by James Hunter
That rock trick had been a spectacular construct—a real bit of metaphysical heavy lifting and I didn’t want to risk trying the same thing again. The Rakshasa’s boxy little gun was my best choice. I staggered to my feet with a grunt and a tremendous effort of will. I reached the gun well before the Rakshasa could get its shit together and get moving.
I knew what the weapon was, but I hadn’t fired anything like it before. If I had needed to reload—or even turn off the safety—I probably would have been shit outta luck. The gun was ready to go though, so I tucked the butt-stock into my shoulder and cut loose like a college kid on his first binger.
The trigger was light under my finger and the gun responded quickly and with surprisingly little recoil. Angry noise and pinprick flashes of light cut into the night as the gun spat out round after round. Though a few regular rounds probably wouldn’t have done much to the Rakshasa under normal circumstances, there were way more than a few rounds and these were anything but normal circumstances.
Within seconds, thirty-rounds chewed into the horror, leaving a score of gaping and bloodied wounds. Such injuries may have been small beans and bee stings to the Rakshasa, but enough bee stings can kill a man. My efforts still weren’t enough to put the Rakshasa down for good. It was enough motivation, however, to cause the thing to turn tail and hobble slowly into the night with another yowl of anger. It was moving pretty slow with all that tar stuck in its nasty-ass fur, but I couldn’t have given chase even had I wanted too.
So, I flipped it the bird—not terribly helpful, but very cathartic—and wobbled back toward my room, pulling in labored and painful gulps of air.
I needed to move quickly before the authorities got involved, so I made a sweep of the room. All I had to do was grab my bag and hit the road. My rucksack was shoved down between the bed and the wall. Close by, and slightly under the mattress, lay a cheap, black, disposable cell phone—the kind a hired assassin might use to contact an employer. I stuffed it in my jeans, slung my pack across my shoulder—sending a renewed wave of pain along my spine—and limped out to the Camino.
At least my wheels hadn’t been mistreated by the Rakshasa. Had the creature hurt my baby … well, let’s just say that would’ve made things personal. Shoot at me, okay. Throw me through a window, maybe we can work things out. But mess with the Camino? I don’t put up with that kind of shit. No one messes with the Camino.
I slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and puttered onto the road, driving away slowly in a deliberate effort to draw no unwanted attention my way.
After a minute or two, I dug the cell phone from my front pocket and checked the contact list. There was a single California number listed under Gavin Morse.
Progress—I had a lead.
SIX:
Stitches
“Twice, Greg,” I told the stocky man sitting next to me at the little kitchen table. “Twice, people have showed up trying to sell me the farm, and all because I agreed to do you one miserable little favor.”
“Shut up and stop fidgeting,” Greg grunted curtly as he threaded a curved needle through the gash in my arm, complements of the Rakshasa’s kunai knives. Greg was a black guy, in good shape, sporting a military grade haircut, and a close-cropped beard speckled with more gray than black. A real sparkplug.
“We’ll talk when I’m finished,” he grunted again. “Until then, hold your belly-aching.” I sat in sullen silence—this was his fault. The least he could do was endure my good-natured, and totally reasonable, complaining. Sure, maybe complaining didn’t change anything, but it’s still the sacred right of the suffering. Sacred right, dammit.
Greg Chandler was a good and solid man, but he had never been the type to suffer complainers easily or lightly. We had both been Lance Corporals during Nam, did a rough tour together, and the rest was history. Never mind that he had been a Marine-Corp-lifer from the get go and I had been, at best, a reluctant and occasionally whiney recruit. We had parted ways years ago—he to a lifetime of military duty, and I to a life of rambling, blues, and beer—but we had stayed in touch.
Generally, a friend made in a fighting position—never a foxhole, for Marines—was a friend for life.
“Alright.” He tied off my final stitch and cut the thread. “You look like twenty pounds of shit crammed into a ten pound bag—bruises, lacerations, and I think you may have had an arm underneath this purple sausage attached to your torso.” He cast a suspicious look at my gun arm. “Better tell me everything.”
