Hotter Than Helltown: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (Preternatural Affairs Book 3) (19 page)

She would have collapsed if Harding hadn’t been holding onto her arm so tightly. Her face went ashen, her eyelids fluttered, her legs wobbled. “Please tell me that it hasn’t happened again.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s no body. Yet. Where’s he hiding?”

Sister Catherine’s eyes welled with tears. “If something happened to me, she was meant to get out of the city immediately. She had planned to go somewhere uninhabited, somewhere that she wouldn’t have to deal with…temptations.”

“She?”

“The angel,” Sister Catherine whispered.

Harding looked between us, frowning deeply. “What’s going on here?”

“Sister Catherine lied on her official confession,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that’s a sin.”

“I have to take her to the detention center,” Harding said. “I’ve already got the orders. Transport leaves in five minutes.”

I didn’t think there was any point in arguing that. The Union took their orders seriously. Dead seriously. “But you know where we can find the angel, Sister Catherine. Don’t you?” I demanded.

Her mouth pressed into a hard line. She didn’t want to talk. Even now, she was trying to protect the angel.

Harding checked his watch. “We have to go,” he said. “Sorry, Hawke. You’re going to have to get the case reopened.”

There wasn’t time for that much paperwork. Fritz could have already been dead.

I ignored Harding and focused on Sister Catherine. “She’s abducted a victim who matches the profile.”

“Does he look right?” Sister Catherine asked. “How well does he fit?”

“Pretty goddamn well.”

“She might not kill him. She might try to keep him.” Her chin quivered. “She only killed the others because she was confused—she thought they were the right one—but once she realized the truth…”

“Once she realized that she didn’t have the right guy, she got pissed and killed them.”

“If this victim can convince her that he’s the man she’s looking for, he might be safe.” A tear streaked Sister Catherine’s wrinkled cheek. “I’m sorry.”

But Fritz was a kopis, just like Bubba Tanner. A fallen angel’s brand of love might kill him as surely as having his heart ripped out.

Harding started marching the nun down the hall again, keeping an eye on his watch. I hurried to keep up with them.

“Where, Sister Catherine?” I asked. “
Where
?”

She didn’t say anything until they reached the double gates at the end of the hallway. I couldn’t follow them through—nobody but one or two assigned guards was ever allowed access to the armored transport vehicles for safety reasons.

Before Harding could push her through, Sister Catherine turned to me.

“The bell tower,” she said. “Please don’t hurt her. It’s not her fault.”

Harding dragged her though the gate, the wards flared, and she was out of my reach.

“Sister Catherine’s case is closed and can’t be reopened,” Lucrezia said, seated comfortably behind Fritz’s desk.

It looked like she planned to be there for a while. His lamp, miniature globe, and leather blotter were gone, and she was already starting to replace the decorations. The wire statue of a bird on the corner of the desk marked her territory as well as if she’d pissed on all his furniture.

“The case was closed by mistake,” I said.

“It’s no longer your concern. I’ve assigned another team to locating Director Friederling.”

I leaned both hands on the desk. “But I know where to find him.”

“Do you, now?” She didn’t look remotely interested.

Lucrezia was struggling to log on to Fritz’s workstation. She typed with just two fingers, hunting and pecking for each letter.

“He’s in Helltown. There’s a church there, and—”

“We can’t send a team into Helltown. The factions that reside within its borders wouldn’t take kindly to such an intrusion. Do you want to start a war?”

For Fritz?
“Heck yeah.”

“We’ll address that neighborhood soon enough, but not yet,” Lucrezia said. She pushed the keyboard away from her with a huff and finally gave me her full attention. “If he were in Helltown, it would explain why our tracking spells aren’t working.”

“So you’ll send someone in to check.”

“No. We’ll have to wait until he emerges.”

I stared at her. She stared back at me with no expression. Lucrezia didn’t look at all bothered by the idea that if Fritz ever emerged, it might be in multiple mutilated pieces.

“You don’t have a problem with me, do you?” I asked. “You’ve got a problem with Fritz.”

“Don’t be concerned about your life or job,” Lucrezia said. “If we find Director Friederling dead, I’ll just have you matched to another kopis.”

