“Not everyone knows, and I’d like to keep it that way, Night Caller. So, kindly get lost.”
“Not until we’ve had a chat, face to face. I’m not talking to you on a phone when you’re only ten feet away.”
There was a wicked pause, then he said, “Fine. Come on down.”
An involuntary shiver went down my spine. I’d been in Kermit’s lair, against my will, stuffed into a coffin while Kermit and his pal, Saif, planned to sell me off to my enemies. If I had any say in the matter, I would never set foot in Kermit’s lair ever again.
“I don’t have time for games,” I said, keeping my tone reasonable. “Besides, I’ve got something for you. You want it, you gotta come get it.”
“What is it?” He didn’t quite keep the eager curiosity out of his voice.
“What have you been pestering me about lately?”
There was a startled, excited gasp on the other end of the phone. “Really?”
“Come see.”
He ground his teeth in indecision.
I began to wonder what it was keeping him underground. Very little actually disturbed Kermit. Ghouls weren’t too discerning about most things, so it was only really, really bad things that scared them. Primals, a few of the older vampires and dentists were about it. Even though I’d tried my hardest, I couldn’t get Kermit to fear me. There might be something close to respect in the way he treated with me, but even that was stretching it. So what had him packing bricks?
If it was the same thing that had sent most of the other supernatural freaks running, then at least I could get an answer on that little mystery.
“You coming up or not?” I asked. “Trust me, it is worth the sun exposure.”
He growled at me and hung up. I didn’t have time to wonder what that meant before the earth under my feet began to move.
Ghouls don’t so much dig as they just ooze through the dirt. It was a camouflage technique. I mean think about it. Anyone finding dozens of holes or patches of disturbed dirt in a cemetery isn’t going to just ignore them. In the dim, dark past, the peasants would have cried ‘vampire’ and hunted the cause of the disturbances down. Not great for your average ghoul just trying to get by on rotting corpses.
I stepped out of the way and tried not to look at Kermit slithering out of the ground, but couldn’t help myself. My guts churned as the grass rippled in outward flowing circles around the emerging ghoul.
Ghouls might prefer food just this side of being classified as dirt, but that didn’t mean they didn’t eat fresher stuff as well. Stuff so fresh it was still kicking while they pulled it down into their underground lairs. Like Saif had pulled me down through the ground. What I could remember of the experience wasn’t a lot, but it was enough that the very thought of it gave me the willies. And watching Kermit arrive top side in the same manner I’d gone downward wasn’t a fun thing.
“This really better be good, little man,” Kermit said when he was mostly free of the ground. One foot was stuck and he tugged on his leg as he spoke. “I haven’t been outside for two months. Haven’t even bothered with bothering the ghost tour.”
“That is drastic,” I muttered as his foot burst out of the ground, a broken root dangling from between his huge toes.
“Tell me about it,” Kermit said, picking the root up and flinging it into the scrub. “The trees are starting to think this is their ground again.” He stood and stretched with a series of cracking pops in his joints.
Today, Kermit’s outfit consisted of a petticoat circa late nineteenth century tied around his chest with what could have been a string tie circa mid nineteen-eighties. It may have only reached mid-thigh on him, but his lower legs weren’t as bad as other things that could have been exposed, and had been in the past.
“Okay, pay up.” He held his long, four fingered hand out to me. “I’m in all sorts of danger here. This better be worth it.”
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out an iPod. Kermit’s big eyes widened and he snatched at the device. I jerked it out of his reach.
“Not until we have that chat.”
Kermit stared at the iPod, then glanced around the grove as if checking for hidden dangers.
“What’s got you so spooked?” I asked, looking around as well.
“Nothing, nothing,” he muttered, crossing his arms, trying to look casual and failing by several country miles. His foot began to tap nervously. “So, what did you want to chat about?”
“Not a lot. Just everything you know about demons.”
He lost all pretence at being casual. “Demons? That’s not worth an iPod.” And he dropped back to the ground and began digging.
