Devil's Business

his fingers in the demon’s face. He wouldn’t be able to get away with that much longer, and he was going to savor it while he still held something over Belial’s head. “Fetch, boy. Go bring me a monster.”

CHAPTER 26

The air of Los Angeles was almost palatable after the constant burnt-hair stink of Hell, and Jack inhaled deeply. “Good to be back, eh?” he said.

Belial sat on the curb and scrubbed the heels of his hands across his eyes. “Centuries of devotion, of bringing them souls, and they hang me out to dry. Those fucking bastards.”

Jack sat down next to him, lit a fag, and offered one to the demon. Belial took it and sucked on it viciously, until the cherry flared bright orange. “Cheer up,” Jack said. “All you have to do is lock Abbadon back up and you’re in their good graces.”

“You don’t understand,” Belial said. “Abbadon and his kind are a threat to the Princes, and a threat to the Princes means scorched earth. Anyone responsible for their breakout is going to be a cinder when this is over, including me.”

“Fuck me, you’re a cheerful one, aren’t you?” Jack said. He’d never come across a maudlin demon and decided he definitely didn’t like it. Seeing Belial slumped like a City trader who’d just been sacked wasn’t right. It was like seeing a wolf who’d been hit by a car—you could discern the shape of the predator it had once been, but it was as broken and bloody as the next sad thing lying in the gutter.

“Abbadon’s been free too long,” Belial said. “Always knew if he ever broke out, there was no putting him back.”

“This might be an odd thought for your sort,” Jack said. “But why not try giving him the old sorry we fucked up, here’s a patch of Hell and a lovely potted palm to make amends?”

“Because Abbadon doesn’t understand peace,” Belial snapped. “He thinks Hell is his to rule, and after he’s done burning it down he’ll move on to the Black and everything outside it.” He blew a long stream of smoke into the air. “Abbadon is the closest you’ll come to Armageddon, Jack. He’s the end. The end of me, the end of people like you, the end of a world balanced on a knife-edge. It’s a hard balance, and sometimes it cuts you, but we’ve all been able to coexist since the beginning. Abbadon and his ilk have no interest in coexisting. They just want to consume, and make the world their own. He’s the metaphysical cockroach. Whatever we throw at him, he’ll survive.”

“You can step on a roach with a great bloody boot,” Jack said. “That works for me.”

“Azrael was right about one thing,” Belial said. “I do wish I was human sometimes. That endless optimism and idiotic hope, even when things are clearly fucked. I like it.”

“So glad you approve,” Jack said. “And might I remind you, you had some grand secret plan to get Abbadon back where he belongs. If we can’t squash him, we can at least put him back in his roach motel. That’s got to be better than moaning about how it’s the end of all things.”

“The doorway ritual isn’t complete,” Belial said. “I got a good look when that great pig’s arse Sanford had me hanging like a decorative mobile. Wouldn’t have worked even if he’d bled me dry. That means Locke left something out of his notes, and I have an idea of where that bit might be.”

Jack felt himself start to smile. Basil Locke hadn’t been such a fuckwit after all. Fascist, quite possibly, but not an idiot. If Jack had carved a back door into Hell, he sure as fuck would have hidden the specs where nobody could get clever and decide to recreate his work. “Do share this wisdom,” he told Belial.

“Locke was obsessed with an actress named Lucinda Lanchester,” he said. “Nobody you’ve ever heard of. She played nightclub singers, gangsters’ molls, the sister in the farces who takes the pratfalls.”

“You’re starting to sound like Sanford,” Jack told him. “So old Basil had a hard-on for a no-name actress. Wouldn’t be the first.”

“Lucinda Lanchester happened to sell her soul to me in exchange for being in pictures,” Belial said. “Sad for her, she didn’t specify what pictures, and she never climbed off the B-roll. Locke wooed her, bought her extravagant presents, practically bankrupted himself. Then he knocked her up and she and the baby both kicked it during the birth. That was when he went to Germany and made friends with Himmler. Who wouldn’t have had any talent for magic if it had crawled up his arse and fallen asleep, by the by.”

“So you think Locke told this Lucinda girl whatever his great secret was,” Jack said.

“I checked in with her from time to time, as I do with all my bargains,” Belial said. “The last time she wasn’t making any sense—well, less sense than she usually did. She had a love for little white pills of all varieties, poor thing. But she was ranting how she wasn’t afraid of me, how she had a secret that would make her the mistress of any demon who tried for her soul. Obviously it was bollocks, as I collected not two months later, but now I wonder. I wonder what Locke told her to put her in such a state.”

“Unless you have a hand for necromancy, I don’t think we’re finding out,” Jack said. Belial grinned, and it was the familiar grin Jack knew, the sign the demon knew something the rest of the world at large did not. He’d always hated that look.

“I don’t need a bone-rattler to recall a soul that I own,” he said. “Although I don’t fancy going down to the catacombs of Hell just now. No, all we need is her corpse, and I wager we’ll have our answer.”

“And I suppose you know right where she’s buried,” Jack said.

“Haven’t the faintest,” Belial said. “I don’t care what happens to the body once I have my property. I leave the flesh and bone to the necrophiliacs.”

“Movie star dies tragically, gotta be something on where they put her bones down,” Jack said. “Got a mobile? We can check online.”

“She’s something of a cult figure since she died,” Belial said. “Vandals dug her body up twice in the sixties and stole bits, so they moved her and now the grave’s unmarked. No idea where she’s at now.”

“Good job you have me,” Jack said. “Otherwise you’d be lost.”

“Don’t tell me you know where Lucinda finally rested herself,” Belial scoffed. “You barely know what day of the week it is, Winter.”

“It’s Thursday,” Jack said. “And I don’t, but I know someone who will.”

CHAPTER 27

The shop was locked and shuttered when Jack and Belial climbed out of the taxi, but Jack banged on the grate until a light came on. The dark-haired, death-tinged shop girl appeared, glaring out at them, holding an old- fashioned shotgun in her fists. “What do you want?” she mouthed through the door.

“Sorry to bother you, luv,” Jack said. “Need to ask you something.”

She unlocked the door and pointed the shotgun toward Belial’s chest. “You can come in. The diablo waits outside.”

Belial bared his teeth at her. “Trust me, sweetheart—I am far from the worst thing in this miserable little hole of yours.”

“Fuck you, pendejo,” she snapped, and tugged Jack inside. “Why are you mixing it up with demons?” she demanded. “Sliver told me you were all right.”

“I’m not mixing anything,” Jack said. “I need him, and for the moment, he needs me. And we both need something from you.”

“Oh yeah?” She propped the shotgun behind the counter and led Jack through the beaded curtain into a snug back room. A small flat telly blasted Spanish-language news and a glass of tequila sat on the arm of a ratty vinyl overstuffed chair. “Ask,” the girl said, and offered Jack an empty jelly glass and a tequila bottle.

He poured a stiff shot. The tequila was fire mixed with turpentine, and it burned on the way down, spreading the fire through his guts and numbing his tongue. “Need to know where an old-timey sorceress is buried. Figured you’d be in the know.”

The girl shrugged. “Maybe, what’s her name?”

“Lucinda Lanchester,” Jack said. The tequila was steadying everything, bringing it back into focus. He