I didn’t want to be matched to another kopis. I didn’t even
know
any other kopides.

“Thanks for all the help,” I said, backing away from the desk. Mentally, I added,
You frosty bitch.

“Just so you know,” she said, “the fact that I’ve decided not to fire you doesn’t mean that your coworkers are not vulnerable. I
will
terminate the employment of anyone I perceive to be endangering our already-tenuous relationship with Helltown.”

Translation: Get Suzy’s help saving Fritz, and you’ll regret it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I almost made it sound convincing.

“I’ll keep you updated on Director Friederling’s status,” Lucrezia said. She returned her attention to the keyboard with a scowl. “In the meantime, feel free to take the afternoon off and celebrate your test results.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Fat fucking chance of that.

Night was falling when I reached the Wal-Mart a block from Helltown. The shadows were long and the sun was brassy on the horizon. I liked a good sunset as much as anyone else, but it looked like a warning light today. Like the flashing yellow signal that says a train’s about to run you over.

A teal RV with beaded curtains was parked at the back of the lot. I knocked on its door.

The young woman who answered had to be Isobel’s new intern, Yelena. She had similar coloring to Isobel, but none of the curves, so she looked like a kid wearing a My Little Shaman Princess Barbie costume.

For fuck’s sake, her bracelet of raccoon bones had pink beads on it.

“Why,
hello
,” Yelena said, looking me over. There is nothing creepier than getting eyeballed by a girl who may or may not be a teenager. Well, maybe fallen angels are creepier, but only slightly.

Isobel appeared behind her. She was dressed for work with everything that entailed: the big head gear, the jewelry, the animal skin loincloth, the necklaces that didn’t quite cover her breasts. I was getting used to the outfit. I managed to keep looking at her eyes.

“Seriously?” I asked Isobel over Yelena’s shoulder.

She gave me a look of irritation, ripping the lid off of a Tupperware container. The smell of blood filled the air. “We have appointments tonight. You’ve interrupted us, so you’ll just have to take us the way we come. And this better be good—I’ve already rescheduled the first client twice for the OPA.”

“Fritz is missing and might be dead. Is that good enough?”

Isobel’s irritation vanished instantly. “
What
?”

Yelena looked between the two of us like we were the most interesting tennis match ever. “Who’s Fritz?”

“Give us space,” Isobel said. Her tone left no room for argument.

The intern bowed. She actually fucking bowed. Then she slipped into the back of the RV. It didn’t exactly give us privacy, but the illusion was almost as good as the real thing.

The suspension creaked as I stepped into the RV. Magic tingled through my skull, faint and weak. Isobel never cast spells in her RV—she wasn’t that kind of witch; she didn’t even know how—so I would have bet that I was sensing Yelena’s work.

I peered into the Tupperware that Isobel had set down. Yeah, definitely blood. Probably pig, knowing her.

“What’s happened to Fritz?” she asked me, arms folded over her chest. It made the little animal bones dig into her breasts. Looked painful.

“I think the serial killer took him,” I said. “But I know where she’s hiding, and the OPA won’t send anyone to get him back, so I need your help.”

Isobel’s eyes were so wide that it looked like her eyeballs might pop out of her gorgeous face. “How do you know he hasn’t already been killed?”

“I don’t.”

Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “Oh my God.”

“I’m not trying to freak you out, Izzy, but we’ve got to move fast. He’s been gone all day.”

A shudder ran through Isobel’s body. “I’ll have Yelena cancel all our appointments. What do we have to do to find him? Where is he?”

“That’s why I need you,” I said. “How do we get into Helltown at night without dying?”

“I AM SO, SO honored that you’re letting me help with this! Don’t worry about the wards. I can definitely hold them while we’re on the move, no problem. We’ll save Fritz in no time! I won’t let you down!”

I opened my mouth to tell Yelena to shut up.

Isobel’s glare stopped me.

The teal RV trundled toward the gates of Helltown. Judging by how much it creaked and trembled on its way out of the Wal-Mart parking lot, it seemed about as likely to collapse in a pile of wheezing machinery at the next stop light as it was to make it over Helltown’s border. But Isobel swore that the RV could survive anything. I had no choice but to believe her.

