Devil's Business bl-4

by Caitlin Kittredge

  Pete joined Jack on the landing. “This is weird, yeah?” she murmured. Shaver’s mobile rang, and he stepped outside.

  “Maybe if I couldn’t see ghosts and demons, yeah,” Jack said. “As it is, no. Not really. Kind of cliché, actually.”

  “I meant Shavers,” Pete said. “He seems very happy to write this off.”

  “Suppose it could be just what he says,” Jack said. “Two blokes, ten years apart, decide it’d be a laugh to hack up a pregnant lady and her family.”

  “Or Shavers could be giving us the broom,” Pete said. “Trust me—no copper wants a case like this. Messy and unsolvable, drives your whole average down. Never mind that if it’s a serial job, you’re seen as lazy as well as incompetent.”

  Jack leaned on the rail. “I hate to say I told you so…”

  “Oh, please,” Pete snorted. “You love saying it.”

  Jack massaged his forehead. His sight heralded a headache that would only be knocked out with a lot of booze or a little bit of something stronger. Time was, he’d have his shooting kit in his pocket, but that time wasn’t now. The cravings had gone along with all of his scars and tattoos, as if the Morrigan had remade the fire in his blood into glass. “Still,” he said. “There’s not actually anything supernatural afoot, unless you count the supernaturally horrible state of this place.”

  “Then I guess we’re done here,” Pete said. “I’ll tell Mayhew what we found and we can go our separate ways.”

  Jack nodded. “Yup. Have fun disappointing Mayhew.” Just walk away, he told himself. Let her think you’re the one to leave.

  He’d put his foot on the first stair when he felt the wind. The ashes choked his throat and his sight spiked, and blood trickled out of his nose.

  He wasn’t in Hell. He was here, in this hideous death-rock palace, and he was alive. For better or worse.

  “Glad I caught you,” the demon said from behind him. “You are a slippery one these days, Jack.”

  He swallowed the taste of blood and ashes. “You can put aside the dramatic entrances, Belial. I’ve seen all your tricks.”

  Belial grinned at Jack. “Oh, you haven’t seen my best ones, boy. You haven’t even peeked up my sleeve.”

  “What do you want?” Pete appeared at his side. She was never one to engage in small talk with spawn of the Pit.

  “For you to pull your heads out of each other’s arses and do what I sent you here to do,” Belial said. He favored a small form, natty black suits, narrow ties, and flashy ruby jewelry. Aside from his lava-glass eyes, he could’ve been any ponce in a throwback getup on the street.

  “The fuck are you on about?” Pete demanded. “You didn’t do a bloody thing.”

  “Getting knocked up’s made you downright unobservant,” Belial told her. “I’ve been with you all along, my dear, along your winding trail to this spot.”

  Jack massaged his forehead. “You were the demon in Mayhew’s office.”

  “’Course I was,” Belial said. “You think a stain like Ben Mayhew’s capable of getting in touch with your caliber of mage and…” he flicked a black nail at Pete, “whatever you are?”

  “I’ll ask once more before I stop being nice,” Pete told him. “What do you want?”

  “The same thing you do, I expect,” Belial said. “To find the villains who hacked up this nice little family. I may be a demon, but I do have feelings. All right, not feelings, but desires. And I desire them caught and delivered to me.”

  This was rotten. Demons didn’t just pop up and start demanding favors. They hung back until you were bloody and desperate, and then they showed up to listen to your screams for mercy. That was how it had worked last time, between Belial and him.

  “Forget it,” Jack said. “If this whole trip was your doing, then piss off. We’re done, and I’m not your rent boy any longer.”

  “You’re not,” Belial said when he turned his back. “But your little woman is.”

  Pete grimaced when he turned on her. “It happened when you were … away,” Pete muttered. “I needed his help to get you out of the nuthouse and shut down Nergal.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Pete!” Jack shouted, because shouting was the only thing he could do. He couldn’t very well haul off and punch Belial in the face, not unless he wanted his limbs in new and different configurations.

  “Don’t scold her,” Belial purred. “She did right to cut the bargain she did. Saved the world, properly, because of it. And she—and you—do this for me, and we’ll be square.”

