"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I said.
Kate shot me a puzzled glance. "Who the hell is that?"
"A liability," I replied.
Pinch paused at the bottom of the stoop, casting furtive glances left and right, and then he ascended the steps, knocking on the flophouse door. I stubbed out my cigarette and cracked the window. Whatever went down, I was damn sure I wanted to hear it.
After a moment, the door opened. Behind it was a chocolate-skinned woman in a leather halter and a denim miniskirt; a luxuriant head of cinnamon locks that was almost certainly a wig cascaded down over her naked shoulders. She was rail-thin, with sunken eyes and a face that could have been a young-looking fifty or a weathered thirty. My money was on the latter.
"Ain't you a little young to come 'round here, sport?" she asked. Her words dripped with condescension. A smile played across her face.
"I'm here to see Merihem," Pinch replied.
"Kid, I don't know where you heard that name, but believe me when I tell you, you'd best forget it quick, you hear? Now why don't you run along to Mommy – I'm sure she'd hate to hear what kind of trouble her baby's gettin' hisself into."
"It's about the girl."
"What girl you talking about?"
"You know what girl," Pinch said.
"Honest, baby, I don't. Maybe you could come inside and tell me?"
"I'll only talk to Merihem."
"Well, then, I guess I got no choice. Come on in, child, and I'll take you to him."
"I'm young, I'm not stupid. He wants to talk to me, he can bring his ass out here."
Her eyes flashed with anger at that last. "You'd best watch that mouth of yours, boy – you don't know who it is you're speaking of."
"I know enough," he said. "Just go get him."
The woman disappeared back into the house, and the door swung shut. Pinch shifted from foot to foot as he waited, rubbing his hands together to ward off the cold. He glanced around again, looking down the street away from us, and then directly toward the van. If he saw us inside, he didn't let on.
"I don't get it," Kate said. "She seemed pissed he wouldn't go inside, but that chick was twice his size – why didn't she just grab him?"
I smiled despite myself. "Because she couldn't. See, she can try to tempt him all she likes, but if he won't enter of his own accord, there's nothing she can do to make him. Sin is all about free will, which means evil has no power unless you grant it."
"Tell that to my family."
I flushed. "Kate, I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean–"
"Forget it," she said. "Something's happening."
The flophouse door swung open again, but this time, the errand girl was nowhere to be seen. Merihem looked down at the boy, a benevolent smile pasted on his face. Even from here, I could see it didn't touch his eyes. They exchanged a few words, and then Pinch beckoned Merihem to follow him. I dropped the van into gear and waited.
They stepped off of the curb and headed west across the street – Pinch leading, Merihem a couple steps behind. I floored the gas and the van lurched forward. Beside me, Kate screamed.
"Sam, what the hell are you doing?"
"Hold on to something," I replied.
"I thought this was a stakeout!"
"Change of plans."
The van shook like it was coming apart at the seams, and the engine whined in protest, but I kept the pedal to the floor. Merihem looked toward us, startled by the sudden noise. His eyes registered shock and surprise as they met mine. Then they registered the windshield as the van slammed full bore into him.
I hit the brakes. The van screeched to a halt. Merihem didn't. He skittered across the pavement for a moment, a tangle of limbs and tattered clothes, and then slid to a stop, leaning heavily against the curb.
I threw open the driver's side door and sprinted toward him, tire iron in hand. An acrid cloud of burnt rubber hung like fog over the roadway. Merihem shook his head as if to clear it, and tried to stand. I hit him with the tire iron, and he went down. Just stunned, I knew, and not for long, but it was all I needed. I leapt atop him and stuffed a shard from the ceramic cat into his mouth, wedging it tight such that the tip dug into the soft flesh of his palate. Merihem whimpered in sudden pain.
"Pinch, now!" I called. The kid picked himself up off the pavement and yanked a roll of duct tape from his coat pocket, tossing it to me.
"Jesus, Sam," Pinch said, "could you have cut that any closer?"
"You're still standing," I replied. I tore off a length of duct tape and pressed it tight to Merihem's mouth, wrapping it around his head a couple times for good measure. I grabbed him by the lapel and pulled him close, his nose nearly touching mine.
"The shard in your mouth – you know what it is?"
Merihem nodded, eyes wide with fear.
"Good. If I were you, I'd concentrate real hard on not biting down on it, or you might end up going byebye, you get me?"
Again, he nodded. I kicked him over, and grabbed his wrists, binding them tight behind his back with duct tape. Ankles, too. He grunted something unintelligible. I ignored it.
"Pinch," I called, "help me get him up! Kate, get the doors open!"
I grabbed Merihem by the arms. Pinch scooped up his ankles. Together, we hauled him to the van. Kate, who'd watched the whole affair with obvious horror through the windshield of the van, snapped out of it in time to climb in back and throw open the rear doors. We tossed in Merihem, and Pinch climbed in, too, pulling the doors closed behind him. Then I hopped into the driver's seat and punched it. The whole affair couldn't have taken more than thirty seconds, start to finish.
