by E. A. Copen
“You don’t expect me to stay here and babysit her, do you?”
She put down the gauze package in her hand to glare at me. “That’s exactly what I expect. I’m a white witch, Josiah. I don’t have defenses set up if she decides to attack me. Not unless you want me to tase her. Does that even work on a succubus?”
I ignored Harmony for a minute and squatted next to Khaleda. “Fuck, woman. Do you even know the spot you’ve put me in? Course not. Hello. Hey!” I patted her cheek. “Wakey-wakey, Princess.”
Khaleda jerked her head to the side. Her eyes fluttered open, and she winced until she realized that actually hurt worse. “What the fuck?” Her voice came out thick and congested.
“You got your nose broken, and half your skull is cracked, that’s what the fuck.”
She turned her head and vomited blood onto the hardwood floor.
I stumbled to get out of the way in time. “Christ…”
Harmony rushed over with some towels to mop it up.
Khaleda drew a hand over her mouth. “And where the hell were you while that was happening? I thought you were right behind me.”
The moment she threw herself out that window, something in Stefan’s bedroom had caught my eye: a family photo lying in the mess, one featuring a young Stefan, an older woman I assumed was his mother, and a sickly-looking little girl. I’d moved aside some debris to pull the crumpled photo free before the fire consumed it. Not that it had any sentimental value to me. I was more interested in the fact that the amulet I’d received from the priest and the one around the mother’s neck in the photo were the same.
I shrugged. “Got held up.”
Harmony pushed the pile of blood-soaked towels out of the way and gave me the stink eye, so I backed up more. “I’m going to try and treat some of these fractures. How’s your pain tolerance?”
“I can handle it,” Khaleda answered through clenched teeth.
“You need to heal,” I said. “Want me to send you someone? Or will you pick up dinner yourself?”
Khaleda’s gaze could’ve melted a glacier.
“Guess you’ll see to it yourself then.” I pulled the stub of a cigarette from between my lips and crushed it in my hand before dropping it into the trash. “One thing. Harmony’s off-limits. Behave yourself. I’ll be back to pick you up in the morning.”
She swatted Harmony’s hand away as Harmony tried to wipe up some of the blood congealing around her nose. “Where the hell are you going?”
I turned around so I could walk back to the door. “To find Stefan Nikolaides before Alexi does.”
Outside, I called a cab and lit another cigarette. While I was waiting, I took out the amulet and looked at it next to the photo to verify that they were the same. There was no mistaking it. That felt important, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Protection talismans weren’t normally passed from person to person, especially since they required a drop of blood from whomever they were supposed to protect in order to work. You couldn’t just reassign them. Maybe I’d misjudged the purpose of the talisman.
I tucked the photo away and held the pendant in my hand, examining it. Maybe it had something to do with him being an Oracle. That was odd by itself, wasn’t it? All the Oracles I’d ever heard of were women. Of course, my experience with oracles began and ended with my knowledge of classical Greek mythology. Admittedly, that well of knowledge was deeper than the average person’s understanding, but what I knew about the Greek criminal underworld in New York couldn’t fill a thimble.
Someone cleared their throat next to me. I turned my head to see a Doberman pinscher about three hands too tall standing by the mailbox down the street. Valefor had gone through the trouble of making himself look like how a human would expect a dog to look, all except he’d gotten the size wrong.
I pocketed the pendant and walked down the street toward him. “You shouldn’t be running around without a leash, old boy. The dog catcher’ll scoop you up.”
“Not before I scoop out his eyes.” Valefor growled just like a dog. He’d get the hang of this whole blending in with humans thing yet. “I found what you were looking for. Wasn’t easy.”
“There’s a lot about this situation I don’t like.” I stopped a few feet from him.
Valefor lifted his snout, nostrils flaring. “You smell like fire.”
“Yeah, got a bit singed, mate. No worries.”
Someone else walked by the mailbox and stopped to do a doubletake when they saw me talking to the oversized dog.
