Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(24)
“Why are you telling me this?”
Nicky shrugged. “Because, even if you don’t feel too keen about me these days, you’re still a friend of mine, and I don’t see you and her going anywhere good together. Maybe it’s better to cut your losses and walk away before you really get hurt, huh?”
“Thanks for the friendly advice,” I told him, “but Caitlin is worth fighting for. And don’t tell me I can’t fight the prince. You tried.”
He’d almost succeeded, too, plotting with Lauren Carmichael to spark an infernal coup. He’d lucked out, had the right information at the right time, and he walked away from the whole mess with transactional immunity. Charges never stuck to Nicky, not here, or in any other world for that matter.
“Yeah, but when it comes to dealing with hell’s politics, I’m on the friends and family plan,” he said.
“You’ve also got a reason to help me out. I think our troubles are all connected.”
“How do you figure?”
“Meadow Brand set us up,” I said, “killing Sophia and leading Jennifer and me into a police snare. All of a sudden the feds show up, armed with information they could only have gotten from Lauren Carmichael. One of the leaders of that little legal dream team is a cambion. Obviously not from around here, or they wouldn’t dare step against you on your own turf. They’d know better. So I’m thinking a recent transplant. A recent transplant who has a personal motive to f*ck you over.”
“Redemption Choir,” Nicky said. “You think this is linked to the purge back east.”
“This priest who Sitri wants dead? I went to talk to him. Then a bunch of cambion with guns showed up, and they knew my name. Somebody sent them to waste both of us. Or to kill me and take the priest. I’m not sure. If Sitri wants this guy silenced, it makes sense that the Choir would want a word with him too, if only to find out what he knows.”
Nicky leaned his head back and sighed. “Lauren’s gotta be working with the Redemption Choir. She feeds ’em info about us, they do her dirty work.”
“It fits. Caitlin told me there’s some agent from a foreign court out here, calls himself Pinfeather. She thinks his entire job is to whip up trouble and give Sitri a black eye. If he made contact with Lauren, he could be working as a go-between.”
Nicky took a long, slow sip of scotch, thinking it through.
“Seems to me,” he said, “our first step should be figuring out who the halfblood in the henhouse is. Find the source of those loose lips and snip ’em off permanently. Lemme make a few calls. Meanwhile, you need to find out what’s so special about this priest. You sure he doesn’t know what’s up?”
“If he knows anything, he doesn’t know he knows it. Maybe he heard or saw something he shouldn’t have, but it’s something only our crowd would recognize the significance of.”
“Well, grill him. And if asking your way doesn’t do the job, bring him down here and I’ll let the twins go to work on him. Two hours of that and we’ll know everything he’s ever heard, seen, or done.”
“One,” I said, holding up a finger, “I don’t work for you anymore. Two, nobody is torturing the guy. He didn’t do anything wrong, besides pick up a lousy run of luck.”
Nicky smiled, but his eyes stayed hard. “Hey, play it how you want, pal. I’m just looking out for both our asses here. All three, if you count your girlfriend. Remember, Lauren’s still got the ring. As long as she’s still above ground and breathing air, she’s a grade-A problem.”
That was a secret shared by only a few people on Earth, and we aimed to keep it that way. Solomon’s ring came straight out of the Arabian Nights. It was a relic that let Lauren bend demons to her will as easily as wishing for it. Caitlin had already fallen victim to the ring’s power once before. It was pretty much the ultimate weapon against the infernal underworld, and that was exactly the problem.
If word got out that the ring wasn’t just a myth, every hex-slinger and criminal occultist from here to Miami would show up on Vegas’s doorstep, looking to take a crack at the prize. They’d be killing each other in the streets. Then Earth’s demonic population would get involved, since they were a little touchy about being enslaved, and start cracking heads. The slaughter would be incalculable. That wasn’t even counting what the ring could be used for if it fell into the wrong hands.
Nicky would sell his own mother for spare change. The fact that he was willing to keep the secret, and not even the twins knew about the ring, was telling. Of course, being half-human and half-demon himself, maybe he was afraid he’d be the ring’s victim instead of its master.
“Imagine what the Redemption Choir would do with that thing,” I mused. “You think they know?”
“Some possibilities don’t bear too much reflection. Ain’t healthy for your peace of mind. I say we get that ring, charter a boat to Japan, and drop it into the bottom of the Mariana Trench.”
I nodded. “That’s one thing we’re in perfect agreement on.”
? ? ?
I got back to the apartment a little after midnight. I thought maybe Father Alvarez would have gotten some shut-eye, but that wasn’t in the cards. If I were in his shoes, I would have been the same way I found him: sitting ramrod-straight in a chair, one eye on the door and one hand on the TV remote, trying to distract himself with the Home Shopping Network.