Sick to my stomach, and no longer in the mood for coffee, I figured it best to get off the street while I waited for Scarlett. I wandered around the corner and back into the alley where Abraham and I had been ambushed. I paced back and forth for a while, replaying the scene where I’d left Abraham behind. My conscience gnawed at me as I thought about the things I could have done to avoid it. Caught up in my head, I barely heard the quiet squeak of brakes at the opposite end of the alley. I looked up to see a gray van parked there, the side door sliding open. I watched in disbelief as the Black Metal trio hopped out and started toward me.
“Not again,” I muttered to myself. You gotta hand it to them. They were nothing if not persistent. Not in the mood, I snarled. They were pissing me off. I looked the motley crew over as they stalked forward. Meinie had recovered from his injuries, no doubt thanks to Veronica and her gifts. He’d paid for that help though. His face was unhealthy thin, almost skeleton-ish. His clothes hung loosely from his narrow frame. He’d probably lost twenty pounds since I’d last seen him, pinned between the van and dumpster. The other two looked a little better, but not much. My ex-wife had left her mark on all of them. They looked used up, desiccated. Though in their case, looks were deceiving. As long as Veronica had her psychic hooks in, they were a threat. Stronger, faster, and armed with magical weapons, they could take me out, given the chance.
As they spread out across the alley, I noticed Eenie had replaced the knife I’d confiscated from the demon assassin with a samurai sword of some sort. I imagined it was wrought by the same supernatural hands that had created the weapons the other two wielded. I wasn’t interested in finding out. Unlike the last time, when they’d caught me unarmed, I was prepared to fight. As they got a little closer, I whipped my gun out and went to work. I pumped three rounds into Meenie. The first two slammed into his chest, the third crashed into his nose. He didn’t even have time to scream as the back of his head exploded in a spray of crimson tendrils and gray chunks. Before his body hit the ground, I was firing at Eenie. He caught two to the face. In a flash, his head was like a melted candle, streams of ruby pouring down his neck.
As his friends crumpled around him, their weapons clattering to the ground, Meinie closed on me. His eyes were like two pieces of coal, simmering with rage. He was looking for vengeance, but I was ready. He swung his short sword in a wide, downward arc, which I easily sidestepped. The blade bit into the cement, throwing up sparks as I moved behind him. Before he could spin about, I shot him in the back of the knee. He screamed like a banshee as his leg buckled and he fell, face first. I was on him like white on rice. My next shot was to his wrist, the bones shattering on impact. His sword bounced from his hand and skittered across the ground to land a few feet away.
I added insult to injury. I stepped on his broken wrist and pressed the barrel of my. 45 hard against the base of his skull.
“E Nomine Satanas, motherfucker.” I pressed harder, his face grinding against the rough pavement. His grunted moans made me happy. “I know my ex is a hot little number, but trust me, nothing she’s got is worth dying for.”
He muttered something incoherent and bucked against me. Despite his wounds, he was still pretty strong, Veronica’s magic coursing through his veins. I increased the pressure on his wrist and leaned my weight into my gun. After an initial groan, he went quiet. He was smarter than he looked.
“I’m trying to give you an out. Don’t give me any more of a reason to kill you than I already have.
Do you understand?”
I could feel his resistance crumbling as he thought about his options. He grunted affirmative.
“Good. Now play nice and I won’t have to blow your balls off, you hear?”
He gave the thumbs up gesture with his good hand and I took a step back, kicking his sword further away as I did. Moaning, he pulled himself into a seated position, his back against the wall. He looked up at me, his eyes awash with fear, his body too dehydrated to form tears. But for all his bravado, he hadn’t signed up to die.
“How’d you find me?”
“Veronica told us where you’d be.”
“How did she know? Is she working with Baalth?”
He shrugged. “No idea about Baalth. All I know is she said she could track you. That she knew where you’d be. I don’t know how she does it.”
I thought I did. As a succubus, Veronica was drawn to the essence of life. She fed on it, devoured it, leaving behind an empty husk. I don’t mean just our marriage either. She’d always been able to seek out the most potent of humans to feed on, but it had been more of an instinctual thing. It happened without her conscious control. At least it had. We’d been separated for the last twenty years. A lot could change in that time. The possibilities were intriguing.
“It’s too scrawny. You’ll have to throw it back,” a voice from behind me said, interrupting my thoughts with a start.
I turned to see Scarlett strolling up to me.
“We’re gonna have to stop meeting like this.” I gestured to the alley. “People are starting to talk.”
As usual, she just laughed at me. It made me feel like the loser at the bar who’d be stopping off at the allhours quickie mart for magazines and hand lotion on his way home.
“Don’t tell me you needed my help with this?”
She pointed to Meinie.
“No, I think I’ve got this one handled. I actually needed you to help fry a bigger fish.” Keeping an eye on Veronica’s wannabe assassin, I pulled the business card out that Poe had given me and handed it to her. She looked it over. “What are the addresses for?”
“Those are a few of Asmoday’s local interests. I’m hoping you’ll look after them. I’d hate to see anything happen. You know, like a raging inferno or an accidental carpet-bombing.”
“You think he’s at one of them?” She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of raining down her righteousness on Asmoday.
“I doubt it, but if you make a big enough mess, he might pay a visit.”
“Ah, you’re looking to draw him out.”
I nodded. “Either him or one of his cohorts, Page 159 preferably one from on high. If they’re busy protecting his interests, they aren’t off destroying the world.”
“That’s a simplistic presumption.”
“Simple is what I do best. Besides, I’m not choking all my chickens in one basket.”
Scarlett looked at me like she didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended. I could tell she was leaning toward the latter.
“Just pay a visit to those addresses and let me know what happens. I’ll handle the rest. Oh, and do me another favor.”
She raised her eyebrow.
“Can you take those things with you?” I pointed to the collection of weapons scattered amongst the bodies. “I don’t have time to stash them somewhere safe.”
She nodded and scooped them up in a hurry. Not one to resist the opportunity to blow something up, Scarlett waved and shot up out of the alley, leaving me alone with Meinie.
He sat there with wide eyes as he watched the golden trail of her passage fade away.
“Come on. We’ve got places to go and succubi to see.”
He shook his head, sweat pasting his greasy hair to his face. “I can’t do that. She’ll kill me, man.”
“You ever see the movie Deliverance?” His eyes grew wide. Apparently he had. “If you don’t get up and Page 160 move your ass little piggy, I’m gonna whip out my banjo and make you squeal, you feel me?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “I’ll take you, man. I’ll take you.”
“Good choice.”
I grabbed his healthy arm and hauled him to his feet. Twisting it behind his back, I dragged him to the van and shoved him inside. I hopped in the back and closed the door, settling in. To be sure I had his cooperation I jammed my gun against the driver’s seat hard enough so he could feel it through the padding.