After a few seconds of what must have been excruciating pain, Wolf-Drew stood in front of me, seven feet of hair, muscle, and teeth that didn't really get hurt by anything but fire and silver. And magic, but I didn't plan on throwing any bolts of pure energy at my partner for the evening. He shook himself all over and nodded at me. Verbal communication was pretty much out until he shifted back since I didn't speak Wolf and his jaw was now shaped all wrong for forming words. Didn't matter. Whatever I sensed behind that door was very unlikely to be big on conversation.
Drew and I crept across the hall and I pressed my ear to the door. I heard a soft huff-huff of breath behind me and turned to Drew. He tapped himself on the chest and gently nudged me out of the way. He had a point. My hearing is better than a normal human's, but I've got nothing on a werewolf, even one half-transformed. He put his head to the door and held up two fingers.
"There are two of them?" I asked.
He nodded, then waved his hand in the air to indicate one was close to the door and one across the room. At least, that's what I thought it meant. I nodded back at him, and he moved to the other side of the door. I drew in my will and whispered "Fiero" under my breath. A six-inch sphere of flame appeared floating over my outstretched palm, and I flung open the door. I lobbed the magical fire grenade into the room and was greeted by a very satisfying WHOOSH as it exploded inside the room. The contained space gave the fireball a little extra oomph, a fact I learned both in the real world and playing way too much Dungeons & Dragons in the 80s.
I gave the fire a couple of seconds to die down, then stepped into the open doorway. I stood there for a minute, letting the smoke billow around my boots and long coat, casting what I thought should be an appropriately badass image for a demon-hunting wizard, only to find a pair of imps standing in the room grinning at me.
"Got any more of those, human? That tickled," the first imp said, then launched himself at me from twenty feet away. His wings unfurled and he flew at me like a clawed lawn dart. I dove to the right, drawing my Glock as I hit the ground on my side.
Drew stepped into the doorway as soon as I moved, no doubt chomping at the bit after my failed theatrics. He reached out one hand and swatted the imp to the ground, his reflexes and strength a match for a minor demon any day. The only problem was that speed and power were not the only weapons imps came equipped with.
"Drew, watch the tail!" I yelled, hauling myself to my feet.
Drew either heard me or he'd dealt with imps before, because he dodged to one side as the little bastard's spiked tail came up over its shoulder and jabbed at his leg. The six-inch spike buried itself in the drywall beside the door, and Drew stomped on the demon's back. I heard the monster scream in pain and turned to find the other one.
I was a little late, since it was almost on me already. I threw myself flat on my back as the imp leapt at me. It flew harmlessly over me, then snapped its wings out in a heartbeat and whirled around to dive-bomb me where I lay on the floor. I squeezed off three quick shots with my pistol, then rolled out of the way. I kept rolling after it smacked into the floor, the nasty tail jabbing into the tile beside me. The razor-sharp point penetrated into the floor easily, leaving me to think unpleasant thoughts about what it would do to my chest.
I scrambled to my feet as the imp got to its wobbly feet. I shot it twice in the face, which knocked it back onto its ass, but had no other real effect. I didn't expect it to, I just needed a little separation.
"Frigidos!" I shouted, holstering my Glock and thrusting both palms out at the imp. Daggers of ice materialized and flew toward the demon, tearing holes through its wings and drawing blood from its face and torso. So my magic can hurt it. Good to know.
I spared a glance for Drew, who was methodically stomping the head of the imp he was battling. It wasn't dying and wasn't going to from that kind of damage, but it also wasn't getting up, so he was in pretty good shape.
"Fuzzy!" I shouted. Drew's head snapped up with a snarl, and I tossed a vial from my coat underhand to him. "Catch!"
He caught it and cocked his head at me. "Pour it on the demon," I shouted. "It's holy water!"
Drew did as I said, and the demon shrieked in agony. Apparently Drew had opened enough of a cut on the imp's skin for the holy water to touch its blood, and the little bastard melted away to nothing as Drew was in mid-stomp.