Son of a bitch, I thought – we just kidnapped a demon. I glanced back at the demon in question, noting with no small measure of fear the hatred that glinted in his eyes.
I'd better be right about the girl, I thought, because if I was wrong, the horrors of this existence were nothing compared to the torment I had in store.
17.
"Sam, what the hell was that back there?"
Kate glared at me, her face flushed from anger and cold both. The abandoned munitions factory towered overhead, its long shadow hiding us from the damning glow of the street lights and protecting us from prying eyes. The lot beside the loading docks was cracked and overgrown, maybe four decades of detritus littering seemingly every inch – beer bottles, fast-food wrappers, yellowed scraps of newspaper. At the far end of the lot, a tattered baby carriage sat on its side, one wheel spinning in the chill breeze. The chain-link fence around the property had gone up long ago, topped with barbed wire, but the padlock on the gate was rusted through, and a few good whacks with the tire iron did the trick. Anders and Pinch were inside with our guest. Kate, it seemed, had other plans.
"Look, Kate, I don't have time for this right now."
"The hell you don't. You said we were going there to watch, and instead we fucking snatch the guy? And what's with the kid? You make like you don't know what's going on, and next thing I know, he's in the goddamn van! You sent him, didn't you, you son of a bitch? You sent him, and you just decided not to tell me!"
"If I'd told you," I asked, "would you have let me do it?"
"Of course not," Kate replied. "He's just a kid, for God's sake!"
"You think I don't know that? You think I would've sent him if I had any other choice? If I'd gone to the door myself, I wouldn't have lasted ten seconds – they'd have dragged me in there and torn me limb from limb. That whole free-will clause doesn't apply to me – my fate was sealed a long time ago, and that means I'm fair game. No, for this to work, I needed someone human – someone innocent. Obviously, I couldn't send you, since you're the one they're looking for, and half the fucking demon-world saw Anders and me together when he helped me back to Friedlander's. That left the kid."
"Still – you just sat there and deceived me."
"I couldn't run the risk you'd wig out and botch the job. This isn't a game we're playing, Kate. If I let them take you, there's a
good chance that this world is over. If that happens, that kid and everybody else are in for a life of suffering and agony, so if I've got to make a tough call or two, that's fine by me. My only priority is to keep you safe."
"Even if it means lying to me?" Kate asked.
"Yes."
"And Anders? Did he know?"
I paused, considering a lie – before reluctantly settling on the truth. "Yes."
"So it's just me that you don't trust."
"That's not it at all, Kate. Anders knows the kid. I don't. For the plan to work, I needed Anders to go talk to him, get him on our side – and someone had to prepare this place ahead of time for our arrival. If I could have left them out of this, I would have. But this I couldn't do alone."
"Hey, guys?" Anders said, poking his head out the door beside the loading dock. "This really isn't the best time. You maybe wanna come inside and talk to the angry demon?"
"Just give me a minute," I replied. Anders ducked back inside. "Listen, Kate, I appreciate your objections – really, I do. But whether you like it or not, Merihem is the closest thing we've got to a lead, which means we've got to know what he knows. Now, if that means I've got to hurt him, then so be it. If you can't be around for that, I understand. But we're too deep in this to look back now."
"You think he knows who killed my family?" Kate asked.
"He might."
"You think he's gonna talk?"
"I'm not sure."
"If he doesn't," she said, "I'll kill the bastard myself."
Candles flickered in the cold expanse of the factory, throwing shadows – of girders and machinery too cumbersome to have been removed – across the dirtstreaked windows and graffiti-tagged walls that surrounded us. Merihem sat duct-taped to a wooden chair in the center of the room, his mouth still bound. The chair – which we'd, uh, borrowed from the dining room of Kane and Anders' restaurant hideout – was propped against an I-beam that jutted upward from the uneven concrete floor and disappeared into the darkness above. Between the chair legs and the Ibeam lay a scrap of two-by-four maybe three feet long, into which I'd wedged a half a dozen shards of ceramic, all pointing skyward. A length of nylon rope, looped around the chair's back legs at one end and clutched in Anders' closed fist at the other, spanned the seven or so feet between us. If Merihem tried anything, Anders just had to give the rope a tug and the chair would fall. If that happened, Merihem was gonna get a back full of goodbye. To his credit, he seemed to know it. Though his eyes glinted with cold, animal fury, he sat as still as death.
"Merihem," I said, "I'm going to remove the shard from your mouth, now. You so much as flinch, I swear I will end you, you hear me?" Merihem nodded once. "Good. Anders?" Anders nodded as well, and coiled the rope once more around his hand, stretching the line tight between them. Just a twitch, and it'd be curtains for Merihem.
