Sacrifices (32 page)

She waited. A car drove by, and she fervently hoped the driver wasn't paying close attention, or wasn't in the frame of mind to be a Good Samaritan. Karyn and Nail lurking here couldn't look good, and the arrival of the police would screw this whole thing up beyond repair.

The car continued past the end of the block and down the next, finally turning right at a stoplight beyond.

Come on,
Karyn thought.

She heard nothing, but ahead of her Nail tensed and pressed himself back against the door. Her heart kicked up a notch, and she braced herself as another wave of dizziness tried to claim her.

The world was still spinning lazily in her head when a tall black man burst from the door. The first thing that Karyn noticed was the white, like the rabbit from her vision. The man was wearing a white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up. The second thing she noticed was the crimson streak slopping down over his thigh.

It might not have been his blood, because the guy was moving
fast
. The door banged off the building behind him, he skidded and pushed off the car parked at the curb, and he took off down the sidewalk with a burst of speed Karyn would have found hard to credit, had she not seen it herself.

He had a good start, this rabbit. Karyn counted to five before the door blasted open again, this time tearing off its hinges and spinning to the sidewalk, where it landed with a clap. Just as in her vision, three men rushed out and bolted after the runner. One of them let out a hunting cry of sorts, a sound lodged in a terrible space between a shriek and a roar that made the hair on the back of Karyn's neck stand on end.

The runner didn't look back. He didn't speed up, either, likely because he was already moving as fast as he could.

The other group, the bulk of the demons, rushed out moments later, shouting and screaming. “Get that motherfucker!” one of them yelled amid all the cries, which struck Karyn as one of the more surreal things even she had heard all day.

Belial came last, walking out like a general on the battlefield, ready to survey the carnage. His appearance was shocking. Deep rents gaped in his face, and his clothes were stained with red and yellow—blood and some terrible product of infection. His left hand was withered and had turned entirely black. Nonetheless, Karyn caught a self-satisfied smirk on his ruined face as he turned away from her, and then Nail moved. One arm snaked around Belial's neck, and the gun came up. The click of the hammer pulling back was clearly audible over the receding noise, as was Nail's threat: “I will ventilate your skull. Try me.”

The last running man turned around, probably to shout some inanity, and he stumbled to a halt, maybe a dozen feet away from Nail. His lips pulled back in a snarl.

Nail started pulling Belial back. He looked over his shoulder and met Karyn's eyes.

“Get the car!”
he shouted.

The snarling man rushed forward, to what end Karyn never found out. Nail made a small movement, a flick of the wrist that was nearly invisible from where Karyn stood, and shot him in the neck. He went down gagging, blood spurting out through his fingers.

Belial took Nail's momentary distraction as an opportunity and tried to pull away, only to be yanked brutally backward by the neck.

Karyn ran for the car. She jumped in and cranked up the engine. Nail fired another shot at a second demon that had turned around, hitting his target in the side.

Beyond that, past the corner, a huge green blur streaked out into the road, hit the pavement with a heavy, metallic
bong
, and bounced.

It's a flying Dumpster,
Karyn thought, just as it bowled over half a dozen of Belial's followers and scattered the others.

Then there was no more time to watch. Anna would have to take care of herself. Nail hauled Belial in through the open back door on Karyn's side, and she stomped the gas before he even got the door closed. It banged against Belial's shin, eliciting a bark of outrage and laughter.

She peeled out onto the street.
Now the cops will show up,
she thought, because wasn't that the way the world worked? Never there when you needed them, but when you were speeding away from a crime scene with a kidnapped demon in your backseat, it was almost a guarantee that they'd be all over the place. For a wonder, though, she seemed to be catching a break on that score this time.

Not so from Belial's followers. A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed them scrambling for cars. Headlights flicked on, like hate-filled eyes pinning her under their baleful gaze.

She took the next right at a speed that would have made Anna proud, then screamed through the next left before the car had even stopped rocking on its suspension. To her eyes, the streets were crowded with cars, the sidewalks choked with pedestrians. She concentrated on the image in her mind instead and plowed through them all, heart lurching as each anticipated impact failed to materialize.

