Nightwise (34 page)

“Three wishes,” I said. “Same as before.”

My father's face smiled in the shadows of the lamps. I never got to see Pa's face at his funeral. Carbon dioxide poisoning turns the victims purple, almost black. It swells them up like a balloon, too much sausage packed into too little skin. When the rescue party found him and the other miners, they knew the second they pierced the chamber's wall there would be no open caskets for these families.

“What makes you think you have anything left to barter with, Laytham?” It said. “I already have your shadow and the sliver of your soul that came with it. Word on the street is you let the Sugarplum Fairies slice up your insides and take some of your emotions. It's all supply and demand, and you are damaged goods in every possible way, Laytham Ballard.”

“Three years,” I said. “Three years of service, for three wishes.”

“You? Service? The man who bows to no man, no demon, no god? At least that was the pap you used to spew out all over the playground when you were a cocky little warlock. Service? Really? I'm keen to know why.”

“I'm after a man,” I said. “A man with the kind of power only a higher-order entity could give him, and the only one of those left on my dance card is you. I'm sure you gave him a similar deal to what I am asking for to hide his trail, to help him escape mortal justice.

“To find him, I must go through another man. I expect them both to be very well protected. I need the power to finish this.”

“You need
my
power to finish this,” It corrected me. “Say it.”

“I need your power to finish this,” I said.

“Who must you go through to find your prey?” It asked.

“Giles Harmon,” I said.

The smile again. “Oh, Giles!” It said. “We play eighteen holes every other Wednesday with some mutual friends. Good follow-through.” It leaned in as closely as the hexagram It had manifested in allowed and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “Bit too fond of the mulligans, though.”

“I need him to lead me to another man.”

“Why not just have me take you to this other man? Or have him placed before you, wrapped in red-hot chains with a mouth full of bat guano? I am the Devil, you know?”

“I don't think you can reach him,” I said flatly.

It frowned and tsked. “Ye of little faith. What is this gentleman's name?”

“Dusan Slorzack.”

The Prince of Darkness's frown deepened.

“He,” the Devil said, “is a very, very bad man. And I'm afraid you are right. I have power over this world, the one I helped to create. But Slorzack is not in this world and is therefore outside my authority, and my reach.

“He used the power I gave him to obscure all traces of himself on earth, even in the Akashic Record, to buy him time to discover a means to escape his pursuers, to escape everyone.”

“He outsmarted you,” I said, and it was my turn to grin. “Didn't he?”

The thing with my father's face looked at me, and I knew if It could reach across the chalk line of its prison of will and occult calculations, It would do far worse than kill me.

“You know what I find most irresistible about you, Laytham?” the Devil said. “You are a villain with a heart dipped in the blackest of blood and yet you still cling to the notion that you are a hero. You want to save the day, be the good man, make the noble choice. Do good. But you simply aren't very good at doing good, doing what's right. You try, you long to, but in the end you always do it the easy way, the dirty way, the way that hurts and uses people, and you always will. I can see all the way into the dirty, greasy core of you, like looking behind the fridge. Yuck. So let's not have any more talk about being outsmarted, shall we?

“Slorzack skipped out on me. He escaped me by means of some … unknown method and, therefore, I cannot draw him back to me through my power. He owes me a debt, and I'd be more than happy to collect. So you see, I am sympathetic to your plight and will be delighted to help you see justice done, yadda, yadda, yadda, and all that rot. Three wishes for the exclusive rights—”

“Four,” I said, interrupting the Prince of Darkness. “Four wishes.”

“And why should I give you four wishes, instead of the three?” It asked.

“Because I am going to get Slorzack for you,” I said. “And the extra wish is my commission.”

It stared at me for a very long time. Silent, expressionless. Then It smiled again.

“Four wishes for the exclusive rights to three years of service to me and the completion of my business with Mr. Slorzack. Done. Now, what do you want?”

So I told him. I made two wishes and held two in reserve, for a rainy day.

