by Clare Kauter
He narrowed his eyes as if trying to figure out what I was talking about.
“What do you mean, Nessa?” asked Daisy.
I sighed. Creatures of the light, man. They just had no idea.
“OK, so firstly, Satan wouldn’t do this. She has far more interesting methods of torture than knives. Secondly, if she had done it, which she didn’t, she wouldn’t have left the body here where a tourist could find it and where it would jeopardise her business. She’s got an infinite number of perfectly good torture chambers over the other side of the city that she could use. Lastly, she definitely didn’t do this, because he was alive. She only tortures people after they’re dead.” She found it allowed for more breadth of expression in the pain-causing arts. Not that the others needed to know her reasoning.
“Right, of course,” said Henry. “We don’t know her as well as you do.”
“Thank you for that defence, darling,” came Satan’s voice from above. I guess she’d heard about the murder, then. “These pathetic magicals thinking I’d be responsible for something so ordinary.” She laughed. “Creatures of the light are always so boring.”
“Do you think a creature of the light did this?” I asked.
“I’ve no idea, my darling. I’m afraid I don’t really keep an eye on this part of the town. I didn’t see what happened.”
I nodded. No clues from Satan, then. That was OK. We’d just have to solve it like a good old-fashioned murder mystery. At least this time I could be sure that the goblin hadn’t murdered himself, unlike when I’d been searching for Ed’s imaginary killer.
“Alright. I think firstly we should find out who he is. Can we run his face through the police computer even without it having eyes?” I asked the officials.
“There’s no need,” said Satan’s voice from above. “I know who he is.”
“Perfect,” I said. Well, that was going to save us some time. “Who is it?”
“The king.”
Chapter Six
My heart began to thump against my ribcage.
The king. This was the king.
After all this time I’d finally found him – dead and missing his eyeballs, but I’d found him. I’d first heard him mentioned when I’d been adopted from the orphanage as a teenager by a couple of grabbers. They had talked about selling me and mentioned a king, and recently I’d heard about the king everywhere. In the ether, from Krampus – even Daisy knew about it. And finally we’d found the guy. So what the hell did he have to do with me?
“No it’s not,” said Daisy and Dick in unison.
Satan laughed quietly from above and my mind began to move – a gentle walk at first, then a slow jog, until finally it was racing. Had Satan just said that to trick us? Why? Did she want to know who knew the identity of the real king? I’d known Daisy knew about the king for a while. Dick, though? That was a revelation. An important one. It might mean he knew more about me than he’d been letting on. This wasn’t good.
“It is,” said Henry, looking at the body. “Of course, I didn’t recognise him without the jacket.”
“What are you talking about?” said Dick. “I can assure you –”
“It is,” said Daisy. “Of course. Wow, not being able to see someone’s eyes really impairs your ability to recognise a face.”
“I’m still not following,” I said, glancing at Hecate. She sent me back an exaggerated shrug. She had no idea what was happening either.
“Oh,” said Dick, walking back towards the body. “You mean that king.”
Playing with a strand of my hair, I tried to make sense of what was happening. Was this a different king? Had I been hearing about multiple kings on my travels? Or was this guy just an entirely separate, different king than the one everyone else had been talking about? I was inclined to believe the last option. When Satan had mentioned a king, Dick and Daisy had clearly thought she meant another king. Which meant there was a good chance that Dick knew something about the king who had something to do with me.
Now I just needed to find out who that king was.
“Forgive my ignorance, but who is this?” Hecate asked.
“Gnawlack. Goblin king of crime,” said Henry.
“How on earth do you know a king of crime?” I asked.
“We’re not on earth,” he replied.
I rolled my eyes. “My question still stands.”
He shrugged. “He spends a lot of time in the bars around here.”
“Doing trade?”
“No,” said Satan’s voice from above. “He’s completely clean.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right, sure. I bet he’s an amazing guy.” I shrugged. “Well, the next step is easy.”
“It is?”
“Séance. We summon his soul.”
Dick butted in. “No way,” he said. “After your disastrous summoning at the club earlier you think I’m going to let you risk more lives?”
“You’re right,” I said. “You’re going to have to be locked up in another room so you can’t trip into the circle again.”
“You tripped into a summoner’s circle?” Daisy asked, looking horrified.
“A pentagram, actually,” I said. “Which is about a billion times worse.”
“A pentagram?” she asked with a frown. “Wait, was it you who summoned that demon earlier?”
Oops. Probably shouldn’t have drawn attention to the fact that I was present when the Doomstone had been used. After all, I was the only person known to have seen Ed since he first took the stone. Apart from him, I was the next best suspect. Argh, time to pull out my B-grade acting skills.
“Yes,” I said. “Why?”
“Hecate and I are tracking the Doomstone,” Daisy explained. “We’re in Hell because it was used earlier today.”
“Right, Henry mentioned that.”
“It happened around the time you summoned that demon.”
“How do you know?”
“We can trace its energy when it’s in use.”
“So that means Ed has figured out how to use it.”
