Splintered

by Jamie Schultz

  Yet, for the moment, she was content to stand here on the stairs with her oldest and best friend and just smile.

  Her phone buzzed. She took it out, opened it, and read the short text message.

  “That’s Nail,” she said. “He’s out. On his way to pick us up.”

  “Good,” Karyn said.

  They stood on the stairs next to each other and waited.

  Read on for a special preview of the next novel in the Arcane Underworld series, coming in July 2016 from Roc.

  The alley stank. Best as Anna could tell, the people from the burger joint that let out back here had been dumping their grease into the storm drain. Had to be a health code violation or a violation of some other kind of city ordinance. There was a freaking horde of rats in there, squirming over the congealed, reeking mess.

  Horrifyingly, Anna’s stomach grumbled. The demon, she thought. That’s not me. It felt like her, though, and it was getting increasingly difficult to tell where the line was. Not for the first time, she wished she could choke the living shit out of Belial, the demon that had afflicted her with her new live-in guest.

  She approached the next door down. It was the back exit from one of the city’s more eclectic pawnshops, a place where people dropped off the small and weird for cash. Rissa, like half the pawnbrokers she knew, was a fence, and if unusual goods were moving around, there was a fair chance Rissa had heard about them.

  The door opened while Anna was still ten feet away, and Rissa froze in the opening. She was in rough shape, mouth pulled down in an anxious, squirming frown, and she had a set of blue-black rings under her eyes from lack of sleep. She’d let her hair grow out some, the gray tresses pulled back in a ponytail, which fell past her collar.

  She was hauling a suitcase behind her.

  “Hey, Anna,” she said slowly, the words dragged out in trepidation.

  “Hey.”

  “I’m closing up.”

  “I got that impression. For good?”

  Rissa shrugged. “Don’t know. But I’m sure as shit getting out of here for a while.”

  “Can I come with?” Anna said, smiling to let her know it was a joke.

  “What in the world are you mixed up in? Actually, never mind. I don’t want to know.” Rissa came out, set the suitcase to one side, and locked the door.

  “What’s going on, Riss?”

  The older woman searched Anna’s face in the light from the window. She didn’t owe her anything, Anna knew, but they’d done a lot of business over the years, and it had always been fair. Anna hoped that counted for something.

  “This is a bad time for somebody like me to be around,” Riss said. “It’s . . . it’s like the pillars holding up the earth are shaking.”

  “Huh?”

  “The whole occult underworld—and the regular old criminal underworld—is a mess. Cops looking for Enoch Sobell, some kind of massacre or something at the old women’s prison. I hear that was mixed up in the occult, too. Really weird stuff.” She gave Anna a frank look. “But I guess you know about all that.”

  Not for the first time, Anna marveled at the sneaky, serpentine paths information took around the city. Who had been involved in the shit show at the prison who would have recognized Anna? Who would possibly have talked about it? But here she was, just days later, and word was out.

  “None of that’s got anything to do with you,” Anna said.

  “Four crime bosses got guys in jail,” Rissa said. “People are gonna get squeezed. Word’s gonna get out that I don’t want getting out. Time for me to take a break, that’s all.”

  “I ain’t buying it,” Anna said. “You’re not mixed up in this. So the big guys throw boulders at each other awhile. Big deal. It happens.”

  “Those rocks gotta fall somewhere,” Rissa said. She watched Anna’s eyes again, then scowled. “I got a call from a lawyer. She had some questions about relics.”

  Anna’s gut clenched. “A lawyer. She give a name?”

  “Erica Tran.”

  “Fuck.” Sobell’s lawyer. Bad because that meant she was already making the rounds. Good because that meant they hadn’t found whatever Sobell and Belial were searching for, which meant Anna and the rest of her crew might still be able to get ahead of them. Get to it first and then talk deals. Anna thought her life probably depended on it—her demon, she knew from experience, wasn’t going to sit idle forever, and either Sobell or the demon Belial might have the key to getting rid of the damn thing.

  “Yeah. I asked around. I know who her client is. You ask me, that’s as close as I need one of them rocks to fall before I get the message.”

  “Jesus, Riss. It’s the right call. I’d get out of town, too, if I was you.” Anna paused, then, “What’d you tell Erica?”

  “Told her I’d ask around.”

  Something about the way she emphasized the word “told” suggested there was more to the story. “And the truth is . . . ?”

  Rissa said nothing.

  Anna pulled a roll of bills from her pocket. “I think it’s two grand. You won’t buy a summer home with it, but it’ll get you a hell of a long way from here.”

  Riss glanced at the bills, but that was it. She bit her lip, and shook her head ever so slightly.

  “This ain’t a regular job, Riss. If I don’t get ahead of Sobell, I’m gonna be a very unpleasant person for a while, and then I’m gonna drop dead. Please. Anything you got could be a big deal for me.”

  “Don’t mess with me on this, Anna. This for real?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, shit. I don’t know about any relics, but it seems there’s a hell of a market for them all of a sudden. Tran was the second person to come looking.”

  “Yeah?”

  Rissa nodded. “About a week ago, a guy came in looking for relics. Not just any old relic, he said. Specifically body parts. Saint Christopher’s walking shoes wouldn’t cut it.”

  “That’s . . . bizarre. And gross.”

  Rissa shrugged. “I get a lot of bizarre requests. I probably wouldn’t have even remembered it if he hadn’t offered to pay in gold.”

  “No shit?”

  “None.”

  “He give a name? What did he look like?”

  “Latino guy with a teardrop tattooed at the corner of his left eye. He gave a name, but had to think an awful long time about it, and then it was so obviously fake I didn’t bother to remember it.”

  A pause. When Rissa added nothing else, Anna laughed. “Okay. That’s about ten thousand or so guys in L.A. Got anything else?”

  “He had a big Gothic number seven tattooed on the back of his hand. Some other gang tats, but I don’t really remember.”

  “Gang tats? That’s fucking weird.”

  “I don’t even blink at fucking weird anymore.”

  “Did you have anything for him?”

  “Hell, no. This isn’t twelfth-century France. This side of the pond, we don’t tend to have Saint Peter’s knucklebones hanging from a sack in the nave.”

  “Well, it’s a start.” She tossed the cash to Rissa, who caught it neatly and made it vanish in a pocket in one smooth motion.

  “Don’t let this come back on me, Anna,” Rissa said, her voice low and serious. “I don’t stick my neck out for people much. Don’t make me wish I hadn’t.”

  “I won’t,” Anna said. “Now get outta here before I get all weepy.”

  “Yeah, right,” Rissa said, but she smiled. Then she hustled down the alley, leaving Anna alone with the stench of cold grease and the squeaking of rats.

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