Caitlin Kittredge - Dark Days

Jack shut his eyes. He had been fighting against his talent for so long that there was a moment, just a heartbeat or two, when there was nothing. Quiet reigned inside his head, and all he could hear was the tick and click of the wobbly house settling and the soft sounds of the girl and her client through the floor.

Then, like plunging into freezing water, the sight washed over him. It felt like biting a live wire, and Jack’s eyes flew open. The room was the same trashy wreck, washed now with the shimmering silver of the world that lived beyond physical sight, open only to the dead and those who could touch them.

A small boy, not more than ten, sat on the floor pushing a toy car back and forth. The marks on his neck were in the shape of fingers, and the veins in his eyes had burst, making them appear black in Jack’s washed-out vision. “I was good,” the ghost announced. “I didn’t tell. Why did he hurt me if I didn’t tell?”

“I don’t know, mate,” Jack said. “And I’m sorry. Nobody should get a shite deal like that.”

“I was good,” the ghost repeated in a singsong as he pushed his car across the ruined carpet. “I was good, I was good.”

Jack tried to blink the sad little spirit away. At least he wasn’t a hungry ghost, or a poltergeist, those dead who hadn’t taken the news of their demise well. An angry spirit could shred you like a turbine, and Jack had more than enough of those encounters under his belt. Now, he was after the memory Belial had planted in his subconscious.

He looked at the room again, seeing slices of what the place had been like decades before, hearing the wail of air raid sirens from the Blitz, the clatter of carriages on the street below, the tinkle of a piano from a long-ago party.

Psychic echoes existed in dozens, if not hundreds of layers in any place with more than a few years’ history, but now they kept Jack from what he was really after—the itch that the demon had planted in his brain.

Using his talent was like feeling along a wall in the dark, fingers rubbing over the echoes of the building. He felt the static of the spirits floating in his orbit, and something else, something shimmering among the many layers of psychic residue.

Jack pushed his talent toward the shimmering object that hung before his vision, grazing it like you’d test a hot pan before you picked it up.

Contact was all it took, though, and the demon’s memory unfurled like a poisonous flower. The room fell away, and Jack tried to ignore the pain in his skull and the heartbeat threatening to crack his breastbone. His talent was far too much for a human body to contain, and he’d always known it could simply clock him out with a heart attack or an aneurysm if he pushed too hard.

The visions of the future would end him sooner than that, though, so he bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood and kept his eyes open.

He no longer saw the tip, but a street deep in the City in Hell. A long black car, belching smoke from its exhaust pipes and sporting a goat-skull hood ornament, idled outside the sort of storefront church that Jack had seen by the dozens on his last trip to America. The blue neon hanging from the window was some sort of demonic sigil rather than a cross, but otherwise the feel was the same.

Outside, a variety of lesser demons crouched. Some were missing eyes or limbs; others held themselves and rocked back and forth while they cried softly.

They weren’t human, but Jack had seen plenty exactly like them on the streets of London. Desperate, broken, looking for solace in a made-up story gussied up with faith. When you had no hope left, faith was a strong drug. Jack felt sorry for the poor bastards, whatever this place was.

Belial stepped from the car wearing his usual black suit and white shirt, his ruby tie pin glowing in the blue light from the storefront. The demon didn’t go inside, just stood in the street and waited.

The sad bastards populating the pavement shrank back from him, and a few hopped or limped back into the shadows.

“I know you’re in there.” Belial’s voice could have cut glass. Jack didn’t think he’d ever seen the demon in such a full rage, and he was indescribably grateful it wasn’t directed at him. Whoever was in that church, Jack figured they’d have a puddle to clean up when this was all over.

“Do you?” A voice floated out from the church. “What else do you know, Belial?”

Belial’s jaw clenched, and Jack saw the muscles in his face jump. “That you don’t want me coming in after you,” the demon said.

The figure that emerged from the church looked entirely human. Jack didn’t know what he’d expected, exactly, but not that. The demons of the legions weren’t generally very pretty, ranging from the enormous Fenris to tiny imps that were little more than soot-smears. The two-legged, ten-fingered act, though … that was reserved for the Named.

“I suppose I don’t,” the new face said. “You aren’t famous for minimizing collateral damage, Belial. I’d hate for my flock to be injured.”

“Cut the shit,” Belial said. “You think it’s funny, stirring up the Fenris and getting them to betray Baal? You think convincing the Named that I’m behind it is some kind of bloody joke?”

There it was, then. The demon had gotten under Belial’s skin, and the Prince was looking for a little payback. Jack didn’t know why he was surprised. He thought Belial’s head might actually explode if the demon tried to tell the whole truth about anything.

“No,” said the other demon. “I don’t think anything about this is funny, Belial. And what Baal chooses to believe is his own business. Now the question you really should be asking is, why are you being distracted by a puny little rebellion in Hell?”

Snarling came from all around them, and in the shadows, Jack saw Fenris move. Nasty creatures, at least half a head taller than a man, they had long snouts and jaws, wolf’s teeth, and clawed hands made for ripping and tearing.

Belial’s eyes narrowed until all Jack saw was black, and his own lips peeled back from his shark’s teeth. “Is this your idea of an ambush, boy? It’s adorable.”

“You’re so preoccupied with holding on to that Triumvirate seat tooth and claw that you don’t see I’ve already won,” the demon said. His delivery was soft and hypnotic, and Jack recognized the particular cadence of an effective cult leader. “I’ve won the human world, Belial, and you’re too stupid to realize it.”

The Fenris approached, their heavy feet cracking the worn pavement, until they surrounded Belial and his car.

“And how exactly did you manage that?” Belial asked. Jack was sure, as he watched the memory, that he was the only one who saw a single transparent bead of sweat work its way down the demon’s temple.

The demon took something out of the pocket of his baggy trousers and held it up. It was a flat piece of metal, the size of a ruler, with a broken end. It looked like any old scrap you could pick up off the ground, and the only way Jack knew things had gone sideways was that Belial’s body got wire-tight.

“Where did you get that?”

“From the vaults, of course,” said the demon. “They’re really not all that impregnable, Belial. All it takes is enough of the rank and file who believe that something like this belongs in the right hands, and doors have a way of opening themselves.”

Belial took a breath in and out, smoothing a hand over his tie. Jack waited, watching the whole tension-strung scene play out, and thought, It figures . Jack had something from the vaults, but Belial had only told him half the story. He’d sent Jack flying in blind, and for once, Jack didn’t know why. Belial clearly knew this was serious. What possible motive could he have to not tell Jack his rogue demon possessed an artifact that had a Prince of Hell piss-scared?