“Justice does not descend from its own pinnacle.”
― Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio
I woke up in pain, completely disoriented, on a much softer surface than I expected, next to the body of a man. Panic shot through me as I tried to gather myself, but the pain in my skull escalated yet again. My eyes were hurting too when I tried to see where I ended up this time. A wave of familiar cologne permeated the air. Part of me wondered if hell really existed or maybe it was just one big fat lie.
This wasn’t how I imagined the pits would look. And when I felt movement next to me, I exhaled with relief, knowing that I wasn’t in the feared underworld. My senses registered a sexy alpha male next to me. Whatever Alexis did…worked. She obviously didn’t like the fact that I had learnt about her disability, and she somehow transported me back to the other person that I was trying to stay away from.
Zach.
I was in his bed, in his house.
“Son of a bitch,” I said loudly and then slammed my hand over my mouth. Zach snored and turned to face me, at the same time using his arm to bring me closer to him. He stunk of whiskey, spice and male, and like he had been outdoors somewhere. Suddenly heat rushed up my spine, creating a pool of heat between my legs. I could get turned on in the worst circumstances.
He was so close to me that I could count the hairs on his dark beard. Warmth swept through my veins and I felt dizzy with a headache. I had no idea what kind of mess I was in now, but the clock on Zachary’s dresser registered three a.m.
Time had been paused, like in the cemetery. One moment I was standing in the middle of the wasteland, and in the next I was in Zach’s bed. Alexis was a demon, a dying demon, and involuntarily had transported me back to the human world. She must have panicked, used her last bits of power to get rid of me.
Slowly and as quietly as I could, I pushed Zach’s arm off me and got out of the bed. He was out, lost in his own dreams. Sometime between the incident at the cemetery and my hearing, he managed to get drunk. I left the room and then ran downstairs, pushing my conflicted emotions away. I thought about his strong arms, and those lips that I’d tasted. I could go back upstairs and wake him. In a moment, Arthur, my problems could have been a distant memory.
Instead I listened to the voice of reason and used the back door to disappear. Part of me wished that things were different, that I could just vanish from this world and start somewhere else. I began walking home, disoriented, cold and worried that I just made a new enemy. There was always a price for magic, but tonight I was still free. George couldn’t have been lost; his soul was in the city. Alexis was wrong.
It was late when I finally reached my flat, sometime after five a.m. My whole body was shattered, head banging. The truth was that I could have taken a taxi home, but I was skint and it would cost me a fortune to get from one side of the city to the other. There was also the possibility that Ricky could have picked me up, but then I would have to tell him what happened and why I was stranded in the middle of North London with half of my energy missing.
As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out, and nothing was going to wake me up then.
I stirred myself awake and shot up on my feet, waking from the nightmare. Sweat rolled over my cheek. I recognised my own messy bedroom and the clock on the wall indicated that it was quarter past nine. Bile rose in my throat, and I ran to the bathroom. Before I knew, I was throwing up. My stomach revolted, as memories from the night before rolled in front of my eyes. My body’s temperature was up and my hands were trembling. When I was done with emptying my stomach, I rolled over to the cold tiles, breathing hard, hoping to rest a little. There was something wrong with me. My heart rate was up, pounding loudly in my chest. The effects of magical tequila were wearing off, and I hadn’t drunk anything in the past forty-eight hours. Maybe my body was trying to tell me that it was time to refuel.
Fortunately for me, the symptoms had gone an hour later, and the headache eased off. In the shower I started analysing all my mistakes and that eventful hearing in the wasteland. The prince was gone. He was so hooked on advanced charms that he wasn’t lucid any longer. The lab in Jessica’s apartment confirmed that a demon, possibly within Lucifer’s faction, was rebelling against hell’s rules. Someone was planning to use the prince’s blood to create Second Chance potion—an illegal substance that brought power and strength beyond the norm. And if the rumours were to be believed, it made a mongrel a full demon. I wasn’t getting four when I was adding two and two, and I needed to figure out if Rodriguez was part of the scam. Something just wasn’t right about him.
I hadn’t had much sleep at all, and I looked pale. Too bad, I needed to get to the office and talk to Ricky. There was a lot that happened in the past few days, and I needed to figure out what was important. It was cold this morning, so I tucked my jacket tighter, walking fast through the crowded streets of grey London.
Inside the building where our Doomed Cases office was, I sensed three demons upstairs. Two more than I expected. So I sped up, wanting to see what was going on.
“Identity yourself, mongrel,” barked the demon that guarded the entrance to my floor. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I was ready to explode, anger blurred my vision. This was my fucking business and the faction had no authority to tell me what to do. The craving for tequila burned my throat. The energy built in me again, and I was ready to kick some arse.
Emma was anxious and scared. Demons behind these doors should have known that a human being was with them, but they didn’t bother to ease her fears. Someone was going to pay, and today I was too pumped with adrenaline to think rationally.
“I’m the owner of Doomed Cases; who the hell are you?” I asked, raising my voice. The demon from Mammon’s faction was bigger, scarier and much more important than me. He lifted his hand, probably to use his power against me, but I wasn’t having any of it. Well, the dude didn’t stand a chance. I grabbed his elbow twisted it and smashed his face into the wall, pushing my whole body weight into his back. He moaned—yeah, the dude actually moaned—and my head only began pounding more rapidly.