The tape wound around Merihem's head several times, and came off reluctantly, tearing flesh and hair free as it did. He winced, but did not move. The shard was still in place – the strain on Merihem's jaw was obvious as he struggled to keep it open to prevent the sharpened tip from plunging deeper into the soft tissue of his palate and sending him to oblivion. Gripping his jaw with one hand, I reached in with the other and yanked free the shard. Beside me, Anders tensed, but Merihem just flexed his jaw a moment, and then was still.
"I take it you found Wai-Sun, then," Merihem said.
"What, this?" I said, holding up the shard. "No, this I got at Yankee Stadium on Kill a Fucking Demon Day." I wiped it off on my shirt and dropped it into my pocket.
"That the girl?"
"I'm sorry, am I the one tied to the chair? How 'bout I ask the questions for now, and maybe later we can switch."
"Cute, Sam – real cute. I'm going to kill you all, you know. I'll start with the little one," he said, nodding toward Pinch. "Then him," Merihem said, indicating Anders, "then you. I'll make the girl watch."
"Yeah, that's nice," I said. "But before we do that, why don't you tell me why the fuck you set me up?"
"It was nothing personal, Sam – you of all people should know that. It's just the girl's a hot commodity. Besides, I didn't have a choice – he got to me just after we met."
"Who? Who got to you?"
"His name is Beleth."
"Never heard of him."
"That's because he doesn't often deign to meddle in the affairs of Man." Then, addressing Kate: "You, missy, have attracted some serious attention – you should be flattered!"
"Go fuck yourself," Kate replied.
Black flames raged for a moment in Merihem's eyes. He blinked, and they disappeared. "Ooh, she's feisty – I can see why you like her so much, Sam. Maybe I'll take a go at her myself. I mean, she'll be kind of pretty once I tear that fucking ring out of her nose. Honestly, I've no idea what these kids today are thinking."
Kate fingered the nose ring. I shot her a look, and she stopped.
"So this Beleth," I said, "what's his interest in me?"
"His interest? You're in the way, Sam, it's as simple as that. That the girl will be collected is a foregone conclusion. The only one who doesn't seem to know that is you. You've become an embarrassment – you're making our whole damn operation look like a bunch of bumbling amateurs. The folks you're crossing don't enjoy being made fools of."
"Is Beleth the one who set Kate up?"
"Get it through your head, Sam – nobody set her up. It's been all her, all along. Every blow. Every slice. Every agonized scream. All of it the result of the depraved little creature scowling so adorably beside you. You understand, dear, that I mean no offense – I'm actually quite a fan. It's just time for you to come home, is all."
"Thanks for the invitation," Kate said, "but I'd really rather not."
Merihem smiled, all teeth and ill intentions – the kind of smile you feel in the pit of your stomach. "Sweetheart, you make it sound as though you have a choice."
I interrupted. "So this Beleth – what else can you tell us about him?"
"I can tell you that he's a ways above my pay grade. Until Blondie here came into the picture, I'd never met him – I'd only heard the stories."
"Stories? What kind of stories?"
"They say he's a great monarch of the Depths. That he's most favored by the Adversary. That he's got a significant role to play in the great battle to come."
"You mean Armageddon?"
Merihem scoffed. "I sure as shit don't mean Survivor."
"Who says?" I asked. "What kind of role?"
"How the fuck should I know? They say, you know? This shit's all been foretold. Beleth is a mighty and terrible king of the netherworld. His name shall bring forth the sounding of trumpets. That sort of thing."
"That's not a lot to go on."
"Hey, they're your books, man. It's not my fault you people take lousy notes. I'll tell you this, though: if he had any fucking idea I was telling you this shit –"
"He doesn't."
"Not yet, maybe, but rest assured he will – and when he does, we're both gonna pay."
"Merihem, Beleth is dead."
At that last, his face dropped. Gone was the glimmer of fury in his eyes. For the first time, Merihem looked scared. "What the hell do you mean, dead?"
"Just what I said."
"Oh, fuck – the shards – I mean, I just figured you escaped!"
"I did. Right after I killed him."
"Shit, Sam, do you even realize what you've done? Nobody's killed one of my kind since the last Great War! If word gets out that Beleth is dead, the Fallen are liable to get the wrong idea, figure he's a victim of the crackdown. That happens, we've got war in the fucking streets. Not to mention, it's gonna come out eventually what really happened, and that's gonna lead them all to the both of us. When that happens, this little girl is gonna be the least of your worries. Man, you've fucked us but good."
"So what's the play, then?" I asked.
"Sam, you have to let me go – it's the only way. I can make sure nobody ca
tches wind of what we've done. Beleth's got to have some enemies in the demon-world – our only shot's to try and put this all on them. If it looks like he's been killed by one of his own, we can maybe avoid a war."
"Avoid our asses in a sling, you mean," I said.
"That, too. You're in no position to begrudge me my motives, Sam."
"You forget, I'm already in a world of shit for taking the girl. Honestly, what's a little more heat?"
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