Daisy nodded. “It seems so.”
“Do you think that’s why I hooked the horrendous, towering demon arsehole I did? Is Ed trying to kill me?”
Daisy shrugged. “I really don’t know.”
I nodded. “Well, thanks for letting me know.” I let out a breath. “I can’t believe he’s here. Won’t he just leave me alone?”
Henry walked over to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “It’s OK. I don’t think he’s trying to kill you.”
“You don’t?”
He shook his head. “He’s had plenty of opportunities. I think if he wanted you dead you’d already be that way.”
“Well, that’s kind of comforting. I think.”
Henry smiled and pulled me into a hug. I appreciated the thought but I really wished he’d changed into his human form first. His hairy gorilla arms were tickling me and making me need to sneeze. Still, the hug was comforting, even if it was totally unnecessary. Ed didn’t want me dead. He wanted me to join him.
Henry and I broke apart. “OK,” I said. “Séance time?”
The others nodded. “Where should we go?”
“Party at my house,” called Satan from above.
The others paled at her words. I rolled my eyes. Light dwellers were scared of everything.
We waited for the scene of crime officers to show up and cordon everything off before setting out to Satan’s house on foot. (We would have flown but Hecate had left her magic carpet at her hotel. Henry looked relieved when he heard that – he was more of a land mammal than a bird.) I noticed the others grow quieter the closer to Satan’s house we drew. They were fidgeting and dragging their feet. I shook my head. The cream of magical law enforcement and they freaked out over one little séance at Satan’s house.
We entered through the front gates and walked up to the front door, which opened automatically, of course. Butler greeted us.
“Our Lord and Majesty has bee
n setting up the séance suite for you,” said Butler. “Please, follow me to the parlour where we shall await her presence.”
Henry, Daisy, Hecate and I all squeezed onto the single couch in the parlour while Dick stood awkwardly in the corner.
“How come Henry gets to put his bare monkey arse on the lounge but I have to stand?”
“Because my bare arse is an illusion, you idiot,” said Henry. “I’m wearing clothes.”
“What?”
“Someone didn’t pass the shifters unit at university, am I right?” I said.
“Seems so,” Henry replied, then turned back to Dick. “In my human form I’m wearing clothes. I’m not really naked. It’s an illusion.”
“But how…”
Henry made a noise of exasperation. “I don’t have time to go into the physics of shifting with you right now, Dick. Just accept that you’re too simple to understand it and move on.”
“Henry,” said Satan as she entered the room, hand over her chest, “I do believe you’ve grown a personality since we last spoke. I actually quite like you now. Although maybe that’s just in comparison to the new parasite that’s attached itself to Nessa on behalf of The Department.”
“Or maybe it’s because he’s single-handedly keeping half the pubs in Hell open,” Dick snapped. (Oh, wow. Remind me to never write ‘Dick snapped’ again.)
“And look at all the good it’s done him,” said Satan, smiling. “If only everyone spent more time in Hell letting go of their hang-ups I think the world would be a much more interesting place.”
Interesting was one word for it.
“Are you feeling better, Dick?” Satan asked.
“Nothing a little curse reversal couldn’t fix,” said Dick, turning to glare at me.
I shrugged innocently. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, I don’t know what you’re implying,” said Satan. “She’s been under your supervision all this time. How could she have cursed you?”
“She wasn’t under my supervision while I was in the bathroom earlier.”
Satan’s smile was slowly replaced by a look of unbridled hatred. “You mean when she was alone with me?” The fireplace in the corner began to crackle and the candles on the drinks table flared. “You dare question my integrity?”
Dick backed up against the wall behind him as Satan stared him down. I couldn’t see her face from here, but I knew her well enough to know that her eyes would be flashing red now. “N–no,” said Dick. “Of course not. I’m sorry.”
What a coward.
“I don’t suggest that you push me, Dick. News of a dead tourist being found in my city hasn’t exactly put me in a good mood.” The fire was roaring by now. Nearby flames always responded when Satan’s temper started to flare, and when you were in Hell there was always fire nearby.
Satan turned back to the rest of us, apparently deciding Dick wasn’t worth the effort. “You can proceed to the attic. I won’t be joining you. Light dweller magic is too pathetic for me to watch.” She turned back to Dick. “Don’t fuck it up this time or you will pay.”
We proceeded to the attic where Satan had begun to lay out candles, herbs and talismans ready for the séance. While Hecate and Daisy finished preparing the circle and Dick sat in the naughty corner, I walked over to talk to Henry. Although I’d seen him a couple of times since we’d kissed, we hadn’t had much of chance to talk. There’d always been someone else around – or, like, a corpse on the ground.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” he replied.
Insert awkward silence.
“So… how are you?”
“Good,” he said, then he caught the look of disbelief on my face. “OK, so I took being fired a little hard, but now that I have a chance to redeem myself I’m feeling a lot better. Getting to work with Daisy and the Dawn Witch again is nice.”
“Pity Dick and I crashed your party.”
