Al’Gamesh stopped in front of Ransom, the swirling darkness where its face should be staring up at him. Ransom felt the pit of his stomach twist. He had to look away.
“Your continued anger toward me does neither of us any benefit, Jack Ransom,” Al’Gamesh hissed. “You made a deal with me. You are holding up your end. Does it bother you what you did to Jagru?”
Ransom pulled the box out of its pocket and held it out to Al’Gamesh. “Jagru was a murdering bastard. I have no problem taking him out.” Which was true. All Orcs had a habit of feeding on human flesh. Jagru’s tastes had run more toward little children. Ransom figured he had just done the world a favor. The fact that Al’Gamesh needed it done was a happy coincidence. So, no, that wasn’t what bothered him.
“What, then?” Al’Gamesh asked him, as if he could read Ransom’s thoughts.
“You know what,” was all Ransom would say.
Cold washed over him as Al’Gamesh took the box and folded it into the deep sleeves of his cloak. “Torture yourself as you will. You made a deal. You suspect me in your wife’s abduction. You have no proof of it, or you would have broken our partnership already.”
“We aren’t partners.”
Al’Gamesh laughed at him, the sound of bones rattling in their graves. “As you say. I have another job for you.”
Ransom sighed and leaned against the wall. “Already?”
“My business requires constant attention.” Al’Gamesh turned and started walking away. Ransom had little choice but to follow.
The place they were in wasn’t on any of the current city maps. It actually ran underneath the foundation of several other buildings, except for the few rooms up here at street level. Several stairways led off the main corridor where he walked beside Al’Gamesh, each one leading down below to a different chamber. Those chambers ran underneath what was now Jackson Avenue and Rhodes college. Ransom had seen the lower structures on an older map, once, dated in the early 1700s. But he suspected this place was actually much older than that.
Al’Gamesh didn’t take any of the stairways today. Instead, he led Ransom into an interior chamber, through a curtain of heavy glass beads.
Ransom hesitated. He knew this place. The demon’s private office. He did not want to go inside if he could help it.
“Follow me, Jack Ransom.” Al’Gamesh’s voice was a pressure on his mind, pulling him forward.
With a heavy sigh and an involuntary shiver, Ransom stepped forward.
The room was dark, lit only by an eerie green glow that emanated from large pieces of luminescent rock set on pedestals in each of the four corners. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with tall glass tubes. And in those tubes swirled sickly green clouds of liquid smoke. It was the things in the tubes that bothered him.
The center of the room was empty except for a small and ornate table set on four thick legs. On the table rested a book. It was old, with a brown leather cover that had faded over the years, and uneven pages that had turned yellow and brittle. This was Al’Gamesh’s ledger book. Everyone who owed him anything was in this book. Al’Gamesh hated to have his ledger book out of balance. And more often than not, it had been Ransom who evened the balances for him.
“So who owes you now?” he asked, keeping his eyes focused on the book, so he wouldn’t have to look at anything else in the room.
“A woman. She made a deal with me. I gave her what she needed. I have not received my payment.
“What does she owe you?”
Al’Gamesh turned his blank, dark stare down to the book. It opened to a page near the end. Ransom had often wondered how far back this ledger went. Someday he aimed to find out.
On the page in the book was a list of names, and then spaces after each filled with meticulous notes. Al’Gamesh pointed to one name in particular, near the bottom, the spaces next to her name glaring in their emptiness.
“Rose Mason. She owes me. It is time for her to pay me.”
The words had a certain…finality to them that Ransom didn’t like. “And what, exactly, do you expect me to collect from her?”
“Her first born child.”
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Ransom For Hire - Appointment In Hell Page 5