Deadtown

Clarinda jumped. “I didn’t cut him loose yet,” she said, her eyes wide. She turned to the altar, then back toward me. “Is he really an evil man?” she whispered.



“Evil? Frank? Not really. Annoying’s more like it.” Clarinda ventured a thin smile at that. I didn’t know much about sorcery, but I suspected Blood of an Annoying Man wouldn’t add much firepower to a spell. Even if it was sometimes tempting to shed a bit of it, I thought, as Lucado’s cursing grew louder.



I climbed to my feet, feeling steady now. “Don’t worry,” I told Clarinda. “I’ll take care of Frank.”



Lucado was thrashing around as much as he could, yelling and swearing, doing his best to break free. But he was tied down tightly, and so far all he’d managed to do was lose the cloth that had covered him.



“Hang on, Frank,” I said. “You’re going to injure yourself.”



Lucado went rigid. His head whipped around to face me, the scar as red as his rage. Then he sighed. “Jesus,” he said. “I should’ve known.”



“Don’t look at me like that. I’m here to save you. Hold still and I’ll cut you loose.” I picked up Baldwin’s would-be sacrificial dagger.



“Hurry up, for God’s sake. And throw that sheet back over me. I ain’t decent.”



“Just what I’ve always said about you, Frank.” I moved to cut the ropes that held his wrists to the altar, then paused. “Wait a minute. Didn’t you fire me again?”



“Whaddaya mean, fire you? You’re always yammering about how nobody can fire you. Anyhow, I’ll hire you back. I’ll give you two weeks’ pay. Just quit screwing around and get me off this goddamned table.”



Two weeks’ pay. Nice. I wouldn’t hold him to it, but it was good to be appreciated. With a single slice, I cut through the ropes that immobilized his wrists. Another swipe, and his ankles were free. As Frank sat up, rubbing his wrists, I picked up the altar cloth from the floor and dropped it in his lap. He wrapped it around himself like a shawl and glared at me.



“Why is it,” he asked, “that any place there’s trouble, there’s you?”



“You’re just lucky I like you so much, Frank. Your buddy Baldwin was going to use your blood in a spell to destroy the city. Then he was going to give you to the Hellion to play with.”



Frank’s eyes went wide. “That blue monster? That thing’s around here?” He turned his head frantically, clutching at the altar cloth.



“Relax. It’s gone.”



“Really? You ain’t gonna show up at my house tomorrow and tell me it’s out to get me?”



“Baldwin’s the one who sent it after you. He thought he was some big powerful sorcerer. But I took his demon away from him and sent it back to Hell.” I was just hoping Difethwr would stay there.



“Seth? A sorcerer? Are you kidding me? He hates that spooky shit.” Lucado’s brow furrowed, and he cocked his head. “Wait a minute. I remember. He gave me a Scotch that tasted funny. I felt wasted after two sips. And I remember—” He jumped from the altar and stormed over to where Baldwin sat on the floor. “You son of a bitch!” Lucado stepped back and kicked Baldwin hard in the ribs. Baldwin didn’t move. He didn’t even make a noise—Clarinda must have laid a silencing spell on him, too. But his eyes brimmed with fury and pain.



Lucado pulled back his leg for another kick. I ran up behind him, got both arms around his chest, and lifted him off the ground. He struggled and cursed, but I was stronger. I backed him away from Baldwin and held him until he stopped struggling. When he went limp, I put him down.



“Don’t beat him up, Frank. Let the cops handle it.”



Lucado stood, breathing hard, staring at Baldwin. “All right,” he said, moving toward his former friend, “but I’m not going to stand around freezing in a goddamn sheet while that asshole wears a nice warm suit.”



A couple of minutes later, Baldwin sat naked on the floor, a little blue with cold but bound too firmly by Clarinda’s spell even to shiver. Frank wore Baldwin’s gray suit. It was too tight, and the sleeves and pant legs were too short, but he looked better than I’d ever seen him. Alive looked good on old Frank.



That’s when the cops burst in. Guys in uniforms fanned out across the room, guns drawn, and everyone put their hands up. Everyone but Baldwin, that is. When the cop nearest me—a kid with acne on his chin—saw Baldwin, his eyes went wide with recognition, and he swung the gun in my direction. I couldn’t blame him. Baldwin looked pathetic sitting there on the dirty floor, all paunchy and goose bumpy and pasty-fleshed, and I was the one wearing the funky wizard’s costume. It was Halloween of course, but this kid was probably already spooked out by the Harpy attack on the parade. Now, his eyes rolled, and the gun he pointed at me shook.



