Bite Marks (6 page)

Which meant I spent a good five minutes in the bland little living room trying to restore some order to a place that would not be the same without major remodeling. Because the floor where Vayl and Kyphas had battled felt like a freshly tilled field under my feet. It was still wet, but water hadn’t caused all the warping. I crouched, running my fingers along furrows so deep I could almost hear the wood screaming in protest against the violent infusion of power that had curved it at such impossible angles.

“Pete is going to be so pissed,” I whispered, trying to calculate the cost of a new floor and, oh yeah, a replacement door. I picked the old one up and muscled it into the opening, leaning it against the frame as I tried to see where all the glass from the broken window had gone. Nothing had crunched under my feet while I’d assessed damages, so I pulled a mop out of the utility room that sat just off the kitchen and gave the floor a once-over, only then realizing the glass must’ve melted from the heat of the boomerang attack fusing with our holy defenses. One good thing about the cleanup—I discovered I had full range of motion in my Lucille Robinson getup.

Usually I dig the costumes I get to wear in the line of duty. Okay, there was that belly-dancing outfit that had made me want to find a small room where I could scream without triggering a 911 call. But otherwise, no complaints. Not even now that I’d kicked it into Hollywood producer mode.

Most people don’t logic it out that these types dress like regular folks. They want glitz right down to the caterers. So when we use this cover, we give it to them. I wore midnight-blue pants containing just enough spandex to make me feel like I should hop on a treadmill as soon as we’d completed this leg of the mission. The wide satin belt held in the tails of a white tuxedo shirt, the ruffles of which peeked out from under my leather jacket. Bowing to practicality, I still kept Grief strapped into its shoulder holster, and I’d slipped on a pair of low-heeled black boots conducive to running and kicking, not necessarily in that order. My concession to the cover had been to choose a pair with pointy toes that, had they curled, would’ve qualified me to work on the set of
The Wizard of Oz.

Since wigs and I didn’t always agree (can anybody say awkward seatmate with an umbrella?), I’d had my stylist, Magic Mikey, straighten my hair and dye it darker red. The white streak that framed the right side of my face drove him crazy because it wouldn’t take color. That’s what happens when Mommy touches you during your unplanned excursion to hell. But since I couldn’t tell
him
that, I said I preferred it that way and even the chemicals knew better than to cross me. Which is why even my beautician thinks I’m badass.

Factor the hair in with my big green eyes, deceptively frail frame, the aforementioned ruffles, and Astral lashes, and you’re walking the bimbo line. So I’d added a pair of black, rectangular glasses that, thankfully, didn’t interfere with Astral’s transmissions.

Robokitty had followed my order to stay in the room I was sharing with Vayl while he changed. And now, finally, the pictures were coming in clear and hot. (Shut up. If you had to operate this close to that much sexy while itching like a flea-bitten mongrel, you’d voyeur it up too!) Vayl had, for the sake of his own self-control, spent my changing time in the bathroom. As he moved back into the bedroom and noted Astral perched on the pillow, one corner of his lip curled.

“So is that how you want it, my
pretera
?” he murmured, the glint in his eyes sending a shiver up my spine. I abandoned the mop, leaning it against the wall by the door while I nodded. Like I thought he could see me. He probably sensed my excitement as he threw open his suitcase and pulled out a pair of brown motocross leathers that I knew would fit him so well I’d probably spend the evening wishing we needed to do a second-story job so I could watch him go up and down a ladder.

Next came a white silk shirt that I knew he’d leave halfway unbuttoned because he already wore an undershirt, the sleeveless kind that cling like a fan who’s snuck past the bodyguard’s defenses. And to cover it all, not his usual calf-length duster, but a supple leather jacket that would ride his hips, giving me a full view of his tight little tush if my dreams came true and we did need to scale a wall. Or climb a tree.

Or, hell, maybe if I could just find an excuse to tie somebody’s shoes while he was looking the other way.

I dropped to the couch. Which hit me so hard in the back I realized the upholstery had probably squeezed itself into an I-surrender ball sometime before the end of the last World War.

