Blood And Stone: A Novel in The Atalante Chronicles Read online

  Chapter 16

  “His name’s Zeke Griffin,” said Angela, her arms at her sides. “Been arrested half a dozen times for everything from public intoxication to possession.”

  “Why isn’t he still in jail?” I asked, my eyes intent on the road. We were heading east on Hillsborough Avenue, past the car dealerships and strip malls south of Dale Mabry.

  “My guess? CI designation,” she replied. She was gazing out at the passing landscape. “Cops will keep a confidential informant out of trouble. Do you think Magdelena has that kind of sway?”

  I nodded but kept my eyes focused on the road. “Cops would get a CI out of a tight spot?” I asked.

  “Better the scumbag you know,” she said. She pointed to the road ahead. “Stay on Hillsborough. We’re taking I-4 to Plant City.”

  “Where in Plant City?”

  “Trailer park off of Turkey Creek Road.”

  We drove in silence for about twenty minutes. Hillsborough Avenue is one of the busiest thoroughfares in Tampa. It’s the crossroads of the city. South of Hillsborough is Raymond James Stadium, home of the Buccaneers football team. Further south is MacDill Air Force Base, where the military decided to place the Strategic Command for the Middle East. North of Hillsborough is the higher-end housing in Carrollwood and, beyond that, the sticks of Pasco County. To the west is Pinellas County, the home of retirees who couldn’t afford Boca Raton or Miami. The Gulf of Mexico waits for you further west, with more beach resorts and seafood restaurants than you can count. East is Plant City, then Lakeland. It’s quieter out there compared to Tampa.

  I watched as we passed strip mall after strip mall. There was the drive-in theatre and the technical college. It was early night and there was that strange mix of people you see out before midnight. The daytime people coming home from jobs, the people out to dinner, that kind of thing. And there were the night time people: the hustlers, the homeless, and the fiends. There were a lot of cheap, run down motels where you pay twenty or thirty bucks and you get to have a roof and a crappy bed for the night.

  I could feel Angela next to me collecting her thoughts. Reading her would be easy. Like with Ms. Brucker, reading and examining thoughts is one of the first pieces of psiomancy a wizard learns. It was simple magic, unobtrusive. A little bit of channeling, a spoken cantrip, and all the thoughts bouncing through the surface of her mind would be available to me.

  But I found I couldn’t do that to her. It wasn’t anything concrete in my head. There was just this...weight in the back of my head that made the thought of violating her mind unthinkable.

  I decided to take the direct approach.

  “Ask,” I said, my voice flat. “You’ve been dying to ask since we left.”

  Angela took a deep breath. “What was Corvix talking about?” she asked.

  My fingers gripped the wheel tighter. “A mistake I made,” I said. “It’s how I got the scars on my back.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was a few years after I was exiled by the Assembly,” I said. I could tell without looking that she would be wondering about that, too. “Another long story. I’ll tell it to you some other time.” The red light we were waiting at turned green. I kept my eyes on the road. “I’d set up business in California. An exorcist, master of magic, psychic extraordinaire.”

  “A con man,” Angela said.

  “Only on the psychic part,” I said. “Telling people what they want to hear.”

  “Pardon me,” she said, mocking. “You were a bullshit artist.”

  “Pretty much,” I said. I took a breath and spoke slowly. “I got hired by a Spanish family. Their eighteen-year-old daughter was possessed. Nasty demon from the Hells.”

  “Hells? There’s more than one?”

  “Every form of Hell imagined exists,” I said, my voice cold. “But it turned out the girl wasn’t possessed. She was a revenant.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “She let the demon in,” I said. We passed the bright lights of the casino and got onto the highway. “It was a rage demon. It had been feeding off her for weeks, whispering in the girl’s ear. She’d strangled the family cat the day before I arrived.”

  “Damn. So she just let the demon in for a ride?” I could hear her disgust. “Did you try to exorcise it or something?”