I turned to the remaining imp and held up a second vial of holy water. "Plenty more where that came from, asshole. Now you can go back to Hell, or I can vaporize your ass right now, and you won't just be dead on this plane, but you'll be forever-dead. Your call." I cocked my arm back to throw, but the imp wrapped its wings around itself and popped out of existence. Seems like even demons have a sense of self-preservation.
"What the fuck did you do that for?" I turned to see a human and very naked Drew standing in the room bitching at me. "That thing can come back and hurt more people, and you'll be the reason. Everything it does from here on out is on you, Harker. We had a chance to destroy that thing, and you didn't take it."
"I try not to destroy things that are the pets of bigger and badder things if I can help it," I said. "That imp can't come back across the plane unless someone or something summons it," I explained. "And whatever summoned it is the real problem, not some shitty little pitchfork monkey from the First Circle. You killed one—that sends enough of a message. Being able to kill this one and choosing not to sends an even stronger one. It says we don't give a fuck what this guy calls up from the Pits, we can handle it."
"Why don't we just see if that's true," came a new voice from the doorway. I hate surprises. They never end up being a pony, or even a stripper. It's always a pair of socks for Christmas, or another fucking demon.
6
The room erupted in chaos as I made my pronouncement about Smith. I stood there watching the train wreck of conversation until they all ran out of steam and stared at me.
"Are y'all quite finished?" I asked.
Jack nodded at me. "Please proceed, Detective. What makes you think that Agent Smith's actions are not simply those of a deranged monster infiltrating a major governmental agency?"
"Have you ever used one word when three would do?" I asked. Watson gave me a flat stare, so I just went on, making a mental note that this dude had zero sense of humor. "Smith couldn't have been working alone. He did too much with little or no oversight, and there's no way some government functionary wouldn’t have been looming over his shoulder every time we tried to do something. Ergo, we have at least one more Cambion to find inside Homeland Security."
"An organization that has currently suspended you," Watson pointed out.
"True enough," I said. "But now that I have the whole Justice League behind me, I'm sure one of you is a super-hacker or something."
"Or something," Jo said. "I wouldn't even call myself a mediocre hacker, but I know my way around a secure server. I'll see what I can dig up about Homeland's Paranormal Division and see if there's anything suspicious about any of their people." She pulled a laptop out of a bag and walked over to Harker's kitchen bar area. "Does this place have Wi-Fi?"
"No idea," I said. "I've never seen Harker touch a computer except to throw it out a window."
"Which he does with a frequency that is both disturbing and expensive," Luke said. He walked into Harker's bedroom and came out with a sleek MacBook. "I believe this should have all the information you need within its files. The password is 'Lucy&Mina.' Don't forget the ampersand."
"Thanks, Luke." Jo opened Harker's laptop, then her own. "You folks work on how to get into Homeland and deal with the boss. I'll message Sparkles and see what we can come up with."
"Sparkles?" I repeated.
Jo grinned at me. "Now he's a hacker. This guy can break into any system anywhere. And he's one hundred percent loyal to the Council. If there's a Big Bad, Sparkles will find him."
"Sure, but…Sparkles?"
"Long story." Jo smiled at me again and turned to her computers.
>
"So what's our play?" I asked the group.
"We wait until Jo finds the bad guy, then we deal with him," Watson replied. He had a dark look in his eyes that belied his oh-so-proper diction. This was a man that had seen some shit, and wasn’t afraid to go back there.
"With extreme prejudice," Gabby added. Every word that came out of that girl's mouth reinforced my mental image of her wearing Hannibal Lecter headgear, I swear.
"Well until she's done, I'm going to go do what I do—detect things," I said, turning to go.
Luke intercepted me before I had done more than turn around. "You can't," he said, giving me a stern look. “It’s not safe out there for you until we know more about what we’re facing.”
"Don't get in my way, Luke. I will not be fucked with on this. I don't know what Harker is to me yet, but I know he's important, and I know that whatever asshole was pulling Smith's strings won't quit just because we killed his puppet. So I'm going to go out there and do what I can to find him."
