His icy green gaze locked on mine and I fought the urge to shiver under the hatred showcased there. “He looked like he’d been chewed on, Mx. Phelps and the autopsy showed that his brain was missing, though his body was intact.”
Supra demons, I thought. Small, wormlike demons that live on larger demons as their hosts. They enter the body through open orifices and eat the internal organs. Nasty business. This time I did shiver, remembering my own close encounter with a supra demon not all that long ago.
I nodded, not missing the fact that Mx. Coltran and his wife knew a lot more about demons than seemed normal if they’d made the connection between the state of her nephew’s body and the demons.
I was not at all comfortable with the whole thing. Mx. Coltran, his wife’s apparent disappearance and the stated reason for it, especially given her nephew’s murder. Then it suddenly occurred to me, the real reason the little wife had been cavorting with evil.
I turned my horrified gaze on him. “Mx. Coltran, you sent your wife into the demon clubs as bait didn’t you?”
He turned bright red and stood up. “Will you take the case or not, Mx. Phelps?”
I stood too. “I hope you understand what you’ve done, Mx. Coltran. The demon race has very few scruples and less sense where it comes to humans. They are a race that is highly attuned to their bodily needs and almost completely without morals.”
I mentally added, “Without the royals to hold them back in consideration of the fragile peace between the humans and the dark worlders who shared their living space, the demons would have eradicated the human race decades ago.”
I glared at him. “Your wife is in great danger, Mx. Coltran. I hope you understand that.”
His eyes filled with tears and his body seemed to deflate as the anger of my accusation left him and his own shame and worry took over. “Please, Mx. Phelps. Just get her back for me. I don’t know how I let them talk me into it but all I care about now is getting her back.”
The first call I would make when Coltran left my office was to my contact at the PC telling them to pick up the Coltrans’ neighbor. The possibility of his being chattel was looking stronger by the moment.
“I’ll find your wife, Mx. Coltran but when I do, I’ll expect you to stop working with this HEAC group. Let the police handle these things.”
He nodded, swiping a tear off his cheek. “I promise, Mx. Phelps. Just get her back for me.”
After I’d walked Mx. Coltran out of my office I stood in front of the large window behind my desk, my mind racing. I watched the few cars on the street below, which belonged to people and groups who had permission to use the streets during work hours. With stricter environmental laws every year, it was getting harder and harder to get a free movement permit for daylight hours.
The sidewalks, though, were filled with people, walking here and there to do business and complete errands. I thought of about a thousand errands I needed to run and wished, for about the millionth time, that Emo were there to help.
I missed him.
I wondered if he missed me too.
Shaking my head in disgust at myself, I stepped away from the window and went to the televisual.
PC Cheets swam into view after two connection bleeps. She smiled at me, looking eminently weary. “Hey, Astra. How’s things?”
PC Cheets had been DD Raoul’s second-in-command when I’d first met her. She had since moved up a rank and switched over to the paranormal cops from the death detective squad. It had been considered by her fellow cops to be a great move for her career. It was considered by me to be a wonderful thing. Now I had a strong ally in the PC, something that had proven invaluable more than once.
“Hey Cheets! You look like a summer vacation in Hades. Rough week?”
She laughed. At five feet four inches tall with a sturdy, muscular build, PC Cheets was
way
under the height requirement for the force. But equal rights laws had enabled her to bully her way not only onto the force but up the ladder as well and, at least in her case, that was a good thing.
She was a good cop and a strong proponent for those she had pledged to protect. She packed a lot of heart and good old-fashioned belligerence into that small, sturdy package.
And, of course, she had that little woman thing going on too. Anger can be a powerful weapon when all else fails you.
As a fellow little woman, I should know.
Cheets pushed a stray lock of frizzy brown hair out of her pale, tired-looking face and blew air through heavy, sensual lips. “I’ve been pulling double shifts trying to figure out where those damned hostages disappeared to and keep it off the front page of the cyber news.”
I cocked my head at her in question. “You got newsies sniffing around this already?”
