Wanted: Undead or Alive

Metallurgy Is Not My Strong Suit

Halfway through the dark space, two important things occurred to me.

One, I had no idea where I was going. Nick's vehement curses bounced off the ruined walls and echoed back again, making it impossible to follow the sound.

Two, the charred floor beneath my racing feet was creaking ominously.

I stopped and took a second to make sure I wasn't about to plunge to my death. In the glow of the streetlamps outside, I saw two salamanders skitter toward a hallway to my right. They followed what looked like a cleared pathway—or a trail upon which something approximately Nick-sized had been dragged.

"Iron, Nowicki! Get... fucking mother... get the... ouch... son of a..."

I patted my pockets. I had my gun with its holy water bullets and a pair of the snazzy handcuffs. Both crucifixes. No iron. I looked at the wreckage all around me. There was plenty of bent and blackened metal. How was I supposed to know if it was iron or steel or titanium or aluminum? Pretty much the only metal I could identify on sight was gold.

Okay, think Nowicki. Iron. Cast iron. Wrought iron. I'd heard these terms. I pictured a heavy black skillet, a rough black fence, and a tire iron. A tire iron!

Trying to step lightly, I scurried back to the car and spent what felt like an eternity opening doors and searching for a trunk release. I couldn't hear Nick from the outside. Maybe that was good. It would probably complicate matters if civilians noticed the screaming and got involved.

Civilians. Ha! As if I was some trained, elite soldier.

My fingers latched onto two circles in the floor of the Lexus's back hatch, and I heaved upward to reveal an entire arsenal of bizarre magical objects. The bowling ball was there. Also, several wicked-looking crystal spikes, at least four different guns, an honest-to-god Samurai sword, and a black fireplace poker with a twisted, decorative handle.

Iron. Not what I'd been looking for, exactly, but good enough for government work.

I snatched the poker, slammed the hatch shut, and raced back into the ruins, taking a turn to follow the trail I thought Nick had taken. Things had gotten awfully quiet, but then, as I turned a corner, I heard the murmur of voices, too low to make out clearly. Soft flickering light glowed in one of the rooms. I inched toward a wide doorway, keeping my back close to the wall, and peeked around the frame to find two female creatures peering straight at me. Nick lay sprawled on the floor between them. I knew he wasn't dead, because his lips moved with rapid, whispered speech. The fingers of his left hand twitched sporadically.

"Come here, then," one said.

I gulped hard enough to push my thumping heart out of my throat and into my chest where it belonged and stepped into the center of the doorway.

The creatures were about my size and built like Victoria's Secret models. Their long reddish-orange hair hung in thick curls over their breasts, but everything else was right there in plain sight. Wings that appeared to be made of fire jutted from their shoulder blades. The tops reached above their heads and the bottoms brushed the floor, sending up swirls of smoke. Salamanders curled contentedly near the women's feet.

"We're looking for Sathanas," I said, for lack of anything better to say.

They laughed. Little sparks fluttered upward from both of them, as from a campfire log full of sap.

My grip on the iron fire poker tightened. "What did you do to Nick?"

One of them crouched down and reached a finger toward Nick. Fire licked at her nail the way a flame hovers above the tip of a lighter. A blue arc of electricity shot upward from him, pushing the flame away. Nick showed no sign of responding but continued whispering and twitching.