“Take it easy,” I said. “I’m not a threat. I can explain—”



“Watch that one, Collins,” said a voice behind me. “That’s one damn slippery freak.”



I didn’t have to turn around to know whose voice it was. A second later, Norden appeared in front of me, sneering, followed by his zombie partner, Sykes. It figured the Goon Squad would be in charge—we were in the New Combat Zone. But why did it have to be these two? Norden lived to give PAs like me a hard time. Well, tonight I wasn’t putting up with his crap. Guns or no guns, I dropped my hands and put myself right in his ugly, pitted face.



“I’m not the bad guy here, Norden,” I said. “Seth Baldwin tried to destroy the city. He was practicing unlawful sorcery, using the black arts to cause harm, and probably half a dozen other violations.”



Norden glanced over at Baldwin. A cop was trying to help him stand, but Clarinda’s binding spell meant that he kept flopping back into the same position on the floor.



“Yeah,” Norden scoffed. “The guy looks real dangerous. Why should I believe you?”



“Listen, blood bag, you’d have been Hellion food by now if I hadn’t—”



“Victory! Thank the Goddess you’re all right.” Roxana Jade pushed past the Goons and stood in front of me, beaming. “Magnificent job! You were wonderful. Just wonderful!”



Norden snorted, like “wonderful” was the last word he’d associate with me. But he stepped aside. In another second I saw why. Roxana was with Tony Bergonzi, head of the Goon Squad. Captain Bergonzi was a norm, but he was respected in Deadtown.



Roxana looked gorgeous, as usual, but tonight she looked more like a practicing witch than when I’d last seen her. She wore a long, midnight blue gown, and a silver circlet of stars glittered on her raven hair. I was suddenly aware of how filthy I must be. Well, fighting demons was dirty work. Almost as dirty as being one. I sniffed to check for any lingering eau de Harpy, then thought the hell with it. We were at a crime scene, not a charity ball.



Roxana introduced me to Bergonzi, who impressed me by shaking my grimy hand. I could see why the monsters didn’t mind him having some authority on our turf. Bergonzi turned to Norden, who’d pulled out a magic meter, which was used to detect the quantity and kind of magic present in a place, and was trying to turn it on. The thing hummed half to life, then sputtered. Norden swore under his breath and banged the instrument against the palm of his hand.



“Don’t worry about that now, Norden,” Bergonzi said. “You and Sykes go interview Mr. Lucado.” He jerked his head toward Lucado, and I got the feeling that Norden and his partner were being dismissed.



Norden must have felt that way, too, because he scowled at me. On second thought, that was probably his natural expression. He thumped the magic meter again and muttered, “Damn piece of junk,” shot me another scowl, and then said,



“C’mon, Sykes.” The partners went over to Lucado, who leaned against the altar where he’d been held captive.



“I don’t think Frank will remember much,” I said. “He was passed out for most of the fun.”



Bergonzi nodded, a far-off look in his eyes as though he was thinking about something else.



I was ready to get the hell out of there and go home, so I said, “I guess you’ll want me to make a statement.”



Bergonzi’s eyes focused on me again. “Yes,” he replied. “But we already know what happened here.”



“You do?”



“We got the whole thing,” Roxana said.



I raised my eyebrows.



“We plugged the scrying mirror into the coven’s computer and captured the transmission in digital. I burned it to a DVD and gave it to Captain Bergonzi.”



Wow. Ancient earth magic meets high tech. Who knew?



“I’m the only one who’s seen it,” Bergonzi said. He cleared his throat, and a calculating look crossed his face. I wondered what was coming. “And that brings me to what I wanted to say. We’d prefer to keep it quiet that a Hellion was inside Boston. So I’ll take your statement myself. Next week at headquarters would be fine.”



Keep it quiet? Was this bozo planning to protect Baldwin? Maybe I’d judged him too kindly. “I don’t care what you’d ‘prefer,’ Captain. There’s no way in hell I’m going to let Baldwin walk.”



“No, no. I didn’t mean that. He’ll be charged with conjuring demons to cause public mayhem, for sending those Harpies against the parade. Believe me, Baldwin’s not walking away from this. He’s going to prison for a long, long time.” He gestured at Baldwin, who was being handcuffed as Clarinda prepared to remove her binding spell. “But there’s no need, is there, to publicize the fact an amateur, unregistered sorcerer was able to breach the shield? That the city was nearly destroyed by a legion of Hellions? We don’t want any other would-be sorcerers getting ideas.”



I considered. I certainly didn’t want another run-in with a Hellion anytime soon. And maybe—just maybe—keeping this quiet would keep my face off TV for the next news cycle.