Catching Hell

by D. B. Sieders

  And there it was. The elephant in the room, the one I didn’t like to talk about. Hannah had come to me as a child. I always assumed I’d been born bad. I’d survived, thrived even, making me a great host. Did that confirm it, my worst fear?

  I was evil. Something about me was wrong, twisted, and wicked enough to deserve a demon as horrible and powerful as Hannah.

  I didn’t voice the thought aloud, mostly because I didn’t want to set Boice off on a tirade against demon speciesism. I knew they weren’t all bad, just like I’d always figured angels, aka celestial realm citizens, weren’t all good. Of course, I’d never actually met a celestial. They didn’t deign to associate with demon hunters. But still, tempter demons always targeted humans who suffered from some major character flaw. Lacey’s demon had targeted her on account of a compulsion to shoplift, and Murkowski had a gambling problem. Mara inspired and fed on lust, like others of her kind.

  While Boice and Roice had no hosts, their mischief and mayhem came from stirring the pot of human greed, anger, and envy, while other demons had a taste for pride, despair, and sloth. The seven deadly sins were real, and it helped tempters gain access to vulnerable hosts and targets.

  What about powerful demons and their hosts?

  And what was my sin?

  To deflect, I giggled and asked, “Does this mean I’m the chosen one?” That would be so cool. “I don’t have a scar or anything, but I could use a badass wand to defeat an evil wizard.”

  Lacey groaned along with my roomies while Alexi looked confused. D didn’t react, but he’d been gone for a while. I’d give him a pass on pop culture references.

  “You’re too old to be the chosen one. How about you go on a side quest for sobriety first?” Boice said, high-fiving his twin.

  Whatever. I wasn’t drunk. I could hold my liquor like nobody’s business.

  And I was young at heart, damn it. Why was it always some teenager who got to save the world? Why not an almost-thirty career woman who worked for clandestine supernatural police forces?

  “What about Alexi?” I said, pleased with my flash of brilliance in the midst of intoxication. “He’s been inhabited by his demon a long time.” I turned to face my colleague. “How old are you?”

  He ducked his head. “I’m thirty, but I have only carried the demon since I was fifteen. The wolf is…different. He has more compatibility with people than other demons. Those who are afflicted can live as long as normal humans, if not as happily.”

  My heart broke a little more for Alexi. After losing control of his wolf demon back in high school, he’d become a hermit. When the boss found and recruited him, he was withdrawn and depressed, convinced no one was safe around him. At least the boss had given him the tools and skills to better control the wolf.

  He’d done nothing to deserve his fate. His horrible Russian mafia thug father had cursed him with the wolf demon. If I lived through this, I swore I’d find a way to help the guy. He deserved a shot at happiness.

  “I’ll see what else I can dig up on Belial with your roomies,” Trinity said, ignoring both my excellent suggestion and the twins’ snark. That lady was all business. “The boss’s grimoire is missing several pages, and my demon guide hasn’t worked out how to fill in the gaps.”

  “What?” I did fall out of my chair then, but a rush of adrenaline and anger had me on my feet and ready to rumble. “That sneaky bastard. He tricked me.” Of course he had. Freakin’ demon.

  For once, Boice didn’t automatically rush to the defense of his fellow demon, and the rest of the team seemed to share my outrage. Still, I could’ve kicked myself. I should’ve checked the book before leaving HQ. I should’ve been more specific about terms in conditions while negotiating with the boss. I should’ve seen this one coming.

  I flopped into my chair and put my head in my hands. Trinity’s voice snapped me back to attention. “It’s a setback. Shake it off. We’ll find a work-around.”

  I jerked my head up, a move I regretted as soon as my gorge rose. When had the room started spinning? It took a minute, but once Trinity’s face came back into focus, I met her gaze. She smiled and said, “And you’re forgetting one thing.”

  “What’s that?” I had a sneaking suspicion she wasn’t going to confirm my status as the chosen one, but I held out hope.