  “Or something. Once the host soul accepts the possessing spirit, separating the two is about as easy as petting a hungry wolf.” My fingers clutched the wheel tighter as flashes of remembered pain crawled down my back. I looked down at my speedometer and realized I was closing in on 80 mph. I took my foot off the gas and let the car slow down before I continued.

  “I tried pulling the demon out. It and the girl didn’t like that. They decided to teach me a lesson, put me in my place.” I remembered the smell of sulfur. “She used balefire on me.”

  I heard Angela suck in a breath. There was a damn good chance she had never even heard of balefire before. Most mundanes never encounter the stuff. I studied history as part of my training, both the works of the mundane world and the chronicles written by wizards. The wizards’ histories recall a time when demons and devils walked the earth openly. All of them could summon the fires of the Hells. Deep down, in the primitive parts of the minds of all of us, is the memory of balefire.

  “What is it?” she asked

  “The one thing everyone’s afraid of,” I said. “The girl used it like a whip. Cut her parents to pieces. Then she decided to take a few chunks outta me.”

  “How’d you deal with her?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer her. The moments of silence stretched into minutes. My silence told Angela all she needed to hear.

  “You killed... her,” she said.

  “I destroyed an adult who decided to become a revenant,” I said. “She wasn’t going to stop with her parents. She wasn’t going to stop with me. It was the only option on the table.” I took the exit for Lakeland.

  “What did you do?”

  “After? Called the Sentinels. The neighbors reported a house fire.”

  Angela didn’t say much after that, except to tell me which exits to take. Soon enough, we were on North Forbes Road heading south.

  “Do you regret killing her?” she finally asked.

  “No,” I said. “Sometimes, you don’t have a choice.”

  “Turn left on MLK and then left again after Oakbrook Lane.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Lester’s meeting us at the auto parts store.”

  Sure enough, Lester was waiting for us in the empty parking lot of the auto parts store next to the trailer park. He had parked next to a fenced-in stack of used tires. Once I had parked and we got out, I gently grabbed Angela’s arm.

  “Something you should think about, Angela,” I said, my voice softer than it had been in the car. She stared at me. It looked like she was forcing her eyes to stay blank. “This world I exist in, that Marks chose to enter, is not short on horror. I’ve had to take other lives, too.”

  “What are you telling me?” she asked, pulling her arm free.

  “Get out after this case is done,” I said. “Transfer to another station. Stay away from all this. If you want to keep your sanity, stay away from it.”

  I left her staring after me and walked over to Lester. He gave me an inquisitive look. Angela joined us a moment later. The two deputies went around to the back and pulled out their tactical vests from the SUV’s trunk.

  “What did you find out, Lester?” I asked.

  “Perp’s name is Ezekiel Griffin, aka Zigzag.”

  “Someone actually accepted the nickname Zigzag?” I asked.

  Lester didn’t laugh. “After release, he went missing,” he said.

  “He knew he was in deep shit,” I said. “If Magdelena arranged for him to get sprung, he knew it wasn’t to keep him safe.”

  Lester nodded and held out a Glock to me. I shook my head and showed him my M1911 on my hip.

  “Zigzag
has a dealer friend in this trailer park,” he said. “Last trailer in the back.” Lester pointed to the closed gate behind me. “This lot will take us all the way there.”

  “And provide good cover,” said Angela. “Smart move, Sarge.”

  I checked my pockets for the crystal. The warmth of the stored magical power felt reassuring. I walked over to the gate. The lock on it was covered in rust, as was the chain.

  “Not gonna cut it like last time?” asked Angela.

  I gave the lock a stiff kick. The lock held, which brought a chuckle out of Angela.

  “Children,” said Lester from behind us. “Always the hard way.”

  When I turned to fire back a retort, I saw he was carrying a pair of bolt cutters. “You shouldn’t have,” I said. “I could have taken mine out.”

  Angela stifled a laugh. I stared at her, about to say something, until I realized what I’d said.

  Lester didn’t respond. He cut the lock and returned the bolt cutters to his SUV.

  “Breaking and entering? Isn’t there a law against that?” I asked.

