“No, thanks,” Jack said. “I try to restrict my vices to things that’ll kill me slow.”
“You’re funny,” Don said. A cherry sprang to life on the end of his smoke. “Didn’t expect that.”
“What exactly did you expect?” Jack asked.
“I know a lot about you,” Don said. “Been keeping tabs on you, just like Belial. Enemy of my enemy and all that shit. Knew when my spell went dead that you’d head back to poor Sally back there and threaten to beat the piss out of him. Fortunately, Sal knows what side is the right side. He’s a good boy.”
“Belial is going to find you one way or the other,” Jack said. “Whether I’m helping him or not. He’s a vicious cunt, that one.”
“Belial is more concerned with keeping his little hardscrabble patch of Hell in his control than he is with me,” Don said. “I was away for a long time before he ever cared. Nergal made him look bad, is all. I’m older than him, and I’m meaner, but if he wants a stand-up fight, he’ll get one. And his little masters the Princes aren’t going to like the upset in Hell one bit when I give it.”
Don rolled down the window and let the smoke drift out, trailing behind them. The highways were empty, something Jack knew should never happen at this time of day, and the Lincoln traveled so fast he could feel the vibration of the road. “I’ve walked around the block, Jack. I know when to sit back and let the dogs and the rats fight it out. Whoever’s left, that’s who I’ll deal with.”
“So, what, you kidnapped me because you’re lonely and wanted to have a chat?” Jack asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Don said. “You don’t have the whole story, Jack. When you do, you’ll be on the right side.”
“And by right side, you mean your side,” Jack muttered. Don grinned at him.
“Of course.”
Jack stayed quiet at that. Don certainly wasn’t what he’d expected, in terms of a boogeyman who’d frighten a demon enough to go through the trouble of compelling Jack to hunt said boogeyman down. He wasn’t sure of Don’s nature just yet, but he didn’t ping his senses like a ghost or a demon, and he’d never stopped smiling since Jack had gotten in the car. That, more than Don’s purported reputation, worried him. You couldn’t trust somebody who was always cheerful. There was usually something wrong with them.
The Lincoln left the freeway and started to climb into the hills. The barren scrub blurred by so fast it was only a welter of green and brown, and the flashes of Los Angeles in the gaps came and went so quickly they could be a single frame of film.
“Let me guess: You’re going to tell it to me?” Jack said. That was the thing with demons and their ilk—they always wanted to blather at you, to make you understand how right they were, even as they burned and flayed and ate humans alive. Don wasn’t human, was certainly who Belial was searching for, but Jack couldn’t read much beyond that. He was a blank spot in the Black, something either so old or so strong that magic flowed around him like a stone in a river, leaving a void that shrieked against Jack’s sight.
“Going to try,” Don said, as the Lincoln cornered, spraying gravel behind it. “It’s not a happy story, but I have high hopes for the ending. I’m not one for a downer, just a slow fadeout before the credits roll. I like a twist. You?”
“I like knowing that my day won’t consist of listening to smarmy demons talk about themselves,” Jack muttered. “But so far it hasn’t worked out for me.”
Don lunged forward, leaving no space between Jack, himself, and the seat behind. Jack could feel springs pressing into his spine and his bones creaking from the pressure.
“I’m not a demon,” Don purred. “I don’t like being called what I’m not, Jack. It’s narrative falseness. It’s not fair to the audience.”
“Fine,” Jack said. He hated that his heart beat faster, that he could hear blood roaring in his ears almost to the exclusion of Don’s soft voice. He shouldn’t be afraid of flash gits like this any longer. Not after Hell. Not after everything that had come before it.
Don sat back and grinned. “Good. We’re here.”
Jack looked through the tinted glass. They were at the crest of a hill, a long gravel road in front of him that swooped down into a canyon. Nestled at the foot of the sunset-colored rock, a few gray buildings and a farmhouse with a distinct tilt to it baked in the California sun.
“I’ll bite,” Jack said. “Where’s here?”
Don snapped his fingers and the Lincoln’s doors sprang open, mental raven wings poised for flight. “Home sweet home.”
CHAPTER 16
Don’s boots crunched on the gravel. The heels and toes were silver and flashed in the sun, the stippled snakeskin in between crackling as he walked. “Close enough to the city that no white-knight types poke around,” he said. “Far enough to enjoy the beauty of nature.” He flicked the end of his cigar away. “Paradise on earth. Gotta hoof it from here. We take a few precautions, being Belial’s most wanted and all.”
Jack followed Don, the ripples in the Black growing stronger the closer he got to the farmstead.
“You like that?” Don said. “Farmer killed his wife and his daughter back in forty-eight or so. Killed two sheriff’s deputies when they came to see what happened. Found out later he had eight whores buried under the floor of his barn. Guess the wife put her nose where it didn’t belong. Sad when that happens.”
“Sad, yeah,” Jack said. “They charge you extra for the story?”
“Something like.” Don smiled. “Real estate around here isn’t what it used to be. Used to be, you couldn’t spit in Los Angeles without coming across a crime scene or a poor sad little murder-victim ghost.”
Jack watched a crow alight on the ridgepole of the barn, cawing once before it took flight again. Don curled his lip. “One of yours? Or your bitch hag checking up on you?”
“Wouldn’t know,” Jack said. Under his shirt, the markings of the Morrigan crawled over his skin, as if the wind had ruffled his feathers.
“Aw,” Don purred. “You and Mommy have a fight?”
“Would it make you feel better about your goatee looking like a stripper’s pubic hair if I said yes?” Jack snapped.
Don wagged his finger. “You’re not much fun to have at the party, Jack, and if you don’t cheer up, I might have to throw your ass out.”
A sagging porch wrapped the farmhouse, weighted down with mattress springs and a rusty icebox. The crow on the barn took flight, screeching. In the bowl of the earth, the heat pressed down against Jack’s skin, radiated from the dirt and from the near-white sky above. The Black here was seared and screaming, hot as an iron and dry as graveyard dust. There were other places that felt the same, but they were concentration camps and mass graves, the sites of enough pain and terror to leave an indelible echo through the layers of life, death, and magic. Jack had never seen so small a patch of earth so infected.
In the bare dirt yard between the barn and house, a small girl sat crosslegged, pushing two dolls together at the apex of their legs. The dolls’ faces were blackened and melted, and their hair had fused into thin spikes. She looked up at Jack with pure black eyes that were lidless and did not blink.
“She’s our little one,” Don said. “Not used to people yet. Still got the marks on her from where I cut her free.”
Jack stared back at the girl until she stuck her tongue out at him. “I see you,” she whispered. “You want this body? You want me to suck your cock? I see it. Don’t lie.”
Jack lifted his eyebrows at Don. “Got a mouth on her, doesn’t she?”
Don cradled the girl’s head against his thigh. “Is that any way to talk to our friend Jack, darlin’?”
“I saw it,” she pouted.
“Sure you did. You stay out here and play,” Don said. “Jack and I are going to have a little chat indoors.”
The girl stared at Jack for another moment with her insect eyes, then went back to smashing her melted dolls together. Human flesh could contain a lot of things, but he still didn’t have a sense of what Don and his creepy little bug child really were, under the skin. He could be patient and see what he could see. Don was playing a long
