by Raquel Lyon
“Ah, lunch, yes. I know just the place,” Beth said.
“Don’t you need to get back to work?” Piper asked hopefully.
“Not until two.”
Piper sighed and flashed Lambert a thanks-for-trying smile before they followed Beth around a corner and under a neon sign spelling out the words Crimson Crypt into a dimly lit bar. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and find that the bar was much bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside.
Swathes of wine-coloured material lined the walls behind intimate booths of black leather, and the rest of the floor was filled with candle-topped tables. The only other light came from strings of red fairy lights draped around the bar area. Piper glanced up at the loops of metal chain forming a bizarre ceiling decoration.
“This doesn’t look like the kind of place to do lunch,” she said, “and it’s definitely short of a few windows.”
Beth grinned. “That’s because it’s more the kind of place to have you for lunch, unless you know the owner, but you’re in luck. He’s a good friend of mine.” She gestured for them to sit at a table as her eyes fixed on a waitress at the other side of the room and confusion marred her face.
“What is it?” Piper asked.
“I know her,” Beth said. “She’s supposed to be dead.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Beth looked down and fingered a beer mat as the waitress approached their table, and Piper couldn’t help but stare at the girl, whose face and eyes almost matched the colour of her black, skintight catsuit. She wasn’t even wearing an apron.
“Would you like to see the... specials?” she said.
Beth raised her head. “The human menu will do just fine.”
“You. What are you doing here?” The waitress made no attempt to hide her animosity.
“I could ask the same of you, Simone. I distinctly remember attending your funeral.”
Simone forced a smile. “I hear you’re a witch now. Nice upgrade.”
“And you’ve managed to downgrade even further than you already were. Quite a feat. Congratulations.”
“It’s not as if I had a choice in the matter. We both know it should have been your friend who was bitten, not me. How is she, by the way?” Simone added as if uninterested in the answer.
“Married. To Sebastian,” Beth said smugly. “You remember him, don’t you? You should do. Your skanky BFF tried hard enough to steal him from Soph.”
“How could I forget? Didn’t see the appeal myself. I always preferred his cousin. Much sexier,” Simone purred.
“Shame you missed the boat, then.”
“Married too?”
“Dead.”
“Aren’t we all?” A man’s voice came from behind Simone, and Piper let out a small gasp as he revealed himself. He had half-white, half-black hair that fell poker-straight on either side of his grey-tinged face, and was dressed like a New Romantic band’s lead singer in one of the frilliest shirts she’d ever seen on a man and tight leather pants. “Lover, it’s good to see you again,” he said to Beth in an accent Piper couldn’t place. East European, perhaps?
Beth rose to kiss him on the cheek. “You too, Mikai. Nice outfit.”
He held out his hands and shrugged. “The patrons expect it. Now, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure? Please tell me you’ve tired of your angelic partner and come to seek out my wicked company.”
“Not today, sweetie. We just came for lunch, but the side order of hostility is making me lose my appetite.”
“Simone, be nice to my guests.”
“Me be nice?” Simone said. “She’s the one flaunting her new status and trying to make me feel bad by telling me Connor’s dead when I know full well he isn’t.”
“You are mistaken, my dear. He has been dead these past three years.”
“Oh, really? Explain this, then.” Her hand slid under the partially unzipped front of her second skin and came out holding her phone. She pressed her finger against the screen a few times before holding it up for his inspection.
Mikai took the handset from her and his brow furrowed.
“Looks good for a dead man, don’t you think?” she said.
“What is it?” Beth asked. “Show me.”
Ignoring Simone’s protests, Mikai passed Beth the phone. Her mouth fell open and she stared at it for a moment before composing herself and tapping furiously on the screen. “This was taken yesterday.”
“So?” Simone said through twisted lips.
“Where were you at the time?”
Simone shrugged. “I don’t remember. Can I have it back now?”
“Did you speak to him?” Beth asked, holding it out.