She nodded. “Unfortunately the guy knows way too much. I’m starting to think he works for either the royals or the demons. I’ve only just been able to hold him back by threatening to incarcerate him for impeding my investigation if he spills. But he’s like a hungry gargoyle in a room full of placid cattle. He’s a heartbeat away from spilling his guts and nothing I say is gonna stop him once he starts rolling. I suspect he’s being threatened by somebody. Or…” she smiled at me, “should I say some
thing
?”
I nodded, scrunching up my face in thought. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Alcott has a reporter on the payroll. King Dialle would have nothing at all to gain from this leaking out.”
Cheets nodded, agreeing with my assessment.
“Have you read Raoul’s report on the victim at Saint Edwards?”
She sighed, “It wasn’t up to his usual standards. He seems, I don’t know, off somehow.”
I knew exactly what she meant but couldn’t really let on that I did without giving away Raoul’s extracurricular activities. So I said, “Really? What do you mean?”
She shrugged, scrubbing at beautiful, golden-brown eyes with long, thick lashes. “He seems to be coming to all the wrong conclusions on the murder. I mean, we all know what’s going on right? But he documented his findings implicating the royals.”
I nodded, deciding to meet her halfway. “Did he mention that he’d consulted with me at the site?”
She narrowed her eyes. “He didn’t mention that in his report.”
I sighed. Figures. “Well, he did and I told him the same thing you’re saying.”
“What did he say?”
“He blew off my theory and accused me of being too close to the royals for objectivity.”
Cheets frowned. “Why would he say that?”
I so did not want to get into the whole Dialle thing with PC Cheets, so I did the only thing I could, I ratted out my partner.
I shrugged. “It’s Emo. Turns out he’s been under a curse from King Nerul and when Nerul was extinguished from this world Emo returned to his previous form.”
Cheets raised slightly bushy eyebrows in surprise. “Are you telling me Emo is a royal?”
I shook my head. “No, not a royal. He’s still a Tweener but he looks…well…amazing actually. He
is
half royal and he definitely looks like one.”
Cheets leered at me. “You lucky stiff!”
I couldn’t help grinning back. “You know he’s like a brother to me right?”
Her grin went lopsided. “Uh-huh.”
I laughed. “Get your mind out of the gutter Cheets. Anyway, not to change the subject but…”
“Uh-huh.”
I stuck my tongue out at her and she laughed. “Okay, what horrific, career-ending favor can I do for you, my friend?”
“Actually I called to do you a favor. I just interviewed a new client and I think he might be living down the street from demon chattel.”
Her lovely brown eyes lost their weariness just like that and gained a spark of interest. “Really?” She leaned sideways away from the televisual as if she were reaching for something and then straightened back up, all business. “Give me the name and location.”
I filled her in as best I could with my client’s story. She was as appalled as I had been by the man’s stupidity in sending his wife in as demon bait.
“Astra, I know I’m a member of the human race but sometimes I wonder if we have a subspecies we haven’t isolated yet. Some people are so stupid.”
Not being human myself I didn’t say anything. It’s one thing to criticize your own race but quite another to criticize someone else’s.
“You say you think it’s a superdemon?”
I nodded. “That’s what the man said.”
She frowned slightly and chewed on the end of her laser pen. “Don’t hear about those very often. I’d like to see him myself.”
I grinned. “Good, ’cause that’s the other reason I called. I need to go try and get the woman back and vanquish this demon. I want you along so my actions aren’t misconstrued by the PC.”
I’d been vanquishing demons for years and rarely had trouble with the PC or the DD but there’s a difference between killing a demon that looks like a demon and killing something that looks human. It shouldn’t matter right? Evil is evil. But human nature is also human nature. If the press catches sight of a good-looking victim it generally sides with the victim. Despite the facts.
I wanted Cheets along to make sure my vanquish was legit.
She grinned. “You got it. When do you want to go?”
I knew my day was only going to get longer and more regret-filled if I stayed in my office so I made a quick decision. “How about right now?”
