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I’ve never been one to suffer fools gladly.
Merri turns back to the table. “We can have the entire place burned down by dinner time. Maybe a few city blocks around it, too. It will make your tourist attraction larger, so you should be okay with that, right?”
Red flushes Captain Bailey’s face. “That’s not what you’re being told to do.”
“Then narrow your expectations,” Merri snaps, a glow illuminating her skin as her anger finally gets the better of her. “We can either go in and raze the place to the ground so no living being remains, or we can negotiate a compromise.”
“And before you consider the former as an actual option,” Ga’Vine cuts in. “It won’t look good to the demon citizens of Clearhelm, whom we swore to protect, if you now turn around and destroy their only sanctuary on the human plane.”
Chief Lynch considers that for a moment before he nods. “Fine, see what you can negotiate first.”
Mayor Berdherst turns to him in anger. “That’s not what we agreed on.”
“Slaughter isn’t good PR, mayor.” His focus shifts to Ga’Vine. “Put your task force together, Sharpe. If negotiations fail, we’ll resort to force. The lawless have held a part of our city hostage for too long. We will get some part of it back, or we will destroy it.”
“You heard the man.” The mayor points toward the door. “You’re dismissed.”
fiery fridays
- Pen -
Helpless fury burnsthrough me as we leave the police station.
Howdarethey put us in this position. And for what? Some twisted version of a theme park where humans can gawk at demons? Why not just bring back freak shows?
At least that way, everyone would be complicit in agreeing that demons are lesser than humans. A novelty to be stared at instead of full citizens.
Darius’s hand brushes my shoulder. “We could simply set this place on fire. It would eliminate three distasteful people at once.”
Tempted by the suggestion, I shake my head. “Sharpe’s still in there.”
“He’ll be reborn.” Darius’s brows lift. “Perhaps with his memories intact this time.”
I elbow him. “It doesn’t work like that.”
He lifts a shoulder. “Ga’Vine is a better man now, anyway.”
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I hurry down the steps to the parking lot. “Let’s just get this over with. We have a lot to do today.”
“Ah, yes, the case of Jimmy Lewis.” Darius’s hand spreads over my lower back. “In the investigative business, do we search for a missing drug addict first? Or risk our lives and go straight to Nickodemus?”
I purse my lips. “Jimmy the drug addict first. Nickodemus is probably still pissed at me for something that happened before the magic resurgence. He’s likely to make us jump through some hoops.”
Darius’s eyes widen in surprise. “Do you mean the whole matter of the bear?”
“Yeah, that whole matter,” I say with a frown.
Back in the day, we’d been hired by Nickodemus to locate one of his young progenies who had answered the summons of an untrained witch, Amber, to exact revenge against a man who attacked her.
We had located the young boogeyman and returned her to Nickodemus’s fold. But Amber refused to give up and summoned an even stronger boogeyman who had killed her parents before cornering Amber and her younger sister in the attic.
The police had been alerted by the neighbors before we arrived, which meant we needed to leave behind an explainable, non-paranormal reason for the slaughter.
Hence, the bear.
We had no way of knowing the body would be put on ice instead of cremated, and the boogeyman had been trapped ever since.
Darius waves a hand. “A non-issue, now. I handled it while I… It’s been handled.”