Well.
At least I knew what had put the heebie-jeebies up him now.
Chapter 19
I rushed over and grabbed Kermit’s leg before he could slither away completely. A muffled cry came through the earth. I couldn’t make out any words, but I could use my ESP to guess.
“You aren’t going anywhere until we’ve finished talking.”
Kermit either didn’t understand or didn’t care. I’m thinking the latter. He kept burrowing down. My boots skidded a few feet across the grass.
“Give it up, Afzal,” I ground out between clenched teeth, even as I knew I was losing this fight. “I’ll get that bobcat, I swear I will, you bastard.”
There was muffled yelling and Kermit put on an extra load of determination. His leg slipped through my hands until all I had hold of was his dirt encrusted foot. Kermit kicked and broke my hold. With a solid sounding thump, he disappeared into the ground and the unsettled grass shivered.
“Damn you, Kermit.” I pulled out my phone and dialled him.
“Go away,” he screamed and hung up.
I kicked the dirt and ranted for a while, releasing some pent up tension. Thankfully, being an old cemetery, Dutton Park didn’t attract too many visitors so my tantrum went unnoticed. When I’d calmed down a bit, I managed to put two and two together and got a clue.
Kermit was scared of demons and had spent the past two months entirely underground because of it. That meant the current demon issues hadn’t been a recent thing. Unless it was the imps that bugged him. No. It couldn’t be. Imps were nothing. Which gave strong evidence it was demons and not me sending the rest of the usual bad guys packing.
A bit deflating, but otherwise cancelled out by the fact I could fully understand. I wasn’t too keen on the demon situation either.
It also meant Kermit was my best bet at actually learning something useful.
And I didn’t think I could get him topside again anytime soon.
Crouching, I put my hand to the ground and focused some energy into the earth. “Kermit. I’ll come down, but only through a hole. Make one for me.”
I stood and stepped back. The ground I’d touched shivered in that gut churning way, but this time, it began to fall away in neat slices and a very professional hole appeared.
“I must be insane,” I muttered but sat down on the edge of the hole, dangling my legs into it. “Certifiably insane.”
With a little push, I dropped down into Kermit’s lair.
It hadn’t changed, except the coffin couch Mercy had broken on our last visit had been replaced and the dead body of Saif was no longer sprawled in a puddle of obliterated brains. I carefully didn’t think of Kermit burying his onetime buddy and then digging him up when his remaining innards were nicely liquefied.
A shaft of diluted sunlight came down through my entry hole, but even as I was feeling terribly grateful for it, Kermit waved his hand and the hole sealed itself.
“Hey,” I said. “Some of us need light to see by.”
Kermit grumbled, there was a click and white light speared through the darkness.
“Happy now?” he asked, kicking aside a pile of bones and dragging a coffin away from the wall. Sitting on it, he grandly offered me the ‘couch’.
“I’m good.”
The light was a handheld torch pushed in
to the dirt wall of the lair and I noticed a couple others about the place as well. Kermit certainly had become civilized.
“You want to talk about demons,” Kermit said, his tone deadly serious. He knew what it meant for me to come back down here. “Why now? Why not three months ago when he first showed up here?”
“He?”
Kermit considered me while he picked at something between his teeth. “Yeah. Him. Isn’t he why you’re here?”
The female demon had said there was another demon here. Was this the mysterious ‘he’ Kermit referred to?
“I don’t know anything about a him,” I said, deciding to play dumb. “I’m more concerned with the her that’s been trying to kill me and my friends the last couple of nights.”
I hadn’t thought it possible, but Kermit got even more nervous. He stood and began pacing.
“Her? There’s another one? It’s a bloody invasion.”
“How about we start from the beginning,” I suggested. “What exactly are demons?”
“All demons are creatures that exist in another realm.”
“And humans can touch this other realm,” I posited, thanking Lila for her reluctant offering of this theory.
