Hard Spell (27 page)

  Rachel's head inclined a few inches. "None other."

  Getting emotional about what he had done to Rachel, and might yet do, was a waste of time, so I just said, "What do you want?"

  The eyebrows went up in an exaggerated show of amazement. "A man who gets right to the point, and a policemen, no less. How unusual!"

  I had nothing useful to say to that, so I kept quiet. But wizards are sensitive, so I wouldn't have been surprised if he could feel the hatred coming off me, like heat from a freshly stoked stove.

  He nodded slowly, as if confirming something for himself. "As to what I want: I want the man who killed me."

"Sligo, you mean."

  "He did not bother to tell me his name. But I will know him, when we meet again. I want him in my power, so that I can make him suffer as I did. When I have paid him back in full measure for my pain, plus considerable interest, then perhaps –
perhaps
– I shall allow him to die."

  "I want pretty much the same thing," I said. "Without the histrionics."

  His eyes narrowed. "Why? Because it is just another
case
you must solve?"

  "That would be enough," I said. "But it's a lot more. Sligo is planning to work a spell from the
Opus Mago
to do... I don't know what. But it's gotta be pretty powerful, because the recipe calls for five dead vampires. That ring any bells with you?"

  He shook his head, which was now Rachel's head. "My responsibility was not to read the book, even if I could have, but to safeguard it."

  I thought about saying,
Yeah, and you did a hell of a job
. But a cheap shot like that would just piss him off, and I expect he'd been thinking about it, anyway. Maybe that was part of what was fueling his rage: the knowledge that Sligo had made Kulick betray his trust.

  "Well, he's got something big and bad in the works, and I have to stop him," I said. "Oh, and he keeps trying to kill"

  He made with the eyebrows again. "Does he, indeed? How many attempts?"

  "Two – so far."

  "And yet, here you are before me. Good – that means you are resourceful. You will be a useful ally."

  "I'm not your ally, pal – not until you let go of Rachel."
And not even then, fuckwad
– but I thought it best to keep that last thought to myself.

  Kulick/Rachel looked at me as if he'd suddenly realized he was conversing with the village idiot. "What would you have me do? Simply leave this body and float away into eternity, my revenge unfulfilled? I am curious about what comes after this life, and I shall satisfy that curiosity, once I have exacted vengeance. But for now, this woman is useful to me, and I will not leave her. But you can speak to her, if you wish."

  The face changed in small ways, to become completely Rachel's. She blinked a couple of times, then said urgently, in Rachel's voice, "Kill me, Stan – do it now! It's the only way. He's got to be stopped, before he destroys–"

  Her mouth closed, and after a moment the face began its subtle transformation again.

  "'Kill me, Stan'?" The deeper voice was mocking. "Is that what you intend to do – assuming I would permit you?"

  I didn't know whether I had it in me to carry out Rachel's plea or not, but I couldn't do it now, anyway – Kulick was ready for me to try. He probably had a defensive spell set to go at an instant's notice.

  "No," I said, keeping most of what I felt out of my voice.

  "Good," he said, putting a tiny smile on Rachel's face. "Then we are allies, after all."

  He reached into the pocket of Rachel's wide skirt and removed something shiny that he tossed to me.

  It looked like half an amulet. Whole, it would be the size of a half-dollar. It had words engraved on it that looked like ancient Greek, and part of a symbol that I didn't recognize.

  "It is imbued with a finding spell," Kulick said. "I retain the other half. When you have located this Sligo, or whatever his name might be, hold this between your thumb and forefinger. Say my full name – George Harmon Thraxis Kulick – aloud five times. At the fifth utterance, I will join you."

  I studied the half-amulet a second longer, then slipped it into my pocket. "All right," I said. "Anything else?"

  Kulick stared at me with those insane eyes. "Give me what I want, and I will return this woman to you, unharmed. But you may think to deny me my vengeance, perhaps by refusing to use that amulet at the crucial hour. Understand this, policeman: if Sligo escapes, or dies by any hand but mine, I shall have no further use for this woman's body."

  He touched one of Rachel's breasts, and I wondered if he was enjoying feeling himself up.

