This time it was Avery. It never rains but it pours. “Shit. On second thought, maybe we’d better just go. Avery probably needs an exorcism, and I can call Galina from his office afterward.” I stuffed the pager away and turned on one steelshod heel, headed for the Pontiac.

“Dinner after that?”

“Sure. Unless the world’s going to end.” Adrenaline receded, leaving only unsteadiness in its wake. I made sure my stride was long and authoritative, shook out my fingers, wrinkled my nose again at the simmering reek drifting up from my clothes.

He fell into step beside me. “You know, that sort of thing is depressingly routine. How about calzones, at home? I’ve got that dough left over.”

It was routine. People have no idea how close the world skates to the edge of apocalypse every week. If they did know, would it make them stop killing each other?

I used to think maybe there was a vanishing chance it would. But I’m getting to be a cynic. “Calzones sound good.” I was already wondering what Avery needed, and the pager finished its buzzing as I walked. “Let’s get a move on.”

Chapter Three

The apartment was on Silverado, in a slumping, tired-looking concrete building—the old kind with incinerators in the basement and metal chickenwire in front of the elevator doors. The wallpaper had once been expensive, but was now faded, torn, and a haven for creeping mold. If the elevator worked the place could probably have gotten on a historical register.

As it was, the whole building smelled of fried food, beer, and desperation. We took the stairs, found the right hall, and the door was cracked open.

I don’t usually show up for exorcisms covered in gunk and stinking to high heaven. The victim doesn’t give a rat’s ass by the time I’m called in, but my fellow exorcists probably do.