Chapter Three

Stone felt out of place in the small, hole-in-the-wall bar. To be fair, he often felt out of place, but in this case he was keenly aware of the clientele’s eyes on him as he sat at one end of the long bar under a buzzing TV tuned to a soccer game in Spanish.

The bar was in east San Jose, anchoring one end of a decaying strip mall that was mostly defunct except for a taqueria and a combination liquor store/check-cashing place at the other end. The other customers were almost all male and Hispanic, working-class men stopping by to unwind with a few brews after their shift. It was obvious this was the sort of neighborhood bar where everybody knew everybody else, and newcomers were noticed immediately. Many of the men watched Stone now with varying expressions: curiosity, suspicion, wariness. A few had surreptitiously slipped out the back door. Stone wondered what they thought about why some skinny white guy had shown up at their watering hole alone.

He also wondered if any of them knew the man who had been eviscerated in an alley behind the place a few weeks back.

So far, the bartender, a beefy man with a salt-and-pepper brush cut, an impressive mustache, and a SJSU Spartans T-shirt, had ignored Stone except to ask him what he wanted to drink. They didn’t have Guinness, so he settled for trying a local microbrew. He was halfway through it now, perusing a folded copy of the Mercury News. There didn’t seem to be any new reports of odd murders. When he looked up, the bartender was standing in front of him. “I’m fine,” he said, indicating his half-full beer glass with a head tilt. “Thank you.”

The bartender didn’t move. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing here?” His accent was thick, but his English was flawless.

“Do I need a reason?” Stone asked. “Perhaps I was in the area, and wanted to stop in for a drink.”

The bartender shook his head. “Dudes like you don’t stop in places like this without a reason. You INS? ’Cause I know these guys. They’re all nice and legal.”

Ah, so that’s it. Stone chuckled, shaking his head. “No, no. I’m not from Immigration. Nor am I a policeman. Actually, if you have a moment, I had a couple of questions I’d like to ask you. Why don’t you give me another of these?” He slid a twenty-dollar bill next to his beer glass. “Keep the change. Excellent service.”

The bartender eyed him like he didn’t know what to make of him, but took the twenty and returned with another beer, which he put in front of Stone. “What kind of questions?”

Stone didn’t miss the fact that several of the other men were watching him over their own beers. He shifted for a moment to magical sight to read the room’s aura: so far it was still wary and suspicious, but not overly hostile. In fact, he thought it might have calmed a bit since he revealed he wasn’t here hunting for illegals. “A man was murdered near here a few weeks ago. I assume you heard about it.”

The bartender’s eyes narrowed. “What about it? Why do you want to know?”

Stone shrugged. “Curiosity, mostly.”

“You a reporter?”

“No. Actually, I’m a university professor, doing a bit of research.” He hoped the man didn’t ask him to prove it: he did have his Stanford ID on him, but he didn’t want to reveal either his name or his departmental affiliation.

“Research on a dead guy? What are you, Criminal Justice or somethin’?”

“Not exactly. Did you know the man who was killed? Was he perhaps a regular here? If so, you have my condolences. Terrible thing.”

The bartender paused, clearly considering whether to just tell Stone to take a hike. Finally he shrugged. “Nah, he wasn’t a regular. I seen him ’round here a few times, tryin’ to beg drinks. Sometimes one o’ the guys would take pity on him, y’know? I think maybe he was homeless.”

“I see.” Stone, playing his part, pulled out a small notebook and jotted that down. “I understand this might be uncomfortable for you, and I apologize for that, but—could you tell me a bit about what happened? I got the impression from the paper that it was rather horrific, but—”

“Yeah. I didn’t see it, just heard about it after.” He hooked a thumb off to his right. “Ben over there saw it. I dunno if he wants to talk about it. It messed him up pretty bad. But maybe if you buy him a beer or two…”

“Of course.” Stone glanced over in the direction he was pointing to see three men in paint-spattered T-shirts around a large table. One of them, a stocky young man in his mid-twenties, glanced up when the bartender called his name, then came over when he beckoned.

“Hey Ben, this guy wants to know about the dead guy in the alley. He’s some kinda professor. You wanna help him out?”

Ben looked dubious, looking Stone over. “I dunno, man. That whole thing was bad news. I kinda just wanna forget about it.”

“I’d appreciate any help you could give me,” Stone said. And to the bartender: “Please get him one of whatever he’s drinking.”

Still reluctant but a bit less so, Ben took his free beer and led Stone over to an unoccupied table. “What do you wanna know? I ain’t kidding. It was bad. It happened like a month ago, and I still have nightmares about it.”

