Sacrifices Read online

  “What is that?” Nail asked. He covered his mouth and nose with the inside of one elbow.

  Burned metal. Lavender, sulfur. A smell she’d come to know well. She moved through the library and opened the bedroom door. The stink doubled, became a gigantic, almost living thing. Karyn’s eyes watered.

  Behind her, Nail gagged, but he said nothing. She shone the light into the bedroom. Here it comes, she thought. Here it comes, leaping from the darkness, some gibbering maniac left over from Mona’s crew, face rotting off or worse or—

  The room was empty. Karyn felt her shoulders and back relax.

  “Can we hurry this up?” Nail asked from behind his arm.

  She took the flat bar from her pocket. There was no need to consult the demon again on which board hid the splinters—now that she’d seen it, it was easy to spot, sticking up ever so slightly from the others. There was even a gap from somebody’s prior ministrations.

  She knelt next to it. The board came up easy, far easier than she’d expected from the image. So easy, in fact, that she feared somebody had beaten her to it, but when she looked, there were five blackened toothpicks lying right where she’d been told.

  Karyn took them out and wrapped them in a handkerchief. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said.

  “A-fucking-men.”

  Chapter 2

  “The FBI has issued an arrest warrant,” Tran said.

  Enoch Sobell gave his attorney the slightest frown. He was a slim, distinguished-looking man who appeared to be in his forties, graying at the temples, and he currently gave the impression of a man who’s just heard some puzzling but not worrisome news about stock market fluctuations. “For me?”

  Genevieve looked up from her phone, stretched her legs out in front of her, and groaned. Ten o’clock in the morning, which meant she hadn’t left the single-room office they’d been holed up in for going on seventy-two hours, and her body was stiff and sore. She stank, too, she was sure. Probably not as bad as Belial, who didn’t seem to give a good goddamn about personal hygiene, but bad enough that she imagined stirring up an acrid cloud every time she moved. She wanted to go home. Her pink hair was showing two inches of blond at the roots, and she was ready to trade out her current apparel of a black T-shirt, black leather pants, and black boots for a different set of all-black apparel that had actually been laundered in recent memory. She’d been hoping this would blow over and they’d all come out and get about their business, but if an arrest warrant had been issued, things were about to get worse. Not that this wasn’t bad enough. Holed up with a desperate sorcerer, a blood-crazed demon, and a mercenary lawyer was plenty bad. And, though it shouldn’t even make the list after all that, Anna hadn’t answered her texts.

  “Yes. For you,” Tran said.

  Was Anna okay? Was she even still alive? Maybe she’d lost her phone. Maybe she’d just changed phones—they did that a lot. Or maybe she was still pissed. The way everything had gone down with Belial had been a complete mess. Genevieve hadn’t known how else to handle it. Openly defying Sobell and Belial would have gotten both her and Anna killed, so she’d just played along, did what they asked, and hoped there’d be an opportunity to make things right somewhere. Then a monster had appeared from nowhere, scattered everybody hell-to-breakfast, and Genevieve had panicked. Anna would forgive her for that, right?

  If she’s not dead.

  “For what crime?” Sobell asked. Genevieve had always found him to have a sort of roguish charm, but right now his “who, me?” act was pretty threadbare.

  “The murder of Drew Chen.”

  “I have to confess, of all my returning chickens, I never expected that one to come back home to roost.” He sat on the edge of the desk and folded his hands in his lap. “The sword, I assume?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It would tend to leave a rather distinctive wound. I suppose they could have found a witness, but I have a hard time imagining one that would come forward. I grind the bones of witnesses to make my bread.”

  “You killed Drew?” Genevieve said.

  “Peculiar exigencies of circumstance. It wasn’t my first choice, but needs must, the Devil, et cetera.” He frowned at Tran. “If it was the sword, how in the hell did they get the forensics work done that fast? And get a judge to sign off on the warrant? You’d have to admit, the evidence is pretty unusual.”

