Blue Diablo

Well Played

To his credit, Chuch tried to get around it. “This is important. I’ll play you later.”

But Booke held firm: no contest, no info.

Chance pushed to his feet and rested his hand on the back of Chuch’s chair. “Up. I’ll give him a game.”

Sighing, the other man got to his feet and moved to the recliner. Well, I didn’t intend to sit and watch a virtual chess match, and clearly, Chuch did so I gave him my seat. There were limits to what an ex should expect. Instead I made my way back to the kitchen, where Eva sat in a pool of sunlight, reading the paper. Studying her, I decided she and Chuch were a bit of an odd couple, him short and stocky, her tall and model slim.

She’d been biting on a red pen, so she had a smudge of ink on her upper lip. As I joined her, I saw she’d been circling want ads.

“Job hunting?” Stupid thing to say, but then I never claimed to possess good social skills. Living as I do sort of discourages that.

Eva nodded. “Chuch makes enough money, but I get bored, you know? I want to do something interesting this time, though.”

I searched for a suitable reply. “You’ve held boring jobs?”

In fact, I could relate. Since I can sell just about anything—you might even call it a preternatural gift—I’ve worked in retail my whole life. It doesn’t get much worse.

“Yeah. Who knew being a private eye involved so much sitting around in cars? Really dull.”

“You used to be a PI?” Despite myself, I registered some awe. I always had a weakness for Mickey Spillane and Dashiell Hammett. I loved diving into a noir detective novel with guys in fedoras and trench coats and with smart-mouthed dames wearing too much lipstick and killer shoes.

“Well.” Her expression turned mulish. “I didn’t actually get the license, but what’s the big deal? It’s just a piece of paper and I can print one that looks just as good. I helped my clients just the same and probably charged them less.”

Biting my inner lip against a grin, I processed the information. So Eva specialized in forgery. That was good to know. Just like you never know when you’ll need your ride tricked out, you never know when you’ll need a passport cooked. In fact, I could use one.

“So what’s the problem?”

“Chuch says I’m going to end up in jail the first time a disgruntled client reports me to the license board.”

“So make sure they’re all gruntled.”

Eva grinned at me. “That’s what I said. But it really is boring, so I’m looking for a new gig.”

“I run a pawnshop in Mexico City.”

Don’t ask me why I volunteered the information when I’d done my best to make sure nobody could find me, but Eva seemed harmless. Chuch would tell her anyway, I rationalized, if she asked. But truthfully, I was simply hungry for female company. When I fled in the middle of the night, I severed all links to my old life, including my best friend, Sara. If I ever worked up the nerve, I’d call her. I didn’t know whether she’d be glad to hear from me or want my head on a pike.

“That sounds...” She hesitated.

“Boring?”

“Well. Yeah.”

We both laughed, and I decided I liked her. “It has its compensations. There’s nothing like finding a lost treasure or making a great deal on something.”

“So what’s your part in all this?” she asked, getting up to pour us some coffee. “I know Chance wouldn’t have chased all that way after you unless you can do something for him nobody else can. He’s not the sentimental type.”

Christ, how right that was, and it stung to hear such a home truth spoken by a relative stranger. If only I’d seen him that clearly at the start of our relationship, I wouldn’t be emotionally starved and half-heartbroken over him, even now. To cover how much it still hurt, I sipped my coffee, trying to decide what to tell her.

“I’m a handler,” I said at last, unsure whether she even knew what that was.

Immediately she reached for my hands and turned them palms up. “Dios mio.” Eva crossed herself as she studied scars old and new. “What a curse.”

I felt dumbstruck by her perspicacity. I almost never told anyone. People didn’t believe my claim, and if they did, it colored their view of me. If they romanticized such powers, they ranked me up there with sugarplum fairies, helpful brownies, and the good witch Glinda. If they demonized them, then I fell somewhere between the Wicked Witch of the West and something you summoned with blood at a crossroads.

To my surprise, she didn’t ask about the scars. There are so few handlers out there; maybe she didn’t realize I’m unusual. If I’d been born with this ability, it wouldn’t work like this. It’s more common to petition a practitioner for a divination spell that will permit him or her to read the energies stored in an object, but like all divinations, the information produced can be double-edged and unreliable.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “It’s not as much fun as it looks.”

She regarded me with a soft look in her brown eyes. In a minute, she might call me pobrecita and try to tend my wounds. Clearly Chuch had himself a tenderhearted woman, whatever her foibles otherwise.