"And do what, exactly?" Luke asked. I looked at him. There was no malice there, no teasing or taunting, just an honest question. And I had to pause because I hadn't exactly given that part a whole lot of thought.
"I don't know yet, but I'll figure it out when I get there."
"That's a pretty solid symptom of Harker exposure," Jo said from behind Luke.
"Kiss my ass," I snarled. But she was right.
"Sorry," she said. Her words made it clear that she was anything but sorry, but I didn't feel like getting into a fight with her over it. "I just meant that Harker could go off half-cocked like that, but it doesn't work that way for people like us."
People like us? Did she mean cops? Vampires? Wannabe superheroes? I gave her a quizzical look, and she laughed.
"No offense, Detective. I mean normal human beings. Harker got away without making a plan because he had magic and superpowers. We aren't wizards, and we can't shrug off knife wounds and bullets."
"Speak for yourself, mortal," Luke said.
"Fair enough," Jo ceded. "Most of us can't shrug off knife wounds and bullets. We have to plan before we go running in after the monsters."
Just then my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and tapped the screen. "Fuck."
"What's wrong, Detective?" Luke asked.
"There's a disturbance call. The captain asked for me by name."
"Isn't that a little out of your normal bailiwick, Detective?" Watson asked.
"Do you really talk like that or are you just screwing with me?" I asked, completely honest.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," was the very stiff upper lip reply.
"He really talks like that," Jo said. "But his point is valid. Why are you going to a domestic disturbance call? Especially when you’re supposed to be on leave?"
"This isn’t an ordinary disturbance call, and it’s not a domestic disturbance. It's at a bar."
"Doesn't make it any less not your problem."
"Still true. Except my captain knows this bar is a supernatural hot spot," I clarified.
"Mortivoid's pub?" Luke asked.
"Yep, there's some kind of shitstorm going down at Mort's, and I'm the lucky one who gets to go check it out." I started for the door, only to be cut off by Luke. Again. "That's starting to get old, Luke."
"My apologies, Detective." He sounded somewhat less than completely sincere. Like not at all. "I feel that I would be remiss in my duties as your protector if I allowed you to go unescorted to this 'disturbance.'"
"Thanks, Luke, but I got this...wait a minute, my what?"
Luke at least had the courtesy to look embarrassed. "Quincy made it very clear on several occasions that if he was not able to, in his words, look after you, that I was to fulfill his self-appointed duties in that regard. I think this situation qualifies."
"Ignoring the absolute chauvinistic bullshit inherent in that statement and accepting that there are a lot of things running around Mort's that I probably can't handle without a little help, what exactly are you going to do about it? It's less than an hour until sunrise. We can get there in twenty minutes, but then you're stuck in Mort's place all day. And that's ignoring the whole sleeping all day thing."
"I can go without sleep if the situation warrants, but you are correct that my aversion to sunlight makes me an untenable choice for your companion. I was going to suggest Gabriella serve as your partner for this excursion. She is very capable and has experience dealing with several different types of supernatural creatures."
"I got this," I repeated, and reached for the doorknob.
"I'm afraid I insist." I looked into his eyes and saw the implacable stare of a man who has seen the absolute worst humanity has to offer and has walked through those fires for a long time. There was not a word in the dictionary that was going to make him change his mind.
"If I try to ditch her, you'll just send a car, won't you?" I felt bad almost immediately.
"I would, but I have no cars, and no one left to send in one." The bleak look on his face reminded me of everything Luke had lost in a few short hours. All of the man’s possessions were now just so much ash, and so was his manservant and companion Renfield. Smith paid for that, but we needed to figure out who was pulling his strings and extract a little payment from that asshole, too.
"I'll just take an Uber if you try to escape. Let's go, cop-lady. We got bad guys to shoot and monsters to maim." Gabby breezed past me and Luke and opened the door with a grand flourish. I shook my head and walked through. Me and the psychopath, just like I liked it. Not.
