Stones Unturned (26 page)

On the rim of the sink there were more streaks of blood and a print that clearly showed one of the demon-boy's fingers. In his mind, Conan Doyle could almost picture the boy examining his growing horns in the mirror and cutting his fingers on the razor sharpness of their points.

The mirror allowed him no denials. Daniel Ferrick could wish all he wanted and hide from the rest of the world. But he could not hide from the mirror, or from himself.

Conan Doyle nodded and stepped back from the sink. He turned and went back out into Danny's bedroom. Now he began a more methodical search, pacing the room, studying the debris of a teenager's life.

At the foot of the bed a black smear marred the floor. Conan Doyle knelt and touched a finger to it and found the stuff hard and tacky. He sniffed it, and frowned deeply. He glanced up at the windows and went over to them. On one windowsill he found the same substance.

Roof tar.

He opened the window and thrust his head out, looking left and right. Some of the stones were scored and chipped, and in the grooves between them were gouges that might have been left by a mountain climber's pitons. Or a demon's claws.

Conan Doyle craned his neck to look up toward the roof. Then he withdrew, slid the window closed, and left the boy's room. He took the back stairs up to the door carved with wards and banes and opened it, stepping out onto the roof.

He stood a moment and pondered what Danny had been doing up here. Had he simply sat and looked at the stars at night?

No. He had wandered. The boy was long past simple rumination, Conan Doyle felt certain.

He went to the edge of the roof above Danny's window, then followed the short wall that bordered the roof along its perimeter until he came to a spot where the stone had been partially worn away. Scuffs and claw marks showed that Danny had spent a great deal of time in this one spot. He might have traveled over rooftops, gone anywhere in the city, but much of the time he'd spent out the window had been spent right here.

Now all Conan Doyle had to determine was why.

He glanced up. Immediately across from his vantage point and one story down was a window. Through it, he could see a girl in a black bra and underwear brushing her long hair in front of a mirror. Her mouth moved, no doubt singing along to music Conan Doyle could not hear through the closed window and from this distance.

How much time, he wondered, had Danny Ferrick spent crouched here, watching this girl? Had it been only natural curiosity, human voyeurism, or had darker thoughts taken root in the young man's mind?

No, not young man,
Conan Doyle reminded himself.
Young demon.

Without anyone realizing it, it appeared that Danny had become far more deeply troubled than any of them had realized. He cursed himself for not being more attentive. Yet he also knew it was too late for recriminations. What he required now was a solution.

No matter what it cost in blood and broken trust.

Squire didn't like it, he didn't like it one little fucking fragment.

Eve approached the tiny, red painted restaurant with the burned out neon dragon above the door as if she owned the place. Peking Tommy's was practically invisible to the Joes moving along busy Boylston Street. The magical wards and sigils scrawled in the doorframe and around the windows acted as a deterrent to the normal folk, preventing them from having any interest whatsoever in going inside. Peking Tommy's appeared to humanity to be nothing more than a bad case of food poisoning waiting to happen, and that was exactly how the owner, Tommy Chow, wanted it.

Now if those wards had been designed to keep out the mother of all vampires and her really shitty attitude, everything would have been peachy. But no such luck.

An old-fashioned bell over the door tinkled merrily as Eve swept into the foyer. It wasn't bad enough that they were entering a forbidden zone, but they were going in with a shuck in tow.

What part of this plan did I think would work?
Squire pondered.

Oh yeah, none of it.

The old woman at the reception stand looked up from where she had been snoozing, her small, almond-colored eyes immediately registering and recognizing just who had walked through the door. She barked something in the ancient Hakka dialect, and the foyer went strangely dark, as if the light had been suddenly sucked from the room.

Here we go.

There was a flurry of movement, and where the old woman had been standing there now stood a nine-foot-tall crow with fiery eyes. Shuck began to tug on his leash, eager to play with the giant bird, but Squire held him back. This was Eve's game. She said she could handle it, and Squire was more than happy to oblige.

There were mints on a nearby table, and Squire helped himself to a handful, popping a few into the curious Shuck's mouth as well.

