I’ve been waiting for Quetzalcoatl to show his face and burn shit down ever since I got back from Mictlan. He couldn’t have come at a better time for it. Triple digit temps, high winds, everything dry as kindling.

As the man says, the hills of Los Angeles are burning. The palm trees haven’t turned into candles in the murder wind, yet, but it’s just a matter of time. Brushfires spread through the green spaces like syphilis through a Victorian dockside. Laurel Canyon, Calabasas, Verdugo Mountains, La Crescenta, Griffith Park. No matter how many firefighters and tanker planes they throw at them, they can barely contain the fires.

Outside it’s well on its way to a hundred. I’ve rolled up my shirtsleeves, left my suit coat in the car. Some places it would feel weird with so many of my tats showing, but in L.A. they just figure I’m some white hipster from Silver Lake with too much money. All I need now is a fancy mustache and artisanal toast.

I stop on the sidewalk to look back at the house, streaks of soot radiating out onto the cement from the house’s blackened lawn, crawling up the trunk of a palm tree. There isn’t much left of the house to tear down. Exposed framing, disintegrated drywall.

Xiuhtecuhtli’s fire really did a number on it. Surprisingly, it didn’t catch the houses on either side. Was that on purpose? And if it was, why this house in particular? Why this woman? It can’t be random. Q’s batshit crazy, even by god standards, but I don’t think he’s stupid. He’s got a reason even if I don’t know what it is.

I’m so preoccupied trying to puzzle out what’s going on that I almost don’t feel the flare of magic on my skin from the protection spells in my tattoos. Less than a second later I hear the gunshot behind me. The magic pushes the bullet away, but not enough. It rips my sleeve and runs a gouge across my left bicep.

I wonder who I’ve pissed off this time.

Chapter 2

I bolt for cover, the closest being my Cadillac Eldorado parked next to me. I get it between me and the shooter as three more rounds go off.

They’re too high and punch into the side of a scorched palm tree in front of the house. The last time somebody shot me I was partly jade and I couldn’t feel it. Bullets just ricocheted off me. But now, Jesus. I’d forgotten how much this shit hurts.