Sympathy for the Devil (24 page)

"Well, there
is
your little porn problem."

"Hold it - Astaroth's cool with that. He
must
be."

She turned her head on the pillow and gave him one raised eyebrow. "Because he hasn't dragged you back to Hell for the time you've spent at
Lesbian Schoolgirls dot com
?"

With everything that had happened to him, on Earth and in Hell, Peters wouldn't have thought himself capable of blushing. He would have been wrong.

Her laughter was gentle. "Oh, don't feel bad about it, honey. It's very well done, for that kind of niche porn. Really quite arousing."

Peters looked at her. "You, uh, like girls?"

With mild exasperation she said, "I'm the woman of your dreams, am I not? Everything you've ever wanted in a female?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

She gave his thigh a stinging slap. "Wrong answer."

"Ouch! Yeah, okay, you're the woman of my dreams."

"And does the woman of your dreams like girls?"

"Well... yeah."

"Then, Q.E.D., I like girls."

"Q.E.D.?"

"
Quod erat demonstrandum
. The Latin equivalent of
Duh!"

"Sorry," Peters said. "Don't mean to be dense."

"It's all right. In fact, if you work really hard, like a good little assassin..." She slowly ran one index finger lightly along his thigh where she had slapped him, with a very different result. "... some night we can actually call Elegant Evening Escorts. We'll have them send over one of their girls who does couples, and have ourselves a nice threeway."

She might have been discussing a recipe for pot roast.

"Or," she continued, "you can just watch me with her, if that turns you on - oh, right, you're male. Of
course
it turns you on."

"
Quod erat demonstrandum?
"

Another tinkle of laughter. "Touché, Peters. Touché. We may make a wit of you yet."

"Wait -
some night
? You mean, this isn't just a one-shot?"

"Afraid not, sweetie. I'm assigned to you for the duration. I hope you don't snore."

"You're
assigned
to me - assigned to do
what
?"

She ticked the points off on her fingers. "One, to lend my not inconsiderable intelligence to any problem that may arise which you can't solve yourself; two, to keep you focused on your work and away from ten-minute 'porn breaks' by keeping you so sexually satiated you will consider porn a waste of your time; and three, to provide my assistance, as needed, in carrying out the assassination of Senator Howard Stark and sending that importunate bastard Sargatanas back to Hell where he belongs."

Peters looked at the ceiling for a few seconds. "And, four, to take me back to Hell when the assignment's over?"

She shrugged her elegant shoulders. "I don't have orders on that yet. We'll have to see what develops."

More silence, until he said, "And if you already had instructions to drag me back with you, you'd lie about it, wouldn't you?"

"Naturally. Would you expect anything else?"

"So, I won't know if you're taking me back until it's all over, one way or the other?"

"I'm afraid so, sweetie."

"Well, it's not like I have any choice, is it?"

"Nope - none at all."

"What are you, anyway - a succubus?"

This time, her laughter held derision. "Those simple little fucktoys? Not hardly, my dear man. Not hardly."

"Then what -"

"I am a demon of the fourth rank, three choirs down from Astaroth. He is one of those just below my Lord Lucifer, of course."

"Wait a minute - Astaroth told me he can stay here for only twenty-four hours at a time."

"He spoke truly - unusual for him, when addressing a human."

"He has to go back to Hell, but you can stay? That doesn't make sense."

"It does, in a perverse way. Astaroth, as I said, is a demon of the first order. He had once been high among the ranks of angels, and was one of Lucifer's generals during the Late Unpleasantness."

"Yeah, I guess I heard about that... back there."

"Having been so favored by, um, you know, his defection was that much more of an offense. To the greater offense goes the greater punishment. Astaroth's suffering is thus more severe than mine in every respect, including the amount of time he can spend in this plane of existence."

Peters lay there for a full minute, trying to wrap his mind around these cosmic truths that were being revealed to him - in bed, by a hot, naked woman who wasn't really a woman at all.

