Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(61)

“There has to be a way to neutralize him.”

“I’m working on that. In the meantime, how would you like to toss a wrench into Lauren’s plans?”

She cocked a hand on her hip. A silver bangle drifted down her wrist at an angle, glimmering with magic.

“I’m listening,” she said.

I patted my duffel bag. “Would you believe I have a human soul in here?”

“From what I know about you? Yes.”

“Gilles de Rais. French knight, child murderer, and all-around world-class shitheel. Lauren was looking for a way to snatch him out of hell. She needs him to finish the Enclave, don’t ask me why. I got him first.”

“How?” she said.

“What was it you said earlier? Something to the effect of ‘and that’s more than you need to know’? Bottom line: she needs it, I have it.”

“And where do I come in?”

Over by the bend in the ramp, about thirty feet down the line, we had company. A rough-looking guy in his twenties staggered from car to car, peering in windows, trying handles. I would have taken him for an incompetent thief, but from the wobble in his walk and the glaze in his eyes I figured he was coming off an all-night bender. Probably couldn’t remember what his car even looked like, let alone where he’d parked it. All the same, I kept my eye on him.

“I found the soul’s previous owner. If I did, so can Lauren. Sooner or later she’s going to figure out I took it and come gunning for me. I need to make certain this thing stays well out of harm’s way.”

“You’re giving it to me,” she said, catching on.

“Last place she’ll think of looking. Even if she traces the soul to your doorstep, even Lauren Carmichael will think twice before going toe to toe with a federal agent. She doesn’t need that kind of heat right now. Besides, I get the feeling you can hold your own in a fight. You don’t have to do anything with the soul. Just stash it someplace safe and forget about it. Now the Enclave’s stalled indefinitely, problem solved. Easy.”

Harmony gave me a hard look, like if she stared long enough she could bore right into my black heart.

“What’s your angle?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re a black magician, knee-deep in brimstone. I can also connect you—circumstantially, or we’d be having this conversation in your cozy new prison cell—to a string of heists and hijackings, not to mention at least three murders. Lauren has people just like you on her payroll. She could make you rich. She definitely pays better than Nicky Agnelli. Why are you standing in her way?”

“I already told you, I don’t work for Nicky anymore. As for Lauren, she killed a good buddy of mine. Well, Meadow Brand killed him, but she did it on Lauren’s orders. Right in front of me.”

“How did he die?” Harmony asked.

“Badly. Very badly. And he didn’t do a damn thing to deserve it. Then Lauren…”

The memory surged back. Lying paralyzed on Spengler’s blood-soaked carpet as Lauren pressed her palms against my chest, shredding my psychic walls, forcing her sick, toxic energy into my body one seething inch at a time. I remembered the way she’d gasped with pleasure, the satisfied look on her face as she pulled away, leaving a hungry snake squirming in my guts.

“Faust?”

I blinked, snapping out of it. I shook my head.

“She killed a friend of mine,” I said. “He was family. Not by blood, by bond. Where I come from, if somebody hurts a member of your family, you put them in the ground. No mercy, no forgiveness, no second chances. Lauren signed her own death warrant.”

“She’s going to prison. I’m sorry for your loss, I really am, but we have laws for a reason. They keep us sane. They keep society functioning. You’re not killing her; I’m arresting her. We need to be clear on that, right here, right now.”

My gaze flitted to the drunk, wobbling his way closer as he fruitlessly searched for his car. He was ten feet away, and I could smell the booze on his breath from here. No shape to drive. If he actually found his car, I idly decided, I’d yank his keys away and toss them in the hotel pool. Maybe steal his wallet, too. Tourist stupidity tax.

“I’m not the only sorcerer in Vegas, Agent Black. We don’t agree on much, but we’re pretty damn unified on the subject of Lauren Carmichael’s continued survival. Besides, get real. What are you going to arrest her for? The legal system isn’t for people like us. The crimes we commit aren’t on the books, and it’s pretty damn hard to prove a curse or a hex with forensic science.”

“That’s your problem, right there,” Harmony jabbed her finger at my chest. “You think what you can do makes you above everyone else. You think the rules of society don’t apply to you, just because it’s easier for you to break them and get away with it. You’re wrong. The rules apply to everybody.”

I waved her off. “I don’t think I’m better than anybody else. I just make the most of what I have. Don’t you? I’m going to go out on a limb here, agent, and guess you don’t put on a psychic blindfold when you’re on the job. You use your magic, find your culprit, then work backward to gather ‘real’ evidence to get a conviction.”

She stared at me.

“That’s how I would do it,” I said with a shrug.