Another right, and she came out on Santa Monica Boulevard, foot barely easing off the gas long enough to make the turn before she planted it again. No sign of the demons in the rearview mirror. This would be the time when, if she were an accomplished driver and her nerves weren't shot, she'd whip into a parking garage and wait them out, or at least that was what TV had led her to believe. Instead, she floored the accelerator, screaming toward the next stoplight. She looked at it, registered the green, and shot into the intersection. A squeal of brakes and a screaming horn followed her, and a car jumped the curb.

Shit!
In the rearview mirror, the light was red
in her mind
, had always been red. She'd gotten confused about which was image and which was lying, treacherous vision and damn near got them all killed.

She slowed, eased up to the next stoplight, and turned off Santa Monica. Too visible. Too dangerous, and she needed to slow down.

Karyn wiped sweat from her forehead and looked into the backseat. Nail had one hand wrapped in Belial's
collar and the other holding his gun to the demon's temple. Karyn was mildly surprised it hadn't gone off, what with all the rocking and jostling.

Belial leered at her. “Come to finish your prophecy for me?”

She turned back to watch the street.

“Holy fucking hell!
What happened back there? Where did you guys come from? Where are we—”

Anna yanked the wheel to the right, throwing Clarence against the door as she swerved around a car that actually took yellow lights seriously, and blew through an intersection. She let out a war whoop that came all the way up from her belly. This was the first thing like actual fun she'd had in forever.

“Jesus!” Clarence said. “You're outta your mind!”

“I'm inclined to agree,” Sobell said. He slumped dejectedly against the passenger-side window, watching the world race by.
Fuck him,
Anna thought, and she laughed again.

She half turned in her seat. “Come on, guys. Did you see that? I threw a
Dumpster
at those guys!”

“No marks for subtlety, but I suppose efficacy is the order of the day, and I can't fault you for that,” Sobell said.

“You're getting sour in your old age.”

“I'm getting
old
in my old age.”

“Nobody likes a whiner.”

Anna grinned and turned her attention back to the road. This
was
fun, but she really needed to focus at the moment. A pair of blue-white headlights weaved around a vehicle behind her, not gaining but keeping pace, and she thought there was another vehicle behind that. The
demons had been scattered, a few injured, but the only thing saving her now was the head start they'd gotten in the confusion.

Clarence clapped her shoulder. “I owe you one. Like, you have no idea. Whatever you need. Whatever you want, whenever you want it. Those motherfuckers were gonna
eat
me, and I don't mean they were just saying that to sound tough, I mean—”

“I get it,” Anna said. Traffic had thinned out here, giving her pursuers a straight stretch to try to catch up. Anna's four-cylinder rust bucket would be hopelessly outmatched if she stayed on this street. She swore.
I have a backpack with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it in the trunk. Why the hell didn't I buy a better car?

She slowed, letting the lead car get closer. There was a sudden crack and her side mirror vanished.

“They're shooting,” Clarence said, considerably calmer than he had been.

Maybe this was familiar territory for him, Anna thought. “No shit. Shut up.”

The lead car closed the gap. They were about to get a whole lot more accurate with the shooting, Anna guessed, or maybe flat-out ram her.

She spun the wheel and yanked the emergency brake. The tires yowled like a pissed-off tomcat as the car whipped around ninety degrees. Clarence ended up in Sobell's lap, but both cars in pursuit shot past.

Anna punched it. The car's interior was thick with the pungent stench of burned rubber. She took a long, deep breath and laughed.

A glance through the rear window told her that pursuit wouldn't be long in coming—they were already turning around. She headed west on Santa Monica, the opposite direction of their destination. That would buy Karyn some time.

Unless we end up dead.
The car was fucked-up from the turn, rattling and thumping, the steering wheel jumping in her hand as she sped up. Flat spots on the tires from
the skid, or maybe a bent tie rod. Out of alignment. Some damn thing like that. It would still go, at least, but maneuverability had just gotten a whole hell of a lot worse.

