Damn Him to Hell (28 page)

I guessed that confirmed the origin of the critters and that hell existed. Ouch.

“It’s raining bats!” Leo shouted, ducking under the umbrella with me. “What the devil is going on?” That was pretty strong language for Leo.

I didn’t want to explain that
I
was what was going on here. So I just asked innocently, “Maybe exposure to sunlight kills them?”

Not that anyone cared what was killing them.

Paddy darted back to the pantry. Andre swung his coal shovel like a baseball bat, apparently venting one whale of a lot of suppressed hostility by using furballs for targets. He was losing his sickly pallor and was almost back to his real self. Charming.

Within minutes, the floor was flooded with snarling, dying demonic bats. Even naïve Leo stared at the ugly creatures in horror. I assumed he hadn’t heard my curse or he would probably have been staring at me like that.

I’d killed a horde of bats
. I was feeling pretty queasy, too. I’d actually killed them. Cursed them. I wasn’t just Saturn’s daughter—I was some kind of blamed witch. At least my curse about infernal creatures hadn’t sent
me
to hell. I’d better watch my language even closer than I’d thought. I wanted to emit a
damn
right about now, but bit my tongue.

“Gate to hell,” Paddy muttered, emerging from the pantry as the waterfall of bats dried up. “She opened it.”

Leo and Andre stared at him as if they were contemplating straitjackets. Me, I wanted to ask—
before or after she died?
Instead, I kicked a path through the oddly crunchy shells to the kitchen sink, where I methodically soaped my hands and arms.

“
I
didn’t open any gates,” I informed them, just in case there was any mistaking that pronoun. “It was already open when I got down there.”

Andre and Leo turned their stares to me. I shrugged it off. Andre knew I wasn’t normal. Leo sometimes suspected it, but I’d spent years learning to be a respectable lawyer, and I kind of liked to keep authority figures thinking that’s what I was.

Paddy shrugged. “Burn ’em.” He opened the rear entrance to an enormous screened porch complete with outdoor kitchen and gestured at the giant gas grill.

After my experience with Max’s freaky gas, you couldn’t have paid me to go near that grill. For all I knew, gas pipes were lines straight to the underworld. I aimed for a chiminea outside on the tiled terrace. Gathering some kindling, I set it smoking. I’d have preferred a flamethrower.

We had the kitchen almost shoveled clear by the time Max’s team and Frank came in to see what we were cooking. Andre had nailed a bar across the basement door. Paddy had dissected a couple of the creatures, or tried. They crumbled at the touch of a knife.

Hunting for wills had gone by the wayside.

In between sweeping and shoveling furballs into the fire, I’d located some plaster patch, and Leo and I were politely filling the sieve Andre had made of the ceiling. I didn’t have wood patch to repair the cabinets.

We hadn’t had time to mop the floor. The team of proper suits and ties stared at the chaos of guts, plaster,
and smoke with disbelief. Just another day in the Zone for us.

Except we hadn’t been in the Zone. We’d have to ponder that anomaly and discuss it at some later time.

“No will here,” Frank declared. Since he was our Finder, we were inclined to accept his word over that of Max’s suits.

“That’s because it’s at Acme, I told you,” Andre said. “Does Paddy need a court order to search?”

“As things stand, the MacNeills have the controlling share. If they object to a search, a court order could take weeks, even if we get Dane’s agreement,” I warned, not trusting Andre’s weird predictions, even if they were right.

Paddy met my gaze. He had no intention of leaving Acme in enemy hands for weeks. Neither did I, not if it meant leaving Bill and Leibowitz and the other patients trapped as guinea pigs.

Shit
. I knew what that meant.

O
nce we returned to our part of town, I didn’t want to be left alone. The guys dropped me off to change out of my bat-smeared clothes, but, figuring I’d have nightmares of rat faces frying in hell, I agreed to meet them at Chesty’s for a meal and maybe a powwow. I changed into a pair of battered leather pants and a billowy black silk blouse that hid my arms and not much else. The genie effect made me feel almost normal.

