Cameron Haley - Mob rules

"I know. I just need to be sure."

"So what are you going to do now?"

"I don't have many options. I just have to stay close to Adan. Eventually the spirit will try to possess him again. When it does, I have to be ready."

Honey threw up her hands in exasperation. "You should go to your boss, Domino. The vampire was right. You're too close to that…man. You don't think straight."

"Let's not start this again, Honey. I can't go to my boss until I deal with the spirit."

"Oh, fine. Do what you want, Domino. You're going to anyway."

"What the hell's the matter with you, Honey?"

Honey laughed and I didn't like the sound of it. She put her head in her hands and looked like she wanted to pull her hair out. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Red pixie dust danced in the yellow light.

"I'm sorry," she said finally. "It's my family. They gave me trouble when I went to see them, when you were talking to the Burning Man."

"What kind of trouble?"

"They're just worried about me." She shook her head and sighed. "They say I shouldn't be crossing over to Arcadia by myself. But really, they just don't like the idea of me making deals with sorcerers. They say it's too dangerous."

"They don't even know me. Did you tell them we're friends?"

She nodded. "They just don't trust sorcerers, Domino. Our kind has never really gotten along."

"Why not?"

"Sorcerers have a habit of imprisoning us, binding us-like you did with Mr. Clean. Or using us in other ways."

"You know I don't mean you any harm."

"I told them it's not like that with us, that you're my friend. But they're worried that I could get trapped in Arcadia with no way to cross by myself. Really, they're just worried it gives you too much power over me."

I nodded. "I guess I can see their point of view."

Honey smiled and shook her head. "You're sweet, Domino. I mean it."

"What can we do about it?"

"You could make me a gate," she said. "It's just like a spell talisman. You work the magic to bring me across, and then you bind it to a physical object. It wouldn't hold up forever, but it would allow me to cross back and forth on my own for a while. Long enough for my family to get used to the idea. I told them I'd ask you, but I understand if you don't want to."

"I'll do it, Honey. I trust you."

"Thanks, Domino. You're a good friend." She hovered near me and then darted in and kissed me on the forehead. She flew away before I could react. Blue and violet pixie dust trailed behind her.

We went back to the condo and I hung the gunbelt in the closet by the front door. I crossed over and went into the kitchen and poured myself a tall glass of tequila. I went out on the balcony and stood with Honey's garden pressing in on me from all sides. I drank the tequila and chased it with a cigarette.

Then I went back to the kitchen and called Honey. When the threads of magic snapped into place, I tied them to the sports bottle that held the wilting carnations I'd bought for Mrs. Dawson. The world stretched thin and Honey came through.

"Thanks, Domino," she said, but she didn't seem too happy about it. She disappeared into her cave behind the waterfall on the kitchen table.

I poured some more tequila and thought about getting drunk. Then my cell phone beeped, letting me know I had a voice mail message. I got it out and listened.

"I have to go out, Honey," I said in the general direction of the kitchen table. She didn't answer.

Rick Macy lived in Pasadena near the campus of Caltech. He was in grad school, particle physics, but he worked for the outfit on the side. I'd never met him, but I knew of him. He had more juice than Jamal or Jimmy Lee. He was a theorist, a designer. In the real world, he might have been something like a systems engineer. He was valuable.

I parked on the street outside his little two-bedroom rambler. Vernon Case was sitting on the front steps looking like he'd rather be somewhere else. Case was a veteran. He'd hooked up with the outfit in the early sixties and made a career of it. He had enough juice to stick but not enough to go all the way up. He looked old and tired.

"Hey, Case," I said, "what's the story?"

He looked up at me and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "More of the same, I guess. You might as well see for yourself. I was just told to lock the place down until you could get here."

"Okay," I said and walked up to the door. "Thanks for your help. You find the body?"

Case shook his head. "No, his girlfriend. They pulled her out already. She went a little nuts about it. University student, no connection to our thing except Ricky. We're just lucky she called us before she called the cops. Hell, we're lucky she didn't go bat-shit seeing that thing in there."

I nodded and went in, and Case came in behind me. Rick Macy was in his bedroom, his arms duct-taped to the head-board. He'd been skinned, but at least they hadn't nailed him down first. I went through the motions, just like I'd done at Jamal's apartment. The only thing I found was a black stain left by the soul jar, this time on Rick's bed.

"You on this thing, Domino?" Case asked when I was finished. "Everyone knows what's happening in South Central. Hell, most of us have been down there to see for ourselves. The word is, Papa Danwe is moving on us and we're doing jack-shit about it. Everyone says we're at war, which no one minds too much, but it seems like only one side is fighting."

"We're fighting. Rashan just doesn't want to fight blind."

Case nodded. "That's good. I knew Ricky pretty well. I helped bring him in, you know. Hell, I guess I recruited him. The guy was a fucking genius, Domino. I was supposed to train him." He laughed and shook his head. "I had to turn him over to Rashan because he was way ahead of me, even at the start."

That got my attention. "Rick was trained by Rashan?"

"Sure he was. Ricky didn't have your kind of juice, but he was brilliant. He got it, you know? He understood how all this shit works." He shrugged. "Me, I do what I do but most of the time I don't really understand it. I don't have to-I just do it."

I nodded, thinking. "You've been around the outfit a long time, Case. You know everyone. How well did you know Jamal and Jimmy Lee?"

"I knew them well enough, I guess. I watched them come up, tried to help out where I could. They were good boys."

"Who trained them, Case?"

He pursed his lips and rubbed his chin. "Jamal got some basics from Rafael Chavez. Jimmy Lee was brought in by Frank Seville…you know him?"

I nodded and waited for the rest of it.

"But both guys were specialists, you know. Most guys in the outfit don't do one thing any better than another. Hell, most of us don't do anything all that well. We've got lots of guys who can lay down tags, but most of them aren't really taggers like Jamal was. You know what I mean? Him and Jimmy Lee didn't have a lot of juice, maybe, but they had one thing they did well. That made them different."

"They needed more training than most," I said. "Advanced training in their specialty. Who gave it to them?"

"Well, Rashan did. He always does that kind of thing himself."

"I was afraid you were going to say that."

I told Case to keep the place locked down until nightfall and then to get rid of the body. Then I got on my cell and called Rashan. He was on his way home from the strip club. He agreed to meet me at his house.

I ran to my car and spun the traffic spell, and I kept the speedometer above ninety most of the way out to the hills. I pulled up in the circle driveway in front of the house just as Rashan was getting out of his Mercedes.

I'd never been invited to Rashan's house before. It was pretty typical for the filthy rich in that part of town. Hillside. Boxy modern architecture. Lots of glass. Wide balcony. Stilts.