Hell's Belles (Damned Girl Book 3)

by Clare Kauter

  “Since this involves The Department.”

  “It involves me,” I said.

  “Yes, but I’m a Department official. I can’t be seen on reality shows.”

  “Good,” I said. “You weren’t invited.”

  Dick turned to the director. “Surely you’d want me as well?”

  The director hesitated to answer. “Um, I think we should be OK with just – sorry, what was your name?”

  “Nessa,” I said.

  “Right. We should be OK with just Nessa, but I’ll let you know if we need you.”

  I smirked. Dick looked deflated. (OK, in hindsight that sentence came out sounding a little wrong.)

  “What kind of stuff have you been filming while you’ve been here?” I asked.

  “Bits and pieces,” the camerawoman answered. “Last night we walked around for a few hours filming the city.”

  That caught my attention. “Just the touristy bits, or did you head back into some of the older parts of the city?”

  “Both,” said the director. “We want to give as accurate a feel for the place as we can in the show.”

  I nodded. “I’d love to see some of that footage.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Dick muttered.

  “It’s all unedited,” said the camera operator. “It’s pretty raw. It won’t give you much of an idea of what the finished product will look like.”

  “Oh, that’s fine,” I said. “I’m actually doing a piece for the website on the older parts of Hell and I was hoping your footage might give me some inspiration.”

  The director shrugged. “I guess that would be fine,” she said reluctantly. I don’t know what she thought I was going to do with her cruddy footage – make a rival reality show of my own?

  “You can just leave a copy of the footage here,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve got stuff to do. Don’t worry – I’ll delete it all from my computer when I’m done. I’ve just hit a bit of a wall with this article and I need something to get my brain working again. Maybe watching through it will give me some inspiration. I just don’t have the time to go exploring myself.”

  The director agreed and after I copied the footage to my computer, Satan and the crew left.

  “Seems like a bit of a long shot, doesn’t it?” Hecate asked.

  “Complete waste of time,” said Dick. “We should look over the files again.”

  “There’s nothing in the files,” said Daisy.

  “Exactly. And as you kindly pointed out, Dick, I’m no use with the forensics report anyway. I might as well look at this footage while the rest of you look at the reports.”

  “Do you really think you’re going to find anything?” Dick asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, it’s worth a try. Now stop standing over me and breathing everywhere.” Or anywhere. “Go and do something useful.”

  Dick looked like he was going to protest, but then he seemed to decide it was useless and stormed off, muttering under his breath. I smiled maliciously as he walked away, proud that I’d won the argument, but then I looked back at the screen and noticed just how many files the filmmakers had left for me to sort through. This could take all day.

  I enlarged the thumbnails of the files and discarded any that were obviously filmed at locations other than the area around the alley where we’d found the body. Pretty much anything where I could see what was being filmed went in the computer’s trash basket. At the end of the cull, I was left with a significantly smaller number of files, but the hard work was just beginning. They were all so dark that what was actually being filmed was virtually indiscernible without editing the footage. I imported it all into editing software and methodically went through each clip, brightening it as much as I could without losing excessive detail.

  Twenty-three clips in, I struck gold.

  It was shot from the mouth of the lane, although I wasn’t sure straight away that it was the right alley – it was very dark, after all, and it wasn’t a part of Hell I was all that familiar with. Plus when I’d been there I was more preoccupied with the corpse than studying the surrounding architecture. So it took me a little bit of watching before I realised it was the right place. I wasn’t sure if I’d have recognised the place at all if I hadn’t seen a shadow moving in the background.

  I squinted and leaned in closer to the screen. “Guys, I think I’ve got something.”

  Henry, Hecate and Daisy scrambled over to see what I’d found, apparently not having had any luck with their own reading of the forensics results and Gnawlack’s criminal history. They all stood behind me and leaned in, watching as I replayed the clip over and over.

  “Well, I’m sure there’s something there,” said Hecate, “but I sure as hell can’t see it.”