  “I told you, this ‘Non-Standard Investigations Branch’ has some kind of special charter. Maybe that comes with extra clout or maybe even extrajudicial authority.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Drew helped you,” Genevieve said.

  Sobell’s face flashed irritation. “Lots of people have helped me,” he said. “And while I’m grateful to each and every one of them, a man in my position can’t afford to be overly emotional about it. The same could be said of a woman in your position. Feeling sentimental?”

  Genevieve turned her phone over in her hands. “No.”

  “Good.” He shifted on the desk, brow tightened in thought. “What does the warrant say?”

  “I don’t know,” Tran said. “The warrant is sealed.”

  “Is that even legal?”

  Tran’s face was a study in polite, professional disgust. “Under unusual circumstances. As, I imagine, would apply to everything covered by the Non-Standard Investigations Branch.”

  “Charming.”

  “You should turn yourself in,” Tran said.

  “Good God! Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  “I can’t help you if you’re a fugitive. I’m a lawyer, Enoch. I work inside the law, and it looks like there are avenues here. They’ve crossed several lines, and there’s a good chance we can get anything they come up with thrown out.”

  “Can you picture me in an orange jumpsuit, pondering my fate while I struggle for my ninth repetition of a”—he waved his hand vaguely—“bench press or what have you? Out of the question.”

  “Enoch—”

  “Enough. Not another word of this idiocy.”

  Tran’s mouth tightened, but she said nothing else.

  “Now that we know we won’t be catching any breaks, we can start planning.” He got off the desk and slid into the worn office chair behind it. “Genevieve, come here please.”

  “I delivered,” she said, trying not too hard to think about what that meant. “You promised me pages.”

  “Are we renegotiating now?”

  “No. I just want to get paid.” I want to have done this for something. The whole reason for her getting involved with Karyn’s crew to begin with had been to supply them with occult support on behalf of Sobell and to report back on their activities. In exchange, he’d offered mentoring and original pages from old grimoires. That seemed like a hundred years ago. Everything had gotten unimaginably more complicated since then.

  “I know it’s hard to imagine, but I’m in somewhat reduced circumstances at the moment. I assure you, you’ll be paid, in full, with interest, in the very instant that I can accommodate you.”

  She got up, casting one last glance at the screen of her phone before slipping it into her pocket. No messages.

  “Belial, would you like to join us?” Sobell asked.

  Genevieve followed Sobell’s gaze to the corner, where Belial had constructed a sort of den or lair for himself out of cubicle dividers. He could be heard in there, shuffling and mumbling, shouting at himself occasionally. Genevieve wished he’d stay in there. He was a demon, surely, but he wore the body of Hector, her first mentor, and in the rare moments when he wasn’t behaving in some eerie, inhuman, or outright terrifying fashion, she was amazed how easy it was to drape all her feelings and associations with Hector onto him. It was just a body, just a shape, and she should have known better, but her senses wanted to turn him into an old friend and give him trust he hadn’t earned and surely didn�
��t deserve.

  And that wasn’t the worst of it. “I am large,” Belial had said at one point. “I contain multitudes.” Whatever poor old Hector had done hadn’t just invited a single nasty thing in for lunch, but a whole swarm of them. Belial had been handing them out like poisoned candy, giving them to anyone he could.

  Like Anna, Genevieve thought.

  “Belial,” Sobell called again, “we need to discuss matters pertaining to our continued survival on this plane, if you’d like to come help.”

  “Don’t patronize me, you useless fuck,” Belial snarled. A bony claw with blackened, blood-streaked nails clutched the metal edge of the divider, and Belial pulled himself out. The body he had taken over was in rough shape. He wore gray sweatpants and a filthy tank top, and his beard and eyes were wild. He’d been scratching himself again, like a hyperactive junkie in the world’s worst need of a fix. Both upper arms were bloody messes, and Genevieve thought she saw a tattered strip of skin dangling, one end glued to the side of his hand with congealing blood.