I wiggled around, trying to find a comfortable spot while Vayl peeled off his duster, and dumped his boots and socks. He slowed down with his sweater, staring off into the distance with an increasingly smug smile on his face like he knew I was leaning forward, gripping my knees with my hands so they wouldn’t dig their nails into the wall, possibly clawing right through in an effort to speed up the process.

“You’re fast!”

I sat up, crossing my arms over my chest like Bergman had just caught me in my underwear. “Yeah, ha-ha. That’s why they hired me. I’m like Superman in the phone booth. Except, you know, tightless.” Under my breath I added, “Astral, get out of there. Mission aborted. Repeat, mission aborted.” When I saw the flattened form of the cat slide out from beneath the bedroom door behind Bergman, who stood at the point where the hall intersected both the living room and dining room, I felt some of the tension bleed from my muscles. Not all, though. Because before she’d shut down video Astral had sent me a shot of Vayl. Half naked. And laughing.

“So?” Bergman held out his hands. “They sent me this outfit and said it would make me look like a cameraman. Would you be convinced?”

He’d put on a tan work shirt topped by a quilted vest covered with pockets. Hopefully at least a couple actually held the equipment that identified us as something other than a killing crew from the States. His jeans, while still looking as if they’d accompanied Moses across the desert, at least held together okay.

And he still carried the backpack Astral had arrived in.

I said, “Yeah, I think I’d buy the photographer angle.”

“Out of the way, peon!” Cassandra called as she strode down the hallway. When Bergman spun around she smiled. “I’m working on my world-class bitchy. I believe one of us needs to go there. What do you think?”

He nodded because, well, it was just hard to disagree with our Seer no matter what she wore. For her, our costumers had chosen skintight blue jeans tucked into high-heeled boots and a red mock turtleneck woven with sparkly thread that reflected the gems in her jewelry. Other people might be fooled by the fact that she wore more bling than Flavor Flav, but I wasn’t. I knew she could saw off those heels, shove her hands into a pair of gloves, and muck stalls like a homegrown farm girl. Which was why I wanted so badly to make Kyphas go away for good. I couldn’t imagine another woman I could love more as a sister-in-law. Except, maybe, for Dave’s late wife, Jessie. Thinking of her and looking at Dave’s new girl made me shiver.

I won’t let anyone hurt you, Cassandra, I promise.

As if she’d heard my thoughts she smiled at me. But all she said was, “I have good news.”

“Yeah? Do you See us coming out on top in this whole deal?” She shrugged. “That hasn’t been made clear to me yet. But I don’t See you traveling around in the Wheezer much longer. Perhaps one or two more trips and then you’ll be switching—”

“Hot damn! That’s the kind of vision I like!”

She nodded as she followed Bergman into the living room. He pulled out one of the chairs, dropped into it, and crossed his heels onto the table, oblivious to the fact that he might be permanently scarring the surface. This was the problem with beaker-sniffers. Their sense of beauty had taken such a molecular turn that they’d developed a sort of aesthetic blindness that some people found jarring.

“Get your damn feet off the table,” I snapped.

He dropped his boots to the floor. “Are you going to be like this when we’re partners?” he asked.

“If you’re tearing up other people’s furniture? Yeah.”

“But…” He motioned to the floor.

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

“It’s not pretty.”

“Oh.”

Astral had snap-crackle-popped back to form and sidled up to Cassandra’s boots, which she seemed to find cuddly.

“You programmed a lot of cat moves into this one,” Cassandra said to Bergman as she picked up the robokitty and sat down next to him.

“I wanted her to blend in. That move is actually her signal that she has information she wants to share with you.”

Cassandra nodded. “Well done on both fronts, then.” She looked at me. “Do you think we have the time?”

“Go for it,” I said, so she whispered a few words in the cat’s ear, causing her feet to curl up underneath her belly. Astral opened her mouth wide, like she was gagging on a fish bone, and a beam of light winked on from the back of her throat, as if some industrious vet had figured out a way to test from the inside out. Since the video also came straight to my receivers, for a second the holograms blurred, twin images that made me wonder if this was how my parents had viewed Dave and I the day we were born.

