Authors: Caitlin Kittredge
“Can’t say I’m a movie buff,” Jack said.
“Right, you were in that band,” Sanford said. “Probably thought you were too cool for cheesy old B pictures. Anyway, I recommend
My Soul Condemned.
Nasty little noir picture, better than most of the crap Basil was featured in.”
He poured scotch from a decanter into a crystal tumbler and Jack drank, but it was cheap stuff that lit a fire all the way down. The
fuck you
scotch, reserved for guests you really wanted to shove into the pool and hold there until they stopped twitching.
“Now,” Sanford said, lighting a cigar from an inlaid box on his massive desk. “Why don’t you tell me what’s got you in such a lather?”
Jack told Sanford about Abbadon. Watched his face for any sign of a twitch of guilt, but Sanford was better at the game than that. He smoked, he drank, he smiled and made conciliatory faces in all the right spots.
“Well, that’s certainly an exciting story,” he told Jack when Jack finished. “But I don’t see what it has to do with me.”
“You want Abbadon on your side,” Jack said. “So you can poke and prod Belial for the rest of his miserable existence. You can’t hope to hold him on your own, but with some of Abbadon’s magic, you’ll have the pet demon you’ve always wanted.” He steepled his fingers. “You tell me where the local sorcerers meet to fuck each other’s brains out, I guarantee I can deliver you Abbadon.”
He didn’t make a habit of hooking men like Sanford together with creatures like Abbadon, but Sanford didn’t know that. He thought threatening Pete and the kid would keep Jack in line, and Jack was content to let him go right on thinking it. Besides, he needed Sanford, at least for a little bit longer. Then it might be amusing to watch Abbadon chew the prick up and shit him out.
“Interesting,” Sanford said. “And what’s the upshot for you?”
“You leave Pete alone,” Jack said. “Call off your pet sociopaths and let her go about her life.”
Sanford rolled his eyes. “What a predictable twist,” he said. “I’d never sell a picture with a line like that.”
Jack held Sanford’s eyes. “Good thing this is real life, then.” He leaned forward and set the empty tumbler on the edge of Sanford’s desk. Sanford didn’t flinch, but he wasn’t acting like Jack had brought him the wrong sort of coffee any longer, either. The temptation to get what he wanted was going to rule him. Jack leaned back in his chair. “So? You know any place like what I’m talking about?”
Sanford exhaled a cloud of smoke. “You fuck me in the ass over this, Jack…” He leaned forward and stubbed out his cigar, one vicious movement that rattled the ashtray. “I’m not going to need to hurt Pete and your kid. You’ll wish you were dead either way.”
“Story of my fuckin’ life,” Jack said. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
CHAPTER 21
Sanford and Jack rode in an old Lincoln limousine, a great rolling coffin of iron and chrome. Parker drove and Gator stayed behind, a development that clearly infuriated him, veins bulging out of his bull neck. “I don’t trust that Limey fuck, sir,” he told Sanford.
“That’s all right,” Sanford said, giving Jack a mild smile. “Neither do I.”
Parker stayed quiet, guiding them down from the heights of Sunset Boulevard and back into the maze of downtown.
“It’s a real shame what’s happening down here,” Sanford said. “Used to be a high-class neighborhood back before the crash. Now it’s full of spics and crackheads, and all of these old buildings are crumbling.” He gestured at an Art Deco cinema, marquee lit up to advertise a live performance of
The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
“The Million Dollar Theater. Back in old Basil’s day, all the premieres were there. Swank spot.” He pointed to a brick building across the street, a nondescript four-story box surrounded by tourists with cameras. “They filmed
Blade Runner
in there, the Bradbury Building. Crazy ironwork. I’d’ve loved to get a shooting permit for a feature I did a few years ago, but it’s all rented by the LAPD now and they’re real assholes unless you have a buddy on the force.”
The limo pulled to the curb, putting an end to Sanford’s rambling before Jack had to choke him with his own shoelaces. The man loved the sound of his chatter like few Jack had ever met before. That was fine—the more Sanford talked, the less he had to.
Parker opened the door, but let it swing back at soon as Sanford was out. It clipped Jack in the knee, and he cursed. Parker’s lips twitched with the thinnest ghost of a smile before Sanford went to a metal door sandwiched between a convenience mart and a shop selling
quincenera
dresses and hit the buzzer.