The crow's voice boomed, a powerful wind whipping up as it slowly began to flap its huge wings.

"English," Eve yelled over the pounding wind, her hand covering her eyes from the dust and dirt that was being tossed around. "I'm a little rusty on my ancient Chinese dialects."

A handsome guy dressed in a black T-shirt and chinos appeared out of the darkness beside the giant bird.

"How about this, then," he said with no trace of an accent. "Get the hell out."

"Is that any way to talk to a lady, Tommy?" Eve asked.

The green, gold, and red dragon tattoo that ran along the right side of Tommy Chow's face seemed to writhe upon his flesh as if agitated — like it wanted to leap from its perch and devour the woman who had aggravated it so.

"There is a truce, Eve," he said, restraining his obvious anger. "You know better than this — as do you, hobgoblin." Tommy peered around Eve to look directly at Squire.

"I told her this was a bad idea," Squire explained, reaching for another handful of mints. "But when has she ever listened to me?"

The giant crow spread its wings, liquid fire dripping menacingly from its eyes, as it shared a quick exchange with Tommy. Squire's Hakka was rusty, but he thought that the two were probably discussing the quickest way of dispatching them. Then again, for all he knew it could have been about an overflowing urinal in the head.

"I didn't come here for trouble, Tommy," Eve said with a gentle shake of her head.

"But you are well aware of the turmoil your presence here will cause."

She nodded. "Yep, and I came anyway."

The dragon tattoo on the proprietor's face was definitely moving, the dragon having shifted its gaze to glare at Eve with hungry eyes.

"Leave now, and I'll forget this ever happened," he said. "The truce will remain intact."

"Sorry, Tommy," she said apologetically. "But I can't do that. I need to go inside — to talk to some folks."

The crow spread its wings, supernatural energies leaking from the tips of its feathers. Tommy held up his hand, stopping it from doing whatever it was it was about to do.

"You realize I would be within my rights to destroy you now."

"Yes," Eve agreed. "You would be within your rights to try."

The two glowered at each other. Shuck began to whine, and Squire knew exactly how the beast was feeling. The tension was so thick in the foyer that a piece of it could have been cut from the air and used like a club to beat the living crap out of something.

Somewhere within the restaurant a glass shattered, breaking the unbearable tension just a tad.

"I'm willing to give you something," Eve said to Tommy. "An object of great value to show how serious I am about keeping my word."

Tommy folded his arms across his chest, tilting his head curiously to one side. "What will you offer me?"

She'd hooked him for sure. Tommy Chow was a purveyor of ancient and bizarre antiquities, from this world, and the worlds beyond. Conan Doyle had had some problems with the man and his questionable methods for obtaining these items, but they'd worked out their differences when Tommy had acquired a certain object of power that Conan Doyle had been jonesing for.

From her pocket Eve produced a short, silver dagger. Tommy tensed, obviously wondering if he was going to have to defend himself. But instead of using the blade on him, she used her free hand to tug on a lock of her hair, and then passed the dagger's edge across it. When she'd returned the blade to its place inside her jacket, she held out her hand, offering Tommy the lock of her hair.

"For you," she said.

Tommy's eyes widened in surprise and appreciation. The value of this gift on the black market, or merely for his personal collection, was extraordinary. But if he was going to accept he had to act quickly, for once it left Eve's body, the lock of her hair would decay rapidly. If he was to accept her deal, he would have to find a way to preserve it at once.

"And what will I be allowing you to do if I accept?" Tommy asked, his eyes glued to the small piece of raven black hair resting in the palm of Eve's hand.

"I just want to talk," she explained. "There's a demon in town, crossed over from one hell or another. We've got three corpses already, and a friend of ours is in trouble. Conan Doyle's asked me and my ugly little friend to send our wayward traveler back to the Inferno."

Tommy narrowed his eyes. "A lot of strange things happening lately. Signs and portents. Broken rules. I'm not sure how much difference one demon's going to make."