  “I think I saw something moving,” said Henry. “Maybe.”

  “It all sounds very convincing,” Dick sneered from across the room. “How about we go out and arrest anyone who looks like they might cast a shadow in an alley?”

  I glowered at him. “Thanks for your input, Dick. And what exactly, may I ask, are you doing to help solve this case?”

  “You’ve wasted half a day on that footage. Just delete it and get back to working with facts,” he said. “I think we should focus on the hate crime angle. We know from the forensics report that the eyeballs were eaten directly out of the skull. Sounds like werewolves to me. We all know that there’s tension between the goblins and the wolves. Seems stupid to overlook that just because you have some crappy footage of a dark figure in an alley.” He crossed his arms. “You’re not really cut out for this detective work, are you? You’re just a bit too thick for it. I don’t know if I could ever in good conscience allow you to have a licence to use magic when you’re so dumb.”

  Now, I know I shouldn’t have gotten all riled up over someone calling me dumb – especially not pony dick Dick – but the threat of not giving me a licence because I’d decided to pursue a lead he didn’t like just made me… well, cranky.

  “You might change your mind when you see what my magic can do to this footage.”

  “What?” said Dick, his eyes widening.

  “You’ve got techno magic?” asked Hecate.

  “I told you,” said Henry. “She used it to boost the Wi-Fi on our last quest.”

  “You guys have been talking about me?” I said. “Should I be worried?”

  The answer to that question was definitely a resounding ‘yes’. I could only hope Henry wouldn’t mention his dual memories to her.

  “Techno magic is really complex,” said Daisy. “That’s incredible.”

  “The Wi-Fi in that inn was really terrible,” I said. “It wouldn’t have taken any amazing talent to make it better. It could hardly have been any worse.”

  “She’s just being modest,” said Henry. “Go on, Ness. Show them what you can do.”

  Ness? Henry had never called me that before. I felt my heart flutter a little, which was dumb given that he’d essentially just left a letter out of my name, but there it was. Definite palpitations. Argh, this was so inconvenient. Here I was with a crush on a man who could send me to prison for the rest of my life if I didn’t keep him convinced that he was crazy.

  Nevertheless, that pathetic reason, along with Dick’s proclamation of my stupidity, spurred me on and I put a lot of effort into using my magic to edit the image. The wonderful thing about mixing magic and computers is that magic isn’t so rigid as machines. Magic is all about nature and flow and other hippie stuff, not ones and twos and pixels like computers. Magic can bridge the gap between people and technology – for example, it can take a picture that the computer doesn’t quite know how to fix and retouch it to make it clear to the human eye. (Not to mention it rendered instantly. Magic is glorious.)

  And apparently when you really concentrate, the results are kind of impressive.

  Even I was amazed. I’d done similar things before, but I’d never had results this impressive. There in front of us, now in crystal clear 4K, so
well lit that you’d think there had been a light shining on the subject, was a video of the murderer standing over the corpse. The video played automatically and the four of us watched it, wearing what I imagined would be comical looks of shock to an outsider.

  Because the thing was, we knew that figure hunched over the body. The most annoying centaur in the entire underworld.

  It was Dick himself.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dragging my eyes away from the computer, I saw Dick staring at us as we watched him on the screen, creeping in an alleyway with a corpse. He was like a deer in the headlights, opening his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

  Then he decided to make a break for it.

  He galloped from the other end of the room towards us, seeing as my desk was by the only exit other than the fourth storey window. (Unlike cats, I guess centaurs don’t have nine lives.) He careened towards us, clearly counting on the element of surprise to prevent us from acting. Unfortunately for Dick, he was stuck in a room with four people who were not easily surprised into inaction. And also happened to hate him.

