Skeleton Crew (21 page)

Titania reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Oberon and Titania are your friends, Domino,” she said. “And I will not betray that friendship by lying to you now. The king and queen of the Seelie Court can
never
be your friends. They can only be your allies, in this battle and those to come. They are strong and powerful allies, but they will always pursue the interests of their kingdom and they will
always seek advantage. This is their duty. Make use of them, Domino, and align your interests with theirs where you can.

But you must not
ever
trust them.”

I suddenly remembered the story Adan had told me about his first hunt as a child. I pictured Oberon sitting astride his horse, watching as the boy fought for his life. And I pitied Oberon—actually, I despised the king and pitied the man. I pitied Titania and all of the sidhe. I thought I finally understood what it meant to be without a soul.

“I'm sorry, Domino,” Titania said quietly.

I nodded and took another drink. “You can have South Central,” I said. “Terrence was barely holding it before—even if he survives this thing, he's not going to have enough of an outfit to hold those streets. With Hollywood, Mobley's turf in South L.A. and Terrence's in South Central, you'll be the second biggest player in town.”

“Agreed,” said Oberon. “That will be sufficient to bring in thousands more, Domino. We are at your service for the duration of this conflict.”

“Good, because I need a lot of service.” I filled him in on the details of my plan. It took a while. “I need you to open your doors, too, King. Every juice box you got, you bring in civilians and keep them safe.”

“Of course,” said Oberon. “We've built up our infra structure substantially since we arrived. Our doors are open to you.”

“I also need the banshees. Can we tie them into a divination ritual? I need them to give Chavez the locations of heavy Zed concentrations. Chavez can deploy the troops, coordinate our efforts. I want them to loop me in, too. I want to know where every dead motherfucker in the city is, in real-time.” The only ones I wouldn't be able to coordi
nate were the Xolos, but I was pretty sure they knew their business better than I did.

Oberon nodded. “This is easily done.”

“Good. I also still need you with me on the demons. What do you know about a cat named Valafar?”

“He was a low-ranking general of the Fomoire,” the king said. “Is he involved in his?”

“Looks that way. He was a big player in La Calavera's dogfights. I figured he was just another spirit—he didn't look anything like the giant we fought here in the club, or like the spider-squid he sicced on us after we set the Xolos free.”

“Did he have the body of a man and the head of a lion?” Titania asked.

I shook my head. “He was wearing a lionskin cloak over his suit. I thought it was a little over the top, even for the Between.”

“The Fomoire take many forms,” Oberon said. “The fire giant we faced is one form, the shock troops of the legions. More powerful demons have some measure of control over their appearance. The lionskin cloak may have been Valafar's best effort to disguise his true nature in the spirit world.”

“Yeah, he had a forked tongue, but it didn't seem all that unusual in a place where everybody's on fire or wearing someone else's face.”

“If Valafar was involved in the games, it may be he knew the effect the abduction of the Xolos would have on the mortal world.”

I nodded. “And maybe he knew the dead walking would make it easier for him to bring his demons across.” I shrugged. “Or maybe he was just a whale with exotic tastes in sports betting. La Calavera needed a lot of juice and she definitely catered to her high rollers.”

“Perhaps,” said the king, “but such a coincidence would seem improbable. Valafar's involvement also explains how this Francis Mobley was able to summon demons to his cause.”

“Yeah, the demon convinced Mobley to open the gate for them, but Valafar brought them through and they're under his command. We can deal with Mobley whenever we get a little spare time, but we won't solve the demon problem until we put Valafar down. I'm not sure what kind of juice he's got, but I'm guessing I'll need you with me for that, too.”

“We'll be there, Domino,” Oberon said. “This is an enemy we share. It shall always be our honor and our privilege to stand with you against the Fomoire.”

“This is remarkable, Domino,” said Titania. “To be perfectly frank, we have been doing everything we can to contain the zombies, but we believed it was over. What you've managed to put together…it's extraordinary.”

“We haven't done anything yet. We have a hundred thousand zombies in the city. By the time the weekend rolls around, all us poor mortals could be lining up for the brains buffet.”

