The Cop and The Devil.

Sitting on my proverbial couch, in my proverbial corner of my personal hell, inside of the soul of my gracious host Charlie, I was half listening to the sounds of locking doors and unplugging surveillance equipment as he effectively deactivated most of the systems that would ordinarily be used to record interrogations. I was looking over our personal contract.

It wasn't legally binding in the sense of it being a demonic deal in any sense, it was the same sort of contract you would have in your mind between yourself and a fellow joining you for a game of Dungeons & Dragons for example. It's just that being as I was currently dwelling in a world that was mostly imaginary, I could pluck from my thoughts anything I wanted to appear physical, and make them so.

Myself and Charlie had hashed out an agreement as it seemed that our predicament was going to be longer-standing than we had expected originally, over the course of his week of recovery. The rules were simple, I was only allowed to take the wheel whenever Charlie allowed me to, I was to close myself off completely from him and his thoughts whenever he was with his family unless he otherwise sent a mental message. In return, I offer him an infernal power boost when he needs it, and information on the supernatural when I can provide it, and he promises not to tell Rodney about it until I was damn good and ready.

I had agreed to this deal, but I felt more could probably be worked out, the instinct to ensure a balanced contract still thrummed through me looking over our agreement on paper.

I moved my attention around the imaginary room, it was an old penthouse apartment, styled after an old friends 80's bachelor pad, all black leather and,  Crazy bastard that one, met him at Woodstock once and he managed to lead a whole sex cult for an absolute age. Pity about the suicide...

I was drawn out of my reverie when Charlie finally sat down in front of the man we were speaking with.

"So, what is it that you want, really?" He said to the suit.

"Detective Charlie, I work with the FBI and your current government for special cases, such as yours, in order to ensure the greater populace remains safe and calm in these times of potential struggle."

Charlie sat back in his chair. "So, lemme guess, you are from some secret government agency that deals with supernatural shit?"

The suit didn't bat an eye, but only grinned at him. "You would be largely correct yes."

"And you want me to be back on the case because you know something I should know?"

"We are aware of your compatriot, Rodney, and his antics in the demonological world, we also know that you and he have both stepped into some very deep shit, and we know that the world as we know it is in no small amount of danger. Though we have determined that the danger the world is in is not your fault, nor his fault entirely, and so as a result, we have decided to help you both in your endeavors."

"What is your name anyway, G-Man?"

"My name is Rodann, Rodann Blakewell, and I am a member of The Order of The Cross. The name is from a founder, we don't actually have that many relations with the church these days, we make sure that the world stays safe, and that humanity can continue living without the knowledge of those things which go bump in the night, for both their safety as well as our own." He said.

"That's not what your badge says though, is it?" Charlie started going through each of his knuckles in turn, punctuating sentences with cracking sound, there was a mild flash of annoyance on the suit's face, but I could sense the purpose to Charlies actions. He wanted to annoy him, try to get him to flash something extra with his emotions. But this guy was good, only microexpressions most people wouldn't notice.
Well, most people that don't have a demon in their head anyway.

"You would be right, I am part of a government branch of the Order stationed in the US, we refer to ourselves as the Special Occult Missions Agency, or SOMA, but I am still firmly a part of The Order."

Soma, naming the group of people whose job was to keep everyone quiet and happy after a drug that keeps you quiet and happy? Now that was a bit on the nose even for me...

"So what?" Charlie asked. "Am I working for you now?"

"No. You aren't rough enough to handle my line of work, not yet anyway, for now you will remain a part of the force, and Rodney will remain an associate of yours. Your salaries will be paid for by my branch whenever you catch wind of something extranatural in your jurisdiction. Despite ourselves, we cannot be everywhere at once."

And with that, he pulled a manilla envelope out of his coat pocket, and slid it across the table to Charlie, I saw his hand take and look in the thing, I grinned at the color green, nearly three grand by the look of it.

The suit said "When your friend wakes up, call me, there's a card in the envelope. We will have a meeting, and I will better explain how our relationship will work. For now, your job is to stop the third ritual from being performed."

"Second." Charlie said. "We foiled their first attempt."

"That's incorrect." the G-man said. "We found the body of one Alexi Tevarisch, twenty-year old third-generation Russian American, hanging by a rope, while you were still in hospital. The ritual area was clearly lain out, and the Qualia readings suggested a similar ritual to the Zoo having been performed. The third ritual may happen soon, we are uncertain as to what it is meant to do, but when the second one was finished, half our Seers let out an ungodly scream and passed out."

