Heaven's Spite

10

I couldn’t get out of Henderson Hill fast enough. The caretaker shuffled away, his thin shoulders slumped under his coveralls, and I’d spent a few minutes of effort to coax whispering-blue banefire off my fingers. The last time I’d seen an altar like this, I’d been flinging yellow hellfire around, razing an entire airfield. It had taken a long time and concerted effort to call out the banefire instead.

Hellfire near an evocation altar is such a bad idea, there are barely words for it. The banefire struggled under the weight of contamination in the air, but finally I coaxed a wisp of blue up from my right-hand fingers. Once it had a good foothold, wreathing my hand in pale blue flames, singing in their hissing little whispers, I cast it at the altar. A blue streak roared foaming from my fingers and hit the nastiness squarely. It would burn clean and leave a thin layer of blessing in its wake, and if it spread to the surrounding rooms, so much the better.

I was seriously considering, like I did each time, burning down the entire goddamn place. But there was no way of doing it without hellfire, and like I said, bad bad idea.

Hellfire feeds on rage. It would be the psychic equivalent of a nuclear weapon, and it would leave even worse fallout.

I got out through the gate and stood for a moment, head down, listening to the chatters and whispers fading behind me. My skin crawled, not just from the dried blood, hellbreed ick, and other gunk coating me. The Talisman was quiescent, nestling under the rags of my shirt. Dawn was underway, the sky lightening to gray in the east and the first flush of color in a thin line along the horizon.

My pager went off again. I almost swore, checked the bezoar one more time, and dug the little electronic gadget out. Clicked back through the calls, once more wishing I could carry a cell phone. But no dice—pagers have a greater tolerance for sorcery, and with as much as I’m half-drowned, electrocuted, or other fun things, replacing a cell is a prohibitive expense. Especially since it’s the police department that pays for it. Monty would have a cow if this one didn’t last more than two weeks; I’d been having a bad run of it lately.

Montaigne was, in fact, calling me right now. Twice. I had a bad feeling about this.

I frowned. Galina, calling me. Several times. The pager quit vibrating, but immediately lit up again.

I juggled priorities for a moment. The autopsies wouldn’t be done for hours, even with a rush on them. I had the bezoar and the capability of tracking that masked ’breed, plus I could figure out where he’d gone to ground without too much trouble. I needed to start digging to find out where the other evocation sites were, because bringing a high-class hellbreed through isn’t something you undertake without a few planned backups.

I’d promised Saul breakfast. And if Galina was spamming my pager, something big was happening.

But first, I had to check in with Monty.

It never rains but it pours.

I cursed internally. Made a note to pick up my car from Galina’s this morning, no matter what else was going on. And picked myself up into a weary run.

I must know where every working pay phone in the entire city is. When that infrastructure goes the way of the dodo, I’m either going to have to start carrying a cell and eat the cost of constantly replacing it, or I’m going to have to figure something out. Breaking and entering to use people’s phones was the option I was most sneakingly in favor of, but one I suspected I’d never actually engage in. There are enough places open even in the dead time of early morning that I’d probably have no problem.

The closest phone was on Henderson after it jagged past Marivala Boulevard, in the corner of a stop-and-rob’s cracked, dirty parking lot. The entire city had gone still, Santa Luz sinking into weariness before false dawn started coloring the eastern horizon and the nightside retreated glaring to its holes and burrows. I was hoping this wasn’t going to be too complex, that Monty was just catching me up on forensics or something… but intuition as well as logic told me I was just trying to make myself feel better.

Oh, Jillybean, you are having one hell of a night, aren’t you?

I had to stop and breathe before I plugged in my calling-card number, then dialed Montaigne.

“What?” he barked right after the second ring. He must’ve been sitting on the damn thing.

“It’s me.” I didn’t have to work to sound tired. “What’ve you got?”

“Jesus Christ.” Click of a lighter, a puffing inhale-exhale. He was smoking a cigarillo, dammit. In his office, despite the fact that all public buildings were supposed to be tobacco-free as of two months ago. And despite the doctor telling him to lay off.

I couldn’t help myself. “Your wife’s not going to like you smoking, Monty.”

“Stay out of my marriage, Kismet.” And boy, did he sound grim. I checked the sky again, decided it was about four in the morning, and winced inwardly. “Got a mass grave just outside the city limits. At least seven contenders, probably more. Weird work.”

Crap. I thought about it for a second. “Bodies ripped up, some organs missing?”

“Oh yeah. They’re crispy, too. Parks & Rec guy stumbled over it; Rosie and Paloma are out there. Rosie called in, said to get you on the wire and send her some fucking backup.”

Jesus. I should’ve expected this. “Where?”

“Follow the Strip south and stop when you see the flashing lights. Do it as fast as you can, Channel Four’s not there yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Jesus.” Another pause, and I heard him swallow. Probably coffee. At least, I hoped it was coffee. “Rosie says it’s fragrant, too. Just a barrel of roses to start the day with.”

“So you’re in early, instead of late? When did that start?”

“I ain’t got home yet, Kismet. Go take a look at this so I can fucking get there, okay?”

“Temper, temper.” But he had a point, for something like this he was in his office playing central control until I got there and cleared the scene. “Cheer up, Montaigne. It could be a serial killer. A normal one.”

His reply was unrepeatable, and he banged the phone down.

I set the receiver down with a grimace. Rubbed at my forehead, dried blood and gunk crackling off my skin. “Goddammit.” It was just a whisper. Dawn was coming up fast.

I was going to have to catch a cab.