Biting the Bullet (20 page)

The Council of Five didn’t send someone to replace you after that battle, did they?” He shook his head.

“So there was nobody else. In fact, there’s been nobody since. You’re it, Asha. You’re all that stands between innocent people and criminal
others
in this city. And all you’ve done for the last — how long?”

“One hundred years,” he murmured.

“Oh my God, for the last century your only effort on the people’s behalf has been to write the bad guys’ names in a book? No wonder the place is a cesspool! You know, I came to ask for your help. You’re a Power, and I was hoping you’d share just a little of it with me. Just enough so I could do my job, stop a guy who’s killed hundreds of your people and mine, and hopefully save my brother’s life in the process.”

I paused. Had to. The tears that crouched at the back of my throat, waiting for me to consider the men in my family, had to be swallowed. When I’d gulped them down, and then taken a second to marvel that Asha hadn’t slammed his gate in my face but stood rooted to the sidewalk, his mournful eyes glued to mine, I said, “But I can see that’s a waste of time. You decided a long time ago just to sit on your power like a gigantic ostrich, bury your head in the sand, and wait for somebody else to show up to do the hard work.”

The sound of squealing tires distracted me. I turned to look as a van hurtled onto the street. Though it was still maybe five blocks away, the light reflecting off the satellite dish attached to its roof revealed its identity. I’d bet my next paycheck when it pulled up to Asha’s gate the sticker on the side would translate to Channel Fourteen.

As soon as I saw the van I felt an ache between my shoulder blades. Confirmation that the vehicle contained one, if not all, of the reavers. How had they found me?

I looked at my watch. “Shit! It’s a new day!” I slapped my hand to my forehead, as if that could cover up the Mark. I felt my arm for the syringe of holy water I usually kept there. But it was gone. I’d given the sheath to Cole to feed his oral fixation and had stored the syringe back in my weapons case.

“What is happening?” asked Asha. His eyes had moved from the van to the rooftops and gone as round as campaign buttons. The mahghul were gathering.

“The reavers are coming for me. Remember that one you wouldn’t let me kill?” Asha nodded, wincing at the bite of my tone.

“Well, his sponsor is a mortal enemy of mine who found him a bunch of willing bodies working at a local TV station. Now he’s dumped the demons he was carrying in his head into those bodies, and at least a few of them are in that van.” I took a second to think. No way could I fight off the reavers if, indeed, all six of them had piled into the van for this showdown. I was about five miles from home base, so no time to run for cover. Cirilai would’ve told Vayl I was in trouble, but he’d never get here in time to help.

And Asha. Well, we’d already established his status.

I turned to him. “Do you have a car?” I asked, as I looked over my shoulder. They were two blocks away now. I could see reavers in the driver and passenger seats as well as one glaring out the front window between them.

“A car? Yes. But . . . I rarely drive it. I mean —”

“Good.” I pushed him inside the gate, slammed it shut, and barred it from the inside. “I need it.” We ran around to the back of the house. Asha opened the garage door while I pulled Grief. I thumbed off the safety as I heard the van screech to a halt in front of the house.

“In here,” Asha whispered. I followed him into the garage and stifled a whistle as he opened the driver’s side door of a black BMW 3.

Sweet
. He handed me the keys, shielding his face from me as we made the transfer. Still, I caught the glint of tears on his cheeks.

Aw, for — are you kidding me?
The guy could probably kick my ass into the Persian Gulf while juggling the reavers with three fingers if he wanted to. But I’d called him a name and made him cry. And now I felt bad. Because the truth is I do have a big mouth that I absolutely need to learn to keep shut, and he did have an excellent reason for avoiding the mahghul. I was just so desperate, at this point I’d smack the angel Gabriel upside the head if I thought it would make him mad enough to get down here and yell at me for three days. Because sometime within that span I’d need backup, he’d be there, and voilà. Problem solved.

I slipped into the driver’s seat and closed the door. Asha reached through the open window and poked the remote attached to the visor. The back gate began to roll open. I started the car. “I’m sorry, Asha. I was a real shit to you back there, and here you are, lending me your wheels.”

He leaned down, his sad eyes nearly level with mine. We couldn’t hear the reavers, but they were coming. My back muscles spasmed, as if at any moment they expected the reavers to jump up from the rear seat, rake the meat off my spine, and yank out my still-beating heart.

