Detonation Boulevard Read online

  “I don’t know if I believe you, Scottie. You need to make me believe you.”

  “I—I really want it, okay?” he stammered. “I really, honestly do. I want you to torture me.”

  The blade pulled away. He almost let out the breath he’d been holding. Then she touched the sharpened bundle of twigs against his third finger stump.

  “There,” she said. “Was that really so hard? Let’s get back to work.”

  She took her time with this one. The twigs punctured scabs and bloody skin, tearing through, rocking slowly back and forth inside the wound as she speared them into his flesh. A stream of tears joined the sweat slicking his face as he thrashed against the ropes. She spoke to him in the space between his screams. She wanted him to say how much he loved it. He did. She ordered him to thank her. He did.

  He passed out at one point, swallowed into blessed oblivion. She waited for him to wake up.

  “Good,” she said as he opened his eyes. “Now we can finish the procedure. I didn’t want you to miss one second of it, seeing as you asked so nicely.”

  * * *

  Scottie sat on the log, elbows on his knees, pale and shaking. Savannah loomed at his shoulder like the shadow of death. He’d thought about jumping her when she untied him. He’d also thought about running.

  “Just so you know,” she told him in mid-decision, “I can hear your thoughts now. So you should try hard to think really nice things about me, all right?”

  That put an end to his plans of rebellion. For the moment.

  “Aren’t you going to try them?” she asked.

  “Try what?”

  “My present. Your new fingers.”

  He stared at his throbbing, mutilated hand. Blood from his wounds gloved it to the wrist, burgundy red. He thought about making a fist and—

  —the twig bundles moved. They flexed, creaking, moving just like his good fingers did. He held his hand up and turned it, slowly, as his eyes went wide. He could feel them.

  “They…they work.”

  When Marie took his fingers, he thought she’d taken everything from him. Years in one gym after another, day in and day out, studying the arts of kendo and iaijutsu—the sword had been his lifelong passion, and he thought he’d never hold one again.

  He had his blade hand back. He was back. Fresh tears welled in his eyes, not from the pain this time.

  Savannah set her lace-gloved hands on his shoulders.

  “Of course they work, silly. What did you think, I jammed sticks into your wounds just for fun?” Her breath, carrying a whisper, was warm against his ear. “That’s the sort of thing a crazy person would do.”

  * * *

  “It was my great-grandfather’s,” George Watanabe said.

  He eyed the visitor to his home with nervous curiosity. There was something…off about the lantern-jawed man, some frenetic excitement that made George wonder if he was on drugs. The fact that he wore a pair of expensive leather driving gloves and never took them off, on a warm day in springtime, was another odd detail. Still, he was well-dressed and well-spoken, and he’d rolled up to the curb in a sleek silver 7-Series BMW. He clearly had some money to throw around.

  Scottie stood in the middle of the den, fixated on the katana in his hands. His gloved fingers flexed around the long hilt, woven in strands of sapphire blue with a pattern of ridged diamonds. The hand guard was an elaborate wheel of silver, with hard-edged geometry that lashed out from the hilt like lightning bolts frozen in time. He turned the sword to catch the overhead lights along the blade.

  “I wouldn’t be selling it,” George said, “but my job…they outsourced our whole department. Didn’t even give us a week’s notice.”

  Scottie squared his footing, dropping into a kendo stance with one knee slightly bent. He tested the weight of the blade and ran his tongue over his teeth.

  “After the surrender,” George said, talking just to fill the uncomfortable silence, “MacArthur ordered everyone in the country to turn in their swords. Thousands were melted down or dumped into the ocean. We weren’t allowed to own them again until the fifties. This one my family hid. It’s a rare piece.”

  “Your great-grandfather would have chosen to kill himself over selling this. You know that, right?”

  George flinched.

  “I…I don’t have a choice. We need the money.”

  Scottie didn’t look at him. He addressed the sword. “Are you familiar with tameshigiri?”

  George shook his head, mute.

  “‘Test cut.’ The system of proving a katana’s potency. In the Edo period, there were all kinds of ways to test a blade. They’d see if it could cut through layers of tatami mats, tightly packed straw…bodies, too.”

