Or when I had him by the balls.
The noise in my head had cleared a little, and I was feeling more like myself. Gilberto ghosted behind me, stepping only where I did, his pulse slow and even. I glanced back, and the half-grin fell off his face, almost shattering on the sidewalk.
This is serious business, I’d told him, and there needs to be no goddamn funny stuff. No face, no insults, no nothing. You keep your manners on, your mouth shut, and you don’t draw unless I do.
Si, senora bruja, he’d said, and it looked like he meant it.
Melendez’s faux-adobe hacienda sat behind its round concrete driveway. A brick bank in the middle of the heat-shimmering concrete held heavy-blooming rosebushes, a monkey puzzle tree, and a bank of silvery-green rue. Lemon balm tried its best to choke everything else in the bed, but aggressive pruning held it back. The fountain in the middle of the driveway was bone-dry, the concrete cherub who was usually shooting water out of his tiny little peeper looking sadly dejected. My smart eye watered, but I detected nothing other than the usual febrile etheric congestion.
Afternoons Melendez was usually ministering to the faithful at his storefront out on Parraroyos, nonprofit under the tax law but donations encouraged, drumming and chicken dinners pretty much every night. Today, though, I was pretty sure he’d be here. That’s one thing about being psychic—sometimes you’re home when someone wants you.
Gilberto hung back as we approached the wide iron gate, until I motioned him forward. I very pointedly did not ease a gun free of the holster. Busting in shooting and yelling wasn’t going to be necessary, no matter how much I liked the idea.
“Be cool, Gil.”
“I am very fuckin’ cool, profesora. Don’ worry bout me none.”
I shouldn’t be bringing you here. I swallowed hard and crossed the driveway, checking the sun. Not much daylight left.
Everything around me rippled, chills spreading down my spine. The gem sang, vibrating on my wrist. I kept going, stepped through the gate, the courtyard closing around me. Another fountain here, seashell shaped, also dry. Was he having trouble paying his water bill? Not likely.
I didn’t even get to ring the bell. As soon as I stepped up to the door, there was a sound of locks chucking open. The door creaked as it swung inward, and a rotund little Hispanic male eyed me. He wore a bowling shirt festooned with pineapples, a pair of jeans, and there was a hint of a smile around his wide mouth.
“Senor Melendez.” I kept my hands where he could see them.
He studied me for a long, tense-ticking fifteen seconds. His gaze traveled up over my shoulder, and I knew Gilberto was staring back. Melendez waved one pudgy hand, as if shooing away an insect. He examined me from top to toe, taking his time.
I suffered it.
“Ay de mi,” the little butterball finally breathed. “Ay, mamacita, you took El Camino Negro. And you come back.”
No shit. “I’ve got a few questions.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Bet you do. I just bet you do.” He seemed content to just leave it at that, sucking at his upper lip, and didn’t move. The heat was a thick blanket, I tasted sand and rot, and buzzing rose inside my head. A ghost of sweat touched my back, training clamped down and I kept my hands loose with an effort.
“Melendez.” I didn’t raise my voice. “Your cooperation is not optional.”
“And what about mi patron, eh?” He grinned, his teeth shocking white. The spirits paid for good dental care, at least.
“His isn’t optional, either.” I stepped forward, Gilberto following silent behind me. Melendez retreated, and the cool and quiet of the voodoo king’s house enfolded us.
* * *
The kitchen was stainless steel and sharp edges, a blue-tiled floor and every surface painfully scrubbed. The light was warm and electric, even though there was a wide window looking out onto the blue shimmering jewel of the pool in the backyard. A faint tang of cigar smoke hung in the air-conditioned breeze, and the tall silver fridge stopped humming. Uncomfortable silence rose, and when I pointed Gilberto dropped onto a tall stool at the breakfast bar. His shoulders hunched before I gave him a meaningful look; he straightened and buttoned his lip.
Nice to know I still had the quelling glance.
Melendez opened the fridge. Glass clinked, and he came out with a couple brown bottles of expensive microbrew. He cracked the beers with practiced twists, and handed me one. “You got to know,” he said finally. “You owe Chango a bullet, bruja. Don’t think he forgot.”