He smiled. “Having Richard along for the ride is not ideal, no.”
“And me?”
After remaining silent for a moment, he said, “I don’t know about you.”
There seemed to be weight behind those words, as if he was not just answering my question but maybe also voicing his overall opinion about me. He was right to be unsure.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Why did you kiss me?”
I was taken aback. That hadn’t been what I was expecting him to say. “Because I like you,” I said. “I already told you that. And in your human form you’re pretty hot.”
He smirked. “I seem to remember you’re less fond of my current form.”
That was an understatement. When I’d kissed Henry, he’d transformed mid-kiss and I’d opened my eyes to find I was pashing a gorilla.
“It’s not the gorilla I don’t like,” I said. “It’s the context.”
He nodded. “You promise you didn’t just kiss me to try and get your licence quicker?”
Rolling my eyes, I said, “Are you serious? This again? Did Dick’s teasing actually get to you?” He shrugged and I continued, “No, I wasn’t trying to get my licence quicker. How would that even make sense? It’s not like you could’ve just lied about the fact that I’d killed Santa and then we’d get to go home. I kissed you because… we were having a moment.”
“And what was that moment, exactly?”
“Well, we’d just shared a near-death experience. I guess we bonded.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled before saying, “I’m a little hazy on the details.”
I frowned. “What – do you think I slipped you a love potion or something? Because I assure you, I am not that kind of person.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” he said quickly. “It’s just… bits of my memory are… muddled. There are things that don’t make sense. Gaps. And I don’t know what to make of them.”
My stomach dropped like lead. “What do you mean?”
“I know this is going to sound… Look, there are a couple of things that happened that made sense at the time, but looking back…”
The clouding spells were cracking. Oh, no. No, no, no…
“What kind of things?”
“Well, with the grabbers that time. I don’t really remember how we defeated them. Now I’m starting to remember Death being there, which doesn’t make any sense because they just ran away. But that doesn’t make sense either – I’ve never known grabbers to run from a fight. Did we kill them? Why would I not remember that?”
“Henry…”
“And that’s not the only thing! When we went into that vampire cave to reclaim Hecate’s carpet, I’m not sure how we actually did it. And then the night you and I kissed…”
“What?” I asked, dreading his answer but knowing I had to find out how much he remembered.
“I remember us being surrounded and my ward coming down, and half of me remembers sending out a wave of energy that stunned the elves. But I know I’m not strong enough to do that. I mean, they’re hundreds of years old and fae, for Satan’s sake. I have nothing on them. But I thought that was what happened… until I had a dream.”
“Are you hearing yourself, Henry? You had a dream that something different happened that night and now you think the dream is real?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I remember those two vampires that live near your house being there.”
“In the North Pole?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I remember one of the vampires killing the elves and then attacking you, but the other vampire stopped him and told us that because she’d drunk your blood she could go out during the day now.”
I gave him a concerned, silent look for a moment before responding. “And you think that’s what actually happened? A vampire that could come out in the sun because she drank my magical blood saved us from her boyfriend?”
“I know it seems crazy…”
“It really does.”
“But if it didn’t happen tha
t way, why did all the elves end up dead?”
“Because you stunned them and they got drained by a local vampire, not one we’d taken with us,” I lied.
He nodded slowly. “It’s just… it’s like my memories are split in two and I don’t know which story to believe.”
“Well, just for future reference I would say that you should probably believe in whichever option seems less insane.”
“I know, it’s just… there was something Dick said earlier about your magic, and I just had this weird flash of purple cross my mind. It was like déjà vu, or memories from a past life or something.” He shook his head as if trying to clear his thoughts. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen you cast all that much, despite the two quests.”
But he had, and now he was starting to remember it. I needed to go into serious damage control. Could I cloud him again? Was that dangerous? Probably. Like knocking someone out too many times.
“Well, I didn’t want to make your job too easy for you by casting in front of you all the time,” I replied, trying to play it cool despite my internal freak out.
“Yes, I know. You were annoyed that I was there from day one.”
“Or maybe I was trying to prolong your stay.”
That was a blatant lie. I’d been trying to hide my powers from Henry plain and simple, not turn myself into some sort of enigma that he’d have to unravel and in the process fall in love with me. That’s not to say I didn’t want Henry around – I did. I was actually quite fond of him. Fond enough to kiss him, even (although strictly when he was in human form). The problem was that he’d worked for the enemy. Well, one of them. Ed was my other enemy and I’d kissed him too, so I wasn’t sure what that said about my taste in romantic partners, but it was best not to dwell on these things. Being brought up in an orphanage and then being adopted by Satan could probably explain most of my issues.
He rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, right.”
“Henry, I don’t know what’s going on with your dreams or your memories,” I lied, “but – and I’m saying this as a friend – you’ve been drinking a lot lately. You need to sober up and go on a health kick before this fuzzy memory stuff becomes permanent. Satan does juice fasts occasionally – maybe I’ll get you the details. I think you just need to look after yourself. I’m sure your mind will sort itself out.”
