Cameron Haley - Mob rules

He stepped outside and stood watching us, his hands at his sides. He left the door open behind him. I guessed the spirit was back there somewhere in the darkness.

I stopped about thirty feet away. Honey hovered at my side, pixie dust falling from her in agitated clouds. The sword was back and she held it in both hands, the blade dipping toward the ground in front of her.

It occurred to me to shoot Fred and cut the visit short. I decided not to, because I thought he might say something worth listening to. I heard metal shift and grind against metal behind me. I turned. The ghosts of the gangbangers I'd killed were pulling themselves out of the twisted and tangled debris. They weren't much to look at, with shattered bones, torn flesh and caved-in skulls. There were only eight of them, so Terrence must have gotten a few out alive. I turned back to Fred.

"You are extremely persistent for a woman," he said.

"I'm easily distracted when I don't stay focused."

Fred gave an exaggerated sigh. His shoulders humped and then collapsed like someone put a lead chain around his neck. "What precisely have I done to attract such devoted attention?"

"You know why I'm here."

"Yes, I suppose I do. You believe I had something to do with the murders of your men. The question is, why?"

"One of them told me." It was an irritating game, but I had to play if I wanted to learn anything.

"Ah, that is unfortunate. We had hoped the ritual would preclude such an eventuality."

"How's that?"

"My…client was confident that their souls would be cast into the Deep Beyond and lost forever."

I laughed. "Your client didn't want you to know how expendable you are. It needed to keep an easy target in front of me."

"You are right, of course. And, so, here we are."

"Here we are. How's it going to go?"

The vampire arched his eyebrows in surprise. "Is it up to me?"

"You're not the one I want. You're just in my way."

Fred chuckled. "Two things," he said. "First, I see that you have brought a weapon this time, but the outcome of any confrontation between us is hardly a foregone conclusion." I could hear the ghosts spreading out behind me at the edge of the lot.

"It's a really big gun," I said.

The vampire nodded and smiled. "Second, what makes you think I could give you my client, should I be inclined to do so?"

"I'm optimistic. Maybe you're protection and not just a dead guy with a target on his back. Maybe your client is hiding in the building back there."

"Sadly my client is not here."

"Where is it?"

"If I tell you, where does that leave us?"

The question had some thorns on it. If the vampire sent me off chasing shadows, it might give him time to find a new lair, even blow town.

"We'd all go see your client. I'd have my gun keep a close eye on you. If the spirit is where you say it is, we're done. If it's not, you're done."

Fred nodded sadly. "I see. That wouldn't do at all, then. I'm afraid I don't know where my client is."

The vampire was probably telling the truth, and that didn't leave us many options. Fred knew that, too.

The vampire moved.

I didn't see much of it, but I didn't have to. The Dead Man's Gun was in my hand. I thumbed back the hammer and my arm jerked to the right. Electric-blue juice arced and twisted in the cylinder. The trigger pulled back, though I'm not sure it was my finger that pulled it.

The gun fired and kicked sweetly in my hand, like a healthy baby in its mother's womb. The sound of the report was a hollow sound, like it had been fired into a long tunnel. A wisp of vapor coiled from the barrel, pale as a ghost.

Fred had leaped about twenty feet to his left and ducked behind a rusting forklift. A bullet as real as a bad dream passed through the machine with a sharp hiss and struck the vampire in the shoulder. The impact spun the vampire around and black juice sprayed the wall of the building behind him.

Honey let out a war cry that sounded like the high note of an opera. She flew toward Fred with her sword poised above her shoulder like an angry snake.

I turned to face the advancing ghosts behind me and fanned the Peacemaker's hammer with my left hand. In my world, it would have been an impressive waste of ammunition, even if I could have handled the recoil. Ned trembled gently in my hand as it panned along the line of mutilated shades. I don't know how many shots I fired, but three of them found targets. Ragged holes of azure energy burned through the ghosts. The holes widened as the juice chewed at ephemeral flesh, devouring the ghosts like a hungry fire.

The remaining five stopped and stared. They were armed only with anger and vengeance, and neither was as strong as their fear. They scrambled away, fading when they reached the rusting and twisted metal of their tomb.

I turned and saw two blurred forms dueling atop the squat concrete building. Honey spun and darted and dived, thrusting and swinging at the vampire with her tiny silver sword. Fred leaped and circled and clawed at her, but his left arm hung limply from the wounded shoulder.

I brought Ned up and pulled back the hammer. I aimed low along the hog wallow trough that served as a rear sight. The blue juice flared in the cylinder and I squeezed the trigger.

The shot hit Fred in the gut just above the waistline and knocked him off the roof. Honey darted after him and I moved up along the side of the building to the rear. The vampire was lying in a scatter of garbage in a spreading pool of black magic. It pumped out of the hole in his stomach like oil. Fred pulled himself to one knee and flailed at Honey. She buzzed around his head and her sword was a silver blur as she traced his pale flesh with bleeding black lines.

I thumbed back the hammer again and nodded for Honey to back off. The vampire looked up at me, his dark eyes glittering with hate. He sneered and spat. The black juice spattered and smoked on the yellow-brown dirt.

"You weren't muscle and you weren't just a target, were you, Fred? You were hired to find the spirit a host. You knew Adan from the club. You picked him out and gave him up to that…thing."

The vampire laughed, and a fine spray of black juice followed the sound.

"Tell me where it is," I said. I gave him the words without any feeling in them.

The vampire laughed. "You're a fool, Riley. You know how to stop him and you don't have the stomach for it. He doesn't need any protection because he knows you're too weak. He owns you, you pathetic little cunt."

It was an impressive speech. When he'd finished delivering it, Fred sprang at me. The taloned claw at the end of his one good arm reached for my throat. I pistol-whipped him in the face with the Peacemaker's twelve-inch barrel because that's what it seemed to have in mind. Fred's jaw shattered under the steel and he collapsed at my feet.

I leaned down and pressed the muzzle into his forehead. I thought about all the people the Vampire Fred had murdered in all the centuries of his unnatural life. I thought about Adan.

"Tell your master I'm coming if you see it out there," I said.

This time, Ned didn't have to help me squeeze the trigger. Eleven We searched the building and the rest of the salvage yard for the spirit, even though I knew we wouldn't find anything. Fred had served his purpose. He was more use as a distraction than he would have been as protection.

"Are you okay, Honey?" I asked as we wandered the yard, looking for nothing. She was quiet and seemed a little agitated.

"I'm fine. The vampire didn't even touch me. He was finished when you hit him with that first shot."

"Well, that's good. I'm glad you weren't hurt."

"Yeah, I'm great." Honey landed on the air cleaner of an old car engine and sat down. "What are we looking for, Domino? There's no stupid spirit here."