foyer echoes, making him hard to pinpoint.
“Are you going to play with your gun all day or do something?”
“Come for me,” he says.
Traven leans down beside me and says, “There.”
In the dark, I can make out someone at the foot of the sweeping staircase with his hands up like a bank robber surrendering in a movie.
I charge him. Fish and rocks smash and splat outside and in my head I see Teddy hitting the ground and splitting open with them. Maybe I’ll toss him off the roof.
I fall. But it’s not really a fall. More like I’m a piece of iron sucked down by a magnet the size of Arizona. I land on my injured side on a big square of canvas, coughing up an impressive fountain of blood. Something is holding me to the floor like two-ton shackles. Lying here isn’t so bad. It’s hard to catch my breath, so I doubt I could stand right now anyway.
Traven moves from Candy to kneel beside me. He tries pulling me up but I don’t budge.
Teddy flicks a switch and a crystal chandelier lights up the foyer. There’s someone with him. She’s on the stairs above him, so even though she’s smaller, she towers over him. She has a pistol in her hand.
“You. Priest. Get away from them. Over by the wall.”
She moves the barrel of the gun to indicate where she wants Traven to stand.
Teddy opens his hands wide.
“Two-for-two. I’ve never been so lucky. You’re a gem. Do you know that? Poison for the Jade and a binding circle to trap the Devil.”
He looks at Traven and frowns.
“We didn’t expect a civilian. All there is for you is the gun. How boring.”
I can move just enough to crane my head around and see the woman. I’m low and from this angle can only see her upside down but I know those scars. It’s Lula Hawks.
Teddy comes over from the stairs. I haven’t seen him like this before. Happy and animated. The crazy fuck is practically skipping like a little kid to dinner. He walks right past me to Candy. I try to turn my head but I’m stuck.
“I’m keeping this one alive,” he says. “She’ll go into one of the Gnostic graves until she’s ripe. I won’t eat her all at once. How often does one get to eat a Jade? I have to make her last.”
All I can see are his calfskin loafers as he circles in front of me. He bends at the waist and looks down so we’re eye to eye.
“Cat got your tongue?” he says.
He looks at Lula and brightens.
“Can I have his tongue? You can have the rest. I just want one little taste.”
“No,” she says. “The deal was you get the girl and I get the monster.”
She comes around next to Teddy, one hand on Traven’s arm and the other holding the gun.
“You know me now but do you remember me from before King’s place? Before Blackburn’s? Before I got these scars?”
“Didn’t I scrape you off my boots at a Fresno dairy
