Devil's Paw (Imp Book 4) (31 page)

“I need to ask you some questions about the demon you stopped from going through the gate — the devouring spirit.”

A wary expression descended over his face. “I already spoke to my boss about that. He’s got my report.”

“He’s dead, you know.” His eyes grew wide, and I hastily clarified my statement. “The demon, I mean, not your boss.”

“That’s good news.” He sighed in relief. “That guy almost killed me. I wasn’t expecting that sort of thing — not a devouring spirit. Took me off guard. And then he came back a second time. If the boss hadn’t posted one of his enforcers as a guard, I would have wound up a red smear on the pavement.”

“The first time he came though, you said he was desperate? Injured? Do you remember what his injuries were? Anything he said?”

The gate guardian picked up one of the food containers and peered into it, a thoughtful expression on his face. “He wasn’t saying anything coherent — just a lot of yelling and screaming. He tried to launch an energy attack, but it wouldn’t come out. I don’t know if he was completely depleted or if the part of him that transforms raw energy was damaged.”

“His spirit self?”

He nibbled on a piece of pork, generously coated with thick red sauce. “Parts of him were missing.” The guardian shuddered. “It was like he tried to eat himself. Or maybe someone else tried to eat him.”

I’d also wondered if it was self–inflicted, but Raim hadn’t seemed that insane to begin devouring his own spirit–self. Impossible as it sounded, could there be a third devouring spirit here, among the humans? Was it possibly this other partner of Raim’s and Baphomet’s?

“And the second time?”

The gate guardian paused, meeting my eyes. “That’s the weird thing. He was just as damaged the second time. Not just the spirit–self injuries, I know those don’t heal, I mean his flesh. He had scrapes and cuts, and his neck was a bloody mess. I don’t understand why he didn’t fix all that right away. Unless the fixing part of him was broken too.”

Raim claimed it was. He’d said he couldn’t repair his form, and I’d seen first hand the terrible injuries his spirit self had sustained. What had happened to him?

“So you didn’t cause his injuries? The enforcer didn’t?”

He shook his head. “He was that way when he got here.”

Who, or what, could have caused that kind of damage?
We were betrayed.
Could it have been this third partner? If so, he packed one hell of a wallop to do that to Raim.

“Kept saying he needed to go home,” the guardian continued, returning his attention to the Chinese food. “Kept saying that he’d be fine if he could just get back to Hel.”

I frowned. His corporeal form was disintegrating. The only place he could exist without a physical form would be Aaru, which wasn’t an option for him. How would returning to Hel do him any good?

“What about the collar?”

The guardian started, dropping a chunk from the chopsticks back into the container. “A collar? Like we use on bound demons up in Aaru? No one uses those anymore. No one binds demons anymore.” He glanced at my arm. “Well, up until recently, anyway. I didn’t notice a collar on him, but his neck was a bloody mess. Couldn’t see anything past all the ooze and scabs.”

I was striking out here. Searching my mind, I remembered Baphomet’s steward’s question to me.

“Have you been especially busy lately? Lots of demons, Lows even, attempting to cross?”

He squirmed, looking back down in the container. “No more than usual,” he mumbled.

He lied.

“It’s okay. I know you’re busy. Hell, I’ve kept you busy myself over the last half–century or so. I know you guys lack resources, aren’t given proper training or support. I know you all are just dumped here, and that asshole–angel doesn’t want to hear excuses. I’m not going to rat you out, I just want to know if there have been a lot of demons lately. Perhaps ones that come and never go back?”

He squirmed even more, practically burying his face in the container. “No. Just the usual amount.”

I looked down at the vast supply of sweet and sour sauce and thought about the gate guardian at home. How often had I bribed her away for lunch while Dar or another demon crossed the gates? Glancing over, I caught sight of the guitar. It was nice. Expensive.

“The Chinese food place is four blocks from here. I doubt they deliver to a homeless guy on a street corner.”

His head jerked up, fearful eyes met mine. “I’m very quick. And an angel watches the gate for me while I’m gone.”

An
angel?
Still, I doubted an angel watched it every time. There had to be some unattended moments. “One of the other enforcers?” I asked. “He’s in this area?”

