“Cèsar,” he hissed.
I socked him in the jaw.
Eduardo didn’t even flinch.
He tackled me to the ground and we hit the pavement hard. He was heavy on top of me, knee digging into my chest, compressing my lungs. But my difficulties breathing were the least of my problems. If he moved two inches to the right, he would break Domingo’s circle of power. Scuffing that line of salt would kill the spell instantly.
Had to get him back inside the building.
Blows rained down on me fast and hard. Couldn’t even tell where Eduardo was hitting. Everything from the shoulders up hurt like fireworks detonating in my bones. I blocked my face, absorbing the contact with my forearms.
He paused to draw a gun.
It only took a second—but it was long enough. I sat up. Slammed my head into his face. Missed his nose, but sent him reeling.
The emerald flared just a few inches away from my head as Domingo’s magic snapped into place. The burst of energy meant that anyone inside the building should have gone unconscious.
Too bad Eduardo was outside.
I grabbed the emerald and held it in my fist as I swung. I knocked Eduardo’s arm aside at the same instant that he fired. The bullet went wide, smacked into the stucco exterior of The Pit. The sound was loud enough that my aching skull began to ring like a bell.
He turned to aim again. I dived, shoving him through the doorway.
We both crossed the threshold.
The instant his foot touched the ground, his eyes went blank. He rag-dolled on the ground. Caught a table on the way down. It collapsed under his weight, cracking and crashing underneath him.
I caught my breath, prepared to pass out with him.
But I was awake. The emerald was warm in my hand.
“Domingo, you genius bastard,” I whispered.
I held still for a moment, listening for the sound of others on the approach. Anyone who was awake should have heard the gunfire and come running, but my brother’s spell seemed to have worked. Everything was silent inside The Pit.
Kneeling beside Eduardo’s body, I patted him down for weapons. All I found were the two guns under his arms. They were smaller than mine—each one a Beretta 9mm, both probably union -issued. That was a pretty standard model of gun for police and military. I still had my Desert Eagle, but I took one of pistols anyway. Having twelve extra bullets couldn’t hurt.
I checked the safety, then tucked Eduardo’s gun in the back of my belt and went looking for Isobel.
There were more bodies near the kitchen. I had expected to find Joey nearby, but was shocked to see that these men weren’t OPA employees at all—they were slender men with black hair and leather jackets. I thumbed back an eyelid on one of them. His irises were demon-black.
What was Eduardo doing hanging out with incubi?
And they weren’t just any incubi. The guy I was looking at was wearing a leather jacket pinned shut with silver needles. The wickedly sharp edges were stained brown.
These were the same fuckers who had hurt Ofelia and attacked me in Helltown.
And they had Isobel.
A storm of righteous fury and protectiveness surged in my chest. It was too easy to imagine Isobel looking like Ofelia had when I found her at the beach house. All the punctures in her ears, her nose, her lips, the back of her neck.
Not again.
I followed the beam of light through the kitchen door. That was where I found Thandy—the manager that I’d interviewed right after Erin died. She didn’t look injured, and she had a pulse. She’d be fine once Domingo lifted his spell. That accounted for four of the people I had seen in the kitchens. There was at least one other around here somewhere.
A door next to the walk-in freezer was opened. It led to basement stairs.
I headed down.
The basement was cold and dry, with a dirt floor and brick walls. They had several floor-to-ceiling racks of wine bottles, a few kegs stacked in the corner, and some other assorted liquor on the shelves. Guess it was what I would have expected to find underneath a bar.
The chair with a woman tied to it, though—I was pretty sure that wasn’t normal for a bar.
I rounded the steel chair to find that Isobel’s ankles and wrists had been tied to it. Her head drooped low, chin touching her chest. I gently pushed her head back and was relieved to see that she hadn’t been tortured yet—not with needles, anyway. She had a black eye. Her bottom lip was split open in two places. Blood had dried on her chin.
“Jesus, Izzy,” I muttered.
I holstered my gun and worked at the knot on her right wrist, picking at it with my stubby fingernails. It had been tied tightly by an expert. It wasn’t loosening. I had to resort to biting at it to get the thing undone. Thank God everyone else is unconscious. I must have looked like an insane pit bull gnawing on her ropes.