“Thank you for your overwhelming compassion, Greg. It’s moving, really.”
“Boo-hoo,” he said, “Tears later, talk now.”
With a sigh, I told him about the scuffle outside the club, the mild-mannered H & R Block lieutenant, the Rakshasa, and the name in the fumbled cell phone.
Greg may’ve moved into a quaint ranch-style home in an upscale LA suburb after retiring from the Corps, but his life wasn’t all solitude, tranquil gardening, or paint-by-number landscapes. He’d taken up with the Lucis Venántium, a secret order devoted to hunting and killing anything that dare prey on hapless mortals.
It sounds fake, I know, like some kind of cheesy TV show or something, but someone does need to keep a check on all the Outworld things lurking under bridges and down dark alleys. The Hunters of the Venántium are kind of like the mortal police, only for all the things—both malicious and benign—which are untouchable through regular channels.
You can’t call the cops on an angry spirit or rogue vampire.
“Hmph,” he said. Classic Greg, let me tell you.
“Hmph,” I repeated, “that’s what you got for me? Greg, I’m good but I’m not a phone-line physic. You’re going to have to give me a little more to go on, bud.”
He paused, not saying anything, a far off look in his eyes. I knew the look. He was going through the story again, adding up the pieces, trying to fit the details into a bigger picture.
“Well this whole thing stinks to dagon hell,” he finally said, “and it doesn’t cast me in a fair light—if our roles were reversed, I’d be takin’ a hard look at me right about now …” He let the sentence drag into an uncomfortable silence. He was right, of course, this whole thing did make him out to be a likely villain and my natural number one suspect.
He started this colossal shit-storm by calling me in the first place. He’d known my location in New Orleans, and he’d been the only one clued in to my location in Las Cruces. True, there were some freaky-deaky types that could’ve gotten the info through the mystic pipeline, but there weren’t a lot of them. Now, Greg didn’t have a motive for the hit, but the facts were still rather unflattering.
I didn’t suspect him though. He was Greg, and Greg wouldn’t sell me out, no matter how the stats stood at the moment.
I lit a cigarette, earning a glare of disapproval, but no comment. He was the health conscious sort.
“Greg, we go back an awfully long way.” I took a few drags, letting the smoke linger between us. “And I guess I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t wondering how all the bad guys happened to know where I was … but when it comes down to it, I trust you, brother. Something is going on here, but I know you wouldn’t give me up like that. I came to you wounded and damn-near defenseless.” I waved my sausage arm in his direction. “Wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t think you were on the level with me. But maybe it’s time you told me what’s going on here—I’m tired of having people take shots at me without at least knowing why.”
“Fair ‘nough.” He rubbed at his chin for a moment, lightly scratching at his beard. “Fair ‘nough.”
“This whole thing started ‘bout a month ago,” he said, “there were some gangland hits that looked like they might’ve belonged in our end of the pool. I always keep my ear out for that kind of thing, and when I saw these hits on the police blotter, I knew it was worth pursuing. Plus, the lead agent is a buddy of mine, Alan Harley, so I thought it would be safe to take a look. Al’s a detective with the Cri
minal Gang and Homicide Division—he’s been on the job a long time, seen some strange shit. Usually, he comes to me when he thinks it’s something the LAPD won’t be able to handle.”
“Okay, so he came to you with it?” I asked.
“No. I went to him.”
“Well, why didn’t he come to you? Are you sure you can trust the guy?”
“We’re not exactly regular drinkin’ buddies, but we’ve worked together a handful of times and he seems like an all right fella. I’ve taken a look at him, and he seems clean. Internal Affairs investigated him once upon a time—some suspicion that he might be an on-again-off-again informant for a few gangs, but IA cleared him. Hell, even if he is a little dirty, that’s none of my business anyways. Other than that—pretty vanilla. Has a wife named Judy. Lives in Burbank.”
“All right.” I tried laying it all out in my mind. “So you approach Detective Al with your hunch and you guys have been working the case, but why drag me into it—gang violence isn’t up my alley.”
“Good grief, Yancy, I’m gettin’ to it—hold your horses—you’d think you’d have learned some patience by now.”