  “We’re going to need to find you a change of clothes,” Sobell said. “A shower and shave couldn’t hurt, either. You’re a trifle . . . conspicuous currently.”

  “Later.” Then, in a whisper, “Later. Later. Later.”

  Not too much later, Genevieve thought. Not if they were going out. The stink coming off the man’s body was dried blood, sweat, and a none-too-subtle rot that might be either overworn clothes or something worse. Some decay of the flesh. Genevieve hoped for the latter, hoped for some disease or necrosis that would kill the bastard, but she guessed it was the clothes. The sweatpants and tank top hadn’t been changed in what must have been weeks, and they were now smeared and stained with every kind of grime imaginable.

  Sobell held his smile. “Yes, of course. Later. Now, are we still agreed that we seek a relic?”

  Belial approached. Tran backed away, crossing her arms and looking on from the corner opposite his den.

  On the surface of the desk, Sobell had written the words Karyn had uttered during the ritual:

  In the valley of the garden, here in this Gomorrah, a man, naked, bound, and shot through with arrows, in dying finds salvation.

  In his salvation, you will find yours.

  He hadn’t written all of them, though. Genevieve had been there, had in fact been an integral part of performing the ritual, and she’d heard the whole thing. Sobell had left off Karyn’s first line:

  You seek life, one reprieve from the abyss, the other escape.

  It wasn’t hard to guess what was going on there. Belial wanted out of Hell permanently, Sobell wanted to stop Hell claiming him, as it had poor Hector. Genevieve wondered how much time he had left. How much more tinkering around with occult forces he’d be able to perform before his time was up. Could you get an extension on that? Was such a thing even possible?

  “Sure. St. Sebastian’s holy toenail. Or whatever,” Genevieve said.

  Sobell gave her an annoyed look, then turned his attention to Tran. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck with the local bottom-feeders on that score?”

  “I would have told you,” she said.

  “Well, if they won’t help us, we’ll have to see what else we can shake loose from this damnable prophecy. ‘Here in this Gomorrah.’ Are we all still agreed that that means Los Angeles?” Sobell began.

  “I don’t have anything else,” Genevieve said.

  “It does,” Belial said. He hadn’t eaten anything that hadn’t come from the 7-Eleven on the corner, but his breath still boiled out in clouds of rot. “Surely. It must.”

  “Grand. ‘Valley of the garden,’ then.”

  “Lots of gardens around here,” Genevieve said.

  “Not a few valleys, either. San Fernando Valley. Elysian Valley. The entire damn Los Angeles River Valley, for that matter. Or maybe something more localized? Julia, could I trouble you to find us a map somewhere?”

  Tran frowned, but she grabbed her purse and left.

  “Any other ideas with respect to location?” Sobell asked.

  Genevieve shrugged. “I don’t know. What else do you know about St. Sebastian?”

  “In Catholic imagery, he is almost always depicted as tied to a tree and filled full of arrows. Indeed, that’s how we got this far.”

  “Um . . . okay. That’s not too helpful. What else?”

  “Precious little, actually. Patron saint of . . . Hmm. No, that’s gone, if I ever knew it.”

  Belial’s lips twitched. He leaned over the scrawled notes on the table, rocking back and forth, eyes darting over the words again and again. Twice he paused, opened his mouth, and then resumed rocking. If he had anything to contribute other than aroma, it wasn’t forthcoming.

  The air-conditioning kicked on, sending a draft of cold air down Genevieve’s neck. She took a step back.

  “If the local merchants have struck out, it could be a Catholic thing,” Sobell ventured.

  Genevieve crossed her arms. Too much AC in here. Ninety degrees outside, and she wished she had a coat. “There have to be hundreds of Catholic churches in L.A.”

  “Hundreds of churches is quite a step forward from millions of houses, office buildings, prisons, and, for that matter, drainage ditches, bridges, and culverts.”

  “It’ll still take forever to search, especially if you can’t be seen in public.”

  “Perhaps the map will help narrow things down.”