The guardian broke eye contact, his gaze darting around the streets as if he feared we’d be seen or overheard. “He’s not an enforcer,” he grudgingly admitted. “Sometimes angels slip over for other reasons. I’m not in a position to question — there are many things in Aaru beyond my level that I’m unaware of. I don’t know who he is, but he’s a nice guy. Friendly.”

And kind enough to talk to a lowly gate guardian, to watch his post while he slips out for some coveted treats.

“When is the last time you saw him?” I wondered if this same angel was the one found dead in Mexico.

The gate guardian shot a guilty look at his containers of Chinese food. “I don’t know. A couple weeks ago maybe?”

Again, he lied. The containers were still warm, condensation on the lids. They weren’t a couple of weeks old, and from his nervous glance, he was covering for his friend.

Two angels working together, one dead and one still alive and busy? Or perhaps this one was just a nice guy doing a lonely gate guardian a favor?

Feeling like I’d reached a dead–end with this guy, I left. I wasn’t done, though. There was more to this than a devouring spirit — I felt it in my bones. I needed to get to that North Lake house in Seattle, where Baphomet had been living, and search it top to bottom. And if I found something, I’d summon Gregory and spill everything to him. If I found anything, I’d enlist his help in finding out whoever was really behind these deaths.

~27~

I
had a mere two hours to search Baphomet’s house before I had to head back to the airport, so I started at the top and worked my way down. Unlike Raim’s house, Baphomet’s showed the careless clutter usually found in the places demons lived. Baphomet’s was amplified by the fact that he held onto his properties through multiple trips, and he tended to collect things. He’d been the same back in Hel — hoarding tons of weaponry, artwork, and basically anything that sparkled. There must have been twenty boxes of cheap dime–store jewelry in his bedroom, several decades of shoe fashion lined the hallway, and there was a perplexing amount of craft supplies, neatly organized in plastic tubs in a spare bedroom. Unfortunately, nothing hinted at what Baphomet might have been doing that would have gotten him killed. I doubted it was plastic canvas Kleenex holders, or crochet prayer shawls.

After rooting through the kitchen and helping myself to a cold beer from a fridge full of spoiled food, I sat at a desk and began to go through Baphomet’s paperwork. Demons don’t like the human bill–paying song and dance, but most of us have learned to play enough by the rules so we don’t get our electricity cut off. Hundreds of years ago, it was easy to steal, or threaten the locals into supplying the basic necessities for free. Giant corporations don’t take well to threats of evisceration, though. Extortion letters wind up in the “loony” pile, ignored. If a demon shows up in person, they just call the cops to haul him off. Escalating only results in more force from the humans, which leads to either a prison stay or a mad dash to the gate to avoid the angels who sense the slew of law enforcement deaths by demonic energy and come running. I’d learned all this the hard way, and had grown to enjoy the fun things an imp could do in the human penal system.

Baphomet reluctantly paid his bills. There were some past–due notices for a variety of cell phone accounts under different names, and it seemed he was running a few credit card scams. Pushing the piles aside, I picked up a notebook and leafed through it. It was a log with groups of numbers, each noted with a date of arrival, shortly followed by another date of transfer. The batches had between three and five numbers, each unique. I flipped the page and saw that the following batch was marked “Low”, and the one after “Level 2”.

I frowned, a chill running through me. Here were the batches of demons that Baphomet’s steward said he was sending over. No names, just numbers, as if their identities didn’t matter, as if they were just cattle in a feedlot. The steward had said Baphomet had been requesting higher–level demons, so I assumed that was when he began to note their level designation on the log. They arrived as a batch, and were transferred as a batch — but transferred to whom?

