Another day, another devil.

Rolling out of bed this evening was troublesome. At first I thought maybe one of those Sleep Paralysis demons were real, and were sitting on my chest, but no. It was the soreness.

Despite yesterday being mostly research, I still felt the soreness of my bones ringing in my head from the concussion the day before, as I looked at the ceiling, silently begging for death, I nearly jumped out of my skin at the fuckin' alarm clock going off.
Flinging myself off the bed, I stumbled across my messy bedroom to the alarm clock that I kept at the other side of it, so I got up an hour or three before sunset. I figured I needed a drop or two of vitamin D to keep me alive... So a little bit of late-afternoon sun would do that for me.

I stumbled downstairs to the timed-brew coffee pot I got for christmas from... someone? I can't rightly remember who now, better times maybe. I could never remember to ready the damn thing, so I started to scrub out the burned out coffee residue at the bottom, and began to brew my first pot of the morning. Looking out at the late-afternoon sun, I saw the quarter bottle of Jack, knocked over and still open from yesterday morning, knocked over my some songbird or another, practically emptied with barely a shot still in the bottle.

A scoff escaped me as the coffee machine let out its clarion call for all who seek caffeination, a little up-and-down tune that sounded as if it was crying out "Coffee's done. Coffee's Done." And I reached out for the full pot, and looked around the kitchen for a clean cup.

"Shit, when did it get this bad?" I said as I realized I was going to need to wash a cup in a full sink, too many days with little work and cheap booze usually meant that my house started to look worse and worse. It was only ever when I was on a job that I realized I needed to take care of things.

After roughly washing up a cup and pouring myself some black gold, sans whiskey today though not for lack of desire, I walked over to my table, also covered in junk and old dishes, contemplated for a moment trying to call up some sort of demon of anal-retentiveness to clean up, before I realized that even if that did exist, I certainly wouldn't want to hear one complaining about the state of my home.

I shoved off old papers and older bills thankfully most already paid by Stacy's down-payment, and pulled up an old cork board my grandad used to use for his cases.

Somewhere in the mess I found my tacs, red string, and scratch notes. Eventually I found myself a pen as well, and set to work lining things up.

Victim: Stacy, didn't get her last name.

Witnesses: Possibly her neighbor? Maybe a few bystanders? Gotta talk to Charlie about that.

Murderers: Easy, the Russian mob. Nah, too easy, and it makes no sense. Probably has something to do with these Wotanists I keep hearing about.

 Demons: Where the fuck is Lass?

Should check the black book and see if there is anyone else I could call.

From the research I had done, I discovered that the Wotanists weren't all white supremacisists, and they were also called by a whole swathe of other names, Odinists, Radical Heathenists, and a bunch of other titles. It seemed that the safest name most Nordic Pagans went for when they were trying not to be marked as racists was "Astaru" I recognized that name, a few folks in the homeless camp used to follow the Norse gods, and some of them called themselves by that title. Again, some of the most decent people I had ever met.

Looked to me like a bunch of actual assholes had shoehorned themselves into the faith, calling themselves warriors and battle brothers, like when a Southern Baptist is racist, and so all of Southern Baptist Christianity is equally racist by proxy. It's most likely a per-person thing, especially in a fast and loose faith like the Pagan ones. It is probably a small cell, three or four people maybe, with one sufficiently psychotic leader.

Small group, gotta be, too small a faith to have a big Supremacist group. Also if it is the Wotanists, why was the victim white?

I looked at the board again, and wondered at that last part.
The only reason the victim would have been targeted is if they knew Stacy had someone watching them. But why would they lash out so suddenly? Unless they knew I wasn't an ordinary private investigator, but I'm like, the joke number in the phone book, even some of the Pagan's thought I was joking, until I literally punched the demons off of them.

Someone in that group not only believes what I can do, but also had Stacy's phone bugged so they could tell if she called someone. Would they have done this if she had just called a friend? A coworker? A mundane P.I? The Police?

Does this have something to do with me? I added it to the board...

I shoved those doubts aside for now, there would be plenty of time for brooding over a fresh bottle of Jack when all this was over. I'm honestly surprised I don't have an addiction demon yet, maybe they are scared of me now.

