Angel Town (21 page)

I
dialed Galina, but she didn’t pick up. Which was odd.

I paged Anya from Hutch’s shop too, but there was no answer. Of course, she was probably in the barrio, trying to get the Weres to safety. I dialed my own answering service, but it just rang endlessly. I even tried ringing Monty, but after getting his voice mail for the fifth time I just hung up.

From not remembering a single damn thing, I’d gone to being able to pull phone numbers out like I was shuffling through a card file. It was a goddamn pity nobody was listening, and the sun was past its apogee. The shadows were lengthening, and the dogsbody was nervous. At least, he
looked
nervous, pacing back and forth in front of the shop door, muscles rippling under blond hair. Whining while I dialed and dialed, getting no response.

“Galina should be picking up,” I muttered. “What the fuck?”

He couldn’t give me any reply, black-skinned ears fuzzed with blond fur laid flat against his ungainly head. Just that grumble, deep in his throat, spiraling up to an inquisitive at the end. I was still sweating, every nerve in me jumping and frayed raw.

“
Fuck!
” I finally snarled, and slammed the phone down. Just then, someone tapped on the glass, and the dogsbody growled, deep and low.

I stalked between bookcases, my hand on a gun, peered at the dusty window.

He tapped again. I almost fell over myself unlocking the door, grabbed his collar, and dragged him in. “What the hell are you—”

Gilberto’s sides heaved. His face was painted with bright blood, and he was shaking. For all that, his dark eyes were alight, no longer flat and dead, and he looked completely, fully alive.

“
Mala suerte,
” he gasped. “
Mala
fuckin’
suerte
,
chingada
. Melendez, he prolly dead.”

I locked the door and dragged him further into the shop. The air-conditioning soughed on again, and I smelled burned coffee and the flat copper tang of human fear and blood over the dust and paper.

I propped him against a bookcase in the Classics section and took a deep breath. “Why aren’t you at Galina’s, then? That’s where you were supposed to—”

“Been there.” He closed his eyes, gulping down air. “
Chingada, mi profesora,
the whole place burning.”

“Burning? A
Sanctuary
?” I stared at him like he’d gone mad.

“Barrio too. City’s rollin’ like Saturday night.
Estamos corriendo en la chingada, mi profesora,
we are fucked for sure. Was
el Rubio
at Melendez’s. Old man tole me run, tole me you’d be here. Almost din’t make it out.” He was gaining his breath rapidly, eyelids fluttering. “Ran for Lina’s, but it was on fire. Crawling with ’breed. Hopped away. Had to steal a horse.”

Considering what he was telling me, I didn’t even want to take him to task for minor auto theft. “Galina’s shop was burning? The whole thing?”

“Blue flames,
profesora
. Screamin’.” He’d regained his breath by now. “Whole goddamn thing. Looked bad.”

Saul.
Everything inside me turned over hard.
Oh, God. Saul.

But Galina had the vaults. It would be simple for her to just get everyone downstairs and rebuild. Blue flames, though. And whoever heard of someone burning down a Sanctuary? It would take the equivalent of a sorcerous nuke to do it. Not worth the trouble when they could just rebuild like a tree growing in fast-forward…

“The fire. Blue. Hellfire, Gil?”

“Looked like. Listen, I ain’t sure I’m clear—”

Meaning he wasn’t sure if hellbreed had followed him. “It’s nice of you to be worried. Don’t be.” The machine inside my head clicked on, calculating, assessing, weighing. “It’ll take more than that to keep Galina down.”
He wants her incommunicado.
It was the only explanation. And without Galina to hold messages and ammo, Anya and I were looking at some difficulty. “Go upstairs. Bathroom’s second door on the left, grab the first-aid kit and wash the blood off. Then come down here, be ready to roll.”

“
Si.
” He took off down the hall with enviable speed. Guess the young bounce back quick. And it was probably a relief to have someone giving him orders so he could just put his head down and
do
.

I remembered that feeling from my own apprentice days.

I peered out the front window, surveying the street. The shadows were clustering, the sky hot blue and cloudless. All the same, static electricity prickled under my skin.

