Sympathy for the Devil (12 page)

"It's nice to see you again, Herr Horst. I guess it's been more than a year, hasn't it?"

"Eleven months, I believe," he said with a slight smile. "Your colleague, Agent O'Donnell, arrived a few minutes ago. If you would follow me, please?"

He led her to the table where he summoned a waiter to take her drink order, and disappeared back into the gloom.

She ordered a Scotch and soda, then turned to her friend and said, "Still sitting with your back to the wall, I see."

"It's a good rule," Colleen O'Donnell said. "If Wild Bill Hickock had followed it, he might've lived to a ripe old age. Or, at least, died with some dignity."

"Dignity or not, you still stop breathing when it happens." Melanie shrugged off her coat and tossed it on an empty chair. "So, how've you been, kiddo?"

"Not bad. Still fighting the good fight against the forces of evil. You?"

"About the same," Melanie said, "although I sometimes think the forces of evil are winning."

Her drink arrived, and Melanie took a sip, peering at Colleen over the rim of the glass. Then she put it down on the coaster and said, "What's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Chapter 11

Quincey Morris lived in a sprawling old Victorian house in the Bryker Woods section of Austin. As Libby's cab pulled up in front of it, a little after 10:00 in the morning, she felt her heartbeat accelerate.

She'd flown into town the night before, checked into the Hyatt, and called Quincey again. Still no luck.

Squinting against the slant of morning sunlight, Libby walked slowly up the red brick sidewalk leading to the house. She followed it around to the back, where she knew she'd find the clients' entrance. A peek through a garage window showed that his blue Mustang was in there. That didn't mean anything; if he were out of town on a case, he could have taken a cab to the airport.

The client door had a pewter knocker which was also a charm against demons. Libby should know - she'd installed it two years earlier. She knocked three times, waited, then gave it three more.
Nada
.

There was also a buzzer. She pressed the button, and kept her thumb on it for a count of thirty. More nothing.

Just means he's not home, that's all. No big deal. Probably.

The door was locked, of course, but Libby had come prepared to deal with locks. A brief incantation later, the knob was turning in her hand. There were wards around the doorframe, designed to repel anyone who came there to do Quincey harm. Libby had set those up, too, and they did not trouble her as she stepped inside.

She closed the door behind her and stood in Quincey's empty office. The room was pleasantly cool, which meant the central air conditioning was on.

It must cost a nice piece of change to cool a place this size. Why spend the money on an empty house? Not like Quincey to throw money away. Did he just forget? That's not like him, either.

Then Libby realized that she could hear voices, coming from several rooms away.

She had a black leather handbag hanging from her shoulder that contained a few things that you'd expect to find in any American woman's purse - and quite a few items that you wouldn't. She reached inside for the telescoping wand that had saved her life in Idaho. She extended the wand to its full length of fourteen inches, and a few whispered words made it active and ready for use. Libby didn't know who - or what - was in the house with her, but she wanted to be ready for trouble.

She left the office and walked softly down a hallway as she followed the sound of people talking. It seemed to be coming from the living room. As Libby got closer, she was able to make out the words. A man's voice, not Quincey's, was saying, "... tell ya, Billy, this here's about the worst wasp infestation I've ever seen. We're gonna have to be extra careful when we take this nest down, 'cause these suckers will attack en masse if we..."

Television. It's some dumb TV show. Did Quincey leave the set on?

Just because the TV was playing didn't mean that nobody was home. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Maybe somebody's house sitting? Can't be. Quincey wouldn't let somebody just have the run of this place. Would he?

She continued her stealthy journey down the hall until she was one step away from the living room entrance. Libby took a deep breath and let it out. Then she took that next step, turning to face into the room as she did so.

Libby Chastain stood in the entrance to Quincey Morris's living room, ready for anything - anything, that is, except for what she actually found.