  Daisy shot a jet of water at him that was as powerful as a fireman’s hose. It hit him square in the belly, blasting a hole in his shirt and even hosing off some of his skin. Hecate got him with an electricity spell, the magical equivalent of a taser. Henry picked up a nearby chair and threw it at him with such force that the top came off the wheels when it made contact with Dick’s back. I lassoed him with my purple magic tendrils and yanked, throwing him off balance and pulling him to his knees.

  Oddly enough, despite all the pent up rage I felt towards Dick, somehow mine was the least aggressive of all the attacks he received. That made me feel a little elated. I’d been caught in a fight and I’d been the softie! There was someone who was dangerous and a murderer and who I hated and I didn’t even kill him! I was growing! I know not murdering someone isn’t usually cause for celebration (it does sound like a kind of low bar goal), but for me it was genuinely out of the ordinary. Maybe I was finally breaking the habit!

  Now that Dick was detained, Hecate phoned The Department, taking great joy in announcing that the person they’d replaced Henry with was a murderer. Moments later, Henry received a phone call and from the glee on his face I was guessing he’d been offered his old job back. While the others moved Dick to prison, I realised I was finally free. Surely The Department would give me a licence now. Not only had I caught a murderer, but also surely they wouldn’t risk sending me on another quest with the track record I’d accrued.

  I left Satan’s offices elated, then realised I still had a job to do. While the others were distracted with transporting Dick, I had to get back to the pub and into his room before anyone else had a chance to search it. He had the companion object, I was sure of it. Not just because he had obviously killed Gnawlack – although he had protested his innocence at length until Daisy had cast a muting spell on him – but because he had already mentioned the companion objects to me. He’d killed a guy who had one so it stood to reason that he would have taken it for himself, and I wanted to get my hands on it. Not so much so I could combine it with the Doomstone for extra power, but more so that it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  I hurried back to the pub, pushing through throngs of tourists. Hell was always busiest on weekends because it was the perfect place for a short vacation – no travel time, no jetlag, nice and hot, good beach, great shopping, reasonably safe, and edgy enough to brag about at work on Monday.

  Eventually I reached the pub and climbed the stairs that led towards my room, but I stopped at Dick’s door and broke in. Since it was a cheap place to stay, they hadn’t bothered to place proper security spells on the locks and I opened it in a jiffy. Once inside, I was struck by the lack of stuff. There was no suitcase, no bathroom bag – nothing. This room looked like it was currently unoccupied. What did that mean? Had Dick already checked out?

  “Find anything interesting?” asked a voice behind me.

  I screamed and turned with my hands raised, ready to cast. I lowered them when I saw who it was.

  “For Satan’s sake, Ed! You can’t just creep up on a person like that.”

  “I guess it would be kind of nerve wracking to get sprung in the middle of breaking and entering,” he said with a smirk.

  “Was there something you wanted?”

  “I heard about your supervisor’s arrest,” said Ed. “Figured I might find you here.”

  “How could you have possibly heard about it that quickly?” I asked. “Have you been stalking me or something?”

  Ed laughed at me and shook his head. “News travels fast around here. Especially when we’re on the brink of an all-out war between the goblins and werewolves. Knowing that it’s not a wolf that’s responsible for Gnawlack’s murder might actually prevent a few more deaths, so the news has been spreading like wildfire.”

  “I didn’t realise it was that serious,” I said.

  Ed shrugged. “No more serious than normal,” he said. “No one reacts all that well to having their leader killed by another group. I’m pretty sure that would be enough to start a war between anyone, magical or not.”

  I nodded. “So what are you doing here?” I asked. “Are you going to try and take the companion from me?”

  Ed laughed. “No,” he said, looking amused. “I was going to tell you that you won’t find it here.”

  “That’s exactly what someone who wanted it would say if they thought it was here.”

  Ed was still smiling. “You can trust me, you know. And even if you don’t, you know it’s not here. He hasn’t been sleeping in this room.”

  “The room could have just been cleaned,” I said. “Maybe the maid made up the bed.”

  “What, and stole the suitcases too? I doubt it.”