I leaned forward, this was getting interesting now. Qualia readings and Seers, that was familiar.

Seer's were folks that, around the time of their birth, got the interest of Clairvoyance demons. Those particular demons were beings of the layer of Pride, and they were among the top dogs of their clan. Elven and waifish in appearance, completely blind, with draconic hands and feet, if you had one of them watching over you, interesting things tended to happen.

All Creation is under the purview of capital G God, then it's the rest of the Gods who were created by mankind, and then its mankind.

Funny thing is that Creation has quite a lot of recognizable patterns, what has happened will happen again, what has once turned will occur once more, history is doomed to repeat itself. Clairvoyance demons read these patterns, and have them all memorized exactly, they can know exactly when a person is going to go to the store, what they are going to buy, and why they are going to do that, entirely because of the millions of humans that have done it before.

Of course, they could be wrong, and they usually are wrong about small things. Ask a Seer "Will I get married?" And they will tell you yes, because statistically, you probably will, depending on who you are as a person and what direction society happens to be swinging in right now, as well as whether or not Mercury is in retrograde, or if you will achieve a sudden windfall in your destiny, or you become horribly mangled later in life, because to them, you aren't special, someone a hundred years before you was exactly the same as you and a hundred years after this will not have changed.

Ask them "Will some grandiose world ending calamity happen to us?" And they will not only be able to tell you yes, but they can tell you the day, the hour, and the minute, because it has happened before, and must occur again.

Seers have made deals with their Clairvoyance demons, to be provided information clean and free of riddles and bullshit, in return for assuring the Demon gets their soul.
If the Seers are freaking out, that means that their demons have spotted a pattern, and they are seeing a calamity swiftly careening in our direction, and we are in some pretty deep shit.

They are frustratingly accurate with calamity.

The G-Man stood up, made a friendly withdrawing motion with his hand, and quietly left the room, Charlie looking down at his bundle of cash.

"Lass."

"Yes Charlie?"

"What's a Seer?"

"I could tell you, but why don't we make a deal out of it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I tell you a little about what the G-Man was just talking about, and you are going to start a gym regiment."

"What?"

"Face it Charlie boy, Rodney just got a massive powerup which kept him from dying, I am your massive powerup to keep you from dying, the problem here is that your body is so flabby and weak that shutting off your internal limitations just makes it so you could handle a couple kilometers of track.

You spent too long as a Beat Cop sitting in your car and eating fast food, you need to start trimming down a little. Hell im even fine with you being big, just get a little stronger is all."

"Fine, deal."

"I got a place where we can start, walk and talk."

I explained the situation to him while Charlie called a taxi.

"Where to mon?" A familiar voice spoke from the cab.

Charlie gave me a mental eyebrow raise in question, and I gave him an address.

"Doesn't that lead to a field?" Levon asked.

"Apparently." Charlie replied.

"Ey, you're that Cop Rodney hangs with." Levon said. "How's he doin? I haven't had the chance to check in on him."

"He's stable, lost a fair bit of blood, but he should be okay. Doctors say it's another week or so at the rate he's going."

"You know about that partner of his? Fucker was smokin' in my cab! Gonna take weeks to get the smell outta my seats." Levon did a lot of talking with his hands, making a pair of fingers pointing in no direction in particular to punctuate his words.

I cringed a little at that bit. Look, I just like to have a PalMal, I haven't had one since the twenties and there was one still rattling around that box in the back seat, figured it must be okay... Wasn't even really worth it after all that, must have changed the recipe, or maybe just added more garbage.

Ah well, now I have somewhere better to smoke.

I took one of those cigars, the imaginary one I pulled out of the box reappearing in an instant, bit off one end, and lit the cigar.

It's rather unfortunate that Humanity cannot remember taste as well, I can remember perfectly the taste of a pre-embargo cuban, and the flavor rolling around in my mouth was a pleasant wood, pepper, and leather taste, with a little almond on the back end.

We continued to ride, Charlie was apparently rather bad at small talk, and eventually Levon realized that. The disappointed look on his face told me everything.

I could still feel the surface level lust and flirtation from all the buildings around us as we rode, but the sensation was muffled, less so when I was in control, but it was lacking.

Eventually we arrived at the field.

"You got a cell Charlie? Don' want to leave ya out here without a way back." Levon said as Charlie handed over a twenty.

"Yeah, it's charged, I'm good. Thanks Levon, I know this shit was outta the way."

