Our target is on a side street of a side street off Fair Oaks, in a neighborhood that is, as far as I can tell, funded entirely by garage sales. Paul glides into a parking spot outside a spackle-white apartment building, and waits for Dick Dale to finish his solo before he cuts the ignition. I watch him with all the delight of a colonoscopy patient.

"You're a stereotype with hair."

"Child of the Sixties," he says, as he steps out.

Arabella is there at the gate to meet us, sitting on the bikini-wax strip of lawn with her hair over her face and a textbook on her knees. Today's outfit is the silver and gold wedding kimono. Subtle.

"Evening fellas," she says, still reading. "Out for a drink?"

"Plural," I say. I frown up at the building. "Any trouble keeping it clear?"

She shrugs. "Mormons, police driving by the neighborhoods with darker skin. Nothing I wasn't prepared for." She looks up at me, her eyes sapphire and jade behind her hair, and I get a dusky smile.

"Back to night classes?" Paul asks, as he steps up next to me.

The look she gives Paul, however, is a bonesaw. "Online. Much easier."

A smile brushes his lips. "Studyin' archaeology yet?"

She claps the textbook shut. "Physics. Are you ready to take over?"

"I was born ready," Paul replies.

"You"-she hefts her backpack-"weren't born. Good luck boys."

She heads off down the road, her hair still in her face. As she passes me I murmur a velvet "Sorry," and try not to read her annoyance. You'd think she hadn't noticed if it weren't for the set of her shoulders.

"That girl's got troubles," I say, watching her glide around the corner.

"Hm?" Paul runs his hand along the iron gate, face crinkled in thought.

"Arabella." I nod off down the street. "She's got-"

"Randy, I've got two police cruisers circling the neighborhood, trying to figure out where it is." He looks at me through a face full of strain. "I don't have time to play Dr. Phil."

"Sorry, Mr. Wizard."

"Mr. Wizard was a scientist," he replies, as he opens the gate to the courtyard.

The design is low-rent by any standard, malnourished grass and a dishpan-sized swimming pool; the faux Zen garden by the rear buildings doesn't do it any favors. I look at the upper floors, then at the wannabe backyards fenced off at ground level. A third check of the top floor reveals an apartment with one window missing from its frame, and a set of drapes that are torn halfway off onto the floor. All I can read from inside are dirty white stains of old panic. So it looks like everything's proceeding as normal.

"Where to?" Paul asks.

I point, smirking. "Oh, not real sure." I try to head up the stairs, and a headache throws a surprise party behind my eyes.

"Fk."

Paul grabs me from behind. I grip the handrails, shrug him off, and start back up with a rattled "Thanks."

"Try the door," Paul says, as we pass the frame with the missing window. "Should be open." His suggestion comes right before the door's tumblers give. I save my glare for later; I'm certain he'll deserve it more.

I hunker down in the safe spot just next to the door, count to three like a drunken S.W.A.T. officer, and push it open while Paul goes in to play sitting duck. He's inside for about five seconds, which is more than long enough for terror and panic to bleed through the wall and into the tender parts of my shoulders. When he pokes his head out I jam an insult in the chamber.

"Shit storm," he announces, as his pupils meld and separate again.

I start a little, catch myself; I duck inside just in time for Paul to shoot me a warning.

"Still fresh."

The room hits me right between the eyes, strings a headache across the crown of my skull. I taste disorder, and panic, and a long, lingering, shackling fear. And underneath it there's that sick, moldy-cake sweetness that tells me somebody was pleased.

"What the fuck?" I only ask because I'm pretty sure no-one will answer.

The apartment is mostly front room, with a single hallway in the back, a galley kitchen off to the side, and a fat L of brown carpet that serves as both living and dining rooms. The floor is bare except for a hundred leaves of newspaper, a toadstool of stuffing that probably used to be an easy chair, and the battered remnants of about a dozen G.I. Joes.

"You feel that, then?" Paul asks.

I grunt. "What the hell is it?" I creep in a little further, and stop with a dramatically appropriate pair of stomps as I see the kitchen floor.

Woman, early thirties, sprawled on the kitchen floor and florid with bruises. Raiders jersey doing its best to soak up the blood from her head wound. Chef's knife in her hand, some blood and hairs three feet away on the knife block it came from.

"Christ."

"Yeah," Paul remarks, distant.

I want my look to be sardonic, but it comes off imploring. Now my chest and my head ache. "Decency, dude. Show it." I turn back to the body, and feel the goose egg well up in my throat. Carefully, arms out for balance, I lower myself to my knees next to her. I look at her face, take a deep breath, and brush the back of my hand against her arm.

I get thirty seconds in three: someone grabbing this woman from behind, the dash over to the knives, screaming and screaming and laughing and yelling, and then she turns back around and for that last split second I see her brandishing a knife at a golden-haloed angel.

"Fuck," I hiss. I sit down on the kitchen floor, my brain full of fists and termites.

"Interference?" Paul asks.

"And a mask," I grunt through my fingers. It seems to help if I dig my thumbs into my nasal ridge. "Dude knew how to cover his tracks, Paul. He knew we'd be here."

Paul's jaw sets crooked. "Inquisition?"

"No." What isn't certainty in my tone is begging. It takes a few tries to get off the floor without using my hands. "Check the bedrooms."

The apartment's hallway is short, only four doors and those close together. Paul stops at the mouth of the hall, runs his hand through his hair, and heads for the door at the far end; I relent to checking the ruined bathroom, the chemical cloud of the supply closet, and the first of what I assume are two bedrooms. It's a kid's room, one and a half posters the only hints of personality. There's a photocopied pamphlet lying on the floor amid the rest of the dead G.I. Joes, and half of a poster spread out over the duvet. I close my eyes, try to get a snapshot; all I have is two fragile hands gripping the torn poster, and an angel spreading its wings.

"God." My stomach is snap-kicking my intestines; there are invisible flies brushing at the edge of my cochlea.

"Randy!"

I stumble to my feet, lurch out into the hallway. I find Paul in what looks like the dead woman's bedroom, with a King bed in desperate need of a turndown and a bookshelf whose contents have been sprayed across the room. Paul is at the foot of the bed, staring at something on the far side. It all feels like crushed dreams.

"What?" I gasp.

Paul's an ice floe of something way past shocked. "Can you"-he points the same direction he's staring-"Can you grab that for me?"

I come around next to him. There's a man lying on the floor, his face half-caved in and his arms crossed over his chest.

"We don't do body disposals," I say, struggling for nonchalance. "The birthday girl's gone, Paul, we have to find her before-"

"Not the body," Paul shoots back. "He's got…" He taps at his palm. I've never seen Paul this numb.

I lean forward, elbow braced on the bed, hoping gravity doesn't feel the need to say hi. I creep up alongside the corpse, not even brushing it with my shoes.

"Right hand?"

"Left."

I lean down, and with the back of my hand, I flip over the man's left arm. I get the last of his memories, and my mood finds a new trough to leap into.

Embedded in the man's palm is a silver coin. I look at it, and I stand up to run my hands through my hair. I chant to myself that I'm not allowed to punch the walls.

Six simple lines. Six lines in any other shape, in a hand that felt like regrets and families, and I'd be fine. But today, in this bedroom, the hand feels like fire ants, and the six lines are making a Seal of Solomon.

Somebody just killed a demon.