by Norris Black
After a quick check in both directions, I jogged across the street. It wasn't only murderers and monsters who might be out to get me, though that alone would've been enough for caution. Seraph patrols would also be out and about. They weren't as common a sight in this neck of the woods as in some of the rowdier areas of the city, but still, I didn't want to run afoul of one. Especially given current events.
The lobby was dark but enough light filtered in from the streetlights to make out the details of the room. Dust motes, lit by alien blue light, danced amongst broken furniture and long-dead plants. Most of the offices in the building had long been abandoned by the time I first set up shop here. It's how I was able to afford the place to begin with. From the looks of things, it had been totally abandoned since I was last here. The remaining few renters must have packed up and moved out after Lensky and his pals nearly brought the whole place down trying to get at me. It appeared the landlord must've decided to board up and cut his losses, not to mention the power. Which of course, meant no elevator. Stairs again, I guess.
Have I mentioned how much I hate stairs? Lucky for me, my office was only four flights up.
I had made it to the second landing before coming to a sudden stop, the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention again. Straining my ears, I attempted to hear anything other than my own beating heart.
Nothing. The place was quiet as a tomb. Shivering I made a mental note to never use that expression again.
Trying to shake off the feeling of imminent danger seizing me I slipped a hand into my pocket and squeezed the grip of the revolver before continuing up the stairwell.
It was probably just my imagination.
"It's not just your imagination."
The unexpected words stopped me mid-step and I balanced precariously on one foot, the sudden arrest of forward motion nearly sending me crashing down the concrete stairs in what would've been a horribly inelegant tumble. The voice had been clear and close, as if someone speaking directly into my ear.
Regaining my balance, I dropped into a crouch, looking up and down the stairs. Nothing, just shadows and dust. I was alone.
"Well, I wouldn't say completely alone," the voice said, the sound of it soft but still masculine. The words held a light mocking tone. That's when I noticed the heat pouring from the handgun where I gripped it in my right hand. A fearful suspicion rose in me and I pulled the sidearm from my pocket for a closer look. In shape and heft it resembled the weapon I had left the house with that morning, but where mine had been an unadorned gunmetal gray, this was clean silver, every inch covered in elaborate and interlocking sigils. I knew where I had seen a gun with those same marks inscribed on it, vividly recalled it pinning my head to a table with a murder-faced killer's finger on the trigger. Images of my escape from the club flashed through my mind, Dancer getting knocked down by one of the attackers, the strange way my old, ugly revolver seemed to twist when I grabbed it. Or at least what I had assumed was my revolver at the time.
Well, fuck. "So, hey—"
"You're going to want to keep your voice down," interrupted the daemon. "When I said you weren't alone, I wasn't talking about me."
"Would you care to expand on that nugget of information?" I said, much more quietly, the words hissing out between clenched teeth.
One thing I knew from Mara's teachings was daemons were never to be taken lightly. She was one of the most powerful wychs I knew and even she didn't mess around with them. And there I stood, in a dark stairwell, holding hands with one. More pressing at the moment though, who was in here with us?
"I would say it's more of a 'what' than a 'who'," came the reply, again sounding like someone whispering into my ear. While I couldn’t explain how I knew, but I was certain I was the only one who could hear it. "I can feel them up there, gliding through the shadows, like fleet fish in dark waters. At least three, no, four… maybe more." It somehow managed to convey the impression of a wordless shrug. "Hard to keep track of them. They're slippery."
"And what, exactly, are 'they'?"
"I can't say for sure, they smell like my kind, but... different," Another shrug. "Long lost cousins perhaps," it added with a laugh, though I didn't see anything funny whatsoever about the current situation.
Was this another trap like the club, or something else? The prickling sensation on the back of my neck reminded me of my mysterious follower from this morning, the one right before I got scooped up by Rowe and his crew. That whole encounter had been forgotten, buried under all the craziness that came after. How many players were there in this particular game, and which one of those players did these pets belong to? Most importantly, what did any of it have to do with me?
Indecision tore at me. I could continue up and spring the trap from within, hit the hunters before they had a chance to know I was here. The daemon-bound pistol might level the playing field, but I knew little about daemons and couldn't bring myself to trust in this one. Also, I wasn't super enthusiastic about walking into a trap without knowing what was waiting for me. Alternatively, I could sneak back down and out and take a chance they wouldn't have eyes on the street out front. It seemed a bad bet and exposing my back like that was out of the question.
A piercing cry split the night, followed by at least a dozen more. The sound ripped into me like a blade and I started to reconsider the 'run for my life' option.
"Only three or four you say?" I hissed, making no attempt to hide the sarcasm.
"So I miscounted, I'm a daemon stuck inside a gun. You want accurate numbers, hire a bookkeeper."
Muttering some choice words under my breath, shocking a surprised silence into my unexpected companion, I weighed my options.
Glass shattered somewhere up above, and the hunting cries grew fainter as they moved away, now coming from the general direction of the street. They must've seen something and gone out the windows after it. Turns out this was one of those rare instances where running for the hills would not have been the wise choice.