I looked back, carefully going through each entry. It was standard paperwork, just as I would have done for transfer of property back in Hel. We’re not the most organized creatures in the universe, but it pays to keep track of your stuff, especially if you tend to gamble or trade items back and forth. This log was the same format I would have used. It even showed the sigils of the demons enacting the exchange. Many transactions were strictly verbal with our vow as a binding contract, but in deals with multiple shipments and/or many items exchanging hands, it was best to put it all in writing and have appropriate sign–offs. I recognized Baphomet’s mark. I didn’t recognize the one next to his. Could it be Raim? It worked with our original theory — the one where Baphomet provided Raim with a supply of demons to devour. Maybe the whole thing was over and there was no mystery to solve. Maybe there wasn’t a third partner. Maybe Baphomet had been gathering demons to feed to Raim, but he’d snapped and killed them all before running off to Alaska.

Paging through the entries, I saw that the receiving signature was always the same, but occasionally Baphomet’s was replaced with another. So there
was
a third partner! Had this guy been one of the bodies Gregory had found, or was he still out there?

I continued to flip through the notebook, although everything was blank beyond the first few pages. About to toss it aside, I noticed a bit of loose paper stuck between two sheets. Tugging it out, I unfolded a piece of parchment, similar to what we used for contracts back in Hel. It
was
a contract — one outlining a partnership between Baphomet and Raim for a period of seven years. The terms were rather vague. Raim was to assist in an unnamed project and provide “protection using special skills and any means necessary.” Baphomet was more than capable of defending himself, so I wasn’t quite sure why he thought having Raim as a bodyguard would afford him any advantage. In return for his services, Raim was to receive some monetary compensation, and a few magical items. Baphomet also had offered three of his household for a period of two centuries to serve Raim. It was a typical contract, nothing unusual in either content or terms.

I folded the contract to return it to the notebook and happened to glance at the signatures. There was Baphomet’s familiar sigil, and one that must have been Raim’s. I caught my breath and quickly flipped to the front pages of the log, to compare what I now knew to be Raim’s sigil with the ones there. Sure enough, Raim had occasionally signed to transfer the demons in place of Baphomet. The sigil for the one receiving the demons was always the same, and the identity of that demon was a mystery. I’d never seen his sigil before; it could be anyone.

I sat back and pondered it all. Batches of Low and minimally skilled demons. Baphomet and Raim would have had to coordinate the shipment with their households, ensure the group got past the gate guardian then somehow manage to contain them until their transfer. So the demons weren’t for Raim after all. They had all gone to someone else.

Who? And what the fuck did he want with a bunch of lower–level demons? How did any of this tie in with the dead angel, Baphomet, and the other demons, all devoured? Who had torn up Raim so badly? I had a feeling all my answers lay with this third partner. My finger traced over the sigil, and I felt the faint echo of his energy signature, just as unknown to me as the mark on the page.

I glanced at my phone for the time and realized I really needed to make a move if I wanted to make my flight home. All this would have to wait for later. I’d mull it over on the plane and run it by Wyatt in the morning over coffee. Sticking the log and contract in my bag, I headed for the door and nearly collided with a human as I threw it open. He had a piece of paper in one hand, suspended by a nail, and a hammer in the other.

“Is that an eviction notice?” I asked. I’d done this many times, but the ruled notebook paper he held in his hands didn’t look like an official notice to vacate.

He shoved the paper at me, pocketing the nail and holding the hammer defensively. He’d not met my eyes; instead, he stared intently at my shoes. Shrugging, I read the paper and noted it was much the same as the ones I’d found on Baphomet’s table. This one was even more explicit about the grisly eternity the reader would face.

“Do you live nearby?” It was a long shot, but I had an idea that this guy might have some information for me. Of course, getting a mentally ill person to voluntarily give information to a demon would be quite a feat.

He looked up in surprise, careful not to meet my eyes directly. “You’re a different one. How many of you are there? This neighborhood is zoned single family, and you’re violating the law having all these different demons live here.”

“The demon that lived here is dead, and so is his friend. I’m the Iblis.”

“Will you be living here?” His shoulders tensed, his mouth a tight line.

“No. I’ll be leaving as soon as I gather some information. If you can tell me all you know about the demons and other beings who came and went to this house, I’ll leave right now.”

He hesitated, gripping the hammer with white knuckles.

“I will promise you, swear on all the souls I Own that there will be no further demons in this house, but I need to know some information. Otherwise I can’t track down all the demons and others who’ve been here and ensure they keep away.”