The Devil You Know

I felt sick and sore, but also restless and uneasy. I couldn’t leave it alone, but I couldn’t make it go anywhere useful. Raising a succubus wasn’t an easy thing to do, or a safe one. Okay, it was true that she didn’t need to have been called and bound for any one particular purpose; it could just be coincidence. I tried that idea on for size. The thing that called itself Juliet had picked me at random from the slow-moving river of unaccompanied men that flowed through the West End of an evening. She didn’t know who I was, and she didn’t care.

Yeah, it was possible. Obviously, it was possible. She belonged to a predatory species, and although they lived somewhere else, they were known to use the Earth as a hunting ground. But Asmodeus had warned me—and warned Pen, too, telling her enough so that she could arm herself in advance. You’re going to take this case, and it’s going to kill you. Unless there were even worse horrors waiting in the wings, Juliet had to be what he was talking about—and this attack had to be related in some way to the archive ghost.

I found Pen down in the basement, which was where I expected her to be. She was feeding Arthur and Edgar when I knocked and came in. The birds ate liver, which Pen bought in industrial-size freezer packs and thawed one piece at a time. Her hands were stained red brown with watery blood. She looked around, then nodded her head at a fresh mug of milkless tea that was steaming on the mantelpiece. I picked it up and took a long slug; I knew enough about Pen’s herbal remedies to take it with fervent gratitude.

“Where’s Matty?” I asked, my voice still creaking slightly.

“He left,” she said, sliding another sliver of meat into Arthur’s clashing beak as Edgar cawed loudly for parity. “I’m sorry I hit him. Especially after he came out in the middle of the night to make sure you were all right. It was just—I think I was on edge after”—the pause stretched—“after seeing that thing.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “My brother believes in the mortification of the flesh. He should have thanked you.”

She made no answer.

“And I am,” I added. “Thanking you, I mean. When you barged in and did your Reservoir Dogs number, I was running out of breath. A few moments later, and I’d probably have been running out of internal organs, too.”

Pen was staring at me with troubled eyes.

“I’ll pay for the window,” I went on, conscious of the fact that I was only speaking to fill up the silence. “I’m wrapping up a job right now, so I’ll have seven hundred quid coming through in a day or so. That should more or less cover it, wouldn’t you say?”

She shook her head, but it wasn’t an answer to my question. “Fix,” she said woefully, “what the fuck have you got yourself into?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know what I’ve got myself into. But I’d like to start finding out.”

“It’s just a straight exorcism, isn’t it? What’s the problem?”

I opened my empty hands—a minimalistic shrug. “I think it got personal.”

“Oh Christ, don’t say that!” Pen looked genuinely unhappy, and I could guess what she was thinking.

“Not like with Rafi,” I said. “It’s just—I almost fell down forty feet of stairwell last night, only this ghost waded in to stop me.”

“The ghost—”

“Right. And tonight, some bastard lets a succubus off the leash and gives it my scent. I want to know what I’m doing and who I’m doing it to. I want to know what else is at stake here.”

She nodded slowly. “All right,” she said. “I can understand that.”

I pressed my advantage. “Pen, I hate to ask this, but would you be up to driving me somewhere? I don’t think I’d be safe behind a wheel right now.”

The discreet door on Greek Street was closed and locked, but there was a light on in a third-floor window. Right now, at four in the morning, someone was doing a photo shoot, or having their head massaged, or being spiritually healed. There’s a whole lot of sterling work that goes on while the city sleeps.

“And this Gabe McClennan is an exorcist,” Pen demanded. “Like you?”

“He’s an exorcist,” I allowed. “The rest of what you just said was actionable slander.”