I heard a new screaming—this one decidedly human—also coming from the street. I recalled the sight of a lonely, lit window and the silhouette of some poor slob putting in extra time after hours. He must've finished up and started to head home at the worst possible moment, for him at least. For me, it provided an opportunity to slip out of the noose I had so neatly stuck my head into.
I bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time, ignoring the burning in my legs and the pain shooting through my chest. Things were going to get a lot more uncomfortable than that if I didn't get the hell out of here and soon. I took the final three steps in a single leap bouncing off the far wall and careening down the hallway. At the end of the hall was a door, the upper half of it filled with a frosted glass panel with the words GIDEON BROWN, PROFESSIONAL SKEPTIC stenciled on it in flaking gold letters. A much cruder, cardboard sign taped below it read 'RETIRED, SO FUCK OFF'.
Lowering my shoulder, I hit the outside edge of the door running. I hoped the ongoing ruckus out in the street would camouflage any sound of splintering wood. To my immediate surprise I found the door latch had been repaired after my last ill-fated visit. The door swung wide without any of the resistance I had been expecting, not to mention been counting on to slow my helter-skelter dash.
Stumbling into the room at top speed I hit an overturned couch and attempted to tuck and roll like I was some gods' damned twenty-year-old acrobat or something. Instead of the smooth tumble I had unrealistically envisioned, I skipped across the top of my work desk like a slung rock and crashed into the wall opposite. Finally coming to rest staring up at the ceiling in the most undignified of heaps.
I gasped painfully for breath, the room was deathly silent, broken only by the thunderous beating of my heart. Wait, silent? Shit. Whatever had gone down in the street was over now. Did they hear me crashing about? Were they on their way back? My imagination conjured up images of long spidery limbs with pale corpse faces climbing up the side of the building, sliding silently through
broken windows and scattered shadows, drawing closer.
I nearly screamed when a weight dropped out of the darkness above and thudded onto my chest. I grabbed the attacker with both hands at the same time a rough wetness pushed against my face.
"Mrrrooww?"
Louie. Gods' damned Louie.
I scrambled to my feet a little awkwardly due to also trying to juggle a large, furry animal intent on licking the skin from my face. Louie was the biggest alley cat I've ever seen, and it was hard to tell how much of that size was Louie and how much of it was Louie's fur. It felt like it had been an age since the black-and-white feline first climbed uninvited through my office window, hopping from the fire escape up onto my desk like he had discovered and conquered a new land. I'd put him out, but he'd come right back in again. Even closing the window didn't slow him down. I'd be working away only to look up to see him napping on the couch or crouching near one of the many mouse holes in the walls, waiting to catch his dinner. Despite being the master detective that I am, I never could figure out how he kept getting back in. After a while I gave up and let King Louie have his run of the place. Truth to tell, I liked the company and the subsequent drop in the local rodent population was a bonus. Louie had taken to dropping the occasional dead mouse in the middle of my desk, almost always when I was least expecting it. I suppose he figured I needed to put some meat on my bones or something. Endearing, but also disgusting.
With the loudly purring feline cradled in my arms I weighed what to do next. With no way of knowing if the creatures hunting me had come back into the building, I considered consulting the daemon in my pocket, but I had no reason to trust anything it said. Louie leaped out of my arms onto the nearby windowsill, stopping to look over his shoulder at me. The fire escape, of course. It was about a ten-foot drop from the bottom step down to hard asphalt, but I'd take that over whatever monstrosities were likely waiting for me behind door number two.
I lifted the window, taking my time to not make any noise. I cursed under my breath as the wooden frame squealed in protest just as I got it open wide enough to slip through. Louie hopped out first and started down the steps with me close behind. Standing on the last landing I realized ten feet up looks significantly higher when you're on the 'up' part as opposed to when viewed with firm ground beneath your feet. Louie made the jump with little hesitation, landing softly and then padding off to nose around a dumpster, likely in search of a little evening snack.
"Show off," I grumbled as I laid down on my stomach and inched my way backwards until I was hanging in the air by my fingertips. From below came a questioning meow from Louie. Probably wondering what the hells was taking me so long. Letting go I experienced a momentary weightlessness before my heels slammed into the pavement. I did my best to let my legs absorb the impact and I rolled with my typical lack of grace across the garbage-strewn alley.
As I lay on my back staring up at my office window, I tried to reassure myself nothing was coming after me. When nothing did, I began to rise only to be shoved back down roughly by a boot to the chest. I had been so absorbed in watching the window I hadn't heard the footsteps coming up on me. A thin silvery sword with a wicked looking edge obscured my vision. The point waved inches from my nose and I went a little cross-eyed trying to focus on it.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Inwardly I groaned. There was only one group of people who would be prancing around dark alleyways and menacing folks with fancy sharpened steel.
The Seraph had found me.
Chapter 7
"I'm not going to ask you again," said the Seraph soldier as he pinned me to the ground with a combination of a boot on my sternum and the implicit threat of razor-edged violence hanging inches away from my face. "What are you doing here?" he growled, his words laden with absolute authority.
