No Place Like Hell (20 page)

I jogged down the street. I heard Dave's low voice calling me, but I didn't stop.

The building rose twenty feet into the air and occupied a full city block. The lower walls were unbroken sheet metal painted rust red. Or maybe the metal was rusty.

The upper walls had small windows spaced every ten feet, enough glass to give the interior daylight but make access impossible. No light shone through the cracked panes.

Twenty feet from the entrance, I slowed. The sign on the wall read
Southwest Freight
. No light filtered around the solid steel door, but a faint glow came through a grimy window high above the sign. Somewhere inside, Sleeth prepared to kill his next innocent victim.

The patrol car's headlights brightened the pavement in front of me. It purred to a crawl on my left. I set my jaw.

"Nicky, what are you doing? Get back in the car," Dave said, voice low, face drawn into a scowl.

"He's in there killing again," I said, keeping my eyes on the door. "We have to go in."

"We don't have probable cause. And we should wait for backup."

"Screw waiting. By the time they arrive, his next victim will be dead," I replied, advancing to the door. "Cover me."

34

The warehouse was cavernous—and stuffy, despite the ventilators in the roof that ticked and creaked as they spun in the wind. Their noise almost drowned the scratching of foraging rats.

To Kasker's right, against the distant wall, stairs led up to what must be an office overlooking the warehouse floor. Nothing moved behind the office window, from which dim light emanated.

On the concrete floor around him, stacks of boxes, crates, and shipping containers rose like a forest into the darkness overhead. The boxes smelled of musty cardboard, and the pallets they rested on of raw wood. Traces of diesel fumes from forklifts and spilled fuel clung in the torpid air.

A cleared path arrowed the block-long length of the building toward access to the suspended office. The rest of the floor seemed a jumbled maze.

Kasker veered away from the passage to the office and slipped along a narrow rabbit trail that led deep into the warehouse. He passed through a large open space where boxes enclosed a circle. Blood, the stale sweat of excited men, and pine cleaner tainted the air.

Canine blood, not human. Dark spatters marked the sides of the boxes. He'd found the makeshift dog-fight ring.

His sandals whispered over the floor, his hearing and smell attuned to his surroundings. His eyes grew more accustomed to the dark, and he moved faster through the labyrinth.

He found his objective near the back of the building. A recently departed soul clung to its stinking flesh. His nose detected the scent of blood, this time, human.

In the dim light, he couldn't identify the body sprawled on the floor. No ritual killing for this man. Just a deep slice across the throat.

Remembering the painful lump on his skull from leaving the flesh at the jewelry shop, Kasker sat with care, braced himself into a corner between two crates, and loosed his connection to his flesh. His true form sprang free, muzzle twitching, drool hanging from his lips.

Soul essence wafted into his nostrils, strong and sweet and tempting. He licked his chops. Alan Mong, dead perhaps two hours. The white fog of Mong's soul shimmered and twisted, confused by its sudden, violent end. So enticing to take just a nibble.

Kasker clamped his jaws and reached for his flesh. A new scent tingled his nose and stayed his return. He sniffed, the hair of his true form rising along his neck and back.

Magic.

The same dark odor that had surrounded Decker in the bookstore.

Walking on cautious paws, he followed the smell in his true form, stretching his bond to his flesh. He halted every few steps, testing for the absent smells of the ritual sacrifice—blood and offal. Testing for Holmes.

His zigzag path led toward the front corner, where the stairs climbed to the office. A curtain of power, undetectable while he wore the flesh, cloaked the area. A growl formed in his throat, and he slunk closer, each advance tentative.

The front door opened, and the ward stepped in, moving as silently as a shadow. He flattened to his belly. Goats! If the ward was here, could the guardian angel be far behind? Without his flesh to hide in, his true form would flare in the angel's sight.

Kasker scrambled for his flesh, galloping through the twists and turns of the aisles. His body jerked as he resumed control of it. His heart thundered in his chest.

He focused on the front door and worked to slow his breathing. Seconds later, the guardian angel blazed.

Summonings and invocations!
Would the police give him no peace? What were they doing here? And at his feet lay yet another death.

He silently cursed the flesh's paltry sense of smell and hearing, its limited ability to detect whatever danger lurked in the distant corner. He'd avoid that area at all costs.

The officers conferred in whispered voices, and then they moved toward the office. So typical of an angel—always drawn to the light.

Kasker tiptoed away from it, looking for a back exit. Little illumination penetrated this far. He banged a shin on a protruding box corner and bit back a curse.

He waited, frozen, to see if his clumsiness had been heard. The ward and the angel paused, and then they continued their slow approach to the stairs. What would happen when they reached the concentration of magic? His curiosity was almost enough to make him hang around.

Kasker found the back wall and fumbled along it. The only escape was through large roll-up doors. They'd make a holy racket if he raised one. He might as well scream to be arrested.

If he wanted to sneak out and leave the cops behind, it would be through the front door. The foolish pigs had left it unguarded. It would be easy enough to do once they went into the office—assuming they got that far.

But what if they'd called for backup? More fuzz could already be rolling toward the warehouse. He hurried forward.

Kasker reached the wide front access aisle and peered around a stack of freight. His escape waited twenty feet to his right, tantalizingly close. To his left, the angel and the ward neared the end of the building and the pool of magic. They bickered in whispers.

He should go, while their backs were turned. He stepped into the open.

35

"This goes against every protocol," Dave whispered. "We'll be kicked off the force."

"He has to be up there," I whispered back through clenched teeth while I eased across the warehouse floor toward the office. "It's the only light."