“Fucking mongrel, you have two seconds to let me go or I’m going to report you to Mammon himself!” the big, stupid idiot shouted. Then the door of my office opened up abruptly and I turned around to see who I needed to deal with this time around.
The demon that stood in the door looked like a samurai from fifteenth century Japan. I was completely startled by his attire. He was dressed in a yukata, which is a less decorative version of a kimono, and had what looked like a katana, a short Japanese sword, hanging over his left hip. I could guess he had Japanese heritage, but with cosplay who can tell. He had very dark short hair and startling brown eyes that most likely seduced women with one wink. Badass, that’s the first thing that came to my mind when I lay my eyes on him.
“Dominic, can you be anymore pathetic? I told you to keep an eye on the door and instead you’re getting beat up by a woman—no offence, Max,” the Asian dude said, with some sort of twisted amusement in his eyes. He had a very clear London accent, almost perfect. If I’d heard him on the radio, I would never say that he wasn’t British.
“None taken,” I muttered.
I frowned but didn’t let go of the other demon that was now trying to conjure his power against me. He was all about the muscles, not brain.
“This fucking mongrel wanted to get inside. She should be locked up. Psycho!” he shouted, trying to get away from my grip, but I was having too much fun humiliating him in front of his boss.
“Language, Dominic. There are other humans inside this building, and we don’t have time to play with their minds too,” the Asian dude stated, keeping his sharp gaze on me. I kicked the disruptive demon between his legs and then let go. He slid down the wall, cursing me out.
“Am I allowed to go inside my own office now? Or is that too much to ask?”
“We were actually hoping that you would show. Mammon’s faction has questions for you and it’s going to be easier if you come inside. Dominic, stay here and try to act like a human for a change,” the Asian man barked.
I nodded to the Asian dude and walked inside, passing the useless demon who was glaring at me with pure hatred. Inside, Ricky was going through some paperwork. Files were scattered all over his desk. His face was red and he looked genuinely pissed off. Emma was on her laptop, typing furiously. The Asian dude must have done something to calm her down, because she seemed much more like herself now than a moment ago.
“So can you tell me what the hell is going on and why Mammon is suddenly so interested in my business?” I asked, placing my hands on my hips, thinking that this had to have something to do with last night and that bitch Alexis.
“My name is Cyril. I’m the senior investigator for all factions in this district. I had a phone call last night. Someone warned me that you’re using this office to conspire against Lucifer and his order. Apparently your staff is encouraging other mongrels to start an uprising. We were bound to investigate,” Cyril explained, in a stoic voice, like this whole thing was perfectly normal.
“What? That’s absurd,” I said, not believing that this was really happening.
“Apparently you’re using this agency as a cover, to gather resources and reach out for more people,” Cyril added, stroking his sword. Emma seemed completely oblivious to this conversation. Cyril must have filled her system with a certain charm so she could only hear what appeared to be a normal conversation about taxes or something.
Ricky snorted from his office, but didn’t say a word. He knew that these accusations were ridiculous.
“Listen to yourself, mate. Do you really believe that I have something against the system or Lucifer? Demons and mongrels come to me because no one else cares. The police won’t help them and I have no interest in Lucifer and his business on earth whatsoever. Check all the files. You can go through every single case that I ever worked on,” I said, angry and frustrated at that point.
“Personally I don’t think that there is anything like that going on here, but your recent case brought some concerns. I was bound to investigate, to make sure that you follow the protocol like every other mongrel born on earth,” he said, still staring at me intensely, like he wasn’t fully convinced that I wasn’t hiding anything.
Royals, of course. My reputation had preceded me. There was only one Maxine Brodeur in London that screwed the future king. People downstairs must have found this hilarious.
“Well, carry on. I have work to do,” I said, and walked off, heading to my office.
As it turned out, Cyril had a few other idiots with him to go through all our files. Emma was very keen to show them around, so that kept him busy for the next several hours. Finally when the whole party was moved to the storage on the next floor up, Ricky exhaled with relief, flopping on the chair in front of me. There were so many things that I needed to discuss, but I had no idea where I was supposed to start. Alexis wanted me to back off this case, claiming that she had direct orders from Lucifer and now we were accused of conspiring against the underworld.
“Strange rumours are going around the streets, very concerning,” Ricky said, rubbing his forehead. I meant to talk to him about the case that he had taken on recently, but things got in the way.
“What’s going on now?” I asked, thinking about my next step. There was no way I was going to drop looking for the prince, just because a demon told me so.
“Demons are saying that the prince is in hell and that Lucifer has lost control,” he whispered, leaning over. “And this whole investigation. Someone wants to bury us. And the case.”
I swallowed hard, seeing fear in Ricky’s eyes. I knew that he was right. Too many things had happened and now we had some investigator going through our files, telling us that we were conspiring against the master of the underworld. We were running out of time and I no longer knew who to trust. Ricky was right—someone was working very hard against me, hoping that I would drop the case and forget about missing Prince George. And I was ready to do just that.