LITMIR.BIZ

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you said before. Eight maids and you. That’s a nine-way. Where am I in all this?”

      “That’s your present. You get to watch.”

      “I can see it for free on the Web.”

      “I’m better than the Web.”

      “I’ll give you that. But you’re still coming out ahead on this deal. Better get me that pointy hat so I won’t feel cheated.”

      She takes my hand.

      “You got it, Jingles.”

      We step into a shadow and come out in the Golden Vigil’s new L.A. headquarters, right off the eight hole of the Wilshire Golf Club. They eminent-domained the place right out from under the blue bloods, paying ten cents on the dollar, for what it’s worth. It’s the first time I ever really respected the Vigil. Marshals and Vigil witch doctors still dress up in pricy sports clothes and play round after round of existential golf on the grounds. No one keeps score, but someone has to be out on the greens keeping up the appearance that the club is still just a place for rich morons to blow an afternoon. Like maybe none of the locals noticed the surplus Iraq War ASVs, enough lab gear to restart the Manhattan Project, and about a hundred blacked-out bulletproof vans sneaking into the club.

      A man is waiting for me inside the clubhouse. He’s wearing a black suit and skinny tie, with a flag pin on the lapel. He looks like a mortician’s idea of a high school principal.

      U.S. Marshal Larson Wells is God’s own Pinkerton on Earth. The Golden Vigil is Homeland Security’s dirty little secret—an investigation and law enforcement operation for supernatural activity. Which is a nice way of saying they’re dedicated to harassing people like me and pretty much everyone I know. They’re thorough and obsessive. From what I’ve heard, they still have Lucifer on a terrorist watch list with a price on his head.

      Wells is a charming piece of work. A Nevada Holy Roller marshal who hates working with me as much as I hate working for him. But we both have a vested interest in stopping the old gods, the Angra Om Ya, from returning and eating the world. Wells has a habit of calling all Sub Rosa and Lurkers “pixies,” which isn’t so bad on its own. It’s just that he says it the way a backwoods redneck says “faggot.” He used to run the Vigil with an angel named Aelita. She’s dead. I didn’t do it, but I would have been happy to.

      I’ve been back on the Vigil payroll for a couple of weeks and things are going swell.

      “Where is he?” says Wells when he sees me and Candy.

      “There was a problem,” I say.

      “What kind of problem?”

      I hold out the ice chest. Wells’s eyes narrow and he opens the lid an inch before dropping it down again.

      “What in all of God’s creation is wrong with you? I sent you on a simple snatch-and-grab. I wanted to question this man. Where’s the rest of him?”

      “In a meat locker near Sunset and Echo Park, along with a dozen other dead Angra fans. They built a Sistine Chapel out of body parts in one of the freezers. You might want to send a team over before the cops haul away all the evidence. You can get the GPS off my phone.”

      “Don’t move,” says Wells. He pulls out his BlackBerry and thumbs in a text like he wants to punch the keys in the face. When he’s done he sighs and peeks in the cooler again.

      “Why did you even bring that thing here? I’m not paying you by the scalp.”

      “He didn’t do it,” says Candy. “Well, not all of it. Just the last part to get his head off. The guy did the rest himself.”

      Wells turns to Candy. It’s the first time he’s acknowledged her presence.

      “It’s truly a comfort knowing that your paramour only partly cut off the head on a key witness in our investigation.”

      “Just ’cause he’s dead doesn’t mean we can’t still question him. That’s why he’s on ice,” I say.

      “Go on.”

      “There’s this ritual I know. It’s messy, but if I do it right, I can catch his soul before he goes into the afterlife.”

      “And how pray tell does the ritual work?”

      “First I have to die a little.”

      Wells puts up his hands and claps once.

      “Well, isn’t that peachy? Another death today? And a suicide? Right here in Vigil headquarters? I can’t see Washington minding that at all. Please go ahead.”

      “It isn’t technically suicide because I’m only partway dead and only for a little while.”

      “Good, because suicide is a sin, this is consecrated ground, and I’ve already broken enough commandments just letting you in here.”

      I hand Candy the cooler and go up to Wells.

      “You came to me for help, remember? You know what I do and how I work. Anytime you don’t want me around I’m gone. But when I leave, the Magic 8 Ball comes with me.”

      “So you can lose the weapon again? How about you clean up this mess before you go causing another?”

      “Fine. Get me a room where I can do the ritual. Preferably somewhere quiet and private. There’s going to be some blood.”

      “More good news,” he says. “Come with me. I wanted you to see this anyway. It’s one of the old club offices. We’ve turned it into a kind of lab so you pixies can do magic or whatever without contaminating or scaring the bejesus out of the newer agents.”

      “They sound a little too sensitive to be cops.”

      “Don’t bad-mouth my people. None of them’s ever come back with a head in a box.”

      “Maybe you didn’t ask nice enough.”

      Wells leads us through the place. The building is swarming with agents. Some in dark suits like Wells’s. Some in lab coats.

      The building doesn’t resemble much of a country club anymore. They’ve knocked down walls and torn out floors and ceilings to bring in their special tech. I never had much use for the stuff, but I guess it suits whatever most of them do. The tech is a mix of hush-hush black budget science-fiction toys crossed with angelic hoodoo they used to get from Aelita. I don’t know what they’re doing for it now. Maybe they have another angel on the payroll. They sure can’t ask me for help. I’m a nephilim. Half human, half angel. And I worked hard to get the angel part of me under control. The little prick is a boy scout and a bore. I’m not bringing him out again just to sup up some laptops and ray guns.

      Wells leads us into what used to be one of the business offices. Now the windows have been blacked out and it’s been turned into an occult space. A place where disreputable pixies like me can perform forbidden rites and magical high jinks.

      Candy sets the cooler down on a worktable piled high with old books and manuscripts.

      “What do you think? Looks like you finally got your hoodoo man-cave.”

      “I’ve seen the Vigil do worse. At least they’re admitting that they need something more than angelic halo polishers on their side.”

      Candy flips through the old books, looking for wood prints of medieval monsters, one of her favorite things. I look around.

      There are lab coats, aprons, gloves, and eye protection by the door. Dry-erase boards mounted along one wall covered in English and angelic script. A few Angra runes too. There’s what looks like an alchemy setup in the corner, with test tubes, burners, alembics, and enough herbs, elixirs, and powders to build a hedge maze. Some clever boots has installed a silver magic circle in the floor. A massive crucifix is bolted to the back of the door. A rube’s talisman designed to keep our unholy magic from contaminating the rest of the Vigil’s headquarters. Same as always. They need us hoodoo types, but they never let us forget

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