Terrence was running his war out of an old motel he owned on Manchester in Inglewood. It had a vertical, multicolored sign advertising air-conditioned rooms and color TV, and one of those decorative concrete fences they stopped building in the early sixties. The fence and the motel itself were white with baby-blue trim, which didn't exactly complement the red-tiled roof. The paint looked like it hadn't been touched up in a few decades. I drove through the covered entrance and pulled into the small interior parking lot.

The place was crawling with soldiers. There were six of them out in front of the office, and I saw several more standing in the open doorways of motel rooms. I got out of the Lincoln and walked to the office. One of the soldiers was a white guy…more or less. I recognized him. It was Anton.

His skin had gone a kind of yellowish-brown, almost like we were in the Between, but otherwise he didn't look too bad. He was wearing shades, so I couldn't see his eyes. He had a revolver tucked into the front waistband of his track suit and he was holding a machete. His head turned slowly and he watched me approach.

“Anton, I didn't expect to see you here.” I couldn't help myself—I pulled him into a quick hug. Under the track suit, his skin felt hard and stiff, like wet leather that had been left out in the sun to dry. I heard his teeth grinding, and he groaned. I released him and stepped back. “Jesus, Anton, are you keeping it together?”

“It is fucking sun, Domino,” he said. His voice was dry and cracked. “It is baking me, like fucking mummy.”

“Yeah, I can see that, but that's not what I meant.”

“I'm sorry, Domino. You are soft and warm. It is hard for me.”

“No, you're doing real good, Anton. I'm just glad you're still you.” He didn't even really smell—well, he smelled like cheap cologne, but that was better than the alternative.

“Heavy Chevy's a motherfucking rock,” said the soldier standing next to him. I didn't recognize the guy, but he was alive and he didn't seem to object to Anton's company. “He ain't even tried to bite nobody.”

“I keep all my guys in line, Domino,” said Anton. “Like you do it. We fight Mobley's crews only, and we don't hurt the people.”

“I'm proud of you, Anton. I'm going to give you a medal when this is all over.”

He tried to smile but his withered lips wouldn't really cooperate. “I do not need medal, Domino. I want the nice funeral, with flowers and the good coffin with little pillows inside.”

I nodded and smiled, and then I put my head down and hurried to the office door.

Terrence was in a room behind the front desk, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Softly glowing globes the size of basketballs floated in the air around him, images of the gang war flickering within them like crystal balls. Terrence
shifted the spectral globes with his hands, repositioning them and studying each one. He curled his hands into fists and dropped them to his knees, and the spheres vanished.

“We just about done here, Domino,” he said. “Pretty soon, all my soldiers going to be on Anton's side and he'll be running this outfit.”

“That bad?”

“About eighty percent attrition. Like I said, a lot of them hooking up with Anton's crew, otherwise this would be over already. Most don't last long after they turn, though, and Anton got to put them down. I guess you saw the machete he carries around.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah, might be it's time for him. The demons are the worst of it, about like you'd expect. Some of them got juice, Domino. I've seen them pull souls out of zombies and eat them. What do you suppose happens to a guy when his soul is eaten?”

“I don't know, Terrence. Maybe they just eat the ghost—

I've seen that kind of thing before.” I didn't mention it was Terrence's nephew. “Seems like a soul is more than just a ghost.” I sat down on the floor facing him.

“Simeon Wale is MIA,” Terrence said.

“When?”

“Last night. He took a crew behind the lines, hit a home less shelter Mobley was using down in Compton. He said they had a demon in there and that was the last I heard.

Ain't heard anything from his crew, either. The shelter burned.”

“Okay,” I said, “you talked to Chavez? You know what we're doing?”

Terrence nodded. “I like the plan, D. Not sure what I
can contribute, though. Ain't really anything left you'd call a sanctuary south of Huntington Park.”

“I know, but there's a lot of people here, Terrence. We have to do what we can to protect them. Pull back, let Mobley breathe and focus on civilians for the next couple days.”