  “Not if the owner gave his permission,” said Lester with a smile. “I told him I’d replace the chain and the lock.”

  “Could’ve just gotten the keys off him,” I replied.

  “He was home, half asleep,” answered the sergeant.

  I looked skyward and rolled my eyes.

  The back lot had a dirt gravel road. A sheet metal garage was directly ahead of the gate. There was a mid-size sedan on a lift missing its front end. A trio of gutted vans sat next to the garage, panels missing on the sides. Further in, a pair of giant passenger buses sat, their windows covered with caked-on dirt. Beyond those I could see the outline of rows of abandoned cars.

  Lester and Angela pulled out small flashlights. I gripped my cane below the knotted end. Going by the lot, I guessed the owner had been purchasing scrap vehicles and then selling the parts piecemeal to anyone who came by and took them out. More than a few of the cars were missing hoods. Most components of value had been stripped out. I chuckled.

  “What?” asked Angela.

  “Just a morbid thought,” I replied. “Let’s keep going.”

  As we neared the end of the car graveyard, I noticed a wooden picket fence to our left. Beyond it I could make out the lights from the trailers and the roofs of the ones closest to it.

  “Which one is it again?” I asked.

  “Last one on the left,” said Lester, nodding in the direction.

  “Let’s go say hi, then,” said Angela. She picked up the pace and made it to the fence.

  On the back end of the trailer park, the wooden fence had several planks missing from a corner.

  “Guess the meth heads use this if you all show up,” I said, keeping my voice soft enough for only the deputies to hear. Angela fit through the hole in the fence just fine, as did Lester. When I made the attempt, I found it was a bit tight around the chest.

  Once I’d gotten to my feet, I looked at the deputies, who were trying not to laugh at me.

  I pulled the crystal from my pocket and said, “Solvo.” The welcome surge of power flowed into me as the crystal faded and cracked. I pointed at the back door and motioned for the cops to go around to the front. They both nodded. The back door for the trailer had hinges on the outside and three stone steps leading up. I waited.

  “Sheriff’s department, open the door,” I heard from the other side.

  The haphazard scrambling of intoxicated people was difficult to miss. It happened faster than I thought it would. Perhaps they were coming down from a high rather than starting one. If that was the case, this might go smoother than I had hoped. I grabbed the end of my cane in both hands and brought it up like a baseball bat.

  The first person through the back door wasn’t Ezekiel. This guy had short black hair, a rail-thin body, and a complexion like moldy bread. He had a split-second of reaction before my cane’s knot handle cracked him across the jaw. I could hear bone snap. I readied for another swing as Zigzag made his way for the exit. He opted instead to jump at me, hoping to take me down with a flying tackle.

  I brought my left hand up and released a small amount of the stored power, saying, “Aegis.”

  The shielding spell I raised was a weak one. The pocket of strengthened gravity wasn’t lethal. It did cause Ezekiel’s leap to stop short, though. His face hit the dirt close to my shoes and I heard a squishy grown a moment later.

  I kicked him away gently. Ezekiel flopped onto his back. I looked up and saw Lester and Angela standing at the back door. They were smiling like over-baked stoners, which seemed appropriate.

  Helping the tweaker I’d clocked back to his feet, I asked, “What’s your name, bud?”

  “Dave,” he said before spitting out bloody saliva and a rotting molar.

  “Of course it is,” I said with a sigh. “Dave, go inside and sit on the couch.”

  “Okay, man.” He did as he was told. Ezekiel used the stone steps to prop himself up. From inside I could hear Dave groaning as he took a seat on the couch.

  “Get up, Zigzag,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Only a tweaker would be nicknamed Zigzag. Why that? Why not just Zeke? Or Big Z?”

  “Big Z’s my brother,” said Ezekiel. His voice had a quaking timber to it.

  “He a methhead too?” I asked, keeping my tone conversational.

  The wiry addict started scratching at a sore on his neck. Within a second or two, the sore opened, blood slowly ebbing out. Lester shut the front door and took a spot next to Angela in the front room. I entered and surveyed the room while Ezekiel took a seat next to Dave.

