“What do you suppose he meant when he said it was too late to parlay?” Chance swiped a hand across his forehead, smearing his face with blood and less identifiable fluids. He slowly sank to the ground, the rifle still gripped in his hand.
He must be thinking about his mother.
“I don’t know. I hope Chuch and Eva are okay. Was killing him enough?”
I didn’t necessarily expect an answer. As I knelt next to Chance, adrenaline trickled away and left me feeling empty. I felt every scratch and bruise, felt nauseated with shock and the increasing reek of the women’s remains.
But Kel replied, “It should be.”
God’s Hand stepped over the warlock’s body, dark with gore and bright with satisfaction. If he felt the pain of his wounds, he ignored them; he showed none of the deep weariness weighing down on Chance and me.
“Let’s find out.” I wiped my hands on my ruined khakis and whipped out my cell phone. No point in worrying all the way there.
The phone rang six times before someone picked up. “Bueno.”
“Chuch,” I breathed. “Thank God. Is Eva all right?”
“Yeah, she’s right here. What the fuck is going on? I had some really loco dreams, like I was trapped in this statue, right? So I wake up . . . and I think we been robbed.” He hesitated. “Expensive shit too. The garage is trashed and now there’s this weird Chihuahua watching my every move. Did I do peyote last night?”
I found myself grinning despite all my aches and pains. “It’s a long story. We’ll be back soon. I hope.” With that, I hung up.
“We should get out of here,” Chance said. “That smoke is going to attract attention and I don’t think we want to be here when—”
Sirens interrupted him. A car with flashing lights sped down the drive, and a familiar voice ordered us to stand down. I finally thought to check the dead warlock for ID, hoping we’d then be able to figure out who he worked for.
Oh, Christ.
We’d killed Nathan Moon.
Eye of the Storm
On the hangar floor we had a dead cop.
By my side stood a convicted killer with a knife in his hand. Shit, this did not look good. We came out, hands in the air.
The siren cut off with a yelp and Jesse Saldana slid out of his car. “Drop your weapons! Get down!”
While he trained his gun on the three of us, I flattened myself on the ground, as instructed. Chance hesitated only a moment before discarding his rifle. I didn’t think Kel would comply, though. Bullets might not even stop him.
To my surprise, he lay down beside me. Maybe God would get him out of this too. Saldana looked ill as he approached us, both hands on his weapon. He took in the destruction and the smoldering house.
“Stay down. No sudden moves. I called for backup and two more cars are on the way.” His eyes said, How could you? “Moon called me, Corine. He said you were here trying to kill him. I told him he was full of shit, but then I heard gunfire.”
“Jesse, give me a chance to explain—”
“You have the right to remain silent,” he cut in.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”
I dropped my forehead onto the backs of my hands, feeling older than my twenty-seven years. The men on either side of me possessed the sense to keep quiet, at least. Jesse radiated steely purpose. This can’t be the same man I kissed last night. His eyes looked cold as he gazed down at us. The fact that Moon was nowhere to be seen didn’t matter. Saldana knew deep down how this battle had played out, and maybe he hadn’t even liked the guy but cops didn’t let people get away with killing their own.
How could he not know, though? The air stank with foul magick, and we were surrounded by corpses. Before, I’d suspected a dirty cop must be behind our trouble in town, but I’d suspected Jesse. I just hadn’t turned my eyes in the right direction.
It might not be too late for Min if we could get moving, put the rest of the pieces together. Of course, a lot depended on the next five minutes. I had to convince Jesse to let us go. Once the other officers arrived on the scene, we were done.
“Moon lured us out here,” I said desperately. “He’s the one who did Maris. Enslaved her. Don’t you get it? The reason he came by last night was to see if he’d successfully breached the wards.” I paused and took a breath, gauging his response.
He looked unsure; he was listening. So I went on, “After he went for me in the cemetery, he didn’t have power to burn, so he needed to make sure his strike would get through. Hassling me was just a bonus. Afterward, he attacked Chuch and Eva in their own home and tried to add them to his collection. He didn’t try anything on their turf and in person for mundane reasons—DNA and forensic evidence could tie him to the scene. Out here, he thought he could control the outcome and then clean up, nobody the wiser.”
“Lies.” But he didn’t sound sure. Maybe empathy helped him discern my sincerity.
“Believe her,” a feminine voice whispered. A cool white mist rolled in, but it felt peaceful, gentle. Maris. “I came to thank you. And now I have.”
In a blink I might have missed it or imagined it, but by Jesse’s expression he’d shared the delusion with me. His hands shook.
“See?” I pushed the advantage. “We helped you, just like you asked. You wanted us to set her free.”
Jesse regarded me for a moment longer. The shadows I’d noticed beneath his eyes the other night seemed twice as dark. I wondered whether he would throw us to the lions, even having heard the truth from Maris.
