“You should go see her,” Wesna said.
“It’s not a good idea.” I looked into my empty glass, contemplated having another. Decided against it. Ancient history is better left in the past and getting drunk in front of Wesna would give her a chance to fish.
Plus, the soul cage in my gut sat there like a stone, an insistent reminder to keep on the move until I’d reached somewhere safe.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m off. You get a job, you call me. Otherwise, just leave me alone.”
* * *
I stopped off at the payphones by the lift, dropped coins into the slot and dialed the number Roark had me memorize in case we ever found ourselves separated and in deep shit. It rang a half-dozen times before a brisk, female voice answered: “So, you’re still alive, then?”
“For the moment,” I told her. “We’ve come to an accord.”
“And now you need a ride?”
“I do.”
“I’m down in the car park,” the voice said. “Third floor. Row J. I’ll keep an eye out.”
SAFETY IS A STATE OF MIND
I found her parked on the far end of the lot, near the exit that directed traffic towards the shopping mall across the road. Holly Langford perched on the bonnet of a less-than-pristine HR Holden. The car looked out of place, the boxy sixties design mocked by the rows of sleek, modern hatchbacks and four-wheel drives. Langford flicked her cigarette over the concrete rail, slid off the HR and scuffed her Docs against the floor. “Well, shit, you’re alive” she said. “I take it negotiations turned out better than expected?”
“They went okay.”
“It thrills me when you say that, mate. Inspires all kinds of fucking confidence.”
I didn’t blame Langford for being pissed. She’d known me for twenty-four hours, ever since I’d called her and invoked Roark’s name. She owed Roark some favors, from his life before we met. Like most sorcerers, she believed in paying back her debts.
I clambered into the passenger side of the HR. Langford slid in behind the wheel and lit a second cigarette, lips pressed tight to hold it in place. The big car suited her. She was six-three. Skinny. Looked about forty-five, but I didn’t have any faith in my estimate because the piercings through her nose, lip, and eyebrows made it easy to low-ball her age. So did the dreadlocks that hung past her shoulders.
Thick, knotted tattoos covered her forearms; Celtic work,. Designed to obscure the ink with actual power. She reversed out, put the car in gear, and headed into the outside world. “So what great and terrible hijinks hide behind your ‘okay,’ then?”
I pressed my head against the window, watched the once-familiar landscape slip past. “Who says there’s hijinks?”
“Bitter experience,” she said. “I know Danny Roark. I’ve seen the kind of shit that nips at his heels.”
The cigarette smoke burnt itself into my nostrils, thick and pungent. I coughed into my fist, but she didn’t take the hint. Just stared at the road, eyes bright and focused. “Well?”
“Three jobs. A six-month stay of execution.”
“Jesus.”
“It’s not that bad,” I said. “No worse than I expected going in.”
“Spoken like a stupid git who’s spent too long around Danny.” We hit the highway, and she pressed her foot against the accelerator. Eight cylinders of analog engine roared beneath the hood. Langford took care of the vehicle, lavished more attention on the working parts than the battered, powder-blue shell.
“When this is over,” Langford said, “I’m making myself a voodoo doll and spending some quality time giving you a headache.” Her thin, tattooed arms hauled the wheel as we pulled into the slow-moving traffic. “You sure you don’t know where Roark is?”
“West, somewhere. That’s all he gave me.”
She held the cigarette between two fingers and grunted her dissatisfaction with my answer. I closed my eyes and kept my mouth shut, listened to the rhythm of Surfers receding into the distance. We were heading south, away from the tourist heart of the Coast, leaving behind the casino and the shopping mall and the rows of pristine towers designed for temporary occupation. I’d been running on fumes since Adelaide. I wanted a place to shower, a hamburger, and safe, private spot to shit out the 9mm soul cage lodged in my intestines.
Langford fired the stereo, found an old punk song on the FM dial. “So tell me about the fuck-up,” she said. “I mean, I asked around, while you were meeting with your demon friends, but…”
I yawned and covered my mouth with a fist. “It’s not much of a story.”
