plan. God didn't speak to me and He never had. But I had a righteous cause, just the same. I was willing to die for it. I was willing to burn for it, if it came to that. I had a battle to fight. Now I just needed an army.
I hugged my mother, tightly and for a long time, before Honey and I left. And for the first time in my life, I was at peace with myself as we drove toward Crenshaw. I felt like a faithless Abraham climbing up the mountain with his son in tow, but I was at peace.
Chavez had set up our field headquarters in a vacant suite in a strip mall on La Tijera. The suite was the only space in the mall that was open for business. The taggers had moved in over the last couple days, and the building had become a complex nexus of converging lines of magic that now crisscrossed the neighborhood. Outfit gangbangers stood watch outside the entrance, and they all had enough juice that they didn't need any heavy weaponry.
Honey had replaced the summer dress with a biker-girl ensemble-black leather from head to toe, including the cute little hat. It was bound to cause a stir, but I was glad she wasn't going in naked.
The suite was large for that part of town, but it was still a tight fit for the twenty or so outfit guys milling around inside. Vernon Case was there, and Chavez, of course. Rashan was there, too. Sonny Kim and Ilya Zunin stood to one side, keeping to themselves. I saw a few of the big hitters I'd asked Chavez to bring in. Even Anton was there, but probably only because he'd been in it from the start, when he found Jamal's body. It was a courtesy-his juice would have never gotten him in the door.
When I walked in, Rashan started clapping and everyone else quickly joined in. There were cheers and such witty salutations as 'Long live the queen!' I blushed and tried to cover it with a scowl. In the outfit, promotions are typically private affairs between you and your boss. They're usually met with more resentment than praise, at least until you've busted enough heads to make it stick.
A few of the guys started yelling 'Speech! Speech!' I started to tell them to shut the fuck up, but then I saw Rashan nod. 'Do it,' he said, mouthing the words. Honey flew over and hovered near him, whispering something in his ear. She drew a few stares, but mostly everyone's attention stayed on me.
Jesus Christ. I walked slowly to the front of the room and looked out at the assembly of hardened career criminals while I tried to think of something to say. I had in mind to give them a rousing speech, do my part to rally the troops. Unfortunately I suck at inspiration.
'We've had a good run,' I said. It was a great start-if that didn't get them fired up, what would? 'All of us in this room, we have juice. We have power. We live a life normal folks can't even imagine.
'That life is over.' I dropped it on them and let it sit there. I heard some whispering and saw more than a few unhappy faces, but mostly they just looked at me.
'Something's coming, and it's a lot worse than Papa Danwe. And after that, it's going to be something even worse…and it's never going to end.' I was thinking about the Firstborn, demons, and their lust for dominion over the earth. I didn't think it was time to tell my soldiers everything I knew about what was coming. Not yet. 'We're going to be asked to fight, and die, and not for our own wealth and power. That's something we've always been willing to do. We're going to be asked to die for the soccer moms and the welfare queens, the lawyers and the bums. You probably don't even like these people very much. We're not like them. We're not part of their world. We're the hidden masters of a secret underworld, and we ignore them because we can.
'We can't ignore them anymore. The world needs saving-but it's their world, not ours. It's always been their world. We've just been living off the crumbs.
'We call ourselves soldiers. Starting today, that's what we are. Starting today, we're not just an outfit, we're a secret army. We have to fight, because there's no one else to do it.
'No one's going to thank you for it. To the people you're saving, you're just another fucking monster. The only ones who are going to know you're a hero are the men and women standing beside you.'
They looked like they wanted something more, but I didn't have anything else. 'That's it,' I said. 'That's all there is. If you're thinking this isn't what you signed up for, you're right. You can leave, right now. No hard feelings. I just don't have the time to try to change your mind.'
I stopped talking and pointed to the door. No one left, though a few of them shifted uncomfortably and stared at their feet. I waited long enough for it to get awkward, and then I waited some more. Now that I had them thoroughly demoralized, it was time to wrap up.
'Let's go to war,' I said.
There were no rousing cheers, no oaths or vows, no dramatic salutes. They just stared at me. Then Anton waddled forward, a forgotten, half-eaten sandwich hanging at his side.
'Will we still get paid, Domino?'
There were a few chuckles, then a few laughs, and then the whole room was roaring. Anton looked around, bewildered, an uncertain smile pulling at his cherubic face.
'Yeah, Anton, you'll still get paid. Matter of fact, I'm going to give you a fucking raise.' Laughter coursed through the group like the Wave at a football game. Even Rashan was laughing.
I realized Anton had accomplished something I'd utterly failed to do on my own. That he did it unwittingly goes without saying, but that didn't make it any less important. The gangsters in the room had made their choice, and most of them would stand by it. But Anton had brought them together. Anton had made them feel good about themselves, and about each other, just by being Anton. I could give them orders-my rank and my juice gave me that right. But it would take more than rank to make an army out of them. It would take a lot more than juice to lead them.
Chavez called me over to a long conference table in the center of the room. A large map of L.A. was spread out on the table. Glowing lines marked our borders and those of Papa Danwe's territory, as well as the tag networks that snaked their way through South Central and converged on Hawthorne. The location of the gate was circled in pulsing blue light.
'The strike team is ready, boss,' Chavez said. 'We've still got taggers out there on the street, but we've got enough juice to go when you say go. We were even able to run a couple lines all the way up to the factory grounds.'
'What's Papa Danwe doing?'
'We don't know, but the pot is boiling. He's got a lot of fucking juice in there. If we're going to hit it, we got to go soon.'
'Okay, I want five guys. Frank Seville, Ismail Akeem, Amy Chen.' I looked over at the big hitters where they huddled together trading gossip and lies. 'Pick two more, but not Wale. I don't trust that guy.' Simeon Wale probably had more juice than the others, but he had a bad reputation even in a hard crowd. He also ran a crew in South Central, and he'd been a little too friendly with Papa Danwe in the past.
'That makes five anyway, boss,' Chavez said. He tossed his head in the direction of Sonny Kim and Ilya Zunin. 'Those guys say they're in. They insisted.' Chavez shrugged. 'That don't mean anything, though.'
'Yeah,' I said, 'that's good.' I waved my allies over and shook their hands.
'Thing is, boss, why just five? Everyone here is ready to go. Let's call in the fucking cavalry. Why hold back?'
'Manpower isn't the problem, Chavez. You did great with the tags, but we're still going to be sucking a dry tit compared to what Papa Danwe has in there. What juice I've got, I want my best guys tapping it.' We also needed the others with their own crews. They had to get their soldiers ready for block-to-block fighting if we failed and the fairies came through.
My boss knew what I had in mind, and he started clearing everyone out. Pretty soon, it was just Chavez, my strike team and me. And Honey. She mostly kept to herself, but she didn't leave my side.
I laid out what we were up against, even though I knew they'd all heard the story by now. We studied the map and planned our approach, following the tags that stretched into Hawthorne like a clawed hand.
'If everything goes just right, it's not going to be that complicated,' I said. 'We move in fast and take out Papa Danwe's soldiers. I take down the wards.' I was pretty sure there were fairy wards on the gate-that's why I hadn't detected them. But I was also confident the changeling's juice would allow me to take them down. I'd also have Honey backing me up.
'Once we crash the gate's defenses, any one of us should be able to destroy the hardware,' said Sonny Kim. He looked at Zunin as if to say, 'Even you.'
'I don't like the juice situation,' said Amy Chen. Amy was as petite as Terrence Cole was wide. She might have
