“How did you manage that, young man?” Scolari asked, his curiosity obviously piqued.

  “I have my resources,” Dennis said. “And yeah, before you ask, Harker, I did exclude any mass murders that happened when you were in a city, or any of the other Council members.”

  “We don’t murder people,” I said. Anymore, I added silently, thinking back to a few dark times in my travels with Luke.

  “Right, but the authorities don’t know the difference between a bunch of guys playing RPGs, and an evil den of necromancers harnessing the power of a cemetery to enslave all the women of a small Nebraska town.”

  He had a point. That particular adventure had left a half dozen dead farmers laid out in a field surrounded by calf’s blood and a strangled cat. We took the trappings of their half-baked ritual and added a few twenty-sided dice and Monster Manuals to the scene. Viola! Instant Satanic panic in the heartland, and nobody knows how much panic they very nearly saw.

  “Is there a pattern to the killings?” Lena asked. “Anything traceable?”

  “At first I didn’t think so,” Dennis said. “But I worked the murders backward, and I saw it.”

  He paused, and I gave it to him so we could get on with the show. Dennis was performing for an audience, and if I had to play Vanna to his Pat Sajak, fine. “Saw what?” I asked.

  “I saw that the killings in each area stopped when a specific trigger happened.”

  “Are you going to tell us what that trigger is, or do I have to beg?” I was getting less and less interested in feeding Dennis’s performance and more interested in tracking down whoever murdered Faye.

  “The Spear.” Just before he said the words, it clicked in my head, and I spoke in unison with his digitized image.

  “You guessed it. That’s why they put your name on the door,” Dennis said with a grin. “The Spear of Destiny was in each city before a string of witches, sorcerers, or otherwise Talented people were killed.”

  “What’s the difference?” Darius asked.

  I turned to look at the big were-cat. “What?”

  “Witches and sorcerers. What’s the difference?”

  “None,” I said. “It’s just a preference of terms. We all manipulate energy to do things that humans can’t do. Often witches will use objects as their focus, or work with plants and potions, infusing them with magic to do specific things. And usually sorcerers just fling fireballs around.”

  “Faye always said that sorcerers are more showoffs, and witches get shit done,” Lena chimed in with a sad smile.

  “She said that for years,” Scolari said with a nod.

  “And it’s pretty much true. The focus of a witch’s training is more internal, and they can perform a lot finer workings than most sorcerers. Witches are a scalpel, where sorcerers are more of a shotgun.”

  “What are you?” The alpha were’s tone was mild, but I could hear the meaning under his words. He wanted to know how much splash damage there would be when I went after the murderer.

  “I’m the guy you call when it’s time to nuke the site from orbit. Let’s be clear, guys. I’m not here to keep the peace and make things comfortable in good ol’ San Fran. I’m here to find out who killed my friend and fuck them up in new and creative ways, then tear them apart and fuck up the pieces. This information about the Spear, that complicates shit, and that means it’s going to get even messier before I leave. I’m sorry for that. I really am. It won’t stop me, or even slow me down, but I promise to add it to the list of things I regret when I can’t sleep at night. If that helps.”

  “Something tells me it won’t.” The alpha cat met my eyes, and in his yellow irises, I saw a man who had fought, and lost, and gotten back up to fight again. Darius knew what the deal was.

  “No, it won’t. But it will help us win this fight. If whatever is killing mages is tracking the Spear, then it’s here to do one of two things, neither of which I can allow.”

  “What are those things, Mr. Harker?” Scolari asked.

  “It’s either here to destroy the Spear, or to kill the Spear’s rightful owner. Both of those options are unacceptable to me, so there’s going to be a fight.”

  “Who is the Spear’s rightful owner?” Darius asked.

  Dennis and I shared a look, but just as I drew breath to answer, Pravesh stood up. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. That information is classified. It is a matter of national security, and Mr. Harker faces significant consequences should he reveal the identity of the person we feel is the rightful owner of the Spear.”