“Let me do the talking in here,” Sanford said. “I have a relationship with these people. You’re an outsider, and they don’t like that. Me bringing you at all is putting my whole reputation at risk.”
“I’ll do me best not to use the wrong fork or spit on the carpet,” Jack said. Worrying about offending sex magicians was like being concerned with hurting a hobo’s feelings—you could spare the worry, but why bother? Sex magic spoke to a particular kind of ego, worse than the usual sort of cunt who turned to black magic. None of the sorcerers Jack had run across were much better than pimps with a little bit of talent and just enough charm to lure damaged boys and girls into their games for power. He supposed there might be some who used fucking as a genuine focus, a form of power-raising that was consensual and at least in the gray area between outright black magic and the white stuff that everyday sorts associated with witchcraft, but he hadn’t met them. The more depraved the sex, the more pain the subject was in, the less they wanted it, the bigger the entity you could attract. And the sorts of things attracted to blood, sex, and suffering weren’t cuddly and inclined to sit down and have a cup of tea.
He couldn’t worry about that now. He wasn’t on a mission of mercy. He was here to find a pregnant sorcerer, warn her that something was coming to slice her like a Sunday roast, and get the fuck out. Let Sanford and Belial and Abbadon duke it out. He was finished with being batted back and forth like a toy mouse. LA couldn’t be in his rear view soon enough.
The buzzer rang, echoing through the rusted speaker, and Parker held the door for Sanford. He began to let it go on Jack again, and Jack stared into his blank dark eyes. “Do it and I’m putting your head through.”
“You threatened to kick our teeth in, too,” Parker murmured. “Promises, promises.”
Jack followed Sanford up a narrow staircase, threadbare Persian carpets muffling his boots. The walls were stamped tin, painted over with blood red that pooled and dripped at the floor. A single bare bulb flickered above Jack’s head, giving Sanford an entirely undeserved halo as he crested the landing in front of Jack.
Sanford knocked at another door and looked at Parker when a deadbolt clacked. “We’ll be out in a few minutes. Just hang out.”
Parker grunted, and glared at Jack with hostility naked as a spitting electrical wire. Jack patted him on the shoulder. “Cheer up, mate. You’ll have time to work on your tan.”
The door swung open, and a small woman looked Jack up and down. “You didn’t call ahead for a visitor,” she told Sanford.
“Come on, Anna,” he said. “You know I’m a good boy.”
One of her painted eyebrows went up. “Hmph,” she said, but stepped aside. She was pudgy, in the way that short women seemed to grow outward, not up, and wore a black silk dressing gown and heels. She didn’t have the hollowed-out stare of most sex sorcerers’ fuckmates. A madam, Jack decided, somebody who wasn’t to the taste of whatever entity this sorcerer was feeding in exchange for power.
“We don’t have any more recordings for you,” she told Sanford. “Next ritual is at the new moon. You’re welcome to attend, as always.”
“Hold up,” Jack said to Sanford. “You use their rituals for spank material?” He shook his head. “Got to hand you that one, mate. You’re sicker than I thought.”
“Please,” Sanford said. “Shut the fuck up. Did I not make myself clear?”
Jack ignored him and looked at Anna. “Where’s your loo?”
“Down the hallway, second door,” she said. Jack started walking without another word.
Sanford was somebody who liked the wheedling almost as much as the result. They could be here until Christmas while he danced around with Anna and her fellow perverts, trying to couch his question in the most honeyed terms. Tell a sorcerer an ancient entity from the blackest part of the Pit was after one of their flock, and they’d probably welcome it with open arms. Sanford had to avoid that at all costs if he wanted his prize of a living, breathing pet demon than he didn’t have to share with anyone.
Jack had no such compunctions. He’d kick down every door in this shitty warren of flats if he had to. He opened the loo door loudly, running water and flushing the toilet, and then slipped out and down the hallway.
He thought it might have been offices at one point, in the past when men wore hats and women all had blood-red lips and low, husky cigarette purrs. The wavy glass door showed shadows, and moans and sobs came from behind a few. Jack tried those first.
A boy who couldn’t have been much older than Sliver glared up at him. His bare torso was covered with thin welts, and a black halo of makeup had collected under his eyes. “Get the fuck out,” he said, swiping the runnels on his cheeks.
“Sorry,” Jack said.
“Don’t be sorry, get out!” the kid snapped. “I’m off duty, all right? Find somebody else to fuck with.”