“I haven’t forgotten either. This is about something else.” I took a long pull off the bottle. “Time’s a factor, Melendez. So spit it out.”
He took a pull off his beer, made a face. “I ain’t got much to spit. It ain’t pretty out there, bruja. Faustina on Seventy-Third, she dead. Mark Hope, he dead too. That cocksucker on Martell Avenue with his fancy cigarettes, gone. Luisa de la Rocha, Manuelita Rojo, that Dama Miercoles bitch, they gone too.”
“Wait. Hang on.” I stared at him. That’s every big mover in the voodoo community, for Christ’s sake. “All of them? You’re telling me they’re dead?”
“Well, they ain’t in fucking Baja, fuck.” He took another pull. “Es Los Otros, los diablos. No warning. La Familia, they gave no warning. Just, one second everything fine. Then bam! Dead, dead, muerto, and the spirits screaming about the treaty broken.”
Gilberto shifted uneasily on his stool, his hands cupping his sharp elbows, and under his sallowness his pitted cheeks were pale. He stared at me, and I was abruptly reminded of just how young he was. Had I ever been that wide-eyed?
“No warning? When was this?”
“Couple months ago.” Melendez’s eyes glittered sleepily, hooded. The cigar smell drifted across the room, and a thin thread of smoke curled up from the open mouth of the beer bottle.
This just keeps getting better. “So the hellbreed all of a sudden started killing voodoo practitioners. The movers and shakers. Why are you still alive?”
A sneer twisted his plump face. “I in strong with Chango, bruja. You know dat. He tell me long as I stay inside he protect me. Now here you come. What you want, eh?”
It took several long throat-working swallows to get the beer down. I didn’t taste a single bit of it, which was a shame. Nothing like getting an unexpected gift to make a cold beer go down nice and easy.
“I want to talk to Chango.” Might as well get it all out in the open. “About several things, but we can start with Perry.”
“El Diablo Rubio?” Melendez paled and set the bottle down with a click. Beads of condensation on its surface glittered. The pool sent dappled reflections through the window, making a pattern-play on the roof. “Aaaaaah.”
The lights flickered. The reek of cigar smoke thickened, and my hand dropped casually to a gun butt. Gilberto hunched on the stool, his eyes wide, and as much as I wanted to give him a reassuring glance, I didn’t. I watched Melendez, who seemed to swell inside his chinos and blinding-white shirt.
“El Diablo Rubio,” I echoed softly. “Si. Buenas tardes, Senor Chango.”
A long, low, grating laugh, too big to come from Melendez’s chest. Smoke rose from his cuffs, eddying in swirls that opened like crying mouths. Little fingers of vapor threaded across the tiles, reaching for me. “Buenas tardes, hija.” It wasn’t the little man’s voice—it was richer, deeper, and crackling with authority. “Still owe me una bala, bitch.”
“I haven’t welshed yet,” I reminded him. My bitten fingernails tapped the gun butt. “Perry, senor. I’m looking to hand los diablos a world of hurt, and I haven’t forgotten the help you gave me last time.”
The spirit riding Melendez’s body rolled his shoulders back in their sockets, his rib cage oddly torqued. Tendons popped, creaking. The smoke billowed, knee-deep now, but swirling uneasily away from me and Gilberto.
It eyed me, a spark of red inside each of Melendez’s dilated pupils, before his eyes rolled back in his head. Still, the spark remained, burning again
st the whites, a tiny blood-gem.
My right wrist ached, force humming up my arm and shaking my shoulder. I waited.
“Una bala,” he said finally. “In el rubio diablo’s cabeza. You kill him for us.”
Well, isn’t that handy. It was my turn to shrug. “That’s the plan. What can you tell me about El Rubio’s little game?”
The bloody pinpricks rolled, fastened on Gilberto. “Why you bring him here? Little man in a big man’s house. He got too much brag in him, bruja.”
“Don’t you look at him.” Snap of command, I straightened, and my fingers had curled around the gun butt. “You’re dealing with me, padre, no me chingues.”