“And none of that ‘I wish for more wishes' crap,” It said. “I swear to God, that's the demonic equivalent of someone asking if it's hot enough for you in the middle of July. So lame.”

“Amateurs,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “No sense of decorum. Make all of us in the business look bad.”

“Too true,” the Devil with my father's voice said. “It's nice to work with a professional.”

 

TWENTY-SIX

Giles Harmon's home in Bethesda was a fortress in this world and any other. A huge walled compound, armed guards, thermal cameras, motion-detecting sensors, magical wards, protections, and alarms that made what I ran into at Foxglove Farm seem like cheap magicians' tricks. There were alchemically transformed, genetically engineered hellhounds wandering the grounds of the estate, custom bred Inugami from the finest Yakuza families of Toyko, guardian demons, and chained human spirits. Houdini on meth with Aleister Crowley's cock in his back pocket couldn't have gotten in there without being noticed, nabbed, and nailed.

So imagine Harmon's surprise when he found me sitting behind his desk in his study two nights after Harel had died.

Harmon was as handsome a man as money could buy. He was not so much white as he was bronzed. He had sandy blond hair with a casual, longish cut, designed to make one think of Redford in his prime. The cut probably cost over a grand, easy. His eyes were blue, and his face had been sculpted, cut, tucked, and Botoxed. His body was the result of thousands of hours of personal trainers, Aspen ski vacations, and eating food not served in a paper bag off the value menu. He was shuffling along in a pair of pajama pants and a silk kimono. He was perfect and beautiful and favored of the gods, and I hated him the moment I laid eyes on him.

“Hello,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you about your personal relationship with God and drop off a few free copies of
Watchtower
magazine.”

To Harmon's credit, the surprise didn't last long. He focused, exhaled, and gestured. The air between us burned. He was tossing around serious, high-order magic, the kind that would have put most practitioners in a coma to attempt. The curtains, the chair, the desktop all blackened and shriveled. It should have killed me. It didn't.

I smiled like a wolf. “That,” I said, standing, “was impressive as hell.”

He unloaded on me. I could feel the heat drain out of the room as he performed a dragon chakra kata, pulling the living fire out of the electrons in the room with the sweep of his arms and the breath in his lungs. The incantation was spit out as an angry curse. The room twisted like God was falling down drunk. Wood melted, glass burst into flame, and the air curdled. It should have killed me. It didn't.

“My turn,” I said. I crossed the room and planted a solid right into Harmon's square jaw. He screamed, more in fear and surprise than pain, and flew backward, crashing into his massive aquarium. I followed and hauled him up to his feet, driving a few uppercuts into his six-pack abs on the way. I could feel his defensive magics flash and flare all around me. I shook them off like rain on my coat.

“Help me!” he screamed. There were no alarms raised, no shouts, and no sound of guards rushing to his aid, no summoned beasties manifesting to crush me into kibble.

One more quick jab to the face broke his nose with a hollow pop and a squirt of blood. He kind of slumped and stopped struggling. I swung him around and dropped him on his couch. He fished out a handkerchief and held it over his nose.

“Basdard,” he muttered through broken cartilage and silk.

“Yeah,” I said. “The definitive article, if you will.”

“Whad do you wand?”

“Slorzack,” I said. “I want him and you know how to find him.”

“Who are you?” he whispered. “Who send you?”

“Cut the shit, Giles,” I said. “You know exactly who I am. You sent a contract kabbalist to murder me twice. You killed Trace, you killed Berman, and you killed Harel Ettinger after he did all your dirty work. I'm the Devil's repo man. I want Slorzack, and I'm going to waste your WASP ass if you don't tell me where he is right now.”

I started toward him menacingly. He raised his hand, the one not nursing his nose, to ward me off. “No, no!” he stammered. “I'll dell you whad you wand to know. Jusd gib me a second.”

He gestured toward the bar. “Ged me a scodge, straighd.”

I did, and poured one for myself as well. The sweat dripping down my back was cold and my legs felt like rubber. I had been scared that at the last minute the Devil was going to pull a fast one and let Harmon charm-broil me; he has a rep for that sort of thing.

