The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(40)

Caitlin pointed at the first corpse, the hilt of her dagger still jutting from his throat. “Go get my blade.”

Melanie wrenched it from the bloody corpse, her face pale, looking torn between tears and throwing up. She carried it to Caitlin, holding it loosely between two fingers.

“You will take this home with you,” Caitlin said, “and clean it until it is pristine. So clean you could cut your dinner with it, yes? While you do, I want you to think about what happens when people rebel against the law. You’ll bring the blade back to me tomorrow, and I’ll decide what to do with you then.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Melanie stammered. Caitlin waited until she’d vanished from sight before letting out a pent-up sigh.

“Melanie is a good kid,” she said, her tone suddenly casual. “She really is, but she’s going through a phase right now.”

“What are you going to do to her?” I asked. I must have sounded horrified. She took a look at me and giggled.

“Tomorrow? Nothing. She’ll spend all night torturing herself with guilt and then start agonizing over what I might have in store for her. She won’t sleep a wink. Docile as a kitten by tomorrow night. I’ll tell her I’m proud of her for learning her lesson and give her a big hug. It’s all psychology.”

“Pardon me for saying, you don’t seem like a hug person.”

“What, you mean that?” She gestured toward the two corpses on the floor. “That’s my job, Daniel.”

“Yeah, you’ll have to forgive me, I’m a little confused about that. And didn’t you, you know, go back to hell when I freed you?”

She walked behind my chair, sliding another dagger from inside her coat. She sliced through my zip-ties. I rubbed my aching wrists, clenching and unclenching my fingers against the bloodless tingling.

“Number one, you’re confused because you’re not supposed to know any of this exists. We’re irritated enough that you occult-underground types even know what cambion are, but that cat got out of the bag during the Dark Ages. Number two, I don’t live in hell; I live in Las Vegas. There really is a difference, though it’s sometimes difficult to tell, especially in August.”

“How did you know I was in trouble?” I asked. She sliced my ankles free, spinning the ivory-hilted dagger in her hand before slipping it back into her inner coat pocket.

“I’ve been following you, silly. I hoped that the people who set me up would come after you for revenge. Instead I snared a clot of feral little opportunists. Not the prize I wanted. Don’t give me that look; you were never truly in danger.”

“The people who set you up? Besides Artie Kaufman?”

“That pig had nothing to do with it. He was just the babysitter. He did what he was told. His brother’s the key, and I never saw his brother, just heard him on the phone.”

I stood up, shook my legs out, and contemplated Caitlin. She looked like she’d just stepped off a Paris runway, even after murdering two men without thinking twice about it. Corman’s words lingered in the back of my mind. She’d gut you as soon as give you the time of day, no matter how nice she smiles.

Maybe I was falling for a pretty face. Maybe I was just dumb enough to want to ride this train a little farther, a little closer to the end of the line, to see what I’d find there. I could justify it all day long, talk about how I needed help closing in on Sheldon Kaufman, how it was necessary to free Stacy’s soul, but those were just excuses. What I said next, I said because I wanted to.

“We should compare notes,” I told her.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“Not remotely.”

“Smart boy. All right, but if we’re going to talk, we’re going to do it over a meal. I’m famished.”

I glanced nervously at the corpses, and she put her hands on her hips. “I don’t eat carrion,” she said. “Come on, my car’s outside.”

A white Audi Quattro with napa-leather seats sat in the abandoned factory’s parking lot. It squawked as she unlocked the doors from her keychain.

“Here’s all you need to know,” she told me as she strode toward the car. “A good-sized chunk of the western United States is under the authority of the Court of Jade Tears and its honored ruler, Prince Sitri. I am his hound, his whip-hand, the keeper of his law on Earth, and his court’s appointed persecutor—”

“You mean prosecutor?”

She just rolled her eyes.

“Among other things,” she said, “many other things, this means policing the local cambion population to ensure they don’t do anything stupid, and protecting them should they need help. Most of them, like Melanie, are fine. The ferals are the problem.”

“Wait, that kid’s the norm? I thought they were all psychotics except for a few.”

I got in the car while she tossed her coat and weapons in the trunk. Underneath she wore a white silk blouse and a black pencil skirt, the hint of a silver pendant gleaming at her neckline. She slid into the driver’s seat. The engine purred to life. Her fingertips caressed the wheel.

“Most cambion,” Caitlin said, “are perfectly well-adjusted and normal, relatively speaking. You don’t know about them because they’re very good at hiding.”