And God help me, but it reminded me of the first time I’d seen Perry down at the end of the bar in the Monde. Mikhail had said very much the same thing, and at the time I hadn’t wondered why they seemed to know each other, since Perry had been new in town. The old hellbreed who used to run Santa Luz had just died a bloody, screaming death, but I hadn’t seen it. I’d been locked up at Galina’s during that whole set of events, still an apprentice, prowling and trying to escape through the greenhouse too.
Nothing ever changes, Jill. Ever.
The spirit twitched. Melendez’s whole body jerked, knees bending. His boat shoes scuffed against the tiles, a sad, squeaking sound. “We lost too many, bruja hija. Not weak, but you on you own. I look after mi hijo here much as I can, and him only, when dat rubio cabron come callin’.”
“Understood.” And it was probably for the best, too. “What’s Perry planning, senor? Tell me everything, leaving nothing out.” That was the most important question, and I didn’t know how long the loa would ride his horse. The smoke thickened, curdling.
Melendez’s body let out a long slow hiss. “La Lanza. Yes. He aims to use la Lanza, and open the door all the way.”
My skin chilled, gooseflesh threatening to rise. “Open the door?”
“Between here and there, mi hija. Between you and them. Like they did before, mi hija. This time they have la Lanza, and it will prop door open like broomstick.”
Oh, my God. There was only one thing that could possibly mean. I went cold all over, and glittering little insects with sharp tiny feet prickled me everywhere. “Y la Lanza? Que es eso?”
“La Lanza.” Another long hiss of escaping air, another frothing billow of cigar smoke. “El rubio, he hide it under the eyes of los santos, and he lie to keep you away from it and from los padres, sus amigos no more. Es la Lanza del Destino, and los diablos can’t touch it. Only las marionetas de carne, the ones they bargain with.”
Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ. I hadn’t realized I was gripping the counter with my right hand. Indigo tiles groaned as the gem made a low melodic sound, and I had to work my fingers free with an effort. I’d left splintered marks. “Tell me where, senor de los parraroyos. Where are they going to throw the party?”
But Melendez swayed. “Owe me a bullet, bitch,” the spirit rumbled through his mouth, and the entire kitchen rattled. “Go serve it to el rubio. And if you die before you do it, I find you, and I make you pay.”
Oh, no worries about that. “Don’t threaten me.” I couldn’t kill a loa, but I could make things very uncomfortable for his followers.
If I survived this.
“La puerta no debe abrirse, bruja. Stop him. They send you back for this.”
Really. Thanks. I would never have guessed. My mouth was so dry I had trouble forming the words. “Gracias, senor.”
Melendez sagged against the fridge. He held the beer bottle like it was an artifact from another civilization, and I was momentarily grateful Chango hadn’t been in a glass-chewing mood. You don’t get hurt doing something like that—the spirits take care of their own—but it can be uncomfortable. Afterward.
His eyelids fluttered. Normal human eyes now, dark, their pupils humanly round but flaring and constricting wildly. His knees buckled, I caught him before he hit the ground, the empty beer bottle flung away. Gilberto was off the stool, his hand flashing out and closing around the neck, neatest trick of the week, and the Eye on his chest sent a dart of bloody light splashing against the window.
Melendez lay in my arms like wet washing, curiously boneless before consciousness flooded him again and he stiffened.
“Easy.” I braced him, he was so light. A breakable doll in a breakable world. “Easy there, senor. Everything’s copacetic.”
You’re in shock, Jill. But I just held him until sanity flooded his dark gaze again, conscious of the smell of his aftershave—something heavy and orange-musky, expensive Florida water. I got him on his feet by the simple expedient of pushing myself up, strength humming in my bones even if my knees were suspiciously mooshy. I got him propped against the counter, and I think it was the first time I’d ever seen Melendez actually, honestly terrified.
“Gil.” I glanced through the thinning smoke. It smelled like a bar in here. “Get us a few more beers, huh?”
“Si.” My apprentice was still pale, and the Eye gleamed against his narrow chest. His flannel shirt flapped as he straightened and headed for the fridge.
“Madre de Dios,” Melendez breathed.