I sought the comfort of friends to cure my jitters. I walked down the main drag, avoiding the mobile Dumpsters lurking near the polluted harbor. Maybe they only danced under a full moon, but in my current state of trepidation I wasn’t taking chances. As it was,
the ground rumbled beneath my feet, and I started seeing bats swooping around the burned-out chimneys of the old plant. In his bag, Milo stiffened in alarm, not reassuring me.

Earthquakes seriously dampened any furious need to raid the dungeon again, except now I worried about Bill being buried in rubble. If Paddy didn’t think he could find a will in time to rescue the patients . . . Like a rat in a maze, my brain frantically sought a way out.

The gargoyle on the florist’s shop eyed me balefully. A whiff of sulfur rose from the sewer, but all else seemed as normal as the Zone gets. I’d worked at Chesty’s enough to be more at home with murals of nudes dancing—literally—than in Snodgrass’s stuffy office or the Vanderventer mansion.

Barely dressed waitresses waved greetings as I entered and headed back to the others commandeering my favorite booth in the back. Sarah didn’t work here at this hour. She was too afraid of people. Or men. Or of being startled into a chimp. But I was glad she was back from zombiedom. She didn’t deserve whatever green gas had done to her.

Okay, maybe Sarah
did
deserve it. Her moral center was pretty warped, but that’s what happens when you’re raised by a serial killer. Still, I couldn’t condemn her for killing her abusive husband—another gray area that haunted my conscience. I hoped the Zone would make her better, as it had people like Bill and Andre, who’d been heading the wrong way down one-way streets until they saw the light. Or the
chemical flood. Whatever. People deserved second chances.

Apparently I thought bats didn’t deserve any chance at all.

As I slid into the booth next to Paddy, I doubted that we would come to any agreement tonight. In our current edgy moods, we would all be hacking at the Acme problem from different perspectives, and moving forward would not be the result.

Leo was probably waiting for me to unleash the law for a nice legal search of the plant—even though he had to know that whoever was running things at Acme couldn’t let us into the level where they hid the zombies. They’d fight a court order tooth and nail, and use the time to move the zombies where we couldn’t find them. This wasn’t about a will. It was a power struggle.

Andre would be plotting attack by AK-47. And Paddy . . . Hell only knew what was happening in Paddy’s head. Frank . . . Frank was just waiting for orders.

Me, I wanted food and a good night’s sleep before committing myself to the insanity of entering Acme’s death trap again.

Except I knew I wouldn’t be getting any sleep. I really, really didn’t want to know if I’d be rewarded for sending demonic bats to hell or punished for using my powers without justice. Justice had once been a black and white word to me. No more. I had no evidence those bats were dangerous. I’d killed because I was afraid of them. That’s what bigots did.

We all ordered plates of pasta. Leo squeezed in next to me and Paddy. Andre and Frank sat across from us, where they could admire my cleavage and the food in Paddy’s beard. Cora slinked over to join us. She’d had to hold down the detective agency while Frank was out playing, but the office had closed hours ago.

I’d once thought Leo and Cora would make a pretty couple. He certainly noticed her curves in her skintight leopard-skin almost-dress. But other than teasing each other with flirty looks, they treated each other like furniture. Matchmaking wasn’t my forte. I wasn’t even certain Leo recognized Cora’s snake aptitude. Like me, she probably kept her talents on the down-low in front of golden boy. The Zone hadn’t warped Leo yet. Maybe.

“You do realize that Dane had to set up his fortune in a blind trust when he took the senate seat, and any part of his share of Acme will go into it?” I thought I’d lay out the law just to move the meeting along. “Apparently he’s trying to prove he’s presidential material by removing himself from control of any private entities. That means his trustees will take over his votes.” And I had no idea who they were, but I’d bet Gloria had been top dog. Blind trusts are never really blind.

“If MacNeill is a trust executor, he gets the controlling vote,” Paddy concluded gloomily.

