Which meant only one thing. I expected serious trouble and didn’t want anyone else to get burned. In other words, war. A fresh tension spilled through the Weres, a tautening of attention.
Good allies to have, Weres. But if something bigger than a talyn was coming down the turnpike, it might be time to evacuate them.
Deal with that when the time comes, Jill. For right now, get going on what you know you have to deal with. I glanced up to gauge Theron’s reaction. He nodded. Then I dropped the bomb. “Tell the 51s we want a meet with the gang that opened fire on me. If we can find out who el pendejo gordo is I’ll feel a lot better about this.”
Of course he didn’t think much of the idea. “Oh, for Chrissake, Jill, the barrio—”
Shut up, Theron. “You’ll be standing in for me, I’m not going into the barrio again. Leon and I are going to make a run on this airfield where they transport the organs out. There’s bound to be something out there.”
“We’ll go—” the Were began, but I shook my head, silver chiming. Rested my fingers on the butt of a gun.
“No, you won’t. No Were will get within ten miles of that place. It’s hunter business, Theron, the kind that doesn’t mix with Weres. There’s rumor of a hellbreed involved with this.” More than a rumor. This has sticky little hell-fingers all over it.
Theron digested this, looked up at the other Weres. “Maybe that bastard that runs the Monde?”
They were quiet, watching us. Apparently Theron had been elected to talk to me about that. “Not him.” Of that much, at least, I was reasonably certain. “Another hellbreed. Seriously bad news, if the sources are right.”
Which was the understatement of the year. My brain returned to the problem, probing at it like a sore tooth. There is a strict hierarchy in Hell, and we usually only saw the lower orders, it being too goddamn hard for the biggies to come through into the physical plane. The biggest we usually see is a talyn, and they’re mostly insubstantial anyway.
Except Perry, who might or might not be one. Which I didn’t want to think about right now. He couldn’t be a talyn, he was all-too-substantial on a daily basis.
I didn’t want to think about that either.
If half, or even a quarter, of what Hutch had in moldy books about this Argoth was true…
“Leon and I will take care of it.” I even said it with a straight face. “But I need every Were watching the city. Keep the barrio from boiling over, and see what you can do about finding out exactly which cop gave the kill order on me. Got it?”
“I don’t like this,” Theron said. “You should have backup.”
Shut up. “I have backup, Theron. He’s standing right here. What I don’t need is you second-guessing me.”
Another rumble rippled through the Weres. Theron tried again. “This is Lone Ranger shit, Jill. You know how—”
I interrupted him, rude by any standard but especially by Were etiquette. “Shut up, Theron!” I rounded on him, both hands loose, and felt the tension in the room tip and shift. “Leon and I will handle it. You have no idea what’s about to go down, goddammit, and I need my city kept safe while we avert a goddamn apocalypse or two!”
The Were studied me for a long moment, orange light shifting in his eyes. Dressing down a cat Were in public isn’t a safe thing to do.
But goddammit, this wasn’t a democracy. Weres function by cooperation and consensus—they have to. But when the city’s under fire, with scurf and ’breed and God knows what going on, it’s the hunter’s call.
Still, Theron was my friend. And good backup. I shouldn’t be taking out my frustrations on him.
The Were slumped, his shoulders going down. “All right.” It was a submission, a virtual baring of the throat. “You got it, Jill. We’ll keep the city together.”
Leon was downing his third beer. I considered telling him to take it easy, decided not to. If the quick, strung-out jerkiness of his movements was any indication, he felt exactly how I did about this whole thing.
“Good deal.” I pointed at the ledgers and the file. “Keep that for me, will you? I don’t know where else to put it.”
“Anything else?” He was suddenly all business. I didn’t blame him.
“Just keep Santa Luz on the map and spinning like a top, Leon and I will take care of the rest.” I nodded sharply, turned on my heel, and headed for the front door. Leon grabbed another Pabst from Amalia and fell into step behind me, the sound of him popping the ringtab loud in the stillness.
We got almost to the door before Theron spoke again. “Jill.”
