Devil's Business

silent.

“Holy shit,” Jack told Teddy. “I thought I’d seen ugly, but you, mate—you’re the clear winner.”

You’re not much to look at yourself.

The voice didn’t so much split his skull as jam a steel rod straight through his sight. Ghosts could talk along the psychic aether, and demons could worm their way into your dreams if you were vulnerable, but actual telepathy was rare, and mostly confined to Fae, a type of creature Jack stayed as far away from as he would a Phil Collins tribute concert in an old folk’s home.

“I don’t have vagina dentata growing out of me fucking stomach, so I think I’m a leg up on you,” Jack said. “Sorry, mate.”

You’re him, Teddy hissed. Winter. The man with the plan.

“If I’d made a plan, do you think I’d be standing here talking to you?” Jack asked. A shiver ran through Teddy’s flesh, causing his IV bags to dance and slosh.

I don’t know, Winter. Was your plan to take it up the ass from a demon, or was your plan to be smarter than Don?

“Belial and I have an understanding,” Jack said. “Can’t say the same for your man out there. He’s given me no fucking reason to trust him, or that great skin-sack of crap he calls a brother, or you. Never mind Miss Future Spree Killer out in the yard.”

Demons lie, Winter. Teddy’s mouth gaped and flexed, and a pair of twin tongues flicked in and out. You know it. Don doesn’t lie. Don is older than lies. Better. Don does the things we need done.

“Don know you’re jawing away to me spilling his secrets?” Jack said. If Teddy was talkative, Jack wasn’t going to stop him. He was just as inclined to trust a flesh-bag as he was Don, if not more. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d indeed seen Don before, and that the bloke was just taking the piss with all of the pomp and secrecy.

Don knows what he knows and I know what I know, and what I know could fill oceans and burn forests, Teddy said. But I’m not really here and neither are you. We’re on a road to nowhere, and a highway to hell, and I can’t drive fifty-five.

Jack massaged his forehead. “Well, this has deteriorated quickly.”

Don came back into the room, holding a fresh IV bag of green liquid. It looked like pond scum, but Teddy gave a relieved sigh when Don changed out the IV. “You boys getting on?” Don asked, brushing his hands against his coat.

“That thing isn’t any more a boy than I am a unicorn,” Jack said. “But yeah, we’re having a grand old time.”

Don pulled up a chair, white and upholstered with a cushion that had once been the same color as the walls. “Sit with me, Jack. Listen to what I have to tell you. After that, if you’re still with Belial, well … we can discuss it. I don’t coerce people, even humans. I believe in that free will you all love so much.”

Jack could spot a soft-soap, even one delivered in the skilled, sensitive tone Don employed, but he shrugged. “Talk.” Teddy cackled low in his brain.

Talking’s what Donny is good at. Talking himself into things, talking us out of our skins and into new toys. Talk talk talk. Open the door, it’s just the meter man.

“Hell is ancient,” Don said. “Hell is older than Death. Hell was the first piece carved from the Black, before even Death. When the Hag was still hatching from her egg and this world was just a speck of dust floating between stars, there was Hell.”

“And then the man upstairs said let there be light, booze, and porn?” Jack said. Don’s mouth twitched, and Jack sighed. Fanatics were never any fun, and fanatics who took themselves too seriously were akin to shoving razor blades under your eyeballs and blinking. Whatever stripe their faith, Jack found them tiresome.

“God’s a fairy tale for children and the childlike,” Don said. “The same as Satan. You know that, Jack. But before the demons everyone is so afraid of, there were other things.”

He gestured at Teddy. “Me and mine saw Hell as our own, a place where there was nothing except existence. Hunt, food, mate, sleep, eat. It was a good place. The fires warmed us and the rivers flowed with blood and the meat was slow and fat. But shit happens, as you people are so fond of saying.”

“Demons get fed up with you boys taking all the good bits for yourselves?” Jack guessed.

“The demons? Strike at us?” Don laughed. “Jack, we made the demons. We made some from mud, and some from flesh, but one among us lay with somebody—something—that was an abomination, and she birthed four sons.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. As far as creation stories went, this was one where he was sure he could guess the ending. “The Princes.”

“They created the six hundred and sixty-six Names,” Don said. “Made them in their image, not ours. Together, stronger than us. Legion. They murdered who they could, and the strongest of us, the four counterparts of the Princes, they locked away. Four of us plus one, the death- bringer who would just as soon devour Hell as he would their enemies.”

“Nergal,” Jack murmured. He could still feel the black presence in his mind, the endless, unfathomable hunger for the life of the Black, of Hell and everywhere in between.

“Nergal is a fucking dickhead, by the way,” Don said. “Whiny little bitch, all down the days we spent together in that place.” He grinned. “Can you guess what the twist is now, Jack?”

“Naughton broke Nergal out,” Jack said. “You slipped the gap, and here you are.”

“Oh, no,” Don said. “I got out long before those necrophiliac morons got their bright idea to spring the asshole. But my kin, yes. They came from the break. Reality is a pretty fragile thing, Jack. Bend it just a little and stress fractures appear. The Princes have kept us under lock and key for millennia—their masters, locked away, tortured, and violated like we were nothing. Well, we’re free now, like the old times. And we’re not going back.”

“Look, mate,” Jack said. “I got no issues with you doing … whatever it is you’re doing out here, personally, but I think you’re underestimating exactly how far up Belial’s arse you’ve gotten with this little escape routine. He doesn’t do well with losing.”

“The demons lost a long time ago,” Don said. “This business with the Morrigan and Nergal is just the knell sounding the end. Hell is fracturing, politics are king, and things like Belial are scrabbling for power. Time was, they feared our names. So did your kind—every pack of superstitious children has a name for us. They called us Shiva, or said we were a wolf that devoured the world. Four horsemen who ride forth on the last day.” Don grinned. “I always liked that one. Got great imagery. Probably why they stick it in so many movies. Point is, it’s our time again, and we’re riding hard.”

“I still don’t know what you expect me to do about all this,” Jack said. “I don’t have Belial’s ear. We’re not mates who go down to the pub. I can’t get him off your trail and stop Hell from throwing you back in the clink any more than I can make Belial do a Riverdance.”

“We want you, Jack,” Don said. “Because without you, none of this would’ve happened. My kind would still be cast into darkness. If you hadn’t been a good solider and helped the Morrigan wake up Nergal, we never could have found those fractures.” He leaned in. “And if you hadn’t visited us in Hell, we couldn’t have found you now. I want you to be with us, Jack. I want you to be my soldier, because together we can turn Belial into a smear on the pavement.”

Of course. The dreams—memories—that had woken up the moment he landed in LA. He’d seen the demon’s vast prison. And now the inmates had him over a barrel. Perfect.

Jack resisted telling Don that for a supposedly ancient creature, he was a bit of a fuckwit. Nothing could kill a demon. You could exorcise them, send them back to the Pit, but to actually destroy the essence of a demon was something he’d only seen once, and he didn’t care to repeat it. “And if I decide that I’d rather not play with your fucked-up little family?”

Don shrugged. “We can’t force you, Jack. Like I said, we owe you one. You joined the Morrigan, and you let Nergal free, and you made it possible for everything that came after.”

“I didn’t let Nergal do anything,” Jack snapped. He’d known, hadn’t he, that when the Morrigan offered to get him out of the Pit it was too good to be true? He’d taken the deal anyway, because anything was better than Hell.