“Since chances of your mother leaving anything to you are slim,” I said, “I suggest that if you believe there really is a will and there’s any chance that MacNeill
can find it, you start making amends with Dane. Maybe you can be included as executor of his trust in Gloria’s place.”

I could almost see the
not happening
thought bubble forming. I wanted to smack Paddy’s head against the wall. If it had been me, I’d have put on my power suit and waltzed into Acme’s office and sat down at the head honcho’s desk and forced everyone to prove I didn’t belong there.

Paddy wasn’t me.

Although I supposed that kind of arrogance would be bad mojo for a scientist who is supposed to be objective.

“Can we get into the plant and reconnoiter?” I asked.

Andre and Cora continued their private conversation. Leo slurped up spaghetti. We were getting nowhere. As a team, we sucked.

I’d been hoping for any other way around it, but we desperately needed to get into Acme—to find the will, to free Bill, to stop the scary rumbling. But no one was talking about what I wanted to talk about. They just didn’t grasp the potential for disaster if Acme slipped out of Dane’s or Paddy’s hands. It was all legal mumbo jumbo to them.

I preferred action to reaction, but I wasn’t getting either tonight.

In frustration, I studied the other customers. Not too long ago, they’d included spies and media all out to get me. I wasn’t at all certain they weren’t doing the same now, although, according to Julius, Andre was
higher on their hit list these days. He’d been charged with murder, after all, a rather juicy one. Nervousness about taking on a case for which I wasn’t prepared made me antsy.

Ha
. I spotted a familiar face. I didn’t know his name, or that of his fellow reporters, but they’d all had cameras and microphones waving under my nose a few months back. It wasn’t as if I’d forget their faces. I wondered if other Saturn’s daughters were plagued with media nuisances while they battled demons and monsters, or if I was just special.

Andre must have noticed my expression. He slapped his hand over mine in warning. The touch tingled. I gave him my best evil-vamp smile, licking my lips and watching him hungrily. Leo had me blocked in and Cora had Andre trapped. He couldn’t do anything except hold my hand and tap my rubber shoe with his leather one. Not at all satisfactory.

“Do you dance, Leo?” I purred, still watching Andre.

“Not on poles,” Leo said, drinking his beer. But then his gaze caught the way Andre was holding down my hand, and he got the message. “We’re not solving anything here. Maybe it’s time I took you home.”

Since we lived in the same building, that almost made sense. Except I’d never needed anyone to escort me anywhere, and I wasn’t ready to call it quits for the night. I wiggled my fingers under Andre’s. He didn’t release me.

“Clancy is asking for trouble, Schwartz,” Andre said, filling in the conversational gap I’d left open. “Either
carry her out of here or dispatch the reporters.”

He knew me too damned well. “Not my boss anymore, Legrande,” I pointed out. “If I want to talk to reporters, it’s my business.”

“I’m your only client and I’m paying your office rent, so yeah, I get to be your boss. I don’t want my lawyer irritating the press. They’ve been behaving so far. They’ll go away when they don’t see me murdering old ladies.”

With my free hand, I pinched the hard, bronzed one holding me down. Andre didn’t even flinch. Chinese water torture probably wouldn’t loosen his grip. I didn’t like being boxed in, physically or otherwise.

“I can always go back to Snodgrass, Legrande. I don’t need you or your problems if you’re going to boss me around. Those reporters over there could be our key to Acme. Let me loose or I’ll scream. Let’s see how many white knights come running.”

With disgust, he shoved my hand away. A pity, actually. I kind of liked the human contact. The imperiousness, not so much.

Leo warily let me out, looking as if he’d far rather heave me over his shoulder. Golden Viking had used that maneuver once before, when I’d been in no emotional shape to deal with it. He probably sensed I’d carve his heart out if he tried it now.

I tossed the mane of hair I’d yet to have cut and bit color into my lips as I swung toward the table of reporters, giving them a full view of the goods. Under normal circumstances, brown-wren me and my crooked teeth wouldn’t be overtly noticeable, but
black leather works for me, and these guys knew me enough to be leery.