She grinned right back at me, all signs of weariness gone.
“I’ll pick you up in seven minutes,” I said.
* * * * *
I dropped the Viper into hover in front of one of the largest demon clubs in the city. The club stood six stories high and was built to look like an ancient castle, with turrets and everything. The door into the club was big enough for a horse and carriage to go through without scrunching and was fronted by a moat and drawbridge.
The area of town it occupied was desolate in the extreme. The crumbled shells of countless buildings lay across the land like the husks of brick and stone volcanoes that had spewed their innards into the street and been left as reminders of the destruction the human race had brought upon itself. It was an area that had been devastated in the great war and had never been rebuilt.
Nothing but chemical addicts and derelicts inhabited the place now. The pretty people only came out of curiosity and a desire to create drama in their safe, boring lives. They came to touch the skirts of evil and dance away. Leaving a permanent stain on their lives that they misconstrued as excitement.
The demon club had risen from the waste of the area like a phoenix from the ashes.
Still safe in the confines of the Viper, my eyes turned upward and found what I had been afraid I’d see.
Dark, malevolent eyes glared down at me from atop the turrets.
Gargoyles.
I shook my head and swore under my breath. They’d better stay up there or they were gonna have to waltz with me later.
My dance card was filling up fast.
Cheets turned to me and frowned. “We should have brought my cop issue like I wanted. This fine vehicle sticks out like a sore thumb in this part of town. You’ll be lucky if it’s in one piece when we get back.”
“Exiting,” I said.
The Viper’s doors swung up out of the way and Cheets and I climbed out.
“Close, climb and secure.”
The Viper pulled itself back into a streamlined bullet shape and rose into the air high above our heads. I watched for a moment to make sure my new security system kicked in. After a moment I heard a low range hum and the Viper bathed itself in a soft blue light.
Cheets grinned. “Sweet!”
“Nothing short of a laser blast will pierce that security system.” My eyes slid upward again. “Even gargoyle claws can’t touch it.”
Castle Gregg had been squatting in that devastated area of Angel City for a little over five years. In that time it had gained a rep with carefree clubbers for being the hottest nightclub in town. It had also gained a rep with the Strange Deaths Department of the police for being the most dangerous place to go after dark. Which, of course, was when everybody went there.
I led the way to the front door. I could feel the gaze of dozens of malevolent eyes on my back as I reached the huge door and knocked.
Since the nightclub was closed in daylight hours I wasn’t sure if my knock would be answered. With one of Angel City’s finest peering expectantly at me, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to break in.
Lucky for me we soon heard the light tread of footsteps on the other side of the door and, after a couple of minutes, the door creaked open just wide enough to frame a pale, human face. The young girl who answered the door was obviously demon chattel.
Her skin was so pale that deep circles stood out under light-colored eyes that looked dead. Her wispy blonde hair was flat and dirty and lay against her head as if it hadn’t been washed for days. The face she showed us was expressionless.
“Hello,” Cheets said with a smile. “We are from the police. We need to come in right now.” You had to speak to demon chattel that way because they were so out of it from a combination of chemicals, malnutrition and mistreatment that they become very slow.
The girl stared blankly at us for a few beats and then blinked. Finally she disappeared from the door but left it open. Apparently we were expected to show ourselves in.
Not a problem for me.
I shouldered my way in front of Cheets, earning a glare from her but I didn’t want her to be the first one through the door just in case there was something mean and ugly on the other side of it.
The room we entered was huge. Its ceiling rose several stories and was adorned with carved stone beams that arched upward and met in the center above an enormous chandelier.
The walls appeared to be made of stone and were covered with large tapestries that had depictions of the celestial army interspersed with representations of Hades and its inhabitants. It was a disturbing juxtaposition of good versus evil that seemed heavily weighted in the direction of evil.
It just figured.
The girl who had met us at the door stood in the center of the dimly lit space. Her head was bowed and her hands were crossed neatly in front of her body. She seemed to be waiting.