The Devil You Know

“Rafi done a spell,” she said. “Something fucking big.” He’d summoned a ghost, but something had gone wrong, and instead of ending up in the circle, the loose spirit had gone into him. Then he’d started burning up.

I sat with him through that night, listening as he rambled and raged in what sounded like four different languages, trying to get a feel for the spirit that was sticking it to him. By about six a.m., we’d run out of ice, and I was scared that if I waited much longer, he’d just burn himself out. So I took out my whistle, cleared the girl out of the room, and started to play. That’s how I do it. The music is a cantrip, and if it works, it has the same effect on bodiless spirits as flypaper does on flies. The ghosts get wrapped up in it, and they can’t get free. Then, when the music stops, abracadabra, there’s nothing for them to hang on to—so they stop, too. When the last note fades, they’re just not there anymore.

If that sounds easy, put it down to the fact that I never did finish that English degree. In reality, it’s hard and slow, and it only works at all if I can get a real fix on the ghost in question. The clearer my mental image of it, the better the tune and the more reliable the effects.

In this case, the ghost had such a strong presence, it was almost like smoke coming off Rafi’s overheated skin. I thought I had it nailed. I put the whistle to my lips and blew a few notes on it, high and fast, to get things started.

It might just as well have been a gun—something big and heavy, like a .38 Trooper, say—pointed at Rafi’s head.

I sat on the silver-steel floor of the cell while the chill of the metal, never less than glacial, crawled slowly up my spine. A nurse shouted in the distance, something jovial and probably obscene, and a door slammed heavily.

Rafi’s black-on-black eyes closed and then opened again, keeping me pinned in their lazy, mad crosshairs. A smell of stale meat wafted off him, which I knew was because I’d just come from my office over Grambas’s kebab shop. One of the hallmarks of Asmodeus’s presence was that Rafi would start to smell of the last place you’d been, which was typical of the demon’s peekaboo bullshit.

“You’re going to die,” he said again, almost absently, turning over a couple of cards in his sprawling game of patience.

“You’re wrong,” I said, feeling a premature sense of relief. “A job did come my way tonight, but I already said no.”

“Of course you did,” the smashed-glass voice grated again, in open mockery. “You’re still in mourning for your old friend, aren’t you? You made a promise to yourself that you wouldn’t screw the pooch like that again. ‘First, do no harm’—which in your case means ‘Don’t do a blind fucking thing.’”

Rafi’s tongue snaked out and rasped around the edges of his mouth with a sound like newspapers being chased down the street by a strong wind. I suddenly realized that his lips were dry and cracked, flakes of desiccated skin hanging onto them in a light, irregular frosting. I should have noticed that before; it’s another of the signs I usually keep a watch for, and it confirmed what I’d already noted from Rafi’s smell. It meant I was definitely talking to Asmodeus now, and Rafi wasn’t going to surface again unless the demon allowed him to.

Slowly, absently, he tore a huge gash in his own forearm with his thumbnail. Blood welled up and spattered on the floor of the cell. I ignored it. Asmodeus does that kind of stuff for show, but he always makes good the damage afterward. He’s got a vested interest in keeping Rafi’s body in good working order.

“Too late to do much, anyway,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. “The big picture—that’s set now, more or less. And it’s not like you’re even asking the right questions . . .”

There was a silence. When he spoke again, it was in a different voice—almost liquid, with a fluting modulation that was insidious and unpleasant.

“So you said no. But here’s the thing, Castor. You’re gonna change your mind. I’m nearly certain about that. You see, time is different for my kind, by which I mean it’s slower. Feels to me like I’ve been stuck in here for a thousand years already. Got to do something to keep my edge, you understand? So I tune into things. Things that are on the edge of happening. Things that might might might just slop over the edge of the possible and soil the carpets of the real. I know what I’m talking about. After the final no there comes a yes, and you’ll be getting to that before the night is out. I mean, you’re so agonizingly predictable when it comes to your friends, well”—he ducked his head left, right, left—“I think it’s pretty obvious whose tune you’re gonna end up dancing to.”

