CHAPTER 2
It took me forty-five minutes to make my way through the twisted wreck of the city to SoNo. The magic had really done a number on Atlanta. Downtown had suffered the most, but both Midtown and Buckhead had taken a beating. Once-stately skyscrapers lay in ruins, like the gravestones of human hopes, toppled on their sides. Overpasses crumbled into dust and new wooden bridges spanned the asphalt canyons. Debris choked the streets. Atlanta was still alive and kicking and the city was rebuilding little by little, but the sheer weight and volume of the fallen concrete made it problematic. I had to make a wide circle north around the wreckage.
On the corner of Monroe and 10th Street, something fluorescent had exploded, drenching the walls of the new houses in electric orange that smelled like day-old vomit. The city Biohazard crew narrowed the traffic to a single lane guarded by two guys with stop signs, who let the vehicles and riders through a few at a time, while the rest of the Biohazard team washed the orange pus down with fire hoses.
Around me, the morning traffic neighed, brayed, and defecated on the street. Gasoline vehicles failed during magic. My Jeep had two engines, one gas and the other enchanted water, so even when technology was down, my car still got me where I needed to go, reliably but not very fast. Buying a reconditioned car like mine was expensive, so most people opted for horses, camels, and mules. They worked whenever. They just didn’t smell very good. It was the middle of May, and a hot one at that, and the reek rising from the pavement would have sent anyone running for cover.
To my left a man atop a white horse leveled a crossbow at the stop sign. The string twanged and a bolt punched through metal, right into the O. Bull’s-eye.
The Biohazard guy thrust the injured sign against the Biohazard service truck, pulled a shotgun from the truck bed, and leveled it at the crossbowman.
“Make my day, bitch! Make my day!”
“Fuck you and your sign!”
“Hey,” a woman yelled. “There are children here!”
“Piss off!” the rider told her and pointed the crossbow at the Biohazard dude. “Let me through.”
“No. Wait your turn like everybody else.”
I could tell by their faces that neither of them would shoot. They’d just talk shit and waste everyone’s time and as long as the Biohazard guy bickered with the moron on the horse, he wasn’t waving the traffic through. At this rate I would never make it to my crime scene.
“Hey, dickhead!” one of the other drivers yelled. “Get off the road!”
“This here is a Falcon Seven,” the rider told him. “I can put a bolt through your windshield and pin you to your seat like a bug.”
A direct threat, huh? Okay.
I pulled down my sunglasses a bit so the rider would see my eyes. “That’s a nice crossbow.”
He glanced in my direction. He saw a friendly blond girl with a big smile and a light Texas accent and didn’t get alarmed.
“You’ve got what, a seventy-five-pound draw on it? Takes you about four seconds to reload?”
“Three,” he said.
I gave him my Order smile: sweet grin, hard eyes, reached over to my passenger seat, and pulled out my submachine gun. About twenty-seven inches long, the HK was my favorite toy for close-quarters combat. The rider’s eyes went wide.
“This is an HK UMP submachine gun. Renowned for its stopping power and reliability. Cyclic rate of fire: eight hundred rounds per minute. That means I can empty this thirty-round clip into you in less than three seconds. At this range, I’ll cut you in half.” It wasn’t strictly true but it sounded good. “You see what it says on the barrel?”
On the barrel, pretty white letters spelled out PARTY STARTER.
“You open your mouth again, and I’ll get the party started.”
The rider clamped his jaws shut.
I looked at the Biohazard guy. “Appreciate the job you’re doing for the city, sir. Please carry on.”
Ten seconds later, I got through the roadblock, steered the Jeep down Monroe Street, and turned right onto North Avenue. I made it two blocks before the street ended in a mountain of crushed glass. This intrepid adventure would have to continue on foot. I parked, checked my guns, took my crime scene kit out of the trunk, and jogged down the street.
Maybe Raphael wouldn’t be there.
Sooner or later I would have to interview him. My heart rate sped up at the thought. I took deeper breaths until it slowed. I had a job to do. The Order might not think I was worth much, but the Pack obviously did. I would be professional about it.
Professional. Just the facts, ma’am. Move along, there is nothing to see here. No need to panic.
This wasn’t my first case and this wasn’t my first murder. It was a chance at work that mattered and I would not blow it by making a spectacle of myself.
Fourteen-twelve Griffin resembled a small hill of twisted metal, decorated with chunks of concrete, mixed with dirty marble, piles of shattered bluish glass, and fine gray dust, the result of magic’s fangs grinding at the substance of the building. A backhoe and some other heavy-duty construction vehicle the name of which I didn’t know sat across the street, next to a tent.
A reinforced tunnel led inside the hill, with two shapeshifters standing guard. The one on the left, in dark jeans and a black T-shirt, was a male bouda in his late thirties, lean, dark, with an easy smile. I’d met him before—his name was Stefan and he and I had no problems. Like most boudas, he was good with a knife and occasionally, if his opponents really pissed him off, he would scalp them after he killed them.
The other shapeshifter, on the right, was larger, younger, and dark-eyed, with chestnut hair cropped short. I inhaled his scent. A werejackal.
I came to a halt before the tunnel. Stefan’s eyes widened. “Hey, you.”
“Hey, yourself.”
The jackal gave me a long look. I wore a white long-sleeved shirt, brown pants, and a leather vest over it. The vest’s main advantage was its million pockets. My two Sigs rested in twin shoulder holsters. The jackal’s nose wrinkled. That’s right, I don’t smell like a normal bouda.
“Jim sent me,” I told Stefan.
Stefan raised his eyebrows. “That Jim?”
“Yup. Did Raphael make it back from the cops?” My insides clenched up.
“Nope.”