by SM Reine
“I can’t take any more of your referrals,” Hope said.
Ander’s cigar drooped. “Why not?”
“Do you think that I’m oblivious, Ander? I know what you’ve been doing with the information I give you.”
It had been three years since Benita Morrice had killed her husband. The Morrice murder had definitely been a career-maker for Hope. People had been seeking her out since it got splashed all over the news—but not with the kind of cases she wanted to do.
Ander had been one of those people who sought her out. He wanted to make a deal. He would exchange client referrals for information garnered from Hope’s unique ability to speak with the dead.
The demon knew CEOs, actors, and politicians—some of who were simply humans who had gotten tangled up in demon affairs, but a surprising number of which were secretly demons themselves.
They were always in trouble. He had kept her chin-deep in work for months.
It was wonderful. Hope was rich without help from the Friederling fortune. And she was quickly getting to be as famous as anyone she represented.
The problem was the price of it all. Ander was doing things with the information that Hope gave him. Bad things. Things that she wasn’t comfortable with at all, and things that even Fritz probably would have disapproved of if he knew anything about them.
Too bad she couldn’t ask his opinion, since Fritz still had no idea that Hope was working with Ander.
“Who cares what I do with your information, my dear?” Ander asked. “You don’t know any of these people. And they’re all certainly bad people, entirely deserving of whatever comes to them.”
She toyed with the buckle on her briefcase, twisting and untwisting the gold latch. “It’s the principle of the thing.” She couldn’t bring herself to say that she just didn’t imagine herself as someone who helped demons kill people, no matter how profitable it was.
Of course, that was exactly what she had been doing. Hope had given Ander information to help him find the Grimaldi family five days earlier. And then, two days after that, the entire family had been found dead in a cornfield.
That wasn’t the first time that Hope’s necrocognition had led to deaths, but it was the first time she hadn’t been able to ignore it. The Grimaldi family was a big deal. The murders had been so messy that they had been given the front page of the newspaper, above the fold, where anyone who might buy a copy on a street corner could see their portraits.
The article about the Grimaldis had bumped Hope’s latest case to a slender column on the second page.
Once she saw that, she had resolved to end her deal with Ander, whatever it took.
But her resolve was fading now that Ander was gazing at her with his pathetic, catlike eyes and the drooping cigar. It was like she’d kicked his favorite puppy. “What will you do for money? The size of your current business is only because of everything I’ve given you.”
“I’ve worked for the current size of my business,” she corrected. “We’ve made exchanges, and you ‘gave’ me nothing. Everything has been quid pro quo.”
That got the corner of his mouth twitching. Not quite a smile, but he had to fight it. “You’ve always been my favorite, Hope,” Ander said. “You’ll always be my favorite.”
“Then you understand why I don’t want to take part in the more murderous parts of your business.”
“But Hope.”
“No, Ander. That’s not how I work.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to sign with me now, either? Darling Hope, after all we’ve been through together, after everything that we’ve accomplished…”
“No,” Hope sighed. It was amazing how guilty Ander could make her feel. A crime lord shouldn’t be so damn adorable. “I’ve still brought the contract.” She turned the top page on the stack of papers over, revealing a now-familiar list of terms.
It was the contract that would give Hope Jimenez’s life to Ander once she died.
The sight of it shocked through her memory, making it tremble around the edges, fraying away.
Hope Jimenez had written her own contract. It hadn’t been forced upon her. She hadn’t been coerced.
I wrote it myself.
Isobel wanted to escape the memory. She wanted to forget everything that she had just remembered—her complicity in Ander’s murders, the fact that she had built her business on the backs of the dead, the way that she had gotten herself involved with his schemes.
Damn it all, Onoskelis had made her remember.
And now Isobel could never forget.
Fingers biting into Isobel’s wrist brought her focus snapping back to present day. Onoskelis’s tiny pale hand formed a crushing vise.
Ander’s office vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by the Library of Dis, its many tables, the crystal floor. A new revision to her contract, inked onto parchment made of skin, rested on the desk in front of Isobel. She had no briefcase and wore leather.
The goat demon’s gaze was intent. “Did you see?” Onoskelis asked.
Isobel had almost fallen out of her chair. She pushed herself back onto the seat, entire body trembling.
Hope Jimenez had practically pounded the nails into her own coffin.
She still remembered no details about how she came to be acquainted with Ander, but it seemed that they’d been working together since the wedding, at the very least. Certainly before the contract—many years before—and she’d done it willingly.
Isobel couldn’t stop shaking. “Yeah,” she said. “I saw.”
“You believe that I can modify your contract now?”
Oh yeah. She believed.
Isobel tried to compose herself, lowering the zipper on her leather jacket to make it easier to breathe. That didn’t help. It was still too hot in Hell, the air too close, and now she didn’t seem to be sweating well enough to cool her dried flesh.
She’d been deliberately feeding information to Ander to further her career. Her success as a lawyer was largely due to a murderous demon.
The same murderous demon who had ruined her life.