Valafor narrowed his eyes and said, “What’s the matter with you? Never seen a talking dog before? Beat it.”
The older man’s eyes widened, and he hurried on his way without looking back.
“Valefor, where’s Stefan?”
The King of the Hellhounds turned back to me. “I’ll tell you, but I’ve got to warn you. You’re not going to like it.”
Chapter Nine
JOSIAH
Crime in New York—and most major cities around the globe—falls into one of four basic categories. You have your random individual criminals, the ones with no end goal other than scratching an itch they choose not to ignore.
Then you’ve got the gangs. They’re generally only interested in petty crimes and controlling small swaths of the city for meager profits.
You’ve got organized crime, mobsters, of which there always seemed to be no short supply. They moved big money, harder goods, and orchestrated events by pulling the strings of politicians and police chiefs. People like Alexi and Stefan. Mobsters ran out gangs whenever they moved into an area, and violent crime in areas controlled by the mob these days tends to be on the decline. At least, the reported violent crime. As Alexi said, they preferred to handle their problems in-house.
And then there were the bikers. MCs. One-percenters. Lifestyle outlaw criminals on two wheels. Sometimes, they worked with gangs. Sometimes, they muscled for various mafias and other times they cut deals with the cartels. The thing about MCs that got under my skin was the lack of loyalty. For the right price, anyone could own their own gang of leather-vested thugs, but once that money ran out, you were fucked.
The club where Valefor found Stefan belonged to one such group of bikers known as the 69’s. Their little clubhouse was an ugly building that looked like it’d been constructed of cinder blocks with a couple of windows thrown in as an afterthought.
Two plain-clothes thugs stood near the door, chatting and smoking. They were carrying pistols by the way they stood. Door guards. Getting past them would only be the beginning of my troubles. Late evening on a weekday? The bar would be packed with patched members. While I knew a spell or two that could take them all out, I didn’t want to kill them if I didn’t have to. That’d get even more people gunning for us. With Heaven and Hell already pissed at me, I didn’t think I needed to add a bunch of motorcycle-riding hard cases to my list of enemies.
“You gettin’ out or what, buddy?” the cab driver asked, clearly irritated by my choice to sit in the back while I came up with a plan.
“Is your meter still running?”
“You bet.” He tapped it.
“Then no offense, mate, but what do you care?” I scratched at the stubble growing in on my chin. I had to get the place as cleared out as possible and all without alerting the two doormen to my presence. Easier said than done. Good thing I had magic on my side.
I brought my bag up onto my lap and sifted through the contents, pulling out a couple of wadded bills to hand to the cabbie. He shot me a weird look but took the cash and kept the change, speeding off as soon as I was out of the car. I set myself up in a nearby alley with my back to a brick wall, bag on the side of a ripe dumpster so I could sort through its contents. After a few moments, I found what I was looking for: a quart mason jar with a little red-winged man inside.
Boneflake wasn’t really a man. He was an imp, a lower level being from the underworld known for playing sadistic tricks on the living. I’d won him in a hand of cards years
back from a couple of demons who weren’t keen to part with him. Bastards accused me of cheating, which meant I had to get my hands dirty and exorcise them back to Hell to save my own skin. They were right about the cheating, but so what? They were cheating too. I just did it better.
Like most imps, Boneflake was loyal to whoever fed him. Since I’d recently tossed him the fingerbone of a nun—a delicacy for imps—I was currently on his good side. Didn’t mean I was fool enough to let him out of the jar without giving him clear instructions first. Imps were notorious for their attention deficits.
I whispered my plan to him and unscrewed the lid. The imp crawled out of the jar, stretched his wings, and took to the sky. From my spot in the alley, I watched as he wove in and out of the parked motorcycles outside the bar, crawling between the wheels and along small bits of tubing. He took almost twenty minutes to finish the job I’d sent him to do, which left me amazed that he could focus for so long. Then again, I had promised to get him a lady imp next time I saw Valefor, and another relic to chew on.