“I don't have enough soldiers, D. Didn't have that many to begin with. Think I told you I got about eighty percent less than when I started. It's too much territory, and the front line's basically running along the 105, right through the middle of it.”

“I'm going to send you some more reinforcements, Terrence.”

He looked at me, his face expressionless. “Outfit?” he said finally. “Or fairies?”

I nodded. “I have to give it to him, Terrence. He can't bring in more sidhe unless he controls enough juice to support them—or he won't, anyway. We aren't going to survive this without his help.”

“You know that's how he's going to do it, right?”

“What?”

“How he's going to rebuild his kingdom. I couldn't really figure how he thought he was going to do that, you know? But there always going to be something worse, Domino. Today it's zombies, tomorrow going to be something else. And we're always going to need his help. A few blocks here, a few hoods there. When this is over, he's going to own most everything from Hollywood to Compton, D. He'll be coming for you next, looking for Downtown, looking for Chinatown and Koreatown and Huntington Park, over to Crenshaw and Culver City.”

“I know, Terrence, and the only way we can stop that from happening is to get our shit together, get strong so we
don't need him for every crisis of the day. Plus, there may come a day when Oberon needs
our
help, and when it does I plan to make the son of a bitch pay dearly for it.”

“You say so, D. Anyway, I ain't got the muscle to raise much of a fuss about it. I want you to make room for my people, any of them make it through.”

“I will, Terrence. I'll find a spot for you, too. Hell, I won't have to find a spot—you're going to have rank in Rashan's outfit when this is over.”

“I live to see the day, I been thinking about an early retirement. The game ain't the same after this, Domino. I ain't the same.”

“I need you, Terrence. You don't have to make any promises. I'm not your boss. Just give me a shot to recruit you.”

The limp body of one of Terrence's soldiers crashed through the office's plate-glass window and smashed into the front desk. Alarm bells sounded and the hair on the back of my neck stood up as wards activated and raw magic swept through the room.

“Intrusion,” Terrence said, and leaped to his feet. I followed suit, reaching for my forty-five semiautomatic under my arm.

A pitch-black, vaguely humanoid creature crawled through the front window and onto the ceiling. It looked like a hairless man, except it had four arms and all of its limbs were impossibly long, thin, and articulated like a crab's. It had no eyes, nose or ears that I could see—just a wide, grinning mouth filled with pointed teeth. It clung to the ceiling of the office and its head swiveled around, a black, forked tongue darting at the air.

Terrence chanted hip-hop lyrics and spun a combat spell. There was no obvious effect, but the creature hissed and
dropped from the ceiling to the floor, landing on its back with its arms and legs wriggling in the air like a bug.

“Crawlers,” Terrence said. “I hit them with anti-magic spells. Doesn't kill them, but it slows them down.”

“Crawlers, plural?”

Terrence nodded. “Always packs of them.”

The crawler flipped over, crouched, and leaped onto the front desk. Its jaws yawned wide, the thin tongue writhing at us, and the demon hissed. Another one crawled in through the window onto the ceiling.

“Well, how do you kill them?”

Terrence grunted. “Haven't figured that out yet. Maybe you got some ideas.”

“Vi Victa Vis,” I said, extending my hand toward the crawler demon. It rocked back on its haunches as the force spell flowed around it and blew out the front wall of the office. “Damn.”

“Told you,” Terrence said, and then he hit the demon on the ceiling with another magic-suppressing spell. It lost its grip and followed the first down to the floor.

“God is a scientist,” I said, “not a magician.” I dropped my own magic-killing spell on the demon crouching on the front desk. It hissed again and wrapped all four arms around its head, covering its blank face. I brought up the forty-five and shot it in the chest. The demon's skin puckered and rippled, and the bullet was swallowed up like I'd fired it into a tar pit. Another demon crawled in through the broken window and skittered along the wall.

“This is below average, Terrence,” I said.

Terrence glanced over at me. “You telling me, Domino. This is what I been doing while you looking for lost dogs.”

“Touché,” I said. “Sorry about your motel.”

