Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(16)

“A sorceress.” Her voice was flat.

I nodded.

“And you know this how?”

“Because I’m a sorcerer. That was my job, when I worked for Nicky Agnelli. He called me his ‘hired wand.’ I’d pull off heists with a little black magic, keep his crews invisible from the cops, all kinds of dirty deeds. Not done dirt cheap, either. I’m good at what I do, and I charge a lot of money for it. Well, I used to.”

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, just stared at me, like she couldn’t decide if I was pulling her leg. I knew where this conversation was headed, so I casually rested my hand against the passenger-side door. I stretched out my senses, breathing deeply, feeling the pulse of the sleeping machine. My index finger traced a sigil against the hot, grainy plastic.

“There’s always been stories,” she said, “about Nicky Agnelli. About how he’d know things he couldn’t know, get at people no matter where they tried to hide.”

“Not all of those stories are true,” I told her, my attention focused on my work. A flow of energy seeped into the gas and oil. Tendrils of power reached for spark plugs and gaskets.

“Which ones are?”

“Just the really scary ones.”

“All right.” She leaned back in her seat. “Prove it.”

“If I do, it won’t make you any happier. You won’t sleep any better at night. Pix…when you step into my world, you don’t step out again. Nothing’s ever gonna be the same. You sure you want this?”

“Prove it,” she repeated.

I exhaled sharply and ignited my spell. The van’s console blazed to life, every dashboard light flashing while the hazards blinked and the radio blasted an AC/DC song loud enough to fry the speakers. Fluid sprayed across the grimy windshield as the wipers slapped back and forth in time with the screaming guitar. Pixie grabbed the key, grinding the ignition as she twisted it forward and back, finally killing the power.

She sat back, pale.

“That was a trick,” she said. “I’ve seen you do sleight of hand. You probably…” Her voice trailed off.

“What? Slipped a gizmo under the hood to compromise a van I’ve never seen before today? While you were watching me the entire time?”

She didn’t have anything to say to that. I watched the wheels of her mind turn in silence.

“This isn’t about some gun-toting corporate thugs. If it was, I’d stand aside and let you do your thing. Lauren’s likely to have dangers in there that you just aren’t equipped to handle. Surveillance hexes. Curses. Maybe worse.”

“Worse things?”

I felt like a grade-A bastard doing this to her. This was another reason we didn’t go around cluing outsiders into the reality of our world. It wasn’t kind. It wasn’t fair. She’d come this far, though, and she deserved a real warning before she got too curious and went poking around on her own.

“Demons,” I said.

Pixie’s eyes widened, but not in fear. She smiled.

“So if demons are real,” she said, working the math, “then…it’s all real. God. Heaven. All of it. There’s hope.”

Fuck, I hated this. I tried to play it off, hoping I could keep her just a little in the dark, just enough so she could be happy. Even as the words left my lips, I knew she’d see right through me.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s right.”

The smile slid from her face as she looked into my eyes. I saw something new in her expression. Dawning horror.

“Jesus,” she said. “You’re lying.”

“Pix, don’t go down that road—”

“The truth, Daniel. I want the truth.”

“All right. You really want to know? The only angel I’ve ever seen was a primordial monster who would have incinerated every man, woman, and child on Earth if she’d gotten loose. As far as any God goes, the best-case scenario is he wound up the world like a clock and walked away a long, long time ago. Worst-case is, he’s insane or he’s dead. If there are any good guys out there, fighting the cosmic fight, I’ve never seen them.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said, her voice on the edge of breaking. “If the world is full of monsters, someone has to be keeping us safe. Someone has to be fighting for us out there.”

“Tell me something.” I stared out the window, at a vacant lot littered with windblown trash. “How many hours a week do you spend volunteering at St. Jude’s?”

She shook her head, frowning. “I…most nights when I’m not on a job, but what does that have to do with—”

I looked her in the eye.

“It’s you, Pix. You and everybody like you. Everybody who reaches out a hand when they don’t have to. Everybody who helps somebody get up on their feet, or gets in the way of a fist so somebody weaker doesn’t have to take the pain. Everybody who stands up in the face of evil and says ‘no more.’ Everybody who does what they can to make this shithole of a planet a little less miserable for everybody else. You are who’s fighting for us.

“I don’t know all the mysteries of the universe. I’m a small-time grifter with a knack for black magic, that’s all. Maybe there is some cosmic force of good out there, so subtle it can’t be seen. Believe in that if it makes you feel better, but this is what I know: what we have is us.”