Harmon leaned his head back and cradled the cold glass against the side of his broken nose. After he had drained his glass, had two refills, and cleaned himself up a bit more, he was easier to understand and a bit more willing to talk.

“How?” he asked. I was sitting on a leather barstool about five yards from him on the couch, finishing off my third drink as well.

“I wasn't kidding about the Devil part,” I said. “Two investments—one to get me here undetected and one to defeat you, unscathed.”

Harmon smiled. His teeth were stained red with his own blood. “Two wishes—you wasted two you-can-do-anything-in-the-fucking-universe-you-want wishes just to get me. I'm flattered. Now I know who you are, you're a fucking moron.”

“Ah,” I said, “my reputation precedes me.”

“The reason there hasn't been a magical assassination performed like this in over a century,” Harmon said, “is that no one is stupid enough to waste perfectly good wishes on it. You could have just wished me dead with no ill consequence for yourself and saved me the bills for a physician and a carpet cleaner.”

“Dead is not an immediate option for you,” I said. “I want to know where Slorzack is, and if you were pushing up the daises or been wished into oblivion some other way, I wouldn't get that little tidbit, now would I?”

“Why not just wish to know where he was, or have him brought before you?”

“Because … because the Devil couldn't find him either.”

Harmon paused. I could tell he was damn pleased by that answer.

“Well, now,” he muttered, “isn't that interesting? The tricky old bastard, it did work the way he theorized.”

“Okay,” I said, standing, “break time is over. Talk. Now.”

“Actually, I am in an interesting position, here,” Harmon said. “You need me alive and you need information from me. I think we are in a negotiation here, Mr.…?”

I walked over quickly. I placed my hand over Harmon's hand that was holding the empty glass tumbler. I put my other hand and my knee on his chest and pushed down as I squeezed his hand. The tumbler exploded. Harmon screamed, and I squeezed harder, driving the jagged glass shards and splinters into his palm and fingers.

“Jesus!” he screamed. “What are you doing? Oh, God!”

“Let me explain this to you in a language you should be fluent in, Giles,” I said, and squeezed his hand harder. He punched ineffectually at my leg and side with his free hand as the blood began to well up between his fingers. “The only negotiation happening here is if you tell me where Slorzack is with pain or without.”

I squeezed the hand again. Harmon gasped and became pale. His eyes rolled back in his head. I eased up, and some of the color returned to him.

“Very well,” he said through gritted teeth. “I'll tell you. Just stop this.”

I released his bloody hand and climbed off his chest. I walked to the bar and fixed myself another drink and then fixed him a new one as well. I handed him the drink and a clean bar towel full of ice. He drained the drink while he mended his hand as best he could. He groaned and hissed as he pulled the jagged knives of glass out of his hand. He finished his ministrations pale and glassy-eyed. Harmon handed me the empty with his good hand. I refilled him and then sat back on my barstool, nursing my drink.

“What do you know,” Harmon said, “about the founding of this country?”

“The Indians got fucked,” I said.

Harmon laughed. “Succinct, but essentially accurate,” he said. “Many of the Founding Fathers of this country were not only sociological and political pioneers, they were also serious scholars of the occult. Washington, Hancock, Franklin, and many others were Freemasons. Franklin dabbled in the infernal with the Hellfire Club, and Jefferson was a member of the Illuminati itself, as was Alexander Hamilton.”

“The Masons are a means to an end for you Illuminati guys,” I said. “You co-opted them back in the late 1700s, gobbled them up in a merger, like you've done with so many other secret societies. Illuminati is an umbrella corporation now, a franchise with a strong brand name. And like any huge corporation, you're everywhere and nowhere.”

“That's right,” Harmon said with an oily light in his eyes, “we are. The Illuminati, the Secret Masters of this world. The Freemasons, the Founding Fathers, the good old US of A, it was, and still is, a front for us, one of many. A tool to wield power over the huddled masses, yearning to be controlled, to be told who to vote for, who to hate, when to ignore, when to care and, most important, what to buy.”