“Do something,” she said to Sobell.

“Such as?”

“Stop them! Slow them down! Jesus, do I have to think for you?”

Sobell gave her a desperately tired look. “Do you have a firearm?”

“I stopped carrying one,” Anna said. She wondered how much that mattered now. If you could magically hurl a Dumpster at somebody, did you really need a firearm?

“Then there's really nothing I can do.”

Blue-white headlights swung onto the road behind her, gaining fast. She mashed the gas pedal harder, as though pushing it through the floor would help. “You got”—she checked the rearview mirror again—“one minute. Tops.”

“I can't help you.”

“Magic something up, asshole! Isn't that what you do?”

“Not anymore. It's not safe.”

“In forty-five seconds, they're going to catch up to us, run us off the road, kill us, and eat us. You tell me how safe you'll be then. Either slow them the fuck down, or climb over here and drive.” The steering wheel jerked in her hands and the car rocked, as if the vehicle itself were telling them just how bad an idea that was.

“Dear God. I am utterly fucked.” Sobell looked wearily around the car. “Give me your shirt,” he said, holding out his hand to Clarence.

“Why?”

“Do it right fucking now.”

“Awful goddamn pushy around here.” Still, he shrugged out of the shirt and handed it over.

Anna dug a marker out of the glove compartment, where she'd gotten in the habit of keeping one for Genevieve. She handed it to Sobell. He spread the shirt out on his lap and popped the cap off the marker, letting it fall on the floor.

Sobell worked quickly, slashing black lines across the cloth with a deft, sure hand, wavering slightly from the bumpy, rattling car. Anna wasn't sure he was going to be fast enough. The headlights were closer now, and gaining, and there was no chance she'd get to pull her braking trick again. They'd be ready for it, for one thing, but more important, she thought there was a good chance the car wouldn't put up with that shit a second time. Blow a tire, and this would all be over in the most unpleasant way possible very soon.

A shot sounded, then a second. If they even hit the car, Anna couldn't tell, but it wouldn't be long.

“Hurry up,” Clarence said.

Sobell began an incantation. Anna's mind wanted to reach out to it, fold it in, and tease it apart for all its secrets, but she forced her attention back to the road, the mirror, the rattling steering wheel. Her wrists ached from her death grip on the wheel.

A patch of asphalt ahead of the car spontaneously caught fire. Anna barreled through it without slowing, and it was gone before she could worry about it.

“
Now
would be good,” she said.

“Get us to the turn,” Sobell said.

“The—?” Ahead, the street curved, a very slight angling to the right. Fifteen seconds to get there? Twenty? Did they have that long?

Sobell rolled down the window. The rush of air pummeled Anna and blew a scrap of paper into the air.

Flame flared to life on the hood of the car.

Anna clutched the wheel with one hand, gestured with the other, and said a few words. The flames vanished.

Five seconds.

“Go!” Sobell said one final word and threw the shirt out the window. There was a mad fluttering sound, like a flock of birds taking off. The white wing of the shirt sailed through the air and plastered itself over the windshield of the car behind just as Anna guided the car into the curve.

She thought the driver would miss the curve, but he
did one better—he pulled the wheel too far, overcompensating. The car skidded and spun out, and the one following it—too closely, as it happened—slammed into the front, sending it spinning in the other direction.

They receded in the rearview mirror and were gone by the time Anna reached the next stoplight.

Sobell's face was pale, and rivulets of sweat ran down his forehead, temples, and cheeks. He gave her a shaky grin and sat back in his seat.

Karyn pulled the
car up so suddenly she jumped the curb in front of the church. Nail was already dragging Belial out of the car by one scrawny arm, the look on his face pure revulsion as he touched the man's putrefying flesh. On the way, he'd bound Belial's hands crudely with his own belt. Karyn couldn't imagine that would hold up against a determined escape effort, but it would slow him down.

He hoisted Belial to his feet as Karyn came around the car.

“Move, dammit!” Nail shoved Belial forward.