He looked across the table at the demon Astaroth, whose disguise as a kindly old priest was so perfect that Peters was afraid some half-drunk Catholic coming off a bender was going to wander into the Capitol Café and ask this Prince of Hell to hear his confession.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" he said to the demon. "Messing with my head, feeding me information a little at a time, as cryptically as possible, to confuse the shit out of me."

Peters held up both hands, palms out, as if warding off a blow. "Okay, okay, you do what you're gonna do. I'm gonna hang in there and wait you out, because I know it's in your best interest that I understand what's going on. Since you want me to succeed in killing this Senator Stark for you, eventually you'll tell me what I need to know. In the meantime, have your fun - I can't stop you anyway."

The demon in priest's clothing nodded a couple of times. "Yes you're right, I have been enjoying myself with you. Torment is, after all, part of my nature. But we
are
wasting time, which you were wise not to say out loud."

He leaned over the table until his face was only a foot away from Peters. "We want you to kill Stark," the demon said, "because we want the plan to put him in the White House to fail."

"Who's 'we,' if you don't mind my asking."

"Me, Baal, Asmodeus, a few others who are capable of looking beyond the short-term gain and consider the ultimate consequences of this madness."

Peters just nodded.

"The immediate benefit of the plan's success is obvious," Astaroth said.

Not obvious to me, it isn't.
Peters nodded again.

"Stark, controlled by Sargatanas, becomes President, then uses the powers of the office to destroy you apes-with-souls once and for all. It won't be done with the kind of speed and certainty that an all-out nuclear exchange with the Soviets would have achieved, but there are still many paths to the goal. The President commands the armed forces, and hasn't had to bother with a declaration of war since 1941 - and ah, what a year
that
was."

"But Congress can still impeach him, if he does anything too -" Peters stopped, blinking rapidly. "How did I know that? Maybe things are starting to come back, after all."

"And about fucking time, too," Astaroth said. "Even if the fools in Congress were to act, by the time they could begin impeachment proceedings, it would be too late. The wheels would already be in motion, and unstoppable. Sargatanas would have almost an embarrassment of options. Worldwide release of some bioweapon perhaps, or a simultaneous nuclear attack on Russia and China, with immediate retaliation to follow. The precise means don't matter. The fact is, he would have the power to get it done."

"Yeah, I can see that," Peters said. "What I don't get is why you and the others are opposed to it. I don't remember anything much about Hell yet, but it seems to me like the kind of thing you guys would cheer."

"In some respects, you are quite correct. The destruction of you foul creatures, whose creation was the cause of the Rebellion that led to us being cast down, is a consummation devoutly to be wished. But there is one likely consequence of such a cleansing that we could
not
control, and which most of us do
not
want to bring about."

Peters just raised his eyebrows and waited.

"In a word," the demon said, "Armageddon."

Colleen O'Donnell was glad to see Melanie again. There had been twelve women in their class at the FBI Academy, and they had tended to stick together - among 80 men and the macho culture of the Bureau, there had been little choice, if you wanted to get through with your sanity and self-esteem intact.

Colleen had been a witch for years before she'd applied to the FBI, and she had not been afraid to use a little white magic from time to time during the course to help the other women, and herself. Nothing dramatic: a steadying of the hands during firearms qualifications, a little boost to the endurance while struggling through the obstacle course, a strengthening of resolve during those times when the pressure came on hard and the men (some of them, anyway) were watching and waiting for you to cry and quit.

It was due in only a very small part to Colleen's magical aid that every woman in her class had graduated. The same had not been true for the men. Colleen had not used magic against them - you can't use white magic to hurt others; that's one of the key distinctions in magic between the good guys (and gals) and the bad ones. Still, she and Melanie had exchanged a private high-five at the news that Joe Pavone (who liked to refer to the female students, among his buddies, as the Dykey Dirty Dozen) had failed Legal Procedures and been kicked out of the class.

The only thing to spoil Colleen's happiness in seeing her friend again was that today Melanie Blaise reeked of black magic.

