Page 29 of Hounded (Fire & Brimstone)

29

Loren

The stench of tainted soul hung in the air of the Jewel Hotel lobby. I was bloodhound enough to know it was a trail quickly going cold, and I wasn’t surprised when the attendant manning the front desk answered my inquiry about Joss Foster with a shrug.

“He checked out.”

I bit back a curse, and my hound grumbled in anticipation. He was antsy for the hunt and intolerant of delay. Especially one that could set us back for days.

A line of guests queued behind me, shouldering weekender bags and leaning on wheeled luggage. The woman closest to me was a bottle-blonde socialite pushing a terrier in a stroller. Every few seconds, the scruffy canine let out a yap. Each shrill report felt like a rubber band snapping against my brain.

“Do you know where he went?” I squared myself with the attendant who stood with her hands clasped.

She shook her head. “People don’t tell us those things. It’s more of a drop the room key and run kind of situation. ”

Her eyes darted behind her tortoiseshell spectacles as she looked past me, ready to summon the next person in line.

The terrier in the stroller yipped again, and I bristled.

“Did you call him a cab?” I asked.

The attendant’s red lips pursed. “How do you know this guy exactly?”

Over the years, I should have fabricated a better cover story. Indy suggested I get a PI license to use as an excuse to slink around inquiring after strangers. He said I should wear a fedora hat and a suit like Sam Spade, maybe take up a cigar habit. The whole idea amused the hell out of him, but I’d done nothing about it, which left me with whatever lie I could come up with on the spot.

“I’m on his security team,” I replied.

The attendant looked me over. Wearing a button-down and vest and with my hair hanging loose, I didn’t fit the standard for hired muscle which might have explained her skepticism as she asked, “And he left without you?”

“Apparently.”

She glanced at the young woman behind me and her rat of a dog, but her words were for me, “Sounds like you should call him, then. Before he gets too far.”

Her beckoning wave prompted the socialite to push past, bumping my heel with the wheel of her stroller. The jostle caused her terrier to burst into a chorus of shrill barks, and my hound snarled in response.

Shoved aside, I clung to the counter while my brain churned through possibilities. If I were on the run for my life, as Joss most certainly was, I would take the quickest route out of the state. A cab wouldn’t travel far enough fast enough. This kind of mission would be taken to the sky.

It was late to catch a flight out of New York, but I wouldn’t fault Joss for trying. I almost wished I hadn’t approached him at the exhibition. It would have been so much easier to creep up on him here and slay him in his bed while he slept. Quiet. Peaceful. Painless.

LaGuardia and JFK were both near enough that it was impossible to guess which the artist would have fled to. Probably the same one he arrived from, which meant I needed to make a call, after all.

Digging into my slacks pockets, I found my keys, wallet, and nothing else. I checked my vest and came up empty again. My cellphone, along with the sweater I’d shed at Indy’s trailer in a fit of nervous sweat.

The little dog yipped again, and my eye began to twitch.

I’d get my phone later. Even if Indy found it, it was password protected.

The desk attendant was in the middle of activating a room keycard when I cleared my throat. She glanced over at me.

“May I use your phone?” I asked.

With an exasperated sigh, she aimed her card-bearing hand toward the glass-walled area in the corner of the room. Inside it, a long table held a line of computer monitors and a bulky scanner/printer combo.

“There’s one in the business center,” she said.

Nodding, I turned that way, but not before the terrier gave a parting bark and growl. I whipped my head around and bared my teeth at the animal, prompting it to squeal and cower in the corner of the stroller.

When I looked up, both the attendant and the dog’s owner were staring in slack-jawed shock.

Without a word, I hurried across the lobby toward the business center.

Inside the room, I was blessed with a bit of privacy. I scanned the row of computers, then carried on to the corded telephone mounted on the wall. The sign beside it advised “Dial 9 + Number,” and I realized another flaw in my plan. Sully’s contact information was programmed into my cell, but I’d never bothered to memorize it.

I missed the days of switchboards and phone operators and the ability to dial directory assistance. Frowning, I considered the computers. I’d never owned one of the things, relying on Indy to search for directions or to look up restaurant menus and movie showtimes. Every time he was reborn, he was a product of the current era. His fashion sense and awareness of modern technology seemed innate. I had always been slower to adapt and less fond of change.

Bending over the wheeled chair in front of the nearest computer, I clicked through to the home screen. Icons populated a field of blue, and I blinked at them in bewilderment.

If I could find the number for the gallery, the after-hours call would roll over to Sully’s cell. That was assuming she answered and wasn’t asleep, in the shower, or otherwise occupied.

After mousing over a few icons looking for something recognizable, I found the internet browser and opened it. I pecked out letters on the keyboard, getting halfway through spelling “Easel” before the search bar autofilled.

