Sacrifices by Jamie Schultz

pointing to the same place, and Karyn’s prophecy on top of it. Rissa’s lost gangbanger, the church, and even the number seven—it pointed to an area Anna had known very well a long time ago, a few blocks in East L.A. where she’d lived until she was eight or so. And Karyn’s prophecy . . . valley of the garden. Nail had guessed that might be some kind of biblical thing, but no—it was a neighborhood.
    Doyle Gardens. That’s it right there.
Anna didn’t know what they’d find there, had no idea even what exactly they were looking for, but she’d bet a thousand dollars that the place it was hiding had just been narrowed to about eight square blocks.
    â€œIf I live through this, you’re a lifesaver,” she said to Bobby, and she left him there dicking around with his phone.

Chapter 4
    â€œCome on back,” Clarence said. He started through the gray-walled hall toward the back of the building without waiting to see if Nail would follow.
    Nail stared after him, taking a moment to make sure he had control of himself. Clarence was a tall, skinny guy in his fifties or maybe older, and every time Nail looked into his craggy face with its permanent deadpan expression, he had to fight the urge to snap the man in half over his knee. Clarence had had Nail’s older brother DeWayne’s balls in his pocket for nearly a decade, and every so often he’d give them a little squeeze and Nail would have to come running with a pile of cash to bail DeWayne out of some new stupid situation. That had gone almost like clockwork until recently, when Nail had finally come into enough cash to settle all his brother’s debts. He hadn’t heard from DeWayne since the mess at the prison, so he was hoping his brother had finally had the sense to skip town. Though if Clarence hadn’t called him over here to talk about DeWayne, Nail didn’t know what else it could be.
    Having taken a few deep breaths, Nail walked quickly to catch up. This was the usual routine, Nail thought, with one important change. One of Clarence’s heavies fell in at the rear. The guy was big and probably armed, but Nail figured he could take him if it came to that. That wasn’t the point, though. Used to be just him and Clarence for theselittle chats. Maybe Clarence was taking a bodyguard everywhere now, or maybe Nail had become a special case.
    Clarence opened the back door out to the loading dock. Nail squinted against the glare of the sun. He paused in the doorway. There was a car parked back here, a blue SUV with tinted windows. It was running.
    Clarence lifted an empty plastic Pepsi bottle to his mouth and spat a stream of saliva and tobacco juice into it. “Get in.”
    â€œThis end up with me in a hole?” Nail asked. The words came out steady enough, but he was already checking exits, running options. It was a toss-up between using Clarence as a hostage and grabbing the big guy, using him as a human shield, and running back through the building. Neither option looked great.
    â€œDon’t know. You done anything that would make me wanna put you in a hole?”
    â€œYou know it don’t always work that way. Might be lotsa reasons for putting me in a hole that got nothing to do with anything I did.”
    â€œWe’re cool for now, unless you wanna keep arguing. Now get in the car.”
    Something about Clarence’s face gave Nail pause. Nail had expected the guy to have all the expression of one of those Easter Island statues. If Clarence wanted him dead, it wouldn’t be an emotional thing. Just a business decision. If he wanted Nail alive, that wouldn’t be an emotional thing, either. But that wasn’t what Nail saw on the man’s face. Instead, there was something—a slight drawing in of the eyebrows, maybe a tremor at the corner of his mouth, something small that Nail couldn’t exactly put his finger on, but it gave the game