  “Well, since the centurion Longinus has been dead for several millennia, I don’t think he will mind Quincy telling us his thoughts on the current owner of the Spear.” Scolari’s tone was mild, but I could see in the tightening around his eyes that the boss vamp was not accustomed to being told what he could and could not know, particularly in his own dining room.

  “I’m sorry, I truly am, but—”

  “Azrael.” I cut Pravesh off before she started to spin more bureaucratic bullshit about why I shouldn’t tell everyone exactly what we were dealing with. I’d seen this kind of “operational compartmentalization” before, and all it ever did was get people killed. “The Spear is actually the Implement of the Archangel Azrael, also known as the Angel of Death. At the end of the War in Heaven, the Archangels ended up on Earth, without their Implements or their memories. Now the Spear is in San Francisco, and whatever demon is chasing it has followed it here. We need to find the Spear, kill the demon, and hunt down Azrael so that I can find God and have a little chat with Him.”

  Darius looked at me, his eyes wide. “You are either the bravest or craziest white boy I have ever met, and that is a high bar, Mr. Harker. You mean to tell me that there’s an angel in San Francisco, and now there’s a demon in the city trying to kill it?”

  “Yeah, pretty much,” I said.

  “Fuuuuuck,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” I repeated.

  “You’re standing there acting like this shit is normal.”

  “I wish it weren’t, if that helps.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Didn’t figure it would.”

  The big were-tiger let out another long breath. “Okay. We gonna hunt down a magical Spear and kill a demon so we can save the Angel of Death. Got it. I’ve got one question before we start on Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.”

  “Shoot,” I said.

  “Can we go back to when I just wanted to strangle the vampire? That shit sounds way easier.”

  10

  “Okay, the first thing is to find the Spear,” I said. “Dennis, you said you had a line on its location?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “The Spear is owned by a gentleman named Wyatt Earl Hunnicutt, a third-generation millionaire who seems…eccentric, to use a less insulting term.”

  “Or batshit crazy, to be honest,” Darius snarled, his lip curling to show a canine that seemed to have more of a point to it than it did a few minutes ago.

  “Care to enlighten the out-of-towners?” I asked.

  “Sure,” the big cat said, leaning forward and placing his elbows on the table. “Wyatt thinks he’s the reincarnation of Wyatt Earp, right down to buying the old lawman’s Colt for a quarter of a million bucks. He walks around in a cowboy getup, with a big ten-gallon hat on his five-quart head, that big old Peacemaker on his hip, and says shit like ‘pardner.’ It’s like talking to a parody of a John Wayne movie, only in a five-foot tall body.”

  “Little man with a big pistol?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah, with all the scrappy attitude that comes from being a short dude with a buttload of money in a tall man’s world.”

  “What does this have to do with the Spear?” Pravesh chimed in. “He sounds charming, but not all that out of line for San Francisco. Your fine city did have the United States’ only emperor, after all.”

  “If only Norton would stay in the past tense, we would have far fewer problems,” Scolari muttered. I raised an eyebrow at him, but he waved me off, and I didn’t have time to ask about his time-traveling Emperor Norton. That sounded like a story better left for another time.

  “Yeah, but at least Norton wasn’t an asshole,” Darius said. “Hunnicutt throws money around like it’s confetti and expects any supernatural in the area to do whatever he wants. He’s got mediums on staff to let him talk to Wyatt Earp’s ghost whenever he feels like it, a wizard that he keeps in the house to glamour him to look taller, and a curator for his personal museum. That’s probably why he wanted the Spear—to put it on display in his house and have it for the party tonight.”

  “Oh shit, that is tonight, isn’t it?” Scolari’s eyes went wide. “I need to make sure my tuxedo is back from the cleaners.”

  “It is,” Jacqueline said. “I had to order a new shirt, though. You were messy and got blood on the collar. That stuff never comes out.”

  “Would you like to explain to the folks who don’t run in your social circles exactly what the hell you’re talking about?” I asked, raising my voice to get over the vampire and the were-tiger complaining about some soirée.

