Witch Hunt(36)

“Get the fuck out of here,” said a gravelly voice.
I dragged my attention from a nine-inch pipe with detailed veins. The artist herself was behind the counter, sitting on a stool that lifted her squat, froggy body to a normal height. She was surrounded by spindly glass sculptures. They were genuinely beautiful.
“Hey, Monique,” I said. “How’s business?”
She gave me a flat look. Literally a flat look. No nose, no eyebrows, barely any lips. All of her looks were flat. But this one was especially unimpressed, like I’d just asked to borrow money from her. “I’ve stopped selling pipes to mortal kids, so I know you’re not here to fuck with me. Yet I told you to get the fuck out of here and you’re not listening. You want something, you ugly cunt, so what the fuck is it this time, Hawke?”
Great. I’d caught her on a bad day. “I’m looking for information pertaining to a murder.”
“You know I didn’t fucking kill anyone.”
I grabbed an Erlenmeyer flask off of her shelf. I could use some new equipment. “I know. You’re too short to do anything worse than bite ankles.”
She flashed dagger-like teeth at me. “I said I didn’t kill anyone. That doesn’t mean I won’t.”
Setting the flask on her counter, I fished around for some of the cash I’d stolen from Joey Dawes. “Erin Karwell. She was a waitress at a bar called The Olive Pit. Do you recognize the name?”
“Mortal?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?” Monique asked. I set a twenty on the table. Before I could let go of it, her hand shot out and seized my wrist. Her fingers were those of an artist, long and slender and delicate. Her touch sent chills rushing up my forearm. “I don’t want any of your fucking money. I know why you’re here. You’re in deep shit, Hawke, and you’re desperate for answers.”
“You can’t know why I’m here if you don’t know Erin.” I flashed the news article with her photo.
“Is that the cunt you killed?” Monique asked, barely even glancing at it.
Shit. She did know why I was there. It wasn’t fun being part of Helltown’s rumor mill. No fun at all. “Don’t tell me you’re siding with the cops on this one.”
“I’m on nobody’s side but mine, and my side is awfully fucking interested in not getting dead.”
I pulled my hand back from her counter, twenty clutched in my fist. “Has the OPA been through here asking for me?”
“It’s not the OPA you need to worry about,” Monique said. “Yeah, I recognize Erin. She used to come around here.”
That was news to me.
“What do you mean, ‘around here?’ Helltown? Your shop?”
She pushed the flask toward me. “Take it. Consider it a parting gift.”
I didn’t touch it. “Erin was just some waitress. What would she have been doing in Helltown?”
“Get your dumb ass down to the Temple of the Hand of Death,” Monique said. “It’s on Sekhmet, northwest side. That’s where you’ll get your answers.”#p#分页标题#e#
My sense of alarm heightened. “Why? Is someone there expecting me?”
Her smile was even more unpleasant than her glare. “Have a nice day.”






 
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Common sense said that I shouldn’t go to the Temple of the Hand of Death. It was on the north side. The north side of Helltown was where the incubi were, so I didn’t go to the north side. Especially not if there were things expecting to see me there.
Should have been a no-brainer, right?
But common sense and desperation didn’t play nicely, and I didn’t have a lot of other options.
I drew my Desert Eagle before approaching the so-called temple.
It was one of the shittier buildings in Helltown. The temple looked like it occupied a former gas station, judging by the row of vintage gas pumps in front of it. You could still almost make out the graceful lines of the fifties-style decorations on the outside of the building, but they had rotted with age. The roof sagged in the middle. The sun had bleached the colors out of everything. The windows had been punched out.
Smoke spiraled out of the windows, fogging the area in front of the door. Smelled like a brushfire. I sneezed.
A steel sign had been hung over the door. It read: “Vedae som Matis Duvak.” I didn’t understand vo-ani, the demon language, but I was going to assume that meant “ugly-ass gas station.”
I pushed the door open.
The floor inside was poured concrete. An altar stood at the far end of the room—a folding table with an array of melted candles sitting in piles of sludgy wax. There was a big clock on the wall behind it. A couple of hand-woven baskets stood along each wall. They were covered, fortunately. I didn’t want to know what demons considered to be fitting offerings for demon-gods being honored in a temple gas station.