His work done, Boneflake flew back to me and perched himself on my outstretched hand, puffing out his little red chest proudly.
“Good work. Now, I just need you to do one more thing.” I dug a small charm out of my pocket and held it out to him.
Boneflake’s eyes glittered like diamonds at the sight of it. He let out an excited squeak and nabbed it, swallowing the charm whole.
I lowered him to the ground. “Don’t be gone too long, Boneflake. That magic won’t last forever.”
He said something in his Hellion speak and toddled off back toward the bikes. Just as he reached the closest bike—the one I had instructed him not to tamper with—he grew, slowly rising to a height of just over five feet. His red skin faded to a peachy white and his membranous wings folded into his back, forming a humanlike spine. In the right light, he could pass as a rather ugly human. A naked, ugly human.
Boneflake cackled to himself and jumped on the bike. He had it hotwired in a matter of seconds and let it roar to life. With a cheer, he hit the throttle and zoomed out of the parking lot, tongue hanging out, and right by the two doormen.
The doormen exchanged a look before shouting and running for their bikes. Soon more bikers came streaming out to see what the commotion was all about and, after a short exchange, a dozen Harleys zoomed down the street, chasing after Boneflake, leaving streaks of oil and gasoline behind them on the roadway. They wouldn’t get far, but they would have to walk back. I figured I’d bought myself about fifteen minutes to deal with however many were left. At least both the doormen were gone.
I walked up to the entrance and ducked inside a darkened building that smelled of sweat, weed, and stale beer. Three stood near a pool table. They looked up from their game when I stopped in the doorway, hands tightening around their cue sticks. “Fellas,” I said and nodded to them. I looked to the right and saw two more turn away from a bar to scowl at me. “Gents. Don’t suppose you’d just let me get what I came for, would ya?”
Glass shattered as one guy at the bar stood and struck his bottle against the wall, leaving him with the jagged edges of a beer bottle for a weapon.
I sighed and rolled up my sleeves. “Didn’t think so.”
The fella with the bottle took the first swing. I ducked and got lucky enough to give him a kick that sent him staggering back into the other guy at the bar. I wasn’t fast enough to avoid the cue stick that hit me in the side of the face. It snapped against my skull about two inches above my temple, the wood cracking and splintering on impact. Someone else slid behind me with another cue stick, pulling it horizontally under my chin and holding it tight against my neck. Just a little more force and he could crush my windpipe. That wasn’t his goal, however, so much as to hold me still so one of his friends could punch me in the ribs. I threw an elbow at the biker holding me and got him in the side after two jabs. He lost his hold on the cue stick, and I slid to the floor, gulping in air.
Someone grabbed me by the hair and jerked me back to my feet to punch me in the face. So far, the fight wasn’t going my way, but then five on one wasn’t very good odds, was it? The bastard punching me in the face shoved me hard. My back hit the wall, and pain exploded in my shoulders. Three of them closed on me, blocking any thought of escape.
I wiped a hand over my mouth. It came away streaked in red, and I chuckled to myself. After a second, the chuckle exploded into full-blown laughter.
“The fuck you laughin’ at, asshole?” The one in the middle sneered at me, showing yellow teeth.
I spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor between us. “You shouldn’t have let me bleed.” I extended my hands in front of me and began the chant.
The telltale click of a switchblade coming out sounded. “Let’s kill this motherfucker.”
The blood on the floor sizzled like a lit firecracker, and they exchanged worried glances. Suddenly, the big, scary bikers weren’t so sure they wanted to carve me up.
“What the fuck?” They leaned over the sizzling puddle of blood.
A second later, the floorboards exploded, knocking all three of them back. The one in the middle took the full force of the explosion, as evidenced by the two-inch-thick splinters of wood protruding from his face when he fell, dead to the floor. His two friends were luckier. They just got a few good-sized splinters in their eyes. Painful and debilitating, yes. Fatal? Unlikely.