  Scolari and Darius both swung their heads to look at me, then Scolari chuckled and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Hunnicutt throws a big party on the fall equinox every year, kind of his beginning of the Halloween season bash. It’s a smaller affair than his Halloween party or his solstice celebrations, but it does get most of the city’s powerful practitioners and high-ranking supernatural beings in attendance.”

  “Tonight is the equinox?” I asked. “I thought it was in about a week.”

  “It’s next Tuesday,” Lena said. “Faye had the shop scheduled to be closed.”

  “Yes,” Scolari said with a nod. “But today is Saturday, and Hunnicutt is far more interested in having a big party and getting people to look at his newest toys than he is with actually observing a holiday.”

  “That tells me that most of the city’s Talented will be in his house tonight,” I said.

  “Yep,” Darius said.

  “And the Spear is there.”

  “Also yep,” Dennis chimed in.

  “Does the fact that this party looks like a beacon in the dark to exactly the demon we’re chasing occur to anyone else?”

  “Oh yeah,” Pravesh said. “I’d better get in touch with our local field office. We’re going to need a bigger boat.” She got up and walked to a corner of the room, her phone already out.

  “Dennis, does the Council have anyone close enough to get here?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Not in the time we have,” he said. “It’s already eleven on the east coast, and one by the time I can get anyone scrambled to an airport, if we’re being realistic. Even if I could charter something that can make it nonstop, by the time they get here and get to us, it’ll be too late.”

  I did some quick mental math and nodded. “Yeah, if this mess is going to happen at sundown, then we’re going at it solo. Not to mention Luke can’t move around in the daytime.”

  “And Adam can’t fly commercial.” He was right. The metal detectors in airports had issues with certain of Adam’s components, and if he went through one of the full-body scanners…well, let’s just say it was a good thing it looked like I was back in the good graces of Homeland Security, at least for the moment. That left us with the human members of the Shadow Council, and while they were great in a gunfight, I had the sneaking suspicion this demon might be a little more than they could tackle.

  “Okay, then let’s get our shit together and reconvene here at four to go crash a party. I guess I have to go rent a tux,” I said, standing up and walking toward the door. Nobody else moved. I stared at them all. “What are you waiting for?”

  “That’s it?” Darius asked. “Just…go get your affairs in order because we have to take on a demon who wants to steal the Spear of Destiny? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

  “What do you want, the fucking St. Crispin’s Day speech? Fine, fine.” I hopped up on the table and surveyed them all. “We few, we merry few, we band of brothers. We are truly fucked. We are probably all going to die, and if we don’t, we’ll see some shit that we can’t ever un-see and will wake us up gasping and sweating until finally we don’t wake up anymore. We’re rushing headlong into a confrontation with a demon that I don’t know a goddamn thing about except that yesterday it murdered one of the most powerful witches I’ve ever met, and that scares the fuck outta me. So we’re going in without a plan, without enough backup, and without nearly enough mojo, but we’re going in anyway because this son of a bitch killed our friends, and I cannot, will not, let that shit stand. Now go get your pack, and get your ammo, and meet me back here at four o’clock to go demon hunting.”

  I jumped down off the table, and this time when I headed for the door, I heard the scrape of every chair pushing back from the table as they all followed me. Not for the first time in my life, I wished they wouldn’t.

  When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. And shop we did. With time of the essence, we had to go for the places that could hem a tux and make any alterations in a matter of hours, and that didn’t come cheap. After a little whining about explaining things to her boss, Pravesh broke out the DHS company card. Two hours later, she was rocking a black Diane von Furstenberg pant suit, while Lena and I both sported Dolce & Gabbana tuxedos. We didn’t have enough time to get either of them tailored enough to hide a shoulder holster, so I had Lena’s backup .380 in an ankle holster while she could stash her service Sig at the back of her waist. I didn’t ask Pravesh where her sidearm would go, but looking at the lines of her suit, I assumed it was in the small shoulder bag she carried.

