Devil's Business

The front hall was done in black tile, inlaid with the head of Bahopmet. The goat’s heads, except for horns, had been covered with a cheery rug, and paintings and photographs covered the burgundy walls, in stark contrast to the aggressively dark décor. Evil Chic, Jack thought. Early Gothic Trying Too Hard.

“House belonged to some cult rocker in the 80s,” Shavers said. “Been a rental since, with the condition that nobody change the decoration. They shoot movies in here sometimes—that’s a real good way to make some cash in this town.”

“Never would have guessed,” Pete said, but Shavers didn’t pick up on her attitude. “What did you want to make clear to me?”

“That Ben is retired for a reason,” Shavers said. “That there’s nothing to this case to connect it to his old murders. Yes, they’re similar. But that’s it.”

“They’re a little more than similar, if Mayhew’s photos are to be believed,” Pete told him.

Jack caught sight of a stairway leading to an upper level, a loft ringed in ornate iron railings. He slid down the hall, Shaver’s and Pete’s voices echoing off the two-story cathedral ceiling. His sight screamed the moment he mounted the stairs, vibrating and red-rimmed. Shavers was giving Pete the brush off, but there had, at the very least, been a real murder here.

“Listen,” Shavers was saying. “You have to understand something about this town—it’s almost as obsessed with death as it is with movie stars doing each other up the ass. You know how much James Dean’s Ferrari wreckage went for at auction? Point is, every tabloid and sleazy blog has sources in the ME’s office and in the LAPD. The details could’ve gotten out through a dozen pinholes. At worst, we’ve got a very dedicated copycat. But not a serial. Not ten years apart, with no activity anywhere in VICAP in between.”

“You seem very sure,” Pete said.

“I am sure,” Shavers rumbled. “I’m sorry you came all this way, but this is just going to be another cold case. Only difference is it’s in my file instead of Ben’s this time, and I’m a lot better at letting things go.”

“I understand, believe me,” Pete said. “I used to be on the job. Can you just walk me through the scene, so I can tell Ben something?”

“Yeah, sure,” Shavers said. “Not like I got anything better to do, like pursue cases I can actually close, right?”

Jack pushed open the first door, keeping his ear tuned to Shavers and Pete. An office, done in bloodred wallpaper and black carpet, a layer of dust thick enough to draw in over it all. Not here.

“There was no forced entry,” Shavers said. “But we didn’t think too much of it at the time. Rental properties, the gate code never changes and a dozen staff have it, plus the family that lived here. The Herreras,” he added. “Mom, dad, son, and unborn daughter. Just in town for a few months while he produced a film.”

Jack tried the next door. A kid’s room, baseball memorabilia pasted up over the rock ’n’ roll walls, toys scattered across the floor.

“They killed the boy first.” Shaver’s voice echoed. “I say they, because we decided there had to be at least two. One to subdue the parents and one to go after the kid.”

The tile floor of the bedroom was stained, old blood trickling along the grout like vines breaking through stone.

“Cut his throat,” said Shavers. “Quick and clean. He bled out in a matter of minutes.”

“And the parents?” Pete’s boots clacked on the tile.

The last door was really just an iron lattice with more of the demon head motif. The pulse of his sight got worse when he pushed it open, and Jack ground his teeth against the sensation of a spike being driven through his skull sideways.

“They killed and mutilated the father in their bed,” Shavers said. “Knocked the mother over the head and dragged her down here.”

The mattress was bare, and marks of a crime scene team were still in place. There was much more blood this time—almost all the blood that a person’s body held, Jack wagered.

The psychic feedback was strong and bloody, but it wasn’t anything unusual for a murder scene. He backed out and looked down at the top of Shaver’s bald head as he bent over the Bahopmet rug. “She was here. They, uh … they did the final mutilation here on the tiles.”

“And the fact that her unborn baby was cut out of her on an image that’s been widely co-opted by Satanists the world over didn’t trigger any alarms?” Pete said.

“Come on, Ms. Caldecott,” Shavers said. “You were on the job. You know the shadowy Satanic cabal is just a myth fundamentalists and shrinks looking to make a buck conjured up to amuse themselves. Satanic Panic in this country is not something the LAPD is ever going to buy into.”

“Yeah, fine, the Satanist angle is bollocks,” Pete said. “But there was no sign of the child?”

“No,” Shavers said. “The baby was gone, along with whoever did this.”

“And nothing about two unborn babies being stolen, ten years apart, strikes you as a little strange?” Pete said.

Jack looked down at the bloody tiles. It was almost too trite to be believed. Home invasion mutilation inside a house that would give any weekend Satanist a hard-on, missing baby, all the hallmarks of a ritual murder—if all you knew about ritual murder came from television.

“Strange?” Shavers said. “No. Depraved, yeah. But not that strange. People are capable of sick shit, Ms. Caldecott. We get copycat murders all the time.” He opened the front door. “Now if you don’t mind, please ask your buddy to come downstairs, and go on back to England. There’s nothing for you here.”

“I think Ben would be a lot more willing to let it go if I could take a look around myself,” Pete said.

Shavers threw up his hands. “Fine. You got five minutes, and then I have real police work to get back to.”

Pete joined Jack on the landing. “This is weird, yeah?” she murmured. Shaver’s mobile rang, and he stepped outside.

“Maybe if I couldn’t see ghosts and demons, yeah,” Jack said. “As it is, no. Not really. Kind of cliché, actually.”

“I meant Shavers,” Pete said. “He seems very happy to write this off.”

“Suppose it could be just what he says,” Jack said. “Two blokes, ten years apart, decide it’d be a laugh to hack up a pregnant lady and her family.”

“Or Shavers could be giving us the broom,” Pete said. “Trust me—no copper wants a case like this. Messy and unsolvable, drives your whole average down. Never mind that if it’s a serial job, you’re seen as lazy as well as incompetent.”

Jack leaned on the rail. “I hate to say I told you so…”

“Oh, please,” Pete snorted. “You love saying it.”

Jack massaged his forehead. His sight heralded a headache that would only be knocked out with a lot of booze or a little bit of something stronger. Time was, he’d have his shooting kit in his pocket, but that time wasn’t now. The cravings had gone along with all of his scars and tattoos, as if the Morrigan had remade the fire in his blood into glass. “Still,” he said. “There’s not actually anything supernatural afoot, unless you count the supernaturally horrible state of this place.”

“Then I guess we’re done here,” Pete said. “I’ll tell Mayhew what we found and we can go our separate ways.”

Jack nodded. “Yup. Have fun disappointing Mayhew.” Just walk away, he told himself. Let her think you’re the one to leave.

He’d put his foot on the first stair when he felt the wind. The ashes choked his throat and his sight spiked, and blood trickled out of his nose.

He wasn’t in Hell. He was here, in this hideous death-rock palace, and he was alive. For better or worse.

“Glad I caught you,” the demon said from behind him. “You are a slippery one these days, Jack.”

He swallowed the taste of blood and ashes. “You can put aside the dramatic entrances, Belial. I’ve seen all your tricks.”

Belial grinned at Jack. “Oh, you haven’t seen my best ones, boy. You haven’t even peeked up my sleeve.”

“What do you want?” Pete appeared at his side. She was never one to engage in small talk with spawn of