  "I will depart her, to see what awaits me on the other side. But before I do, I will soak her in gasoline. And my last act in this vessel will be to light a match. Do we understand each other?"

  
God almighty, just let me kill this fucker right now
. All I said was, "Completely."

  Then the ugly image of Rachel burning stirred my memory of something else. "You should know, there are a couple of witchfinders in town, hired by the mayor. I guess you realize what'll happen, if they get their hands on you – her."

  A smile crossed the face that was and was not Rachel's. "Witchfinders? How quaint. Well, if they should succeed in locating this particular witch, they will have scant time to wish that they had failed to do so."

  Rachel's bod detached itself from the retaining wall and headed toward the elevator. "Goodbye, detective," Kulick's voice said. "I'm sure that you will be in touch."

  Once the elevator doors closed, I dashed for my car and headed for the exit. Driving as fast as I could without the telltale noise of tires squealing, I made it to the exit gate and showed my badge to the sleepy-looking teenage attendant. "Open it! Now!"

  As soon as I'd made my turn out of the garage, I was scanning the street for Rachel. If I could follow her to where she and Kulick were holed up, I might... oh, hell, I didn't know
what
I could do. But knowledge is power, and I'd had damn little power in this situation from the beginning.

  I didn't gain any more this time, either. I circled the block twice, then checked the side streets and alleys, with no sight of Rachel.

  It was then I realized that the phone in my coat pocket was vibrating, and had been, off and on, for quite some time.

  As I pulled into the nearest parking space, I realized that I had actually gained two things from the encounter on the roof. One was that I now held half of an amulet with a finding spell connecting me to George Kulick. I don't know much abut finding spells, but I was betting the connection ran both ways. A good witch could tell me whether that was true, and what to do if it was.

  The second thing is that the bastard had given me his true name: George Harmon Thraxis Kulick. "Thraxis" must have been the name he took when they put that tattoo on his hand. It had to be legit, or the finding spell wouldn't work. Names are important in magic, I knew that much – and now I had his.

I opened my phone and put it to my ear. "Markowski."

  "Stan, are you all right?" It was Karl's voice.

  "Yeah, I'm okay. Sorry I'm late getting in to work, but something pretty weird happened."

  "I was startin' to get worried, since you'd made a big deal of wanting to start our shift at 1:00, and it's almost 2:00. When you didn't check in by 1:30, I started calling you, but got no answer – until now, anyway."

  "I didn't have a chance to call in," I said. "I encountered something interesting on the way to work – look, I'll tell you when I see you."

  "Something about our case?"

  "Yeah, kinda. I don't want to discuss it on the phone, okay?" Not with the witchfinders after Rachel, I didn't.

  "Okay, sure. As long as everything's cool."

  "I'm fine, Karl. See you at the squad in ten minutes."

  "No, you won't."

  "Say again?"

  "I'm in our new unmarked car – well, new for us, anyway – on the road, trailing behind the SWAT van."

  "What? Why? What happened?" I asked.

  "The arrest warrant for Jamieson Longworth finally came through, that's what happened. Since the little bastard may have been associating with a black magician, McGuire figured that SWAT ought to serve it. But I wanted to be there when they do, and I figured you would, too."

  "Fuckin' A right, I would."

  "So I'll meet you at the staging area, which is gonna be one block south of Longworth's crib, at the Rite-Aid lot. You remember the address?"

  "It's 157 Spruce, right? I'm on my way."

  "Ten-four."

  
Ten-four
. Yeah, Karl loves shit like that.

I turned into the parking lot of the Rite-Aid drugstore just as the black, windowless SWAT van was coming to a stop. I parked nearby and walked over.

  Scranton PD can't afford to maintain a full-time Sacred Weapons and Tactics unit. It just isn't needed often enough to be cost-effective. So, when there's a mission, the commander has to send out a call-up. All SWAT-trained officers on duty, and several affiliated members of the clergy, leave whatever they're doing to convene at police HQ. There they strap on their gear, receive a situation briefing, and get their orders.