“That’s Roark for ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“He wouldn’t get away with it either,” she said. “Not with what you’re asking. If we’re hunting the local denizens of the Gloom, I’d kinda like to know you aren’t a complete incompetent.”
The bitterness in my laugh surprised me. “Okay. That’s fair enough.”
“So?”
I watched the landscape roll by, stitching unfamiliar landmarks over bits of memory. Every block, as we rolled past the cross-street, I glimpsed the beach framed between the rows of buildings. “I wanted to get out of the game, and he coaxed me into one last job. Roark picked us a target in Adelaide,” I said. “Some necromancer type, head of his own cult. It’s serial killer central down there, so he had plenty of juice to work with. Enough to build up a serious following.”
“And?”
“And we underestimated his power. We got the guy, no trouble. Siphoned his spirit into a soul trap, so they couldn’t bring him back. It should have been a clean, easy job. In and out. Next thing I know, Roark’s telling me to run and put in a call to you. Says he’ll be heading out west to draw them off.”
“Shit.” Langford frowned at the steering wheel. “You fuckers took on Wotan?”
“We did.”
She swore again, eased the car around the long curve at Burleigh Heads. For a moment the rows of high-rises gave way to an open expanse of park, stretching towards the pristine water. Another turn and they disappeared behind the rise of Burleigh Hill.
“You know of him?”
“Who?”
“The hit,” I said. “This Wotan asshole.”
“Mostly by reputation.” Langford took a drag on her cigarette, stubbed it into the ashtray. “Wotan’s venerable enough to remember the Gloom before it became corrupted. Rumor is he worshipped the Old Gods, cut deals with the Giants that sleep in the bottom of the darkness. I mean, shit, there were folks who claimed Michael Wotan was immortal.” She shook her head, dreadlocks brushing against her shoulders. “Why in fuck would you try to take him down?”
I shrugged. “Roark said it was necessary, and it was our last. Figured we’d go out big.”
“It didn’t occur to you he might be wrong?”
The punk song ended and Langford thumbed the stereo band, searched until she found the classic rock station. Led Zeppelin blared through the car, loud enough to make my ears bleed. I contemplated a request to drop the volume, and decided against it. I needed Langford on my side. That wasn’t a feeling I liked.
We hit the end of “Immigrant Song” and she dialed the racket back a few levels. “So who’s got the soul cage, you or him?”
She said it quietly, like the possible answers frightened her. I kept my face still, gave away nothing. “Roark ever strike you as the kid of guy who’d let me carry the football? The old man trusts me, more or less, but I just pull the trigger. I don’t mess with anything beyond the very basics.”
Langford nodded. Adjusted her grip, thin fingers fluttering against the wheel. “This needs to be clear up front,” she said, “I’ll get you to the safe house. I’ll help with your deal, because I owe Danny that much. Once that debts repaid, I’m out. You understand me?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I get it.”
“This part, though, I want crystal,” Langford said. “Anything associated with Michael Wotan is asking for all kinds of trouble. If yo
u’re lying about the cage, if his soul or his followers show up, I’ll abandon your ass so fast you’ll wonder if I ever existed.”
She folded down the visor, lifted another cigarette out of the pack she stored there. “I never bought in to Danny’s crusade. I don’t owe him enough to get started now.”
* * *
Langford set me up in a safe house the beach side of Currumbin Hill. She let me in, handed over the keys, then loitered in the kitchen while I checked the place out. Two stories and narrow, like they’d built a three-story apartment in an oversized fence picket hammered into the steep slope. The price tag on the property probably breached a million—a luxury holiday spot positioned to catch the sunlight and the breeze, hidden behind a high wall to block the view for the rest of the street.
I dumped my gear in a bedroom with a king-sized bed that doubled as modern art. Too tired to care about how nice the place was. I’d been awake too long and the contents of my stomach weighed like a swallowed sandbag.