“Can I help you?”
Jack turned to tell whoever it was to fuck off, but instead found himself face to face with a pleasant-looking blond girl whose stomach under her Killers T-shirt was swollen round as a sport ball.
“Yeah,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I think you can.”
“Excuse me,” the boy said loudly. “Can you two have your girl talk somewhere other than my room?”
“Calm down, Travis,” the girl said. “Nobody wants to be in your room.” She ushered Jack out and shut the door. “Sorry about him. He’s new.”
“He always that cheerful?” Jack asked her.
“Usually he’s pretty good about new people,” the girl said. “But he had a rough night. The indoctrination can be tough.” She gave Jack a serene smile. “The first time I let the power inside me, I puked my guts out. But Anna helped me, and now look.” She ran her hands over her stomach.
“A veritable bundle of joy,” Jack said. “Anna, she’s like your mum?”
“Oh, no.” The girl shook her head. “Anna leads the rituals. She’s the one who shares the power with us, and who showed me how I can use my body to communicate with it.” She gave a small shiver. “Anna’s so much more than a mother.”
A female sex magician. Well, he’d heard of stranger things. Jack took the girl by the arm. “What’s your name?” Her talent was barely a flutter, just enough that she’d feel disconnected from the daylight world, a vague feeling of unease she could never identify. It made her a thick piece of juicy meat to people like Anna.
“Kim,” she said. “My ritual name is…”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Jack said. He turned them around and aimed them at the glowing red sign showing the exceptionally stupid where they should go in case there was a fire. “You’re the only pregnant one here, yeah?”
“Yes, for now…” Kim twisted in his hand. “You’re hurting me.”
“We’re going,” Jack said. “Come with me.”
“No!” Kim said, jerking free. “I’m not a whore, dude. If you’re here for a ritual, then talk to Anna. You can’t just drag me off to fuck any time you want.”
“Listen, you brainwashed twit,” Jack said. “If you don’t leave this place right now, then you are going to end up dead and your child is going to be a vessel for something so horrible your tiny mind can’t comprehend. Look at my face and see if I’m lying to you.”
Kim stared at him, catching her lip between her teeth. “My baby?” she said. “Anna wouldn’t hurt my baby. Children are a gift, a product of the most sacred kind of union…”
“What utter shit have they been feeding you?” Jack said. She was letting him walk her, at least, and he shoved the door open with his free arm.
A klaxon began whooping, and Jack resisted the urge to ram his head into the wall. “Listen to me, Kim. Your little circle-jerk here has been targeted by a predator who is much bigger and hungrier than your Anna. She might think she’s struck a bargain with him, but she can’t stop what he wants to do with your kid and any others who come into the fold. Nothing can. If you care about the kid at all, you’ll come with me now.”
Kim swallowed hard, lacing her fingers across her stomach. “Who are you?”
At the far end of the hall, Anna and Sanford appeared, Parker in tow. “Stop him!” Anna shrieked. “He’s got a girl with him!”
“I’m Jack,” Jack told Kim. “Nice to meet you. Now kindly get yourself together and fucking run.”
Parker reached under his coat, hand coming up. Anna raised her hands, and Jack saw purple witchfire crackle around her fists. “Fuck,” he muttered, throwing a shield hex to bounce Anna’s spell back at her. His head throbbed, and Anna’s power jittered through the light sockets and across the walls, throwing sparks.
Kim stared at Anna, then back at him. “You’re crazy,” she whispered.
Jack watched Parker bring up his pistol, work the slide. The hex might hold; it might not. Bullets were iron projectiles, and they were decent at punching through spells even when the mage throwing them wasn’t beat to shite and working on half power. “Look,” he said to Kim. “You’ve got no reason to trust me, but I don’t want anything from you. I’ve got a kid of my own, and I know you’d die before you let anything happen to yours. I’m just here to see that you don’t have to.”
Kim looked back at him and didn’t say anything else, just started moving, down the stairs, as fast as she could with her extra weight.
Jack slammed the fire door, twisted the deadbolt, and, for good measure, sent a burning curse into the lock that turned the works to slag. It wouldn’t hold a sorcerer like Anna for long, but it’d give them what he hoped was enough of a head start.
“Are you some kind of psycho?” Kim asked as they reached the bottom level. Jack worked his lock-pick charm on the padlock and chain keeping the door to the next building shut, then hustled Kim through.