“Fuck,” I said, stupidly, under my breath. Like it was a secret. “
Der ersten Spear.
” The Prime Spear. The first spear-shaped Talisman. “Perry, you son of a bitch.”

Well, Jill, what did you expect? He’s been planning this for decades.

Another thought hit me, so suddenly I actually jerked and a half-amazed laugh burst out of me. “Of course. It’s Black Thursday, all over again.”

The dogsbody made a short barking sound, like it was echoing my laughter. Outside, the shadows sizzled, and several of them lengthened. I didn’t like the way they were creeping toward the store, the world behind them warping into a colorless fuming wasteland. The blue of the sky was lensed with smoke now, and I snapped my fingers at the dogsbody. Its ears perked again.

“Come on, you. Guess we’re not letting Gil come back down after all.”

“Where we goin’?” Gil yelled, clutching the bandage to his upper arm. His torn sleeve flapped in the wind roaring through the broken windows, I slewed the wheel to the right and shot us through a red light with half a foot to spare, ignoring the blare of a horn from a semi and nudging us over into the left lane. Oncoming traffic was a bitch, but the tingle of intuition running along my nerves told me left was the way to play this part of our run.

I’ve never been in an accident. Basic precognition is good for
something
. Besides, the rush of traffic might slow down pursuit.

It was nice to be behind the wheel again. Sort of.

“Sacred Grace!” I yelled back. The blue Nissan didn’t have much pickup, but it was maneuverable, and that counts for a lot. Still, it was making a knocking noise I didn’t much like, and if I sent it over another few railroad tracks at high speed the tires weren’t going to be happy. “Where’d you get
this
car from, anyway?”

“My cousin!” Thin blue lines of healing sorcery crawled under the bandage on his arm, knitting flesh together. He was armed, too, and grinning so widely I could see his fillings. “Discount
por la familia
! Got it cheap!”

“Next time tell him to sell you American, for Christ’s sake!” I twisted the wheel again, we skidded around a corner, I feathered the brake and stamped the accelerator and we were off again. Gunfire erupted behind us, perilously close to our tires.
They probably don’t know I’m driving. Perry needs me to make his little plan work. Or was he lying about that, too?

“Why we goin to church, eh?” Gilberto had a 9mm out, sunlight sparking viciously off its edges. “Father Gui owe you money?”

He owes me a lot more than that.
“He’s got something Perry wants!” I yelled. “Now shut up and put that thing away!”

He whooped as we smoked into a turn at the north end of Salvador Avenue, near Jordan’s headshop. I hoped to hell she was under cover. Gil’s pulse was jackhammering, but I didn’t have the breath or time to get on him to calm it. The dogsbody was flattened in the backseat, and if it was making any noise I couldn’t tell. A thundering
pop
and the car slewed wildly, of
course
we’d lost a tire, it was the way these things went. I hit another corner, floored it, ignored the grinding, wished it was a stick instead of automatic for the fiftieth time, and realized I was cursing steadily, a song of obscenities as familiar as breath. Tendons stood out on the backs of my hands as I fought the steering, forcing the car to do what I wanted as it bucked and shuddered.

We cleared the curb with a bump and soared, hit the steps and the car teetered for a long moment. “No no no
no no
—,” I chanted, willing it to stay upright, and we thudded back down, listing terribly. I’d bought us a few seconds. “
Inside!
” I barked. “Move your ass!”

Gil was already bailing. The dogsbody wriggled out through the back window and I covered them, skipping backward up the stairs as the shadows down the street warped. Bullets chipped and plowed up the steps behind me, Gil hit the doors like a bomb and the dogsbody leapt, its claws scratching on stone. I flung myself back and Gil kicked the door again, neatest trick of the week, slamming it shut. The lock was broken, deadbolt wrenched free, I bounced up and swept the church’s interior with both guns.

Sacred space, won’t hold them for long though. Not when they’re this motivated.
“
Gui!
” I yelled, a harsh cawing in the sudden gloom. “Guillermo! Rosas? Ignacio?”

“
Dios,
” Gilberto breathed, and crossed himself. My eyes finished adjusting, and I let out a short frustrated sound. The dogsbody shivered, hunching next to me, steam drifting from its blondness.