The two remaining bikers were the ones who’d been at the bar. They stood a few feet away, broken bottles in hand, staring at their fellows as they writhed, screaming and bleeding on the floor.
I drew the back of my thumb over my busted lip. “You want some more of that? Or are you smart enough to back off and entertain a chat?”
They dropped their broken glass weapons, first one and then the other. “What the fuck do you want?” The closest one growled, raising his hands. “You ain’t with the Banditos or any other local outfit. Not with that accent. Who the hell are you, man?”
“Josiah Quinn.” I lit a cigarette.
They looked at each other, shrugging.
I flipped the lighter closed with a metallic clink. “I’m looking for Stefan Nikolaides.”
“Do you work for Alexi?” His hands started to come down, but they shot back up when I spat more blood.
“Nah, mate. You can call me a freelancer. So, is he here? Or do I have to start pulling down walls? Don’t make me do that. I’m already bloody knackered and in a piss-poor mood from the headache your mates gave me.”
The smaller of the two pointed to a room off to the side.
“Thanks, mate.” I patted him on the shoulder as I stepped past him.
The little room turned out to be a stairway down into a damp and dark basement. A large iron cage had been erected, just big enough to hold a man and the chair they’d tied him to. He sat slumped over, back to me.
Fear suddenly struck me. What if they’d killed him and I’d come too late? I swallowed it. If I was too late, it meant nothing more than lighter pockets for the next few weeks. I could walk away from this mess with the Greeks and pretend like nothing had ever happened.
Yet I felt oddly drawn to care about this job and a strange connection to Stefan himself. Though we’d never met, it felt as if I already knew him. Perhaps it was because I was projecting a bit of myself on him. I’d assumed he’d stepped into something bigger than himself, swept up by a supernatural situation beyond his control. There was no reason for me to think that, but I couldn’t shake it. He was me twenty years ago in Los Angeles, someone who could still be saved before things went all wrong.
I struck the lock off the cage and stepped inside, moving around in front of his still form. A bright light shone above, so brilliant it was almost blue. It cast a strange halo of light on his sweat-dampened skin. He was a little different than the photo, slightly older, changed and shaped by years that had let him fill out in the shoulders and chest. He’d grown in the dark beginnings of a beard, one that said he’d been in the
dark a while rather than a purposeful, trimmed thing. His captors hadn’t been kind to him either. They’d stripped him of everything but a torn pair of jeans, and those were covered in crusted blood from a healing cut next to his left ear.
“Stefan?” I asked, keeping my voice low as I knelt in front of him.
He groaned and moved his head, wincing before opening umber eyes. It took a moment for them to focus on me. The right corner of his mouth pulled up slightly. “I knew you were real,” he said, his voice hoarse and soft.
I shifted behind him and untied his bound wrists. They were raw from rope burns. He had old wounds healing on his knuckles. At least he’d fought the bastards that tied him up like that. “My name is—”
“Josiah David Quinn.”
A chill worked its way up my spine as he said my name. My full name. A name which no one aside from my own mother knew. Could’ve been a lucky guess, I supposed, but somehow, I didn’t buy it. “How’d you know who I am?”
“I’ve seen you,” he murmured and slumped back over.
I put my fingers to his neck, checking for a pulse. It was good and strong, so he wasn’t dead. The way he was talking, the slurred speech, the dreamy, distant tone… I pushed his head back and peeled up one of his eyelids to look at his pupils. Big as dinner plates. “I don’t know what they gave you, Stefan, but I can tell it’s not going to be fun to come down from. Come on, mate.” I grunted as I put his arm around me.
He didn’t walk so much as he shuffled. Whatever they’d given him had left him high out of his mind with little clue about where he was or what was going on. I thought about interrogating the two survivors upstairs, but they were busy tending to their fallen and giving me threatening looks to answer. I was also running on borrowed time. Their friends could be back from their walk at any time, and I wouldn’t fare too well once the fight was twelve on one, especially with the dead weight.