I didn’t turn, but I did stop. Don’t hassle me now, furboy. Just don’t do it.
“We can’t afford to lose a hunter.” Which is as close as he would ever come to telling me to take care of myself. And Leon, for good measure.
Goddamn touchy Weres. You can’t even get mad at them when they’re so concerned about you. The thought of Saul rose like choking smoke in my chest, I shut it away.
“We won’t,” I tossed over my shoulder, and made it out the door. Leon followed, guzzling for all he was worth.
The green Charger sat across the street, in a rare bit of shade and free parking in front of a whole-foods store and a video rental place. I got behind the wheel, Leon slammed his door, and I looked at my fingers on the steering wheel. Bernie’s keychain, a heavy brass Playboy bunny head, swung through the hot stillness of the interior.
“You just lied to a roomful of Weres.” Leon took another hit off the can. “Jesus, Jill.”
“The shipments should stop now that we’ve hit their distribution center.” My fingers moved restlessly, Mikhail’s apprentice-ring glinting on my third left finger. In other words, Leon, you can go home. You don’t have to see this through.
Yeah. Right. Like he was going to go for that. I shouldn’t even have thought it.
“I been curious all my life.” He shrugged, finished off the can with a long slurp and a massive belch that threatened to fog the windows. “Ain’t gonna stop now.”
The unspoken lingered just under the day’s heat. And if this Argoth is closer than we think, I’ll need all the help I can get. Since neither of us is Jack Karma. Not even close.
I twisted the key. The Charger roused, nowhere near my Impala’s sweet purr. Bernie hadn’t taken care of this car. I could fix that, if I hang onto this hunk of metal after the case ends. Have to clean it out, too. “We need ammo, but I don’t want to draw any more attention to Galina’s. I’ve got a cache in the suburbs. We should get to the airfield in about two hours.”
The sun would be past its highest mark, the day hot and still in its long afternoon; blessed, safe sunlight everywhere. With a bit of luck, we could disrupt anything going on at the airfield and be home in time for dinner.
I was hoping I’d finally be feeling hungry by then, too.
“More ammo.” Leon nodded sagely. “And I’ll be praying my ass off, Jill. This is suicide.”
You don’t think I know that? “It beats sitting in front of the TV.” I checked traffic and pulled out, sedately for once. I didn’t know how far I could abuse this engine, and I didn’t want cops marking this car. Not for a while, anyway. With Bernie’s partner dead and me driving like Granny Weatherall, there shouldn’t be a reason for anyone to run the plate number either.
If we were lucky.
“Amen.” Leon belched again, dropping the can on the floorboard, and I rolled my window down.
Chapter Twenty-six
The Anabela Rosenkrantz Memorial Airfield sits about twenty miles outside the city limits. It’s a dusty, claptrap place, hangars set on one side of a long strip of pounded-down desert, leveled by a wheezing bulldozer after every gullywasher. Hutch had done his digging well, and now I knew all about it.
ARA was where prop-plane enthusiasts stored their machines and the Santa Luz Police Department trained their two or three helicopter pilots. The county fire department trained out here too, sometimes, rather than at the bigger airport situated halfway bet
ween Santa Luz and the state capital.
All in all, the dusty little place saw a lot of activity. That is, until last year.
Hutch had discovered ARA had been “closed for repair” last winter, and never reopened. The amateur enthusiasts had moved closer to the county seat, and the cops hadn’t been out here at all this year.
At least, not the honest ones.
Which is why I wasn’t surprised, when we crested the rise on a Forestry Service road cutting off the highway at an angle and heading into the canyons, to see more tin roofs throwing blinding spears of sunlight at the sky. It was the eight-by-ten I’d found in the Cherry Street warehouse. That picture had been taken recently, for some reason—probably to familiarize a pilot with the layout so the cargoes could be flown out.
The drug runners move through further east, trucking things up through the border, carrying them through with illegal immigrants, and paying flyboys top dollar to play tag with Border Patrol. The last time I tangled with serious drugrunning into Santa Luz had been that hellbreed motherfucker selling tainted E, but most of that had been cleaning up the pipeline for ingredients, since the actual drug had been made in the basement of an apartment building at the edge of the barrio.
