Telaney had called me back around midnight and told me to meet her at some ungodly hour of the morning in front of a yoga studio a few miles from her home. Traffic was shit at that time of the morning getting out of the Valley, so I was a few minutes late and sadly in need of a cup of coffee when I walked up to her in the parking lot of Sunrise Yoga. At her feet was a dead woman clad in screaming pink tights and a pink tie-dye shirt. All the blood clashed violently with the pink.
“This isn’t quite what I envisioned when you told me to meet you here.” I pointed to the body.
“What, you thought I was actually doing a yoga class or something?” She snorted. “I’m too late. Damn it they weren’t supposed to do the hit until after the 7:00 a.m. class.”
That was the problem with scavenging. If your intel was bad, the bodies would be picked clean before you even got there.
“Fuckers took her purse and tossed her car.” Telaney pointed to a shiny red Audi a few spaces over. “The only things left were a handful of condoms and this.” She pulled a tube of Sisley lipstick out of her pocket and pulled the cap off. “Number eight, sheer coral. Fifty bucks a pop last time I checked. Want it? Coral’s not my shade.”
I considered that for a moment, unable to imagine Telaney wearing makeup, let alone coral lipstick. She was probably thinking the same about me. Coral wasn’t my shade either, so I politely declined.
“Suit yourself.” She shrugged and stuck it back in her pocket.
“Why is someone targeting a yoga studio?” I asked as we resumed our positions staring down at the body.
The real question was why was there even a functioning yoga studio here anymore. People were so weird. Demons in the city, violence all around, and there were still enough of them clinging onto a semblance of normal life to keep a yoga studio open.
“Because it’s where she went every Saturday morning. Kirstin VonMarten.” Telaney’s foot reached out to nudge the body, then withdrew, as if she’d decided the risk of blood-stained tennis shoes wasn’t worth it. “She was married to some big studio dude with connections.”
I eyed the silky blonde hair and strawberry daiquiri colored nails. “Someone sending the big studio dude a message to get back in line?”
Telaney shook her head. “Nah. She left him for some other big dude with the Palisades Militia. Her ex felt that was an intolerable blow to his manhood and put a hit out on her.”
Fucking dick. Two dogs fighting over a bone, only the bone had been a woman with a life, fifty-dollar coral lipstick, and a recent manicure.
“I’m assuming the Palisades Militia is going to go after Big Studio Dude now?”
“Yep.” Telaney sighed. “If I can actually get the timing right on that one, I’ll score big. Wanna team up?”
It was a rare generous offer, one I hated to turn down.
“I’m smack in the middle of something else right now. Plus, there are a few issues with my license that I need to straighten out first.” I liked Telaney. I didn’t want to be the cause of the tax collectors scrutinizing her doings under a microscope.
“Next time then.” She gestured toward the body. “Wanna grab the tights?”
I snorted. “Hell no I don’t.” They were downright hideous and covered in blood. Plus wrestling Lycra tights off a dead body wasn’t something I really wanted to attempt.
“Actually, I came out here to ask you a few questions, not scavenge on a hit.”
She took a few steps away, clearly not interested in the hot pink tights either. “You said you had something important you needed to ask me? Is there a job you need my help on? Is it about the accounting day hit Thursday where everything worth salvaging went up in a giant fireball?”
“It’s kinda personal. Can we go somewhere more private?” I wasn’t about to dredge up memories or out the woman’s past right here in the open like this.
She eyed me with curiosity. “Sure. I only live a few blocks away. We can walk.”
I left my bike, figuring it would be safe in a yoga studio filled with luxury cars, and followed Telaney. Three blocks later we were walking up to a house with freshly planted petunias blooming cheerfully beside the porch.
Outside of the occasional big job, Telaney liked to work close to home. She’d once told me that there might not be anyone waiting with the lights on for her, but she still tried to be in the door with her bra off and her feet up before nightfall.
Two years ago, Silver Lake was a hipster paradise. There’d been a coffee shop on every block. The walls and pavement had been covered with graffiti art that had nothing to do with gangs or tagging. The plentiful stores sold local crafts and weird shit like wire pyramids that were supposed to preserve food. Nearly every restaurant had served Asian fusion, and the bars proudly featured local indie bands and solo acts. Modern architecture abounded, and the namesake reservoir was ringed by a lovely trail that had been filled with fit joggers and residents walking their dogs as they sipped their double-shot dirty chai lattes.
