Skeleton Crew. Cameron Haley

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СКАЧАТЬ the mortal world. Actually, it makes a little more sense this way. This gate would be a lot easier to handle than a demon summoning, especially with the zombie outbreak softening things up.”

      “Yeah, easy—you just have to let a demon possess you. Okay, let’s say Mobley has the juice to do this. Where did he learn the ritual? And how did he talk the demon into doing his dirty work without any magic to compel it?”

      “Well, look, Mobley wasn’t pulling all that juice. He was giving some of his own magic up to the demon. It fed off him. Otherwise, yeah, you’re exactly right,” Adan said. “Mobley ran the same game Papa Danwe did with Oberon. He cut a deal.”

      “How exactly did he make a deal with something that couldn’t manifest in this plane of existence?”

      “The demon couldn’t get here without the gate, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t communicate with Mobley.”

      “Maybe,” I said. “But maybe not.” I went to the kitchen and came back with a couple beers. I handed one to Adan, popped the cap off the other and took a long pull. “The last time, with Papa Danwe, I made a lot of assumptions. I was wrong about most of them and right about just enough to be dangerous. I don’t want to do it the same way this time.”

      “Fair enough. All we really know is Mobley created a gate using his own body and soul, and a demon came through and attacked Oberon’s party.”

      “Yeah, and we know he didn’t command or compel the demon with magic.”

      Adan shook his head. “We don’t really know that. We just know you didn’t get anything from the juice the demon left behind.”

      I felt like arguing, but he was right. Actually, Adan seemed to be in the habit of being right and I didn’t like it much. It was like having a neat-freak for a roommate—occasionally useful but mostly just irritating. This was probably one of the useful times so I decided to let it go.

      “Okay, but I think there’s one more thing we do know. Look at the spell. Never mind how Mobley learned it—it doesn’t take that much juice. I know better than most, it’s not that hard to tear holes in the world. This one’s deep, yeah, but it’s doable, especially since he can feed the demons with his own magic. Mobley will be using the war with Terrence, and if he puts everything he has behind it, he’s got this kind of juice.”

      “So he can do it again,” Adan said.

      “Yeah, but only if he’s got more demons lined up he can cut deals with. Otherwise, he’s just letting them in with no way to guarantee they’ll do what he wants. They could come after him. And he can’t play host for long—from what Mr. Clean told me about demons, letting them possess you has to be bad for your health.”

      “The demons probably don’t want to put Mobley at risk. They want all the players back in the game.”

      “We’re speculating again,” I said. “Truth is, we don’t really know enough to hand this off to Terrence and Oberon. We saw what one of those things could do. If Mobley can bring more in, it’s fucking stupid to give him an excuse.”

      “Mobley isn’t giving Terrence much of a choice. He’s either got to soldier up or lay down.”

      “You’re picking up the lingo pretty good, even if you are country. Terrence has to fight, no doubt. Hell, Mobley will get suspicious if he does anything else at this point. But we can’t go at him directly. We can’t back him into a corner as long as he might have some demons in his back pocket.”

      Adan nodded. “The only way we can stop him from gating in more demons is to deny him the juice he needs to work the ritual.”

      “Right on, so it’s just another gang war. Terrence needs to take his streets, muscle him off his corners. No juice, no demons. Once we dry his ass out real good, then we can move in and take him down.”

      “It’s a good strategy,” Adan said.

      “Thanks.”

      “But I don’t think it’s going to work.”

      I frowned and did my best to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Why’s that?”

      “Look at it from Mobley’s perspective. He put a demon in King Oberon’s house. Maybe you’re right and he was just trying to sow dissension in the ranks, but even so it’s a damned aggressive move. He didn’t have to bring the fey into it. He didn’t even have to bring us into it. Yeah, he knew what it meant when Simeon Wale went over to Terrence’s outfit, but he could have let it go. That gave him an excuse to escalate but he didn’t have to seize the opportunity if he didn’t want to. He’s fully committed, Domino. He’s got to know he doesn’t see the other side of this thing unless he takes us all out—you, me, Terrence, Oberon. Everyone’s got to die. Which means…”

      “…if he’s got more demons, he’ll use them,” I finished. “And we can’t just put a crew together and take him down. Even if we bring in the other outfits, it’s not clear we’d win an all-out war.”

      “We need time,” Adan said, “but Mobley obviously isn’t going to give us any.”

      “So we don’t give him any choice in it. All we really need to do is avoid committing our forces to a fight we can’t win. We can do that as long as Mobley has something to keep him busy.”

      “Terrence. You’re willing to sacrifice him?”

      “Call it what you want, Adan, Terrence is on the frontlines. If I’m going to be the wartime captain, some hard decisions are going to come with that. It’s the right move. If this is a fight we can’t win, our objective has to be not losing. The only way we do that is by not fully engaging the enemy. We need cannon fodder.”

      “I agree, it’s the best play we’ve got. I’m just surprised. I know it can’t be an easy decision.” I met his gaze and saw something in his eyes. It was something I’d become used to seeing but had never really earned. It was respect. I didn’t feel like I’d earned it now, either. What’s so respectable about giving up a friend?

      “Damn it!” I said, and slammed the laptop closed. I rubbed my eyes and temples and let out a long breath. “I was going to make an army out of this outfit, Adan, but I haven’t done shit. We should have been doing…army stuff. Training, organizing, gathering intelligence. Our guys are gangsters. They don’t know anything about being real soldiers. I don’t know anything about it, either. Now something happens, it’s exactly the kind of thing we were supposed to prepare for, and we’re sitting here with our thumbs in our asses. And the only move I’ve got is to sacrifice a friend just to buy a little time.”

      “I’m not sure how much training or organizing you can do with this bunch. Even if you can turn the outfits into that kind of army, it’s not going to happen overnight. You’ve got them looking at the big picture. They’re willing to fight with you, and for something more than their own corners and rackets. That’s a small miracle in itself.”

      “Intelligence is the big problem,” I said. “I may not be much of a soldier, but even a gangster knows you can’t win a war if you’re always reacting. You have to know who the enemy is, what he’s planning, and you have to go on the offensive. We can’t do that because we don’t know what’s coming or when. That’s why we don’t have any options with Mobley. We’re on defense and it’s getting our people killed.”

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