I moved to stand behind Astral. I figured I could lean against the fireplace if the dizzies kicked in, but the repositioning worked. The images connected. In fact, Astral was projecting the clearest hologram I’d ever seen from an
Enkyklios.
It was like watching live actors walk through a movie scene right in the front entryway. Unfortunately she hadn’t found anything on Brude. The guy she’d indexed wasn’t even a Scot, unless they’d taken to wearing chaps and Stetsons like the frontiersmen this dude resembled.

His gear seemed even more out of place given his location, standing before an enormous gate the color of tar. It interrupted a seemingly infinite stretch of spiked fencing on which one or more of the inhabitants had set a series of freshly axed human heads. Behind the gate a river flowed sluggishly inside its broad banks as if it had been partially dammed by old tires and the gutted carcasses of washing machines.

Fog hovered over the river and obscured nearly everything on its far side. But once in a while we could see people running, their faces taut and pale, darting terrified glances over their shoulders before the mist swallowed them again. More constant was the screaming. Nearly every thirty seconds it came. Not always from the same throat. And sometimes several voices shrieked together, like a choir of murder victims harmonizing their last earthly sounds. Sometimes, even worse, we heard the laughter of someone who’s left sanity behind for good.

These were the sounds that made the cowboy jerk and stare through the tiny cracks between the wide bars of the gate. But he didn’t stop for long before continuing with the graffiti. Nope, not kidding. He was writing somebody’s name on the bars of the gate. But this was no ordinary act of vandalism. Because his tools were a gleaming silver hammer and chisel.

Now it was the cowboy’s turn to glance over his shoulder. Whatever he’d heard galvanized him. He bent to his work like a jeweler doing the most important engraving of his life. Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip. By now he had seven letters. thraole.

New sound. Something enormous, snuffling, crushing the things it stepped on as it neared the cowboy’s side of the gate. I expected him to spin around. Raise the hammer like a club. Or better yet draw his gun.

Which was when I realized he carried no other weapons. None.

What the hell? Where’s your goddamn revolver? And what respectable cowboy leaves his rifle
strapped to the saddle, you—

Though his shoulders twitched like they were covered in tarantulas, the man never looked back. He glared at his work, chiseled a hyphen and four more letters onto the gate: thraole-luli. Which was when the creature shouldered its way out of the fog. Still I couldn’t see. Wrong angle to catch anything more than a hint of bloodshot eyes, a flash of curved tusks. And then the cowboy notched in the final letter.

thraole-lulid.

One wild cry from the fog-monster as the man swung around. I still expected him to attack. Instead he held the hammer and chisel high over his head and slammed them against each other. A light, bright as a welding torch, came from the tools, bringing tears to the cowboy’s eyes. Making the fog-monster bellow with pain. When it faded the monster was gone. And the cowboy held a single tool. At one end was the hammer head. The handles had melded seamlessly, and at the other end was the pointed edge of the chisel.

After that came a quick succession of images. People (usually men) of different races stood in different spaces holding that hammer. It moved from a hospital in Japan to a farm in Armenia to a boat dealership in Maine. Each time the holder tried to separate the hammer from the chisel. And each time he or she failed. Died screaming. Crushed and bleeding in the jaws of unspeakable creatures that should never have pulled breath, much less walked lands that still remembered love, generosity, and honor.

And then, finally, audio of the kind that didn’t make you want to huddle under a quilt with your teddy bear. A flat, bored voice piped out of Astral’s chin, saying, “This is all we know of the history of the Rocenz, a tool crafted by Torledge, the Demon Lord of Lessening. According to legend he forged the hammer from the leg bone of the dragon Cryrise and the chisel from the rib of Frempreyn, the rail who led a failed uprising against Lucifer just after the Fall.

“The Rocenz is a Reducer. The user can diminish anything to its simplest version by using the hammer to chisel its name into metal or stone. If the work is done at the source of the threat’s power, it will be completely destroyed. So, for instance, in the case of those we saw who attempted to fight the
earthbane

, if any of them could have carved their enemy’s names on the gates of hell, those evildoers would have been diminished into puddles of blood marked with bits of bone and sinew. As far as we know, only Zell Culver, the Hart Ranch cowhand, ever succeeded. But the trick to separating the chisel from the hammer’s handle died with him. Because Zell was dragged back into hell the day after he escaped.