“What?” Leon glanced up through the windshield as we rolled to a stop below the top of the rise.
I gestured briefly, switched the radio—AC/DC moaning about the highway to hell, since we’re both classic rock fans—off. Heatwaves blurred the distance and poured in through the open windows. “They’ve built more onto the airfield.”
We exchanged a long meaningful look. Rosita was in the back seat, out of sight but close at hand should he need her. “Shit.” He leaned over the seat to grab her.
I agreed. Coming in this way we had some cover, but the airfield was… well, an airfield, and out in the middle of nowhere where you could see somebody coming. We would raise a roostertail of dust into the stratosphere, and if they had assault rifles—
We’ll deal with that when we get there. I tipped my shades down my nose, looking over them and memorizing the layout. Light stung, water wrung out of both my smart and dumb eyes. And yes, friends and neighbors, wasn’t there a plucking in the fabric of reality around the airfield? Little dimples of swirling corruption lifting like pollen on the air, rising with the heat, and a brackish well of contamination centered right over the airfield, welling up like crude from a deep, dark secret place.
Leon eyed it too. “Gives me the willies,” he said finally, a world of hunter’s intuition boiling down to four little words.
“Contamination. Can’t tell what it’s from, yet.” Baking, sand-smelling wind scoured the inside of the car. Junkfood wrappers rustled and blew. Thank God we’re downwind.
“Yay.” His blunt fingers touched Rosita the way they would touch a lover’s hand. “This ain’t gonna be pretty, darlin’.”
“I know. If half of what Hutch has archived is true we’re stuck hoping he hasn’t found a door yet.” That’s a hell of a run of luck we’re expecting. “This bothers me, Leon. It bothers me a lot.”
As usual, he took refuge in understatement. “You get the feelin’ we’re bein’ led by the nose?”
“All through this goddamn thing. I just don’t see how anyone would think Monty would call me in to look at his ex-partner’s ‘suicide.’ And I don’t see how anyone could expect me to find scurf and take them out, even if I was looking into disappearances on the east side. Those were probably escaped stragglers, unless the ’breed was outside to watch over them. It was probably luck pure and simple, and…”
“And anytime we get that lucky, someone has to be planning something.” He shifted uneasily in his seat. “So what we gonna do?”
“We find out what’s going on at this airfield, and what those new buildings are. And with any luck, they won’t be expecting us to hit them here.” Luck. Again. Never a substitute for proper planning, ammunition, or intelligence, as Mikhail would point out to me. The nagging feeling of something missing, of a trap about to spring, hovered over me again, retreated. “Fuck.”
“My sentimentals ’zactly. So what’s the plan?”
“What would you do?” Since you’d do exactly what I’d do.
He sniffed, tasting the air. Made a face. “Drive this piece of shit straight in and keep my eyes open. Then I’d send you out to draw their fire, darlin’, while I bulwark myself in and Rosita covers you. That’s assumin’ they have guards.”
“I don’t see anyone moving, but that’s no assurance.” Headache pounded behind my eyes, and I slipped my shades back up my nose. The world took on a better contrast, but I’d have to take them off for the last few miles of approach. “This baby’s heavy metal, like my Impala. Should be good as long as nobody hits a gas tank. After blowing up one car already on this case, I don’t think I want to blow up another.”
“Amen, darlin’.” He sighed, copper clinking as he settled himself in his seat. The look on his face told me he was wishing for another beer.
I waited for him to add more, but he didn’t. So I dropped the car into “drive” and hit the gas, glad to have him with me.
Dust rose in a choking swathe as I worked the steering, swinging the rear end out and standing on the brake. I bailed out as Leon did, and we both scrambled for the defensible angle between the back of the car and the farthest hangar. From here we had a straight shot down the runway or a good chance of cover while bobbing and weaving to the new buildings.
When no shots rang out and nothing happened, it was absurdly anticlimactic.