It wasn't anything that the staff or patrons of Mac's Place would ever notice. Although Colleen thought of it as a smell, what she was experiencing was the psychic response of a trained sensitive in the presence of a spiritual malignity. In other words, black magic is so evil, it sticks to people like an aroma, and to a trained sensitive like Colleen it smells like nothing else in the world.

That's why she was staring, so intently that Melanie had noticed and been prompted to ask, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

No way could Melanie Blaise have taken up black witchcraft. No fucking way.

Melanie had put her drink down and was now looking across the table intently. "Colleen? Is something wrong?"

She couldn't have gone over to the Other Side. For one thing, she isn't twisted enough. Sure, she's got a nasty sense of humor, but it takes a lot more than that to embrace Evil as a lifestyle. I don't know what the fuck is going on here, but it's not that.

Colleen thought fast. Maybe she could make the gloom of Mac's Place work to her advantage. She tried for a reassuring smile.

"No, Mel, I'm sorry, I wasn't looking at you. See those two guys who are just being seated, over your left shoulder?"

Melanie glanced at the two men, then looked back. "What about 'em? They look like a couple of lobbyists, to me. But neither one's got two heads, far as I can tell. I thought I'd grown one for a second, the way you were staring."

Colleen shook her head. "The one with the glasses looked for a minute like a guy whose photo I've seen on the wall at Quantico."

Melanie's face went still. "Serial killer, you mean? Or something... worse?" She had heard stories about some of the cases that Behavioral Science was said to be investigating these days.

"Doesn't matter - he's not the guy. I'm sure of it, now that he's closer and I can get a decent look at him. Sorry for the drama."

Colleen took a sip from her Scotch and water, and tried for a casual tone. "So - watcha been up to, lately?"

Chapter 12

Nestor Greene checked his post office box every few days, hoping for an opportunity to make some money exercising his unusual skills - although those had been increasingly rare over the last seven months or so. Mostly what he got these days was junk mail and bills, both of which went into the same post office wastebasket.

But today, he had received a package.

Nestor Greene's salvation came wrapped in brown paper, and was the size of a shoebox. He waited to open it until he was back in his car, a silver-gray Jag XJ-6 that he'd bought four years ago, when he was flush. No one had been afraid to hire him then.

The box contained money and a sealed business-size envelope. He counted the money first, saving the envelope for dessert.

The cash amounted to ten thousand dollars, a figure he found so pleasing that he immediately counted the bills again.

Now the envelope. He used his car key to open the flap, which came up without much resistance, as if it had been glued only lightly. He tilted the envelope, and out fell three old Polaroid photos and a folded sheet of paper.

Nestor Greene looked at the pictures first. The colors were a bit faded by time, but the images remained clear enough: you could see who was doing what to whom. The faces in each shot were plainly visible, and one face in particular, which appeared in all three pictures, drew Greene's attention. It looked like a younger version of someone he had seen before but could not quite bring to mind.

Then he unfolded the sheet of paper that appeared to be a hand-written letter on engraved stationary. The ink, like the pictures, was pale with age but perfectly legible.

Greene looked back at the three photos, staring again at the face that had seemed vaguely familiar. It wasn't vague any longer.

"Well, well," he murmured. "So that's what we used to do for fun, back in the old days. Naughty boy. And we let someone take pictures of it all. Naughty
stupid
boy."

He slid the Polaroids and letter back in the envelope, replaced the envelope and money in the shoebox, and sat quietly, scratching his chin.

There were several ways he could play this to achieve the result his new employer wanted. Each approach promised its own interesting set of repercussions.

Greene leaned forward, started the Jaguar's engine, and watched the side-view mirror for a gap in the traffic. He would go home, relax a little, and consider the possibilities. He should be able to reach a decision by this evening; tomorrow he would act on it.

Nestor Greene waited until there were no cars coming up behind him, then pulled away from the curb. The powerful engine took the gray Jag quietly away, like a shark moving through still water.