“I doubt it.”
“What do you mean, you doubt it? It was only yesterday. Is your brain so tiny that it can’t hold on to information for twenty-four hours? You must remember.”
Simone tucked her phone back into her catsuit. “Well, I don’t. Are we done here, or are you going to order?”
“No, we’re done... after you tell me one thing.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“Simone.” Mikai’s tone was low and intimated a warning. “I thought I told you to be nice.”
She sighed. “What is it?”
“Did you get any sense that he was... you know... like you?” Beth asked.
“I... don’t... remember,” Simone said, drawing out the words before flicking back her hair and sticking her nose in the air as she walked away.
“Wow,” Piper said. “She was nice... not.”
“I must apologise for Simone’s temperament,” Mikai said. “She’s been on the cow’s blood too long.”
Chapter Fourteen
CONNOR HAD STARED at the destination on the judgement paper all evening. It felt strangely familiar, but despite racking his brain, he hadn’t been able to put a finger on why that would be.
Arriving at the town the next morning hadn’t provided any further enlightenment. For over an hour, he’d been sitting on the bench in the main street’s singular bus shelter, watching, waiting for one simple sign of recognition. But under a cloud-filled sky, it was a place much like all the others, if a fraction smaller. Comprised of a few small streets with buildings constructed of local stone and a scattering of lone houses, the tiny hamlet nestled in a valley between mist-topped hills and had all the appearance of an unassuming countryside community untroubled by the stains of evil. Yet, judging by the paper in his jacket pocket, evil hid itself well. If the residents knew his reason for intruding on their quiet existence, they would not be ambling about their morning’s business so casually.
A crisp, wintry breeze blew a chocolate wrapper against Saul, lying at Connor’s feet. The hound sniffed at it and let out a soft growl. Three years was a long time to spend with only one uncommunicative animal for company. Connor had developed an affection for the beast, and he would almost be sorry to say goodbye to him, but he couldn’t allow technicalities to get in the way. He had a job to do.
Leaning back against the bus shelter’s Perspex panelling, he pulled the judgement from his pocket to reread the details.
His mark was a long-term fugitive who had foiled all previous attempts at capture, and his antics had become an unwanted aggravation. Considered a Category 2, this demon had never been human. Its speciality was to butcher the hounds, thereby releasing the already captured souls and forcing their manly compatriots back from where they came. The means by which it was able to accomplish this? A razor-sharp, extendable tongue.
The new assignment would take some thought, and if he didn’t ensure it proceeded without a hitch, he would be back below, climbing the steps of red-hot iron leading to the Scourge Pit. He was pretty sure the Devil was setting him up for failure on purpose with this one, and maybe that was the point. Maybe every time someone in his position came close to the end of his contract, an impossible task was designated to prevent the need for payment. But if that w
ere the case, the Devil had met his match this time. Connor was not a normal man; he was a werewolf—a fact he’d discovered while fighting another particularly stubborn demon, who’d tested his strength by refusing to return to the fold. The resulting transformation had been his first glimpse into who he really was. Gradually, other clues had crept in: the odd flashback, a picture here, a spoken sentence there. Nothing concrete, nothing specific enough to form any real identity, but the fact that he was a werewolf was a certainty, and he would use his talents to see the job through to completion.
“Any ideas, mate?” he asked of Saul, neither expecting an answer nor getting one. “Because it’s your neck on the line, bud. If we don’t come up with a plan soon, your future is for it to be torn from your body—after your skull gets pierced through and a ten-foot-long blade wraps around your throat, that is.”
Saul pushed to his feet and laid his head on Connor’s knee. He looked up at Connor and stuck out his tongue, panting.
“You know what, bud? I reckon you’ve got more brains than you’re given credit for.” Connor ruffled the fur on the top of Saul’s head. “Come on,” he said, standing up. “It’s obvious we aren’t going to find him sitting here all day. Time to get that nose of yours in gear.”
