"So tell me, what did you mean by audacious?"
I cleared my throat. "You understood that?"
"I did. Don't try and get out of explaining it."
"It's part of demonic psychology. We place a lot of weight on audacious, decisive action. We respect informed risk-taking, but not recklessness. That's why demons hate being confined or restrained. It keeps them from taking the action they're compelled to do so."
"You're telling me that demons don't make mistakes?"
"Not at all. They make mistakes just like any human. What demons generally don't do is hesitate. Highly ranked demons are in charge because they have a record of making good snap decisions. If you know they make good decisions, you follow them, right?"
"So why did you call me audacious?"
I looked away. "You acted decisively. You hunted Azriphel, thought you had found him, and attacked. When you found out you had made a mistake, you acted and changed that mistake into a benefit to you." Full demons would call her reckless and consider her only dangerous to herself. Humans would consider her brave, to the point of insanity. As a halfblood, I found her interesting.
Tink fell silent, pulling a pen from her pocket and scribbling some notes down. I pulled one of the papers across the coffee table and skimmed it. She had written down all the names of demons I had ever mentioned and quite a few names that I hadn't. She also had some of their human identities matched up. Where was she getting that sort of information? Demons didn't give their identities away easily. She had connections somewhere. I shook my head. She was just an amateur in some ways, but a very dangerous amateur. I flipped the page over.
In the middle of that page was a name. Azriphel, underlined and outlined and circled. A web entangled the name, other names and notes branching out to the edges of the page. Why was she going after him? Granted, he was an ass, even for a demon. He had a penchant for killing humans on a whim, discarding his human identity, then starting over somewhere else. I hadn't heard any rumors after the last atrocity a bit over a decade ago, which had led to speculation that he had given up his favorite pastime in favor of something else.
I looked up to find her looking at me. I started to ask about Azriphel. She started to ask about something else. Our words bounced and turned to gibberish. Before either of us could ask again, someone knocked on my door.
Tink jumped to her feet. "Expecting visitors?" she hissed.
I shrugged. "I do have friends, you know."
She grabbed her notes and looked around wildly. I got up off the couch and walked to the door as she fled into my bedroom. I held back a chuckle and opened the door.
"Hey, Bright," Becky rumbled. "I see you're enjoying your unemployment."
I realized I was still holding an open bottle. "Sometimes you just need to give up for a while. Care to join me?"
"That's why I came over. You know I hate drinking alone." I stepped aside to let her in. My apartment wasn't too small, but it definitely felt smaller when Becky was around. Bless the girl, but she was large. She was taller than me, wider than me, and stronger than me. Unless I was burning ichor, at least. She walked into the kitchen and I heard the fridge open. "You want a fresh one, Bright?"
"Sure," I said. "Bring a few. I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon."
"That's what I like to hear." Becky stepped back into the living room and stopped dead. "Oh, shit, Bright. You should have said something."
I followed her gaze. Tink was standing frozen just outside of my bedroom, caught red-handed trying to sneak out. She must have hidden her notes somewhere. "I wouldn't put it that way, but she is a little on the shy side."
"Isn't she the cutie who helped you out after you got jumped last month?" Becky always remembered cute girls and violence. Put the two together and she'd never forget.
"She is," I admitted. "We got to be friends. Come on, Tink. Don't be shy. Let's all get drunk together. I promise I'll keep Becky from groping you."
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Bright."
Tink glared at me. I tried to think nice thoughts, attempting to give her a mental invitation to stay. I may have thought too many nice things about her, such as how nice it would be to see her back in the bedroom. Her glare transformed into the familiar scowl. I rolled my eyes and jerked a thumb toward the chair that she had been perched on before. "Stop glaring, sit down, and have a drink with us. I insist."
To my surprise, her scowl faded. "Fine," she said. "I can't stay long. I have things to do. Some of us are gainfully employed, you know."
"And some of us wish we were," I said.
