The cheeseburgers would’ve been so good with bacon.
The third RV park took a longer, deeply unnerving bus ride to reach, and it was in the bad part of town. Know how they talk about “wrong side of the tracks?” Well, it looked like this park had been planted solidly in the middle of those tracks and then run over a few dozen times by trains hauling thousands of cattle, each of which took a giant dump on the park as it passed.
It was inside a crumbling brick wall. The smell of rain failed to overpower the sewage stench of a couple dozen RVs dumping their shit all over the place. Every so-called “recreational” vehicle looked like it had survived a nuclear blast.
If radioactive hillbillies ever vacationed in Los Angeles, this would have been the spot.
“You okay, dude?” the man at the window of the third RV park asked as I stopped to catch my breath. “Don’t die on my sidewalk, man. I gotta clean this thing.”
I knew I looked bad, but on-the-verge-of-death bad? And people said that no one cared in this town. “I’m fine.” I took a few deep breaths and regretted it. Man, that smell was terrible. Hard to tell if it was coming from the park or the guy operating the gates. He looked like a radioactive hillbilly himself, mostly bald with more hairy moles than teeth. “I’m actually looking for a friend.”
I went through the whole deal, miming Stonecrow’s height against mine, tracing her more slender form and generous hips. The man’s eyes lit up for a second, but then his face went neutral.
“Dunno,” he said, scratching the mole on the left side of his neck. His fingernail was yellow and cracked. “My memory’s terrible.”
And me without money for a bribe.
“Thanks anyway,” I said.
The man looked disappointed. “Any time, bro.”
I made like I was walking down the street, away from the entrance.
As soon as I was out of sight of the office, I vaulted the brick wall and dropped down on the other side behind an RV.
The look that guy had given me when I described Stonecrow was the look of a man that had seen ungodly perfection in a woman. The kind of woman with hips that could knock down walls, and her breasts—Lord, those breasts. No wonder clients had been paying thousands of dollars for her time.
I slipped my hand into my pocket and clenched it around Stonecrow’s bracelet. The raccoon bones dug into my palm. The pain was enough of a reminder of what I was doing there, what I needed to do, and why.
Last time I’d let my balls do the thinking, I’d ended up with an innocent woman dead in my bathtub. And this particular woman, this necrocognitive, was the only way I was going to get justice for Erin. That’s all she was. A tool to clear my name and find the real villain.
A tool that was slinking around behind the RV three parking spots down.
The sight of her lurking just a few yards away jolted me to my core. I hadn’t expected to be so quick to find her, especially when she was already on the run again. I’d hoped to catch her off-guard, cozy and unsuspecting in her mobile escape unit. Instead, she was crouched behind an old RV that was decorated with beaded curtains and electric teal paint.
There were no animal skins in sight this afternoon. Stonecrow wore cutoff shorts and a baggy pullover. The only reason I could identify her at that distance was that she had feathers woven into her hair, like a faint echo of the elaborate headdress she had been wearing early that morning.
For a second, I thought Stonecrow had been clued in to my presence and was trying to sneak away. But she wasn’t looking at me. She was leaning around the corner of the RV to peer at something else.
I followed her gaze to see a black SUV parked on the other side of her vehicle. It had flashing lights set into the grille and dark-tinted windows.
A pair of men in black suits stepped out. They were big guys, so much broader than me that they made me look like a skinny-assed nerd. Their necks were thick as tree trunks. Every move looked deliberate, choreographed. Only one type of person moved like that: kopides. Super-powered demon hunters.
The union had found Stonecrow.
Wild thoughts whirled through my skull. Had Suzy reported our findings to her superiors, even knowing that I was going to the same place? Maybe she’d thought that they could get to Stonecrow first. Take away my primary incentive for remaining in town. No way she’d deliberately attempted to fuck up my day.
Whether or not it was what she had planned, that was definitely the outcome.
Stonecrow jumped into the shadows behind the next SUV, which was rocking on its suspension, like there was a dance party inside. Or some other kind of party. Then she jumped behind the next. The same one that I was hiding behind.