“I promise, I won’t ask for much of your time. If you could just tell me what you saw—”

“Yeah, okay.” Ben rubbed the back of his neck and took a long pull from his beer. “I pick up a little extra cash cleanin’ up the bar,” he said. “I come early in the morning, before my regular construction shift starts. Park in the alley in the back.” He gestured toward the back door. “Anyways, I showed up that day and…” Hesitating, he looked away.

Stone waited.

Ben swallowed. “And—and I saw this guy in the alley. Like…all over the alley.”

“You mean the body was in pieces?” Stone asked, leaning forward.

“Not exactly in pieces.” He took another drink. “Sorry, man. It was hard. He was—it was like somebody had ripped his stomach open and pulled his guts out, you know? Real Jack the Ripper stuff. There was blood everywhere. Scared the shit out of me.”

“What did you do then?” Stone asked.

“What do you think I did? First I puked up my breakfast in a dumpster, then I went inside and called the cops. I didn’t touch nothin’—I was afraid they’d think I did it, y’know?”

Stone nodded. “Would it be possible for you to show me where you saw the man? Was it directly in back of the bar?”

“Nah, it was down a little ways. Only reason I saw it was ’cause I come in that way.” He tilted his head at Stone. “What kinda professor are you, anyway, wantin’ to know about freaky murders?”

“It’s just something for a paper I’m writing.” Stone stood. “How about it? Will you show me?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said reluctantly. “But only for a minute. I’m watchin’ the game. C’mon.”

Ben led him out through the back door. A couple other men were out there, leaning against an overflowing dumpster and smoking cigarettes. They glanced up as Ben and Stone went by, but didn’t comment. Ben led him down past a couple of doors until they stood in front of one that was locked, next to a boarded-up rear window. “It was here,” he said, pointing. “The guy was over there, in the middle of the alley.”

Stone was already examining the area, crouching down to get a better look. “And you say the body was eviscerated?”

“Evisci—what?”

“It was cut open and the intestines were pulled out?”

Ben looked a little pale. “Uh…yeah. They were sorta spread out around the body. You know, like whoever did it was really gettin’ into what they were doin’. I didn’t exactly look for a long time, though, you know?” He shifted back and forth, stuffing his hands in his pockets and then removing them. “Anything else?”

“What? Oh—no. Thank you, you were very helpful.” He handed Ben another twenty. “Please buy a round for your friends to help make up for the inconvenience.”

“Hey, thanks, man. Good luck with your paper.” Ben quickly made himself scarce, trotting back toward the door. It was obvious he didn’t want to be in that alley any longer than he had to.

Alone now except for the two smokers by the dumpster, Stone began to examine the area. There was enough light back here that he didn’t need a flashlight; he rose and paced around, then stopped and shifted over to magical sight.

It had been long enough since the murder had occurred that he didn’t expect to see much in the way of unusual auras, and he was right. The killing had been grotesque enough that vestiges still lingered: traces of terror and pain hung in the alley and would probably do so for some time. However the man had died, it had been neither quick nor painless.

Stone swayed a little, putting a hand on the side of the building to balance himself as he swept his gaze over the area.

That was odd.

The terror and pain weren’t strong, but they were strong enough that they were easy to pick out for anyone who knew what they were looking for. But there was…something else there, too.

Stone focused his perception, narrowing it until he was fixed on the place where Ben had pointed out the body. The feelings intensified a little, and a new one appeared.

Pleasure.

Satisfaction.

Stone took a deep breath. Whoever had killed the man had enjoyed it. This was no crime of passion. This had been fun for whoever had done it.

His mind travelled back to when he’d first come to the Bay Area, a few years ago. He’d seen killings similar to this before, but those killers had been dealt with a long time ago. Were more of them back?

Shifting back to normal sight, he pondered what he’d discovered. There wasn’t anything else he could gather from this area, and he didn’t think he’d be able to talk to anyone who’d seen the actual murder. No doubt if there had been such a person, the police had already questioned him. He didn’t think there was, though.

Something caught his eye as he prepared to go back through the bar to his car. The strip mall’s entire back wall, as well as the fence along the other side of the alley, were scrawled with colorful graffiti of the type typically produced by gangs and other youthful taggers. But over top of that, on both the fence and the wall, were a series of symbols in white paint, small and close to the ground. All of them looked the same:

Stone moved closer to the ones on the fence, crouching again. The symbols didn’t look like normal graffiti, nor any language he’d ever seen before—especially since they were all the same. He pulled out his notebook again and jotted it down. He thought it odd that he should see them here: they weren’t by any means the first such symbols he’d seen. In fact, he had a notebook at home containing numerous others of the same general type that he’d noticed and marked down over the course of the last two or three years. This particular one wasn’t common, but he’d seen it before in his travels. He’d have to add this sighting to his list when he got home. He stowed the notebook in his overcoat pocket and started to rise.