The majority of the hipsters had defaulted on their mortgages and fled east. The banks that now owned these homes were stuck. No one was going to pay the exorbitant, inflated prices they’d loaned out for these little tiny homes, so they either wrote off the huge loss, or were still carrying the dead weight on their books, hoping no one noticed and their stock didn’t plummet.
With three quarters of the homes vacant and in foreclosure, looted and abandoned, others moved in. Silver Lake was now a squatters’ rights neighborhood. If you lived there, it was yours—just make sure you locked everything up tight, or you were liable to come home and find someone else squatting in your “acquired” home.
Telaney’s home was a square, one-story cottage-style block house whose stucco finish had been painted a light mint-green. White wrought iron posts supported the slightly sagging porch roof, and a huge picture window took up the entire left half of the house. It had to have been all of eight hundred square feet at most, and two years ago it would have sold for just under a million dollars. If the attempts at landscaping didn’t clue me in as to how much Telaney cared about her home, the interior did. This wasn’t just some convenient rent-free flop house, it was her home.
Telaney had made serious inroads in repairing the damage looters had done. Holes in the walls were patched, and sheets of drywall that must have been damaged beyond repair had been replaced. The oak floors had been recently sanded and polished. A few items of furniture looked new, and others had nice slipcovers hiding any damage. A cut-glass vase full of tulips sat on the dining room table.
“Don’t mind the mess.” She waved at the dove gray walls that were dotted with spackle and primer. “I need to give it all another good sanding before I paint.”
I sat where she indicated and admired her home, wondering how much work she’d needed to put into it to make it livable, and if there were any other decent homes in Silver Lake that were unoccupied. For a moment I had a little daydream of my own place with a comfy sectional sofa, a bedroom big enough for a king-sized bed, a bright sunny kitchen with stainless steel appliances, a fenced in backyard with a little pond. Maybe I’d have a small dog, or a cat, and I’d have Bea and the girls over twice a week for dinner. If I had a date, I could bring them home afterward. We’d drink champagne and get busy, scattering clothing all over the house as we disrobed. We’d fuck on the sectional, on the kitchen counters, against the patio door, then end up in my huge bed, tangled in sheets with legs entwined. In the morning we’d walk around naked and drink coffee, maybe screwing in the shower before I kicked him out so I could get to work.
Why was that date in my mental wanderings Bishop? The idea of him naked in bed with me had me feeling rather breathless.
It was a ridiculous fantasy. He’d thought I was hot, but not that hot. And he wasn’t my type. And as far as the house went, there would be no sense in me spending a lot of time wrestling a foreclosure away from a bunch of squatters and fixing it up when Bea, the girls, and I were planning on getting out of here and across the border as soon as possible.
Telaney came back in with two mugs of coffee and a striped glass bowl full of chips. She put the bowl on the table, handed me one of the mugs. It said “Not Today, Satan” in bright red letters on the glossy white finish.
Sitting down in a chair across from me, Telaney grabbed one of the chips. “So what’s up? Does this have something to do with your license? I heard some bitch set you up and you’re in trouble.”
“Tangentially.” Wow, I finally got to use that word. I took a sip of the coffee, then went on. “I was at that accounting day job when the Fixers came looking for me. They took my fourteen-year-old sister and sold her to the Disciples.”
Telaney sucked in a breath. “Oh Eden, I’m so sorry. What can I do to help?”
The offer surprised me—especially because I could tell she meant it. Hopefully what I said next didn’t have her rescinding that offer and kicking me out of her home.
“Eight years ago, you were rescued from human traffickers. I need to know everything and anything about that group.”
Her hand shook as she put her mug down on the table. That look of shock and betrayal in her eyes felt like claws in my stomach. I thought we were friends, the look said.
Before she could deny it all I leaned forward. “It was the Disciples then, and it’s the Disciples now. That same woman, Desiree, still runs the operation. They have Nevarra. She’s only fourteen. I found your picture from the raid eight years ago completely by chance. No one else knows, and no one else is going to know whether you say anything to me or not, but I’m begging you to help me. I’m begging you to help me save Nevarra.”