Mort's looked quiet from the outside, which was to be expected since it was almost dawn. I was dead tired and fresh out of patience for monsters and their bullshit, so I didn't bother with any of the normal pleasantries at the door. I just banged on it until the little green door-goblin opened up, then I stuck my Sig in his face.
"Open the goddamn door," I growled.
"Regular bullets won't kill me, you know. I'm technically a member of the Fae, so only cold iron—"
"Have you ever been shot in the eyeball?"
He gulped a little. "No."
"Do you think it's likely going to feel good?"
Another gulp. "Probably not."
"Is it going to make it hurt any less that you know it won't kill you?"
"Almost certainly not."
"Then open the goddamn door and get out of my goddamn way."
He did exactly what I asked, keeping the thick metal door between us as Gabby and I walked into Mort's anteroom. I kept my gun drawn, and Gabby spun a silver stake around in her hand like it was a toy.
"That was nice," my nutjob partner said. "I almost thought you would have really shot him."
"That's because I would have," I replied.
"Really?" Her voice was light, teasing.
Mine was not. "Really."
"I don't believe you."
"I don't give a shit what you believe. You weren't the one holding the door. It only matters what I believe, and what that little snotball believed. Now I've had a really fucked up couple of days, and I don't expect it to unfuck itself anytime soon. So if you'll excuse me, let's go see what passes for a disturbance in a demon bar."
I pushed open the door into the main bar and saw...nothing. Not a single monster at any of the tables, no one behind the bar, nothing. There were no customers, no employees, and no Mort. Nothing looked out of place, no overturned tables, no toppled chairs, no broken glasses or bottles. In short, it looked more placid than I'd ever seen it. Of course, I usually only came to Mort's with Harker, the one-man chaos vortex, so "placid" went out the window a few seconds after we arrived usually. But not this time. Everything looked calm. The only difference between this visit and every other trip I’d made to Mort’s was that the wooden sign proclaiming “Sanctuary” was missing from over the bar.
Which wasn’t anywhere on the list of things I’d consider a good sign.
I kept my pistol out as I made
my way to the door at the end of the bar. It led to Mort's back room, where the hitchhiker demon usually stayed out of the public eye. I listened at the door for a moment, but heard nothing. I turned the knob, stepped through, and found the source of the "disturbance."
Mort sat alone in an empty bar, but it looked nothing like the 20th century dive bar Mort's was made out to be. This looked like a pub from Europe sometime between the Dark Ages and last week, all carved wooden furniture, candles, and pewter tankards. It had a weighty feeling about the room, like we were underground, or in a building set into a hill.
Even in the dim light from the wall sconces, Mort was easy enough to spot. Especially since he was the only person there. He had apparently returned the body of the NFL quarterback he'd been wearing when I saw him the day before, and now he was dressed in the skin suit of a thirtysomething white guy with a ponytail and goatee. He was big, too, with raw muscle bulging under his t-shirt.
"Hi Mort," I said, walking over to his table and pulling out a chair. I holstered my pistol and sat down. Gabby stood behind my left shoulder and a few feet back, close enough to be useful but not so close as to screw with my draw if I needed to reach my gun. She might be a psycho, but she knew her way around a fight. I looked Mort up and down. "Borrow a biker?"
Mort glanced up at me, his face solemn. "Murderer," he replied. "I thought I might want a body that deserved whatever punishment the authorities assign to it."
My hand drifted to the butt of my gun. "Punishment?" I asked. "Punishment for what?"
"I find it likely that we may break a few mortal laws in our quest, Detective. If the body I inhabit is already someone that you think should spend the rest of its life imprisoned, then I can do so with relative impunity."
"Our quest?" I asked, thinking there was no way he was saying what I think he was saying.
"Yes, our quest. Orobas killed someone very near and dear to me. He must pay for that. As must his master and all of his many minions. It is entirely possible that the streets of this city may run red with blood before my thirst for vengeance is slaked."
Heaven Help Us (Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Book 7) Page 4