I took my last drag and snubbed my cigarette in the ashtray—the one Greg only ever uses when I visit—and gave him my most patient and winning smile. He didn’t look all that impressed, but hey, it’s all I’ve got to work with.
“Now, like I was saying,” he continued, “I went to Al and we took a hard look together. There were a bunch of gang-related murders, mostly aimed at street level lieutenants in Gavin Morse’s organization. Morse is a relative small-timer who presides over a motor cycle club called the Saints of Chaos—runs some drugs and guns, has a hand in a few protection rackets. Still a small fry. His name is also the one in that cell phone you found.”
“What about the hits, Greg? Why’d you call me in?”
“Right, the hits. They were bad and they were excessive. Wives, children, family pets—scorched earth, no survivors excessive. Bodies ripped apart, charred, tortured. Enough blood to paint a house red.”
“These attacks were literally inhuman,” he continued. “My guess is some kinda conjured demon or greater dark spirit. I wasn’t so worried about whatever was doin’ the killin’, but I was sure as hell worried about whoever was conjuring the thing. I can handle some small time hoodoo, maybe even a lesser familiar. Whoever conjured this thing, though, has serious chops—big-timer for sure. I don’t do big-timers. That’s for you and The Guild to take care of.”
Greg was right, conjuring up a major demonic being or minor dark godling takes real power—even if you have a serious old-timey ritual construct to work with. In order to smuggle something into our reality, the mage, or practitioner, needs to create a bridge between our world and another disconnected dimension, then punch a friggin’ hole into the fabric of material existence. It’s not easy to do and if you do it wrong, there’s a good chance you’ll kill yourself in the process. Whoever was doing this had some serious chops all right.
“So any ideas on the identity of the asshole calling up the demon?” I asked.
“No. But I hear that whoever the Conjurer is, they were contracted to perform the hits by another outfit—Cesar Yraeta’s guys. Yraeta runs a powerful Mexican syndicate, called the 16th Street Kings. The Kings are into all kinds of shit: guns, drugs, prostitution—damn-near untouchable—they’re even connected with the De La Llave Cartel down south and the Cosa Nostra. Bad folks and bad business.”
“The Kings started out as small-timers over in Oakland, but Yraeta came up through the ranks and turned the whole organization into a national corporation. That would be the same Cesar Yraeta who sent goons to take a poke at you down in New Orleans. Based on what you’ve told me, it sounds like Yraeta has the distinct impression that you have been contracted by Morse to make a retaliation hit.”
“Wish someone would tell Morse and his Rakshasa that,” I said. Oh the joys of being a rambling, bluesman-turned-mage who’s too dumb to keep his fat nose out of other people’s business. Stupid moral compass. Sometimes I wish I could aim my iron at the pesky little Jiminy Cricket perched on my shoulder—that S.O.B. sure does have a penchant for getting me into heaps of unnecessary trouble.
“There’s more bad news, Yancy. Word’s also gotten around that you might be the Conjurer. It would explain why Morse would be gunning for you.”
“So,” I said, “both sides are trying to sink my battleship. Awesome. That sure is a great big pile of crap to sort through—and I still don’t have any idea why my name keeps getting thrown around. What about the murders themselves? Is it likely that Yraeta is somehow responsible for the hits?”
“I don’t know,” Greg said. “Based on the evidence the LAPD has collected, it looks like there’s a compelling case against the Kings—Yraeta looks good for it, though the case wouldn’t ever stand up in trial. Inexplicable monster attacks and all.”
“What about a timeline? Something this big probably requires a ritual, so there should be a fairly clear pattern to track.”
“Yeah,” Greg replied. “The pattern’s as clear as True Kentucky Shine: four separate attacks, each on Saturday shortly after sunset. Gives us about twenty-four hours before this thing hits again. So we have a time, but no target or location. Still better than nothin’ I suppose.”