  After picking out our respective ensembles, we changed back into our street clothes and made a stop by the magic store Faye had run. The door was shrouded in black fabric, and the place was obviously closed in mourning, but Lena gave me the key. I didn’t say a word when she stayed behind in Pravesh’s SUV, but there were some things I needed to pick up. I grabbed a small bag of sea salt, some holy water, a silver athame in case I needed a little of my blood for a working, and a couple of other herbs and spices that might come in handy.

  I sat down on a stool behind the counter and opened up my Sight. The shop, a warm, homey kind of place with a vaguely hippie vibe in the daylight, blossomed into a rainbow of colors in my Othersight. Every surface swirled with color, trace energy from the good people that Faye served. And they must have been good people, too, because there was hardly any black or red energy mixed in with the blues, yellows, oranges, and greens of the trace the customers left behind.

  I could see Faye’s essence, too, which was the whole point, and why I was happy that Pravesh and Lena let me have a moment in here alone. Her silvery lavender streaks were everywhere around me, and it felt like having my friend back, just for a moment. I remembered the fun Faye and I had working together on a couple of cases in San Francisco, like when we laid a revenant to rest at Alcatraz so the tourist boats could resume unmolested. Or the time a junkie was possessed in the Tenderloin, and we got stuck in a strip club trying to cast an exorcism while strung-out bottle blondes kept offering lap dances to both of us, but mostly to Faye.

  I dropped my Sight, surprised to see my vision foggy, but when I felt my face, I realized that I was crying. “I’m sorry, Faye,” I whispered to the empty room. “This is on me. I’ve been trying to do too much, deal with too much shit at home, and I didn’t start looking for this goddamn Spear soon enough. Now you’re gone, and there’s a fucking demon murdering Talents in San Francisco, and I don’t know if I can stop it. It took you out and slaughtered a whole coven in the middle of a circle. That’s some serious power, and I don’t know if I’ve got the mojo to pull this off. And if I don’t? Well, then I don’t have to worry about it because I’ll be dead, but Glory is stuck as a human, and Dennis is already stuck in some kind of awful Tron remake, and Lucifer takes over the world.

  “I don’t know if I can do it, kiddo. I just don’t know. I try to keep my shit together while the rest of the crew can see me, but this might be too much. I mean, it’s fucking Lucifer, Faye. The goddamn devil himself. And I’m supposed to take him out? Me, an aberration from London, with the help of my two-hundred-year-old golem and the king of the goddamn vampires. If we aren’t the sorriest excuse for a bunch of heroes the world has ever seen, I don’t know what is. Fuck. I don’t even know why I’m doing this. Sitting in your store, laying this all out on the universe when I know you’re not even here.” I sat there with my eyes closed for a while, trying to soak in some of Faye’s leftover positive energy, hoping it would somehow give me the backbone to get up off that stool and charge into another unwinnable fight. Again.

  I heard someone clear their throat behind me, and I spun around. Pravesh stood in the doorway that led back into the storeroom, looking more than a little embarrassed. “Sorry to intrude. I came in through the back, so the door didn’t chime. We had to move the car into the alley to keep from attracting too much attention, and I wanted to let you know where we were.”

  I looked at her, this woman I’d never met before the previous morning, as I stood there with tears coating my cheeks and my eyes redder than a drunkard on Monday morning.

  “I’m sorry to intrude—”

  “You said that.”

  “I know.”

  “Say what you want to say.” I heard how my voice sounded. Curt, clipped, frankly rude. But I didn’t care. She caught me off guard, something not many people get to do.

  “I just wanted to say I get it.” There was more following that, I could see it hanging in her eyes, but she stopped herself.

  “You get what?”

  “The doubt. The fear. The guilt. I get it. You’re wrong, though. We can do this. Lucifer is powerful, but so are we.”

  “Because our cause is just and our heart is pure?” I could hear the bitterness in my words, but I couldn’t keep it out. She’d caught me in a moment of weakness, and that gifted her with the dubious pleasure of seeing a piece of Harker that only Luke and Becks had seen in a long, long time.

 

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