  “Bodies?” George asked.

  “Oh, yeah. They used convicted criminals. See, a proper katana should be able to slice a man in half, from shoulder to hip, in a single strike. Makes sense, right? I mean, this is a weapon of war. If it can’t perform under test conditions, it won’t cut it—pardon the pun—on the battlefield.”

  “It was a different time, I guess.” George ran a finger along the inside of his shirt collar. “We were thinking five thousand dollars? I mean, it’s a museum-quality piece.”

  Scottie grinned at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since he’d unsheathed the sword.

  “Museum? Oh, no. My man, no. This is too good for a museum. You know who goes to museums? Poor people, like you. No, this is a weapon of war. And I happen to be in the middle of one.”

  George took a halting step back, pushed by the manic fervor in Scottie’s voice. “A war?”

  “I’m a real-life action hero, just like in the movies. See, this corrupt cop murdered my best friend. Then she cut off my fingers.” He held up his hand, gloved in fine-stitched leather, and flexed his fingers. “I got better. Forget about it. Anyway, now I’m on a righteous rampage of revenge, out to take down the bad guys. Every action hero needs a signature weapon, like Indy’s whip or Bond’s Walther PPK. And this one…this one’s going to be mine.”

  “We were thinking,” George said again as a bead of cold sweat trickled down his forehead, “five thousand?”

  “Hold on, now. First things first. Like any good samurai, I need to verify this blade’s quality.”

  Scottie pivoted on the ball of his foot, turning to face him, and raised the katana high in a two-handed grip.

  “Let’s give it a test cut.”

  * * *

  Scottie hummed a happy tune as he tossed a long, black nylon gym bag into the passenger seat of his BMW. The sapphire-blue hilt of the katana poked out from one unzipped end. In the back seat, a pile of moldy rags rustled to life. Savannah sat up behind him and her single black eye loomed in the rearview mirror.

  “Did you get what you needed?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. He stepped on the brake pedal, pushed the ignition button, and the engine hummed to life. “So where now?”

  Her lace-wrapped hand brandished a long metal box on a rubber-coated handle. The front of the device was shot through with cracks, the electronic readout flickering under a wash of blue and gold static.

  “I’ve modified my life-wave detector. Before, when we had Detective Reinhart in custody, it couldn’t perceive her. But I’ve realized the flaw in my design. It’s the ink, you see. It’s not just a drug, Scottie. It’s the lifeblood of the universe. We are connected. And by adopting the mantle of the Witch, I move my occult resonance into a sympathetic spectrum.”

  He pulled away from the curb and tried to keep his thoughts under careful control.

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  She tilted the box. It let out an ear-piercing squawk, a blast of feedback that sounded like a chorus of agonized screams trapped beyond a wall of white noise. Scottie ducked his head and clapped one hand to his ear.

  “I’ve been feeding it my blood,” Savannah said. “Teaching it. It will tell us where to go. Drive south.”

  Four

  Marie and
Nessa strolled the boardwalk. They had one suitcase between them, a rolling carry-on that trailed in Marie’s grip, and the car swap had drained most of their ready cash. Marie felt their time running out. It was late afternoon and the dark, choppy waters were rushing in fast and cold, clawing at the edge of the sand. At their feet, the ocean reclaimed its dominion, while above, the sky was a blank and cloudless slate. An odor of sea salt and rot hung in the air.

  Not many people out today. A few tourists, snapping photos of the horizon, a couple of mothers pushing strollers along the weathered wooden slats. To their left, hotels stretched the length of the beach. Faded facades with forgotten names, most of them, still closed for the season or closed forever.

  Marie had a head full of monsters. They slithered, serpentine, in the dark recesses of her mind and fed on her anxiety. They taunted her with visions of prison, of spending the rest of her life in a solitary cell, slowly losing her mind. Senator Roth had orchestrated his revenge with practiced skill, pulling political strings to get the law on his side. He wanted her and Nessa dead—no, worse than dead—for what they’d done to his son. If the authorities caught up with them, there’d be no escape.

