When I found the business, I landed on the sidewalk and shifted into my human form to wait.
A few minutes later, a slim, nondescript Japanese woman strode up. Kiko didn’t look all that powerful, but looks were deceiving. She was remarkably strong and could strike with lightning-quick speed. I’d seen her take the head off a goblin before he realized she’d pulled out her flaming white sword.
Kiko rarely spoke more than a few words at a time to me, but I didn’t hold it against her. Her job was to keep me in one piece, and that wasn’t easy. Trouble followed me around, night and day.
“Great to see you again,” I said.
She nodded. “Proceed.”
We walked across the street to an old brick building that looked like another run-down warehouse. There were no windows on the lower floor, and the only door was made of metal. It was dented, like someone powerful had smacked it a dozen times with a heavy sledgehammer.
I understood that the bar inside was called Claim Jumper, but nothing outside hinted at a popular infernal watering hole behind the door.
I glanced at Kiko to find out whether I’d screwed up again.
“Your information is correct,” she said. “I sense dark immortals inside, none particularly powerful.”
That was great news. I wanted to check out the demons without getting slaughtered in the process. The door contained a numeric keypad, but I didn’t know the passcode. Even if I had it, she and I couldn’t waltz inside and start asking questions no self-respecting scumbag would answer. No, we needed to sneak in by sharing the mind of an unsuspecting demon looking for a good time.
Unfortunately, the street was deserted for blocks in both directions. The easiest answer was to wait. Kiko and I changed into our incorporeal forms and vanished. When the right jerks came along, we could secretly merge with their minds and hitch a ride indoors.
The main problem with our incorporeal forms was we lost the use of all our normal senses, like sight and hearing. But as angels, we could sense the spirit of any sentient being that came by. A meteor as big as a house could hit the sidewalk where we’d been standing, leaving a huge crater, and we wouldn’t know until we changed back into a physical form.
While we waited, Kiko and I stayed alert in case any powerful demon approached. He could sense our presence, and we’d need a few second’s warning to transform again and run like hell or fly away. Kiko could sense danger from much farther away than a baby angel like me. I didn’t try to communicate with her mentally because I didn’t want to distract her from that crucial job.
-o-o-o-
TIME PASSED, AND finally, her voice sounded in my head. Attention, Gabriel. A couple of trolls are approaching. I will merge with the female.
When they came closer, I sensed them, too, but sensing wasn’t enough. I had to wait until one of them came close enough to touch the keypad so I could merge into his mind.
Patience, I told myself.
The trolls came closer. The male approached to within a few feet, and I visualized sharing his mind. Just that easily, my spirit shared his head.
My thoughts remained clear, entirely separate from his. I was engulfed in a sea of his memories and emotions, but I stayed separate, kept apart by some kind of magical membrane. Like I was swimming underwater inside his mind.
Jesus Christ, that sucked. Both trolls reeked of sweat and rotting flesh. Rancid grease covered their hairy arms. His loincloth and her dress were soiled with the blood from a pig they’d eaten raw right before heading out. Trolls were about as filthy as any being could get. These two must’ve just transformed from human forms because they couldn’t hide like this in ordinary America.
The guy keyed in a passcode that opened the door. He and his mate entered and immediately headed for a bar on the right side of the room. Without a word, the bartender served each of them a quart-sized tankard of beer.
Before the barkeep could back away, Kiko and I both shifted into his head.
He turned out to be a vampire. I could sense his attraction to the blood worn by the trolls, but he fought the temptation. He knew no good could come from staying close, particularly if they started to fight. According to my limited experience with the species, they lived to drink and fight.
The vampire moved to the opposite end of the bar and sipped from a bottle of goat’s blood he kept behind the bar. I wasn’t about to discourage him. Bloodsuckers were much easier to handle if they stayed well fed.
This was the first time I’d been inside this place, and I paid close attention to the patrons. They seemed to exist at the bottom of the infernal food chain. That was perfect for Kiko and me. They moved inconspicuously through their dark world, and none were strong enough to endanger me or my guardian angel.