Kermit looked a little bit impressed. “In limited ways, for the most part, yes. It’s how humans came to know about demons and faeries in the first place.”
“Faeries? They’re demons too?”
He rolled his eyes. “No. Faeries are faeries that live in the faerie realm. Demon realm, faerie realm, mortal realm.” He pointed to himself and me. “Get it?”
Deciding that faerie discussions could wait, I nodded. “Okay, so these other realms are like parallel dimensions?”
“No. A parallel dimension is a creation of the human mind. String theory and all that stuff. The demon and faerie realms are as real as this realm. All three of them exist in the same place at the same time. Sort of in the same way you can get a split screen on your telly.”
“Cool.” Though I had to wonder at where Kermit got his techno-knowhow from. It wasn’t like he could just walk into a local Dick Smiths and bend the ear of the experts. “So what types of demons are there?”
“Generally speaking, there are lesser and greater demons. The greater demons are all descended from the seven Lords and the lesser demons are irregulars that are rarely allowed to develop sentience. Like humans and animals, really.”
“Right. Lords?”
Kermit gave me an are-you-really-that-ignorant? look. “The seven Lords of Hell. I’m sure you’ve heard of them. Leviathan, Beelzebub, Amon.” He paused and eyed me with truckloads of significance. “Lucifer.”
“Lucifer? As in the Christian fallen angel?”
“Christianity certainly subverted the image of Lucifer for their own uses. Just like Christmas and Easter have pagan influences. Lucifer is the Demon King. The be all and end all of law and order in their realm. His six Lords are also his generals, when they aren’t bickering amongst themselves, that is. All trying to get the top position. Well, second to top, that is. None of them could ever knock Lucifer off his throne of skulls.” He shivered. “Lucifer is what the Demon Lords have nightmares about.”
“And to further the Christianity influence, the greater demons look like the classic angel? Great bod and wings to put Draper’s Icarus to shame.”
Kermit’s nervousness returned in full force. He jumped to his feet and snatched a femur from a pile by the wall, using it to poke at the walls.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure there’s nothing to overhear us.” He jabbed at the packed dirt viciously. “Can’t take any chances. Not again.”
Wow. Kermit was seriously packing. “What is it about demons that scares you so much? They’re tough, sure, but I’ve flattened this female once and a bunch of imps took her out last night. What’s your issue?”
Kermit stalled in mid jab. Slowly, he turned to face me. The torch light slashed across his face, throwing his already stark features into a mosaic of sharp angles.
“You mean you knocked about the body she was possessing, right.”
There was no question in his words. It was desperate certainty that made it a statement of fact. He was so anxious I almost lied. Almost.
“No. This was a full on, angelic shape. No hint of humanity about her at all.”
Kermit stared at me, swallowed, then turned back to the dirt wall. He pushed into it with both hands. I ran over and grabbed his shoulders.
“You are not disappearing on me again,” I growled. “I can’t follow you into solid dirt.”
“No, and hopefully she won’t, either. I’m going to the Arctic. I hear it’s nice there this time of year. Very cold. Lust demons don’t like the cold.”
He pulled a hand free of the wall and nearly sliced my face off with a razor sharp elbow. I got the message and backed off, but only far enough to pull my gun and slap the business end of it against his head.
Bullets are little danger to a ghoul. They can take a whole clip and keep coming—unless you get one right in the brain pan, and that can be tricky. Skulls as thick as bricks. Bullets tend to bounce right off. You’ve got to be either a great shot and get one in through an eye or willing to get close enough to put the barrel of your gun in its mouth. Sad to say, I’ve done the latter. It wasn’t pleasant. Their general body odour isn’t that crash hot, but their breath is a hundred times worse. But even if it doesn’t kill you, pain can be a big detriment to a lot of people… and other things.
Kermit froze. “Whoa! No need to get all Wesley Snipes on my arse. Come on, man. Put the piece away.”
Lord, his pop culture references were as stale as his fashion sense.