  Genevieve wished for her phone again, her real phone, not the piece-of-crap burner she was relying on now. They’d ditched it on the grounds that it could be tracked—and Sobell’s and Tran’s phones as well—and those were solid grounds, but it was still damn frustrating. “When Tran gets back, send her out for a laptop or something, huh? Somewhere in this building there’s gotta be Wi-Fi we can hop on.”

  “Be patient,” Sobell said. His hands shook as he put them in his pockets.

  Chapter 3

  “I’m worried about this, guys,” Anna said. She stood on the sidewalk outside the municipal building, Karyn and Nail to her left, her feet frozen in place. Her reflection stared accusingly back from the tinted glass window in front of her. Idiot, it seemed to say. What are you thinking?

  “Don’t start that shit again,” Nail said. “You’re gonna freak me out.” He looked to Karyn. “You see anything?”

  Karyn’s noise of disgust was all the answer she gave. Nope, Anna thought. No surprise there. Karyn’s bizarre gift of looking into the future was operating in too high a gear these days, which meant she saw too much from too many futures, and anything useful was drowned in the mess.

  A man and a woman, both in business attire that would have sweat running down the cracks of their asses by the time they made half a block under the angry afternoon sun, passed by. The man looked the three of them over as he walked by, lingering overlong on Anna, it seemed.

  “The fuck you lookin’ at?” she asked. He turned abruptly away and walked faster. A thought came with the look of fear on his face: Tear his throat out. Grab him, throw him down, and do it with your teeth. It’ll be over before he can figure out what’s happening.

  She shook her head to clear it. That wasn’t her, not really. Just the damn demon Belial had stuck in her head. Be easier to ignore if her mouth hadn’t filled with saliva at the prospect.

  “Everything cool?” Nail asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, rubbing her temples with the middle finger and thumb of her right hand. “Fine. Let’s go talk to the FBI.”

  They went in, single file, through the revolving door, the air-conditioning blasting Anna and raising gooseflesh up the backs of her arms. The inside was gray, grim, and floored with pastel green linoleum, sending her catapulting right back to her days in juvie. A bored-looking security guard slouched in a chair that looked too flimsy to support him.

  They went through
the metal detector and Nail led the way to the elevators. He’d been here before, treating with the FBI in the deal that had ended up saving Anna and Karyn from Belial and his insane disciples. On balance, a good thing, even if it had ended up getting them far closer to law enforcement than Anna ever wished.

  Onto the elevators, then off on the sixth floor. Nail led them down a dim hall lined in more grim wallpaper, this time tan, then knocked at the last door on the left.

  The door opened on a trim black woman in an FBI suit, hair pulled back in a tight bun. Special Agent Elliot. Anna remembered her from a couple of hours of unpleasant questioning. That hungry rage surged inside her again, and she found herself baring her teeth before she could stop it. She forced her lips into a half-assed smile that probably looked more like a snarl.

  “Glad you could make it,” Elliot said. She wasn’t doing the tough cop thing today. She looked like shit, Anna thought—haggard face, bags under her eyes, suit looking like she’d slept in it. Even her shiny black FBI shoes looked scuffed.

  “How you handling your Devil worshippers?” Nail asked.

  Elliot gave a weary, disgusted chuckle. “We’re managing our Devil worshippers fine; thank you.” She shook her head. “Devil worshippers. Normally, I’d be pissed about media sensationalism, but I can’t even say they’re wrong on this one. Come in.”

  She opened the door wide and stepped back. The blinds had been pulled down, leaving only the eye-straining fluorescents to light the room. A couple of long, sagging tables had been set up, one against the left wall and another against the right. A laptop sat on one, along with a scattered array of file folders. A corkboard to the left showed pictures of Anna, Karyn, Nail, and Genevieve, as well as Enoch Sobell, who had dozens of pictures below him. Anna found it more than a little unnerving to see her own face on an FBI corkboard, but at least she and the crew had been moved off to one side. Sobell was where the action was now.