A photo of the gallery appeared on the screen along with the address and phone number. I sighed in relief.

Darting over to the wall-mounted telephone, I dialed the gallery and toe-tapped through five rings before Sully’s groggy voice came across the line.

“Hello?”

“Which airport did Joss fly into?” I asked.

A snuffled breath and the rustle of bed sheets carried to my ear before she mumbled, “Loren?”

My grip tightened on the receiver. “JFK or LaGuardia?”

“LaGuardia, I think?”

“You think ?” I echoed. “I need you to be sure because he’s on the run, and I’m not chasing him all the way to Indiana, Sully.”

I couldn’t leave New York. Not with Whitney lurking around any given corner and Moira dogging my every move. Which meant Joss Foster couldn’t get on a plane.

Sheets swished again. “Yeah. LaGuardia,” Sully said.

I hung up the phone and raced out into the lobby. The stroller dog barked, and my hound bayed as I barreled through the revolving door into the darkness outside.

Parking at LaGuardia airport was a disaster, and I immediately regretted not taking a cab. After winding my way through the multistory garage in search of an open spot, I found one on the third level. While jogging to the elevator, I checked my watch, trying to calculate how far Joss might have gotten in the time since the exhibition ended.

Assuming he’d gone straight back to the hotel and gathered his things, then caught a ride here, he might have made it through security, but no further. I grew more certain with every pounding step that I could catch him before he boarded a plane, but that assurance didn’t convince my heart to slow its rapid rhythm as I ducked into the elevator then waited while it rattled downward.

On the ground level, crickets sang and fluorescent lights hummed. I hurried toward the sliding glass doors while weaving between waiting taxis and travelers lugging carry-on bags.

My hound sniffed the air, searching for traces of that certain stink we’d found faintly at The Jewel Hotel. Upon entering the airport, I caught a whiff of it: sweet as decayed remains and twice as potent.

Hanging signs indicated I was in Terminal B. A bay of escalators ferried passengers to the upper stories of the building. Ticketing and Check-In—and hopefully my target—were on the third floor.

I rode an escalator up, tucked between businessmen chattering on cellphones and making me wish I had mine. I often fantasized about being rid of the damned thing, but the idea of missing a call from Moira made me anxious.

Upstairs, a long desk was barricaded by a maze of black stanchions. People filed in, holding tickets and passports. At the front of the line, looking as frazzled as I must have while questioning the hotel attendant earlier, Joss Foster stood. A pair of lumpy bags piled on the floor beside him, and he leaned over the counter, stretching to see the computer screen as the check-in clerk scrolled down it.

“Destination doesn’t matter, I just need the next flight out,” Joss said breathlessly. “Could be Fiji for all I care. In fact, check Fiji. I could use a vacation after the shit I’ve seen tonight.”

“The shit” was, undoubtedly, me, a demonic entity on the hunt for the artist’s bartered soul. It had been cocky to approach him at his show, effectively outing myself as his executioner. I felt brazen now, too, as I took up a post at the back of the room and watched the scene before me unfold.

“I’m sorry, sir, but the next flight to Fiji—”

“I just need a ticket, lady!” Joss slammed his fist on the counter, and the clerk flinched back.

My hound snarled a threat that I swallowed.

Soon, I told him.

The clerk returned to her keyboard, flustered but focused until she ripped a slip of paper off the printer and passed it to Joss.

“You’ll need to hurry to get through security in time,” she told him.

When Joss bobbed his head, his greasy hippie hair swung limply. “I plan on it.”

He heaved his bags onto the scale, hastily attached luggage tags, then pocketed his ticket before cutting a line toward the open area of the airport. I followed at a distance, intending to close the gap as he progressed toward the security checkpoint.

I’d never been on a plane. Witnessing the invention of the things had not inspired me to trust them, and that wasn’t likely to change tonight. Not to mention I couldn’t get far without a ticket of my own. Bolting toward the metal detectors and guards scanning boarding passes might have been Joss’s best bet to elude me a second time, but that didn’t seem to occur to him when I caught up to him twenty feet shy of the entrance and clapped my hand on his shoulder.

The artist spun, then looked up to meet me eye to eye.

“Oh, fuck,” he sputtered.

I dropped my voice to a whisper and bent toward him to say, “I hope you have your affairs in order.”

His face washed ghostly pale. He lurched back, but he couldn’t go far with my grip anchoring him in place.

I couldn’t draw my weapon here. There were security cameras all over this place, and witnesses who would rush to report a man being bisected with a polearm. I needed to take Joss somewhere private, and I didn’t expect him to go quietly.

I didn’t expect him to start screaming, either.

“Help! Police!”