I took the whistle out of my pocket and laid it on the floor next to me. Rafi—or the thing that lived inside him—eyed it with cold amusement.

“I don’t dance,” I said. “Don’t ask me.”

He laughed—not a nice sound at all.

“You all dance, Castor. Every bastard one of you. I never met a man, woman, or child yet who made a real fight out of it.” He stretched out his free arm, made his index and middle fingers into the barrel of a gun, aimed them at my feet. “Bang, bang, bang. If I wasn’t serving my time inside this heap of pulp and gristle, I could make you dance. But since I am . . . indisposed, someone else is going to take a shot at it. And this someone else—well, they’re too big for you.”

“You prefer ‘Oh Danny Boy’ or ‘Ye Banks and Braes’?” I asked him, my face set in a cold deadpan.

“Now that’s just crude,” he sniggered. “Give me ‘O Fortuna.’ I like music that sounds like the end of the fucking world. But anyway, coming back to the point—even though it’s not gonna get me anywhere—you should say no to this case, because you don’t have more than a cat in hell’s chance of coming out of it in one piece.”

“You know, I’m always flattered when you put it like that,” I told him. “I shouldn’t take the case? Lawyers and private detectives take cases. The people who use my services generally see me more in the light of a garbage disposal unit.”

Asmodeus dismissed this red herring with a slow, contemptuous shrug.

“Well, if you’ve got the balls to say no and stick to it, then that’s fine—you don’t have a problem. But that’s not where the smart money’s sitting, Castor. And when it comes to the study of human behavior, I’ve got a few years’ lead on you. I started watching when the entire human race only had two balls to share between them—and both of ’em were in my hand. Speaking of which, how’s Pen?”

The sudden shift of subject false-footed me—and he switched to Rafi’s own voice, too, to get as much impact out of it as he could.

“That’s none of your damn business,” I snapped back, which got me a supercilious grin.

“Everything that’s damned is my business,” he leered. “You ought to pick your words more carefully, Castor. Words are the birds that break cover and show your enemy where you’re hiding. Here. Get into practice.”

He picked up one of the cards and skimmed it across to me, so it fell facedown at my feet. I picked it up and turned it over, expecting the ace of spades or maybe the joker, but it was blank on the face side—the spare card they give you in some decks to stand in for the first one you lose.

“No, the smart money says you’re gonna fall for it,” Asmodeus said. “So I’m just telling you—you need to watch your back better than you’re doing. You’re too easy, Castor. You’ve got to kick up some dust once in a while so it’s harder to see where you’re going. Otherwise, you’ll get there and you’ll find a hanging party waiting for you.” His eyes narrowed to coal black slits. “You’re looking to play me back down into the basement right now. But one of these days, you’re gonna come around and play me right the fuck out of here. Set me free. Set little angel Rafael free, too. I mean, those are the rules, right? You break it, you fix it. But you’re no fucking use to me dead. So you got to do three things. Take the card when she gives it to you. Watch out for burning booze and wicked women. And don’t put your finger on the trigger until you know what you’re shooting at. Kiss, kiss.”

He kissed his fingers—the same two fingers that had previously been the gun—and pointed them at me again. I put the whistle to my lips and started to play, and after that, I went at it solidly for half an hour.

When I banged on the cell door for Paul to come and let me out, Rafi was sleeping. It was Rafi, now, and he’d probably tear up the zeds until morning, so there was no point in me hanging around. I took a glance at the wound on his arm just before I left. It was already healed, only a faint scar showing where it had been. Fucking demons. All mouth and trousers, most of the time.

But as I drove back to Pen’s house, Asmodeus’s words worked their way down into my brain like grit into a paper cut. So I was going to change my mind about Peele’s job offer? I didn’t think so. Right then I couldn’t think of anything that would turn me around. The whole business with Rafi was what had made me say my farewell to arms the best part of a year ago, and tonight had just served as a vivid reminder of what happened when I made a mistake. Like I needed reminding anyway. I live with it every fucking day.

But I still carried the tin whistle around with me. I still felt cold and exposed without it. And my pulse still slid