Still, under different circumstances it would have been an incredible view. The downhill slope had been declared a nature preserve, which meant everything below me was trees and scrub. A melodic chortle of magpies launched into their morning chorus, their warble mingling with the steady pulse of the waves. The ocean stretched out, uninterrupted, to the horizon. If it wasn’t for the resort tucked at the base of the hill, I could have convinced myself it was some place pleasant.
I stood at the window for a stretch. Migrated to the bathroom after that, where I spent futile minutes trying to combat the oxycodone and antacid I’d used to keep me blocked. I curled up on the toilet, cramped to hell. Tried not to ponder what would happen if my stomach acid breached the condom tied around the bullet with Wotan’s soul inside.
Langford was making coffee when I finally I emerged. Plunger, not instant. The mugs were pristine and white. “Will it do?” she said.
“I’m accustomed to cheaper.”
“I’ll bet you’re used to squalor.” Langford handed me a steaming mug, nursed the other one in her left hand. “I’ve worked with Danny a time or two. The man lives for dingy hotel rooms.”
“He’s not that bad,” I said.
“Say that after you’ve slept on a mattress that’s never known the touch of bed-bugs.” Langford settled into the leather couch, watched me pace the room. “It belongs to some friends of mine, currently overseas,” she said. “The neighbors are seasonal—no one around this time of year—and everybody’s used to visitors dropping in and out. I’m assuming you know enough to set wards?”
“I’ll get by.” I tried perching on the windowsill. Decided against it when my bowels disagreed.
“Try to keep it neat and discrete, then.” Langford frowned, distracted herself with the coffee. “No blood on the carpet, and try not to trash the place defending yourself, if someone tracks you here.”
“They won’t,” I said, trying to make it sound like I believed that was true.
“Please,” Langford said. “I’ve worked with Danny.”
“But I’m not Roark.”
“That isn’t exactly a comfort.” She finished her coffee, dropped the mug in the sink. “Once I leave this place, I’m forgetting your ass is here,” she said. “We meet out in the city. Navigate your own way there and cover your own damn butt.”
I made positive noises, like I understood where she was coming from. Hell, who knows? Maybe I actually did, somewhere down below the fear and the anger that came with being home again. I was back on the Gold Coast. I was working for Sabbath again. One fuck-up on a job down in Adelaide and I’d wiped away everything good about my life, reverted to the same piece-of-shit I used to be when I was twenty and scared of the things I saw in the shadows.
But Langford wasn’t Roark, and trust didn’t come easy for either of us. I drained my coffee. Looked her in the eye. “I’ll take care of the place,” I said. “Sixteen years, I handled my end, no problems. Adelaide’s the only time we fucked up.”
“You wanted out for a reason.”
“And it had nothing to do with my abilities.”
Langford considered the validity of my statement, nodded her acceptance. She gathered her keys and stood up. Gave me a final once-over. “When do we hear about the first target?”
“Wesna calls me. I call you,” I said. “My guess? Seven days or so. He’ll want to think about how to torture me with it.”
“I’ll see you in a week then,” Langford said. “You’ve got my number.”
I sat by the front door, watched her leave. Waited a good hour before I hiked through the scrub to the bottom of the hill, then caught a bus to Palm Beach and the open-all-night chemist. The girl behind the counter offered me a friendly smile.
“How can I help ya?” she said.
“Laxatives,” I said. “Strongest you’ve got.”
THE FIRST HIT
My predictions regarding the first hit were out by three days. Wesna rang me mid-way through my evening workout, invited me to dinner at the twenty-four-hour McDonald's up on Burleigh Beach. She laid out the client’s details over cheeseburgers and vanilla shakes, slipping me an envelope with a trio of grainy photographs printed from a cell phone.
“Target’s name us Eddie Darius,” she said. “He’s a small-time warlock operating out of the parks in Southport, recruiting kids from the homeless that camp-out on the foreshore. We don’t know who he worships, but they’re not a major player. You want to keep the photos?”