  “What you did to break free of the boss’s hold, when you were trying to save Mara. Hannah didn’t help you with that, did she?”

  “No, she didn’t.” I’d known the power I’d manifested was not something from Hannah or the demon realm, but I’d been a little too preoccupied with the case to consider the implications. It could come in handy if and when I could call it to my service, since it had already helped me to stand up to BBB, had allowed me to keep Hannah from being ripped out of me, and had kept Mara from bolting. “That was pretty badass, right?”

  “I’ve never seen or felt anything like it.” Mara spoke, her sexy voice filled with awe and wonder. “It was some sort of magic and powerful. Have you done anything like that before?”

  “Not really.” But then I remembered something. One night just before the boss found me and we’d struck the bargain that gave me control of Hannah, work as a demon hunter, and get help looking for D, I had lost control of Hannah.

  It was the night I’d lost D.

  In a rush of panic, I’d been gripped by a sudden surge of power that had scared me almost as much as Hannah’s rage. It helped me regain control and bury her so deep into my subconscious, it had taken the boss to coax her back out. When he pulled her back to the surface, she had no memory of what she’d done, or maybe what we’d done. Since I’d never managed anything like that again, I hadn’t given it much thought.

  “Wait,” I said, deciding to share with the class. “Once, when I was younger and lost control of Hannah, I got the same feeling and…power surge, for lack of a better description. It put me back in the driver’s seat then, and I kind of, sort of think it helped me keep her from being nabbed by Mephisto last night. What does it mean? Do you think it has something to do with Belial’s interest in me?”

  “It might. I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out.” Trinity had that hungry look in her eyes. She loved nothing more than a fact-finding mission, a reason to expand her vast knowledge of demons and their ways.

  “I’ll keep working the summoner angle and reviewing video and magical surveillance from the portal,” Lacey said. “If we can figure out who’s working with the summoner and with Mephisto, maybe we can find out who else is in on this. I’m sure this demon lord has a backup plan to get you and your demon into the hell realm.”

  I gulped, suddenly nauseated, and not just from the shots. “Good call. Thanks.”

  Turning to Alexi, I said, “Would you mind keeping an eye on my family? If things go south, I’ll need to move them to a safe location. I’ll give you the details later.”

  Alexi smiled, glowing as if lit from within. “I am honored that you trust me with your family’s protection. I will do all in my power to keep them safe.”

  “As will I,” D said. Of course he would. He’d grown fond of my mom and sister while hiding out in my childhood home, protecting all of us from the nastier supernatural forces most humans didn’t know about. Looked as if he’d appointed himself our protector once more.

  I gave both gorgeous guys on my team a bright smile and then remembered my conversation with D from earlier. “Hey, what happened with that summoner you interrogated?”

  D flashed a wicked grin. “I locked him up in a warded safe house and told him I’d be back for round two of Q and A tonight. A couple of associates are guarding him. I’ve sent Lacey what I’ve got so far. I couldn’t get him to share the identity of the woman who approached Murkowski. Yet. But he will.”

  The way he said “yet” made me shiver. It was easy to forget what he was sometimes. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I was glad he was on my side.

  “We can check out his known associates and
ties to the demon realm,” Lacey said. “Text me the address, and I’ll ask Simon to try to get more information out of him.”

  D fired off a text to Lacey, and Lacey fiddled with her phone while we reviewed other open cases and demon hunter business. Research, she said. She wasn’t fooling anyone. Online shopping, most likely, or one of those time-suck game apps. Gen Z was not sly.

  “Well, I’d say that’s great progress.” I was just about to adjourn the formal meeting in favor of dinner when Trinity spoke again.

  “You’re forgetting something else. Your demon. She let Mephisto go, and if she’s part of what Belial wants, we need to know why she let him go and what he told her.”

  No kidding. I hadn’t forgotten. Hannah was just refusing to cooperate.

  “Yeah, about that,” I said, taking another shot. “Hannah and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms right now. And she wouldn’t give up anything about Mephisto to the boss. Not sure she’ll do it for me.”