Eve held the lock of hair in her open palm. She stared at him. "Don't fuck around, Tommy. You like the world the way it is. Me, Conan Doyle, and the rest of us, we're doing you a favor every time we stop this world from crumbling into the abyss."

Bored with the whole thing, Shuck plopped down onto the lobby floor and began to eagerly lick at his crotch. Squire considered doing the same.

Tommy stared at Eve a moment longer and then said something in Hakka to the giant crow. The bird gradually returned to the shape of the old Chinese woman. She darted toward Eve, reaching out with a liver spotted hand to take the proffered prize, but Eve closed her fingers over the precious piece of herself.

"Do we have a deal, Tommy?" she asked. "Old sins forgiven?"

Squire admired the fact that Eve could add that kind of irony to conversation without sounding bitter.

The old woman looked to the man as well, waiting for his reply.

Slowly Tommy nodded. "Yes, but I must accompany you inside."

"Sounds fine," Eve said, opening her hand again.

The old woman carefully took the lock of hair from Eve's open palm and scurried off in search of some way to preserve it. Squire was certain that Tommy had something that could do the trick in one of his back rooms. You could find Hitler's toilet paper back there, and probably Robert Johnson's guitar and Daniel Webster's mummified testicles as well.

There was awkward silence in the foyer until Eve spoke again. "Now I wouldn't expect that hair to wind up in the possession of somebody who would wish me harm."

Tommy smiled, the tail of the dragon tattoo tickling the right hand corner of his mouth. "Of course not, although I could think of at least fifty individuals who would pay me a king's ransom for a piece of you. It would be very profitable for a poor businessman like myself."

"Poor? If you say so. But you're not a fool," Eve replied.

"Exactly," he answered with a slight nod. "The repercussions of said business transaction would be most unpleasant." Tommy turned, walking toward a pair of closed wooden doors adorned with the silhouettes of two roaring dragons.

"Not to be rude," he said, hand upon the wooden door handle. "But you're bad for business, and if you could make this quick it would be greatly appreciated."

"We'll see what we can do."

Squire tugged upon Shuck's chain, and the great, black beast grunted as it climbed to its feet.

"Does that . . . thing have to go in as well?" Tommy asked, peering around Eve.

Shuck growled menacingly.

"He's part of the package," Eve said. "Might be instrumental in us finding the right person to talk to."

Tommy made a face to show that he was displeased, but would have tolerated just about any indignity to get his hands on that lock of hair.

"Just talk," he said, turning to Eve as he pulled open one of the heavy wooden double doors.

"Just talk," she reassured.

The smells of all kinds of Chinese food, including some dishes that had not been prepared properly elsewhere in centuries, wafted over to greet them. Squire's belly immediately began to grumble.

The dining room was about half full, not bad for a weeknight, and all of the patrons looked up from their meals to stare at the newcomers.

"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen," Tommy said, looking around the restaurant.

Eating utensils clattered against plates, and the drone of hushed whispers began to grow in the air. As far as Squire was concerned, there wasn't a lady or gentlemen in the bunch.

"A matter of grave importance has caused me to allow this interruption," he explained. "A terrible threat has come to the city, one that concerns us all." His eyes hit upon every table, every customer. "I am certain that we all wish to cooperate as best we can with efforts to rid our city of such a threat, just as I am certain you will all recognize our visitors. I have allowed them the opportunity to speak briefly with any of you that may have pertinent information you might wish to share."

Tommy paused. No one looked happy, but Squire was relieved when none of them immediately tried to tear out Eve's throat.

"I thank you for your understanding in this matter. An appetizer of your choice will be provided free of charge for any inconvenience this might have caused." With a slight bow, he presented Eve to the crowd.

If looks could kill, Eve would be nothing more than a quivering puddle,
Squire observed. A waiter passed by, and he reached out, grabbing hold of the tall guy's arm. The man looked down at him with disdain, but he didn't give a rat's ass.

"Get me an order of dumplings to go," he told the man, keeping an eye on the crowd. "Get 'em to me before the place goes shithouse, and there'll be a little something extra in it for ya."