“I will if you’ll just quit this pussy footing around and tell me what’s got you so freaked.”
He resisted for a moment and I pressed the barrel a bit harder. With an anguished grunt, he pulled his hands from the wall and stepped back.
“Okay, okay. You’re dumb and brutish, but persistent, I’ll give you that.” One soil encrusted finger with a yellow nail stabbed the air between us. “But you will swear to not let on that I’m here. I mean it, Night Caller. I don’t want you leading those crazy demons to me.”
“Of course not.” As a sign of goodwill, I put the Cougar away.
Kermit began to pace. “You might have knocked this demon on her arse, but don’t go thinking for even a second you caused it any lasting damage. Demons might not be immortal, but they’re tougher to kill than flared jeans. Imps are the only known predator of the greater demons and even then, they rarely get lucky enough to take down a grown one.” He cut me a glare so pointed I nearly dodged. “Not even a Primal is guaranteed to take out a demon.”
That gave me a little pause. “Not even Aurum?”
“Not even. All seven Primals together might get the job done, but when’s that ever gonna happen, huh? Get more than one Primal in a room and they don’t care who else is there. Lucifer himself could be handing out cocktail franks and they wouldn’t even notice.”
I swallowed that one with more than a little reluctance. “So they’re tough to kill, I get it.”
Kermit snorted, an admirable feat when one doesn’t have a nose beyond two slits in the middle of one’s face. “No, you don’t get it. Killing them isn’t the issue. We Old World scum haven’t got a chance against demons so we don’t even try. The problem with demons is that when they show, it’s to cause chaos. You thought the Violet Primal and Martínez were trouble? The mischief they caused is nothing compared to what your average demon does before he brushes his teeth in the morning. And Asmodeus is as far from average as you can get.”
Then, as if realising he’d just admitted to knowing Victoria’s secret, Kermit slapped both hands over his mouth and ducked behind the coffin couch.
“Asmodeus?” I asked mildly.
“Don’t say his name,” Kermit hissed. “Names have power. He can be summoned by his name and trust me, we don’t want him here.”
Two, large eyes peered at me from over the top coffin. “His title is Lord of Lust.”
Lust.
Oh goodie.
“So he’s one of those Demon Lords you mentioned before.”
Kermit scanned the lair and reluctantly got back to his feet. “Not just one of the Lords, the Lord. Second in command. Lucifer’s right hand man. Not someone to be trifled with.” He waggled a meaningful finger at me.
As if I would... given a choice. Thing was, choices seemed a little thin on the ground lately.
“Why are you happy enough to blather on about Lucifer and the other Lords but won’t let me say this geezer’s name?”
“Sometimes,” Kermit mused to the wall, “I wonder how he makes it through the day, being as stupendously stupid as he is. Perhaps it’s all just an act. Play the buffoon and lull everyone into a false sense of security before whipping out his stealth ninja moves or cutting them emotionally with his precise, split a hair lengthways wit.”
I let him carry on for a while. Seemed like he needed the release. All that pent up stress can’t be good, not even for things like Kermit. I mean, ulcers probably wouldn’t bother him so much, but the psychological symptoms could get ugly.
When he’d exhausted his litany of mild insults, I said, “So?”
Sighing, the ghoul said in a patient tone, “Lucifer is in his own realm. He can’t hear us talking about him, unless he really, really wants to. The Lord of Lust, however, is here. Ears like satellite dishes. Picks up anything of interest to him and he’s really, really interested in himself. Get it?”
“Could you say it in simpler terms?” I muttered. “All right. So this As... Lord of Lust is here as well as the female.”
Kermit gave me the stop-before-you-hurt-yourself hand. “No. If the Lord of Lust was here in physical form, you wouldn’t be here asking me about him. You’d probably be dead.”
“He’d have to find me first.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t have to come after you himself.” Kermit gave me a long, once over and narrowed his eyes. “Has Mercy been around this female demon?”
Night Call (Book 2): Demon Dei Page 17