  Trinity gave me a glare that could bring a dragon demon to its knees.

  “What? I’ve been trying, I swear.” Geez, first I was the chosen one, then I wasn’t because of ageism, then I might have had some awesome extra mojo that has nothing to do with my demon, and apparently, I was the hell realm’s most wanted military recruit? It was enough to make my head spin. Damn it, I needed more brain space or a clone to figure this stuff out. “I begged her to spill the deets about Mephisto, but she won’t do it. She says it’s not safe for me to know yet, or that I’ll figure it out in time—something like that. It’s all very confusing. I think I need some diagrams.”

  Trinity leaned back and gave me a look that seemed a tad judgmental. “Well, you’d better get on speaking terms fast. You’ve got four more days to solve this case. I’d suggest you get started.”

  D, who’d been glancing at his phone, jumped up fast enough to knock over his chair and said, “Son of a bitch!”

  “What?” I asked, head spinning. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.

  “The guards I set to keep an eye on the summoner just texted. Summoner’s gone. Bastard got out of the safe house.

  Double fuck.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We’d driven around until the wee hours of the morning, every pothole, sharp turn, and sudden acceleration ricocheting through my inebriated brain until my skull pounded with the mother of all headaches. I wasn’t sure how D was tracking Keith Pendergrass, aka shady summoner serving the scum of the demon realm underbelly, who’d managed to get away. All I knew was his attempts at reenacting The Fast and The Furious 18 hadn’t gotten us anywhere so far.

  “Pull over,” I said as inspiration struck.

  “Are you going to throw up?” D was probably more concerned about his leather interior than the state of my stomach, but he complied.

  I opened the door and tried to step out, but a tight band across my chest stopped me.

  Damned seat belt.

  I extracted myself and stumbled onto the sidewalk, begging Hannah to give me a little more coordination than I could manage on my own. I normally held my liquor better than this, but that was Hannah’s doing. She wasn’t deigning to help me tonight. There was little in the way of traffic in midtown at the hour, and the streetlights illuminated one of the city’s green spots in the middle of the urban sprawl. My destination sat in the middle of the large park, and I focused on putting one foot in front of the other to get there.

  A hand landed on my shoulder and spun me around.

  “Hey, stop manhandling me.” I pushed at D’s chest in an effort to get away. “Don’t make me pull my knife on you.”

  “I don’t know where you think you’re going, but you aren’t going alone. Stay here and wait until I park the car.”

  He waited for me to nod before heading back to the muscle car and getting in. Once he’d turned into the park’s entrance, I sprinted across the grass and over a few demons disguised as homeless humans as I headed for the large building ahead. Its thick columns and stone roof, a throwback to a long-ago time and faraway land but somehow fit the eclectic Nashville cityscape. The near-perfect replica of the Parthenon was also a hotbed of paranormal activity of the demon variety.

  There was a demon bar hidden beneath it. If I was a summoner on the run, I might look for a place to hide among the patrons of this shady establishment, particularly if Mephisto or Belial had allies in the local community. Or maybe some of the locals could give me some intel.

  While I considered waiting for D, I figured it couldn’t hurt to go in and see if any of my contacts had some information. Climbing the steps, I scanned the columns for a glowing sigil marking the entrance to the bar. After two tries, I finally got my hands in the right position and muttered the incantation that opened the hidden door. With a deep breath, I stepped inside and fell.

  Once I landed in the underground chamber, I pulled myself up, dusted off my ass, and made my way down the musty tunnel. A few demons loitered in the nooks and crannies, their glowing eyes watching my every move. Hunters weren’t popular here for obvious reasons, but as long as they didn’t make a move against me, I’d be happy to leave well enough alone.

  But I kept my hand on the hilt of my knife just in case.

  I followed the glow of neon that illuminated a sign reading “The Hellbound.” The entrance to the bar was a stone boulder guarded by a burly, winged demon roughly the size of a linebacker.

