Sobinski sat on the floor, legs crossed, glaring out. His eyes were rimmed red, his mouth slack. Hanks of greasy hair hung down over his face, but there was an awareness in his eyes. He wasn’t zoned out. He was watching them both. Mason stood a step back, letting the expert do whatever he was going to do. Scarrey waited a long moment, then sat down himself, just outside the cage, looking in at Sobinski with their heads on a level.
“I was hoping I could talk to you about why you’re here,” Scarrey said. “About what happened.”
Sobinski’s elbows moved out to his sides with a sudden jerk. His head seemed to shift at the neck, putting his face at an angle that left him looking like someone had snapped something important in his spine. His voice was thick and greasy. The syllables ran into one another, sliding and slipping. Scarrey made a small, embarrassed noise in the back of his throat.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” Scarrey said. “I wanted to speak with Maury, please.”
“There is no Maury,” Sobinski said, his voice sounding like something forced out through raw meat. It was too big for the body. Too big for the space. It made Mason’s flesh crawl. “I am Beleth, King of Hell. This body is my property, ceded me by right.”
“I understand,” Scarrey said. “And with all respect, Your Majesty, I’ve come to speak with Maury, please.”
Sobinski’s jaw opened so wide it seemed in danger of coming unhinged. His tongue spilled out, lolling down toward his crossed legs.
“You want little Mo to come out and play?” the voice said again, each syllable wet and angry. The tone was mocking.
“Yes, please,” Scarrey said.
The prisoner chuckled. His shoulders shifted back into place, his face lost its expression of malefic glee, and the broken-necked angle of his head slithered back to true. Sobinski looked around like he was seeing them both for the first time.
“Maury?” Scarrey asked.
The prisoner nodded uncertainly.
“My name’s Rich,” Scarrey said, smiling. “I wanted to talk to you for a minute about why you’re in here. Will that be all right?”
“Are you a psychiatrist?”
“No,” Scarrey said. “I’m not anybody in particular. I understand you’ve been possessed by a demon?”
Sobinski looked from Scarrey up to Mason and back. His skin was pale and fragile looking. He swallowed and nodded. When he spoke, it was barely more than a whisper.
“They don’t believe me.”
“I know,” Scarrey said.
“I didn’t kill Sarah. I’d never kill Sarah. I’d never kill anybody.”
“All right.”
“The demons. They’re everywhere. They take people over and ride their bodies around. You can’t tell. No one can tell until they let you see them, and then it’s too late. They control everything. The president? The pope? You don’t know. You have to believe me.”
“I do believe you. I do. How did Beleth get into you, Maury? Can you tell me what happened?”
Sobinski rose to his feet. He looked like someone getting out of a hospital bed for the first time after surgery. Every movement was uncertain, every step tentative. Like he was waiting to see how far he could bend before it hurt again. Scarrey stayed sitting on the floor.
“It was maybe five years ago?” Sobinski said, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “I was working at this place in Detroit. Chop shop. They sold some drugs too, but I was strictly on the car side of things, right? There was this black guy. Jamaican. They called him John Zombie.”
“John Zombie,” Scarrey repeated, nodding.
“He was crazy. Into all kinds of weird shit. I didn’t believe any of it. Figured he was just trying to look like a badass, you know? Scare people.”
“Did he ever mention Carrefour? Marinette?”
“He did. He used those names. But I can’t—” Sobinski said, and then without warning he leaped at Scarrey, screaming. The prisoner’s body clanged against the metal, his shriek like a saw going through meat. Mason found his hand on the butt of his pistol and made himself relax.
Sobinski was yelling the same strange syllables he had before. His spine humped up and his arms shifted in repulsive jerks. Flecks of spit wetted the mesh cage. When Sobinski beat his fists against it, the metal rang. Mason stepped forward.
“Okay, asshole, you can stop that now,” he said.
Scarrey rose, wiping spit from his nose and cheek.
“I think we’re done here for now, Detective. I may want to come back later.”
“I know you, little man,” Sobinski said in his deep, demonic voice. “I know your heart. I will find you in your sleep.”
“You can come back if you want to,” Mason said with a shrug. “It goes like this pretty much all the time.”
Scarrey nodded politely to the screaming man, and Mason led him away. With the holding cells behind them, Mason led the man to the break room and poured him a cup of coffee.
“Well?” he asked as Scarrey poured cream and sugar into his mug.
“I’ll want to look through the reports. I may also need to see the crime scene? If you can take me there? As to the man himself, it’s early to say. But there are some points of interest. This John Zombie he talks about may be worth remembering, but . . .”
“What about that nonsense he keeps babbling?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. It’s Aramaic.”
“Yeah? How’s his accent?” Mason asked.
Scarrey looked up, confused. Then, catching the joke, smiled.
“Terrible.”
SCARREY ADJUSTED ANDERSON’S CHAIR FIVE OR SIX TIMES WHILE MASON brought over the reports. It had everything from the original missing-person report the ex-boyfriend had filed through the medical examiner’s write-up through the report Mason had written covering the arrest. Scarrey looked it over like he was trying to make up his mind where to start on the buffet line.
“You need anything else?” Mason asked.
“Could I have a few sheets of paper? Just printer paper would be fine. For notes.”
“Sure,” Mason said.
“And a pen?”
Once the guy was settled in, going over the paperwork with his face squinched into a comic mask of concentration, Mason headed for the break room. Having someone else at his partner’s desk felt too weird, and he could use a little caffeine anyway. He was still there, drinking the last black dregs, when the chief found him.
He wasn’t old, but he’d seen a lot, and he wore it in the angle of his shoulders and the way he held his back straight. He nodded to Mason when he came in and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“He’s here?”
“He is, sir,” Mason said. “I gave him the files. Full access. Just like you said.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“Sir? About Anderson—”
“I’m not going to talk about that,” the chief said, stirring nondairy creamer into the black.
“He’s a good cop,” Mason said. “I’ve worked with him for six years now, and he’s the sharpest guy we have on this team. We lose him over this, and it means bad people walking.”
“I’m not talking about it, Mason. And neither are you. When the Internal Affairs review is finished up, we can—”
“It was a couple hundred dollars,” Mason said. “This department goes through more than that in free cappuccinos every week.”
The chief put his cup down, leaned against the counter, and crossed his arms. His expression was the empty