The priests had taken refuge here, instead of the chapel attached to the school. This late in the day, maybe they’d sent the kids home. I
hoped
they had. Their rooms—they still called them cells, a sort of monastic joke—in the parsonage building would be empty too. Here was safest.

Only it hadn’t turned out to be safe after all. Not when the forces of Hell were this goddamn enthusiastic.

Old thin Ignacio was in the middle of a jumble of broken pews, his body contorted into an enthusiastic backbend. The new redheaded one, Father Blake, had died near the confessional, and the arterial spray had even reached the racks of candles lit for sinners and prayers. Every inch of stained glass was covered with a thick layer of soot, and the pews—all terribly jumbled and splintered—were scorched.

Fat jolly Rosas, who had never liked me, was on the steps to the altar. He’d been flung over the crucifix, his guts spread in a tangle of gray loops and whorls. The crucifix itself had been torn down and mutilated, and in its place was nailed…

Bile burned my throat.

Gilberto was whispering. “
Aunque pase por el valle de sombra de muerte, no temeré mal alguno. Porque Tú estás conmigo
.” He took two steps to the side, leaned over, and heaved.

“
La primera Lanza
was here all the time.” I sounded like I’d been punched. “For
years
.”

A long time ago, there had been a case involving a firestrike spear. Guillermo had lied to me then, but he’d been protecting an even bigger secret.
I can’t let you break your oath,
Rosas had told him, and relations between me and the boys of Sacred Grace had been decidedly chilly ever since. I never played basketball with sleek dark Guillermo anymore, and we kept the exorcisms strictly business.

The altar had been torn to bits, something wrenched from its depths. Of course, hide one of the most powerful Talismans on earth in plain sight. That had probably been Rosas’s idea. My boots slipped in the blood and foulness on the steps. The stench of a battlefield was overpowering. No matter how many times you smell death, it never gets usual. It never becomes routine.

Rosas’s face was twisted in horror. He’d died in a bad way.
Not so jolly now, fat man.
From the way he’d been flung, he’d probably been trying to protect Gui, buy him enough time to reach the altar and the artifact inside.

The very thing Perry was after.

It has been in my keeping all this time.

The case had also involved a wendigo and the Sorrows. Now I remembered that
Perry
had shown up during the hunt with the firestrike—the only weapon capable of killing the goddamn thing the Sorrows had been using to hunt me. I’d only had Perry’s word that he’d gotten the firestrike from Sacred Grace. He’d told Saul as much, and since Saul had told
me
I’d taken it as truth.

Perry could not have stepped on this consecrated ground, could he? No. But he
had
been up to his eyebrows in that case, with Melisande Belisa, and neatly misdirected me.
Never assume
is the rule when it came to hellbreed, and it had been only a small mistake on my part. A tiny link in the chain, but enough.

Not to mention Perry had planted distrust between me and Father Gui. Which must have warmed his cold, dead hellbreed heart all the way through. If I hadn’t assumed the firestrike was what the priests were hiding, I would have come back and torn the whole place apart until I found everything—and the Spear they had been hiding all along would have ended up in Galina’s vaults, where Perry couldn’t lay his hands on it
ever
, world without end, amen.

It was all so simple, now. Somehow Perry had gotten wind of the Spear, hidden out here in the middle of nowhere. The other thing he needed was a hunter to wield it. I’d assumed the firestrike had been what Sacred Grace had been hiding, and relations between me and the priests had been decidedly frosty ever since. It was a pity, because Gui probably would have eventually told me, vow of secrecy or not.

We were, after all, friends. Or we had been. Had he wanted to tell me, any of those times he tried to talk to me and I ignored him, keeping the conversation to the exorcism at hand? Had the secret been burning in him all this time?

It didn’t matter now. With the Spear right where Perry could keep an eye on it, all he had to do was wait for me to damn myself. He’d waited
years
.

And all that time I’d been oblivious.

Never assume,
milaya
. Is shortest way to get ass blown sideways.

“
FUCK!
” I screamed, and the word hit the walls, richocheting back to sting me. Gilberto crossed himself again, reflexively.