9/14/92 Insect Killing Jar (1): traps and devours the souls of anyone within at least fifteen feet, possibly more, including the user, when opened. DO NOT OPEN. Attempts to destroy have so far been unsuccessful. SERIOUSLY DO NOT OPEN THIS THING.

Great, it’s not just useless junk, it’s fucking dangerous useless junk. I close up the crate, find a massive book left out on the desk titled Esoteric Mysteries of the Spheres: Newtonian Physics and the N Dimensionality of Subjective Reality. Any book with a title like that’s only good for using as a hammer, so that’s what I do with it.

I leave Subjective Reality on the top of the crate and shove the ledger back into my messenger bag. I go out the way I came. As soon as I’m past the door and into the loading room the magic cuts off. The loading door slides smoothly open, as if there wasn’t enough magical energy in the room I just left to level a city. It closes on its own once I’m outside, an airlock for magic.

I look into the hand mirror, feel it tug toward the southeast. She’s still at it, bundling twigs. Now I just need to figure out where it is, and what to do when I find it.

Chapter 12

“I have a proposition for you,” I say once Gabriela answers her phone.

“You’re not my type,” she says.

“Thank fuck for that. I found a way to track down the Burning Girl. She’s in some factory or something. Up for some recon?”

“Why, Mister Carter, are you flirting with me?” she says.

“I take the babes to all the best places. I’ll be there in ten.”

When I pull up, Gabriela’s waiting for me in the warehouse parking lot. She’s got a Benelli shotgun with a pistol grip slung over one shoulder, a bandolier of shells over the other, and her machete on her back.

Behind her, half a dozen of her people, men, women, and if I’m reading things right, a vampire or two, stand with AKs in their hands. Most of them don’t like me. Can’t really blame them. They had a sweet setup at Gabriela’s hotel, and the minute I show up it all goes to shit.

They may not like me but we have an agreement. They don’t fuck with me, I don’t drag them off to the other side and confront them with the horrors of the grave. Doesn’t work as good on the vampires, though. Go figure.

“Nicely nondescript,” Gabriela says, raising an eyebrow as I roll down the window. The Honda I stole with Letitia was running on fumes so I stopped to steal a BMW hardtop Z4.

“This is L.A. Nondescript comes with a price tag. Besides, I got tired of being chased and not outrunning anybody.”