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"Just a copy of today's paper. I want to remember everything about today."
"Then maybe you want tomorrow's instead," Barclay Raines said. He tapped two fingers on top of the headlines. "This is all yesterday."
Seth smiled at that. "Maybe I do. Sorry, don't I know you? You're Boone's lad, right?" He nodded. "Thought so. I want you to know something before you die. I'm not the monster here. He is. It's all on him. He had a chance to make this all go away. I begged him to, for your sake. But he didn't think you were worth it."
"I don't understand. . . ."
"That's okay, you don't need to. You just need to die today. That's more than enough for you to worry about." Seth took the top copy of the newspaper and left without paying. At the threshold, he looked back to see the two men looking at him. Neither moved to stop him from stealing the paper.
Seth sent the kid in to kill his nephew's only child while he made his way back to Hell. And as he walked those lonely streets, he caught repeated reflections of himself in the windows, and saw again how many years had been stolen from him by that damned illusion, by Glass Town, and knew that the only hope he had of ever having anything approaching a real life would be if that damned magician could do the impossible and give them back to him. And that was the problem with impossible things, they were impossible.
He wasn't sure he'd ever make his peace with that.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DECEIT AND DELUSION
DOMINO FINN
Black Magic Outlaw kicks off with a hero in trouble and on the run through the blood-soaked streets of Miami. Those particular events, however, were set into motion many years earlier. Various criminal elements, some not altogether human, have long flourished in a city ripe with vice. "The Difference Between Deceit and Delusion" is a rare look at the backstory of one of the villains who started it all.
The man sobbed. His thin mustache was sticky with phlegm, the tender skin around his eye swollen and purple. Dribble ran down his chin as he pleaded for his miserable life.
It was my life now.
"My name is Tunji Malu," I said. Measured, calm, patient. As if speaking to a third-grade classroom. "There. You see? That's how easy it is to give a name."
"I don't know any names."
"Let's start with yours."
The man paused, wary of betraying any information. Given his dire situation, he must have decided cooperation couldn't hurt. "Marco," he confided. "Please, just kill me."
His arms were bound together above his head. A shimmering line hung from the ceiling and wrapped his wrists so tight it bit into his flesh. The man's toes barely scraped the floor if he extended himself. An hour hanging like that will leave a man a wreck.
And that was without the torture.
"Now why would I kill you," I growled, "before you've answered my questions?"
The attic was dark. A hastily constructed cubby above a warehouse loft. The wood floor creaked and groaned under my weight as I paced back and forth. It was past midnight and there were no lightbulbs up here, so a single candle rested on the floor by his feet. It lit the room dramatically, the two of us in a circle of light with the walls and ceiling left ominously black. It was my kind of room.
I came to a stop, towering over the human, flexing my muscles. Then I leaned in and bared my metal fangs.
"Oh, God," he said. "What are you?"
I smiled, which only unsettled him more. I was a scary sight by any measure. Broad shoulders and barrel chest. Thick, leathery arms and legs. For all this man knew I was an ogre.
But that was only half-right.
I glanced at the open bite wound on his neck. "I can give you another demonstration if you require."
He shook his head furiously.
Interrogating humans was easy. Getting in their heads was easy. But my compulsions were having trouble with this one. This guy was making me work. This guy was special.
Not spectacular, mind you. But special. Marco wasn't like everyday humans. He was an animist. A tapper of spirits and user of spellcraft. Not the most powerful I'd seen, but not altogether useless. He could project force fields of a sort. Great for gunfights. Horribly lacking when confronted by a West African vampire and his trickster pet.
Still, the man himself had been unexpected. Miami is an international city, but one with tendencies. One particular infestation is the new-world voodoo, a perversion of my mother country's mysticism. That was the kind of bastardized magic I'd expected. Not this.
But the type of spellcraft was academic. What mattered was animists were often able to resist my vampiric compulsions. At least for a time.
