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lot.”
    “Your friend all right? The one that’s sick?”
    “She’s fine,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure. Her vision had disturbed me, as well as her condition, and I was looking forward to getting back to work to get my mind off of it. “So what are you looking for in that–?”
    “Grimoire,” he said. “I’m not really sure. I heard what your dad said, and I thought maybe an exorcism spell or maybe a Binding would be useful. I’m working blind, though. And if I don’t know, the Grimoire won’t help me.”
    “Help you?”
    “Yeah, sometimes the books help you out a little. That’s how I see it. Maybe it’s another force, or another kind of magic.” He shrugged. “But I got nothing so far.”
    “Maybe if we see the place where it all started it’ll help,” I said. “Start from the beginning.”
    “You want to go to the place the seal was broken?” said Gage.
    “You know where it is?”
    “Yep.”
    “Peachy.”
     

Chapter Six
    The traffic detours started five blocks from the scene, with barricades and blinking lights blocking every street. Gage steered into an alley, then another, and parked next to a dumpster in a garbage-strewn dead end behind some dingy brick buildings. The man knew his alleys, I’d give him that.
    I opened the rear door in Gage’s car and dug through the guns in the box, each with a tag tied to it, some of them in plastic bags. I found what I was looking for after a few minutes, and the ammo a minute later.
    There was only one thing of Sasha’s that I kept after he was arrested. A gun. It was a Makarov 9mm, a handgun he’d gotten off a Russian ex-soldier, though he never said how and I tried not to think about it. It was Russian-made, and cheap, but Sasha, I was more than sure, had made some adjustments to it. For example, I’d never not hit what I was aiming for. My aim is pretty good, granted, but you have to expect the occasional off-day. I didn’t have off-days. Not with my Makarov. It slid into my hand like it had been molded there. I looked it over. Someone had been taking care of it; it had been recently oiled. I looked into the boxes. All the guns were clean and in good shape, even my old shotgun. I’d have to thank Smithy for that, or maybe Eli. I took out the Beretta and zipped it into my jacket pocket. I loaded up the clip of the Makarov and clipped it onto my belt. I filled my other jacket pocket with the bullets. I felt better.
    We walked the remaining few blocks to get to the place. I saw now the reason for the detour. Yellow police tape stretched across the wide, now-deserted street, guarded by a lone officer drinking coffee out of a styrofoam cup. Behind the police tape I could see small fissures in the surface of the blacktop that seemed to multiply further down the street until, where it intersected with Fourth Street, the ground collapsed into a massive sort of pit, taking with it street signs, a semi truck that must have been parked nearby, and which had gone nose first into the pit, with its rear bumper now at street level, next to an angled pole holding a streetlight.
    We had come from a traffic jam, with honking horns, yelling and cursing, cars sputtering and backfiring, police sirens, and the general sounds of the city. That’s why it was so eerie when we stepped into this scene and heard absolutely nothing. Complete silence. I looked at Gage.
    “That’s weird, right? It’s not just me?”
    “Not just you, sis,” he agreed. “It’s damn creepy.”
    The officer with the coffee noticed us and almost looked relieved for a moment before frowning and heading over.
    “They always like to look tough,” said Gage as we watched the cop come toward us.
    “They have to,” I said. “They’re what people see. A face on the law.”
    “You’ve known a lot of cops, haven’t you?” he said. “That suit in the station, you seemed pretty chummy.”
    “We were,” I said. Gage grunted, I guessed in disapproval. But the cop interrupted any