“He’s using you to find his mother,” she surmised. “What a shitty thing to do, like you could say no—and you still half in love with him.” Tsking, she shook her head.

“I am not!”

Instead of arguing, she laughed, and that made it worse somehow. “Lies. You eat him with your eyes, Corine.” Then she did say it. “Pobrecita. Men can be such assholes.”

I didn’t. Did I? Unhappy, I clutched my coffee mug, resolving not to permit any more visual binges.

“Anyway. I handled the Buddha statuette his mother left behind and saw a white truck. Something Sanitation or maybe Something Salvation...” I trailed off, depressed at how slim a lead that offered.

“Did you check the phone book?” At my blank look, she got up and went to the bureau just outside the kitchen door and returned with a directory in hand. “I guess that’s too obvious, huh?” Eva flipped the pages, first looking under sanitation. “Five listings. Would you recognize the truck if you saw it again?”

I nodded. “Pretty sure. White with blue lettering, and I got a good look at the logo.”

“So we can eliminate the Salvation Army trucks. Those aren’t white.” Double-checking the directory, Eva tapped a finger thoughtfully. “I’d rule out salvation altogether, myself. There aren’t any other listings.”

Wow, she wasn’t half-bad at this deductive stuff. Maybe she should get her license if the forgery thing didn’t pan out. “Write down the addresses, and we can do a drive-by so I can check out the trucks.” A plan of action cheered me up some. “Let’s go tell the guys.”

I’d forgotten about the chess game in progress. As Eva trailed me into the office, Chance said, “Check.” The pieces on screen meant nothing to me, but I didn’t want to interrupt. It didn’t take long for Booke to decide he was doomed, though, and after some gentlemanly cursing, he ceded the game, which Chance took with his next move.

“I haven’t seen an opening like that since Pavel Blatny played Rasmussen in ’eighty-four,” Booke said, openly enthused. “Really unorthodox stuff, but—”

Chuch mouthed a kiss to Eva while reining in his pet Englishmen. “Booke. A deal’s a deal, mano. Info now; deconstruct the game later.”

“Oh. Right.” Booke sounded subdued, and I gathered the impression that this sort of thing comprised his primary social outlet. If I were computer girl, I’d message him sometime. Hell, I might do it anyway, provided I could figure it out. “Well, it’s clearly a variation on a summoning circle found in the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis.” I wasn’t the only one who went blank, but luckily I didn’t have to ask.

“The what?” Chance looked at me like I ought to know, but I’m not a witch. I don’t use rituals. I don’t even look at the old books anymore, though I’d never throw them away. They’re all I have left of my mother.

“Sorry,” Booke said. “It’s a rather famous grimoire. It covers a lot of ground regarding summoning, binding, and making deals with demons. Though I can’t be certain from her sketches, I do think the ritual involved the Knights of Hell. Caim, Balam, Murmur, and Foras most closely resembled the symbols, but none of them were a perfect match.”

I cleared my throat. “Either my memory or my drawing might have been at fault. In layman’s terms, what does that mean, Booke?”

The speakers crackled, and I could practically hear him weighing his response. “I’m not sure,” he said at last, “but I believe she used the Knights to enforce a bargain with those four men. Their oath against their souls, sealed in blood.”

For a moment, I imagined Knights of Hell coming to collect on a bum deal. Heck of a way to make sure someone kept his word. Never mind how Min knew how to do so. “It must have been important.”

“To say the least.” Booke sounded amused. “I’ll keep investigating the matter if you wish and e-mail Chuch if I find anything.”

“That’d be great, primo. See what you can turn up on the four Knights she invoked, would you?”

“Absolutely. Talk to you later, Chuch. It was lovely meeting all of you.” Booke’s teatime manners put a smile on my face even as I turned to face Chance.

You’d think he might be used to bad news by now, but I guess it just never gets easier to hear that your mother knows how to conjure common household demons, never mind the Knights of Hell. Maybe his back hurt, or maybe the huevos rancheros sat wrong, but he looked like he was in serious pain. I wanted to go to him, but remembering what Eva said about eating him with my eyes, I waited for someone else to make a move. Anyone.

“That sucks, huh?” Trust Chuch to reduce it to the simplest terms.

Chance echoed Booke’s words with a faintly ironic inflection. “To say the least. But you two looked like you had news when you first came in.” He offered a half smile. “I hope it’s good.”

I let Eva do the honors.