Asha wiped the tears off his face with both hands. “Here,” he said gently. “Take them.” He cupped my cheeks. I sucked in my breath as the moisture burned into my skin.

“Asha.”

“Now go!”

He made a commanding motion and of its own accord my foot slammed the accelerator.

I believe in miracles. E.J.’s my main proof. I can’t look into those wide green eyes, feel those perfect little fingers wrapped around mine, realize this complete little girl with her own personality, made of my sister and her husband and a little bit of me, shares my world, without knowing our family recently experienced a miracle. That’s a biggie. Sometimes God throws me small ones too. Like the fact that I didn’t crash Asha’s BMW as I took a sharp right coming onto the road out of his back gate despite the fact that most of my attention was on the rearview mirror.

Four reavers had come after me. Two of them ran after the car. One actually jumped onto the trunk, but flew off as soon as I turned the corner. The other two had entered the garage to confront Asha, and I felt my chest tighten with fear for him. I’d just decided to turn the car around when I saw the reavers fly out of the garage and the door thump down. Then I was on the street, wailing down the asphalt like a bank robber, heading back to base through choppily lit, third-world-looking neighborhoods on roads that were often so narrow I wasn’t sure how vehicles passed each other during the day.

I’d made it maybe halfway back when the TV van caught up with me.

It tried to ram me in the rear end, but I gunned the engine and pulled far enough ahead to wonder if I was giving them too good of a shot at my back tires. I took the next left before I could find out, watched the van nearly roll in its attempt to follow me, and decided a zigzag course might be the best way to keep them from flattening any part of Asha’s ride.

As we raced through the eerily quiet streets of the city, I debated whether or not to call the team. I’d put it off because, although I knew the Wizard would want them to defend me from the reavers and would, therefore, let Dave help me, I didn’t want any of them hurt because of me. More important, I didn’t want the local authorities to get wind of our operation. Something they were bound to do if the neighbors heard gunshots.

I slammed the brakes, spun the wheel hard to the left, accelerated almost before I straightened out again. Behind me the van’s tires squealed in protest and a glance in the mirror showed me reavers being thrown around the interior like balls in a batting cage.

“Dammit, would you monsters wreck already?” I headed down a narrow alleyway, watched the van throw sparks as it squeezed past the buildings that flanked it. “I need Vayl. Come on, Cirilai.” I rubbed the ring against my thigh like it was Aladdin’s lamp and if I wished hard enough Vayl would just waft out of one of the rubies, sink onto the seat beside me, and calm me with that ultracool demeanor of his even as he and I worked out our battle plan.

Vayl was out, though. The closer I got to the house, the surer I was of that fact. “Shit! Why didn’t I tell Cole to chew on his own holster? Then I’d still have that holy water on me and this Beemer and I could’ve disappeared into the city like a couple of street tramps.”

As soon as I said the words “holy water” I got an idea. At the next intersection I swung the car back toward the temple.

The van dogged me all the way there. But it didn’t attempt any more quick turns. And it didn’t run up on my bumper, for which I was grateful. If I trash another car this early in the year, I kind of thought Pete would have a heart attack.

I drove right up to the steps, dove out the passenger door, and raced to the temple’s huge entryway. The goat raised its head with interest as I stopped at the threshold.

The van screeched to a halt and reavers piled out like it was on fire. The mahghul crowded onto its roof and the adjoining satellite dish, watching eagerly as the four of them came at me.

I stepped inside the temple. They stopped on the other side of the door, prohibited from attacking me, as I’d hoped, by the sanctity of the place. At a temporary impasse, we stared each other down.

The original reaver, who was no longer slapping imaginary flies, had found himself some real winners to help him take me out.

Beside him, panting like he’d just run to the top of the Sears Tower, was a sweaty, fat man who reminded me of a puffy Jason Alexander. He leaned hard against his neighbor, a tiny old dude who barely looked capable of holding himself up, much less a creature six times his size. The fourth reaver was so thin you could actually see his skull through his skin.

But though they looked pathetic, underestimating these creatures would be a huge mistake. I could still see their shields, framing each of them in black. And every one of them stared at me from a third eyeball centered in the middle of their foreheads.

“Where’s the rest of the gang?” I asked the original.