I crouched, my coat hanging behind me. The copper in Leon’s hair chimed. “Go,” he whispered, Rosita socked to his shoulder, his keen eyes alert down the alley for any muzzle flash.
I moved, etheric force pulled through the humming scar on my wrist, almost faster than I could control. It’s acting up. Dammit, Perry. The thought was gone in a flash. I reached cover, pointed my guns down the way, and found no breath of anything stirring. It was as quiet as a grave.
Get it, Jill? Quiet as the grave? Arf arf.
I whistled, and Leon tore down the same path I’d taken. We covered each other, leapfrogging, because it was goddamn evident there was nobody here. I couldn’t even hear a heartbeat. Just the rasp of sand sliding over the desert, carried on the back of an oven-hot wind.
Just like scales moving in a dark hole.
“This is creepy,” I muttered. Then I shut up, brain working overtime. It had to be a trap. Had to be.
The largest of the new buildings crouched under a shiny tin roof, and Leon and I both stopped, considering it for a moment. There was a door, a nice double-reinforced number, on the side of the prefabricated trailer. A brand-spanking-new set of wooden steps and a ramp large enough to wheel a forklift up led to the door, its latch and padlock glimmering like fool’s gold.
“Are you—” he began.
I noticed it too. “No windows.” I answered. “And locked on the outside.” Just like the Winchell murder site. Gooseflesh rose cold and hard under my skin, and I made another one of those wrenching mental efforts to stay clear. Leon was depending on me, dammit. So were my Weres and my city.
But what’s behind that door, Jill? Hm? You’re so smart, what’s behind that door?
“Yeah,” he breathed. “You go first.”
“Sure you don’t want to take this one?” Black humor at its finest, I glanced at him and Rosita. The spark was back in Leon’s eyes, and high hard color stood out on his cheeks. Otherwise he was dead white. A sheen of sweat not from the incidental heat of the day—because as a hunter you learn to regulate your body temperature pretty thoroughly—touched his forehead.
“Aw hell, darlin’, ladies first.” His attention never wavered from the padlocked door.
I grinned, a fey baring of teeth Saul would recognize as my get ready face. “Age before beauty.”
“Pearls before swi—”
But I was already moving, bolting out of cover. The sun lay in a white glare like a
hot sterile blanket over a corpse, and I hit the door like it had personally offended me. It gave, buckling, built to withstand more than ordinary pressure, but the extra force I pulled through the scar blazed through my arm and it crumpled like paper. I landed hard, weight on the balls of my feet, and swept with my guns.
The Trader hit me just as hard, knocking me ass over teakettle down the three wooden stairs I’d just bolted up. I landed on my back, already firing, and heard Rosita roar.
At the apex of his leap, the dirty-blond Trader, wearing an eerily gleaming long white coat, was tumbled sideways by a load of silver ammo punching into his side, curling up like a spider dropped into a candleflame. His screech tore the simmering air, and I was on my feet again in a moment—pull the knees in, kick, use the momentum to jackknife and get your feet under you, then leap sideways as well, get on him Jill, take him down are there more Leon cover me goddammit—
“Mercy!” the Trader yelled, and I landed with one gun trained on him and the other on the door of the trailer. “Mercy don’t kill me Kismet don’t kill me please!”
Whafuck? I replayed it in my head and decided that yes, he had really said it. “How many more?” I shouted. “Who else is in there?” I felt naked, horribly exposed, no cover, if they wanted to open fire on me like they did at Galina’s I was right in the crosshairs.
No heartbeats. There’s nobody here but this Trader. But you didn’t hear him, you might have missed someone else, dear God—
The Trader moaned. Bright blood welled between his fingers, clamped to his side. The white was a lab coat, now grinding into the dirt and fouled with blood. Lots of blood, only faintly tinged with black corruption. “Mercy…” The sibilant at the end of the word trailed between a ridge of triangular teeth sharp as a shark’s. “Irene… Irene—”
What the hell? I eyed him. Nothing happened for a long taffy-stretching moment. Hellbreed crawling all over my house and now this Trader moaning a Trader waitress’s name.
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