"It's no problem, any friend a Rodney's is a friend to me, Gimmie a call when you're ready to come back."

Levon put his taxi back into gear and headed off.

"How is he always exactly where you need him Lass?" Charlie asked.

"How do you mean?" I replied.

"I mean he is always around whenever he is needed, I call a cab in St. Paul Minnesota and out of the thousands of cabs on the street its specifically Levon who picks us up? Smells like a coincidence, and I am beginning to suspect that coincidence isn't real anymore."

"Sort of no, sort of yes. Trust me Charlie if he was anything supernatural I would be able to tell nine times out of ten."

"When couldn't you tell?"

"If he was Fey."

"So they are real?"

I refused to answer.

The Fey haven't been around since they were driven from Ireland. You know that tale about all the snakes being driven from Ireland by St. Patrick? Not quite the full story.
St. Patrick turned the Fey into serpents, to symbolically change them into the deceivers they were believed to be, and forced them away from the island itself. Rumor has it they are holed up in that Fairyland they live in, and the Sidhe are still waiting for the day they can return and wreak mischief again.

If Levon were a Fey, he would be breaking an awful lot of rules to be here, but it is possible... It would take a lot of glamour to do, but if he was harvesting it off of people riding in his cab by giving them an enjoyable ride...

I put the idea out of my mind, and told Charlie; "Head over to that tree and take a seat, get as comfortable as you can."

He started walking, it didn't take long for him to get winded "What the hell is this for Lass?"

"We need to train, you and I. From what little time I had to swim around in your mind before this wall was put between us, I know for a fact you are a way better shot than me, but I am a way better fighter than you. We need to start working on a system for us to step back and fourth between each other, and so we need to start with mental signaling and defences. Come in here."

"What do you-"

He went silent as his consciousness was pulled from his waking mind and into my personal hell. Not something I intended to do often, but something I could do regardless. Not sure why I could even do this against his will, but I suspected some cracks were left in the wall on purpose, and it wasn't like he had put "don't pull me into my own head" onto the contract specifically.

"Where the fuck..." Charlie murmured as he walked into the front room of my pad. "Lass, is this a bachelor pad from the 50's?"

"80's actually, though it might have been built at some point in the 50's. This used to belong to an old cult leader I turned to my personal ends. Fun guy, wild orgies, pity about the suicide."

"You are really bad at being a good guy here Lass."

"What part of Demon do you not understand?" I replied. "Anyway, take a seat, have a cigar, we need to talk about mental defences first, can't have us fighting against a third party trying to get in here... Then we can start talking about mental constructs like this. You actually have one of a sort already."

Charlie sat on the faux leather couch, and pulled out one of the cigars from the box. "Cubano? Ritzy." "It's not real I'm afraid, the flavor is real, but you won't get the nicotine high."

Charlie looked a bit dissapointed, but shrugged and bit the tip anyway, I lit it for him with the tip of my finger. He closed his eyes and pondered the flavor before saying "Damn... That's the best smoke I have ever had."

"It's better with cedar, but I haven't thought any up yet. Anyway, let's get started."

I sat in front of him, a stool materializing beneath me, and I started to explain the process of building mental defences against demonic influence. From using a solid symbol of faith as the first defence, to literal mental walls. I could throw out any demon weaker than me, but it was up to him with that Holy Spirit and human soul to throw anything bigger than me out.

"Could I force you out with this?"

"No, I'm already in here, so you are stuck with me until someone yanks me out. But your soul will take a major hit, and unless you are willing to leave the next seven years of your life being Karma's bitch while your soul heals up, you can have Rodney rip me out."

"Seven years?"

"Sort of yeah, the Romans figured that breaking a mirror, which was a reflection of your soul, would mean bad luck for seven years, because they believed your body renewed itself every seven years, soul included. Ripping me out of you when your soul is this damaged already would mean your life would become a living hell for a good long while."

"What happens if seven years go by and you're still here?" Charlie gestured to the pad, the psychedelic backsplash and pink flower rug especially.

"Well... I'm not sure. Normally I would say that your soul would push me out, like a pore on your skin shoving foreign material into a cyst, pushing it to the surface, making me easier to pull out. But with the amount of damage I caused, and how deep in your soul I dug, I'm not sure if it will be that easy. I'm less like dirt in a pore and more like something cancerous at this point."

Charlie's expression never changed. For a guy who was being told that a demon might be sharing a room in his head for the next seven years or so, he was taking it remarkably well.