"And some of us wish we weren't," Becky said. I looked over my shoulder, mildly surprised. Becky's official line of work was that of a personal assistant at her father's construction company. Unofficially, she was sort of a force multiplier. Having a hulking brute of a woman in the room who was known to kick the shit out people of tended to result in much more favorable negotiating terms. It was simple intimidation.
There were also rumors that her father asked her to do things that were patently illegal. Considering she had been shot before, I was sure there was truth to those rumors. Silvatini was abnormally profitable for a construction business, especially in the midst of this recession.
Through all this, one thing remained true. Becky loved her work. Even after she had been shot, she got right back into it a week later. If that wasn't enough to dissuade her, what was? "Something going on at work?" I asked, sitting down on the couch next to her. Tink perched on the edge of the chair.
Becky shrugged. "One of our competitors has been having accidents. Bad accidents."
"Accidents you caused?" I asked.
"Bright, I do not cause accidents. I am a force of nature," she said. "But these accidents were in no way natural. We are talking bad shit here. Rivets popping out. Misfiring nail guns. Minor things, happen to everyone, right? We paid it no mind. Then, it got worse."
"Worse?" Tink asked.
"Disfiguring. Disabling. We are talking seriously bad shit now. Sheet metal falling down, one of them loses a hand or a foot. Someone got a concrete block dropped on his shoulder from two floors up. No one's that careless, not in our line of business. Their people started to get nervous. The only thing that would make them more nervous is if I showed up."
"And it got worse?" I knew that pattern of buildup. They'd build fear or paranoia, and at the height, they'd take out the top level and let the structure crumble. If the president of that company didn't capitulate now, he'd be dead within a week. It was characteristic of a high-ranking demon. Strike the support until it's shaky, then go for the throat.
Becky nodded and stared at her bottle. "Their people got dead."
That threw me. "Dead?"
"Torn apart. Something ripped them up. Five of them, dismembered, their heads arranged at the points of a pentagram drawn in their blood. Who the hell does that sort of thing, Bright? It was goddamn sick."
I glanced at Tink. She nodded. A pentagram wasn't inherently demonic, even though it was a common occult symbol. Being drawn in blood, though? That indicated one of three things: a human mage preparing something nasty, a demon making a statement, or some sort of nutcase who thought that occult signs would make him more edgy. Based on what Becky had mentioned before, my instincts said demon.
Tink leaned forward in her chair. "What company is it?"
"Lowenstein," Becky said. There were three major construction companies in the area: Silvatini, Lowenstein, and Imperial. If Lowenstein was having issues, that cast a lot of suspicion on both Silvatini and Imperial. Mostly Silvatini.
"So that means your dad's getting some unwanted attention?"
"You got it. Officially, I'm on an extended sort of vacation."
"Do you know who they were?" Tink asked. Her tone was sharper than normal. Her fists were clenched on her knees and she was sitting so far forward on the chair, she was about to fall off.
"The guys who died?" Becky shrugged. "Dunno. Lowenstein's big."
/>
"Vostok." Tink stood up. "He was a Russian expat, worked for Lowenstein. Was he one of them? Does the name ring a bell?"
Becky frowned. "You know, I think he was. I met him once or twice. Bushy beard, liked his jokes and his vodka. He invited me out to have drinks. Said he liked big thick girls like me, reminded me of the women back home. Too funny to hurt. You knew him?"
Tink sagged and dropped her face into her hands. I didn't know what to say, just exchanged looks with Becky. She shrugged and gestured toward Tink as if I should go over and comfort her. I wasn't about to jump at that opportunity. I knew she always kept that knife on her and I didn't feel like losing any more blood today. I settled for verbal commiseration. "One of your many ex-lovers, Tink?"
Becky winced. I wasn't very good at this sort of thing. Tink's head snapped up. Her eyes weren't wet or watery or even red. Even so, her gaze was darker than normal. It wasn't the empty stare someone who's been hurt. It was the gaze of someone who wanted to hurt. I looked away. "Sorry."