  “I know what you are,” Jack snarled. He didn’t know who to rage at—Pete for being so monumentally stupid or Belial for the smug look on his face. “I know demons. She’ll never be free of you.”

  Belial moved like ink through water—one fluid second and his hand was around Jack’s throat, Jack’s skull making a dent in the dark wall. “I honor my bargains,” Belial snarled. His teeth were pointed, each filed to a perfect razor point, and a little blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he bit his own tongue. “I am a Named demon of Hell and I do not deceive, lie, or employ trickery.”

  Jack’s feet were off the floor, and a black border encroached rapidly on his vision. A smug demon was bad enough. A slagged-off demon was lights out for all humans concerned. He should just learn to keep his trap shut, but it was never a life lesson that had sunk in.

  “Yeah,” he choked. “You’re just a warm fuzzy life coach, ain’t you?”

  “I am something much, much higher in the food chain than you,” Belial said. “And you’ll live a lot longer if you learn to show me a little fucking respect.”

  He dropped Jack, and Jack didn’t bother to try and stay upright. He sucked in air, tile digging into his knees.

  “Supposing we do pretend to trust you at face value,” Pete said. “What the fuck is going on here?”

  “Excellent question,” Belial said. “Suffice to say that you’re the hunting dog, and your man here is holding the leash.” He nudged Jack’s side with the toe of his shoe. “Come on, Winter. Where’s that fighting spirit I saw in Hell?”

  Pete took a step. “Don’t touch him.”

  “Be a luv and give us a moment alone,” Belial told her. Pete started to protest, but Jack waved her off.

  “Go. Nothing he can do to me he hasn’t already.”

  “Wrong again,” Belial said, crouching next to Jack. “Now, I’d hoped you’d cling to your dignity, but I can see I was setting my hopes much too high.”

  Pete clearly wanted to stand over him, but Shavers shouted at her from the front hall, and she worried her lip. “I’ll deal with him. If you hurt Jack…”

  “I assure you,” Belial said. “I only hurt Jack for the fun of it. This is serious.”

  Her footsteps retreated and Belial stared after her, shaking his head. “Going to be a crying shame when she bulks up and loses that rear bumper.” He hauled Jack up by the front of his shirt. “So, you picked out names and wee little booties yet?”

  “You say another word about my fucking kid and I don’t care who you are or how many Named demons you hobnob with,” Jack said. “I’ll send you back to the fucking Pit in a shoebox.” Pete could shove him off and tell him she wanted him out of the baby’s life, but a demon didn’t get to talk about any offspring of his. The kid would be raised to know that Hell was never the answer, and demons were never your friends. If somebody had drummed that into Jack a bit harder, he wouldn’t be here.

  Belial held up his hands. “All right, then, Papa Bear. Calm yourself.” He walked through the blood-spattered master bedroom and out onto the balcony, which looked down the back side of a canyon, scrub and loose dirt fading back to green on the upswing. Across the canyon, another miniature replica of a mansion from some other sort of place stared back at them with blank, shuttered windows.

  Belial breathed in and leaned on the railing. “Air’s good up here. The rich swim in their infinity pools and the masses suffocate.” He tapped his pointed nail against the iron. “Remi
nd you of anywhere, Jackie?”

  Hot wind, sand, and glass in the bleeding cuts and patches of missing skin. Watching carrion demons creep among the dead, their red stone nails pricking distended abdomens.

  Jack lit a cigarette. “Nope.”

  “You know this place is neutral ground?” Belial said. “The City of fucking Angels. No demon of the city, no Named putting his feet up. A cesspit built on top of a faultline, rimmed with mountains and eroded by a poison sea. If I could never go home again, I’d go here. Fucking paradise, this is.” He held out his hand. “Let’s have one, then. Don’t be greedy.”

  Jack handed the demon a fag and offered him his lighter. Belial inhaled and studied him through the resulting cloud. “You’re looking fit. Not cutting back on vice, are you? That’d make me cry.”

  “Never felt better,” Jack said. “Been eating my spinach.”

  Belial blew smoke from his nose. “Nice ink,” he said, before flicking his fag into the dry scrub below the deck. “You know in sixty-nine the fires in Malibu burned so close to the beach the rock stars and big-titted third-rate actresses were standing in the fucking ocean, praying their condominiums didn’t go up? And then a few weeks later, Charlie Manson creeps down from the hills and hacks up their friends. Must’ve been a run on mother’s little helpers that summer.”