I checked the bartender’s mind to find out how often powerful demons showed up. Bad news—the bar’s owner was a minotaur, and he generally came by at least once a night. Kiko, do you see what I see?
Her reply was immediate. Yes, minotaurs are extremely dangerous, but he usually arrives to collect the nightly receipts around five in the morning. We need to leave well before then.
Works for me. I checked the vampire’s mind myself, and she was right, but sometimes he showed up much earlier. With my luck, tonight would be one of those nights.
So, I needed to get to work right away. To plan my strategy, I paid attention to our surroundings. Overall, the room had been decorated to look like an old mine. The walls, floor and ceiling appeared to have been blasted out of solid rock. A pair of rails ran the length of the rectangular room, and an ore cart rested near the door.
All the tables and chairs were made from roughhewn lumber, and each table contained a gold pan in the center that included a loaf of sourdough bread and a slab of butter. The only light came from dozens of kerosene lamps dangling from the dark ceiling.
The waitresses were hags wearing long black dresses covered by filthy leather aprons. Their scraggly white hair generally hung loose but didn’t hide their pockmarked faces and missing teeth. One of them approached the bar, mumbling to herself about the end of days.
As crazy as she seemed, she offered me my best chance to move throughout the room. I needed to wander from table to table, checking each demon in turn, to find out whether they knew any details regarding the murder and kidnapping.
For a half-hour, I skipped from head to head in a variety of demons sitting at the twenty tables already occupied early in the evening. Kiko left me to it, preferring to stay inside the bartender and keep an eye out for danger. Her wariness allowed me to keep focus on learning as much as I could from the folks in this godforsaken old tavern.
-o-o-o-
AFTER HOURS OF wasted effort, I popped into the head of a satyr sitting with two of his buddies at a small table in one corner of the room. In their human forms, the three worked as groundskeepers at the city hall complex. That seemed like a promising opportunity.
I checked the first satyr’s memory. He was old, with a tendency to drink all day long, so he didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the world. He knew nothing about the crimes I was investigating, except that he’d been grilled by a pair of cops. I urged him to ask, “What was going on with the pigs?”
His younger buddy with muttonchop whiskers said in a low voice, “I saw the devils the cops wanted to find.”
A thrill of excitement ran through my satyr, but I didn’t let myself get too excited yet. Demons were notorious liars.
The third satyr, who was also young and blind in one eye, leaned forward. “Those girls were pretty, particularly the younger one. Seen them around a lot this summer. They work for their daddy in cushy jobs. No lawn mowing for the likes of them.”
The old one I was inside belched. “What the hell happened to them?”
“This morning,” Muttonchop said, “I’d noticed a pair of devils hanging out in human form, skulking around city hall, pretending to be tourists. They were horning in on our territory.”
One Eye snickered. “I
hope you told Gordo. He keeps reminding me to report all outsiders. Doesn’t like ’em a damned bit.”
Muttonchop nodded. “Hates them as much as those bastard angels. I called him right away, but by the time the goblin shows up, those devils were gone. Gordo grumbled, but it wasn’t my fault he came too slow.”
“That’s it?” Old Guy asked with a snort. He’d been expecting a story worth hearing.
Muttonchop shook his head. “Four hours later, Gordo calls me in a panic. ‘We’re picking you up. Trip to the tower!’ I’m telling you, I almost shit my pants. I’m too young to die!”
The others snickered.
Old Guy said, “What a pussy. You obviously didn’t get whacked.”
“Nope. Didn’t know that then, though. I was shaking as I rode in the car they sent. It had blacked out windows, like a hearse. Still don’t know where the hell they took me. The driver let me out, and we stood inside an underground garage. A minute later, Gordo walks out of an elevator and drags me into it. We go straight to the top floor.” He wiped his face with his hands. “I thought I’d never leave that place alive.”
