s hand, only to realize it wasn’t a blade at all. The bottom half was leathery, brown, and covered in wiry hair. The shiny part was hooked and about as long as my hand. The point glistened with fluid.

  Isobel pulled a face. “That looks kind of…”

  “Organic?” I suggested.

  “It makes me think of bugs.”

  The whole thing was a foot long, from the bottom of its wrinkled pouch to the shining tip. “Big fucking bug.”

  Fritz emerged from the suite’s office and tucked his cell phone in his pocket. A white apron was draped over his arm. “What have you found?”

  “I’m not sure.” Isobel lifted the hooked blade with the tweezers. “What does this look like to you?”

  He pulled the apron on over his head, tied it around back. Then he took the tweezers from her. “Hmm. Daimarachnid pincer, I think. Doesn’t that look like a daimarachnid pincer to you?”

  I stared. “Oh, yeah. Right. Dime…arachnid… Whatever. Not sure how that didn’t occur to me.”

  Fritz laughed. He’d never been much of a laughing guy, and I understood why every time he did. The sound was kind of dorky and nasal. Did not match his suave gentleman spy billionaire look at all.

  “Sometimes I forget that you were only dealing with humans when I recruited you from the private sector, Cèsar.” He turned the pincer over and held it up to the light. “Both of you, lean close. See these markings?” He pointed at a slender line of symbols imprinted below the base of the claw. “Master demons brand their underlings like ranchers brand cattle. You can tell a lot about a demon from such marks: master affiliation, the level of Hell they originate from, whether or not they’re sentient…”

  “Looks like someone decorated the crease on a saggy ball sack to me,” Isobel said.

  Fritz lifted an eyebrow. “You would see that, wouldn’t you?” He set the pincer down. “I could tell you what these brands mean, but maybe we should use it as an educational opportunity. What do you think? I’ll requisition a copy of Hume’s Almanac. Let you two interpret them.” It was only then that Fritz seemed to realize that we were missing a person. “Where’s Agent Takeuchi?”

  Isobel opened her mouth to respond. I spoke first.

  “She’s getting a head start on the reports.”

  “I admire her initiative.” Fritz dragged a barstool over to the table. “Are you ready to continue interviewing the informant now?”

  I glanced down at Connie’s body. She seemed even greasier now that she was dead. Her skin was bloodless and sagging, like the bones inside were starting to melt away. “She doesn’t look to be in a chatty mood.”

  “She will be in a moment,” Fritz said. He was looking at Isobel.

  Oh. The necrocognitive. Right.

  Being able to speak with the dead was such a rare talent that I kept forgetting Isobel had it. She seemed too sweet—and too damn normal—to have such a freaky ability. Of course, the first time I had met her, she had been half-naked, painted in animal blood, and stalking around a cemetery at night. But I didn’t hold that against her. We all had weird hobbies. Personally, I liked to watch anime in the original Japanese even though I couldn’t speak a single word of the language.

  My hobby was slightly less useful than Isobel’s.

  She rubbed her hands together nervously. “I’ve never tried to speak with a dead demon before. I’m not sure I can do it.”

  “You spoke with a half-succubus,” I said.

  “Half,” Isobel said. “That means half-human, too. I just tried to talk with her human side. But this thing doesn’t have one.”

  “I believe you can do it,” Fritz said. “Give it an attempt.”

  “Okay, but…no promises.”

  Isobel extended her hands over Connie’s body. Her eyes unfocused. Her fingers stretched out as though feeling some invisible texture to the air.

  The magic hit me hard, like being shoved in the chest by a linebacker. I actually took a step back and gasped. My lungs closed, my throat tightened, and my sinuses itched. I would have sneezed if I’d had any oxygen left in my body.

  Fritz didn’t react at all. He watched with calm interest as I clutched at my throat.

  “Connie,” Isobel said, her voice growing deeper and more resonant. “Come here, Connie.”

  That was all it had taken her to raise a ghost before—calling their names, like they were on opposite sides of a room and she just needed to get their attention. But now her brow furrowed and she frowned.

  “Connie?”

  Her hands flexed. My head began to swim from the force of the magic.

  “Isobel,” I croaked. “Can you turn it down?”

  She didn’t seem to hear me. She shut her eyes. “Connie!”

