“Got them,” Ex said. “The place is about a block and a half down on the east side of the street. There’s a truck in the front, and I’m pretty sure they’ve got the motorcycles in the back. I’m only seeing Rhodes and the woman. Idéa Smith. If Martinez is there, he’s not near a window.”
Chogyi Jake opened the rear door. By the dome light, he started gathering the four new shotguns.
“And Carla?” Jay said. “Is she there? Did you see her?”
“Didn’t,” Ex admitted. “But we weren’t getting too close. They have wards on the place. When we come in, they’re going to know it.”
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s the plan. Chogyi Jake and I will head for the front and see if we can pull them out to the street. You and Jay get his car parked on the next street over and come in at the back. If they try to get her out, you can grab her. If they don’t, you can go in after her. Invoke Calling Malkuth so the magic’s not as effective, and then use the guns if you need them.”
“ ‘Calling Malkuth’?” Jay asked, his brows furrowed.
“Special kind of prayer,” Ex said. “And once we have her, where do we go?”
“Airport and out of town,” I said. “Wherever the first flight’s going.”
“Wait,” Jay said. “What about—”
“It’s on my dime,” I said. “If you’re not here, I’ve got one less thing to worry about.”
“And you?” Ex asked.
“There’re some things only your enemies know about you,” I said. “I’m going to try to distract them and get them to talk to me. Maybe get something useful out of them before it all goes down.”
“You know they have guns too,” Ex said, scowling.
“Didn’t say it was going to be easy,” I said.
chapter fourteen
There are a lot reasons that dealing with riders felt like crime. The first one—the most important one—is that I never wanted the police involved. I’ve got nothing but respect for cops. They’ve got a rough job, and an important one. But when they’re around, they’re the authority. Explaining that they shouldn’t arrest me because the guy I just shot is really a demon from another plane of existence would actually be worse than just insisting on speaking with my lawyer. I had faith in my ability to buy my way out of almost any amount of legal trouble short of murder, but it was always easier to stay out of the legal system than to get out once I was in it.
Another reason was that most of what I did and had done for years now involved doing something other people—often violent and powerful people—didn’t want me to do. Abducting a girl before a New Orleans voodoo cult could put a rider in her, for instance, although that one hadn’t really gone as expected.
But the thing that made my job and criminal work most similar was this: I didn’t care what other people wanted. For a thief or a murderer, that was because very few people are up for being robbed or killed. Really taking into account what the person on the other end of the knife wanted, including them in the dialog, pretty much meant you weren’t a thief and murderer anymore. For me, it was more complex. I could want the best for the people I dealt with, but I couldn’t assume they wanted the best for themselves anymore.
Riders are like any kind of parasite. They change the organism they’re living in. A caterpillar parasitized by some kinds of wasp larvae will defend the larvae even while they are eating it alive. Toxoplasma gondii bacteria make its host mouse like the smell of cat in order to get the mouse eaten and the bacterium into the cat’s gut, where it is happiest. An ant with fungal parasites will climb to the top of a blade of grass and wait for a cow to come eat it. People with riders don’t have free wills the way normal folks do. They are puppets on strings, and if they are even still in their bodies, they may not even know they are being controlled. For all I knew, Rhodes and his buddies hated the things they were doing now.
For that matter, if I hadn’t had a rider, I might never have fallen from grace with the church. I might not have left home. All the choices I had made in my whole life were suspect. I knew it, and it didn’t change anything. I had to pretend that I had made all my own choices at the same time that I was willing to put theirs down to being controlled by spirits and ghosts. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I stood at the corner, looking down the dark street. My right hand was in a cheap vinyl duffel bag, my fingers wrapping the stock and trigger of a Remington 870 Express. The nice thing about shotguns, at least for me, is I didn’t have to have great aim. Chogyi Jake stood beside me, blowing warmth into his cupped hands.
The house looked different in the night, but not so much that I didn’t recognize it. The single tree close to the road. The porch and porch swing. Darkness had turned the white walls to gray, and the blue of its neighbors almost black. It was the same house I’d seen in the vision, though. No doubt about it.
“Are you all right?”
“About to walk into a trap,” I said. “Feeling a little nervous.”
“We still have options,” he said. “We can call the police. Report her as having been kidnapped.”
“Wouldn’t do any good,” I said. “And it would put a bunch of innocent people in danger.”
“Better if the people in danger aren’t innocent?” he asked, and I smiled.
“If they’re shooting at anyone, better that it’s us. At least we know to expect it.”
He shifted, swinging his own cheap duffel bag off his shoulder, putting his own hand in to match my own.
“This isn’t your fault, you know,” he said.
“It’s my responsibility, though. That’s close enough. I’m trying to take a lot of comfort in the fact they were packing rock salt before.”
“Is that working?”
“Not really,” I said. “You ready?”
Chogyi Jake nodded and we started down the street. The cold and the dark meant there was no one else out. I stopped at the sidewalk across the street from the Invisible College’s safe house. The shotgun felt heavy and unpleasant in my hands. The lights burned white in the windows, and I could feel the force of the wards pushing my awareness away. I remembered being in science class in middle school and having the teacher—a short, mean woman with red hair and bad teeth—show us that we all had a blind spot. She went on about how everyone had a little glitch in their field of vision where the optic nerve was attached to the retina, but I was just sitting at my desk, playing at making the tip of my finger disappear. Move it an inch, it appeared. Shift back and it was gone. The house was like that too. There and gone. It made my head ache a little to look at it.
“They get to shoot first,” I said.
“Is that why you asked Ex to stay with your brother?”
“You don’t think Ex would let them take a free shot at me?”
“I think he wouldn’t.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. I didn’t want to cross the street and step directly into their wards and devices. I didn’t want to stay here and slowly freeze until they noticed me. Or if they had already, until they did something about me. “I feel like Lloyd Dobler.”
“Who?”
“Guy in a movie. Never mind.”
I was sure by now they’d noticed me, but nothing kept happening. It was my move, and their home court advantage. I drew my will up, letting the force of it pool in my throat. The Black Sun didn’t add anything to it. Whatever I started with, it would be only a human effort. I imagined her waiting in the space behind my eyes, as tense as I was and watching for our next move.
“Hey,” I called, pushing the word out. It was invisible, but I felt it break against the wards and shatter. That was fine. I hadn’t meant to get through, just knock. Maybe ten seconds later the door swung open. My gut went tight. Even in the dead of winter, my palms were sweating against the shotgun. I smelled overheated iron, like an empty skillet left too long on an open flame, and a vast pressure of qi curled over me. Whatever the riders were in those people’s skins, they were strong. And worse, they were smart.