Hell's Detective

Chapter Four- An Inopportune Callout

"Somebody paid them to do the spell? Think they set them up?"

Ingleseid sat back on Holly's couch, scratching Beelzebub's ears as he made contented sounds.

"Could be," he said. "But why get them to make the spell in the first place if you're just going to kill them?"

"Maybe he didn't kill them," Holly said. She was in her usual Hollyesque attire- leather jacket, spiked dog collar, and mascara so thick Ingleseid wondered if it was ever going to come off. "Maybe he waited for someone else to do it."

"In which case, they either didn't like the Militia or really wanted that pendant."

"Ah," she said. "Speaking of which, I found the spell they were using. Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

"Bad news."

"Good, because there's virtually no good news. We already know we need the pendant, an item whoever they were trying to locate owns. And we need demon blood instead of human blood, and in terms of the tooth-if we were looking for a human, we would just need someone dead."

"But since we're not?" Ingleseid asked, not entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"We need someone really dead."

"How really dead?"

"King of vampires really dead."

"Ah," he said. "That's problematic."

"Tell me about it. What's worse, the locator spell isn't actually for a demon."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, something on this scale-the amount of blood, a tooth from a royal- it's big. Like, really big."

"Bigger than a demon?"

She nodded. "Much. Old, too. This isn't your garden variety spell. This is ancient."

"Which begs the question- what could be bigger than a demon?"

The combined events of tonight were beginning to give Ingleseid the impression he was out of his league here. And he hated being out of his league. If what Holly was saying was true and they were looking for some otherworldly creature, the only thing that stood between them and the killer finding it was who could get the pendant first. Which would be useful if either of them knew where it was. And even if they did find the pendant, what were they going to do when they found the creature? Ask it very nicely to hand itself into the underworld authorities?

"So," Ingleseid summarized, "the mysterious hooded man gets them to locate this thing, probably wants them to collect it for him, too. Then, before they can find it, they're killed."

Holly gave a yawn that she had probably been trying to hold back since the conversation started. Ingleseid hadn't noticed just how tired she looked. It was hard to see beneath all the make up, but it was there.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked quietly.

"Hm? Oh, fine." She paused. "It's just... it's like every time I close my eyes, I see that light, feel that anger. Like he's coming to get me."

Her vision was still having an effect on her.

"We'll get him, don't worry," Ingleseid said, and hoped he sounded believable.

"Maybe that's what I'm worried about."

"When was the last time you ate?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

"You mean something that didn't come out of a takeaway box?"

"Wait here." Ingleseid got to his feet and went into the kitchen. A disgruntled Beelzebub whined and padded after him. There wasn't any meat in Holly's kitchen that wasn't intended fro sacrificial purposes, but he did manage to find some partially fresh vegetables and enough ingredients to make a curry.