No matter which way you swung, no matter which gender of demon was attacking, they could make you want them. Bad.
Killing someone you desperately want to fuck is a lot harder than you’d expect.
The OPA had knocked off the incubus that was out to get me, but the Needles probably hadn’t forgotten me. Going anywhere near a business they owned ranked as an eleven on the Richter scale of bad ideas, especially for a guy like me.
But Isobel was worth it.
Overcast or not, it was also daytime, and Little Death wasn’t as busy as usual. There was no line outside the front door, even though the velvet rope was set up for nightfall.
Aside from the club, Helltown was busier than I’d ever seen it. The cloud coverage made demons bold. Made them comfortable going outside to take long strolls in the rain, away from the sun.
Trying to push through the crowd was harder than it should have been. Even sticking to the middle of the busted asphalt road, I was getting jostled by demons.
Every bump was a fresh shock of adrenaline.
One second I’d be sporting an instant boner from brushing up against a half-naked succubus, and the next I’d be fighting back the urge to vomit from touching a demon that filled my head with memories of Gertie eating human flesh. Every touch dragged some kind of awful emotion out of me.
It used to be even worse. Binding to Fritz had made me partially immune to their powers. It felt awful, but wasn’t overwhelming.
The fact I wasn’t susceptible anymore just made me a more obvious outsider. I was getting a lot of curious looks. The demons were wondering what fresh human meat was doing willingly walking into Helltown on a gloomy day, obviously trying to reach the alley that ran alongside Little Death, and obviously impervious to their powers.
The knife was jammed in the back of my belt and the Desert Eagle was heavy under my arm. Comforting weights. Not comforting enough.
Demons wouldn’t need to use their powers on me if they just ripped me limb from limb.
The crowd started shifting as I approached Little Death. Not pressing against me anymore, but making room, opening a path.
I glanced over my shoulder. There were two men approaching me from the rear. Both were skinny without an ounce of muscle, draped in studded leather.
Show me a human guy who probably weighs about a hundred pounds, and he won’t even register on my radar as a threat. I could toss hundred-pound weights around at the gym one-handed. Even if a skinny guy has a gun, I’m betting money on my strength and reaction time over a stick like that.
But show me a demon guy who weighs about a hundred pounds, and my adrenaline goes nuts. These guys were so creepily thin that they almost wouldn’t pass for human outside of Helltown.
Demons who don’t look a lot like humans don’t need to. Their power rests elsewhere.
With incubi, that meant thrall.
“Hey!” shouted the one on the left, picking up his pace. “Stop right there!”
Couldn’t let the Needles catch up with me. Wouldn’t want to normally—had no interest in our unfinished business—and was especially uninterested now that Isobel’s life was at stake.
I broke into a run.
Fleeing in Helltown is like unleashing a rabbit in front of greyhounds. The demons surged around me, closing the gap, reaching for the back of my jacket with pallid hands.
Fingers wrapped around my collar. I shucked the coat and plunged into the alleyway behind Little Death.
It was cramped and moldy, narrow enough that the Los Angeles sun might never touch it. Water drizzled from a pipe on the wall of the club and I noticed the fluid was brown. Draining something nasty from the roof.
I splashed through puddles that smelled like waste, feeling the press of demons behind me.
Another clawed hand grasped my sleeve. I turned long enough to slam my elbow into the face of a demon that looked a lot like a fanged Betty White. She hissed at me, baring a serpent’s tongue.
There were others behind her. Hungry demons drawn to my fear and adrenaline. They could only reach me one at a time in that alley, but any one of them might be enough to do me in.
“Back off! He’s ours!” roared one of the incubi from the mouth of the alley.
Good news was that the demons listened. The Silver Needles own big swaths of Helltown—including the one I was in.
Bad news was that the demons listened, peeling away and leaving nothing between the incubi and me.
Very bad news.
I jerked the Desert Eagle out of its holster as I picked up my pace again, skidding around the corner. The apothecary was at the back of the alley. The entrance was a narrow door with a hand-painted sign that probably said “apothecary” in the infernal language—not that I could tell. Just a guess.
The sounds of the chasing incubi grew near. Fast bastards.