Telaney sucked in a ragged breath, her eyes haunted and focused on something about six miles past my left shoulder. I watched and waited, hoping after she dealt with the shock of having the bandage ripped off an old wound, she wouldn’t throw me out on my ass.
“I try not to think about that time.” She picked up the mug, then put it down again. “I try to pretend it was all a bad dream. My mom searched for me. The neighborhood helped put up fliers. They had vigils. After six months, she gave up hope of finding me alive, but still hounded the police to keep searching for my body.”
“They had you for six months?” That couldn’t have been right. She would have been sold by then, but the police raid found her with the other kids, as if she had been newly kidnapped.
“I was older than most of them—the same age as your sister. Fourteen-year-olds can fetch a good price if they’re pretty and they look young and innocent.” Telaney’s laugh was bitter. “I’m not pretty now, and I wasn’t then. I didn’t have the right look to appeal to the pedophiles who are eager to throw a ton of cash for someone to satisfy their sick fantasies. So, I became a video girl.”
Cold skittered down my spine. Juke had mentioned that some girls were used for pay-per-view videos. Raped on camera, and broadcast for anyone with a credit card to see. I wanted to tell her to stop, to let her return all these memories into a locked box in the back of her mind, but I couldn’t.
Nevarra.
“I’m so sorry, Telaney.”
She waved my sympathy away. “I kept my mouth shut when the cops came. I was in shock. For years I kept thinking I was dreaming and that I’d wake back up in that hellhole. It wasn’t just the trauma though. I was fourteen. My mama was all I had. If I had given the police names and locations, it would have gotten out, and I knew they wouldn’t have been able to keep us safe. So instead of naming names, I let my emotions burst through the dam and flood me. All the police knew was that I’d been raped, and that they’d kept me there for six months. I saw a dozen kids come through that room and leave when they’d been sold—a dozen that they never found.”
God. There was nothing I could say to that, no words to express my sorrow.
Telaney swiped a hand across her eyes. “I knew there wasn’t anything I could do to help those other kids—hell, I was just a kid myself. I buried it all, believing that if the Disciples started up with that side of their business again, they’d just stick with prostitutes and not risk dealing in kids.”
She looked up toward the ceiling, took a deep breath, and leaned back in her chair before she lowered her gaze to meet mine. “Desiree is one sick fuck. She meets the clients. She tells everyone what she’s got to sell, what’s a hot commodity—although any kid under the age of sixteen is worth bringing in according to her. She scripts the videos. She directs the photoshoots as well as the costuming and props all to make sure the ‘merchandise’ is presented in a manner that will get the clients stoked up and willing to bid high.” Telaney’s eyes glazed with that distant focus before she snapped her attention back to me. “She’s not human.”
If I’d had any doubts, she’d just banished them. “Desiree is a demon?”
Telaney shrugged. “Fuck if I know exactly what she is, but she’s definitely not human. She moves funny. There’s something weird about her eyes. It felt like she was a monster wearing a skin suit or something. It freaked me out. It freaked all the kids out. It freaked out the most badass dudes in the Disciples too.”
“But that was eight years ago,” I mused.
“I know. No one believed in demons back then. Everyone thinks they came here two years ago, but what if they’ve been walking around among us for decades? Centuries? Since the fucking cavemen?”
“Shit.” I remembered what HB and Bishop had said, combining that with what I’d gleaned over the last two years. Demons were rumored to be invincible, powerful beings who could regenerate in a flash, blast cars across the road, rip the soul right out of your body and take you to hell for eternal torture. How the fuck was I supposed to defeat something like that?
I wasn’t. All I needed was to find a way to get Nevarra, to sneak in and grab her then sneak out, all without coming within a mile of this Desiree.
“There’s a place they’ll be keeping the kids.” Telaney stood and began to pace. “It’s got to be somewhere they can put in cots, somewhere with a bathroom or a porta john, but limited entrances—somewhere kinda remote or in an area where no one is going to look twice if they hear a voice screaming for help. They’ll have guards.”
Fuck, that could be anywhere. Abandoned roadside motel. Unused warehouse. Rural foreclosed property.
“But that’s not how you’re going to find them.” She stopped pacing. “Jimmie didn’t get caught last time. If they’re running this operation again, then they’re using Jimmie. Desiree liked him. Called him an artist. He’s the one that does the photos and the videos. He works with Thumbs, who’s the IT guy.”