“Oops,” Belial said, and he toppled to the ground. Karyn saw him grinning as he fell. His face hit the sidewalk with a horrid
crack
, and when Nail pulled him back to his feet, Karyn saw that his cheekbone had smashed, the bone pushing back to the side, his eye filling with blood. He laughed again.

Nail glared at Belial. “Move, asshole!”

Belial sagged in his grasp. “They'll find me. They're coming for me even now.”

“Jesus Christ,” Nail said. He locked his arm around Belial's upper arm and began dragging him. The demon chuckled again.

Up the stairs. There were people watching from across the street. Gant Street kids. Others. This wouldn't stay secret. “C'mon, Anna. Hurry up.” The lights were on in the
church, shining through the windows, bathing Nail and Belial in shifting blue, red, and green radiance.

“You got this?” Karyn asked Nail.

“Shit yeah. Wrestle demons for fun. All be over in a few minutes, right?”

Karyn turned back to the street as the two men went inside. A dozen or so confused, frightened people were being shepherded down the street by a couple of young men who urged them on with more cursing than was probably necessary. Under the washed-out yellow streetlight, it was impossible to tell what colors they were wearing, but it didn't matter—Genevieve was easily recognizable at the rear. She waved distractedly and then said something to the kid ahead of her. They moved a little faster away, to Karyn's relief. She wanted to concentrate, see if she could project them forward and figure out if they'd be successful, but she needed to be alert. Dropping into an exhausted fugue wouldn't do anybody any favors right now.

She texted Elliot.
Get down here now
.

A couple of kids she recognized walked up the steps toward her. “'Sup?” one of them asked. He was the one Anna had tracked down. Rigoberto. “We got your back.”

“I sure appreciate that, but this isn't going to be safe. You should get out of here.”

“This is our home, lady. You don't even live here.”

“For reals,” the other guy said.

Unbelievable.
“I think you—oh, shit.” Too late. Anna's car screamed around a corner, drawing shouts from an old man out in front of one of the houses. The vehicle rocketed toward the curb and laid a skid mark fifty feet long as Anna stomped the brake.

Anna jumped out of the car even as the engine was dying. Sobell got out of the passenger side, clutching the doorframe to pull himself up. He looked awful. He stood up, straightened his polo shirt, and surveyed the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, Anna had already run up the stairs. “Everything cool?” Behind her, the former rabbit, now shirtless, walked upstairs, still looking somewhat dazed.

Karyn nodded. “For now.” She couldn't tell one thing from another in the jumbled clot of bodies she saw before her, but it looked like the future was substantially less cool. Whether it was in ten minutes or an hour, the shit was going to hit the fan. She just hoped they could avert it. “Who the hell is this guy?”

“This is Clarence. Friend of Nail's, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Clarence said. “Anybody want to tell me what the fuck is going on? I saw that Hector guy peel the skin off a dude's head earlier. All of it. Off his fuckin' head, while he was screaming like hell, and those other guys were singing and shit. It came off in one piece. I thought old Hector was gonna wear it like a hat.”

“Not now,” Karyn said. “There's no time. Get inside. Go.”

Clarence glanced up the street. “Yeah, I don't know about that. I might have better places to be.”

“Suit yourself.”

“You're the one that can see the future, right? What happens to me if I leave?”

“Sorry,” Karyn said. “It isn't that easy.”

He wiped his forehead. “Yeah, but you guys know about this kind of shit, right?”

“A little.”

“I like the idea of getting a head start, but I get the feeling they ain't gonna forget about me. I know most of those guys.” He scowled, then looked from Anna to Sobell and back up the street again. “Shit.”

Sobell disappeared inside the church. Clarence hesitated, swore again, then followed him.

“They're right behind us,” Anna said.

“You need to go.”

Anna grinned. “Just give me two minutes. I'll give them something to think about.”

Karyn nodded.

Anna went down to the base of the front steps, got out her marker, and started drawing on the sidewalk.

Inside the church, a deep, sonorous chanting began.

“This is way fucked-up,” Rigoberto said from behind Karyn. She turned to look at him and nearly groaned
aloud. Four more of the Locos had joined him and his friend, and they were all looking at her.