Waving the scented judgement paper under Saul’s nostrils, Connor waited for his canine associate to detect the odour and set off with his tail wagging before falling into step behind him.
The trail led them out of town, up a steep, winding lane and down the other side to where a bridge bent over a small river. There, a break in the wall exposed a gravel track, at the end of which stood an old watermill. Saul trotted on, then stopped and sat down next to a large oak tree, his black eyes focused on the building.
“He’s in there?” Connor asked, glancing down at his companion.
Saul lifted his muzzle twice.
“Good work. Stay here. I’ll call you.”
Thinking his mark could be watching, Connor approached his target in confident strides to allay suspicion. At the end of the track, a van door slammed, and a man walked across the yard.
“Ned? Ned Tuckman?” Connor called over.
The man wiped his hands on his jacket and cocked his chin. “Who wants to know?”
“Not very friendly, are we? Is that how you greet all your clients?”
“I’m not taking commissions right now.”
“Shame. I guess I’ll just leave, then.”
“Yeah, you do that.” Ned turned to enter the building.
Connor also turned, then swivelled back. “Oh... One question,” he said as Ned paused and angled his head. “How long do you think you can evade the hellfire?”
Ned’s tongue shot out like a whip, looping towards Connor’s ankles, but Connor had anticipated the move and avoided it with ease, leaping up onto the mill’s rooftop. Before his feet had a chance to hit the tiles, he’d shed his human guise and his huge bulk of wolf thudded down, shattering the slates and sending a shower of fragments down onto Ned’s retreating tongue.
“It’s like that, is it? You hairy bastard,” Ned shouted up. “Where is it? Where’s the hellhound?”
Connor threw back his head and let out an ear-splitting roar.
“You? You’re the hound? I have to say, I’m offended they chose to send a mutant this time. Perhaps they’re hoping an ounce of intelligence still resides in that half-man, half-beast body of yours? But it won’t help you. You’ll go down like all the rest. Come here and fight, if you dare.”
With one bound, Connor landed on the van’s roof, sinking into the metal and narrowly missing the loop of sharp tissue heading his way before bouncing off it and touching down in front of the mill door. He slammed through the time-worn wood in a hail of splinters and quickly assessed the interior for weapons. His head shot around at the sound of Ned cursing, and he jumped up to the relative safety of the top of the stationary waterwheel.
Ned’s silhouette appeared in the light of the doorway. “Where’re you at, wolfy?” His head twisted, then rose. “Ah, I see you.” He laughed as he walked over to a lever and yanked it down.
Behind Connor, the floodgate hoisted and water rushed in. The noise was deafening to his heightened hearing, and the wheel sprang to life, propelling him forward to within Ned’s range, where the sword-like tongue waved from side to side in readiness. He pounced, landing behind Ned and getting one good swipe of his claws over Ned’s back before bounding up and hanging monkey-style from the rafters.
Ned let out a cry of anguish and stumbled forward, a dark and faintly amused smile tugging at his mouth. “That all you got?”
Connor swung to the side, reached down, and yanked a heavy, metal cog from its position on the machinery. He launched it Frisbee™ style in Ned’s direction. But despite his injury, Ned ducked, allowing the cog to fly over his head and lodge itself in the wall.
Connor spotted something nearby and had an idea. He leapt down and hoisted the heavy, round stone above his head and then waited until Ned’s tongue shot out in his direction. Stupidly, he misjudged the distance and the tip pierced his side. He winced but sucked back the pain, and before the tongue could recoil, he slammed the stone down, pinning it to the floor.
Ignoring the shock filling the demon’s face, Connor reached for the scythe he’d spotted earlier, tore it from the wall, and let out a howl as he swung it down.
Gagging noises mingled with the sound of rushing water as Ned choked on his own thick, purple-tinged blood, and, regaining his human form, Connor shot a shrill whistle into the air.
He knelt down beside the weaponless demon. “Not so cocky now, huh?”