  And if they took the clean way out, with a bullet? That would be even worse. They’d lived a hundred lifetimes, maybe more, trapped in this insane curse. Reborn, with their memories seared blank, on a hundred parallel worlds. They’d meet, they’d fall in love…then they’d be murdered. Live. Love. Die. Repeat. They’d caught a lucky break and learned the truth this time. If they failed to break the curse, they may never get another chance. And they’d suffer, and die, and repeat, for all eternity.

  Here was the anger. Her oldest, most faithful companion. The fear faded away as the fury rose, simmering in the pit of her stomach, starting to boil. Hell with them. Roth and his political puppets, the law, spirits and monsters, and anyone else who stood in their way. She’d take them all on.

  “We are not going to die here,” she said.

  Nessa took her hand.

  “No,” Nessa replied. “We’re not.”

  The Ambassador’s name curled in ornate script, above a ragged awning of green and gold. The five-story hotel drooped on the boardwalk’s edge like a candle snuffed before it could melt all the way down. Its eaves sagged, windows hung off-kilter, once-vibrant emerald paint peeled in flakes to expose the wooden bones beneath. The lights were on, and the revolving door squeaked as it spun to invite them into the lobby. A musty smell hung in the air, clinging to the peeling wallpaper and the old, dirt-smudged rug.

  The Ambassador charged sixty dollars for a night’s stay, with ID and a credit-card deposit in case of damages. Nessa rounded it up to a hundred in cash, and the clerk behind the desk forgot about the rest. He checked them in as Mrs. and Mrs. Doe.

  Their room was on three. Bare bones, but they weren’t there for the amenities. They just needed privacy for a few hours, to do their work. Nessa slid the Oberlin Glass from their luggage and unwrapped it, laying the black mirror flat on the flowered bedspread.

  “No guarantees this will actually work,” she said.

  “I know,” Marie said, reciting Nessa’s mantra. “Witchcraft is an art, not a science.”

  Nessa rubbed her chin and studied the glass. “Still, anything we can get, the tiniest clue to point the way, is more than we have right now. Okay. Take your shoes off, get comfy, and try to relax while I prepare the rite.”

  Marie lay down on the bedspread. She stared up at the eggshell-white ceiling, her eyes drawn to a smear of dirt in one corner of the room, and took slow, deep breaths. Beside her, Nessa sat cross-legged on the mattress with the mirror before her. She took a plastic spray bottle she’d bought at the metaphysical supply store, with flaky herbs floating in a watery brine, and squeezed the trigger a few times. The nozzle hissed, wetting down the onyx glass. The faint scent of vinegar kissed the musty air.

  Nessa wiped the glass down with some folded tissues from the bathroom. The glistening fluid streaked, drawn out in swirling lines like waves upon a frozen midnight sea. All the while she whispered a chant in a language Marie didn’t understand. Soft syllables rolled in peaks and valleys. Waves of sound.

  She sat up, positioning herself on the opposite side of the glass. Nessa didn’t tell her to do it, it just felt right, like the chant had called to her. Nessa wore a pleased look in her eyes. She kept up the rhythm, building now, faster, and passed Marie a plastic baggie.

  The two grains of ink sat nestled inside, spiky and black as the mirror between their knees. The chemicals seemed to pulse in time with Nessa’s sibilant whispers, throbbing on every second and fourth beat. Marie shook the grains out into her open palm. She hesitated.

  She’d lost her badge, her career, everything she’d ever stood for, and she was at peace with that. All the same, this felt like a bridge too far. Ink was the creation of a ruthless, murderous drug cartel; they’d killed innocents, massacred her fellow officers. How could she think any good would come of this? She curled her fingers, tempted to crush the tiny, throbbing grains into dust.

  “These are the tools of the enemy,” she whispered.

  Yes, Nessa replied. But she couldn’t have. She was still chanting, her lips moving to the steady flowing patter of her spell. Her voice, a second voice, echoed inside of Marie’s mind as their eyes met.