The other two satyrs laughed nervously and drank more beer. Gray Beard thought, You’re a lucky shithead. Most don’t come back.
“So, what happened?” One Eye asked.
“Gordo probed my mind, wanted to find out exactly what the devils had looked like.” One Eye’s voice lowered. “Worse, Caligula held my head between his long thin hands. He looks like a young movie star, thin as a rail. I was sure he was going to snap my neck. But he just smacked me once on the side of the head.”
A chill full of fear ran down Old Guy’s back. The higher ups were known to kill for just the fun of it. Caligula loved murder more than anything. Old Guy fought to keep his bile from rising.
“I was so scared I was stuttering,” Muttonchop said. “Almost passed out. Anyway, the big bosses think the devils I spotted were the ones who killed the mayor’s older kid and grabbed the younger one. They told me all the humans in the city are freaking out and said, if I saw those two again, I had to call Gordo right away.”
One Eye laughed. “You got off easy. When Caligula catches those two, he’ll burn their skin off with hellfire and take the girl who lived. He’s sure to have a great time with her.”
Muttonchop sighed wistfully. “Too bad we’ll miss out. A pretty piece.” After a short pause, he said, “Anyway, just as my shift was ending, the first cops showed up. They asked me plenty of questions, but I didn’t know squat. Wouldn’t have told them if I knew. Soon, dozens more of the assholes arrived, surrounded city hall.”
One Eye downed the rest of his mug of beer. “Radio says those two demons grabbed the girls from the sidewalk—broad daylight—as they were getting into a car. The bastards pulled the girls into a white van and took off.”
“That took balls,” Old Guy said. “Undercover cops are always patrolling the area.”
Muttonchop pulled out a smartphone and found a news story on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website. It showed a picture of seventeen-year-old Iris Winter, a tall, thin brunette who had wanted to be a nurse. She had been found dead in the stolen white van a few miles from city hall. She’d died from blunt force trauma to her face and back of the head.
My heart ached for her. The pretty smiling girl in the picture had lost her life so early. Her family and friends had to be devastated.
Then One Eye showed Old Guy a photo of fifteen-year-old Cassandra Winter, the mayor’s younger daughter. Her round face was radiant, and her eyes twinkled. Cassandra wore a traditional peasant dress, standing right next to her sister. Cassandra was a full head shorter. The article said she was a straight-A high school student and volunteered at an impoverished elementary school.
You poor girl. She was incredibly vulnerable and deserved to be saved. All I could hope was that she remained alive and uninjured. While my heart went out to her, the monsters at the table tried to impress each other with how vicious they’d be to her if they could.
Over the last couple of months, I’d heard plenty of revolting comments from demons, but these three sickened me almost to the point where I was blinded with anger. It took all my self-control to keep from changing into my fighting form, whipping out my sword, and taking all three of their heads.
However, that wouldn’t have made Honah happy and wouldn’t help Cassandra. He hadn’t sent me to punish the wicked, no matter how much they deserved it. I was supposed to find the girl, hopefully before she was brutalized any more than she had been by witnessing her older sister’s death.
Instead of lashing out, I controlled my fury. Then I switched into Muttonchop’s head so I could see his memory of the two devils’ human forms. Both were Caucasian. The taller one had a long and thin face with small beady eyes. He wore his long black hair in a ponytail. He was wearing a ruby red jogging suit and a Raiders cap.
The other devil was a few inches shorter and much beefier. He was clean-shaven, and red tattoos covered his arms. He wore a yellow t-shirt and faded jeans. I committed both images to memory.
Their appearances could be changed, but they’d need the help of a powerful demon for that. They definitely had their hands full for the moment, hiding from the cops, the local demons, and the Angelic Legion. I hoped to have the pleasure of finding them shortly.
-o-o-o-
The rest of this story, Infernal Justice, is available for pre-order in the Kindle Store here. It will be published on January 12, 2018.
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Forged by Fire (Angels at the Edge Book 1) Page 24