“It’s a place to start.” I ran a hand through my hair. It was a place but not a good one, and there was still the question of how these gangland goons got a hold of my name in the first place. Plus, there was a friggin’ murderous demon to consider, not to mention the colossal frame job going on. I was starting to feel a lot like Roger Rabbit; at least I had Greg to play the part of Eddie Valiant.
“I have a PI back east who I trust,” I continued after a time, “I’ll have him take a hard look at your detective friend Al. See if maybe he isn’t as squeaky clean as he appears.” Since this guy Al was working the case, it was likely that he knew about my involvement, which bumped him right up to my number one suspect spot, even if I couldn’t pin a motive on him yet.
“Can you run down any contacts you might have to see whether Yraeta is behind the attacks?” I asked. “Go deep—I mean cavity-search-to-the-elbow deep—official channels, street informants, Venántium files. Shit, even friendly spirits who might owe you a favor?”
“Yeah, okay. I can do it.” Greg sighed, “but if I’m doin’ all the hard work, what are you gonna do?”
“I’m going to try to get a bead on Morse. Pump him for info, see if I might find out likely targets for the next attack.”
“I can help you out there.” He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the white linoleum tabletop. “Something that might be right up your alley. Morse is a card shark, plays high stakes poker at a joint in the city on Fridays, called The Full House—the bar’s owned and operated by the M.C. The buy-in for the game is high—maybe ten thousand, could be more—but it might offer a less violent approach. I know you tend to channel the spirit of the Incredible Hulk, but maybe James Bond would suit you better for the night.”
A card game. Now that was something I could get behind. Despite Greg’s insistence that I like smashing things, I don’t. Sure, when I get involved in a case things usually get both bad and bloody—sometimes people die, and things do often get smashed up real good. So, I suppose from a certain angle I might seem a little Hulk-ish, but it isn’t me. Honest. I’ll take a smoky pool hall with some good music and a shady card game over a firefight any day of the week.
“Awesome,” I said and meant it. “Sounds fine to me. But before I double-o-seven my way into see Morse, I could use a few hours of shuteye.”
“Sticking me with all the leg work while you lounge around and sleep,” he said. “Your rooms at the end of the hall, princess.”
“Once again, I am moved by your overwhelming compassion and understanding,” I replied. “And you’re damn right I’m going to catch a little shuteye. I’ve been up for twenty hours, I need some time to recharge if I’m going to be at
my peak.”
“You always were a real beauty queen,” Greg grumbled as he got up from the table, grabbing car keys off a wooden key shaped plaque near the back door. “I’ll leave the address for the club on the coffee table. Be careful.”
SEVEN:
The Full House
I found myself outside The Full House at eight o’clock, mostly rested, showered, and roughly resembling a normal human being. After taking one look at The Full House, I sort of regretted not keeping the rumpled, blood-stained look—I probably would’ve attracted far less attention. The bar was a dive and not in the cool, gritty, American-dive-bar-scene way. This place was a genuine shithole: dark, dirty—broken beer bottles and old vomit littered the sidewalk out front—and supremely suspicious. Pretty sure there was a blood stain on the exterior wall. I should’ve gone in for a tetanus booster just from looking at the place.
The building was a box: dull gray concrete, offset by a small swath of red brick lattice near the entrance. A few narrow windows adorned the front wall, covered with thick rebar, which screamed turn around and go away. A long row of Harleys filled the parking lot to the right, each gleaming in the sterile florescent lighting provided by a single light post. It was the kind of members only bar that didn’t advertise and didn’t want your business—it was a place you came to only if you had a good reason and an invitation.
I had neither, but wasn’t too worried—places like this are my natural habitat. I take to slummy bars and sheisty gambling halls like a proud lion to the rolling grassy plains of the savannah. Well acquainted, am I, with the various beasts of the beer-tavern. The cackling hyena pool players—scavengers, lurking in the shadows, waiting to prey upon the unwary sucker. The sports-betting meerkat folk who poke heads out of their beer mug homes only long enough to check scores, before ducking back down in a bid to avoid the larger predators. The aloof but noble bartender baboon, dispensing suds and bar room wisdom in equal portions—kind of like Rafiki from the Lion King, sans the beer-thing.
