When they were finished, they came out to the porch to join me and enjoy the cool evening. We sat on the swing together, with Honey perched between us. They chatted like they'd lived next door to each other all their lives. Mom was telling Honey about a client of hers, an elderly widower who had-to hear my mom tell it-more or less ignored his wife for the fifty years of their marriage. Now that she was gone, he was distraught and desperate to contact her in the Beyond. The overall theme seemed to be the general pigheadedness of men.

After an hour or so, they'd said all they could say about that. Their attention turned to me.

"Why are you so quiet, Dominica?" my mother asked. I thought about mentioning that I couldn't get a word in edgewise, but I didn't think about it long. I generally keep the sarcasm holstered when I'm talking to Mom.

"I'm fine," I said. "Great dinner, Mom, thanks." I'd never found a better tamale, and I'd been all over L.A. looking for one.

"She's not fine," Honey said. "But she'll never admit it. She's very stubborn."

"She certainly is that," my mother agreed. She looked at me, and covered my folded hands with one of hers. "Your world is changing, Dominica, and you're not sure about your place in it anymore."

I nodded. There wasn't any point denying it-you give up a certain amount of privacy at a young age when your mother is a fortune-teller. Besides, this was why I'd come. I needed her. Chavez was pulling everything together in Crenshaw, and this was my last chance for a reality check before I went to war.

"It's the magic. I'm not sure I can handle it. I'm hurting people, Mom, you know? I don't mean to, but I do. But it'll hurt people if I stop, too."

My mother was silent for a time. I was afraid of what she would tell me-I wasn't expecting any sympathy. Finally, she spoke. "Every night, when I was a little girl, I prayed to the Madonna and begged her to take this burden from me. Surely what I do is a sin! Am I not interfering in God's plan? Who am I to look into the future, to try to change it by telling others what I see? When I commune with the spirits, am I damning my soul and those of the petitioners who come to me?"

I started to speak, but Mom shushed me. "No, let me finish, Dominica. The truth is, I don't know. I can't know. But when someone comes to me, and they are in pain, is it a lesser evil to just let them suffer, even though I have the power to help them?"

I shook my head.

"No!" my mother said, and there was strength and conviction in her voice. "What do I know of God's plan? The real arrogance is in thinking I could interfere with it. The universe, God's plan-these things are too big for me, Dominica. I am just a woman and God has given me a gift. I don't know why. I don't know why He chose me. But if one of His children comes to me, and I have the power to help them, I will do it. And now when I pray to the Madonna, I thank God for His gift and I praise Him for allowing me to serve Him in my way. Everything else-all these big questions-I leave that to Him."

"You help people, Mom. I'm not reading palms and telling fortunes. I kill people. It's not the same."

"Your path is harder than mine, Dominica. Your burden is heavier. I won't lie to you. What you do puts your soul in peril of Hell."

"Thanks, Mom. I feel a lot better now."

"The question is, are you willing to risk damnation for what you do? Is it that important? And if it is, do you have the courage to sacrifice your soul to do what must be done?"

At first, it didn't make any sense to me that God would expect that kind of sacrifice. If you were doing something that doomed you to Hell, you probably weren't doing God's will, whatever that might be. Then I remembered Mr. Clean's account of Lucifer's Fall. Was this the sacrifice the Morning Star-the most exalted of God's angels-had been expected to make? What if God's plan really did require some to be damned in order to serve it? And even if that were true and not just the heretical ranting of a spirit with a questionable pedigree, what did I ever do to deserve the short fucking straw?

I shook my head. "I don't know, Mom. I hear what you're saying, but it sounds like a rationalization. It's just 'the ends justifies the means' wrapped in convenient theology."

"Of course it's 'the ends justifies the means,' Dominica!" Mom seemed agitated. "Grow up, girl. Life isn't fair, and the right choices aren't always easy to come by, especially for a woman. If the ends we seek don't justify what we do, what else possibly could?"

I didn't have a good answer for that, but then I'm a gangster and not a philosopher. I was a little out of my depth. I didn't really care about the philosophy, anyway. What mattered was that it made sense to me. I was a criminal, and a killer. I had power that other people didn't, and using that power meant I would affect the lives of others in ways I couldn't even guess. Should I choose to wield it anyway?

It depended entirely on what I was wielding it for. It depended on what I was fighting for. Was it important enough?

I realized the gangster code wasn't going to cut it anymore. I couldn't take a life and then shrug it off because of my victim's choice of profession. That was just rationalization. It always had been, and I'd always known it. If I was going to call myself a soldier, I'd have to start acting like one. I didn't believe I was an instrument of God's plan. God didn't speak to me and He never had. But I had a righteous cause, just the same. I was willing to die for it. I was willing to burn for it, if it came to that. I had a battle to fight. Now I just needed an army.

I hugged my mother, tightly and for a long time, before Honey and I left. And for the first time in my life, I was at peace with myself as we drove toward Crenshaw. I felt like a faithless Abraham climbing up the mountain with his son in tow, but I was at peace.

Chavez had set up our field headquarters in a vacant suite in a strip mall on La Tijera. The suite was the only space in the mall that was open for business. The taggers had moved in over the last couple days, and the building had become a complex nexus of converging lines of magic that now crisscrossed the neighborhood. Outfit gangbangers stood watch outside the entrance, and they all had enough juice that they didn't need any heavy weaponry.

Honey had replaced the summer dress with a biker-girl ensemble-black leather from head to toe, including the cute little hat. It was bound to cause a stir, but I was glad she wasn't going in naked.

The suite was large for that part of town, but it was still a tight fit for the twenty or so outfit guys milling around inside. Vernon Case was there, and Chavez, of course. Rashan was there, too. Sonny Kim and Ilya Zunin stood to one side, keeping to themselves. I saw a few of the big hitters I'd asked Chavez to bring in. Even Anton was there, but probably only because he'd been in it from the start, when he found Jamal's body. It was a courtesy-his juice would have never gotten him in the door.

When I walked in, Rashan started clapping and everyone else quickly joined in. There were cheers and such witty salutations as "Long live the queen!" I blushed and tried to cover it with a scowl. In the outfit, promotions are typically private affairs between you and your boss. They're usually met with more resentment than praise, at least until you've busted enough heads to make it stick.

A few of the guys started yelling "Speech! Speech!" I started to tell them to shut the fuck up, but then I saw Rashan nod. "Do it," he said, mouthing the words. Honey flew over and hovered near him, whispering something in his ear. She drew a few stares, but mostly everyone's attention stayed on me.

Jesus Christ. I walked slowly to the front of the room and looked out at the assembly of hardened career criminals while I tried to think of something to say. I had in mind to give them a rousing speech, do my part to rally the troops. Unfortunately I suck at inspiration.