Isobel wasn’t certain if she found that more surprising than the fact Hope Jimenez didn’t care if her husband stuck his dick in other women, but it was a much more unpleasant realization.
Goddamn it all.
“What would you need in return for the contract revision?” Isobel asked, trying to focus on Onoskelis rather than the nauseating feeling that she’d betrayed herself.
“Fritz Friederling is interesting to me.” Onoskelis dipped her pen in an inkwell. The ink that dripped from the tip was, unsurprisingly, crimson in color. “To be precise, his family is interesting to me. They have a history in Hell. Pieces of that history are not adequately catalogued in my records. As librarian, I find this distressing. Friederling has paperwork I’d like to obtain to ensure completeness of my records.”
Isobel’s brow furrowed. “That’s it? You want some of his…paperwork?”
“Accounting ledgers from the years that his grandfather served as Palace Inquisitor. Those records belong in the Library of Dis. Hans Friederling elected to store them elsewhere.” It was hard to tell if Onoskelis’s upper lip was curling because she disapproved of the missing records or because she was, well, a goat.
The mention of ledgers made Isobel’s stomach churn strangely, though she wasn’t sure why.
It tickled at her memory. Memories she couldn’t yet recall.
They would return soon. Now that the walls had been cracked open, Isobel was fairly certain she was about to begin remembering everything.
She wished she could take it all back.
“If it’s this easy to change my contract, then why not release me from it right now?” Isobel asked, rubbing her fingers into her eyes. “You could save my life first, before I do this for you.”
“I don’t trust you to bring me the ledgers.”
“So make another contract for me to sign. Make it a clause that I’ll die if I betray you or something.”
“Given your history, I wouldn’t trust that, either. You obviously have a habit of circumventing contracts.”
“Okay,” Isobel said slowly. Onoskelis’s suspicion was probably warranted, considering that they were having this conversation in the first place. So all Isobel had to do was talk Fritz into giving decades-old accounting ledgers to a librarian. It sounded harmless enough. “But Fritz was just sent to the cells by Judge Abraxas.”
Onoskelis snorted. “Judge Abraxas.” She scribbled a short note onto a fresh piece of parchment and handed it to Isobel. The letter was a pardon for Fritz. “Retrieve the young Friederling son and bring the ledgers to me.” Her eyes glowed in the darkness. “Then I will amend your contract with Ander.”
CHAPTER TEN
ISOBEL HEADED DOWN TO the dungeon to retrieve Fritz. Hope Jimenez’s memories chased her all the way down.
Too many of them involved Ander.
She was beginning to remember all the errands that she had run for him, even before she died. She’d been doing almost the exact same work for him that she’d done during her months of post-mortem captivity.
In fact, she had spent a lot more time with Ander than her new husband.
Hope had met with him at her law office, at her separate apartment, in public but discreet places. Never in the home she shared with Fritz. Never when Fritz was around.
She had been obviously trying to keep her odd, somewhat filial relationship with the demon a secret from her husband.
But how Ander and Hope had met in the first place eluded her. What they had done to enter that arrangement in the first place was still a conspicuously large blank spot in her memory.
It almost seemed like a deliberate exclusion from Onoskelis’s contract revision.
The cells underneath the Palace of Dis were exactly what Isobel expected to find: empty stone boxes that would have fit into any medieval castle’s dungeon. Fritz wasn’t restrained. He sat in the corner, elbows resting on his knees, waiting patiently to be released.
He stood when she entered, but didn’t approach the door.
“You’re free to go,” Isobel said.
Fritz leaned to the left so he could see behind her. The succubus guard in the hallway was studying the pardon from Onoskelis, debating the signature with a nightmare in hushed tones. They hadn’t found any flaw with the paper yet, but they seemed pretty determined to find one. “What did you do, Belle?”
“I went to the Library. That’s all.”
His expression darkened.
He didn’t speak as the guards escorted them out of the dungeons again. The demons seemed content with Onoskelis’s paper, and now it had been tucked into the bodice of the succubus’s body armor.
They were taken directly to Fritz’s quarters again. Someone had gotten the fire going for them—probably one of the Palace’s servants.
Isobel ducked into the bathroom to avoid having to speak with Fritz about what she had learned while he was in the cells. She felt so dry. She needed a shower.
But there wasn’t even a bathtub. Just a basin with some sand and a weird scraping device.
She hefted the spade-shaped tool in her hand. It was for taking dry baths, she knew. She could faintly recall using it to scrape the sweat from her body. The powdery sand would absorb the sweat that an ordinary human lost in all the heat.
“How do I know how to take a dry bath?” Isobel asked the spade.
Her memories still weren’t quite complete, but she was getting there. And she was starting to think that whatever remained was best left forgotten.
Isobel didn’t dare scrape her skin clean when the slightest nick might never heal. She put the spade back in the basin. Stripped off the leather jacket. Started to remove the shirt underneath, and then stopped when she saw the discoloration of the skin on her chest. It was only a small patch, no bigger than her finger, but it looked like the beginnings of rot.