“Get up,” he bit out. “All of you. It looks like a war went down here. Maybe I can blame it on rival drug cartels. What’s in the outbuildings?”
“Nothing now,” Chance said gravely. “Moon killed the women who comprised his next shipment. I’m sorry we couldn’t save them. We tried.”
Kel spoke for the first time, and I thanked my lucky stars he sounded relatively normal. He shouldn’t have been able to move, bearing those wounds, but Jesse was in no state of mind to notice details. Good thing too or he might ID Ferguson from his mug shot. “We should check inside to see if anybody survived.”
I glanced at Jesse. “Do we have time? You said backup was on the way. I don’t want you to get in trouble for letting us go.”
After checking his watch, Saldana said, “You have about five minutes I’d say. Let’s take a look inside.”
I felt dizzy and sick as we passed by the human detritus, so many corpses, pretty and still. My heart hurt. So many futures cut short and for what? We continued into the warehouse, where Saldana paused at his former partner’s body. He stared down at Nathan Moon with a sick anguish. I didn’t know what to say, so I stood silent. Chance and Kel had split off from us to roll the place.
“I should have sensed it,” Jesse said, low. “I should have, but I didn’t. All I ever got from him was self-satisfaction, annoyance, or impatience. Nothing sinister.”
He was a happy little sociopath. Not your fault. But I didn’t say it aloud; Saldana probably wouldn’t hear me anyway.
Toward the back, behind a partition, we found a woman with a pulse. I didn’t know why she’d been culled from the herd, but it had saved her life. Jesse swung her up in his arms. She seemed delicate as a flower against the tanned warmth of his skin. When he carried her into the sunlight, she opened her eyes and whimpered, shrinking away from us wild-eyed.
“It’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you,” I assured her. “Jesse is a policeman. He’ll get you some help.”
“You’re not taking me to Diego Montoya?”
Montoya. Twila had given Chance that name, Montoya, in exchange for his help, and I’d already guessed we were looking for a Montoya, based on the symbol that linked the grave I’d found in San Antonio and the astral tell Booke saw on Chuch’s house. Well, now we had a first name, which would make it easier to find him.
The girl grasped at Saldana with thin fingers. Her whole body shook, and her eyes rolled in her head as if she were a spooked horse. Her English was awkward. “If take me, they will—” Her voice broke. I heard her teeth chattering. “They told me they get me good job, then I send money to my family. Instead, put me in box, they make me do bed-work. If I don’t, they kill me.” She sobbed out, “Home. I want go home. Take me home.”
He murmured to her in quiet reassurance. Far in the distance, I heard sirens. That was our cue. “We need to go. If you learn anything from her, give me a call.”
Saldana regarded me from dull eyes. I’d broken something in him, or maybe it was simple disillusionment. “All right. I’ll see what I can turn up on this Montoya too.”
Once we patched up a bit and checked in with Chuch, we’d start looking for Diego Montoya. I didn’t care how many guards we had to wade through, or if he had a dozen more pet warlocks. We’re coming, Min. Just hold on.
Nobody said a word as we jogged to the Mustang. We all piled in and pulled onto Halstead Creek Road with a squeal of tires. Maybe a quarter mile down the road, we passed two cop cars, lights blazing. They buzzed past us and continued on to the scene, where once again we’d left Jesse a hell of a mess to clean up.
I didn’t know how he’d explain all the body parts and the disgusting smell, let alone a field full of dismembered women. Maybe the poor girl we saved would add credence to his story. But any cop who walked away from a fight that killed his partner would be in for a rough ride, let alone under these circumstances.
Even if said partner had been a corrupt son of a bitch.
I supposed the outcome depended on who actually owned the property. Christ, I hoped we hadn’t gotten Saldana fired. On the whole I had bigger worries, however. My whole body ached, I hadn’t slept in two days, hadn’t eaten since the cookies last night, and we had a war to wage.
“Are you two okay?” My voice sounded hoarse.
“I’ll live,” Chance answered. “If my head doesn’t explode.”
God’s Hand made no reply.
Putting aside my own aches, I leaned forward, anxious. “Is he . . . ?”
Wouldn’t that be just what we needed? Another dead body. My own head throbbed like a sore tooth.
Chance couldn’t take his eyes off the road long enough to check for a pulse but said, “Doubt it. If he was going to kick off, he’d have done it already.”
I couldn’t help but agree. “Did you find anything in the hangar?”
“I’m not sure. Could be something, could be nothing. We found what looks like a cargo manifest, detailing their ‘pottery’ shipment and where it was supposed to go. It might be a dummy sheet and worthless, but at this point, it’s all we have.”
A few minutes later, we arrived at Chuch’s place. I felt bemused to see Butch standing on his hind legs, peering out the front door. God, I was glad that stupid dog was okay. I slid over and climbed out the driver’s side. Butch barked as I went around the car to check on Kel.