“No shit.” I made sure he was steady enough to stand. My brain thrashed like a rat in a cage, I took a deep breath and forced stillness. I need a plan, and a good one. Don’t have one. So I guess we just wing it. As usual. “We need to talk, Melendez. I’m leaving Gil here for a while.”
24
Night fell hard on Santa Luz, sinking her teeth in and shaking a little. Neon greased the dry streets, and the whole city was restless.
I walked into the Monde like I owned the place, steel-shod heels clicking and my coat swinging heavily. I hadn’t stopped to clean up, so I was covered in hellhound filth, but I had borrowed a handful’s worth more of charms from Anya. I tied them into my hair while sitting in the parking lot, in Gilberto’s little Volkswagen.
As armor, they sucked, even though they ran with blue light the deeper I penetrated the etheric bruising laying over the nightclub. But I had my gear, and my coat, and my aura flaming with bright spikes. I had the eyeliner, now smeared and messy enough to make me look bruised under the scrim of decay. I had all the ammo I could carry.
I even had a couple grenades; they’d been packed in the trunk. Gilberto was a sneaky little boy, but right now, I wasn’t going to scold him. No, I was just going to hope he was sneaky enough to stay one hop ahead of everyone.
Just like me.
The damned pressed close. All hellbreed tonight, and all beautiful. Every single one of them aware of me as I forced my way to the bar. And it was time for another shock, because in addition to the two Traders dispensing libations there was a familiar, lined face and a pair of filmed, sightless eyes. Riverson’s hair was a shock of white, and he moved with jerky, mechanical quickness. Every motion looked painful.
Serves you right, motherfucker. Still, he’d tried to warn me. Too late and too little, but he’d tried.
Unless that was part of Perry’s royal mindfuck, too.
Riverson went dead still as I approached, one of his hands holding a bottle of Stoli, the other cupped around a delicate fluted glass. I didn’t quite turn my back on the mass of ’breed writhing on the dance floor. The damage from my earlier visit had been repaired, and the disco ball was sending little screaming jets of light all over. Whenever the lights paused, you could see they were shaped like skulls. Laughing little skulls.
Well, that’s an interior decorating trend that’s never going to hit the big time. At least, I hope it won’t. It’s so fucking tacky. I reached over, quick as a snake, and grabbed the Stoli bottle. Took a healthy slug, saluted Riverson. “Well, hello, you helltrading sonofabitch,” I yelled over the noise. “How’s tricks?”
His mouth worked wetly for a moment. One of his teeth had been broken, a jagged stub that must have hurt like hell. His fingers tightened on the glass. “You shouldn’t be here!” he finally yelled back. “God damn it, Kismet, you shouldn
’t be here!”
I took another belt. As a bracer, it didn’t do much. The thought of Gilberto out in the dark, deep in Riverhurst with a voodoo king who made most Traders look sweet and innocent, was better.
Still, Melendez was at least as frightened of me as he was of Perry. He’d keep Gil safe tonight and put his part of the plan in motion. More than that I couldn’t ask for—and if he didn’t take care of my apprentice I would come back and do more than break a few dishes.
I was through with fucking around.
Riverson stiffened. The glass shattered in his hand, and all expression left his face as blood welled between his clutching fingers.
I felt him arrive like a storm front, a flash of paleness and his fingers were over mine. Perry took the vodka bottle, raised it to his lips, and grinned at me, the blandness dropping for a moment. High cheekbones, bladed nose, sterile beauty shining briefly before the screen of average came back up. His bright blue gaze fastened on me, indigo threads staining his whites with an inky vein-map, and the music took on fresh frenetic urgency.
The disco ball sped up, and the assorted hellbreed leapt and gamboled. They drifted away from the bar to pack the dance floor, faces blank and beautiful, the twisting of rot underneath candygloss corruption flickering through them like wind through high wheat.
The woman, Mikhail had reminded me so often, has advantage in bargain like this.
And God, I was hoping it was true.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Perry’s lips shaped the words, they sliced through the jet roar with no difficulty at all. “Not yet.”
Come on, Jill. This is just like working a sharkjohn. The kind that will pay double if you perform according to his little script. The cold calculation wasn’t a hunter’s totting up of percentages and averages—no, this was an older feeling.