"So why are you teaching me all this shit if your getting pulled out later?" Charlie asked, tapping out the ash from his stogie and taking another pull, leaning back in the creaking leather couch.

"Because you aren't going to be without my powers."

He coughed on the cigar.

"What? The fuck? Your telling me im gonna be able to do that scary shit on my own?"

"Not quite. You aren't going to be psychically breaking any necks Charlie, but you can give yourself a lot of infernal strength. Fire resistance, thick skin, the endurance to handle a couple bullets, healing faster. That stuff isn't your soul, that's skin deep. I put it there when I took control."

"You didn't tell me I was gonna be a freak for life Lass!" Charlie looked pale.

"Look, Charlie, think of it like this. You just stepped into a pile of supernatural shit, and Rodney is going to rapidly outrun you in power, the demonic blessings I left in your blood are going to help you keep up. I haven't seen so much magic flying around since the Crusades, and you are gonna need that help." I was telling a little lie here, I had been planning it for a while now, I never actually intended to give him any power, it just sort of... happened. Did something stupid while on the high of possession. But Charlie didn't need to know that.

Charlie's face stayed solid, his jaw set, but his left hand digging into the cushions of the couch suggested otherwise. "Fine. I guess. You aren't wrong."

"Just don't have any more kids." I said, leaning against the glass-topped coffee table, my tail reaching for my own stogie in the ashtray.

"Why is that?" It looked like Charlies fingers were about to rip through the cushion he was gripping.

"It's in your blood. I can't be sure your kids won't end up being the same... They probably wouldn't but it's not like we make it a habit to give the shells we possess large amounts of power." I looked at his forehead, where a vein was starting to become visible. "Do you need a minute Charlie?"

The fear and anxiety gave way to sudden anger "No I don't need a minute, I need a fuckin' reset! I shoulda never taken that deal in the first place! I should have just arrested Rodney when he was still on the streets for some reason or other and just fuckin wash my hands of it. But no! My dumbass had to be nice to the homeless weirdo, had to call him a friend, and now my life, my family, is at risk. And for what?!?" He asked retorically. He was suddenly on his feet, hands clenched.

I held my hands out in front of me, clawtips skyward in a mock surrender.

"Because Charlie, you are a good man. Because you thought you were doing the right thing at the time." I tried to make my face look kind (a difficult task with a face like mine) "And I gave you the power I did because A. You needed it for us to survive that encounter and B. Because you need that power for what's coming. Because you and your family deserve to live, and because the supernatural isn't going to be hidden for much longer the way the winds are blowing. If I am allowed to not be inherently evil, if I can be forgiven, then the power you wield is not any more evil than I."

He looked like he wanted to say something more, but quickly deflated and sat back down. I had hit the nail on the head.

I held a hand out and relit his cigar.

"We need to tell Rodney." He said suddenly.

My skin went pink as I paled.

"No." I replied.
I didn't want to, I didn't want him to think I had backslid, that I was going to start doing bad stuff again, real genuine evil. He was the only person in this world who believed that I could be redeemed... To betray him with this...

"No." I said again, snuffing out my cigar.

"Yes, we do. What the hell do I tell him? That the Gods themselves only want to talk to a mexican cop and some white guy who just found out he's part angel? That's not gonna convince him and you know it."

"Then just tell him I sorted it out, and I'm busy, or something."

"And if he tries to call you?"

I didn't think about that... Last time I wasn't called up on time my boss showed up instead... And Rodney almost died for the trouble... Potentially dead best friend, or potentially lost best friend.
God humans were so hard, at least with a God you know they will forget about it after a couple centuries, humans have barely a century to work with!

I couldn't figure out what to do with my claws, fidgeting as I thought. It's not like I could chew my nails over it, I had shredded my fingers too often to start that again...

"Come on Lass, you know we can't avoid it." Charlie leaned forward, snuffing his own cigar on the ashtray and getting up from the couch.

I stood there, thoughts racing, mind struggling against itself, part of me just wanting so desperately to jump ship and go back to doing whatever I wanted, at least when I was bad I was free right?

Charlie held out a fist towards me, and I tapped knuckles with him.

No, that was never freedom. Lucifer might have said that its better to reign in Hell than it is to serve in Heaven. But he was wrong...

"Fine. I guess I ought to face the music... Let's get to training some more, we will meet up with him when he finally wakes up."

It's better to Live on Earth, than to Rot in Hell.