"He was a friend of mine," she said. I looked back up. Her gaze caught mine and she reached back to touch the hairband. Not just a friend, then. Her eyes narrowed and I realized what she was thinking. If it was a demon, had it targeted him specifically?
"Sorry to hear that," Becky said. "I liked him too. Here's to Vostok. May he rest in peace." She lifted her bottle and I joined her in a toast to his memory. After a moment, Tink picked up her abandoned bottle and joined us. Her expression was still dark.
Thankfully, the conversation turned to lighter topics for the next couple of hours, letting her muse in peace. Becky and I finished off the rest of the Guinness in my fridge, and by the time Lionel came for her, she was barely able to walk. I helped Lionel carry her out and closed the door behind them. Tink was still sitting in the same chair, legs curled up under her, staring down into her still unfinished bottle. "I thought you said you couldn't stay too long," I said.
"I shouldn't have."
"But you did. You're so taken with us, it's cute."
"Shut up, demon."
"You know, you'd be a lot cuter if you weren't so moody."
She uncurled from the chair and walked to my bedroom. "You're too drunk to deal with. I'll come back later."
"You can just stay in the bedroom if you want." I was feeling pretty good. "I'll join you once I get my balance."
She paused in the doorway before walking in. Her head turned slightly, as if she was about to look back at me, but then walked away without another word. After a moment, she walked back out with her notes in hand. She walked up to me and tried to reach around me for the doorknob. I grabbed her wrist. She froze. "Let go."
"I'm not drunk," I said. She turned her head, looked up at me. "Honestly, not drunk. I'm buzzed, but that'll be gone in a few minutes. We metabolize alcohol a little differently."
"I said, let go."
"I saw the look on your face," I said. "He wasn't just your friend. He was a mage. Wasn't he? You think a demon went after him. Why?"
"Why?" She tore her hand free from my grip. "Because that's what demons do. You kill. That's part of what you are. It's why we call you demons."
"You seem to have a misconception-"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Her knife was suddenly out and pressed to the bottom of my jaw. I hadn't even seen her reach for it. "What was that murder all about, then? Torn apart, she said. Heads at the points of a pentagram drawn in blood. It's a demon, you know it's a demon! No human would do something like that. They targeted him specifically. Vostok was a good man. He was a good hunter!"
"He was a hunter." I tried not to move my jaw too much. I had intimate knowledge of how sharp that knife was. "And you expect a demon would let him keep hunting? Sorry to tell you, Tink, but self-preservation isn't unique to humans."
"No!" The knife jabbed up a little more. "Was. Past tense. He retired."
"Revenge?" I suggested. "We're known to do that."
"He retired twenty years ago!"
"We live a long time."
"He hunted in Russia!"
"It could have taken them a long time to track him down?"
She sagged again. The knife point dropped away, leaving a warm spot on the underside of my chin. "I don't think so. I'm not sure they're specifically after him. Not if they killed five people."
"You have a point," I admitted. "It's not likely that a demon would let him live for so many years if he was being specifically targeted. That's a life-threatening lack of audacity. What did he do after he retired? Was he teaching others to be demon hunters?"
"No, he just came here to work," she said. "He didn't teach anyone anything, no matter how much we begged. I mean, we could get some stories from him if we got him drunk enough, but he always told us to stay out of the business. He was done hunting."
I walked back over to the couch and flopped down. "Assuming he was telling you the truth, what did he know that made him valuable or threatening? Any idea?"
Tink leaned against the door. "I don't know. I really don't know. I only saw him get upset once. The conclave gathers every month to train a little. Sometimes a master visits to teach us something new. Vostok would always come, just to socialize, I think. But a couple of months ago, we had a master arrive, someone we'd never heard of. Vostok went to greet him. They went into a back room. Ten minutes later, Vostok comes out. No smile, no grin, just sat back down and started drinking. He was furious. Never found out what the master told him."
I tried to sort out what she had just told me. Obviously, the master who had come there had told that Vostok guy something important. What would be important enough for a demon to go after him for? "Was Vostok the only one he spoke to?"