  He took one look at me and said, “No.”

  I sized him up and crossed my arms, sighing internally. Why was it always a pissing contest with these clowns? “Mishkinis, I’m not in the mood for your bullshit tonight. Let me in.”

  “No.”

  Leshy demons made excellent guards, and this particular import from Eastern Europe took his job seriously. Last time I’d seen him, he’d been working as a bouncer in the human world. Like Mara, he could shape-shift and blend. Maybe he was moonlighting at The Hellbound, but I suspected he’d lost his job after use of excessive force. Impulse control wasn’t his strong suit.

  “Dude, I’m not after any of your buddies. I’m looking for a loose cannon summoner who’s been letting unauthorized big baddies through his portal. Know anything about that?”

  He snorted, but the slight flicker in his glamour told me I was on the right track. I needed to get in that bar, but I didn’t want to get Mishkinis in trouble. I liked the guy. Plus, I owed his wife a favor. She’d helped me catch a bog beast demon off the Natchez Trace and let me keep the bounty.

  Without warning, I lunged forward and slapped the flat of my blade against the leshy’s arm. He howled and threw a punch, but only caught air as I ducked and slid underneath him. I got in a few good slices as I went, weakening the demon, but it wasn’t enough. He spun and flung himself on me, his weight crushing and immobilizing.

  If that wasn’t enough, the stench of the creature was almost enough to make me lose my tacos.

  Mustering my training, I went limp and pretended to be unconscious. After an agonizing few moments, Mishkinis slowly lifted his bulk off me. Using scent and sound, I formed an image in my mind of the demon, the location of his buff arms, and the vulnerable spot at his throat. This would take finesse since I didn’t want to kill him. When he exhaled, I struck, slicing a thin line from his chin to his collarbone that made him fall backward. Struggling against aching ribs, I straddled the demon and slammed the hilt of my knife against his thick skull, knocking him unconscious.

  “Sorry,” I panted. “Nothing personal.”

  Standing on shaking legs, I did my best to wipe off the dust and grime covering my clothes and slipped into the bar.

  Aside from a collection of horned, scaly, and tailed demons, the bar resembled a standard earth establishment. I slid into a booth near the door and did a scan of the room. A vamp or two stood out in the crowd, but they weren’t my jurisdiction. At a nearby pool table, a winged man with bright blond hair, a hooked nose, and a wicked smile flirted with a petite woman who, despite her unassuming
appearance, radiated power. She struck the cue ball and sank three solids, earning a high five and smoldering kiss from the winged man. Elemental Fae. Generally not a problem. An incubus sat at the granite-topped bar nursing what looked like a champagne cocktail. When he caught my eye, his glamour shifted, and he turned into D’s doppelgänger.

  I giggled but shook my head no. Not looking for a date tonight. Some of the bar’s other supernatural patrons could hook up with an incubus and walk away relatively unscathed, but I had too much human in my lineage to risk it.

  The laughter in my throat died when the real D appeared out of nowhere and slid into the booth across from me, expression murderous.

  “You should smile,” I said brightly. I pointed at the incubus. “See, he’s really pretty when he smiles.”

  “Is this a joke to you?” Mr. Grumpy’s jaw was clenched so tight he’d probably crack his back molars. Hopefully consulting came with a good dental plan.

  “No, obviously not. I had to wrestle a leshy to get in. I’m trying to find the summoner.” I’d been super helpful on the drive over, too, asking D where he’d last seen the summoner and if he’d checked his pockets. Then I might or might not have asked if I could check his pockets for him.

  Sadly, he hadn’t let me.

  I didn’t think he’d let me anytime soon. “Damn it, Jane. I told you to wait. We’re supposed to be working together.”

  “We are,” I said distractedly. I’d spotted what looked like a human in the middle of a cluster of imps. “Any sign of this Pendergrass guy?”

  “Yeah, he’s here, and I’m going after him. You stay put.”