The Seraph considered themselves the keepers of order throughout the nine wards, and they kept that order in the ruthlessly efficient way of a high-functioning psychopath. It was prudent to stay off their radar at the best of times, and laying in a dark alley roughly two hundred yards from what I can only assume was a gruesome murder scene, was about as far from 'best of times' as one could get. Seraph soldiers are notorious for both their martial prowess and their capacity for brutality. This one looked like he checked both those boxes.
He stood well over six feet in height with the wide shoulders, bulging biceps and narrow hips of someone who lifted a lot of heavy things for fun. He wore the typical Seraph uniform, a spotlessly white, long-sleeved jacket, and matching pants. Over top of this uniform was a vest of white-enameled armor plates patterned to resemble a musculature likely only marginally exaggerated from the broad chest it was covering. A matching set of greaves protected shin and knee while a molded helmet covered the head and upper half of the face. The helmet left exposed an impressive lantern of a jaw I sorely wanted to introduce my boot to. A trio of gold stripes ran down the left sleeve of the Seraph's jacket, denoting his rank as Street Sergeant. The whole setup had been designed to provide protection to the wearer while still providing enough flexibility so it wouldn’t be a liability in a fight. For instance, the armor left his arms free to do things like menace me with a very long, very sharp sword.
He let the arm holding the blade drop to his side, apparently deciding I didn’t pose any threat. I heard movement behind me and guessed it was the sergeant's crew. Seraph soldiers always travel in packs.
"That's not what you asked," I said.
"Pardon?"
"You said you weren't going to ask me again, but then asked me a completely different—look, never mind, it's not important. I work here, my office is on the fourth floor. Here, you can check my ID, it's in my coat pocket."
Lanternjaw nodded to one of his fellows, a man a full head taller than the already enormous sergeant.
"Gods' balls, what do they feed you guys?"
A frown formed above that magnificent jaw. "I don't understand the relevance of the question."
"Forget it, here, it's just in my pocket. No! Not that one! The other one! Yes, there."
I hoped they had missed the spike of panic in my voice when the second soldier had started to reach towards the pocket housing a possessed, and therefore very illegal, firearm.
"Gideon Brown, Professional Skeptic," read the sergeant, a frown once again creasing his face. "What's that, a 'professional skeptic'?"
I knew I had to pick my next words with care. You could tell the officer was one of those humorless types who, if they thought a joke was being played, would assume it was at their expense. The type of person who, because of that, resented all jokes, oftentimes violently so.
"I'm a freelance detective. Professional skeptic simply means I don't believe anything before I can prove it." That was only partly true, Mara had hung the moniker on me as a lark and it stuck. Eventually I just accepted it and put it on the door when I first opened shop. Catchphrases do help you stand out in a crowd after all.
The sergeant dropped the card onto my chest but made no move to let me up. I could almost hear the rusty gears grinding away in his head. So far, I hadn't given him a reason to get nasty, and getting nasty is a Seraph soldier's favorite hobby. That said, it didn't keep him from leaning a little more on the leg he was pinning me to the asphalt with. I grunted as he ground his heel painfully into my sternum.
Someone cleared their throat and I glanced over to see the source. A female soldier, tall with broad shoulders, if not quite at the ludicrous proportions of her squad mates, watched the scene with clear distaste. Her lips were drawn into a tight line of disapproval as she gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. A fourth soldier, this one about my height but built like a mid-size boulder, was sitting cross-legged on the ground behind her, polishing the evil looking ax he carried in lieu of a sword.
The sergeant scowled at her and pressed down with greater force. He looked back at me and swung the sword out, leveling the point in the direction of the mouth's alleyway and the s
treet beyond.
"Do you know anything about that?"
"The... sidewalk?" The first rule of dealing with the Seraph is never giving them anything unless there's no other choice.
"No! The murder, you fool."
"Murder!" I put just the right amount of shocked fear in my voice, widening my eyes in surprise. For added effect I looked around wildly as if I expected some blood-drenched fiend to spring out of the shadows and attack.
I was as surprised as any when a blood-drenched fiend sprang out of the shadows and attacked.
Like an apparition, it appeared out of the darkness behind the soldier polishing his ax. The boulder-shaped Seraph was dead before he knew he was under attack. A jagged blade arced through the air and slammed home, lodging itself sideways in the stocky man’s neck. The soldier's face took on a comical look of surprise as he reached up and gingerly touched the three inches of bloody steel sticking out of him. The attacker heaved backwards, tearing the blade through the victim's neck, and severing the spinal column with a grotesque pop. The slain soldier dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, head flopping forward, and face bouncing off his own chest.
The light streaming into the alleyway from the nearby streetlamps gave me a good look at the attacker for the first time, and let me tell you, I really wish it hadn't.
The killer was the size of a small child, and the more I looked at it the more I realized that’s because it was a small child. Or at least it used to be.
Stick-thin, pallid arms jutted from the sleeves of a dirty, frilly white dress—the front of which was now covered in a spray of brilliant crimson from the slain Seraph. Atop its head was a mass of auburn curls and below that mop of hair was a nightmare of a face. Someone had peeled the skin back from around the nose and mouth, exposing the nerves and muscles beneath. Sharp fangs gnashed the air where teeth should have been and in each hand it bore wickedly curved daggers, blood dripping off the one that mere moments ago had taken a life.