Panic flashed across Ned’s eyes as Saul loomed over him and widened his jaws.
Chapter Fifteen
UPON HEARING THE crunch of tyres on the gravelled track, Connor retreated to the hillside and sat on a rock to view the scene below with mild indifference. Until he knew what was next, it didn’t matter where he waited, and this was as good a place as any.
He looked out over the landscape, a riot of green, brown, orange, and red. Despite being teased by winter’s first breath, it was alive and beautiful. This was where he belonged. He sensed it.
His eyes followed the stream winding back to the mill and he stared, unseeing. His thoughts were not with the men walking in and out of the building or searching the outhouses; they were with Saul.
Something was definitely amiss.
The hound had made the climb as if his paws were encased in iron. His fur had relinquished not one but all of its remaining patches. Up until now, it had always been one per soul, and Connor failed to see why this time should be any different. A small glimmer of hope teased his insides that Saul’s completed coat meant an end to their bounty-hunting days, but his companion’s actions had sown doubts. Upon reaching their current spot, Saul had collapsed onto his side, his body motionless, his blank eyes devoid of their usual shine. It would be easy to think him dead—if it weren’t known he’d never been alive. Connor had begun to suspect Saul’s condition was more a case of faulty equipment. After all, if the contract was fulfilled, surely they would have been summoned back for the formalities already?
More so now than ever, Connor wished he knew how it worked, but he’d never been given the chance to ask. As soon as he’d signed on the dotted line, he’d been sucked into the void and propelled out the other side to land on his back in a dark street in the centre of Warsaw with Saul looming over him and an envelope lying on his stomach.
After the first time, it had been the same routine for three years—each assignment accompanied by a small amount of relevant currency and a map. Upon completion of reading the particulars, Connor had simply pressed the mark on the map and been transported to his destination. It had never taken more than a couple of hours for a new gig to arrive, but with the change in Saul bothering him, Connor felt as if he’d been waiting an eternity.
On the track below, a swirl of dust signified the men’s departure, and as the po
lice car wove out of sight, an odd sense of loneliness washed over him. He glanced up at the fading sky, then down to Saul.
“We need to get moving, dude. Don’t want to be up here for the night.”
Saul lifted his head and then dropped it again.
“Seriously? All right. Have it your way. I’ll carry you.” He slid from the rock and squatted in readiness, but as he hooked his hands under the hound’s bulk, a brilliant light blinded him, and he squinted as he noticed a figure standing in the centre of it.
The man coughed and wafted away the fog surrounding him as he stepped forward and the light faded. He was dressed head to toe in green—a shiny suit and shirt, with the largest collar Connor had ever seen, and one of those poncey manbags that had gone out of fashion years ago slung over his shoulder.
“I thought they’d never leave,” the man said.
“Who?” Connor asked.
“The humans. Can’t have witnesses, can we?”
“I’m sorry. Who are you?”
“My name is Cheyrah. I am the Devil’s emissary.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a clipboard with a loop of leather swinging from its top. His eyes scanned the paper attached to it. “Can you confirm that you are Connor Lovell?”
“Conner... yes. Lovell...? Beats me.”
“But that”—Cheyrah nodded towards Saul’s listless form—“is number three thousand and forty-two you have there?”
Connor shrugged. “Um...”
“You don’t know very much, do you?”
“Actually... no.”
Cheyrah unhooked the leather strap from his clipboard and bent to fasten it around Saul’s neck. “It’s a good job the questions are only routine.” Now that they were at eye level, Connor noticed that below his spikes of white hair, the demon’s eyes were the same green as his suit, yet slit like a snake’s.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“It’s his shackle. He needs to get back to base, pronto. Rather a full belly, from the look of him.”
As soon as it was secure, the buckle on Saul’s collar radiated a glow that ignited and spread to engulf his body, rotating with increasing speed until it became a whirlpool of fire, sucking the hound into it before it squeezed to a close.