Finally he said, "Since telling the truth isn't part of your job description, I'm guessing that the name you gave me earlier isn't true."

"No, but it's close enough. I am known in Hades as Ashur Badaktu."

She leaned over and gently brushed her lips against his. "But you may just call me Ashley."

After that, Peters could not think of any more questions. For a while.

Libby Chastain's flight into JFK had benefited from a tailwind and actually touched down five minutes early. She rescued her suitcase from the baggage return and grabbed a cab that let her off in front of her building a few minutes before 9:00 in the evening. She paid the driver and stepped out into a cold wind that was in marked contrast to the mild temperature of Austin.

Libby was glad she'd made the trip. Quincey Morris had not been quite his old self when he'd dropped her off at Stephen F. Austin, but he seemed to be well on the way. She hoped his Secret Service buddy might have something for him, as long as it wasn't too strenuous or harrowing. He needed to prove to himself that he was still good at what he called the 'ghostbusting' business. Even better would be a case the two of them could take on together.

In the lobby, the elevator was about to close in her face when a man's arm came between the doors and made them reopen. Libby stepped inside and found that the arm's owner was a quiet man in his forties who, she knew, lived on the floor above her condo. She saw that the man, whose name she thought might be Victor, was accompanied by an attractive redhead a little younger than he, whom Libby had also seen around the building.

"Thank you so much," she said to the man, although she let her smile take in the woman, too. "This elevator's so slow, I might've had a long wait until it came back down."

"No trouble at all," the man said. "You're on nine, aren't you?"

"Yes, thanks," Libby said and watched him press '9,' followed by '10.'

She knew the trip would take a while. Might as well be friendly. "I've seen both of you in the building, but we've never met." She put out her hand to the man. "I'm Libby Chastain."

The man shook hands and smiling said, "I'm Vince Cook. And this is my wife, Donna."

"Libby shook the woman's hand, too. It was warm, as if her body temperature might be a little higher than average.

Vince nodded toward Libby's suitcase. "Looks you've been away," he said. "Someplace warm, I hope."

"Actually, I was," she said. "Not the tropics, exactly, but I've been in Texas visiting a friend. It's brutal down there in summer, but very nice this time of year. Quite a contrast with New York right now."

"I hate the cold," Donna told her. "We try to get away for a couple of weeks every winter. We adore Jamaica - such gorgeous beaches."

"I've only seen it in the movies, but it looks fantastic," Libby said.

"There's a resort we stay at every year," Vince said. Libby detected a very slight change in his tone as he said, "It's called Hedonism Two."

Libby nodded. That name rang a bell, although she wasn't sure why. Something she had read somewhere.

"We're leaving a week Sunday,' Donna said. "I can't
wait
."

The elevator was just passing the fourth floor. As she glanced at the floor indicator, Libby said, just to be saying something, "You must have your bathing suit already packed."

She caught the quick look the two gave each other, along with the small smile of a shared secret.

"Well, no, not really," Donna said casually. A pause. "You don't need a bathing suit at Hedo. Nobody wears them."

Libby nodded and said "Oh," as if it all made perfect sense to her. A moment later, it did. She remembered what she had seen in a magazine article once. Hedonism Two was a swingers' resort. Libby had never been to such a place, and would probably never want to go, but still, it sounded... interesting.

She looked at the floor indicator again, and saw that the elevator hadn't made much progress. From the corner of her eye she saw Vince and Donna look at each other again, and thought she saw a small nod from Vince.

"Now that we've met, Libby," he said, "why don't you come up for a drink - once you've had a chance to unpack and freshen up, I mean."

"Yes, please do," Donna said. "We'd
love
to get to know you better." Her voice was pleasant, no more, but Libby thought she detected a hint of something else.

Libby looked at the attractive, middle-aged couple for a moment before responding. She thought she knew what was being offered, and it was more than a drink and casual conversation. This was something Libby had heard about, but not tried. Yet. She could always plead fatigue or a headache, and say she was going to bed, alone.