  “Manson didn’t actually hack anyone,” Jack muttered. “What are you, some kind of groupie? You and he going to be best friends when he goes down the stairs?”

  “Oh, Charlie’s not one of ours,” Belial said. “What demon would deal with a deranged midget who can’t carry a tune? Useless.”

  “I’ll be sure to keep that under my hat for the next pub quiz,” Jack said. “Did you really come here to give me the dirty history of Los Angeles?”

  Belial jerked his thumb in the direction of the bedroom. “This was one of ours. Well, I’m simplifying. More than one. Not really ours.”

  “Jesus, could you dance around a bit more?” Jack muttered. “Put on some tap shoes. They’d suit you.”

  Belial tugged his tie loose and ran a nail under his collar. Jack didn’t think demons could sweat, but if they could, Belial would be damp. If he didn’t know it was a ridiculous notion, on par with thinking a turnip had feelings, he’d say that Belial was scared. Demons understood fear, but they didn’t feel it. They didn’t feel anything. They worshiped bargains and they fed on the fear and blood of other things.

  “I made a fair deal, you know,” Belial told him. “You agreed to it.”

  “Yeah, I agreed to the Pit in exchange for not bleeding to death on a cold floor,” Jack said. “Some fucking choice.”

  “You’re a coward, Jack,” Belial said. “Not my fault you took the coward’s deal rather than going into the light.”

  “I am this close to chucking you over this fucking railing,” Jack said, holding his fingers apart. “I’m beginning to think you crawled up out of that living sewer you call a home just to chat.”

  “Demons aren’t the only things in Hell,” Belial said. “We’re not even the first things.” He looked back out over the canyon. A helicopter puttered across the white-blue sky, and Jack could hear Pete and Shavers talking downstairs. And still, the murder house screamed at him, sight knifing his head.

  “Is this going to be a long story?” Jack asked. “Because if it is, ’m going to need a drink and a sitdown.”

  “When Nergal cracked open his prison,” Belial murmured, as if he hadn’t heard, “it sent shocks through all of the Pit. Through the Underworld, through the Black, even through the daylight world. You saw it.”

  “Painfully close up,” Jack agreed. This wasn’t the Belial he knew—the smirking, insufferable cunt who delighted in pulling the legs off of human flies. Belial looked almost human. Even his form was tired and rumpled. Whatever could make a demon this nervous was firmly in the realm of Not Fucking Good.

  “You ever think about what else might have slipped the locks?” Belial said. Jack folded his arms.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Before there were demons, there were other things,” Belial told him. “Things that crawled in the dark, things that made us what we are. Spawned us out of mud and shit and blood. Things that we realized we could never let free of the Pit.”

  “And I’m guessing I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t fall down on the job,” Jack said.

  Belial twitched inside his human skin. “This isn’t my mess, but I’m cleaning it sure enough.”

  “Ten years isn’t exactly a weekend in time outside the Pit,” Jack said. “One of these bastards has been free a while, hasn’t he?”

  “One, we could manage,” Belial said. “Hunt him with our own blokes. But the tears Nergal caused gave him the chance to let loose all of his little friends.”

  “And what do they hope to accomplish by running around up here, slashing families to death?” Jack said.

  “That’d be your job to figure out, wouldn’t it?” Belial said. “LA is a safe haven for things like that, but outside we could track them. You bring them to me, and I’ll be done with you and your little bit of sunshine.”

  Jack pushed back from the rail. “I still don’t trust you.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” Belial said as Jack walked away. “You know I’m a demon of my word.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Pete stayed silent until they were nearly back to Venice. “You hate me?” she said finally, pulling the Fury to the curb by Mayhew’s office.

  Jack lit a cigarette and sat on the Fury’s fender. Did he? Have to be the world’s largest hypocrite if he did, one for the record books. “No.”

  “I think you can understand why I didn’t tell you,” Pete said.

  “It’s all a bit moot now,” Jack told her. “Belial always has a way of getting what he wants, and apparently he wants us to do his little errand.”