"What if he is? He could have a perfectly legitimate reason for coming here. We sure don't."

"Then he won't mind telling us his 'perfectly legitimate' reason—and why he was talking to Warner and Bronski."

"We should have stuck with them, not hared after Sleeth," Dave said. "They aren't poised to sue the department for harassment, and they're only half as smart. We'd have a greater chance of getting them to talk. We wouldn't be disobeying orders, either."

"If you're more worried about your career than his next victim, wait outside. I'm catching a killer before anyone else gets hurt."

Dave's frown was just visible in the illumination from the office window. No one passed before it while we crept closer. We didn't hear anyone moving, although with the clatter made by the roof vents, it would have taken an army marching to and fro for us to notice.

"What's gotten into you? You're so busy proving you're as good as a man that you don't care about doing things the right way anymore. You're smarter than that, Nicky. You're a better person than that."

Dave hung back, still not committed to the mission, but unwilling to let me go alone. I was glad to have him behind me. The place was too eerie.

I walked on, holster unsnapped, hand resting on the butt of my gun, and blood pulsing in my ears. The hairs on my arms stood on end. The warehouse seemed to inhale and exhale with a life of its own.

I was ten feet from the base of the open metal stairs leading up to the office door. They were bound to rattle. I'd have to tread carefully.

"Nicky! Don't go," Dave hissed behind me, his voice plaintive. His quick footsteps sounded against the concrete, closing the distance between us.

Lightning flashed. A boom shook the walls. I ducked and staggered a step. A miniature electrical storm crackled at the ceiling, throwing flickering light against the towering stacks of boxes.

A trail of marks on the floor throbbed with a blood red glow, and I jumped back. They reminded me of the marks on the floor around Decker. Like the lightning, they'd appeared out of nowhere. I felt as though we'd stepped out of reality; we'd stumbled into a carnival fun house.

The marks curved around both sides of me. I couldn't take my eyes off them. I turned to follow their weirdly hypnotic rhythm.

Dave swayed behind me and clutched his hands against his chest. His stricken face glowed from within, the way kids' faces did when they shone a flashlight in their mouths. It added to the surrealism.

His knees gave way, and he sank to the floor. He stared at the symbols. His chest convulsed.

"Dave!"

I rushed back and grabbed him as he crumpled to the floor. I eased him into my lap. His hands glowed white like his face. He couldn't draw breath.

"Hold on, Dave. Hold on."

I loosened his collar with shaking fingers. It didn't help. The beat of the symbols sped faster.

Movement caught my eye. Sleeth stood near the door, eyes wide, brow drawn down in horror.

Dave's gaze followed mine. Something flared in his eyes. He raised a shaky arm and pointed at Sleeth. His lips parted to speak.

The light in his hands and face winked out. His pointing fingers fell on his unmoving chest. I shook his limp shoulders.

"Dave? Dave!" I looked at Sleeth. "Help me!"

Sleeth's horror changed to abject terror. He took a step back, and then another.

"Help me, God damn it!" My voice cracked.

My plea froze Sleeth in his tracks. His head cocked, as though he was listening for something, and wild eyes scanned the ceiling.

I struggled to lift Dave, to drag him from the flashing circle that gradually faded. The lightning ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Tears fell like rain from my eyes.

At the back of the warehouse, metal clanged and rattled. A cool, fresh breeze stirred the air. Someone had raised an overhead door.

Sleeth's head jerked toward the sound. His eyes narrowed and his lips parted in a snarl. His neck and arms corded with tensed muscles.

"Holmes," he said in a guttural voice that was as much growl as word.

He sprinted away. His sandals slapped through the darkness.

Rage closed my throat against a scream. I let Dave go, drew my gun, and ran after Sleeth.

36

Kasker wove the narrow trail at speed, crashing hips and shoulders against box corners. He cut straight across the fight circle, vaulting the walls to close with his prey faster, all the while reaching with his senses for the souls who had raised the door.

And reaching to detect more magical traps. In the flesh, he had little hope of avoiding one. There'd been none elsewhere in the warehouse when he'd walked in his true skin, but new ones may have been laid in the interim. The tantalizing nearness of the prey drove him through his fear.

The ward followed. She ran quietly, her presence given away by bumps with unseen obstacles. He thought she'd stay with the downed angel's empty shell. He'd underestimated her hunter instincts.

Behind the warehouse, two souls flickered in and out of awareness. Why did they flicker? Something masked them, as though a gauze curtain had been pulled over them. More magic?

He thought they might be the men from the street, but the distance was too great. And it was getting greater. He sucked in air and ran faster.

The stimulation of the chase brought his true form to the surface. He strained to contain it and cursed the inherent weakness of flesh.

An engine roared, tires screeched, the noise of the motor faded as it pulled away. Kasker leaped over Mong's body, threaded the final ten feet to the open door, and burst onto a loading dock.

A flash of white was all he saw before the vehicle disappeared around the corner. He cursed the universe and bolted back into the warehouse.

He still held a fragile tendril of contact with the souls. If he cut through the building to the street, he might make his car in time to give chase. The Mustang had plenty of horsepower, and he knew their direction of flight.

His focus all for his quarry, he didn't notice the ward until too late. He slammed into her going full tilt. She ricocheted off a tower of freight but stayed upright. He stepped on Mong's arm and twisted his ankle.

He went down windmilling, fighting to hold his concentration on the fast-fading escape vehicle. His knee smacked the floor first, sending a lance of pain up his leg. His hands saved him from doing a face plant.