  I nodded reluctantly. “Good point. Plus there’s the fact that I don’t think this place even has a maid.”

  “Can you feel any energy in this room?”

  I shook my head. “No. The object isn’t here, whatever it is.”

  “I think he has another place somewhere in Hell,” said Ed. “Somewhere he practises all his weird rituals, whatever they’re for.”

  I nodded. “And you think the companion’s there?”

  “I do,” said Ed. “Unless he’s keeping it on his body, although that seems risky when you’re working in such close proximity with the cops.”

  “He did allow himself to be filmed with his murder victim, so I don’t know that we can rule that out.”

  “He what?” said Ed. “Surely you can’t be serious.”

  “He did,” I said. “I think he thought it was too dark for the camera to pick him up, so he just sat there quietly until they left.”

  “What an idiot.”

  “He would have been fine if I hadn’t cleaned up the footage.”

  “With magic?”

  I nodded. “Best job I’ve ever done. And then when he was running away I didn’t murder him! Or even maim him!”

  “As much as I think he probably deserved a good maiming, I’m glad that you’re getting better control over your powers.”

  “I know! It’s so exciting!” I paused. “Do you think I could use them to seek out this companion object?”

  “Since you probably haven’t followed my advice and gone to the library yet and so have no idea what the companion object could be,” he said, giving me a pointed look, “I would guess that you wouldn’t be able to trace it without activating the Doomstone. And given how many people are looking for the stone, it’s probably not advisable to send out a signal leading them straight to it.”

  He had a point there. I really did need to get to the library to do some research. Beyond figuring out what the companion objects were, there were other things I needed to look up. Even though we knew Dick had killed Gnawlack, we didn’t know why he’d done it in such a spectacular fashion. If he’d used the murder as part of a ritual s
acrifice, there could still be something dangerous lurking in Hell despite the fact that Dick was locked up. I sighed. “OK, fine. What do I do, then? How am I meant to find Dick’s other home? I doubt he registered it under his real name.”

  Ed shrugged. “I guess you’ll just have to ask him.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Having only just rid myself of Dick, I was not happy about the idea of popping into his cell for a visit. Especially since his cell was in The Department’s prison in Hell. Even though The Department was an Australian body, they had a prison here in Hell where the torture laws and hygiene standards were a little more relaxed. From the outside, the building looked like a depressing utilitarian concrete cube. Once you got inside and past all the security screenings (I’d given my stone to Ed for safekeeping while I was at the prison) the building got a little more interesting.

  Dick was being held downstairs in the dungeons, which looked like they’d come straight from the 17th century. The air was dank and musty, and the floor beneath my feet was damp as the guard lead me through the labyrinth of cells to the place where they were keeping Dick. Each cell was a small room with bars on the front and a bed, chair and leering prisoner inside. The criminals watched from both sides as I walked through the prison, keeping directly in the centre of the walkway so there was no chance of being grabbed by any of them.

  The air in here was heavy with magic dampeners so that none of the criminals could use their powers to attack each other (or the guards) or make an escape. It was oppressive and I didn’t like the feeling at all. I didn’t have the Doomstone here to help me and although I’d managed to get better control of my powers recently, I doubted I was strong enough to break through the dampeners if something went wrong while I was visiting.

  Finally we reached Dick’s cell and the guard let me inside. He stood by the door, watching me as I walked inside and sat on the chair. Dick was curled up on his bed, legs tucked underneath him. He faced me and I saw that already he looked different. He appeared relatively calm on the outside, but when I looked closer he was wild behind the eyes. Panicked. He had clearly been dressed by the prison, as Littler Dick was now hidden under a pair of paper underpants. His face was muzzled, though I wondered if that was strictly necessary. I mean, sure, he’d apparently eaten the goblin’s eyes from his skull, but he wasn’t likely to repeat the incident in here, was he? I found myself staring at his teeth, wondering how exactly he did it. They looked so flat and blunt.