Something slammed hard into him from behind, propelling him forward into the fence with a crash.

What the hell?

He didn’t have time to get his shield up before he hit, but he barely managed to twist sideways so he smashed into the rickety fence with his shoulder and his arm instead of his head. Still, the impact unbalanced him and he landed hard in a pile of trash. He flung himself around to get a look at what had hit him.

The two smokers stood where he’d left them, but they were watching him now. They wore identical predatory grins. They also wore black leather jackets with identical round, red-and-black symbols. Stone wasn’t that familiar with area gangs, but everybody had heard of Dead Men Walking. The DMW were all over the Bay Area, and they were bad news.

Stone tried to scramble to his feet, but the taller of the two gangers waved a hand at him, still grinning.

The kid’s grin soon faded, though: Stone was prepared this time. With a flick of his mind he pulled up a glowing shield an instant before the spell hit him. The bright ball of energy fizzled against the barrier and dissipated. “Not so good when it’s not an ambush, then, are you?” Stone muttered, breathing hard. His heart thudded fast, and his shoulder flared with pain where he’d hit the fence. If they were both mages—or if they had friends lurking nearby—he could still be in trouble if he wasn’t careful. But he wasn’t planning on letting them know that.

“What the fuck—?” One of them stared, wide-eyed, at Stone’s shield.

Stone grinned, trying to project a confidence he didn’t fully feel, and got the rest of the way back to his feet. “You picked the wrong target, gentlemen.”

“Get him!” yelled the other one, and raised his hands to fling another bolt of energy at Stone. The other one ran forward, pulling a knife from his pocket.

Only one of them was a mage, then. Good.

Stone’s shield flared pink where the bolt hit. The kid had some power, but no discipline. Stone waved a negligent hand, sending the one with the knife flying across the alley to land neatly in the dumpster they’d been smoking next to. He turned to the other one. “I can do this all day,” he said, trying not to breathe hard and ruin the effect. “Your call.”

Scrabbling sounds emerged from the dumpster as the second ganger fought his way out. The first one roared and pointed at Stone with glowing hands. “Die, motherfucker!” he screamed. He didn’t even sound close to sane.

This time, nothing hit the shield directly. Instead, Stone felt both the shield and the bubble of air it protected beginning to heat up.

Okay, enough playtime.

“I warned you,” Stone growled. “Damned wild talents.” He concentrated, forming a pattern in his mind, and raised both hands, spread as if he were conducting an orchestra. He pointed one at the ganger in the dumpster, and the other at the mage. Both of them lifted off the ground, flew toward each other, and slammed together about six feet off the ground. When Stone let them go, they crashed to the pavement in a scramble of arms and legs and lay there, stunned.

“They didn’t teach you a shield yet, I see,” he said with contempt.

Tires squealed, and headlights appeared at the end of the alleyway. Stone risked a quick glance sideways, in time to see a car bearing down on them fast. “Time to go, then,” he said, and levitated himself upward. The car roared by the spot where he’d been standing, clearly intending to hit him. Its brakes screeched and it barely missed the sprawled gangers. The driver flung open the door and screamed something at Stone, but he was already up and over the top of the bar and didn’t hear the specifics. He did hear more squealing tires, though, and after a moment the car erupted out of the other end of the alley and disappeared into the night.

When he walked back into the bar—through the front door this time—a few minutes later, his heart was still pounding, his body still thrumming with adrenaline, his shoulder still throbbing. The bartender looked up, then glanced toward the back door, clearly surprised that Stone had come in from the front. “You find what you were looking for?”

“Yes. Thank you for your help.”

When he drove off in his car a few minutes later, hands shaking on the steering wheel, eyes alert for any sign of the DMW gangers returning in their car, he knew that wasn’t entirely true. He’d arrived with a mystery, and now he was leaving with at least three. This whole situation was getting more and more interesting—and potentially more dangerous. He wasn’t yet convinced that something supernatural was involved with either this or the murder of Madison McClain’s mother—or even if the two were connected—despite the presence of a wild-talent DMW mage. He’d heard there were a few in the area, but the DMW were bullies, nothing more. It could easily have been a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But then again, maybe not.

Right now, there was still no definitive evidence of supernatural involvement. But he had to admit that the clues were starting to move in that direction.