What came out of her mouth was, "Thanks, I'd love -" and that's when her phone began to fill the small space with a light, bouncy piece of music.

"Excuse me," Libby said. She pulled out her phone and looked at the caller ID:
C. O'Donnell
. She pressed 'Answer' at once.

"Hi, Colleen."

"Hey, Libby," Colleen's voice said in her ear. "Listen, I need to talk to you about something pretty important. Can you spare some time?"

Libby knew when FBI Special Agent and Sister Witch Colleen O'Donnell said something was important, she wasn't talking about a recipe for lamb stew.

"I'm in the elevator in my building," she said, "heading up to my place. Can I call you back - say, in ten minutes?"

"That'll be fine, Libby. Thank you."

"Talk to you soon," Libby said, and ended the call. She looked at the Cooks, who seemed disappointed. So was Libby - at least, she thought she was.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but this is pretty important. Work stuff. How about a rain check - on the drink, I mean?"

"Of course, absolutely," Donna Cook said, pleasantly, and her husband nodded.

"Stop by any time," he said.

As the elevator finally reached Libby's floor, Vince Cook said, "Your ring tone sounded kind of familiar, Libby, but I can't place it."

"I heard it somewhere, too, years ago," his wife said. "It's from some old TV show, right?"

"Right," Libby said. "A relic from the Sixties, but I kind of like it." She stepped out onto her floor, pulling the suitcase behind her. Looking back at the Cooks as the door closed, she winked and said, "
Bewitched
."

Chapter 23

"It was just by the weirdest fluke that he was found at all, let alone so soon after... after he was killed." Bat Masterson shuddered, despite himself.

The Maine State Police had sent him a copy of their case file pertaining to the unlawful death of Joseph R. Bowles. It had included the autopsy report, as well as all the photos taken at the crime scene. Masterson didn't investigate homicides. His job was to prevent murder, not look at it. He had been a street cop for several years before joining the Secret Service, but even that had given him exactly zero experience with the kind of hell depicted between the covers of that manila folder.

Masterson hoped he'd live long enough for those images to fade from his memory.

"Whoever killed him chose the location well, then," Quincey Morris said. "Apart from the effects of random chance, that is."

"Oh, sure. Deserted strip mall, closed for a couple of years, no houses nearby." He snorted his disgust. "As a place to torture somebody to death in privacy, it was just about perfect."

There was intermittent banging coming from down the hall, and a couple of male voices talking loudly. Morris got up from his desk and closed the office door.

"Sorry if I came at a bad time, Quincey."

"You didn't," Morris told him. "I'm just having some renovations done on the living room. I figured it was time for a change."

Morris sat down again. "So, how was this perfectly private torture chamber discovered so fast?"

"Maine Power and Light's computer alerted them that there'd been some power usage from a source that wasn't supposed to be using any."

"The deserted shopping center."

"Bingo. So they reported it to the realty company that owns the place, who figured it was maybe some homeless folks squatting on the property. The realtor called the local P.D. and reported possible trespassers. The Castle Rock police sent a car over and found - what I told you about."

"Wait - you said
Castle Rock
. That's where it happened? Castle Rock, Maine?"

"Yeah. So?"

"So nothing - probably. But some weird shit has been reported in and around that place over the years. It's almost like it is a nexus for..."

"For what?"

"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

"You were about to say evil, or dark forces, or something like that, right?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Well you can say it all you want around me, Quincey. This is the Bat, remember? Just because I never talk about it around the guys in the Service doesn't mean I forgot what happened in '02, back in Toledo."

"I know, Bat. It was just force of habit. I've learned to be cautious about what I say around law enforcement types. Even when the cops are the ones called me in, like they did that time in Toledo, most of 'em are one step away from labeling me a fraud and ignoring anything I say."

"Can't hardly blame them, man. Cops deal with the evil that men do every fucking day. They're not real inclined to worry about the supernatural kind."

"You were pretty open-minded, though, for a Patrolman Second Grade."

"One of the kids who went missing was my nephew, remember?"