“You guys got my back, huh?” Karyn said.

“Fuck yeah, we do.”

“All right. Sit tight, then. Look tough. And when I tell you, you get your asses in that church without messing around, you got that?”

“Yes, ma'am.” One of the other kids said something that sounded like, “Hell yeah, boss lady,” and the rest nodded. If they followed through, that would be enough. They spread out behind her. They didn't look tough, Karyn thought. They looked terrified, more or less like the way she felt.

Below, Anna scrawled figures on concrete by the light of her phone and the stained glass. The chanting inside swelled and faded.

A car turned the corner past the convenience store. The headlights were dark, but streetlight shone off the windshield and slid along the side of the vehicle. Another car followed, then a third.

The cars stopped in the street, and men got out. Thirteen all told, which was fewer than Karyn had feared there might be from her earlier vision.

“That's it,” Anna said. She put a final line or two in place and backed rapidly up the steps. She moved close and handed Karyn a piece of paper. It looked like a receipt she'd drawn occult symbols all over. “Tear it in half when you need a big boom.”

“Thanks. Now hurry up and get out of here.”

“Okay,” Anna said, pulling away. “See you on the other side.”

“Terrible choice of words,” Karyn said.

“Later, then.” Anna ducked into the church.

Karyn's phone buzzed. She took a quick look at it. Elliot. No time for that right now.

The men crossed the streets to the bottom of the stairs, stopping before Anna's drawings. One of them, a broad-shouldered, bullet-headed guy with a murderous sneer, stepped out in front. “Where's the boss?”

“You need to leave here,” Karyn said. “There's nothing you can do now.”

On the left edge of the line, a man spat out an ugly-sounding word. A creature appeared in the space in front of him. It was hairless, sinuous, its segmented, coiled body supported on four legs, its head like that of a hellish mastiff. It lashed its tail and uncoiled, rubbing itself against the man's thigh like an oversize mutant house cat. Furnace heat shone from its mouth as it panted.

“What in the hell is that?” Rigoberto said.

Toward the right end of the line, one of the men opted for something different: he pulled a gun. Karyn heard rustling behind her. Young men, readying their weapons.

“How about you get out the way now, before I lose my temper?” the bullet-headed guy said. A man to his left licked his lips and stepped forward, and Bullet Head stopped him with one arm. “Maybe I'll count to three.”

“You're too late,” Karyn said.

“One,” the guy said.

The man with the—dog? Cat? Worm-dragon-beast?— pointed and yelled, “Kill!”

Bullet Head snapped around in irritation as the worm dragon leaped forward, a curse on his lips.

“Down!” Karyn screamed. She covered her eyes and ducked just as the worm dragon crossed the line of Anna's wards. A brilliant white flash went off, and the image in Karyn's mind showed her own hands, red with the light pouring through them. At the same time, there was a muffled
pop
, like a cork leaving a bottle, followed by a chorus of screaming and shouting.

Karyn stood. The line of men had dissolved. Several had fallen, some clutched their eyes or ears, and one stood in place, dazed, tottering from one foot to the other with blood coming from his ears. Karyn was untouched, as were the kids behind her. Part of the magic trick, she supposed.

“Inside!” she shouted. “Quickly!”

A gun went off as she turned, then another. Ahead of her, wood flaked off the door as Rigoberto and his boys ran inside. Karyn slipped in right behind them.

“Get away from the door!” Nail shouted.

Everybody scattered. The doors were thick wood, maybe three inches or more, but that didn't stop bullets. A series of shots ripped holes through the doors; then a whole row of chips flew loose as somebody opened up with something automatic. Karyn and the others had already scattered, ducking behind the small columns and the pews.

When the gunfire paused, Nail ran up and slid a heavy bar across the doors. It was makeshift, cobbled together in the last few hours from scavenged two-by-twelves and plywood. Warded somehow; Karyn didn't know the details. Once it was in place, Nail ducked back behind the column with her and checked his gun.

“What the fuck, man?” Rigoberto said as he looked at the empty interior of the church. “Ain't nobody here!”