“Somebody had to stay back at the station,” he said. “We’re a twenty-four-hour-a-day operation, so you know what that means.”

“I do?”

He grinned, his spiked tongue wagging out of his mouth like a bird dog’s. “That means we can wait you out, lambie pie. As long as it takes. Eventually you’ll have to leave here. And then we’ll have your heart. And your soul.” His three amigos giggled. They reminded me of the hyenas in Disney’s
Lion King
. You’re laughing with them on the outside, but inside you know those sons of bitches mean to eat your favorite cubs and it makes you want to puke.

Ignoring a sudden urge to run to the bathroom and heave into the toilet, I said, “What’s your name, Reaver?” He smiled graciously, his three eyes blinking at a steady, four-second beat, as if he had a timer attached to his eyelids. “You can call me Prentiss Cairo.”

“Well, P.C., here’s the thing,” I said, flavoring my voice with enough camaraderie that he looked puzzled. “You can take the Magistrate every single one of my organs, tie up my soul with a pretty pink bow, and he’s still not gonna pat your fanny and send you to the showers with a bonus.”

When they all looked at each other with the confusion you often see on guys’ faces when women start discussing the pros and cons of home hair tinting, I decided to be blunt and hope to God I’d guessed right in forcing this confrontation.

“Have you boys been in touch with the boss recently? You remember him, don’tcha? Pretty boy hauling around a pound of Uldin Beit’s flesh? The reason I ask is,
I
have. And I can guarantee there’s been a change in plan. Your sponsor, Samos, may still want me dead. And I’m sure Uldin Beit hasn’t changed her mind. But the Magistrate has developed a whole new strategy where I’m concerned. And he is the guy with the whip, after all.”

The four of them huddled, all of them talking at once. “I
told
you we should have checked in when we hit this plane!” whined the Jason Alexander clone.

“She’s lying!” declared the old man.

“If we mess this up he’s going to kick the crap out of us,” declared the skinny guy.

“Shut up!” yelled Prentiss, glaring at me over his shoulder. I shrugged, gave him a hey-it’s-not-my-fault-you-can’t-control-your-stooges look, and stuck my hands in my pockets. The left brushed past my engagement ring. Instant comfort, as if Matt was standing beside me, his hand on my shoulder, his whisper warm in my ear. “You’re doing great, Jaz. I’m proud of you.” The other slipped over the hilt of my bolo. The mahghul stirred with excitement as my hand wrapped around the handle. Gave it a slight pull. Several of them dropped off the van. Crept up behind the reavers.

“So what do you say, P.C.?” I inquired, resolutely ignoring the mahghul. “You want to kill me and put yourself so deep in the Magistrate’s doghouse, instead of souls, you’ll be chasing cockroaches for the next couple of hundred years? Or do you want to make a deal?”

Prentiss narrowed all three of his eyes. Eeeww, freaky. “What do you mean?” I shrugged. “Leave me to the Magistrate. I get to survive another day. Uldin Beit gets what she wants in the long run. And you guys don’t get your asses reamed by the bossman. Seems like a win-win to me.” New huddle, much whispering accompanied by a few violent gestures compliments of Prentiss and the old fart. A few moments later they faced me, united and decided. “We’ll do it,” said the old guy. He held out his hand, expecting me to shake on it. Which was when I realized I was screwed.

I know a little bit about dealing with the devil. Or, at least, his minions. The CIA presents a whole course on it. People in our line of work, well, we get tempted. A lot. Rails and sates, adversaries and siordents, they’ve all been known to throw our agents an offer they couldn’t resist. So, in order to make sure none of us rookies got dragged off to never-ever-laugh like the famous Drew Telast, who’d thought it worth risking his soul to get the dirt on Premier Khordikov, the Agency had organized a class. As a result, I knew no servant of the Great Taker would ever make a bargain with a simple handshake. If he’d really meant to seal the deal, both of us would’ve had to get bloody.

I stared at the outstretched hand. Wished I had just one ally guarding my back. Then realized I had an entire temple.

I stepped forward, shoved my palm into Old Fart’s, and grabbed hard with the other hand as well. Throwing all my weight backward, I swung him around and through the doorway. He screamed as he burst into flame —
whoosh
— as if he’d been dipped in lighter fluid and thrown into a bonfire.