She pulled the enchanted feathers out of her hair and set them on the counter. The glamor fell away. Her face and body shifted from the now-familiar visage of Isobel Stonecrow back into Hope Jimenez.
The face of a ghost stared at her in the mirror. It filled Isobel with disgust to see the woman she used to be. A woman she had tried to leave behind.
A woman who had done a lot of awful things to become successful.
The patchy-pink burn scars appeared quickly, no longer hidden by magic. But those weren’t the only flaws that appeared once she shed the glamor. The feathers had also been hiding more rot underneath them.
The flesh was dry and brittle. She still looked better than every other zombie she had ever seen.
Even so, there was no denying that Hell was accelerating her rot.
She tugged her shirt back into place, heart writhing in her chest.
Fritz was waiting for her just outside the bathroom door.
Guilt lurched through her at the sight of his face. He looked so accusatory. “What?” Isobel asked.
“I got out of the cells too quickly. You must have done something.”
Isobel brushed past him, dropping the leather jacket on a couch. “The librarian who requested my presence, Onoskelis—she offered me a deal. She released you from the cells so that I could help complete her records.”
“Those librarians are fucking obsessed,” Fritz said. He planted his hands on his hips and gave her an appraising look. She knew that expression. He was asking her silently what records Isobel could help the librarians complete.
Instead, Isobel asked, “What happened down there with Judge Abraxas? You seemed convinced that he was going to help us once he knew who you were.”
It was a good question to distract him. Anger flashed through his eyes. “I don’t know what happened,” Fritz said. “The House of Abraxas has a long-standing treaty with my family.”
“Your family has a treaty with an infernal household?”
“The House of Belial does.” Fritz grimaced. “And my grandfather, Hans Friederling, former Inquisitor—”
“The dead relative who you had me speak with last year,” Isobel said.
“Yes. That grandfather. He married a nightmare from the House of Belial. I have no demon blood, obviously, but many of my cousins are half-demon, half-human Gray.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he kept going.
“I know what you’re going to ask. Isn’t the House of Belial one of the noble Houses of Malebolge? Yes. Did the Friederlings get rich by spilling the blood of mortals in slavery? Yes. Did I have anything to do with those choices? No. I don’t have any love for that branch of my family.”
Isobel hadn’t planned to ask any of that. She didn’t know anything about the so-called noble Houses of Hell, including the House of Belial, Malebolge, or…anything else he was talking about.
Except that she did.
That name made her hackles lift—the House of Belial. Isobel Stonecrow might not have had any interaction with them, but Hope Jimenez apparently had. And the mere mention of them was enough to infuriate her.
“You’re telling me that the Friederlings have profited off of slavery,” Isobel said. It wasn’t a question because she already knew it to be true.
Fritz gave her a level look, as though he’d expected that reaction. “My family has made some of its billions off of the human slave trade to Hell. And I have nothing to do with it.”
“But you’ve lived a fat life off of the spoils.”
“Would it be better if I’d rejected the Friederlings as a teenager and lived in poverty? I’d have been a poor kopis on the streets, passing through halfway houses and homeless shelters like so many other young demon hunters do.” Fritz shook his head. “No, I chose to travel, fight demons all over the world, and finance other kopides so that they could do the same. There’s a reason so many demon hunters know who I am.”
“So it’s charity that you’ve used your family’s money for private jets and yachts,” Isobel said.
“I’m not a saint. I don’t
see why I can’t enjoy myself while being charitable.”
The history of the House of Belial was unfolding in Isobel’s skull now, unearthed by Onoskelis’s contract revision.
She had already known that Hans Friederling married a nightmare from the House of Belial, even before Fritz told her about him. She also knew that they kept thousands of slaves in Malebolge.
Those mortals were used for labor, harvesting minerals and organics that could only grow in that dimension. Those valuable materials sold for insane amounts of money in the City of Dis. Some of the ores sold well on Earth, too—hence why the family possessed their own portal. How else were they supposed to conduct trade?
The Friederlings had been rich longer than three generations, but it was that merging with the House of Belial and exploitation of human life that had given them the bulk of their wealth.
Isobel was surprised by all the hate she felt thinking about the House of Belial.
It was a hate that had been stewing far longer than she’d known Fritz.
She felt like she was circling around something important, some dark spot in her memory struggling to be restored. But Fritz spoke before she could pin it down.
“This doesn’t matter. It’s only distracting us.” He slammed a fist into the opposite palm. The loud crack startled her. She flinched. “Abraxas has to be feigning ignorance. Maybe he’s trying to get out of the agreement—I don’t know. Damn him, it won’t work.”
“It has worked. He turned us away, and we’re out of time.” Isobel jerked the neck of her shirt down, exposing her peeling chest. “And unless we get outside help, I’m not going to be around to see why Abraxas is trying to mess with you.”
“By outside help, you mean the librarian. What did she want?” He already sounded angry.
“Ledgers,” Isobel said. “From your grandfather’s time as Inquisitor.”
Fritz’s eyes rolled to the ceiling. “Of course she wants the ledgers. Everyone wants those goddamn ledgers.”
“Why?”