  Pete plucked a note from Mayhew’s door. “Says he’s down the road in a bar.”

  “Shocking, that.” Jack dropped his butt and stamped out the ember. “We’re going to have a little chat.”

  “Be nice,” Pete called after him.

  Jack thought about the likelihood of that, considering the whopper Mayhew had told to get them into this morass of Hell politics. “’M always nice,” he told Pete.

  The bar fronted the beach—not the tony bit near the boardwalk, which wafted pot smoke down the sand all hours of the day and night and called out with bright lights, frying food, and pretty girls with tan lines, but the bit where all the buildings turned into cinderblock boxes. The Shanty, the place was called, and somebody had tacked driftwood and net to the front in an attempt to disguise the fact that the place was a hovel in practice as well as name.

  Peanut shells and other crunchy bits crushed under his boots as he came in, giving his eyes a moment to adjust. The usual sad bastards had bellied up to the bar—a pair of old men in Bermuda shorts, the bleary-eyed, Rudolph-nosed drunk working on his glass of whatever was cheap and plentiful, and a couple of hungover gits sporting Wayfarers, even in the near-subterranean dark of the bar. Musicians, Jack guessed, although not decent ones. If they were, they would’ve known to keep hair of the dog on hand, roll out of bed, and go back to practice with a bottle of whiskey and a fistful of aspirin. Who had time to be pissing about in old man pubs?

  Mayhew was at the end of the bar, the short leg, where he could keep an eye on the gents and the front door simultaneously. It’d be a good vantage if he wasn’t piss-drunk, head dipping over his glass, which was clear and slippery with ice cubes. Jack could smell the juniper when he got within a few feet.

  “Hello again, Ben,” he said, sliding onto the stool next to Mayhew, blocking the view of the rest of the patrons while appearing to simply be having a friendly drink.

  Mayhew looked up at him, eyes sliding blearily in and out of focus. “Oh,” he said. “Back already?”

  “Too right,” Jack said. He leaned in, keeping one elbow on the sticky vinyl of the bar top
and snaking his other hand out to grab Mayhew’s balls. It wasn’t the most delicate or dignified way to get somebody’s attention, but it had the bonus effect of sobering Mayhew up while inflicting the kind of tight, hot pain that inclined the subject to the truth. “What exactly,” Jack growled, leaning close enough to lick Mayhew’s ear, “did you think was going to happen when Belial showed up in your tacky little horror of an office?”

  “I didn’t know,” Mayhew gasped. “A demon asks you to do something, you do it.”

  “Now, I can feel you’ve got balls,” Jack said. “So unless he owns your arse, why’re you helping a Hellspawn reel me in?”

  “He came to me and he said he needed to get you here,” Mayhew said. “Said if I did, I’d find out who killed the Case family. It was a good deal.” Beads of moisture worked their way down Mayhew’s glass, and down his face, and the stench of his breath enveloped Jack in a furnace of fear and desperation. “I’m not like you,” Mayhew whispered. “I’m just a scryer—I find things, people, and I’m not even very good at it. I can’t find out who killed those people and I…” He gulped. “I promised Mrs. Case I would.”

  “Here’s a tip,” Jack said. “Don’t make promises to the dead. It never ends well for the living.”

  “I swear I didn’t think he’d hurt you,” Mayhew said. “Did he? Hurt you?”

  Jack released Mayhew’s crotch. “You’re a fucking idiot,” he said. “What do you know about the things Belial has me looking for?”

  “Nothing,” Mayhew muttered, dipping back into his gin. “Less than nothing. If I knew, don’t you think I would’ve gone after them myself by now?” He gave Jack a grin, loose and pink with gums. “I wasn’t always a lush who calls himself a PI, you know. I used to be a good cop.”

  “I used to be a dead man,” Jack said. “We all used to be something, Ben.”

  “And now you’re the demon’s bitch.” Mayhew chuckled to himself. “Better you than me, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

  Jack told himself Mayhew was a drunk, a washout, and a fringe practitioner who didn’t have the sense of a gnat, but he still found himself standing up, fisting a handful of Mayhew’s Hawaiian shirt, and shoving him against the nearest wall. “You have no bloody idea who you’re talking to,” Jack snarled. “Or what you’re talking about.”