The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(28)

Fourteen



The chip erupted with a blinding flash, smearing a green haze across my retinas as every light in the house died at once. I dove for the door. Carl’s pistol barked twice, streaking the room with white lightning. I scrambled around the corner as another pair of shots blasted into the wall and blew away chunks of stucco.

The house swam in darkness, only the blinking of a digital clock painting the shadows a baleful crimson. I ran to the living room to grab what I needed from the poker table and ducked underneath just in time, watching Carl charge past me on his way to the front door. I kept my footsteps light on the shag carpet, moving as fast as I could, ducking into the bathroom as Artie’s bedroom door flew open. He didn’t have a gun, but he’d grabbed one of the samurai swords. He waved it over his head and raced through the house.

I crouched between the toilet and the sink, engulfed in shadow. I looked to my left and my heart jumped into my throat. Caitlin perched like a bird on the rim of the bathtub. Her eyes shone in the dark, no longer green. Now they were the color of polished pennies. She put her finger to her lips.

“Shh,” she whispered. I nodded.

She held up one finger and pointed left, shaking her head. Then she pointed right and held up her open palm, as if telling me to wait. Finally she dropped her hand. I didn’t think; I just ran. She could have been leading me right into Artie and Carl’s arms, but my instincts said otherwise.

I made it to the kitchen and dug through the cabinets, hoping I could find what I needed. I was almost done with my makeshift creation when the overhead fluorescents flickered back to life. Artie and Carl barged through the swinging doors, zeroing in on me—and froze.

“I wouldn’t,” I said calmly, letting them take a good look.

I stood in an arcane circle painted on the linoleum floor with a box of sea salt I’d stolen from Artie’s cabinets. It was a sloppy rush job done in the dark, but I held my ground like it was an iron fortress. In my left hand, I held Caitlin’s contract.

In my right hand, I held a lighter.

Caitlin stood in the corner, looking between the three of us like a cat who couldn’t decide which mouse to eat first.

“Wait!” Artie shouted, at Carl as much as at me. Carl kept his gun steady, glaring daggers.

“You know how this works,” I told them, sparking the cheap plastic lighter. “Contract goes up in smoke, she goes free. I imagine she’ll have a lot to say about how you two have been treating her.”

Carl hesitated, looking between me and Artie as if not sure who to believe. I lowered the contract an inch, almost close enough to touch the open flame.

“Call him off,” I warned Artie. “If he shoots me, I drop the contract against the lighter, and bad things happen. Really excruciatingly bad things. Caitlin, tell him what you’ll do to him if I set you free.”

She smiled and said, “Everything.”

“It’s suicide!” Artie cried. “She’ll kill you too!”

“Not while I’m standing in a circle of art. She can’t cross the salt.”

“That’s not even a real circle! The glyphs are all screwed up!”

“This,” I explained, “is an Astrum Argentum grounding pattern. It works just fine, I can promise you that. Sure, I’ll be trapped inside, but I’m hoping she’ll get bored and go away eventually. If nothing else, I’ll have time to plan my next move. You won’t.”

A serpentine tongue slithered across Caitlin’s lips, leaving a glistening trail in its wake.

“What do you want?” Artie stammered. “Money? Girls? Drugs? You’ve got to want something!”

“The truth. About Stacy Pankow.”

“I don’t know anything about—” he started to say, then clutched the hilt of his sword to his chest as I dangled the papers a little closer to the flame. “All right! All right, it was my brother’s idea—”

“Don’t tell him anything,” Carl growled.

Artie shook his head. “I wanted to be on the inside, and to do that you’ve got to make a kill, all right? It has to be a special kill, and you have to use the special spell after, so we were filming a scene and I just held her head under the water. I held her and wouldn’t let her up and she kicked and thrashed around but I just wouldn’t let her up.”

Tears streamed down Artie’s cheeks, his confession spilling out in a babbling cadence. I could only follow every third word or so, but it sounded like bad craziness. “You were filming,” I said. “Focus, Artie. Where is the recording? I want it.”

“I’ve had it with this bullshit!” Carl shouted, raising his gun. Artie spun, bringing the sword down hard and fast. Carl’s right hand, fingers still clutching his pistol, fell to the kitchen floor.

Carl gripped the stump of his wrist, staring at his spurting blood with wide, incredulous eyes. “You—” he stammered, slumping to the floor.

“I—I told you,” Artie said. “I told you not to.”

Carl’s face went stony gray, shock taking over as his blood spattered across the floor. His mouth opened and closed like a fish on a hook, but no sound came out.

“I told him,” Artie said.

“Focus. The recording. Where is it?”