  Silvery mist lifted from the body.

  I knew what came after this. The mist would turn into a human shape. That human would have no clothes or hair or eyes. And then Isobel would be able to speak with the voice of the dead. Creepy, but kind of getting to be normal at this point.

  That wasn’t what happened.

  The mist formed into eight legs and a low-slung body. The empty eyes were numerous, glistening bulbs. And below those dangled a pair of pincers like the one that Connie had used to kill herself.

  It was a spider the size of a small car, and it was in the middle of our kitchen.

  I gave a strangled shout and jumped back, tripping over one of the barstools. It crashed to the floor. I was about two seconds behind it.

  Fritz raised a hand toward me. “Wait—be silent!”

  But Isobel had been shocked by my yell and she lost her concentration. She stumbled away from the spider. When she saw what she had summoned, she screamed.

  The spider evaporated, taking the crush of magical pressure along with it.

  Suzy’s bedroom door flew open. Her gun was already drawn. “What’s going on out here?”

  I gaped up at her. She was only five feet in her work shoes, so I’d never seen her taller than me before. “I have no idea.”

  Realizing that nobody was about to die, Suzy holstered her gun. She offered me a hand. I took it and Suzy hauled me to my feet. “What the fucking fuck was that?” I asked, staring between Isobel and Fritz.

  “That,” Fritz said, “was a daimarachnid.”

  I filed that definition away for later reference. “Daimarachnid” means huge fucking spider. Gotcha.

  “Why did a daimarachnid come out of your dead informant?” Isobel asked. She was still clutching at the counter behind her, like she thought she might fall over without it.

  “That was the ghost,” I said. It only occurred to me as I said it. “Connie was somehow a daimarachnid, wasn’t she?” The body didn’t look like a daimarachnid. It looked increasingly like an empty rubber suit. But like I said, demons have some crazy powers, and I don’t even know what half of them can do.

  “Why don’t we find out?” Fritz pulled on a pair of gloves. “Would the three of you like to help me with the autopsy?”

  My feeling of surprise was mirrored on Suzy’s face. She was the one who said, “You’re doing the autopsy?”

  Fritz was the director of the Magical Violations Department, where I had been assigned before “volunteering” to join our new team. As far as upper management went, he was good at his job. He treated the men and women that worked for him well. He interfaced with the other departments spectacularly. But that was all managers were trained and expected to do—I’d never seen him do an
ything that was actually useful.

  “Believe it or not, I had a life before I was recruited to the OPA as well,” Fritz said. “Drag the lamp over here. And get comfortable, because this is going to be very long and very interesting.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “INTERESTING” TURNED OUT TO be the wrong word for a demon autopsy. I could think of a lot of words for it—“nasty” and “horrifying” being the first two that came to mind—but “interesting” was not one of them.

  Fritz spent hours slicing and dicing Connie’s rubbery flesh. An hour in, Suzy made a bottle of bourbon appear out of thin air, then made several ounces disappear before another hour passed. She offered to share, but I wasn’t in a drinking mood. Actually, I was never in a drinking mood, but now even less than usual. I needed a clear head for this crap.

  I migrated to the window to avoid having to watch what was happening in the kitchen. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a city to look at outside. All I could really see in our neighborhood were aging strip motels and pawnshops and souvenir shops that sold novelty t-shirts with filthy slogans on the chest.

  Out the western windows, I could look beyond the city to the sun disappearing behind the snow-capped Sierras. The sky was pink and violet and gold. Much more scenic than anything in my part of Los Angeles.

  Today, the sight of the sunset made me feel strangely, inexplicably grim.

  “Do you like coffee?” Isobel asked, stepping up to my side. She offered a mug to me.

  It was a better offer than the bourbon, but not by much. My stomach was knotted after watching Fritz work with the scalpel. “No, but thanks.”

  “That bad, huh?” she asked.

  I eyed the body on the table over Isobel’s shoulder. It turned out that Connie’s greasy skin was actually nothing more than a skin-suit that somehow concealed a lot of long, furry legs. Fritz had said something about dimensional pockets by way of explanation. I hadn’t listened all that closely.

  I was too distracted by the way that the skin-suit’s gushing fluids mingled with the black blood and turned a strange brown color—not too unlike the coffee.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That bad.”