I stepped away from the board, frowning at just how little I had to write down. God it's miserable how little you could actually get done in three days.

I looked at the "Demons" card, and decided I was going to have to call Lass up again.

If he was already on a job, like he should be, he just wouldn't get called back into the circle, I might get a spooky glow and a burst of sparks, hell's equivalent of a busy signal, but that's about it. So why did I feel so apprehensive as I descended into my basement?

I looked around the only truly clean room in my house, readied my blowtorch, candles, and pulled the band-aid off my old cut, it had healed over several times, and there was practically no fingerprint left from the sheer amount of scar tissue over it. Three years of cutting your fingertip would do that to ya.

I held out my hand, pushed the tip of the dagger into my hand, and spoke the name of my demon, and my friend.

A blast of sudden wind lashed across the room, reeking with sulfur, two candles were blown out in an instant. Something was wrong, I rushed to the blowtorch and started lighting candles as quickly as I could. A form rose from the center of my circle, blasting me with the scent of hell, rotten eggs and ammonia.

A sensation rose through me, a sudden unwholesome desire that was entirely unexpected and entirely unwelcome. My mental defences went up, shoving the alien sense of wanting down into a dark and cold part of my soul, as far down as I could muster. My training with Lass was keeping me alive for the most part, or I might have flung myself at the circle with wild abandon.

Standing in the center of my candles, another one of which having gone out, surrounded by silver, was a tall woman, with a deep purple skin tone, lips like lavender, eyes of pitch, and a body that men would tear each other apart for, and women would kill their men over. A gay man would go straight for her and a woman would go gay for her. This was really fucking bad, this was a demon of Lust, and judging by the "Come Hither" she was hitting me with, she was really high on the totem pole. She, like Lass, had a thing for the pirate novels apparently, and she wore something that would fit best in a Tortuga whorehouse, complete with tall buckled heels, her tail was long and whip-like, covered in thorns and tipped with a pitch black rose.

"Rodney." she said, god her voice, like dark-roasted-coffee, chocolate and brandy, smoke and sinew and promises. "So you are the one my XiXi has been called to so many times." XiXi? A nickname?

"Where's Lass?" I said as I moved towards the candle, lighting it again to ensure the barrier keeping me alive didn't fall. That fel whip of a tail nearly swished past my face and I swear I saw the air ripple as the barrier held against the motion.

"Rooodney." She spoke again, as if tasting something sweet. "I won't put any more out if you just talk to me a second."
Fuck... Fuck, this was bad, this was really really bad. I would just send her back but I don't know her name! I don't even know who the hell she is! And my latin has always been shit so it's not like I can exorcise her normally. If I don't get her out of here soon my defences are going to crumble, and she could tear me apart in ways I would enjoy...
No! NO! Focus Rodney!

"W-hat do you want!?" I said manfully.

"Aww, scared are we? Good... That makes this easy... See, Rodney, we have an issue here. You keep calling up my favorite subordinate, and he is starting to get worse and worse at his job. He used to be our best catfisher, able to make sure whoever got his texts did something deliciously awful to someone innocent, ruin just the right family's lives and ensure we get a very bad man to go to the very bad place with me..."

She shifted to the other hip, tail again whipping, her face and body said she was calm, but her tail was like a cats, cracking against the floor and scattering black petals all around the inside of my circle, and it gave away just how pissed she really was.

I gestured for her to go on when I realized she was silent. "And now my little devil of flirting has avoided such jobs like the plague. he hasn't brought in a soul of his own in nearly three centuries, the only soul he has brought with him was a bad man... sure, but too wrathful for me to claim.
I suspect he is growing a bit too much of a fondness for humanity, he is starting to like it up here, and he has outright refused to try any... Extracirricular activities, while up here."

She was talking about taking someones soul, someone unbaptized or otherwise inoculated against demons taking the soul from the unwilling, stealing it from under the nose of Death Angels. It was the main reason I called Lass and only Lass in the first place, any other demon might try to take too many opportunities to get ahead. Sure they almost always died trying, Angels of Death don't carry those scythes for nothing, but anything to get out of the dreaded "0th layer" Lass was always talking about.

"Lass doesn't like an easy take." I replied "He prefers a challenge."