Like guns and electronics, most cars didn’t work inside Helltown. Moving parts had a habit of failing at the worst possible moment around all of that infernal energy. That was a big part of the reason that the OPA hadn’t cleared the neighborhood out yet—we weren’t sure that we even could.

Isobel’s teal RV with beaded curtains had transported me through Helltown before. Hopefully, it could do it again.

In the back, Yelena worked at brewing an extra-powerful spell to help protect us in Helltown’s harsh nighttime conditions. She might have been wearing pink beads and had mosquito bites for tits, but the circle I watched her cast was anything but child’s play.

Maybe it was because I’d pushed my magical abilities to their limits that morning, or maybe she was really just that good, but her spell felt like it was going to crush my chest. My eyes were watering and she wasn’t even done yet.

In a singsong voice, she said, “Bring protection to these hallowed walls. Nothing can get in, nothing at all. Be they nightmares or spirits or anything bad, turn them away. Don’t let them make us sad.”

For fuck’s sake.
She was
rhyming
. And it was the worst goddamn rhyme I’d ever heard.

I was pretty sure I could have written a better verse when I’d been in kindergarten.

The magic was still powerful enough to make me sneeze again.

“This is the friend who enchanted the Mystery Machine to work inside Helltown?” I muttered to Isobel. I was standing right behind the driver’s seat. From that angle, I could easily see down her cleavage, despite the t-shirt she’d thrown on.

Isobel didn’t look up at me. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “She’s one of the witches who helped me, yeah. I have a lot of friends.”

“And how old is she, exactly?”

“She’s legal,” Isobel said.

I sneezed into my sleeve again. “Legal for
what
? Renting a car? Drinking alcohol? Skipping her after-school latchkey program?”

“Cèsar,” she said, “shut up for a few minutes.”

She stopped at a red light across from Helltown’s entrance. The illusion of a neighborhood on the other side looked more menacing at twilight, like the darkness inside was too immense to hide.

Every inch of my common sense was screaming at me to stay out, to find somewhere bright and safe and stay there until dawn.

Luckily for Fritz, my common sense has always been in pretty short supply.

“You’re sure he’s in there?” Isobel asked.

“About eighty percent.”

She squeezed the steering wheel tighter. “Only for Fritz,” she whispered.

“Only for Fritz,” I agreed.

The signal turned green.

We passed the stoplight and crossed the invisible border separating Helltown from the mundane world.

Yelena started repeating her rhyme, louder this time. “Bring protection to these hallowed walls. Nothing can get in, nothing at all…”

Magic surged over the RV, rippling around its body. The view beyond the windows turned black. Like someone had covered us in velvet while I was glaring at Yelena.

The ride got a heck of a lot bumpier on the inside. The suspension couldn’t handle the pulverized asphalt. Isobel took a turn and just about tossed me into the passenger’s seat.

Yelena was braced, though. She didn’t have any trouble keeping on her knees in the middle of the circle.

“Be they nightmares or spirits or anything bad…”

I couldn’t tell if my headache was from listening to that crap on repeat, a side effect from her magic, or the stress of being in Helltown after dark.

My fingernails dug into the armrests of the chair. Now that I was sitting in the passenger’s seat, I could see everything Isobel could through the windshield, and I wished I couldn’t. It looked like we were driving through a black fog. Wisps of shadow flashed through the high beams.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Would you believe me if I told you that they’re just smoke?” Isobel’s voice was tight and her arms were rigid.

“Probably not.”

“They’re incorporeal nightmares.” She shot a look at me. Somehow, there was a faint touch of humor to the twist of her mouth. “Yelena’s chanting is the only reason we’re still sane right now.”

Yeah, because that made me feel so much better.

Then, suddenly, the swirling shadows were gone and the headlights cut right through the darkness. The two wide, yellow circles brightened the ground in front of the Compassionate Heart Ministry but didn’t seem to touch the walls of the building itself.

Its spires were black, just a few shades darker than the sky, and it looked like the kind of place that light wouldn’t be able to touch on the brightest day. The bell tower stabbed the underside of the moon.

Thump
.