  To employ the tools of the enemy, Nessa explained, to corrupt them, subvert them, and use them against their makers, is a tenet of witchcraft. There is no weapon they can forge that we cannot steal and hold to their throats. You only have to make one simple choice.

  Do you want to be too good, and too pure, for such tactics? Nessa’s eyes asked the question as her voice wrapped silken tendrils around Marie’s mind. Or do you want to win, and tear our oppressors down?

  Marie opened her mouth and set the grains under her tongue.

  She felt them melt, and her thoughts melted with them. The occult drug ignited in her bloodstream and lit her veins up like gasoline. She looked down and saw herself without skin, without bones, just a network of glowing blood trails in the shape of a woman.

  She looked to the mirror. The waves were in motion now, and the onyx glass had become a pool. It yawned, growing, tilting, stretching out before her.

  She clasped her hands, took a deep breath, and dove in. She hit the warm, black waters and they swallowed her whole.

  * * *

  Marie woke with a sudden start. She was sitting in a stiff-backed wooden chair. She’d expected the warm glow of afternoon light, pressing against the hotel-room curtains. What she found was gloom lit by flickering candles. It was a chamber of black stone, dark as Nessa’s mirror, lined with shelves of moldering books and rumpled parchment scrolls.

  She glanced down at herself. She wore a vest of sleek black brigandine, accented with cold brass studs, over a blouse and leggings of nightingale blue. A pair of sickles dangled from her belt, with short grips and blades honed to a killing edge. She recognized the weapons. The Other who had visited her while she was being tortured by Savannah Cross, the vision of her past life, had worn this same outfit.

  Holy shit, she thought and patted her face. I’m here. I’m actually here.

  Her arms felt different. Stronger. She leaned forward in her chair, getting her bearings, and poked at her stomach muscles.

  And I have serious abs. Okay. I can deal with this. I’m absolutely not losing my mind right now.

  She wasn’t alone. On the other side of the room, a man and a woman—olive skin, dark hair, their sharp features close enough to be siblings—were immersed in studying a scatter of scrolls and maps spread across a rough-hewn table. She was certain she knew them. Their voices were familiar, like a well-worn blanket on a cold winter day.

  “—so according to this,” the woman was saying, “the Gianni expedition left Mirenze and set out due north. Now before they vanished, they left marker stones at—”

  Marie sat bolt upright. “Did you just say ‘Mirenze’?”

&
nbsp; They paused, staring over at her.

  “Yes,” the woman replied. “Yes, I did.”

  “Sorry.” Marie held up a shaky hand. “Go on.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “We will. Thanks for your permission, I suppose?”

  They went back to their work, talking in low voices, as Marie got her bearings. Tried to, anyway. She recognized that word.

  And given where I know it from, she thought, the chances of this being nothing but a drug-induced hallucination just got a lot more likely. Oh, well.

  All the same, have to make the most of it.

  She drummed her fingers on her knees and tried to figure out an angle of attack. Finally, she just spoke up and asked, “Do either of you know where Wisdom’s Grave is?”

  They stopped again and stared blankly at her.

  “Despina, dear,” the man said, “I believe our beloved sister may have suffered a concussion.”

  “Brother, most sweet in my heart,” Despina replied, “I suspect she may have found some fine brandy stashed away, and not bothered to share with us before drinking the lot.”

  Marie sank into her chair, trying not to cringe. “I…assume that was a dumb question.”

  Despina swept her hand across the spread of maps and notes.

  “Finding the answer to your question,” she said, “is the labor at hand. So if you could let us work in peace, maybe we’d find an answer that much sooner? Mistress gave you a book to keep you busy. I suggest reading it.”

  “Right.” Marie ducked her head and turned to the table at her side. “Right. Sorry. I’ll be quiet now.”

  A book sat at her left hand. Heavy, leather-bound, with yellowed pages touched by water damage at the edges. A Study of Coven-Knight Myths, read the spidery handwriting on the first page, As Pertaining to the Periodic Emergence of Witch Cults in the Greater Imperial Basin. She had to squint and bring the book a little closer to her face. Jesus, other-Marie, she thought, you seriously needed reading glasses. Did you even know?