Throwing myself at the apothecary’s entrance, I jumped inside and tried to slam the door behind me.
A leather-clad arm thrust itself through the gap before I could.
The door exploded open again, letting both Needles inside.
“No fucking around in my shop,” grumbled the demon behind the counter. It had two heads, though one of them had slack features and drool dangling from its chin. The hands counting cash were stubby and clawed.
“Shut your mouth, Pete,” said one of the incubi.
Pete? Really?
The other incubus grabbed my shirt, dragging my face down to his. I pushed the Desert Eagle into his gut. Unfortunately, his companion shoved a knife against my throat at the same time.
The cold bite of metal made me go still.
“What are you doing in our neck of the woods, mortal?” asked the one holding my shirt.
“Shopping trip,” I said, barely moving my chin as I spoke. No need to encourage that blade to slip. “Needed some new shoes.”
“Look at this, Vaughan.” That was from the knife guy. He’d patted down my pockets and found my FBI badge. He showed it to his friend.
“FBI?” Vaughan snorted. “More like OPA.”
Damn. We were starting to get a reputation. And we’d been doing so well keeping ourselves secret from everyone—even demons.
On the other hand, if they were mostly concerned about my employer, that meant they didn’t recognize me. Had no idea that I’d ever interfered with their operations. Didn’t know that I’d had a bounty on my head just a few months earlier.
They were after me because I was a human running around their territory, not because I was Cèsar Hawke, Ofelia’s vengeful big brother.
At least if they killed me, it wouldn’t be personal.
“I’m thinking he’s a spy, Ezra,” Vaughan said. “You know what we do with spies?”
Ezra’s free hand crept down my chest. I wasn’t getting patted down anymore. I was getting fondled. “I’ve got ideas.”
“I can shoot you before your friend manages to do anything,” I told the one in front of me.
That made both of them freeze. They exchanged looks.
And then I realized that they hadn’t expected me to talk back at all. A normal person wouldn’t have been capable. Last time I’d gotten that close to an incubus, I’d gone brain dead with lust. But the last time I’d been that close to an incubus, I hadn’t been an aspis, either.
Binding with Fritz really had helped.
These assholes couldn’t pull thrall on me anymore, and now they knew it.
Fuck
.
I’m not a good aim, but you don’t need to be a good aim with a hand cannon like a Desert Eagle from less than a foot away. I jerked it away from Vaughan, tucked it under my arm, and shot Ezra at my back.
He dropped the knife with a shout. The brush of its sharpened edge on my neck was barely more than a sting. I’d moved too fast for him to cause a serious injury.
Another twist, and I shot Vaughan. I’d been going for his chest but hit him in the shoulder instead.
Blood spurted from the wound. It fountained a good two inches into the air.
He released me. “You’re going to pay for that!” Vaughan said, trying to cover the wound with his fingers.
“Yeah, yeah.” I shot him again, and this time, I did hit him in the chest.
His black heart saw daylight.
Vaughan fell, face blank.
“Oh shit,” Ezra said, scrambling to his feet again, arms wrapped around his wounded gut. Blood poured down his shirt.
He slammed out into the alleyway, and I let him go.
If I’d been trying to make the Needles leave me alone, plugging a couple of their guys wasn’t the way to go about it. But that would be a problem for later. I’d already wasted enough time getting to Ander.
Now that they were gone, I had enough time to look at the apothecary’s shop. It was pretty tidy. The shelves were all labeled neatly, filled with weird herbs and ingredients that I’d never even heard of before. Pete, behind the counter, stuffed the money in the register drawer and gave me an unimpressed look when I turned the Desert Eagle on him.
“You got my shop bloody,” said the living head. His voice sounded distant, muffled. My ears were ringing from the gunshots. Another reason that I hated using my sidearm.
“I need the entrance to Ander’s place.” I could barely even hear myself talk. I was shaking with adrenaline. “I know it’s in here.”
“Basement door.” Pete jerked a stubby thumb at the wall. “Knock three times and turn the handle left. It’ll open to his foyer. And may the Father have mercy on your soul, you fucktard.”
I kept my gun trained on Pete as I moved toward the door. There was more shouting echoing from the alleyway—more Needles closing in to fuck me up before I could get to Isobel.
