“Better than you could’ve imagined,” said Sanford. “Locke found something else down there, something that could make a demon scream.”
Belial had certainly looked like he was pissing in his shorts. Jack left the shelves of bloody-minded objects and turned to Sanford. “All right,” he said. “You got my attention.”
“Hell wasn’t always the place for the Named and their legions,” Sanford said. “There were other things, older things. You’ve seen them.”
“I wouldn’t call brushing elbows with Nergal seeing,” Jack said. “In fact, I’d die happy if I never saw anything like him ever again.”
“The demons overthrew their makers, as is the way of all things,” Sanford said. “They couldn’t kill them, so they locked them away with the old gods. One slipped out here and there, and the demons hunted them and put them back—nothing anyone without a talent would notice as unusual. Wars and nuclear bombs and that sort of thing as cover.” He stroked the cover of the red book. “But your little stunt with Nergal cracked the door open, and now they’re out. They’re all out. Elvis has left the building.” He tapped the page. “Basil Locke was the one who first spoke to them, who realized that things other than demons could be called up from Hell.”
Jack looked at the scribbling and the diagrams contained in the loose pages of the red book, all of it with the distinct, manic edge of the deranged. He’d seen enough psychotic scribbling, both from his mother while she was on pills and from various mages who’d dipped a bit too deep into the pool of hallucinations and trance magic, to recognize crazy when he read it.
“How do I know this isn’t complete shit?” he asked Sanford. “And furthermore, what’s it got to do with me and Belial?”
“Belial thinks he can lock a lock that’s already been broken,” said Sanford. “He thinks if he’s the one to put this right by making you his hunting dog, he’ll move up the ladder in Hell. But he’s afraid of them, too, and we can use that.” He touched the sigil. “If we can get them on our side, Belial will never bother you or your wife again.”
“She’s not my wife,” Jack said reflexively. Sanford had to be munching on insanity for breakfast and shitting it out to think he could toe up to Belial using some nebulous spell to control the demon’s boogeyman.
“My mistake,” Sanford said. “But think of your child, at least. You really think Belial, or any other demon with ambitions, is going to let the child of the crow-mage grow up in peace?”
Jack shook his head. “I’ve already got that covered,” he said. Sanford was tanned and trustworthy, his graying hair and straight white grin making him appear as your kind uncle, to whom you could tell anything. Worse than a demon, because he was only a man, and still trying to cut a deal with things ten times worse than the population of the Pit. “My deal’s with Belial, mate,” he said. “Not with you.”
“Come on,” Sanford said. “I’m giving you the chance to slip this yoke once and for all. To never worry again about a demon troubling you and yours.”
“I get that, yeah, and it’d be grand,” Jack said. “But somehow, I think I’m missing your part of this. I don’t believe in altruism. Especially not from slimy gits like you.”
“Well, of course not,” Sanford said. “This isn’t the town of money for nothing, Jack. I’ll get what I want out of this, in addition to a warm fuzzy feeling.”
“And that would be?” Jack said. Sanford shut the book and drummed his fingers on the table.
“Belial,” he said. “Look, I’ve got every kind of damn thing in here—I have John Wayne Gacy’s paintings, I have Elizabeth Short’s hair, I have a guitar that belonged to Charlie Manson, and I have the dress Sharon Tate was wearing when his freaks cut her open. I’ve got objects of power, I’ve got mage’s grimoires, I’ve got a skull from a sorcerer who was killed by Vlad the Impaler. I have an original edition of
“You’re fucking nuts,” Jack said, before he could stop himself. “You think you can tie Belial down like some kind of pet?”
“I don’t plan to pet him,” Sanford said, lacing his fingers behind his head. “I plan to study him.”
“No,” Jack said. “No fucking way. I’ve seen what happens when men try and put one over on a demon, and I think I’ll just back away slowly and leave you to your little catacombs.”
“You could do that,” Sanford said. “Or you could watch while I let Gator and Parker murder your wife and unborn child, and guarantee that when they’re done, what Belial’s boogeyman did to those families will look like a flower arrangement.” He gave Jack the same slick smile, the let’s-make-a-deal smile. “Gator has certain … proclivities. Your wife is just his type.”
Jack didn’t realize he’d moved until he was there, hand around Sanford’s neck, slamming the man’s skull into the rock. He hadn’t had a blackout rage in a long while—heroin didn’t lend itself to much except nodding and jittering around looking for your next score. But here he was, slamming Sanford’s head into the rough wall until a smear of blood appeared, and he felt fucking fantastic about it.
“She’s not my wife,” he told the man. “And you leave her the hell out of this.”
A fist pounded against the other side of the door. “Sir!” Gator hollered. “You all right in there?”
Sanford laughed at him, as much as he could with Jack’s fist digging into his windpipe. “Security camera,” he said. “State of the art.”
“Sir!” Gator shouted. “We’re comin’ in.”
“You didn’t want her involved, you should have been there when Belial was whispering in her ear,” Sanford hissed. “But you weren’t. You let yourself get beat by something that crawls through the filth at the bottom of Hell and you left her alone. Now what are you going to do about it?”
The door groaned as it started to open, bolts and hinges protesting. Jack let Sanford go, feeling his heart throbbing and bile working its way up his throat. He hadn’t properly beaten the shit out of somebody in ages, and the wobbly, lightheaded rush had him flying.
Gator burst in, followed by Parker, and grabbed Jack by the arms, slamming him face first into the desk and scattering Sanford’s papers and Locke’s book like a flight of startled doves. “You piece of shit,” Gator snarled. “I knew I’d have trouble with you.”
Parker knotted his fingers in Jack’s hair and slammed his forehead against the edge of the desk, short and sharp. Jack saw the flashbulb, and felt the hot, spicy sting of blood in his eyes.
“That’s enough,” Sanford rasped. He rubbed his neck and fixed his collar. “Just a misunderstanding. Mr. Winter and I have it all worked out now.” He fixed Jack with his pale eyes. “Don’t we?”
Jack blinked the blood from his eyes. It’d stop, eventually, and leave him looking like he’d been doing battle in the arena. Sanford knew all about him and Pete, and could find him any time he pleased, that was clear. This whole summoning to his broken-down movie-star manse had been a display of might.
But he had. Jack fucking Winter, father-to-be of the fucking year.
“Yeah, fine,” he told Sanford. “It’s sorted. You’ve got yourself a pet mage.”
Sanford grinned down at him. “My favorite kind. Get yourself cleaned up and get your baby mama on board. We’ve got work to do.”
CHAPTER 13
Sanford’s mansion was high on Sunset Boulevard, beyond even the homes of the movie stars and the techno-billionaires, in the oldest part of Los Angeles, where the old money and the old blood lived. Parker and Gator—Christ, he hadn’t been far off, after all—wrestled him back into the SUV, but Gator didn’t attempt to put a sack over his head again.
“Sorry I had to rough ya up,” Gator said when they were back in Hollywood, dirty palm trees drooping in the