"No, not at all. He talked to all of our upper ranks, like Vostok."
"Not to you?"
She snorted. "Are you kidding? I'm just a journeyman. That was actually the night I was recognized as a journeyman. That's why I remember it so well."
It sounded like her conclave ranked their members in some fashion, and if she was just a journeyman, she wasn't very advanced. No wonder she was so clumsy. "So, out of the people who spoke to that master, how many of them are still alive now?"
She straightened up. "As far as I know, all of them. We have a conclave meeting next week. I guess I'll find out then."
"Can I go to that meeting with you?" I asked.
Her eyes widened. "You want to walk into a room full of mages and demon hunters? Are you insane? They'll kill you on sight!"
"We just won't tell them."
"They'll find out!"
I rattled through all the bottles until I found one that wasn't empty. "Let me put it this way. First thing we need to do is check out that construction site. Confirm that it was done by a demon. If it wasn't, then there's much less of a problem and we can relax."
"And if it was a demon?" she asked.
I lifted the bottle to my lips and put it back on the coffee table. "Then your mage friends may be about to become prey."
Chapter Three
Sneaking around in the dead of night is something that people expect to come naturally to demons. Demons are evil, and evil things happen in the darkness, therefore, demons like the dark. They especially enjoy the stroke of midnight.
That's what Tink must have thought. She probably expected me to be wide awake at quarter to midnight, plotting mischief and mayhem. Even her surprised expression wasn't enough payment for waking me up. "The hell do you want this late?"
"You were in bed?"
I yawned in her face. "I just fell asleep."
"I didn't think demons needed sleep."
"I'm a-"
"I don't care what you are. Get dressed. We're going out."
I rubbed my eyes. She was wearing a form fitting bodysuit that would have sent all sorts of thoughts rolling through my head if I had been more awake. I looked her up and down. Going out at this hour? "What nightclub were you thinking?"
She stared at me.
"Aren't you taking me out on a date?"
Her eyes drifted closed, and her lips moved. I leaned in to hear what she was saying and she hit me. Not just a tap, she hit me with a full on sucker punch that sent me staggering back into my apartment, gasping for breath. She walked in, closed the door behind her, and pushed me out of the way. "Where do you keep your coffee?" she asked.
I wheezed directions to her. Girl seemed to think she owned the place. Arguing with her when she was in this sort of mood was not in my best interests, though. I flopped down on my couch and let my eyes drift closed.
She slapped a mug of coffee down on the coffee table in front of my face. I flinched and sat up. She hit my forehead with the flat of her palm, hard enough to sting, bouncing my head back down against the cushion. "Wake up," she commanded.
"What the hell, Tinkerbell?"
She smacked me again. "Stop calling me that. Drink your coffee."
I grabbed the coffee, just to keep her from hitting me again. She stood over me, arms crossed. I took a sip and nearly gagged. "How strong did you make this? No cream or sugar? Are you trying to kill me?"
"Man up."
Ten minutes later, the caffeine was in my system, and all hope for a good night's sleep had fled. I glared at her. Her scowl held an edge of amusement. The bitch was enjoying tormenting me. I put the mug down. "So what's the occasion?"
"We're going to the Lowenstein construction site," she said.
"Now?"
"Now."
"Why now?"
She rolled her eyes. "It's dark, which means less people will see us, which means less interruptions or questions. Plus, I thought you'd be more active at night. I see I was wrong. If I didn't know better, I'd start wondering if you were really a demon at all. You're a gigantic pussy."
"So you're one hundred percent awake from the moment you wake up?"
"One hundred and ten percent."
I stood up. "Forget it. I'm going to get dressed. Peek all you want."
She didn't, and we drove to the site. I parked a block away and we walked the rest. The area around the site was dark, with most of the streetlights having succumbed to a lack of maintenance. The site itself was fenced off with a chain link fence and the entrance was closed and padlocked, with a stripe of yellow police tape wrapped across it for good measure. We climbed the fence.
The Demon Inside Me Page 4