  SWAT doesn't roll for just any dicey set of circumstances. Black-and-white units can handle 90 percent of what happens, and if there's an extraordinary situation involving human perps, they send the TRU (Tactical Response Unit). But if you've got a barricaded ogre, or a hostage situation with werewolf involvement, or you have to serve a warrant on a powerful witch or wizard, then the SWAT team will get the job done. One way or another.

  The back of the van opened and a tall, lean guy in black fatigues and a matching baseball cap stepped out. Lieutenant Frank Dooley has been SWAT commander for the past four years. To look at him, you'd never know that he did a year and a half at the seminary before realizing he had a different vocation. Come to think of it, the outfits of both jobs are pretty similar, give or take the hat.

  I saw Karl come around the van from the other side. Inside, several black-clad figures were moving around putting on spell-dispelling body armor, checking their weapons, and probably saying lastminute prayers. Even the non-clergy SWAT guys are a religious bunch. I guess they have to be.

  "I devoutly wish we had better intel about what we're likely to be facing in there," Dooley said to Karl and me.

  "I told you what we know, Lieutenant," Karl said. "I admit it ain't much."

  Dooley unbuttoned the flap on his breast pocket and pulled out a notebook. He opened it, flipped past a couple of pages, then frowned at the page he'd stopped at.

  "Condo's owned by one J. Longworth." He looked up. "Any relation to
the
Longworths? The rich ones?"

  "Their son," I told him.

  "Oh, good," he said with a smile. "I just love busting me some rich bitches." Dooley grew up shantytown Irish, and never quite got over his resentments. "Hmmm. Cultist." He was looking at the notebook again. "Busted for summoning demons and murder of a known prostitute." He looked at me. "That what you figure we're likely to be up against? A demon?"

  "No reason to think so," I said. "But Longworth is believed to have been associating with a vampire/wizard named Sligo. There's no way of knowing if he's taught young Jamieson any tricks, or even if he's in there with him. But both those things are possible."

  "Um." Dooley wrote something in the notebook and put it away. "If the wizard's also one of the undead, we know what he'll be doing at this hour." He glanced up at the sky, where the sun was shining through a nearly cloudless sky. "And we've dealt with wannabe wizards before, too. Excuse me." He turned and went back into the van.

  "Took that warrant long enough to come through," I said to Karl.

  "McGuire thinks that Mrs. Longworth tried to stop it. Maybe she put out the word that any judge who signed the arrest warrant on sonny-boy was going to be running against a very well-funded opponent next time out."

  "Olszewski would've signed it," I said. "He doesn't give a shit. Anyway, he's what Rachel calls my
paisan
."

  "You're probably right. But his mother, who's in Florida, had a heart attack, or something. He just got back last night – and signed the warrant this morning."

  "Speaking of Rachel reminds me," I said, "you need to w what went down while I was on my way to work today."

  I took Karl aside and gave him the short version of what had happened at the parking garage.

  "Well, doesn't that just suck dog cock," he said. "You either tell him where Sligo is, assuming we ever find the motherfucker, or he turns Rachel into a human torch."

  "Yeah," I said, "but there's a couple of other–"

  I stopped because Dooley had come out of the black van again, and this time the rest of his team followed him. SWAT was ready to rock and roll.

  The first black-clad figure out after Dooley was Heidi Renfer, who was Karl's cousin. She had the same long, lean build, although I sometimes wondered if her supe-proof vest had to be custom-made to accommodate those formidable breasts. She was carrying a Benelli combat shotgun as her primary, and I knew it was loaded with a mixture of doubleought buck, rock salt, and BB-sized balls of silver, all blessed by a priest.

  Like everybody on the team, she wore a set of vision-enhancing/protective goggles around her neck and a wide belt encircled her hips. The belt held the holster for her backup weapon – Heidi favored a big .50 magnum Desert Eagle loaded with explosive rounds. It also held a can of Supe Repellant Spray (silver nitrate suspended in holy water), silverplated handcuffs made of cold iron, a tactical radio, and a couple of pouches that might contain anything – from extra ammo to field dressings imbued with a healing spell.

  Heidi smiled and waved at Karl, but ignored me, which good-looking women have a habit of doing. Give or take Lacey Brennan.