I shook my head. The photographs weren’t great quality, but they gave me a decent idea what to look for: short and thin, unwashed hair draped across his sallow features. Flannel shirts habitually tied around his waist. Army surplus backpack slung over his shoulder. A lot of the shots featured Darius on the foreshore, hanging out with guys whose wide-eyed expressions said they’d seen too much. I kept flipping through the images, found the one I wanted: a close-up on his right arm, covered in dark ink.
“His tat’s look Sumerian.” I flipped the photograph around, pointed out a marking of a multi-headed snake. “Tiamat, maybe? She’s old, though. Where in hell does a punk his age find a ritual for contacting an entity that ancient?”
Wesna rolled her eyes. “Who he worships doesn’t concern us. It’s how that’s become a problem.”
I placed the photographs back into their envelope. Pushed it across the table. “Sloppy?”
“To put it mildly,” she said. “His disposal techniques leave something to be desired. Sabbath’s agreement with the mortal powers-that-be...”
Wesna didn’t bother finishing that. There wasn’t any need. The Other thrived on the Gold Coast because they lived beneath the radar, taking advantage of the transient population where no one stuck around for all that long. The local cops adopted a professional disinterest when people disappeared. They started paying attention when the bodies showed up in significant numbers.
“Okay,” I said. “Give me a time frame.”
Wesna’s lip curled. “Two weeks.”
“For surveillance?”
“For the whole thing,” she said. “He’s built his rituals around the full moon. The cops haven’t identified the pattern, but they will. They’re on the verge of saying serial killer, once they do. We’d prefer they don’t raise suspicions about the occult being involved.”
“The usual timeline is four.”
“Then call it a rush job,” Wesna said. “Sabbath assumes you’re up to it, given your years of experience.”
“Come on, Wes.”
“No. I gave you the opportunity to run, and you elected to make a deal instead.” She folded her arms, stared me down. “There’s a part of me that would still regret pulling you apart. It would take the fun out of things, if Sabbath ordered it.”
I waited for her to smile, shrug that off as a joke. Realized, when she stood, there wasn’t that much humor left inside her. Wesna disappeared into the rainy night. Off to do whatever shadowy tasks Sabbath needed her doing, up to and including di
ssecting me for crossing him.
* * *
It isn’t easy, killing a warlock. Even a minor, bottom-of-the-totem-pole motherfucker as useless as Eddie Darius. You need to be certain who they’re worshipping, what kind of defenses they’ve set up to cover their butt, and how they’ll respond to being killed. Otherwise you risk being haunted by the warlock’s ghost, or you trigger some convoluted death curse against the hand that gunned them down. You sure as hell don’t want to be on the run, hiding a soul cage beneath the floorboards in your safe house, hoping the wards will hold if the cultists ever track you down.
I called into Langford, laid out the job. She bitched about the timeframes, but she took up the lion’s share of the passive’s role, scouting the target and looking for the routines and the little daily rituals we could exploit to take him down. Occasionally I’d spell her, taking a shift in the van we used to follow Darius around, giving her time to go do some research or catch a few hours sleep.
It wasn’t ideal. It never is.
The two key parts of the passive’s job are scouting routines and identifying occult defenses. Fortunately, Darius proved to be a creature of consistent habits. He woke late and haunted the two-story Antique and Collector’s Bookstore on Scarborough Street. Langford theorized the A&C was ground zero for his interest in magic and the Gloom. Despite its name, the bookshop stocked the same collection of cheap paperbacks every other store on the Gold Coast carried: years of accumulated holiday reads left behind by tourists. Its antiquarian section catered to a select clientele, and the owner kept his day staff away from those who sought more than first-edition copies of Moby Dick and Great Expectations.
Darius spent his afternoons down by the Broadwater, in the park beneath the Sundale bridge. A gathering place for the local homeless kids, motley clans of runaway teens, assorted junkies, and unhinged folks turfed out of the public hospital. I’d camped there myself, in my teenage years, right about the point the government closed the rehab clinic attached to Southport Hospital. The closure had been first steps of an urban renewal that never took hold.
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