Can’t believe I shot two demons
.
That wasn’t me. I didn’t resolve my problems with a gun. Maybe Fritz had been right when he said that Suzy was a bad influence on me.
Had to get to Isobel.
The door to the basement wasn’t hidden—just tucked behind a few shelves with severed fingers, eyeballs, and ears that belonged to various demon breeds. First time I opened that door, all I found on the other side was another brightly lit and well-organized room.
Given more time, I would have liked to explore those rooms. Bet I could have found some awesome potion supplies.
That wasn’t Ander’s house, though.
Knock three times and turn the handle left
.
I shut it again and did as Pete had instructed. Three knocks. Handle left.
This time, when I opened the door, there was a dark room on the other side. Small. Filled with antiques. Appropriately shadowy. That looked more like I expected.
Footsteps pounded from the alley and entered the shop.
“Where’d he go?”
The Needles had arrived.
I jumped through the door to Ander’s foyer and shut it behind me.
If I’d entered Hell, there was no way to tell. The room was windowless. The air felt the same, tasted the same. For all I knew, it was just an unusually dark entrance to a doctor’s office.
There was a fringed rug in the middle of the room. A table, a couple chairs. A mechanical music box playing a soft, jingling tune that sounded like a funeral dirge. A desk that looked like it belonged in a hotel lobby.
The woman who was sitting at it got to her feet when I came in, offering me a smile despite my bloodied shirt and drawn gun. “Welcome.” Her voice was pleasantly musical. She looked human aside from her weirdly pinched features and shadow-black eyes. “How can I help you?”
“Ander,” I said.
Puzzlement crossed her features. “You’re looking for the owner?”
“Yeah, Ander. Where is he?”
She hesitated, then thumbed through a notebook on her desk. “Well, it does look like you have an appointment. Agent Hawke, right?”
Hearing my name out of her lips gave me pause.
How had she known?
“Yeah,” I said after a moment. “I’m Agent Hawke.”
“You’re actually a few minutes early. But he said you could go in whenever you arrived, so head right through the door, please. You’ve been given permission to take your weapons, but maybe you should consider putting them away to be polite.” It felt like being chastised by my Abuelita.
I didn’t put the gun away.
There was a second waiting room behind the lobby, decorated similarly to the first. The right-hand wall was lined with portraits, and a single window was shuttered on the opposite wall. Light seeped in through the cracks of the shutter. Bright light, just like what I’d seen through the trap door in my dream.
Maybe I was in Hell after all. I didn’t feel like opening the shutters to find out.
Instead, I took a quick look over the portraits. They all looked like assholes. They wore professional suits from various eras, tightly buttoned and clean. There was arrogance in every single pair of slitted, catlike eyes staring out of those paintings.
I didn’t recognize most of the portraits, except for the one at the end, closest to the door. Ander himself. Guess it was a family business.
The door at the far end of the room was unguarded. The sign was in two languages: the infernal tongue, and English. “CEO’s Office.”
Ander would be in there. If he was lucky, Isobel would be in there too—unharmed. My trigger finger felt itchy.
I kicked the door open without checking if it was unlocked. The other side was as dark as the foyer. The executive chair behind the desk was turned away from me. “Freeze,” I said, aiming the Desert Eagle at the back of the chair. “Don’t move.”
The chair swiveled around anyway, and I tensed to shoot.
Until I came face-to-face with Fritz Friederling, looking perfectly comfortable in Ander’s house.
I COULDN’T HAVE SHOT the Desert Eagle even if I’d wanted to. Spotting Fritz was like coming face to face with the Gorgon, and I’d turned to solid rock.
“Your phone’s been turned off,” Fritz said, hands steepled in front of his face. “Want to explain why?”
That was the most urgent issue here? My phone being turned off, rather than the fact that my kopis was hanging out in a demon’s Hell-based office as though he belonged there?
“You’re in Ander’s house,” I managed to say. It felt like I should have creaked when I spoke because my joints had rusted stiff.
“I’m in this house because I’ve owned it for the last three years. And I would have happily told you that if you’d spoken to me before running around guns blazing.”