I still didn’t find Kratz in the air, on the handle of thedoor, touching the steps or the handrail in the stairway. I couldn’t hear orfeel anyone, didn’t need to worry about scaring the civilians, so I eased mySIG out of its holster and carried it ready, muzzle at the ceiling, round inthe chamber but hammer down. With fifteen high-velocity hollow-points in thepistol and another fifteen in each front pocket, I could start a smallrevolution if I wanted. And I might need all of that ammo to take Kratz down.
If he was here.
I climbed one flight of stairs and paused, listening. I couldn’thear anything, not even the background buzz of minds in the city. I chose thisbuilding — not fashionable, not a “good address” — for the same reason I chosethe office. Both of them were old buildings, shielded, from the bad old dayswhen people lived and breathed fear of magic, from the days when we’d learnedthat magic was real but before we learned to detect wizards at work and trackthem and identify their signatures. Before we had college majors in forensicthaumaturgy at half the universities in the country.
Which also meant I couldn’t feel Kratz if he was lurking upthere from three floors down. I hiked up another floor, sixteen steps, eightand turn and eight, I’d counted them long ago in case I needed to find my wayout in the dark, in case Kratz or someone like him came calling and I had toflee blind and deaf with phantom hands squeezing my throat. I stopped andlistened again. Still quiet.
I was smashing about twenty police rules and protocols, goingin alone. But I wasn’t a cop anymore. And I owed that butchered courier— if I’d done my job right the first time, he’d still be alive.
This time, I was damn well going to see Kratz dead, taste theblood straight from his veins. I swore I wasn’t going to leave any questionsbehind and nagging, no stone rolled back from the tomb on Sunday morning. Yeah,besides the Albertus Magnus thing, he’d sometimes claimed to be the Messiah,did the miracles to prove it, another magical Jew come to lead His people outof bondage. He’d had a dozen different shticks.
And all of them turned nasty at the end.
So I climbed up to the fifth floor, top floor, the best viewsout over the park and the best apartments in the old days, with nobody aboveyou to tap-dance on your ceiling at three in the morning. And the old plasterand heavy timbers, the brick load-bearing walls killed sound just as well asthe copper shielding killed aetheric noise. I eased the stairwell door open andlistened, sniffed, and spread my other senses.
I grimaced. Kratz. Yes, he hadcome up here. Several hours ago, I guessed, maybe as much as three or four.Judging by the age of his trail, he’d left that warehouse, gone to my office —calling from a payphone on the way, from what Cash said — and then here. Hetook his sweet time about it, too, not running, he’d worked out how long histrain of dominoes would take to fall. The bastard could still be here, or could have just left hiscalling card in the hall for me to find. He’d always liked giving the finger tothe hounds on his trail.
I hate show-offs. Psychopathic show-offs were the worst. No, smart psychopathic show-offs took thatprize.
I crouched and looked around the door jamb, low — probablyshould have pulled that horse-opera trick of sticking my hat out from behind myrock first to see if it drew fire. Quick glances gave me empty corridor in bothdirections. A burned-out wall sconce still left shadows halfway toward my door,had been out for two weeks now, which meant the building super was pinchingpennies again, the downside of low rent. But they were empty shadows.
I eased along the corridor, terrazzo floors over heavy plankdecking, quiet, solid, and just like I’d taught Cash, I never wore shoes thatsqueaked. Old habits, like I said. I felt Kratz on the doorknob to my place,couldn’t feel him inside, didn’t know if that was my shielding, his shielding,or the simple fact that he wasn’t there. Both magical and mundane alarms stillseemed to be live. I switched both kinds off.
Then I slid my key into the lock, keeping my body behind thetwelve-inch-thick brick load-bearing wall of the corridor, another little bitof security hidden by the plaster. This would be the point where he’d try toput a few slugs through the door. I unlocked the door. Silence.
That door would have stopped slugs — heavy, thick, I’dreplaced it years ago when I moved in, ballistic panels underneath the woodveneer, still copper-shielded and grounded. Back then, I’d cared more aboutliving and I slept better at night. I swung the door open, keeping my big fatcarcass out of any line of fire.
Nothing happened, a perfect result. I reached inside andflipped on the lights. Still nothing. With the shielding open, I could tellKratz had never gone inside. I smelled my own signature in there and I smelledSandy from a day or so back, a little interpersonal interlude. I still smelledMaggie after all that time and distance. No Kratz.
Inside, door locked and dead-bolted, I double-checked eachroom and closet and under the beds and behind the sofa before I holstered theSIG. Kratz had been a tricky bastard. With another ten, fifteen years under hisbelt, he might have learned some newtricks, like how to hide his stink.
Theory said you couldn’t do that. Theory sometimes has tochange in the face of new experimental evidence.
I shucked the Burberry, pulled that bottle of Jack Daniels outof the liquor cabinet and poured myself a stiff double over ice, flipped thestereo on for some music, didn’t much matter what. I spun the dial and came upwith some trucker’s lament about a bad stretch of road, a tombstone every mile.Usually I like silence. Right now, though, silence seemed full of accusations —sins