“What about it? I can fix the win—”

“Vi Victa Vis!” I shouted, pulling all the juice I could reach out of Terrence's turf. The force spell blew out the front wall, along with the one facing the street. The roof collapsed into the lobby and two of the demons were buried in the rubble. The demon perched on the front desk screamed and sprang at us.

Terrence triggered a spell talisman and a wall of force formed in front of us, shimmering like a heat wave. The demon hit the wall, but it didn't bounce off. It kind of slowed and flowed around it like a fly in molasses. It dropped to the floor, hissed and leaped up to cling to the office ceiling. We turned and watched as it scrabbled to the back of the room.

“Damn it, Domino,” Terrence said. “There's other shit I wanted to try.”

“Like what?” I said. “Anyway, it's going to be Oberon's motel soon enough.” Maybe it wasn't very tactful to bring it up, but Terrence needed to be practical about the situation.

“I'll suppress its magic, you hose it down with the hostile shit.” I nodded and Terrence spun his juice-killing mojo again. The demon plopped to the floor and curled up like a roly-poly.

“All power corrupts,” I said, “but we need the electricity.” Naked current arced from my fingertips and played across its skin. The demon stiffened and screamed, and greasy, foul-smelling smoke curled from its hide where the electricity touched it.

“Hey, it's working!” I said, and then another crawler demon pounced on Terrence from behind. The monster sunk two clawed hands into his abdomen, two more into his face and clamped down on the back of his bald head with its oversize jaws. Terrence stumbled forward under the demon's momentum, but he didn't go down. He reached out
and caught himself on the office desk, and then he pushed off and rammed the demon into the nearest wall.

“Hit it, Domino,” he gasped, and spun his suppression spell again.

“It's electricity, Terrence, it will—”

“Hit it!”

“Fuck that, Terrence,” I said. “All movements go too far.” I spun the telekinesis spell and hurled the demon across the room—tried to, anyway. Even with Terrence's spell eating at its magic, the demon still had enough resistance left to counter most of the juice I could put on it. Gritting my teeth and reaching for more power, I slowly peeled it off Terrence, and its claws left bloody furrows across his abdomen and cheeks as it was pulled away from him. When it was clear, I spun the lightning spell again and electricity coursed over it. The demon dropped to the floor and curled up, twitching and smoking.

“I think the suppression spell has more bite than the lightning,” I said. The demon's skin was beginning to dissolve, running down its arms and legs like black ink and pooling beneath it. “You okay, Terrence?” He was braced against the wall with one hand, the other clutching his stomach. He nodded. “Let's kill as much juice as we can, both of us together, and try to choke it out.”

We couldn't actually suck the juice out of the demon. We'd need a ritual for that, and even then I wasn't sure I wanted to squeeze a demon. What we were doing was really the opposite—pumping as much of our countermagic into the monster as we could to neutralize its own.

It worked. The demon began dissolving more and more quickly as we opened up the tap on the suppression spells. Its liquefied flesh formed a smoking puddle of tar and ran in black rivulets across the linoleum floor. Soon all that was
left was its head, and it shifted and shuddered as it dissolved and broke apart, like a fused mass of ice cubes under hot water. We repeated the tactic on the other demon and soon the floor was slick with smoking black tar. As we watched, the tar appeared to evaporate in fast-forward, the puddles receding from each other, thinning, and finally disappearing altogether.

“Still got the ones the roof fell on,” Terrence said. “Might be more outside.”

Right on cue, some of the rubble shifted and one of the crawlers poked its head out. We pumped countermagic into it until it dissolved and disappeared back into the debris. I used my telekinesis spell to dig out the last one, and we repeated the trick.

“These guys aren't so tough,” I said.

“Fuck you, Domino,” said Terrence. I looked over at him and saw he was dabbing at the ugly red wounds on his face with a handkerchief.

“Damn, Terrence, sorry. You have any aspirin? I could try my healing spell.”

“I've seen your healing magic,” Terrence said. “I'd rather stand here and bleed.”

I couldn't really blame him. “You any better at it? I can get Honey down here—she'll patch you right up.” I knelt beside the soldier who had come through the window. His back and neck were broken, probably in multiple places.