His shriek rang in my sensitive ears.

When I winced, he ducked from under my hand and took off toward the escalators heading downstairs.

“Security!” Joss raced ahead, barreling through the passengers cluttering the moving staircase.

His summons drew the notice of everyone on the third floor, including the guards waving detection wands over shoeless passengers and scanning IDs and passports. Walkie-talkies crackled as rapid-fire descriptions of Joss and me were shared with security team members throughout the airport.

I broke into a sprint, following the path being cleared by Joss’s escape. Ahead of me, the grungy artist arrived on the second level and boarded the next escalator to continue his descent.

Cries of alarm and Joss’s continued calls for help inspired chaos. I took the stairs two at a time, my pulse pounding along with my shoes as I raced after the retreating man.

On the ground floor, he swung a wide turn toward the wall of automatic doors. Uniformed officers closed in from the corners of the room. When one pulled a pistol from his duty belt, I sped up. I did not want to add another bullet wound to my collection of scars.

Joss charged through the open doorway where he nearly collided with a family of four entering in stride. He spun to avoid the small child at the end of the line, then exited onto the canopied sidewalk outside.

“Stop! Police!” Came a voice from behind me.

I didn’t pause to look back as I traced Joss’s trail out of the building.

A line of yellow cabs idled at the curb, and Joss had stopped at the first one. He piled into the backseat while squawking at the confused cabbie, who stood outside the vehicle with his hands raised, shaking his head in response to Joss’s frantic shouts.

“Drive, man!” Joss shrieked. “Get in the damn car!”

Dashing forward, I rounded the hood of the taxi and passed the stunned driver. I dove in through the open door, rocking the gearshift into drive and stomping on the accelerator. Our lurching advance swung the door shut.

“Thank you. Thank you, man. You saved my life,” Joss blubbered from the rear of the cab.

I focused on navigating the one-way traffic lanes leading away from the terminal but, when I snuck a glance in the rearview, I found Joss looking back.

“No…” He moaned and slouched dramatically forward, shielding his face with his hands.

Through the window behind him, security guards spilled into the open. The abandoned cab driver dropped to the ground, but none of them paid him any mind. The guards shouted into their walkies, then lowered their guns as the taxi sped out of range.

Slowing would give Joss a chance to bail from the car, so I stepped on the gas and watched the speedometer climb while I navigated a roundabout headed toward the main roads.

Joss gulped and wheezed in a way that made me wonder if a heart attack might finish him off before I could.

“Hey, listen,” he said between gasps. “Listen!” He surged into the gap between the front seats. “What do you want? You want money? I’ve got money. Or I could… I could make you famous! You wanna be famous?”

“Is that what she offered you?” I asked idly.

Joss blinked. “She who?”

“Moira.”

We were pushing 50 MPH when I steered out of the LaGuardia parking area and onto the adjacent access road. Streetlamps beamed from above, spotlighting the pavement. I glanced out the passenger window to scan the tarmac lined with runways.

Joss clawed at the sides of the front seats. He pressed in until I could see his stricken face in my peripheral.

“Th-the demon?” he sputtered. “That’s her name?”

I nodded. I didn’t share that information with many people, but it seemed Joss had the right to know.

The artist bobbed his head frantically. “Yeah, she said she’d give me, uh fame, fortune… The same shit everybody wants.”

A scoffing noise slipped out of me as my hound began to pace. Too much talking, not enough action. In the absence of an available turn lane, I cut the headlights and steered the cab off the access road, bumping through grass toward the runways.

Beside me, Joss rambled on. “Look, dude, I’m loaded, okay? I can set you up for life.”

In my time in Moira’s service, I’d learned that a human soul had only as much value as its owner assigned it, and it was never a fair trade. Joss was a young man, no more than forty, so his bout of success must have been brief. Money and fame only mattered as long as you were alive to enjoy them.

When we rolled onto the tarmac at the edge of the airfield, Joss wailed. “You don’t have to do this, man.”

I heaved a breath. “I do.”

“Why?”

Blinking red lights warned me away from the taxiing planes as we put distance between ourselves and the LaGuardia airport. I was stalling, and my hound knew it. He nipped at me with stinging bites that made my hands tighten on the steering wheel.

“You made a deal,” I said through gritted teeth. “So did I.”

“What for?” Joss asked.

The tires crunched over gravel and grit when my foot moved to the brake pedal at last. The cab slowed to a stop, and I stared out the windshield at the horizon dotted with distant city lights.

I died for the same reason I lived. Hellhound Loren had not learned from human Loren’s mistakes. Maybe it was best I didn’t make my own decisions anymore because I so often made the wrong ones.

When it came to the value of my own soul, only one thing had seemed worth the trade.

“Love.”