  I was thankful I kept the door open. My nostrils flared as I breathed in the lingering stench of rotting food. The trailer had an open floor design. The kitchen area and living space took up the main area. To the right of the back door, a narrow hall led to what I figured was an unused shower and bedroom. Food wrappers littered the floor like scraps in a slaughterhouse. The carpet may have been light brown at some point, but the scattered cigarette ashes mashed into it had turned it a mottled brown.

  “Ezekiel, do you know who I am?” I asked.

  He nodded and continued to scratch his neck.

  “Do you know what I am?”

  He stared up at me and stopped moving.

  “The Red King’s impressive. But he’s a rank amateur,” I said slowly. I rested the knot handle of my cane on his left shoulder. “Tell the deputies what they want to know. Or I’ll rip it from your addled mind.”

  “You can’t,” he said, spit flying from his lips with each word. Ezekiel looked to the deputies, pleading for an intervention. Both of them gave him a stern look. I call it “cop face,”-the look that says in no uncertain terms that you are in deep shit. Ezekiel had seen the look before. He looked down at the garbage-strewn floor.

  “Why’d you kill CeCe?” asked Blackwell.

  “I didn’t kill her,” he said, his tone becoming frantic. “Boss told me to dump her.”

  “Where was that?” asked Lester, his arms crossed against his chest.

  “Not gonna tell,” said Ezekiel, but there wasn’t any actual defiance in his voice.

  I nudged his cheek with my cane’s handle. “Not our deal, Zeke.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he said. He reared back and spit at me. He missed.

  I channeled a little power into my cane. The glyphs lit up with emerald light. “You’re afraid of your boss. Fear is healthy. Be more afraid of me.”

  “He’ll kill me!”

  “Zeke, you’re already dead,” I said, speaking like I would to a child. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Angela barely suppressing a shiver. “You botched dumping CeCe. Then you screwed up trying to kill me and Deputy Blackwell. You’re lucky I left you alive that night. Face it. The Red King wants you dead.”

  Dave watched my cane with rapt attention. “Are those LEDs, man?” he asked.

  “Dave, shush,” I said, holding a finger to my lips. “Zeke,
if you tell us everything, you get to live.”

  He pondered that notion longer than I thought was necessary. “He’ll find me,” he said. “Maggie will find me.”

  “We found you,” said Angela. “Come with us. Tell us everything you know.”

  Before Ezekiel could answer, the front door to the trailer burst open. Two men wielding shotguns stepped in, guns raised. They wore Police vests.

  They were aiming at me and Ezekiel.

  Chapter 17

  Stimulus and response. It’s the cornerstone of all our actions. It reminds me of a line from one of my favorite movies. If a man puts a gun in your face, you have two choices: you can die or you can kill the motherfucker.

  It’s an easy choice if you’re by yourself in a fight.

  When you have to protect yourself and a witness for your investigation, it gets a bit more complicated.

  I slammed power through my body and into my ring, visualizing a strong shield in front of myself and Ezekiel. I said, “Aegis.” The magic formed just as the pair of cops pulled their triggers.

  Buckshot at close range will make mincemeat of a human body. The pellets sped toward me. I heard screaming from my right, which was doubtless Ezekiel losing his mind. The blast hit my shield. The pellets slowed to a stop before dropping to the floor.

  Dave wasn’t so fortunate. His face and upper chest took the brunt of at least one shell’s worth of 00 Buck. What was left was just so much wet meat. Maintaining the shield, I dropped my cane and grabbed Ezekiel, pulling him up to his feet. I threw him to the floor behind me.

  “Drop the guns,” I heard Lester shout out. He had hit the deck, taking refuge behind a door frame in the hallway.

  The two assassin cops didn’t respond with words. They fired another volley, one aiming at me while the other fired at the hallway. My shield stopped the pellets again, but I could feel sweat starting to flow down my forehead. My legs felt like they could buckle at any second. The euphoric high of reclaiming my power from the crystal started to feel like a long time ago.