“Shut up!” Karyn said.

Nail grinned at her. “How'd you like my chanting?”

“Awful,” Karyn said through a huge smile. “Just awful.”

Her phone buzzed again, and this time the image in her mind changed. It showed her the flashing mayhem of police lights. The view spun, revealing an overturned van, the back doors hanging slackly open, the interior empty. It was a DOC van, Karyn noticed with a sinking feeling. By the curb, she saw Elliot slowly getting to her feet. Her face was covered in blood, and she was messing with her phone.

The image vanished. Karyn's phone showed a text message:
Got problems here. Jailbreak. About a dozen, headed your way.

“Shit,” Karyn said. “We're not going to get any help from Elliot.” She thought about those yawning van doors. “Probably just the opposite.”

“That ain't what I wanted to hear.”

Outside, something bellowed, sounding like a dragon that had swallowed a Mack truck.

*   *   *

Genevieve huddled in an alley with her back pressed to the solid block wall of one of the buildings. Stash crouched
next to her, Freak after that, and a line of people was strung down the alley beyond her—fifteen or more, some his crew but mostly a bunch of terrified evacuees whispering in Spanish Genevieve had no hope of following. Two families, one just the parents and two kids, another consisting of mom, dad, grandma, four kids, and somebody Genevieve guessed was an uncle. Stash had gotten them out of their homes with a short speech he and Freak had perfected by now, after the first dozen or so. During the first three houses, he'd learned that neither yelling a lot nor waving a gun in frustration had been very effective, so he'd hauled Freak in to work them in tandem with him. It was, after all, her neighborhood. That had worked like a charm, so he'd coordinated with other groups by phone to use the Locos as their ambassadors.

They'd been running down the sidewalk, trying to get back to the shop, when the explosion hit. The gangsters reacted before Genevieve even figured what was going on, and they quickly herded the families into the alley for cover. They hadn't been waiting back here for more than a minute when an unearthly, deafening bellow sounded from the direction of the church.

“What the hell was that?” Stash asked.

Genevieve wasn't sure, but she had seen the line of demon-possessed criminals surrounding the church just before the explosion. “No telling,” she said, “but it's probably big and horrible.”

“Then we go around,” Stash said. Calm but mildly annoyed, as though he had to go out of his way to pick up bread on the way home. The kid had nerves of steel. He waved down the alley opposite the direction they had come. “Let's go. Vámonos.”

With Freak following, he moved past the line of people. Genevieve came behind. The three of them emerged out the other end of the alley. The street was empty here. He headed out into the street. Genevieve waited, feeling like a mother duck as she did a head count. It was wholly unnecessary—the families would surely take care of their own—but she couldn't help it. A little boy with a big gap
where his front teeth were starting to come in smiled at her. He, at least, was too excited to be scared.

When everybody had emerged, she ran ahead to catch up with Stash. If she hadn't lost her bearings, they were now six blocks south and a little west of their destination. Say twenty minutes there and back, if they rushed, and still half the neighborhood to evacuate. Maybe people would hear the noise and evacuate themselves, but she thought it just as likely they'd hunker down and stay put. That might be okay, too, depending on the level of destruction. She wished she had a better idea what the hell was going on back there.

She saw movement ahead—a clot of figures under a streetlamp at the end of the block, headed toward the group. Her first thought was that it was more of Stash's guys, but he stopped.

“Now, what is this shit?” he asked nobody in particular.

Genevieve took a longer look. The group ahead consisted of maybe a dozen people, though it was hard to be sure. It moved weirdly, more like a bunch of drunks who happened to be shambling in generally the same direction than a group of people walking in an organized fashion with a particular destination. It was oddly familiar, and the moment she placed it as the same type of roving party that Van Horn's demon-possessed entourage had traveled in was the same moment that she recognized one of the guys in front. The skinny guy, first to take Belial's unholy communion at the prison before everything had gone to shit. Blood streamed down his face from a wound in his forehead, but even from here she could see the white crescent of his grin.
He should be in jail. What the fuck is he doing here?