“Thumbs?”
She made a quick movement with her hands, as if she were texting. “Thumbs. There aren’t many guys with his skill who the Disciples can trust to run the auction and video website.”
“So Jimmie goes out to wherever they’re holding the kids and does the pictures and video.” All I’d need to do is find this Jimmie and trail him twenty-fourseven. They’d want pictures of any new kids, and probably additional pictures to add to the website to spur on additional bids as the auction progressed.
“Back when they had me, they did some pictures where they held the kids, but Jimmie was also renting a studio. He wasn’t going to haul all that crap out to some warehouse when he could send a van to get the kids and bring them to a place with all the right lighting and setup.”
Damn it. This was LA. There had been a million small studios for rent before the demons came, and probably a million and a half now. I couldn’t search every studio, and even if I did my chances of catching him at the very hour he was renting the place were slim to none.
Telaney vanished into the kitchen and came back with a pad of paper and a pen. “Here. Jimmie’s got a day job.” She handed me a piece of paper with a name and address on it. “James Pollina. He should know where the kids are being held. He’d come by every now and then when I was there to snap quick photos of new kids to use in planning the photo shoots.”
“Sounds like a real professional.” I shoved the paper into one of my pockets, envisioning me putting a bullet right between James Pollina’s eyes.
Telaney caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “I was there six months, Eden. I did a lot of videos. Jimmie…he took production seriously. We’d be there all day. I saw stuff like his day-job business cards, his cell phone calls.”
I got the feeling Jimmie had been a very hands-on director. It made me want to shoot him even more.
“How do you know he still works at the same place?” It had been eight years, after all.
Telaney turned away. “Because I keep track of him. I stalk him on social media, on LinkedIn. I want to make sure I never accidentally run across him. I can’t ever see him again. Not after everything he saw…and did.”
Jimmie was a dead man, just as soon as I found Nevarra.
“And this Thumbs guy?”
She shrugged. “Him I don’t know about. Desiree and the Disciples trusted him, so I’m sure they’re still using him, but I only saw him a few times when he swung by the studio to pick up pictures and videos. I don’t know where he lives, where he works, or his real name.”
I reached over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it before letting go. “Thank you. I’m sorry that I had to put you through all of this. I owe you big time.”
She walked me to the door. “Just find your sister, and find her fast.”
“I’ll find her,” I promised Telaney. “I’ll find her, and I’ll bring you Jimmie’s head in a bag.”
I had no idea why I’d said such a grisly thing to her. It just felt right. It just felt…right.
She laughed. “I don’t want his head, but if you’d snap a quick picture of his dismembered dick and balls and text it to me, I’d be eternally grateful.”
I promised to do just that, then I left, walking back to the yoga studio. It was a Saturday but some people worked on a Saturday. I’d go to West Hollywood, and if Jimmie was working, I’d lure him away from his desk. Then I’d make him tell me where they were keeping Nevarra. And if he wasn’t working, I’d break into his office and search it for some sort of clue, because I couldn’t just sit around and wait for him to go to work on Monday. Either way I’d figure something out. Wing it and hope I got lucky.
I was definitely feeling lucky when I saw the helmet still sitting on the seat of my bike. It was a sign. This was going to be my lucky day, I could just feel it. I’d find Nevarra, take her home, and maybe the money fairy would have stopped by the house and left ten thousand dollars in small unmarked bills for us.
Ten minutes later, I realized luck was a fickle bitch. I had a helmet, but I’d flooded my bike. Now, it wouldn’t start. I stared at it, cursing silently and wondering what the fuck I was going to do. I doubted anyone in the yoga studio had tools or motorcycle repair knowledge and West Hollywood wasn’t exactly walking distance from Silver Lake.
But it was hitching distance. I didn’t have time to fix my bike right now, not when I had a man to see about my sister. It was rush hour. For once I wasn’t covered in blood. I’d just catch a ride with someone, beat information out of Jimmie, find Nevarra, then come back for my bike later. It wasn’t like anyone was going to steal a 1989 Yamaha Fazer. Worst case scenario my newly stolen helmet would be gone when I returned.
It was pretty much the only option I had, so I left my bike with a pat and a promise to return, and started walking west.