The demon of Lust looked me up and down, held an arm out to the side as she spoke. "Challenges don't get me souls, challenges get me a one-night-stand or two that can be taken away with a prayer or confession. We need sinners who are much too far gone. People who are so utterly wicked that an angel might hesitate to forgive them. In short, we need monsters, not horny jocks."

She glared at the candles, which I realized were down to three still burning, and quickly re-lit them.

"I get that demons tell lies, its kinda your schtick, but at least make your tells less obvious, impatiently glaring at candles only reminds me of the stressful fucking situation I am in.
What do you want Demon?" I said, swapping out the slightly squashed candle for a fresh one, the smell of cinnamon and clove from the cheap red candles were starting to get cloying in here.

"I want to cut a deal." She finally replied. "I want to know what it is that is making my subordinate so insistent on being less bad. Humans don't do that very often. You people managed it with the Watchers, but those ones fell soon enough after. Humans rarely ever manage to un-demon a demon, and I want to know just why it is he likes you so much that he is willing to give Humanity as a whole a chance, why he is trying to serve them instead of crush them like it is our right to."

When she said crush, she tapped a heeled shoe against the ground, and one of the candles was pounded flat into the ground. I replaced it, lit it, and looked horrified at the other candles as each flame was nearly completely out, just barely puttering against this demon's strength of will.

"Please God, just this once... I can't make any promises, but please just let this wall hold..." I said a silent prayer in my head, and a small part of me was convinced the flames grew just that little bit stronger.

She bent down, face almost against the barrier as she did so, looking directly into my eyes with the pitch-black orbs that were hers. "I want a cut of whatever it is you give him, don't worry, his job will be to bring it right to me. And I want the full story of whatever it is you summon him for, right from his lips. I want to find out how he is keeping himself alive, and why his coworkers keep giving him enough souls to keep his quota steady. And if I don't like what I hear when he tells me, then I will cast him back into the Endless Black myself and hope someone new and better crawls back out."

"Why the hell would you tell me anyway? You could just kill him now without my permission."

"Oh, I could. But then I wouldn't get to find out any of the reasons why."

"Fine." I said. "Good...." She replied. "No." I said quickly. "That was not a statement of agreement Demon." I felt a heat building in my gut, suppressed by the barrier I was holding against my emotions, and realized the heat was rage building within, pure righteous fury at the very idea that this thing would dare to harm my friend.

"Fine, as in I will cut a deal with you, but it's on my terms." I didn't know what I was doing, but some instinct in me pushed that fury into the barrier that I held up, both the one in my mind, and in reality, the flames grew stronger at the tips of each candle.

"You get your story, you get your cut of the offerings. And if he changes his tale at all, or lies to you, you can kill him. But as long as what he speaks is Truth, you may not touch him."

"What keeps me from denying you Human? I could crush this circle and end you here and now!" All the honey and sweetness was gone from her voice now.

"Then do it." I said flatly, and I felt a wave of agony as she slammed against the wall, the candles melting into pools of wax around the floor, but the flames somehow remaining in place, holding their positions in the air around each point of the star.

"How?!? Still, you can't sit here and hold against me forever, that righteous fury will die out eventually, and I will make you enjoy every second I pry your fucking heart from your chest!"

She wasn't wrong, whatever I was doing, it was fading quickly, and it felt like I was losing something for every second that passed.

"Balance the deal if you must Demon, but kill me and your curiosity remains unslaked." Demons really dig the shakespearean shit, the more dramatic the better.

She glared at me, and I felt that well of power I tapped into quickly going dry. Seconds felt like minutes while the demoness made her decision. "Fine, I accept your terms. You have made an enemy this day Nephilim. And may thee rest fitfully, for I will not sleep, nor will I entertain a moments respite, until I have found a lie spoken by Lascivious, so I can return here and rip you piece by mouthwatering piece."

The last part was not sweet, not bitter, it was cold, flavorless, a promise made in a pool of crimson, wax or blood, it mattered little. Damn she was better at this Shakespeare stuff than I was.

"He will be here shortly, and I will take my leave."

With that, she turned on a heel and vanished, just as the candle flames held by my... Wrath? No, Fury, finally winked out.